The Body on the Roof

by Kevin Creager

  Plummer waved the police officers to the more comfortable seats at the table, but he continued to stand.

  “I have apprised the other members of the council as to what occurred last night. The events mean that, not only do we have a new crime to solve, but we are also down two police officers. You have our total support, but we do feel we have to address the loss of a police chief and the need for more manpower. You all know Mike, and he has had experience as police chief, but he believes, and we concur, that we need someone currently from the department and actively involved in the cases to be named at least interim chief at this time. We’re doing this as an emergency measure, but with the expectation that it may become permanent once we have the time to address it properly.

  “Bud, we’d like you to take the position at this time.”

  Addams started. “But, – but I’m the most junior member of the department. Surely George is better qualified.”

  Plummer looked at Peabody, but he strongly shook his head and said, “No way. No way at all. I’m way beyond any decision-making years.”

  “No offense, George, but that’s along the lines of what we figured. Marie is employed by the police department, but is not an officer. Steph is, well, she’s not here.”

  “Bud,” Skinner spoke up. “It’s not just that you’re our only choice. We do honestly believe that you will do a good job.”

  “Well, maybe an okay job.” Gladys Schumacher was known for her pessimism regarding change in any form. “I wanted to push Mike to come back or to get someone from Oldstown, but I was outvoted.”

  “Gladys.” Plummer cocked an eye at her.

  “Okay, okay. It was unanimous that we ask you.” She still didn’t sound like she was in agreement.

  “What do you say, Bud? We’ve got other things to talk about, too.” Stump gestured for Addams to respond.

  “Alright.” Addams spread his hands. “I’ll do it. For now. When we get through this immediate crisis, I think we need to revisit this decision.”

  “Oh, we will,” Schumacher agreed.

  Plummer nodded, that agenda item having been taken care of. “The second point is that of manpower. We can’t operate a police department, nonetheless an investigation of this magnitude, with a police chief, one officer, and a civilian office worker. Mike has agreed to temporarily help out in the office – taking phone calls, handling some paperwork, responding to any minor police needs outside the realm of this investigation, you know, such as a traffic issue or a juvenile complaint. I know Marie intends to go to the hospital following this meeting so Mike can be in charge of general office responsibilities when she is out.”

  Hazlett gave Wannamaker a thumbs-up sign. She had worked with him when he had been chief and trusted that he knew what he was doing.

  “However, there is still the question of fieldwork. I wish we had someone that is both experienced and familiar with the people in this town. Unfortunately, we don’t immediately have that option.

  “We do have two young officers who graduated from the academy six months ago and have been filling in for vacations and sick leaves for the department in Oldstown. We actually have been trying to find budget money to hire one of them to fill that empty desk in your office, but now there is a need for both.”

  He waved a hand in their direction, and the two men stood. Addams could not see any difference between them, both in khaki pants and black long-sleeved shirts. This was going to be interesting.

  “Sam and Seth Getty.” Plummer wanted to point to them in turn, but hesitated when he realized he didn’t know which was which. “They are from Plainfield, Ohio, so they grew up in a town similar in size to ours. As I said they have been working in Oldstown, and we have references indicating they have been providing satisfactory performances.”

  Both men turned to look at Plummer in response to the “satisfactory” comment, but he ignored them.

  “The town council has just approved their hiring. Normally, the police chief would have been involved in the process, but, until three minutes ago, we didn’t have one. As of now, they are on the clock, and ready to go.

  “We did request assistance from the Oldstown Police Department as this is, at the very least, an attempted homicide. They are able to free someone tomorrow morning, a Detective,” here he looked at a card in front of him, “Detective Joseph Krupke.”

  Plummer faced Addams. “Any questions?”

  Addams grimaced. There were quite a few questions actually, but none that the mayor or town council would be able to answer.

  “No, sir. Thank you for placing your trust in me. And for the added assistance. If you will excuse us, we do have a lot of work to do and the sooner we get to it, the better.” He stood up. Peabody and Hazlett joined him. “Mike, Officers...Getty, it’s time for us to adjourn back to our department.”

  He had just made his first decision as Acting Police Chief of Summerfield, but the others followed him as if he had been in charge for a while.

  CHAPTER 19

  Once back in the department, Addams pointed to the available desks.

  “Sam, you take that empty one. Seth, um, I guess you better take mine for right now, that one. We’ll figure it out better when we have more time. Marie, before you leave, could you and Mike work on the badges and weapons and whatever else is immediately needed?”

  Hazlett nodded then she and Wannamaker headed to the storage room and weapons lockers.

  “Now.” He looked at the two men. “How am I going to tell you apart? I don’t need any confusion here.”

  One of them held up his right arm. “I’m left-handed, so I wear my watch on my right wrist.”

  “And I’m right-handed, so my watch is on my left wrist.” The other one showed his left arm.

  “Okay, but which one are you?” Addams pointed to the left-handed one.

  “I’m Sam.”

  “Sam, left. Seth, right. Sam, left. Seth, right. This may take a while.”

