by Paul Bishop
Nora nodded and pointed toward the kitchen.
“We’re leaving,” said Mariah. “Come along, Brittney.”
The teenager slunk toward the front door.
“You get to college, you ought to go out for the track team, Brittney,” said Jen. “You’re a fine runner.”
“She’ll do no such thing,” said Mariah.
Brittney and her mother left the house, door closing hard behind them.
“There goes a troubled pair,” said Edna Larkin as Nora made change and then started wrapping a set of steak knives in tissue paper.
Edna quickly stopped her. “Don’t use your nice paper for these old things,” she said. “Newspaper is fine.”
Nora smiled and took a sheet of newsprint from the pile.
“I agree with Edna,” Jen told Lyle. “The Dales are a troubled pair.”
“Hard to be a single mother,” he said. “And the school super on top of it. Mrs. Dale has a lot of responsibility.”
“She doesn’t wear it well,” said Jen.
“Says the girl without shoes,” said Lyle.
“I think the force ought to reimburse me for those,” said Jen.
“We’ve got a whole bedroom filled with shoes,” said Nora. “Just down the hallway.”
“Let’s look around,” said Jen, catching hold of Lyle’s shirt sleeve, guiding him through the other shoppers.
“The garage entrance is down there, too, Chief,” said Nora. “Take your time. You never know what you might find.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Maybe there’s some fishing stuff,” said Jen.
“Sorry,” said Nora. “Dad wasn’t much of an outdoorsman. No fishing stuff.”
However, it turned out Nora was wrong.
When they got there, Jen and the Chief had the garage all to themselves. Jen drank some of her iced green tea and took a mental inventory of the place. Nora was right. Herb had been an indoor hobbyist. The heavy wooden workbench was covered with woodworking tools. Carving knives and chisels. A pair of wood burning kits, both well-cared for and stored in the original cardboard boxes. More than a dozen small hand saws.
“No gun rack. No shovel. Not even a lawn mower,” said Jen. “You sure Herb Willard was from Nebraska?”
“He worked as a clerk over at the county courthouse his whole life,” said Lyle. “Retired when I was a kid. I never really knew him. I don’t know anybody who did.”
Lyle poked around at the tools on the bench. “It’s a cinch he never went fishing.”
When Jen pushed aside a folding lawn chair an aluminum tackle box poked its padlocked face out.
“Maybe he did go fishing,” she said.
The top of the gray box had been spray-painted black. Jen lifted the handle, picked it up, and carried it to the center of the garage. “Nora didn’t put a price on this,” she said.
Lyle whistled with admiration. “Industrial strength,” he said.
“You want it?”
Lyle bent over and examined the padlock. “Depends on what’s inside it,” he said. “Need to get the lock off.”
“What if it’s packed with vintage lures?” said Jen.
“Could be.”
Jen picked it up. “I think a big tackle box like this would be nice all by itself. Let’s see if it’s for sale,” she said. “Then you can buy me some shoes.”
After a lunch of microwaved burritos and coffee at his desk, Lyle logged George Hutton in on the duty roster and watched through the station’s front window as the veteran officer drove away in his Crown Victoria. First stop on his Saturday afternoon patrol would be the high school. Then up and down Main Street a few times.
The Chief was just about to pick up his new tackle box and try to open the padlock when the phone rang.
Mrs. Thompson had a coyote prowling around her back yard. Could Lyle come over personally?
On the way to the Thompson house, Jake Matthews called in from the drug store, having caught Irene Raymond boosting a greeting card intended for Edna Mae Voss’s funeral. “She may have sympathy, but I don’t,” said Jake.
Then Linda Warbler’s security system went off for no reason. “I only have the damn thing because of my insurance,” she said.
Meanwhile, somebody had vandalized Merv Salmon’s construction site. “Stripped out all the copper wiring to sell.”
Finally, the sewer drain backed up on Elk Road, and by four o’clock, the ford was under water.
