Murder in Winnebago County follows an unlikely serial killer plaguing a rural Minnesota county. The clever murderer leaves a growing chain of apparent suicides among criminal justice professionals. As her intuition helps her draw the cases together, Sergeant Corinne Aleckson enlists help from Detective Elton Dawes. What Aleckson doesn’t know is the killer is keeping a close watch on her. Will she be the next target?
Prologue
Alvie’s need to watch was unexpected and gripped her middle with an intensity that pushed the air right out of her lungs. A middle-aged woman was guiding Judge Nels Fenneman to a chair at the hospital admitting desk. Alvie forgot about leaving, forgot why she was here in the first place, and dropped onto a burgundy, faux-leather seat in the adjoining waiting room. She shifted so she had a clear view of the judge between the spiky fronds of a silk plant.
The booming voice the judge had used to command the courtroom was gone, replaced by hushed murmurs as he quietly answered the necessary questions. Alvie strained to hear, but his words didn’t travel the distance to her ears. Judge Fenneman’s wrinkled face was flushed, harsh under the fluorescent lighting, his color deepening to a purplish-crimson with each coughing spasm that interrupted most of his answers.
Alvie had spent much of the past ten years consumed with thoughts of this man. Fenneman was one of the people responsible for her son’s death. When Alvie wasn’t consciously despising him, her hatred was seething just beneath the surface of her consciousness–a living, growing thing with fingers that gripped her throat in the dark of night and lit fires in her head and chest.
The cycle had been the same for years: obsess about what the judge and others had done to Nolan, then push it away for a while, obsess, push away, obsess.
The woman with the judge looked vaguely familiar. Alvie studied her a moment and was hit with the realization she was a younger, prettier version of Fenneman. The woman must be his daughter. She had to be. Here Fenneman was, not only still alive, but part of a family. Alvie had never thought of Judge Fenneman as a person before, not really. He was the monster who sat on his elevated bench and ruined peoples’ lives.
Her world had collapsed ten years ago when her son died in prison, and no one cared. Had the judge even given it a second thought? She sincerely doubted it. So much for justice.
The judge’s daughter wrapped her arm around his shoulders and squeezed gently. Alvie felt ill. Her son would not be there to offer his comforting touch when she was old and sick. The one redemption, the thing that gave her purpose for going on, was the granddaughter Nolan had left for her Rebecca was Alvie’s own little love, a sweeter, lovelier manifestation of her son.
A small brunette nurse approached the admitting desk and assisted the judge into a wheelchair, fussing over him, gently patting his shoulders. She cheerfully told him they would send him home in a few days, as good as new. Alvie grabbed a magazine and bent to hide her face as the trio headed toward her. When they passed, she rose and watched them turn into B-wing. Her granddaughter had a room on the same wing.
Alvie left the hospital quietly, as usual. The mere thought of making small talk and smiling at strangers made her squeamish. At five foot nine, size eighteen, she was a fairly large woman who favored brown or black clothing, even in the heat of summer. Her dull, steel-colored hair, lifeless eyes the same shade and flat features, devoid of expression, rarely warranted a second look. Alvie moved through life mostly unnoticed. It was her choice and suited her just fine.
She needed a breath of fresh air to fill her depleted lungs, but had to make due with hot and muggy instead. Her clothes clung to her, heavy with perspiration by the time she reached her car. Days like today, when humidity hung in the air like fog, Alvie longed for the crisp, dry cold of a Minnesota winter day. She cranked the air-conditioning to full blast in her ten year old, blue Chevy Impala and headed down the curving drive to the main road. It was after 9 p.m., later than she had planned to stay.
Dusk was settling, and as the streetlight came on, Alvie’s gaze was drawn to its reflection spanning across the water of a pond. Funny, she had never even noticed the large drainage area before. Alvie knew immediately that there was a reason for her to see this pond tonight. She had visited her granddaughter once or twice every day for a week and had not spotted the pond, not once. Until now.
The five miles to her home, south of town, passed in a blur. Alvie locked herself in and let out a small yelp. All she could do was pace, excitement mounting in her with each step. Ideas were bouncing to a staccato rhythm in her brain as her heart pounded out its own beat. She walked back and forth late into the night. Eventually, she won control of her thoughts and gathered them into a neat little plan that had logical meaning.
Perhaps the judge would not be going home after all. Ever.
