Baby, It's Dead Outside

by E M Kaplan

  “You go ahead,” she told him, waving him off. “I’ll text you later.”

  He nodded, but then added, “I don’t know if it helps, but Marcy grew up in the foster system. She was adopted just before she aged out though, so Bates is her adoptive family’s surname. I don’t think she knows much about her biological parents.”

  Son of a…I feel like I’m back where I started. In the dark.

  Chapter 43

  Jablonski was back on the scene, as were two other on-shift officers she hadn’t met before. “I’m actually off-duty right now,” he told her, waving them away so they could continue to assist in processing the new crime scene—a.k.a. her house. “But I had to come back and see what kind of trouble was brewing now. This is insane. Nothing like this has ever happened in Lake Park Villa before.”

  Josie had to stop herself from reacting, but several inappropriate and snarky responses lingered on the tip of her tongue.

  You like dead bodies? Stick with me, man.

  Every time it rains, it rains bodies from heaven.

  Everything’s coming up…corpses.

  Baby, it’s dead outside…

  He seemed like the type who could have taken her black sense of humor all right, but she wasn’t comfortable with this part of herself showing its ugly face at the moment. Too many people had died this week. She was getting slap-happy with morbid thoughts and exhaustion, but she was coming to recognize it as her standard MO for a situation like this. After all, it wasn’t her first time around the dead body block…not her first murder rodeo.

  Yeah, definitely need to get out of here and clear my head.

  Josie went back upstairs to get her suitcase together and, truth be told, hug Bert for a second or two until she felt better.

  “Are you doing okay?” Jablonski asked, trailing after her.

  The police were going to board up the front window of Sandra’s house. The plywood would block out the majority of the wind, but the chill had already taken the ambient temperature of the front room down about forty degrees. No one was staying in the house after this, but the police were more interested in stopping thieves and gawkers and preserving the crime scene rather than making the place livable.

  He offered to look at getting her a room at the famous local bed and breakfast where the old noir movie Isolation had been filmed—another moody William Falls Wells noir thriller—but Josie declined. She planned to check into a room at a big chain place that allowed dogs and maybe some room service so she could get off her ankle…which weirdly didn’t hurt much at the moment, maybe because of adrenaline.

  No offense, she wanted to tell him, but I’ve had enough of creaky old Victorian houses for a while.

  He didn’t seem the type to spook easily, so she’d kept it to herself. All the same, when he asked her if she was okay, she wasn’t quick to say yes. Not that she was the type to fall apart easily, but one shock after another was kind of wearing on her, so when he offered to drive behind her and Bert over to her hotel, she accepted.

  The sky was lightening as he helped her haul her suitcase to her car. Her breath came out in puffs of steam in the cold dawn air. Old Man Winter mocking each of her words after she said them. Blah, blah, blah.

  “How are you even awake right now?” she asked Jablonski after she thanked him.

  Bert was taking one last trot around the yard.

  “I’m ninety-eight percent caffeine. I don’t need sleep.” He smiled and his eyes were so blue they made the early morning sky look pale and washed out.

  She took note of his friendly manner in a detached way. She realized she probably appeared like she was in shock from the night’s events. Actually, her mind was churning, overloaded with images and details, trying to make all the jumbled puzzle pieces fit together.

  As she’d watched Bert trot around the yard, her gaze had caught on Aloysius’s house where his car sat in the driveway just opposite hers. The sight of his home so close to this one made her mind go down a mini rabbit hole—more like a shallow divot, a mental gopher hole in which a person could sprain her brain.

  Why had he used Sandra’s basement apartment as his grow space when he knew it would be renovated and eventually rented out—and soon, from what Sandra had said earlier? Then again, Harris had been the one in charge of the construction. Had he and Aloysius made an arrangement? If people like Harris’s wife needed medicinal marijuana to manage pain, Aloysius could have been their hookup. Harris knew Marcy Bates at the nursing home. Maybe there were more cannabis customers there. Some of Lynetta’s friends had been talking about the Woodstock music festival that first day Josie had met them. Baby Boomers were getting older and residing in assisted living facilities, and Boomers historically liked their herbs.