When Lyle got back to the station, he found Hutton back at his desk, chewing raspberry-filled kolaches and filling in a crossword puzzle.
“Keeping busy?” said Hutton. He was older than Lyle.
“I’ve been doing your job all afternoon.”
“Good of you,” said Hutt, swallowing a last bite of pastry. He dusted his hands off, one against another.
Hutt was in good shape for a man three days past this sixty-seventh birthday. Lean gut. Fat savings account over at the bank. And, in spite of his age, no slouch at his job. He’d been a cop since his time in the Marine Corps, when he’d moved to Meadows Ford from Wisconsin ten years before. He planned to retire someplace close to a lake where there was plenty of fishing.
It was one of the reasons Lyle liked him.
“By the way,” said Hutt. “Couldn’t help but notice the tackle box. Is it yours?”
“Jen thought I needed something from Nora Willard’s estate sale this morning.”
“What’s inside?”
Lyle shrugged. “Pick the lock and find out. Nora didn’t have a key. Said she didn’t even remember Herb having a box like it.”
“How much she charge you for it?”
“Free,” said Lyle.
“If I pick the lock, can I have first pick of what’s inside?”
“I’m not so sure.”
“C’mon,” said Hutt. “Let a pro have a go at it.”
Lyle poured himself a cup of coffee and fell back into his office chair. “After the afternoon I’ve had,” he said, “You go ahead.”
“First pick of the contents?”
“Sure. First pick.”
It took Hutt fifteen minutes and three bent paper clips to pop the stubborn old lock. Its U-shaped bolt finally let go with a world-weary click.
When Hutt pried open the lid, the hinges wailed in protest.
“This thing hasn’t been opened in years,” said Hutt.
“Probably decades,” said Lyle, coming around the edge of the desk to join him.
Sure enough, right on top of the stacked series of hinged trays was a square section of newsprint, its edges yellow and chipped, with the date prominently displayed.
Forty-two years ago this month.
Not a good day in Meadows Ford’s history.
Lyle read the headline as much from memory as from the clipping he held.
Third Girl Found—Gruesome Murders Continue
“Weird thing to keep in a tackle box,” said Hutt.
“Isn’t it?” said Lyle, a creeping cold moving up from the small of his back.
He laid the piece of paper aside. The top tray was empty.
“Open it up,” said Lyle.
“This thing’s got an odd smell,” said Hutt.
The icy hand moved.
“Open it.”
Hutt grasped the trays and they accordioned up, creaking, sticking, a set of three tiered steps opening up to reveal long-hidden secrets.
The middle set of trays held five medical scalpels, three with blades, two without. They were rusty and crusted on the edges with flaking brown and black.
A separate compartment was filled with unused razor blades.
The bottom tray was a grab bag of sharp edges and picks, needles, and clamps. Again, coated with a dry, dark crust.
Underneath it all was more newspaper, crumpled, yellow, crackling from the disturbance after so many years.
Hutt reached in and pulled one ball of paper free. Unwrapped it to read the headline.
> Lyle’s heart froze, and for a second he was eleven years old again.
Like he was during that endless, horrific summer.
Inside the paper were the mummified remains of a ring finger.
And Lyle knew who it belonged to.
“I take it back,” said Hutt. “I don’t want first pick.”
“Call Jennifer,” said Lyle. “Do it now.”
“The media wasn’t as hyperbolic back then,” said Lyle. “Especially in rural Nebraska.”
He sipped coffee from his mug and set it down on his desk-sized calendar, leaving a ring around Tuesday’s EMS seminar and smearing Wednesday’s dentist appointment. “I was eleven years old, and even though the authorities never had an official name for the bad guy, us kids called him the Tea Man. The papers called him the Willow Creek Killer.”
Lyle walked around his desk and perched on the front corner near Jen, who sat in a nearby metal office chair with her feet flat on the floor.
Feet adequately encased in black Converse sneakers.
Hutt was back at his desk, the tackle box closed in front of him.