  Peabody pulled open a couple of drawers in Hazlett’s desk until he found two visitor name tags.

  “Here, put your names on these and stick ‘em on your chests until Bud, I mean, Chief, here, gets your names down and we get you formal nameplates. Personally, I don’t think you look all that alike.”

  “George, you should head out to the Piersons’ to get that evidence.” Addams continued his directions. “Take Seth with you as he might as well get started, then go and get lists of possible witnesses from Hank Peters, Charlene Matthews, and Mel Johnson. Oh, and JJ. Maybe he saw somebody I didn’t. Sam, I want you to go out to the green as soon as we get you ready and see if you can find any trace of a weapon. George and I haven’t found one, but maybe you have sharper younger eyes in the bright daylight. Then you and Mike start looking through these papers Officer Reasoner brought back to the office with her. I don’t think there will be anything in them, but something prompted this attack. Until we rule it out, I think we’re going to start with the assumption that this has something to do with her investigation into the death of Grace Mathison.”

  Addams moved the pile of papers from Reasoner’s desk to the empty one assigned to Sam Getty. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but anything that strikes you as – untypical. Let’s go with that. I’m going back over to the Mathison house. Maybe Steph saw something there that the rest of us didn’t. And somehow let that slip in the wrong place. We’re just shuffling here right now, dancing one step at a time, but we start where we can.”

  Hazlett brought back a box and had the Gettys start signing cards for what equipment they were assigned. Wannamaker pulled up a chair next to Sam Getty’s desk and started sorting the papers. Peabody picked through the doughnuts, seemi
ngly looking for a crème-filled one now that he was paying attention. Addams looked at the door to the chief’s office for a moment, but turned and walked out the back to a squad car. It was time to stop sitting and start doing something. Anything.

  He drove slowly through the town. This morning it looked different to him. The sun was shining, dogs were barking somewhere, traffic was still moving. But he realized that the people on the sidewalk, instead of ignoring the squad car, were stopping and peering at it, trying to see who was driving. Who was left in the department to drive the car, who was still standing to do police business? Word may have traveled quickly, but details would have been sketchy. Now the word would pass that at least Bud Addams was still working.

  He pulled up in front of the Mathison house behind a battered blue pickup truck with the ramp down. As he got out of the car, he heard a lawnmower from the back yard and walked around the house to find an older man with a baseball cap, smoking a cigarette at the far end of the property while pushing an antique, or at least really dirty and battered mower. The man hadn’t noticed him yet, so Addams backed up to look at the roof and waited for the mower to finish circling the yard to reach him. He noticed that the ladder was gone.

  The mower neared and stopped, and Addams turned toward it. The man flicked ash from his cigarette behind a nearby bush and took a step towards Addams.

  “Ayep, what can I do for you?”

  Addams held out his hand.

  “I’m Officer Martin Addams, sir. You are?”

  “Emmett Doolittle.” He took off his work glove, and they shook hands. “I do, did the yard work for Mrs. Mathison. Probably not going to get paid for this now, but it needed to be done today.”

  “Did you put the ladder away?”

  Doolittle nodded, so slightly it was hard to tell, but he added, “Ayep. If left up, it’s likely to fall over at some point.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably okay by now. I could probably even be taking the police tape down. But I wanted one last look around.” He pointed at the bushes and flowerbed. “You take care of all of this?”

  “Ayep. Mrs. Mathison did some with the flowers out front, but she didn’t really care about the back. If she sat out, it was on the front porch. I think she thought it was too damn quiet back here.”

  “I can see that. Did you enjoy working for her?”

  Doolittle flicked another ash behind the same bush. “It was a job. It’s what I do. She paid me, and she left me alone, so, yeah, it was good. The only thing she was particular about back here was to not touch that tall bush at the corner.” He pointed to one that was about ten feet wide, very thick, and growing up past the roof.

  “At the corner?” To Addams’ eyes, it looked about a third of the way down the house.

  “Ayep, there’s a corner there. But the bush covers it so you can’t hardly tell. Looks like the outside wall is just flush the whole way. But it’s not.”

  Addams moved closer and leaned against the wall. The brick did come out several feet for the last part of the house, but he couldn’t tell until he was looking closely. The size of the bush, almost a tree, interfered with the perspective.

  “It’s about two feet farther out there. I don’t know why she wanted to hide it,” Doolittle said.

  Addams backed up into the yard so he could see the whole back of the house.

  “That’s the – the spare bedroom, isn’t it?”

  Doolittle shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been inside. Well, not past the kitchen. She sometimes gave me something cool to drink.”

  Addams considered the corner for a minute. “I do believe I may be leaving that police tape up for awhile. I just may need to do that.”

  He turned to Doolittle. “Thank you, Mr. Doolittle.”

  “Just call me Emmett.”

  “Emmett. I do appreciate your assistance. That corner is something I didn’t know.”

  Doolittle shrugged. “I don’t think she wanted anyone to know. But it’s been like that since I started working for her, since her husband died. That bush just kept getting bushier. Sort of stands out since I do trim back the rest, but she didn’t want it touched. Not at all.”