1.
I sat back in the black office swivel chair, stretched my arms and legs as far as possible and glanced around the Spartan room. Cartoons and jokes tacked on the bulletin board offer insights into the personalities of the people I worked with. Most of the cartoons were sick, the sicker the better. How long had some of them been up there and how many times had I read them? One night-shifter posted a joke-of the-day and this day’s little ditty was, “What do you get when you cross a parrot with a centipede? A walkie-talkie, of course”. One I could tell my Gramps.
A long row of file-size dividers held every blank form a deputy needs, and then some, and take up half the length of one wall. The rest of the wall was dedicated to cubby hole mail boxes, one for every employee in the sheriff’s department. Mine was in the far left corner, second one down.
A custodian would appear some time during the night to empty the over-flowing waste baskets by the four computer terminals, collect the abandoned Styrofoam coffee cups, and vacuum up the bits and pieces that have settled on the earth-tone commercial carpet.
I smiled at the hands of the standard clock hanging high on the no-color squad room wall. 10:35 p.m. Only twenty-five minutes to go to the end of my shift. Every other deputy on the evening shift was either patrolling the county or on an assigned call, so I had the room to myself. A nice change.
The night shifters would start rolling in any minute.
It had been a long stretch, working seven evenings in a row. Murphy’s Law usually made me put in at least two hours overtime on my last night, trying to play catch-up, so I was glad I had finished all my reports and would be done on time for once. My mind left the white walls, laminate tables and dusty computers and drifted to plans of how to spend my three days off.
“Winnebago County to 608.” The voice on my communication radio brought me back to the sheriff’s department.
“608, County, go ahead,” I answered.
“We have a report of an elderly man missing from Oak Lea Memorial Hospital. They are requesting assistance,” dispatcher Robin explained.
“10-4.” I quickly stuffed my copies of the reports in my briefcase and hustled to the sheriff’s communication control room, commonly referred to as the “cockpit”.
If I was ever assigned duty in the cockpit, I would be in big trouble. The radio panels looked like they belonged in a high tech aircraft and I was in awe that the communication officers could keep all the buttons, lights, phones and computer screens separate. The officers wore headsets, so unless they were talking, it wasn’t immediately obvious if they were on the radio or telephone. I had learned to wait until I was acknowledged before speaking. Robin’s fingers were flying at high speed across her computer keyboard, listing all pertinent data on a complaint.
Jerry, a longtime employee and seasoned for any emergency, was talking into the mouthpiece on his headset to a woman who had found her husband on the bathroom floor, unconscious and not breathing. Jerry had an ambulance en route and was calmly, slowly reading from his manual, step by step, of what she should do to initiate Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, CPR. He had adjusted the earphones away from his head for necessary comfort and I could hear the distressed woman’s voice all the way across the room, squealing into the phone. When the ambulance arrived, Jerry was able to leave the poor woman in their capable hands and exhaled a relieved, audible burst of air.
I walked around to the front of the panel and plopped my elbow on the counter. Jerry and Robin looked at me simultaneously, mildly surprised I had entered their closed communications domain. Sheriff’s personnel usually stay clear of the cockpit–it is often too busy a place to socialize.
“An elderly patient lost in the hospital and they called 911 for that? They can’t be that short staffed?” I said, sounding obviously crabby about the assignment.
Robin shrugged, her bony shoulders touching her jaw. “No clue, but the nurse that phoned sounded pretty frantic, Corky.” She continued typing.
I glanced at my watch. “Can you assign it to Brad? He’ll be 10-8 any time now.” Sergeant Brad Hughes was my area replacement for the night shift.
Jerry looked at his computer screen and shook his head. “We’ve got another call pending for him. In fact, two, if you count the barking dog complaint.” Every officer’s favorite call. Suddenly a trip to the hospital didn’t seem so bad–I’d take missing patient over barking dog any day.
Momentarily mesmerized by the blinking buttons on the cockpit panel, I sighed in resignation. “Any particulars on the hospital call?”
“Only that Judge Fenneman wasn’t in his room on the 10:30 round and they’ve been turning the place upside down looking for him for the last fifteen minutes. Maybe they think we’re better at finding people than they are,” Robin said with another shrug.
“Okay. Put me en route to Oak Lea Memorial.” I half-smiled a good-bye and they both nodded at me in response.
