Murder Old and New

by Chet Williamson

  I paused, and Harold turned back impatiently. “Yes, Martha,” I said. “We missed you.”

  “Ach, I forgot again. So mad I make myself!”

  “I’ll have someone remind you next time, okay?”

  “All right,” she said, and started moving again.

  “That one would forget her cane if she wouldn’t fall on her ass without it,” Harold said as he started walking again.

  “Harold!” I said, more out of obligation than actual shock.

  Harold’s room was right at the near end, so we didn’t have far to go. On his door was a crocheted green frog and the legend, “Welcome to My Pad,” with his name in a large font taped underneath it. Harold fished a key from his pants pocket and unlocked the door. “Didn’t use to lock it,” he said, “but there was a burglary a few weeks back. Comes from being right in the city, I guess. Come on in, you’re safe. I haven’t had a prurient thought in twenty-two years. And seven months.”

  “That must’ve been a good thought,” I said as I entered. Harold’s small room was cheery and well kept. The single bed dominated, of course, but there was an easy chair near the window, and Harold gestured me to it as he closed the door. Then he pulled a wooden chair from under the minuscule desk in the corner next to me, and positioned it so that we were face to face.

  Above the desk a bookcase was fastened to the wall. Its three shelves were packed with paperbacks, nearly all of which were mysteries. As I’d entered, my dealer’s eye had picked up the black and dull matte silver spines of 1960s Bantams and Pocket Books, and the shorter and more colorful Avons and Popular Library volumes from the 50s, with the shiny gloss coatings on their covers. Now I could see that most of the Bantams were Nero Wolfe novels, and the others a grab bag of Agatha Christie, Hammett, Chandler, John Dickson Carr, S. S. Van Dine, and others.

  “Ah, the classics,” I said, nodding toward them. “Read them all?”

  “Over and over,” Harold said, settling his lanky frame into the chair. “At my age I forget whodunit from one year to the next, so it’s like I never read it. Except for that Roger Ackroyd one.”

  “The narrator,” I said, showing off my classic mystery chops.

  “Oh, don’t tell me,” Harold said, pretending annoyance. “Now I have to wait another year till those brain cells die.”

  “I thought you said you always remember that one.”

  “Which one?” he replied with a look of stupefaction.

  I chuckled appreciatively, then said, “Okay, if the Smith and Dale bit’s finished, tell me what this secret meeting’s all about.”

  His face sobered and he nodded. “It’s about Rachel Gold.” I didn’t say anything. “There was something about…her death that I don’t like.”

  “I don’t like anything about her death,” I said, dead serious.

  “Well, no,” Harold said, flustered. “It was a shame, I really liked Rachel. She was one of the few people around here you could actually carry on a conversation with, and not have her train of thought get derailed after a few miles. But I don’t like it because it doesn’t seem natural.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Rachel Gold didn’t seem at all ill. I don’t see any reason she should have died.”

  “Harold,” I said calmly, “forgive me for saying this, but Rachel was eighty-eight—“

  “And I’m in my nineties. Thanks so much for the comfort.”

  “And she was ill. She seemed fine, but she had that condition where your red cells are low, and her heart just gave out.”

  “With a look on her face as though she’d seen the devil himself.” He raised an eyebrow. “I heard Big Marge scream this morning. Yes, even from the care hall and with my door closed. And I heard the nurses talking about it, too. My organs of prurience may be deaf, but there’s nothing wrong with my ears. I just don’t like it, Livy, especially with Enid last week going out the same way.”

  “Harold, what are you talking about—foul play?”

  “Maybe. The M.O. is the same, two women, each found dead on a Tuesday morning, with horrible looks on their faces…”

  “It’s not an M.O., Harold. It’s two natural deaths, that’s all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well…not a hundred per cent.”

  “And will they do an autopsy? Did they do one on Enid?”

  “No, probably not. But there was really no reason…” I broke off, then started up again. “Look, Harold, no offense intended, but you read a lot of mysteries—“

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “And you’re still a sharp and imaginative guy—“

  “And attractive.”

  “So, you’re likely to deduce and theorize about things that have perfectly reasonable…reasons.”