  But Harris is dead. There’s no one left to confirm or deny Aloysius’s side of the story, whatever that may be. Not even Sandra was alive to defend herself against accusations…

  Aloysius accidentally killing Sandra seemed unlikely to Josie. Yes, he was a jumpy, screaming-his-head-off kind of guy. Yes, he’d held a gun in his hand when she’d last seen him. Yes, he probably had shot out her front window accidentally. But could he have murdered Sandra?

  I don’t think he did it. And not just because he calls me “Precious.”

  “Speaking of which, you want to go grab a cup of coffee with me?” Jablonski asked, his words barely registering in Josie’s consciousness. His voice had faded from her awareness and didn’t seem its normal blaring level, but maybe that’s because Josie was staring off at Aloysius’s house now, trying to grasp at the elusive train of thought that was just out of her mind’s reach.

  The sequence of events and violent deaths didn’t make sense to her. From Lynetta to Harris to Sandra.

  “Oh my God,” Josie said, grabbing Jablonski’s forearm in its polyester police jacket sleeve as realization hit her.

  

  “I know, I know I was totally out of line,” Jablonski barked, holding his hands up in defeat. “I saw you’re wearing a ring, but I mean, I am, too. I’m separated. No offense intended. Just thought a cup of coffee might be nice.”

  “What?” Josie frowned and tried to scroll back her mental recording of what he’d just said. She wished her brain was like a computer—but not like her old laptop, always crashing and full of files she couldn’t find… He’d said something about coffee? Had he just asked her out on a date? She shook her head. “Never mind that right now. We need to find Aloysius.”

  “Nowak and Wicker are already on that,” he said at a volume that the entire neighborhood could hear, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at Aloysius’s house. “They’re interviewing the boyfriend right now for leads on where to find him. Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

  She scrunched her nose at him recalling he’d just said the same thing about Sandra not coming back to the scene of her crime. Yet the whole time, she’d been right across the street from Harris after he’d been gunned down.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the back seat of Aloysius’s car. She wanted to roll her eyes or slap her forehead when Aloysius’s dark head popped up briefly in the rear window. He glanced around furtively, and she made eye contact with him. He shook his head vigorously, pantomiming, Don’t give me up. Don’t turn me in.

  Are you freaking kidding me, Aloysius? You couldn’t have found a better hiding place than your car while the place is swarming with cops? You had a fifteen minute head start on them. You could have been in Iowa by now.

  She knew the right thing to do would have been to direct Jablonski’s attention to Aloysius’s sparkling clean Lexus parked just a few feet away. A responsible citizen would have let him be taken in for questioning. He was a suspect in a murder. He’d fled the scene of a crime. Never mind the growing and distribution of a controlled substance—although Josie had no idea what the pot laws were in Illinois. She suspected his homegrown stuff was totally illegal. Why else would he hide it and defend it with a gun?

  But
when had she ever obeyed the letter of the law to its strictest construction?

  Short answer…never.

  The thing was…she didn’t think he had much, if anything at all, to do with it. Admittedly, she was a gut instinct kind of person and her gut had often led her down the wrong path—both in solving mysteries and in turning cranky with her food choices—but she was willing to take the risk this time, and not just because he’d given her food.

  She wanted to ask him some questions—actually, one question in particular—to confirm her theory, and to do so, she needed to get him alone without him attracting police attention and getting himself arrested. The trick was he was dark-skinned, involved in drugs, armed, suspected of murder, and on the run from police, and Jablonski was…well, an unknown quantity. Never mind the other law enforcement officers on the scene. She didn’t want to judge any of them by their skin color, but she wasn’t willing to take the risk either.

