“All right — what is wrong with it?”
“The note. If he wanted to die in such deep isolation, why wasn’t the note left behind or mailed? Pinning it to his chest makes no sense.” She crunched on a potato chip reflectively. “That’s why I’m certain he had help — almost certain. The phone, too, is highly suspicious. This sandwich is easier to swallow than the idea of a stranger coming across such a ghastly tableau and having the presence of mind to hunt out the suicide’s own device and then use it to record the grim details — not to mention forwarding the images to the suicide’s Facebook page. Not to mention, either, taking the trouble to come into reception range to do so or carefully depositing the phone at the police station afterwards. Sergeant Hardin may find this a plausible chain of events, but to me it reeks of artifice and intent.
“It also strains my credulity that the only person to happen across the tragedy in seven weeks did so on the day it transpired.”
“Unless the body was removed,” I said. “Taken down, buried nearby, sunk in one of the lakes and bogs around here.”
“By the demurring itinerant photographer, do you mean? After stripping it of its its clothing and valuables?”
“It’s an explanation that fits the facts, that’s all, whether the one who took the pictures did it or someone else. Our Mountie friend’s no dummy. He’s had the thought but doesn’t want it spread around. You saw how that third scenario of a fake suicide-murder hit him, and it wasn’t because he hadn’t considered it. His investigation may be stalled, but it’s still ongoing.”
“He wants it to be the second scenario, though, even though the first is far more likely.” She made a face. “I suppose...”
“Suppose this: If you got on that cell phone of yours and called the Royal Lodge in Arborg, we’d have a place to stay tonight and a place to ask questions in the morning. They should be anxious for business midweek this time of year, and here’s the number, courtesy of — you guessed it — the Royal Canadian Mounties.”
Ginny Carr
For three and a half years R. J. had painstakingly avoided anything resembling detective work. He’d handed Carr Investigations and Security over to our son Steve on January 1, 2009, counseled him about taking on a partner some months later, and beyond giving advice when asked and twice performing some “gofer” work with myself along for company, he’d settled into retirement with the visible appearance of relief. I’d retired, too, from high school counseling, and we spent our time exercising, reading, taking walks and hikes, traveling, renovating the house, gardening, and baby-sitting grandchildren, of which, by 2012, there numbered four.
When the phone rang that October second I answered it in the kitchen after ascertaining that the caller was Steve.
“Hi,” said his familiar voice. “It’s your favorite son. Is Dad around, by chance?”
“He’s out working in the yard, but—”
“Don’t get him yet. Do you think he’d like a case?”
“A... detective case?”
“Yep. We’re swamped right now, it involves time and travel, and it won’t wait. Plus, they called up asking for R. J. Carr. Plus again, it needs an investigator, not a gumshoe.”
The following day R. J. met with Steve and the client and provided this report when he and I settled in the family room after dinner.
“The client turns out to be a large group of people, something new, but their spokesperson is a Catholic priest. On his own I don’t think he would have gone to a detective, but the others pushed for it. Anyway, why don’t I just begin at the beginning?”
“Chronology, yes,” I teased. “Just like old times.”
“Right. A man named Tom Kostner is the worry for these people. Kostner was active in church and youth organizations going back to nineteen ninety in that section of the city north of Elmwood Park and west of the office — prosperous bungalow belt. Kostner worked for his father-in-law as an independent insurance adjuster for property claims; he and his wife had two children; they were Catholic, as you probably guessed; and Kostner himself was noted for being a moral paragon and seriously devout, someone everyone looked up to, especially the kids he coached and their parents.
“In two thousand and three, when he was forty-three years old, he suddenly moved out on his wife and went to court to get custody of his teenage children, which he did. The details about this aren’t pretty, and they’ve never been made public, but the priest’s the source, so I’d say they’re accurate. Late in the nineties, a group of couples who met through his old church and socialized a lot together apparently drifted into what used to be called wife-swapping. Maybe it’s ‘partner exchange’ now, who knows, something out of a woman’s paperback bestseller, anyway. A few years later straight-arrow Kostner got sucked into it by his wife, who hung around a lot with some of the women in the group, but for him the first encounter was the last — although not for her. She worked it alone somehow. A year and a half later he made his break, which was also, of course, a break from his job with the father-in-law, right in the middle of the post-9/11 downswing. He went through some very tough years economically, trying to build up his own property claims business and doing home inspections as a sideline — with the father-in-law, of course, sabotaging him every chance he could.
“In two thousand eight he was approached by a newly formed real estate company to be its appraiser for buying and reselling properties at a good salary, and things finally seemed to be stabilizing. All this time he kept on coaching and involving himself in church affairs, just in a different parish, and getting his kids through high school and into college. Two years ago, though, he suddenly disappeared from view. He stopped going to Mass, dropped his church committee work and the coaching, told people he was too busy, and wouldn’t return calls.
“Now, here’s where the priest really comes into it, Father Daly by name, attached to Kostner’s more recent parish. One day last February, Father Daly went to the local UPS Store to send a package to a relative, and he spotted Tom Kostner there at the counter. Kostner apparently looked miserable, had aged about five years in the year and a half since Daly saw him last. Daly said, ‘Hello, Tom,’ and when Kostner turned and recognized who was speaking, a look of fear came into his eyes — according to the priest, anyway. ‘No, Father,’ he said. I’m quoting the priest here quoting Kostner, ‘No, Father, you don’t want to know me anymore. You don’t want to come near me. Please. Stay away.’
“Then the guy grabbed some stuff up from the counter, told the clerk he’d be back, and pushed past Daly and practically ran out the door.”
“Yes,” I said, “because he obviously felt ashamed. But of what?”
Instead of answering, R. J. gestured his bafflement, then went on, “Kostner, unlike me, was into the information age in a big way. First on his block with a tablet, on Facebook from day one, cell phone junkie. Before the disappearing act he used his Facebook page as a kind of bulletin board for his church work and coaching: ‘Soccer practice at five on Thursday’ — that kind of stuff and there were people who cared about him who kept checking it out after he gave up posting, hoping for some kind of turnaround or at least an explanation.
“Late in August there was finally a new post, but not anything anyone wanted or expected — what used to be called a kick in the head, in fact — three photos showing Kostner’s body hanging from a tree with a suicide note pinned to his chest. Still no explanation, though. The note just said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and for a while none of his friends could get any information. His children were gone from the area, and his wife — or ex-wife, take your pick; she got a divorce decree somewhere and remarried outside the church — anyway, she only knew what her estranged daughter told her, which was that the authorities had tracked the photos to some remote area in Manitoba, but Kostner’s body so far hadn’t been found. Facebook took down the web page — I think that’s the terminology — and that’s where the guy’s friends were left hanging.”