The three of them had convened over a fresh pot of coffee so Lyle could brief them on what had been—until today—the frozen granddaddy of Nebraska cold cases.
“Three months of summer. Three teenaged girls dead. Each of them found on Willow Creek Road, a gravel stretch only a couple miles out of town. Each with their throats cut and their ring fingers severed.”
“Why did you call him the Tea Man?” said Jen.
“Do we want to know?” said Hutt.
“Each girl was found with a tea bag in her mouth.”
“That’s horrible,” said Jen.
“The fingers belonging to Amanda Ware and Kathy Allen were mailed to the Meadows Ford Chronicle. Annie Beck was the third victim, the one mentioned in the clipping we just saw. Her finger was never recovered.”
“Until today,” said Hutt.
“Until today,” agreed Lyle. “However, won’t know for sure without testing.”
“Three victims? That’s all?”
“That’s it,” said Lyle. “Three murders. Never resolved. Several different branches of law enforcement were involved in the investigation. Two or three private detectives. And a whole raft of conspiracy nuts. The furor died down after a few years without uncovering even one decent suspect.”
“You’re thinking the tackle box we got at the Willard sale belonged to the Tea Man,” said Jen.
“I can’t see it any other way,” Lyle said. He reached for his mug and took another drink. “We’ll need to CSI the box—blood, DNA, everything.”
“We can send it to the state lab in Lincoln,” said Hutt.
Jen shook her head. “Once State gets involved—a story this big—our little department will be brushed aside like so much wheat straw in the wind”
“Is that what you’re thinking, Chief?” Hutt asked.
“I’m thinking this is our town,” said Lyle. “We know the people here better than any state investigator. The people know us. I’d like to get as much solid information as we can before we start involving strangers.” Lyle finished his coffee. “Tomorrow is Sunday, so we have maybe thirty-six hours.”
“What do we do first?” said Jen.
“You and me are gonna go back to Herb Willard’s estate sale,” said Lyle. “Monday, after the sale, we’ll need a warrant, but today the place is wide open.”
“If she hasn’t closed yet. The sign said she’d be there until six.”
Lyle looked at his watch. “Ten minutes,” he said. Then he turned to Hutt. “You hold the fort here and handle your regular Saturday shift.”
“Ten-four,” said Hutt. He shook his head. “Tea Man. See that’s something you wouldn’t hear about where I come from. Coffee Man, maybe. Not tea.”
“I was thinking,” said Jen. “Nora Willard drinks a variety of tea.”
“Along with four or five billion other people on the planet,” said Lyle. “Let’s just do our job. One step at a time.”
On State Street, they saw two cars and the Miller kid riding a bike down the wrong side of the road.
It looked like every quiet Saturday night in Meadows Ford.
Back in his patrol car, maybe Hutt could finish his crossword puzzle.
They turned into the Willard driveway with four minutes to spare.
The friendly garage doors were still open, and they found Nora puttering beside Herb’s workbench.
“Welcome back,” said Nora. “I was just getting ready to close.”
“That tackle box was such a treasure,” said Lyle. “I thought I’d better make sure there wasn’t anything else I might need.”
“I can’t imagine where that box came from, Chief. Like I told you before, I don’t remember Dad having one. I can’t recall ever seeing it until you brought it up to the table.”
“It’s easy to forget things,” said Jen.
“But I organized everything out there for the sale. I must’ve seen it.” She shook her head. “I just don’t remember.”
“Mind if I walk around one more time?” said Lyle.
“Please, go right ahead. Who knows what else I might have forgot? Maybe you’ll find the key to Fort Knox!”
Lyle smiled. “A key is just what I’m looking for,” he said.
But after a half hour combing through Herb’s workbench area and two bedroom storage closets, they turned up nothing.
While Nora made a fresh pot of green tea, Lyle and Jen convened back where they started, in the garage.