  If anything happened to Aloysius before his proverbial day in court, she’d never forgive herself—which was saying a lot after all the other questionable decisions she’d made in her life.

  Which was why she was about to lie to a cop.

  Okay, maybe not lie-lie but lie-fib…

  Chapter 44

  “Have you seen my phone?” she asked Jablonski, interrupting his loud and somewhat halting stream of chatter. It was then she realized he was still trying to backpedal out of his inviting her to coffee. She’d been so busy scheming how to get him away from Aloysius’s car that she’d neglected to let him off the hook.

  She began patting her pockets, feeling the outline of her phone clearly in the one at the seat of her pants—and skipping over it. She let her eyes go wide and did a noticeable wobble on her injured ankle. He let her brace herself on his arm…which was totally manipulative and sleazy of her, and she was probably going to pay for it later, karma-wise.

  “Where’d you last use it?” he asked, jumping on her fake crisis, clearly relieved to drop the topic of coffee.

  “Oh no,” she said hoping she didn’t sound like too much of a phony. “I think I dropped it in the basement when I helped Betty get off the floor.”

  They both glanced at the doorway of the basement apartment—him with what seemed like interest, her with definite dread. The coroner’s team was still down in it processing this new scene. The door had been propped open despite the cold air. Voices, both live and over radio waves, echoed down the hall and out the door.

  She was hoping Jablonski would offer to look for it so she could hobble over to Aloysius’s car and ask him what the ever-loving heck he thought he was doing. Instead, Jablonski gestured ahead of him.

  “I’ll take you inside. Don’t worry. We’ll find it.” He was an officer on a mission, and she was obviously going to have to go with him.

  She did not want to go back in that apartment. In fact, she’d be happy if she never had to go back into that creepy Death House of Weed and Cookies for the rest of her stay in this state. Served her right for trying to play the helpless gimpy person card.

  She squared her shoulders and resisted the urge to shoot Aloysius a glare and a stay put finger behind the officer’s back. She didn’t want to drop any other hints that he was hiding in his car, so she sent up a silent plea to the Powers That Be to encourage the numbskull stay where he was.

  In the meantime, Jablonski had gathered up the end of Bert’s leash, stomped ahead, and was holding the door to the basement apartment open for her.

  She sighed and hobbled after him.

  

  “Stay here a sec. Let me make sure we’re allowed to go back in,” he told her once they got inside the door, and for a second Josie wasn’t sure if he meant her or Bert. However, they both obeyed, Bert sitting on her foot as if to pin her in place. He gave her a doleful look. She glanced backward, half expecting to see Aloysius’s face peeking in the door behind them, but luckily, did not.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she told Bert. “Making any movement leads to putting myself in bad situations where bodies appear. I know this now and I’ve had enough of it. In fact, we’re going to go to a hotel right after this and watch TV and eat snacks until the drool runs out the sides of our mouths.”

  “Okay,” Jablonski called out to her. “You can come here. Just keep along the wall and don’t let go of your dog.” He met them halfway there and took Bert’s leash from her. “Where were you standing when you lost your phone?”

  Okay, time to fake it.

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have lost it,” she said with a rueful smile.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head at her teasing.

  “Right about there.” She pointed roughly to where she’d been standing when she’d found Betty.

  Staring at the brick foundation, Josie was struck all over again by how little space the old woman had taken up. With her back against the wall, she probably reached only six or seven bricks high…so fragile and vulnerable.

  Josie squatted down and pretended to search for her phone, balancing herself on her good ankle and keeping the other one extended so she wouldn’t have to bend the joint, which was still wrapped up and too stiff to flex. Somehow, she was going to have to maneuver her phone out of her pocket and pretend she’d found it here…and that it had escaped the notice of the investigators from the coroner’s office.

  Right. As if that’s going to happen…how do I get myself into these dumb situations?

