“Yes. They were here.”
“I don’t want to drag you through it again,” Maven said, “but what did they actually-”
“They said that you guys have some questions about my daughter’s… about what happened to her. They said they didn’t necessarily… what did they say? Subscribe to anything unusual themselves, but they had to follow up.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good way to put it,” Maven said, unable to hide his anger. I’m sure he was imagining Agent Fleury sitting right here in the same room, behaving exactly like himself. So much for impersonating a human being. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Feds are different,” the lieutenant said. “Always have been.”
Maven pursed his lips and nodded. He was rubbing his right fist with his left hand.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “can we ask you a few questions?”
“As long as you tell me why you think there’s something suspicious about my daughter’s…”
That’s twice now, I thought. You come right up to it and you can’t say the words.
“Of course,” I said. “We’ll tell you everything we know.”
“Then go ahead. Ask me your questions. But then I want answers from you. That’s the only reason I wanted you to come here.”
“Your daughter…” I said. “What’s her name, anyway?”
“Dina. Her name is Dina.”
“I understand she, um…”
Here it is, I thought. The man’s still talking about her in the present tense, but I can’t do it. I have to say this the right way. The way it really is now.
“I understand she was a teacher at the college,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Was there any indication that she might have been depressed, or… I don’t know. Was there any sign at all of this happening?”
“Not that I know of. But she was twenty-seven years old. She lived in town, had her career at the college. I talked to her every week, but…” His words trailed off as he looked away.
“We’ve only heard in general terms that she may have…” I hesitated, then plowed ahead. “That she may have taken her own life. But we haven’t heard any details beyond that.”
“It was a suicide bag.”
Maven and I looked at each other.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what that means.”
“A suicide bag is supposedly a quick and painless way to kill yourself,” he said. “It’s a very simple device. All you need is a helium tank, the kind you can buy to fill up balloons. A rubber hose, a plastic bag, and some sort of strap or belt or something to tie it off with. You cut a small hole in the bag and you slip the hose through the hole. Then you put the bag over your head and secure it.”
He was still looking away as he said this, the words coming out in a rush and it made me remember that he had been a specialist at the crime lab in Marquette. It was the only lab in the Upper Peninsula, so that’s where any questions about poison or ballistics or anything else along those lines would inevitably be sent. He was on familiar ground now, even if it never hit so close to home before.
“You turn on the helium. Because it’s an inert gas, it helps suppress your suffocation reflex. Within seconds, you lose consciousness. Asphyxia will take place within minutes. Then you’re gone.”
It took me a few extra seconds to really absorb what he was telling us. There really was something called a “suicide bag.” And his daughter had apparently used it on herself. We’re sitting here in this dark house while this man is telling us in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.
“How would she have even learned about this?” Maven finally said.
“I’m sure it’s out there on the Internet. I’ve heard of it once or twice, but I’ve never actually run into a case of…”
He stopped. He looked down and I thought he was about to lose it. But he didn’t cry. He didn’t make the slightest sound. Maybe he was all cried out at that point.
“Lieutenant,” I said, “why are you here all by yourself? Isn’t there somebody who can… be here with you?”
He wiped his nose and looked up at me.
“What, you mean like my family?”
“Yes.”
“My brother came right out,” he said. “The day after it happened. Then my sister came, with her son. Then two cousins who haven’t said a word to me in twenty years. They flew out all the way from California and rented a car and tried to drive out to the cabin and made it about one mile before they went into a ditch. They all invaded the house and tried to clean me up and make me eat and eventually they even tried to drag me out of here.”
“Don’t you think that would be a good idea? You shouldn’t be alone through this.”
He snorted at that and shook his head.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “Forgive me for saying so. You don’t get it at all.”
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to fight him over it. “So… I’m sorry, if we can just go back one more time…”
“Lieutenant,” Maven said, “just a couple more questions, I promise.”
“Go right ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Was there… a note by any chance?”
“No note. They just, uh… they found her in bed the next day, with the bag over her head, and her arms wrapped around the tank.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“A couple friends of hers. They had her key, for when she’d go away and they’d come in and water her plants. Stuff like that. She didn’t show up for classes, and she wasn’t answering her phone, so…”
I didn’t want to picture it, but I couldn’t keep the image out of my head. A woman alone in her bed, hugging a tank of helium like a lover.
But now it’s going to get even worse, I thought. Here’s the really hard part…
“A device like this,” I said, “is it possible to use this on someone against their will?”
He didn’t answer that for a while. I thought I saw his hands starting to tremble.
“Yes, I believe that would be possible,” he said. “But then there’d probably be some sign of a struggle.”
“What if you were asleep?” Maven said.
“That’s possible, yes. The suffocation reflex would still have to be suppressed, even if you’re asleep. But again, if the inert gas could do that…”
Once again, I didn’t want to picture it. But I saw a man standing in her bedroom, looking down at her as she slept. He has a tank of helium, a hose, a plastic bag, a strap. He’s probably wearing surgical gloves. If he’s gone this far, he probably knows not to leave fingerprints.
“This is why I called you,” Haggerty said, looking back and forth between us. “I had to hear from you in person. You actually believe that my daughter might have been murdered.”
“We’re asking you to consider that possibility, yes.”
“The possibility that somebody broke into Dina’s apartment and killed her in her bed. That’s the possibility you’re asking me to consider. This is why the FBI agents came to talk to me.”
“Did they ask you about your old partner?”
“Donald Steele, yes. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I heard about his son shooting himself behind the barn. Then just a few days ago, he ended up being murdered at his girlfriend’s house, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“That part wasn’t a huge surprise, if I’m being honest with you. He always had a wandering eye. But I understand the girlfriend was killed, too. And they suspect her husband.”
“They suspect him,” Maven said, “but they haven’t found him yet. So nobody knows for sure.”
“Your idea is that somehow these deaths were all connected?”
“I know this was a number of years ago,” Maven said, “but back when you were at St. Ignace with Sergeant Steele, did you ever happen to run into another state cop named Charles Razniewski?”
“The agents asked me the same question,” he said, “but I don’t remember that name at all. How long was he on the force?”
“Just short of two years. Are you sure you never ran into him? Big blond guy? Most people just called him Raz. He was stationed down at the Lansing post.”
“That’s a long way from St. Ignace. No, I honestly don’t remember him at all. Actually, I do remember your name from back then, now that I think of it.”