  “I hate those unreasonable reasons.”

  “You know what I mean.” I found myself echoing Doc Mead’s admonitions to me. “Your theory just isn’t logical. What would anyone stand to gain from…” I hated to say the word. “…killing Enid or Rachel?”

  That got him. “I don’t know,” he said as though he hadn’t thought of it before.

  “No, and neither do I. It’s not like either one was an heiress with a big estate—no Agatha Christie motive there. And neither one had an enemy in the world. So why would you even think that someone could have wanted to kill either or both of them?”

  He thought about it for a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Livy. Just a gut feeling.” He puffed a little laugh through his nose. “But as you know, my gut isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Please, let’s not go there,” I begged.

  “It’s just that…” He paused, his long-fingered hands waving back and forth as if trying to express what words could not. “There’s badness in the world, Livy. Evil. Sometimes people do bad things for no other reason than that they can, or they want to. People like us can’t imagine it, but these other people, well, they’re just not wired right. I saw some things during the war…” He got a faraway look in his eyes, then shook his head. “Let’s not go there, either.”

  Harold stood up and leaned on the windowsill, looking out at the sunshine on the melting snow. “You’re right, I’m sure. Just imagination. What do they say, that people try to impose patterns on everything, that we just can’t accept random occurrences and coincidences as what they are—random and coincidental. I think it gets worse as you get older. You draw closer to the end, every day a little nearer, and by God you want there to be a pattern, a meaning, an answer that makes sense out of everything that’s come before.”

  He was quiet for a while, then threw up his hands. “Oh Lord, listen to me—I’m babbling. I am finally reinforcing the stereotype of loony old men.”

  “Harold, you are far from being a loony old man.”

  “Oh yeah? I come up with a loony theory and then offer you my loony philosophy. And I’m old. The prosecution rests. And that’s good, because it’s time for my nap.”

  I stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Believe me, Harold, I know whereof you speak. I’ve been tending to do the same thing lately—trying to impose order on chaos. But sometimes things just happen. Sometimes nice old ladies die and there’s no sense to be made of it.”

  He nodded, a wistful smile on his face. “Just their time.”

  “Just their time,” I agreed.

  “Like that old Zen saying, ‘One inch ahead is all darkness.’”

  “Ouch. Not very cheery.”

  “But a realistic way to lead your life, Livy. I may not wake up from my nap,” Harold said, the twinkle returning to his eye. “I may drop dead walking to the bed.”

  “Hardly. You’ll outlive us all.”

  “Like Sinatra said, ‘May you all live to be a hundred, and may the last voice you hear be mine.’”

  “You’re full of aphorisms today.”

  “Sorry. Must’ve been the beans at lunch.”

  “Oh, Harold!” It was just the reaction he
’d wanted, and who was I not to give it to him?

  “And speaking of Sinatra, bring some of his stuff next time—with the Pied Pipers and Tommy Dorsey?”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows and gave a Groucho Marx leer. “Well, in that case…”

  “Take your nap, Professor Quackenbush,” I said flatly as I grabbed my records and headed for the door. He was still chuckling when I closed it.

  Chapter 8

  Out of habit I stopped at my mailbox near the nurse’s station. The mailboxes were just a honeycomb of open slots with the names of all nurses, administrators, and volunteers taped above each one, roughly in alphabetical order. The only thing I ever found in mine was the monthly newsletter (after they’d stopped mailing them to save costs) and my annual TB test reminder.

  So I was surprised to find a small white envelope with “L CROWE” printed on it in pencil. I opened it to find a piece of white paper with a message written in the same block capital letters: “BE CAREFUL”

  The writing was light so that the pencil had made hardly any indentation into the paper, and the letters were formed as regularly as those on the elementary school charts that used to hang over the blackboards. To my non-CSI trained eye, it was as anonymous as an egg.

  It gave me the same little chill as when I’d opened Daddy’s envelope full of dead guy photos. An anonymous note to be careful? What was next, a dried bloodstain on the tea cosy? A cowled figure (perhaps the Phantom Nun ™) glimpsed from the corner of the eye? A will in a tin box showing that roguish Sir Roderick was in fact heir to the estate of the late Lord Timperly? It seemed just that Victorian and just that creepy, and I didn’t like it one bit. Would you?