When I reached the south corridor of the sheriff’s department in the Winnebago County Courthouse, I saw rain was still pelting the glass doors. We had gotten over four inches the past week, way above average for the month of July.
The courthouse complex overlooked Bison Lake in the city of Oak Lea, the seat of Winnebago County in central Minnesota. My ancestors had settled here when the town was little more than a trading post, cut out of the Big Woods in the mid 1800s. The last census listed Oak Lea with a population of 10,502, but four years later, it was closer to 14,000. “Getting kinda crowded for us old timers,” my Grandpa Brandt told me, sitting in his house in the middle of his 1,600 acres, three miles west of town.
Picturesque, downtown Oak Lea was tucked into rolling, green hills on the banks of Bison Lake which was used for both fishing and any water recreation you can name. There were three other lakes within city limits and every night was a magnified light show when the muted pink tones of the street lamps and the hundred variations of white, blue, green, red, amber and other colored lights, glowing from homes and shops, threw reflections on the lakes.
As businesses in Oak Lea expanded and moved from downtown to along the state highway, the old, brick and stucco buildings of the eight main blocks in the city proper had filled with delis, antique shops and professional services–pieces of the past recreated for use in the future.
Winnebago County, located forty miles northwest of Minneapolis, was a pleasant mix of small towns, rolling farmland, lakes and parks. The population of 82,403 spanned every age and economic group. Although predominately divided between German and Scandinavian, most ethnic backgrounds were represented by at least one family. Catholic and Lutheran congregations were the largest, followed by Covenant, Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Free, and Baptist.
In my six years of patrolling Winnebago County roads, I had become thoroughly familiar with the acres of pastures, the fields of corn, wheat, alfalfa, oats, and soybeans. There were two rivers, three hundred lakes, numerous creeks, ponds, marshes, bridges, and seven county parks. I could drive most county roads and list, from memory, the names on the mailboxes. If I was bored, I even worked to memorize their fire numbers.
I jogged to my squad car, jotted the time in my log book, and drove the two miles to the hospital.
With any luck, by the time I got there, the nurses would be tucking the good judge back in bed. I could radio county no report was needed, and be at home in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of “Eric Clapton Unplugged” on MTV. Murphy’s Law deserved to be broken tonight.
Oak Lea Memorial Hospital sprawled both inside and outside the city limits, so law enforcement service was shared by the Oak Lea Police Department and the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department. Calls for assistance were assigned to whichever department was available and jurisdiction was considered equal.
As I steered my squad car along the hospital drive, I noticed a group of people huddled together at the bottom of a hill, about one hundred yards from the south side of the hospital. They were standing at the edge of a drainage collection pool. I guessed they were hospital personnel, but it was difficult to see much in the black of night through the rain.
I radioed communications I was “10-6”, slipped on my rain gear and grabbed my umbrella. I was about to close the car door, but instead, reached in to grab the thirty-five millimeter camera, in case my instincts were correct.
Quiet pandemonium was the best way to describe the scene by the pond. People were moving, but no one uttered a word. Like a colony of ants, intent, knowing what to do without being told.
A nearby street lamp was an angel’s halo glowing inside the rain, offering little light. Scanning the group, I counted three women in medical scrubs along with Doctor Nordstrom, whom I recognized from the emergency room, and another man in jeans and a rain slicker. One of the nurses and the street-clothes guy were shining flashlights onto a figure on the ground. I pulled the magnum light from my duty belt and directed it to the ground for better illumination.
An elderly man stared up at heaven, seeing nothing.
“The judge?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Judge Fenneman for several years and didn’t immediately recognize him in this condition. The group looked at me collectively. Two of the nurses were crying and the third was shaking almost uncontrollably. Everyone was a muddy mess, especially the poor judge who had presumably been pulled, lifeless, from the mucky water.
Doc Nordstrom’s solemn, dripping-wet face nodded at me.
“Anyone know what happened?”
I opened my large umbrella and handed it to one of the nurses. The three of them gathered under it in a group hug.
“He wasn’t in his bed–he must have ripped out his IV and gotten out the back emergency exit door in B-Wing . . . I suppose he got locked out and probably couldn’t find his way in the rain and ended up going down the hill . . . we found him . . . floating . . . face down in the water.” The small brunette was the one to speak.
I flashed the water, my light dancing between raindrops across the surface. “How deep is it?”