  She glanced up at the bullet hole that Aloysius had made when he’d been shooting at Sandra, and then over at the opposite wall where several people from the coroner’s office were working where Sandra’s body lay. Josie quickly averted her eyes. She didn’t need any more nightmare fodder. She had plenty for at least the next twenty years.

  All the same…

  “Was she shot?” Josie asked them.

  One of the examiners that she recognized from when they’d been in Harris’s house just a few hours earlier answered her. “Yep. No idea about the caliber. Not going to speculate either.”

  Josie frowned again at the ceiling. She’d only heard one gunshot from upstairs. One bullet and one blood-curdling scream from Aloysius. If she tracked backward from the front window to where the hole in the basement ceiling was, he would have been standing about where she was now when he’d fired his gun. However, Sandra was way along the opposite wall and nowhere near in range of Aloysius’s bullet.

  If Sandra had been shot by the same bullet that took out the front window upstairs, she could have been dragged to the other side of the room, but there were no drag marks across the floor.

  “Could she have been shot over here and then walked or fallen over to that side of the room?” Josie asked them, still not able to make herself look in that direction.

  “Not likely,” the investigator said. “Do you want to see for yourself?”

  “Uh. No. No thank you,” Josie said quickly, clearing her throat.

  “What are you thinking?” Jablonski asked from where he was standing with Bert, who had lain down next to his feet. She could swear her dog was half-area-rug.

  “Two bullets,” she said, “and one of them happened earlier than the other since I only heard one.”

  Another realization hit, and at that moment, Josie wobbled and fell over on her backside. She was so stunned by her thought, she didn’t even try to get up.

  Because…the question was, if there were two shots, were there two guns?

  “I know you’re going to think I’m ridiculous, but I don’t think Aloysius shot Sandra,” Josie told Jablonski from where she sat on the floor. “No, I’m fine. I don’t need help.” She waved him off. He’d already taken a couple of steps to come help her up, but she wasn’t ready to get up yet. Not while she was having a brain flash.

  “Oh my God,” she said again.

  “Did you find the phone?” Jablonski asked.

  Now she stood up gingerly, holding onto the wall and looked around. If she was dead-
set on defending Aloysius, she was going to have to find the real killer. The only other person left who could have shot Sandra was Betty.

  Little old cartoon granny and murderer Betty Edwards.

  “Ugh. I can’t believe I was taken in by that act!” Josie exclaimed, and this time she did smack herself on the forehead.

  “What are you talking about?” Jablonski wanted to know.

  She spun on the heel of her good foot and nearly went down again in her excitement. The gun had to be in this apartment somewhere, but she wasn’t mobile enough to search for it herself.

  “Check the kitchen. Check under the tables—and maybe the plants, in their pots,” she said. “Oh, and make sure Betty Edward’s hands are swabbed for gunshot residue. I think she’s the killer.”

  Chapter 45

  To his credit, Jablonski barely stopped to question her before he pressed the button on his radio and put in the request for Betty’s hands to be swabbed. He was all business, calm and collected, as he gave details and said he had a lead on a possible second weapon. Josie hobbled back toward him and took Bert’s leash back so Jablonski could pull on some gloves and help search the room for another gun.

  Please be right. Right now would be a really bad time to be way off base.

  She held her breath waiting to see if her theory would pan out—it had sounded like the only possible answer in her mind, but finding irrefutable proof was another matter.

  Jablonski swept his gloved hand through the soil of the plant closest to her but found nothing. He brushed off the clumps of dirt and moved to the next container while the other investigators started on the second row working their way closer toward her. Her stomach tightened with each plant they searched and came up empty-handed, one plant after the next.

  Until the second from the last planter.

  “Got it!” Jablonski shouted. This time she truly appreciated his booming voice from where she stood across the room.

  “Yesss!” she said under her breath, with a small fist pump that later she would absolutely deny she’d done. No matter how relieved and glad she was that her theory was right, someone had died.