Somebody in the neighborhood was grilling burgers, and the cicadas were in fine tune. The moon hung above the brick house across the street like a soccer ball kicked into the air from one of the fine trimmed lawns.
“Not the kind of place to find a serial killer,” said Jen.
“Or precisely the place,” said Lyle, taking in the evening breeze.
“I mean this house. There’s nothing here.”
“Doesn’t seem to be.”
“No, Lyle. I mean it. You know my background. I’m trained to see things. There’s nothing here.”
“So, Herb’s not our man?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How do we explain the tackle box?”
“What if Nora is telling the truth? What if the tackle box doesn’t belong here?” said Jen.
“Are you saying somebody carried it in?” said Lyle.
“Maybe during the sale,” said Jen. “Maybe somebody wanted to get rid of it.”
“Half the town was through here today,” said Lyle.
“But half the town wasn’t here before lunch. And the box arrived before lunch. That narrows it down somewhat.”
They were quite a while.
“What do we know about Mariah Dale?” said Jen.
“Why her?”
Jen shrugged. “Just a weird feeling. We know Mariah was here, but she claims to have been waiting in her car while Brittney came in. It’s a bit odd.”
“You’re still mad about losing your shoes.”
“Damn straight,” said Jen. “What about Brittney’s father?”
“Guy from Omaha,” said Lyle. “Mariah and her daughter moved here after the divorce and mom got the superintendent job. The father doesn’t have any ties to Meadows Ford that I know about.”
“What about—”
The side door to the garage opened, and Nora carried in two steaming mugs from her kitchen table, “Here’s a cup of hot tea for each of you,” she said, handing them out. “You’re welcome to come inside and sit. It’s a bit of a mess.”
“No, thank you,” said Lyle. “We need to be going.”
“You must be exhausted,” Jen told the older woman. “You had quite a day.”
“I did indeed,” said Nora. Then, with an impish grin, “Santa Fe, here I come.”
“Good tea,” said Jen after her first sip.
“You didn’t find anything else to take home?” said Nora.
“I guess not,” said Jen.
“I have a question,” said Lyle.
Nora nodded for him to continue.
“I wonder if anybody might have carried in that tackle box we purchased.”
Jen’s phone buzzed.
She put her teacup down on the workbench and looked at her phone screen. “Gotta take this,” she said, excusing herself to walk outside.
“I can’t imagine who or why somebody would bring that box in here,” said Nora.
“Here’s another question,” said Lyle. “Did any of your customers act in any way out of the ordinary?”
Nora narrowed her eyes. “You can’t kid an old kidder, Chief. You didn’t come back here tonight to shop for fishing gear.”
Lyle pushed back his cap to scratch his head. “No, I guess we didn’t.”
Nora chuckled under her breath and held up the index finger of her right hand. “You came back here to fish, yes. But not to shop.”
“If I’m honest with you, will you be honest with me?” said Lyle.
“Most certainly.”
“One of your customers may have knowingly or unknowingly committed a crime. I’m looking into it with as much discretion as possible.”
Nora winked at him. “I understand completely. And since you asked, I do remember one customer in particular that made me think twice—Edna Larkin.”
“Edna’s a regular at garage sales,” said Lyle.
“I didn’t mention her name because of what she bought. It’s because she kept asking about that Dale girl—the poor thing who ran off with my jewelry.” Nora held up her open palm fingers spread. “Edna came back five times today. Literally, five times. I counted on my fingers. She asked about Brittney Dale each time. I thought it strange.”
“I agree,” said Lyle.
“And then, of course, there were the knives.”
Lyle nearly choked on his tea. “Knives?”
“Knives,” Nora said. “Saws. Sharp-edged objects. Every single time she was here. And each time she wanted me to wrap them in old newspaper. Isn’t that odd? What would she need them for?”
“Gotta go, Chief.”
Lyle turned at the sound of Jen’s voice. Urgent. Demanding
“What is it?”
“Tell you in the car,” she said, holding up her phone. “I’ll drive.”