“Umm,” the brunette touched the top of her thigh, “maybe two and a half, three feet.”
“Okay. Let me take some photos and we’ll talk more inside. If you could hold the umbrella over me.” I directed the brunette nurse. “Doc, will you hold my light?”
Water had collected in the natural low land, covering an area of perhaps ten feet by twenty feet. Normally half that size, the pond had swelled with all the recent rain. Cattails lined the opposite side. Where we stood, the grass of the hospital lawn disappeared into the water.
We moved as one while I snapped pictures of the corpse, the pond, and the mess of footprints along the edge. Any prints on the wet grass of the hospital grounds were erased by the downpour. The judge’s bare footprints could never be separated from what had become a mass stomping ground in the mud around the pond. So much for the preservation of the scene.
As I took the last photo, I caught sight of a large male bulk barreling toward us. Behind him were two paramedics carrying a stretcher. I tried to stretch my five-foot-five inch height as The Bulk looked down at me from his at least six-foot-four-inch vantage point.
I often admired how easily, almost gracefully, this man carried his three hundred pounds, but also wondered why he didn’t take the time to comb his short gray curls, or smooth his rumpled clothes. Whether in uniform or not, his disheveled appearance left the impression he didn’t care, and I knew that wasn’t true. I spotted brown polyester pants where his yellow rain slicker ended, just short of his knees. Fashion and preening were not on his list of priorities–not even close.
“Chief Becker, what are you doing here, at this time of night?” I asked the head of the Oak Lea Police Department.
“This is my town.” He gave me the predictable response he used for just about any professional question he was asked. Not that he needed to remind me–Oak Lea had been his town as long as I could remember.
Police Chief Bud Becker was never off-duty. He always spoke warmly of family, but being in charge of Oak Lea’s finest was clearly the essence of his life. He spent evenings at home listening to his police scanner, not even turning it off even when he went to bed. He said routine calls are “white noise” to help him sleep. I wondered if his wife felt the same way.
“I heard the call and phoned the hospital.” Chief Becker explained, after all. “Got here as the paramedics were on their way down to the pond here.”
Becker knelt beside the body and moved his flashlight around, then stood and shook his head at the stomped down mess of footprints around the pond. “Who found him?” he asked the group.
“We did,” the middle-aged blonde told him. Penny pulled him out.” She nodded at the nurse who was shaking so badly.
I probably had the least medical training of any one in the group, but even I could see Penny was going into shock.
“Sir, perhaps we can move our investigation inside.” I suggested to Becker. “These nurses need to get out of the rain.”
“Oh . . . right,” Chief Becker sounded distracted and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You got pictures?” he asked me.
“Yes, a twenty-four exposure roll.” I patted the camera to be sure it still hung at my side.
The group trucked up the slippery wet, grassy hill. By now the wind was whipping and the umbrella did little to protect the three nurses. Doc and I followed with the paramedics and the stretcher carrying the judge. We made a loop around the three blue spruce pine sentinels, standing straight and tall, guarding the main entrance of the building.
You let your guard down tonight, old boys.
Stepping inside, I blinked against the assault of light, stopping to wipe my boots and drip on the entrance mat for a minute. I sided over to Becker as the paramedics and doctor disappeared around the corner.
The jeans and slicker guy was speaking quietly to the drenched nurses. A passerby could easily mistake them for victims of a capsized boating accident. The man turned to the chief and me, shook Becker’s hand, then reached for mine.
“I know Chief Becker, but I’ve not met you.” He was not quite as tall as Becker, maybe an even six feet. His hand caught mine, gripping firmly, while his eyes, dark and stormy as the rainy night, probed mine, telling me he was a force to be reckoned with, a heavy hitter.
“I’m Sergeant Aleckson,” I announced, straightening my spine and refusing to blink first.
He looked at the badge on my raincoat. “And what does the ‘C’ stand for?”
“Corky, er Corinne.”
“Sgt. Corinne Aleckson, I hardly know what to say. This is extremely unfortunate. We’ve never had a tragedy quite like this here before, but I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ve instructed the nurses to get into some dry scrubs from surgery. They’ll be out shortly to talk with you.” He let go of my hand, but stayed close to Becker and me.
“And you are?” I asked, blinking a raindrop from my eye.
He raised his hands slightly. “Excuse me. Nicholas Bradshaw, administrator of Oak Lea Memorial.”