  I’d just been so logical and rational and mature in dismissing Harold’s unfounded suspicions, due to the way Doc Mead had so cavalierly dismissed my own, and here I was back in Agatha Christie-land again. All right, someone was telling me to be careful, but of what? Not to break my 78s? What with my interest in the Hangman Murders, the deaths of two dear little ladies, and Harold’s suspicions, it seemed more serious than that. My whole past week had been wrapped up in death, and it was hard not to see a sinister shadow in the message.

  It was time to get back to the store, but I figured I could leave Ted alone for a few more minutes. I headed down to Karen’s office. She was still in, and I tossed the envelope, the note inside, onto her desk. “Love note?” she asked.

  “Hardly.”

  Karen glanced at the envelope, then opened it and took out the note. She read it and looked back up at me. “Your first?”

  “Huh?”

  “First time you’ve gotten one of these?”

  “Well, duh, yes. Don’t you think I’d have shown you threatening notes if I’d gotten one before?”

  “Threatening?”

  Karen’s indifference was quickly becoming infuriating. “Yes, threatening! It’s only a short step away from ‘Beee-ware…’”

  Karen stood up. “Walk this way, Pauline.”

  “Pauline?”

  “As in Perils of. You’re not the only one who knows about old stuff.”

  She led me down the hall to Doris Landover’s office. Doris is the main administrator of the Gates Home, a round woman in her fifties who, despite her incessant cheerfulness, keeps the tightest of reins on the Gates purse strings. She was on the phone when we entered, and Karen gestured to one of the several filing cabinets in the room and held up the note for Doris to see.

  Doris did a little eye roll, then waved her chubby, ring-laden fingers toward the filing cabinet. Karen opened a drawer, riffled through some files, then took out a thin folder and led me into a small meeting room adjoining Doris’s office, where we sat at the table.

  “Behold,” Karen said, “the collected works of Grover Heilman…” She flipped open the folder, and inside were dozens, maybe hundreds of small pieces of paper with block printing on them in pencil and several different colors of ink. I read a few:

  BRUSH YOUR TEETH TWICE A DAY

  LOOK BOTH WAYS WHEN YOU CROSS THE STREET

  DON’T NEVER EAT GLASS

  CHANGE YOUR UNDERWEAR EVERY DAY

  DONT STICK ANYTHING BIGGER THAN YOUR THUMB IN YOUR EAR

  DONT TAKE NO CHANCES

  “What is all this?” I asked.

  “Grover was a health and phys ed teacher. He’s got dementia, had it for years.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “No, he doesn’t come to any groups—he’s afraid of germs. But that doesn’t stop him from writing little notes and leaving them all over the place. Words to the wise. So now you’re no longer a virgin—you’ve been grovered.”

  “The man has become a verb?” I asked.

  Karen nodded. “Is there any higher honor?”

  “But I got this in my mailbox.”

  “A gem from Grover?” said a new voice. I turned and saw Doris filling up the doorway.

  “But in my mailbox,” I repeated.

  “Oh, he’s put notes in a lot of mailboxes,” Doris said. “Nothing personal.”

  “But it was,” I said, holding up the envelope.

  Doris took it and frowned. “Now that’s new. Grover’s never used envelopes, and he doesn’t personalize. Maybe he heard about you and wanted to make sure you got the message.”

  “Or maybe it wasn’t Grover,” I said.

  “Sure it was,” Doris said. “The writing looks the same.”

  “Block printing all looks the same,” I said. “Why don’t we just ask Grover?”

  Doris shrugged and gave me back the envelope. “Go ahead, but he might not even remember doing it. Karen, you want to take Livy up?” She smiled. “I really wouldn’t worry about it, hon. It’s just Grover being Grover.”

  I smiled back and said thanks, but wasn’t convinced this was as innocent as it seemed. I could maybe accept being randomly grovered, but why would I have been specifically grovered? Hell, I didn’t even know Grover. And I didn’t want to.