Oh yes, a heavy hitter. He probably was in bed when the hospital called and pulled on the first thing he found with legs. That explained the jeans.
I nodded, then turned to Becker. “Chief, I’m going to phone this in. I don’t want to put it over the air so everyone in the county with a police scanner will know what’s happened.”
I escaped a few feet away and pulled out my cell phone.
“Good thinking, Sarge.”
“Are you going to call Detective Garvey?” I wondered.
Garvey was the investigator for the Oak Lea PD.
Chief Becker ran the cuff of his sleeve around his wet head, messing his hair even more, “No. You took the call. You can handle it.”
“Okay. Give me a minute, then we’ll start at the patient’s room and take it from there,” I
said while digesting that the chief was trusting me with an investigation in his town.
“Right.”
I reached Jerry in communications, a little surprised he was still working. It was 11:20 and his shift ended at 11:00, the same time mine was supposed to.
“What’s the good word, Corky?” he asked.
“I wish there was one. I didn’t want this over the air–Judge Fenneman was found drowned in the drainage pond near the hospital.”
“My god! The judge killed himself?” Jerry blurted, the first to ask the question out loud.
“We don’t know yet. I’ll be interviewing hospital staff and see what we come up with.”
“Oh, man, well, I’ll call the sheriff,” Jerry said.
“Per policy for unnatural deaths,” I agreed.
“Plus, he and the judge were golfing buds.”
“Really?” I had been on nights for years before recently going on the evening shift and didn’t pay much attention to the daytime scuttlebutt. “Thanks, Jerry.”
“Good luck Corky.”
I’m going to need it, I thought as I made my way back to the police chief and hospital administrator. As I rounded the corner from the lobby, I saw Administrator Bradshaw talking to the three nurses, now clad in dry, turquoise surgical scrubs. The one about my age with the brown ponytail had stopped shaking, but was still visibly distressed. They all were. I overheard Bradshaw instructing them to answer my questions with facts, only, and not to offer any information or opinions.
My blood immediately hit the boiling point.
“Excuse me Mr. Bradshaw, have a minute?” I walked into the nearby staff lounge and waited with my hands crossed over my chest for Bradshaw to join me.
“I can’t believe what I just heard. You are interfering with this investigation. Are you attempting to cover something to protect this hospital?” My voice was a stage whisper.
Bradshaw didn’t even have the courtesy to look contrite. “What are you talking about?”
“Telling the nurses what to say and what not to say,” I spit out.
“I did no such thing. I simply told them to stick to the facts. We need to get to the bottom of this and not have everyone speculating about what they think happened,” he calmly assured me.
I glared at him. “Are you a lawyer?”
Bradshaw shook his head. “I’m just using common sense.”
“Well, keep your common sense to yourself and let me do my job. I am hoping, through questioning, that someone here can provide answers to what may have happened tonight. Just let me do my job,” I repeated.
I remembered my rain gear, pulled off my jacket and hat and hung them on a nearby coat rack. When I turned I caught Bradshaw scrutinizing my body, his expression unreadable. When I’m in uniform, I’m officer of the law. But, at the moment, Bradshaw was looking at me as a woman and I found that both irritating and disconcerting. Ugh!
“Please show me Judge Fenneman’s room,” I said.
He cleared his throat. “Of course.”
I doubted being caught ogling me embarrassed Bradshaw in the least. He led the way to B-Wing without another word. Chief Becker was waiting for us outside Room 120 where Judge Fenneman had spent his last day on earth.
I loaded my 35 mm camera with a new roll as I scanned the room. Not much was out of place, except on the bed. The sheet and blanket were thrown back and the IV needle and attached tubing were near the pillow at the head. The bedside stand stood at an angle from the bed as though it had been pushed out of the way to allow the judge to get out of bed around the guardrail, which was still in the raised position. A significant number of blood drips pooled on the floor, staining the linoleum, where apparently Fenneman had pulled out his IV.
I snapped photos of the entire room, capturing frame after frame of the bed, nightstand and the blood, a harsh contrast to the beige floor. The small blood pool by the bed indicated the judge must have stood there for a moment, then started walking, leaving just one drop about every two feet leading to the room door. I followed the drop pattern where it continued–more disguised on the multi-toned, gray corridor carpet–past the unoccupied nurse’s desk, to the emergency exit door. There were red smudges on the push bar, challenging the stark sterility and disrupting the expected order.
I turned to the group that had gathered behind me. The three nurses were still joined at the hip. We were on the south side of the hospital, the main entrance was on the west.
“Is this the door you exited?” I asked.
“Yes,” the petite brunette spokesperson told me. “I noticed the blood on the door after I had finished checking room 123, there.” She averted her eyes to the patient room on the left. “We thought Judge Fenneman must be somewhere in the hospital, we never thought he would go outside, what with it raining cats and dogs. I called to Penny and Linda and we went out there together.”
“Who opened the door?” I asked.
“I think I did,” Penny with the oatmeal ponytail answered and the others nodded.
“I don’t want anyone else to touch this push bar until I dust it for prints.” Maybe there were a hundred smudged prints on the door, but Judge Fenneman’s prints should be on top. I pulled a pen from my pocket and pushed, hard, on the bar to open the door. The most deafening blast sounded, and I nearly dropped my camera when my startled body reacted. I glanced at the second hand of my watch and counted as it cycled twice past the twelve.
After two full minutes of the most blaring alarm I had ever heard, it was finally silent.
I turned back to the group. “Did anyone hear this alarm sound between the time the judge was last seen sleeping in his room and the discovery that he was missing?”
The three nurses all shook their heads “no.”
“I’m guessing that given the size of this hospital and the appalling volume of that alarm, that, had it been tripped, someone should have heard it?” Everyone nodded.
“It’s a new system, Sergeant–we had it installed about ten days ago. As far as we know, it has been working fine,” Bradshaw told me.
“We used the code when we went out and didn’t even think of why we didn’t hear the alarm if the judge went out this door.” The small brunette again.
I pushed open the door with my foot. The overhead spot light revealed more red drops on the cement landing outside the exit. The roof overhang had protected them from being washed away.
“Mr. Bradshaw, so you can disarm the alarm?” I asked and Bradshaw nodded. “I’ll get my rain gear and walk down to the pond.” I started for the staff room, but Bradshaw caught my arm.
“Sheila, will you gather the sergeant’s rain gear from the break room? I’ll punch in the code.” Bradshaw brushed against me, reached above my head, and pressed a series of numbers to silence the alarm. “All set, you can open the door now without setting off the alarm.”
The brunette nurse hurried away and returned a minute later with my outerwear. I donned the apparel and used the same method with the pen to open the door, careful not to damage any remaining prints. I left the group behind and snapped photos of the outside door. Once I left the protection of the overhang, there was no visible trail to follow, but I continued walking toward the pond. The hill from the hospital to the water was a steady decline and dropped probably ten feet. The footprints around the pond were rapidly becoming a washed-together mess.
What had happened? I wondered as I made my way back up the hill to the emergency exit. Chief Becker followed my earlier example, using a pen to depress the push-bar to let me back in. Housekeeping would have to deal with all the mud the next morning, but it seemed a small matter in the face of the night’s tragedy. I stomped off my boots as best I could, then looked into the face of the Winnebago County Sheriff, Dennis Twardy.
His color was terrible and I felt sad his professional and personal life had to cross like that.
“Sergeant Aleckson,” he acknowledged me, “any ideas?”
“Not yet, sir.”
The sheriff pinched the top of his nose, between his eyes. “Has Clarice been called?”
“Who, sir?” I asked, wondering about protocol.
“Judge Fenneman’s daughter.”
Of course. I knew her as Mrs. Moy.
“We called her as soon as we found him, Sheriff. She is baby-sitting her grandchildren and had to find someone to come over before she could leave.” Bradshaw again.
“For godsakes, we could have sent someone.” The sheriff pounded his fist into his hand. He didn’t look well. His normally ruddy complexion darkened to a burgundy tone and I worried his blood pressure reading soared off the charts. Bradshaw rested a hand on the sheriff’s shoulder.
Sheriff Twardy had enjoyed exceptional health until his wife’s four-year bout with cancer. She had died about a year before. The sheriff was in his late fifties. His body looked fit, but his face bore deep, aging stress creases and his hair had grayed. Twardy’s secretary, a perpetual mother hen, kept a close watch on him, determined to prevent a premature stroke.
“Why don’t we go to my office, or better yet, the boardroom?” Bradshaw offered. “Sergeant Aleckson can speak with my staff. Doctor Dahlgren has also been called and should be here any minute.”