  But I did want to find out if this note was from Grover, or from some Grover copycat with more sinister intentions than telling people to eat their peas and blow their noses.

  Grover Heilman was up on the third floor. His roommate, another man I didn’t know, was watching MTV, of all things, with the sound turned so low it was barely audible. Grover was sitting at the window, watching the snow outside. It looked better than MTV.

  “Grover?” Karen said. “I want you to meet Livy. Livy Crowe?” Grover turned jerkily to look at us, as though we were flies in the corner of his vision of which he was becoming more aware.

  “Hi, Grover,” I said. Grover gave off a major aura of weirdness. It was how a lot of dementia sufferers struck me, as though they might not know their own names or even recall you from five minutes earlier, but nevertheless seemed to be able to look into the deepest part of you and know what was there. Of course, it was nuts, but that was the sensation I got from Grover Heilman when his watery, blue-eyed gaze finally rested on me.

  “Who?” he said, and his voice sounded like an echo from a deep pit.

  “Livy Crowe,” said Karen. “You remember her—you sent her a note.”

  “I don’t know her.” There was no intonation. The words were hollow and flat, with all of them receiving equal stress or lack thereof. “I don’t know her,” he said again exactly the same way, so much like a tape recorder that it made me remind myself once more to get one for Tom Drummond.

  “Did you write me this note?” I asked gently, holding it up for him to see.

  “Nope. Not mine.”

  “Now, Grover,” Karen said, “are you sure you didn’t just forget?”

  “Nope. Good advice, though. You should always be careful. Crossing streets.”

  “Grover,” I said quickly, before he could burst into the part of the song about not eating sweets, “you really don’t know me? You didn’t write this?”

  “Nope.” The word was a rock plopping into a deep well.


  “Okay, Grover,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Livy?” It was plain from Karen’s tone that she didn’t buy Grover’s protestations of innocence and wanted to continue the interrogation, but I believed him, though I didn’t want to. I just shook my head and left Grover’s room. Karen trailed behind.

  “He didn’t send it,” I said as we walked down the hall.

  “Sure he did. He just didn’t remember, that’s all. He doesn’t remember most of the notes he writes.”

  “But he doesn’t use envelopes and he doesn’t personalize. You think he started doing that just for me, who he’s never even met? That makes no sense, Karen.”

  “Dementia doesn’t make sense, Livy. I’ll bet that in the next few weeks people start getting personally grovered…with envelopes.”

  “I’ll take that bet. Lunch at Trattoria’s—loser pays.”

  “You got it.”

  “And no grovering yourself just to win.”

  “I have never grovered myself, my dear. I have no need to resort to that.” We both laughed.

  I wasn’t laughing on my way back to the store, though. Grover Heilman didn’t leave my note, I was sure of it, even if it was just a gut feeling. My involvement, tenuous as it was, with the Hangman Murders, had colored my viewpoint of life in general. Like Harold said, there were bad people in the world who did bad things, and I couldn’t help but think, in the light of the two recent deaths and Harold’s suspicions (unfounded as they might be), that the admonition to be careful hadn’t been about never eating glass.

  Chapter 9

  I headed back to Better Days, stopping at K-Mart to pick up Tom Drummond’s mini-recorder, a four-pack of tapes, and batteries. There were four dollars and some change left from the two twenties he’d given me, and I slipped the cash into the plastic bag with the goodies.

  When I got back to the store, I was glad to see that Ted wasn’t at all put out by my tardiness. Store traffic had ranged from slow to nonexistent. Tuesdays were notorious for being lousy business days, both in the real and virtual worlds, and Ted had sold only a few old VHS tapes at two bucks each. Yes, I realize that VHS tapes and DVDs, both of which I carry, are post-1980 products, but they’re the proud and miraculous vehicles of the great films and TV shows of yesteryear, so I’m happy to buy and sell them, used of course (good luck buying new VHS tapes). Of course, don’t come in with your Harry Potter DVDs, but Marx Brothers and Disney Treasures and the ilk are happily accepted and paid for. Just remember the rules: Alien (1979), yes; Aliens (1986), no.