“Why Doctor Dahlgren?” I asked.
“He is . . . was . . . Judge Fenneman’s primary care physician. Hopefully, he can help fill in the gaps.” Bradshaw was doing my job better than I was.
As our increasingly large group headed for the boardroom, Paul Moore, the stocky, middle-aged star reporter for the local newspaper scurried toward us. No one acknowledged him.
Moore pushed his geeky, oversized glasses closer to his eyes and singled out Becker, “Did you find him?”
“Who are you talking about, Moore?” Chief Becker asked.
“The missing patient, the old guy?” He pulled a pen from his breast pocket.
“Geez Paul, you pick that up on your scanner? Must be a slow news week if you come running out here in the rain for that,” Becker said as a dismissal.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to, but I couldn’t sleep, anyway, so I figured if they were sending an officer here, maybe something was up, so I thought I’d check it out.” Paul sniffed his nose.
Chief Becker put his arm on Paul’s shoulder and led him toward the main exit. Becker had several inches and over one hundred pounds on Moore and looked like a father having a chat with his small son. I couldn’t hear what he said, but figured it had to do with assuring Paul he would get the whole story when the time was right. It was common knowledge, even to me, Becker and Moore had coffee together most mornings. Becker caught up to us as we entered the boardroom.
To say the room was nice would be a gross understatement. It had simple elegance. A long, cherry wood table occupied the majority of the space while a dozen soft, buff leather office chairs surrounded it. I took one of the side chairs and sank down. It practically swallowed me in softness and cush. My eyes swept the room, taking in the six-foot tall fichus tree, the tasteful watercolors, the floor-length vertical blinds covering three windows. The corner lamps promised subdued lighting for more casual meetings.
“I’ll brew a pot of coffee,” Bradshaw said. “Go ahead, officers, with your investigation.”
I was weary and could not let myself get even a little comfortable. Everything seemed backward, off-kilter somehow. The surreal death scene, the unusual tragedy on such an unlikely spot as hospital property. I sat in a conference room surrounded by people who were shocked with disbelief, each one wishing the outcome could somehow be undone.
This was new territory for me–for all of us.
I pulled a small notepad from my back pocket and leaned forward. Desperation had snaked its way into the hearts and showed on the faces of these people who felt somehow responsible for what had happened on their watch.
Everyone, the sheriff, chief and hospital personnel were watching me intently, waiting for me to proceed.
I was the only one with a name badge on. The nurses had apparently left them with their uniforms. “Let’s begin by introducing ourselves. I’m Sergeant Corinne Aleckson, Winnebago County. This is Sheriff Dennis Twardy and Oak Lea Police Chief Bud Becker.” Glances, nods and half-smiles were exchanged.
I looked at the petite brunette nurse, “Your name, please?”
“Oh, sorry, um, Sheila Van Buren, RN.” She unconsciously reached for the identification that wasn’t there.
I nodded at the oatmeal ponytail who had finally stopped sobbing. “P-Penny Smith, RN.” Her voice was shaky and I gave her a small smile of encouragement before glancing at the dishwater blonde with the short perm.
“Linda Pedersen, RN.” Her eyes were hazel cereal bowls that dominated her pale face.
“Is that Pedersen with a ‘d’?” I asked as I jotted the names in my notebook.
“Yes. P-e-d-e-r-s-e-n,” she clarified.
“Thank you.” I noted the time. Midnight. Just. A little over an hour since I’d been dispatched here, and my work had barely begun.
“I’m going to record this interview, so I don’t have to rely on my memory or scribbled notes. Please relax, as best you can, and give me an account of everything you remember about Judge Fenneman, from, say supper on.” I set up the recorder Bradshaw had found for me.
Linda Pedersen was the nurse assigned to the judge for the three to eleven shift. Judge Fenneman had been admitted to the hospital for bacterial pneumonia two days previously. Responding well to antibiotics, he was alert and comfortable throughout the evening. Fenneman requested a sleeping aid around 8 p.m., which Doctor Dahlgren ordered. It was administered at 8:35 p.m. Nurse Pedersen last saw the judge in his room at 9:50 p.m. He was in bed, listening to his radio with his eyes closed. She checked his vital statistics and IV drip. Ever thoughtful, the judge had patted her hand and thanked her. When she checked again on her last round at 10:25, he was gone.
“Judge Fenneman’s IV needle was apparently pulled out. Isn’t there an alarm that goes off when that happens?” I asked, remembering my emergency medical training.
“Only if the flow of IV drip is interrupted,” Nurse Sheila told me.
“And it wasn’t?”
“No, it was left on the bed, still dripping,” she explained.
“Ms. Pedersen, how did the judge’s spirits seem to you tonight?” I inquired.
She nodded when she spoke. “Just fine, happy, even. His daughter and her grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, visited for a while. He was really starting to rally and looking forward to going home so he could check on his garden and keep his usual Wednesday afternoon golf game.” Pedersen sniffled and dabbed at her nose.
I glanced at the sheriff. He was glum, his jaw tight, eyes fixed on his hands.
Bradshaw returned with coffee and Dr. Dahlgren. The doctor was around sixty, average height, on the slim side, with a prominent chin and cheek bones. He kept his neat little mustache trimmed just above his top lip. Dahlgren’s clear blue eyes looked world-weary, like he’d seen more over the years than he could just about stand.
I stood and shook his hand. “I’m Sergeant Aleckson. Thank you for coming in, Doctor.”
Bradshaw handed me a cup of coffee and I took a sip. It was fresh and brewed to a perfect strength. He guessed correctly that I drank it black and I raised my eyes in approval.
“Thank you.”
Bradshaw blinked twice.
Doctor Dahlgren sank into a chair next to Nurse Pedersen. “I can’t believe this happened. Nels Fenneman was more than a patient to me, he was like a father. At least I idealized him as someone I’d like to have as a father.” He spoke, then took a moment for reflection.
“Doctor Dahlgren, I understand Judge Fenneman was admitted to Oak Lea Memorial on July sixth with pneumonia?” I asked and pushed the tape recorder closer to him.
“I don’t have his chart here, but I believe that’s the correct date.”
I referred to my notes. “And you ordered a sleeping aid for him this evening around 8:30?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Is this the first time he was given this medication?” I asked.
Dahlgren nodded. “This time around. Nels was feeling better and had slept most of the day without his coughing disturbing him. He knew he couldn’t sleep tonight without help.”
“You said this time around. Had he had this medication before?”
“Yes. He was admitted just about a year ago for the same condition. He had chronic bronchitis and was prone to pneumonia. I ordered the same drug as a sleeping aid then and he tolerated it just fine. Said he slept like a baby.”
“Doctor, it sounds like you knew Judge Fenneman pretty well.” I paused for a minute. “Is there any reason to think his drowning was intentional?”
“Are you saying suicide?” His eyes widened in surprise and I nodded.
“I would say there is not even a remote possibility of that.” Dr. Dahlgren leaned forward, studying my face.
“So what do you think happened?” I asked and glanced around the table. Every eye was fixed on Dahlgren. Perhaps he could reveal some secret about his patient that would solve this bizarre mystery.
“The only thing I can think of is the condition called ‘sundowning’ which happens on occasion, particularly to elderly people,” he said.
“Sundowning?” I had never heard the term before.
“Yes. A person will wake up and realize he isn’t at home, in his own bed. It produces a panic-like response. He will feel a strong compulsion to get home, to the familiar. The patient is in a state of semi-consciousness. I believe that’s what happened to the judge.” Dahlgren folded his hands and stared at them.
“You mean he was sleep-walking?” I asked.
“No, not quite the same thing.” Dahlgren’s eyes blinked over and over in rapid succession to remove the gathering moisture. It took a long moment for him to continue. “I went to his room, saw the IV needle, ripped out and laying on the bed. God, the blood! Nels had no dementia. By my observations, he wasn’t depressed. I can only think that perhaps the sedative produced the confusion and panic.” He put his head between his hands. “Dear Lord, I wish I could have known, I never would have ordered that med.”
Nurse Sheila’s eyes watered again. She gently rubbed the doctor’s shoulders with her right hand and dabbed her eyes with the left.
Quiet sobbing filled the room.
***
Christine Husom lives in Minnesota. She is the author of Murder in Winnebago County, Buried in Wolf Lake, and An Altar by the River in the Winnebago County mystery thriller series. Husom is a former corrections officer, mental health practitioner, and deputy sheriff. She enjoys solving mysteries in stories and in real life, and believes fact is usually more unbelievable than fiction.
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