  “Emmett, you do a good job. I’ll make sure you get paid for mowing this time. But I can’t speak for from now on.”

  They shook hands again, Doolittle put his glove back on, took a last drag from the little that was left of his cigarette, stubbed it out in the palm of his glove, and chucked it behind the same bush. Apparently that bush had grown on ash. He walked slowly back to the mower and started it up.

  Addams took a last look at the corner, then took out a key as he moved to the back door, and opened it.

  He quickly moved through the kitchen and living room to the hall closet. He thought he remembered a small tool chest in the closet, found it and took it down. Opening it, he poked through it for a moment till he found a tape measure.

  He carried it to the first room on the left, the hobby room, found a clear path on the floor, and carefully measured the distance from the back wall to the front wall. Moving to the next room down, the spare bedroom, he repeated the process.

  A full foot shorter. He took it again right next to the bed. The same distance, a foot shorter than the other room. But apparently, two feet longer on the outside.

  There was an extra three feet somewhere.

  He set the tape on the bed and moved over to the bookcase. He gave it a push. It was solid. He gave it a pull. It wasn’t moving anywhere. He looked at the rest of the wall, but there wasn’t anything else to move.

  He sighed. He was going to have to move all the knickknacks off the shelves, but needed a place to put them.

  He pulled his radio off his belt. “Mike, this is Bud. Anybody there?” With a small department, official calls weren’t formal or often.

  It took a few seconds for Mike Wannamaker to come on at his end of the call. “Hey Chief, this is Mike. What can I do for you?”

  It took a second for the “Chief” to register. “Mike, I want you to send Sam out to the Mathison house. I could use a witness for something. Don’t know what it means yet.”

  “Yeah, I can get him there. Look, we may have found something in this paperwork regarding that house. May have nothing to do with Steph’s attack, but its information she had that we didn’t. Only she may not have known she had it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll send it with Sam. It may make more sense there anyway than my trying to tell you over the phone. Over and out.”

  “Um, Roger.” The line went dead.

  Addams was sure he recalled some empty boxes in the basement, and he went to find some. Returning with four medium-sized ones, he started filling them with the curios from the bookcase. The second shelf down he discovered a latch on the right side of the back wall. He flipped it, but still couldn’t move the case, so he kept emptying the shelves. About halfway through the rest of the unloading, the front doorbell rang.

  Opening the door, he found both Sam Getty and Emmett Doolittle on the front porch, with Doolittle glaring at Getty.

  Getty started. “Chief, this man confronted me in the front yard and said he was keeping an eye on the place.”

  “Ayep, I did. I knew who you were, Officer Addams, but I don’t know who he is. You got a regular police badge with your name, and I’ve seen you around town, but I ain’t seen him before. And he’s got one of them convention nametags, sort of fake, if you ask me.”

  “Emmett, he’s okay. This is Officer Getty. We just hired him this morning. Brand new. Sam, this is Emmett Doolittle. He does the yard work here. He and I had a little talk this morning. Emmett, thank you for
being cautious, but you can go back to work now. I got this.”

  Doolittle didn’t look like he was too sure, but he slowly moved off back to the mower sitting idle in the middle of the yard.

  “Come on in, Sam.”

  Getty followed him through to the back room. “Did you find anything on the green?” Addams asked over his shoulder.

  “No, I didn’t. Nothing that was immediately obvious anyway. No weapon.” He held out a manila envelope. “Chief Addams, former chief Wannamaker wanted me to give you this.”

  “I’ll look at it after we get this done.” Addams set the envelope on the bed. “We need to get all these things off the shelves. Here’s a box, just don’t break anything.”

  Within a few minutes, they were done. There was a second latch two shelves up from the bottom. Addams flipped that one then stood up.

  “Alright, Sam, we’re going to see if there’s anything behind this.”

  He grabbed the right side and was surprised to find out that now the whole bookcase moved easily, swinging open to the left. As the gap widened, a light came on behind it, apparently triggered automatically by the release of the door.

  The light showed a three-foot deep closet the length of the room. Like the rest of the house, it was filled with miscellaneous objects. But, unlike the rest of the house, these appeared to have some value. Television sets, stereo speakers, some artwork, a couple of blenders, maybe a microwave. Toward the far right and left there were shelves with some books and small boxes on them. Addams whistled. These all appeared to be the larger items that were missing from the garage and yard sales.

  “Sam, we may have solved ourselves another mystery.” He stepped out. “Don’t touch anything.”

  Addams keyed his radio again. “Mike, come in. This is Bud.”

  A few seconds later. “Yeah, Chief. Did you get those papers?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.” He picked them up from the bed. “We have discovered a hidden room at the Mathison house. And it is full of what looks like stolen goods. I’m going to send Sam back to get the lists of property stolen from homes holding garage and yard and tag sales within the last six months. They may be on the desk in the chief’s office. We were looking at them yesterday. You call Phil Culbertson from the county crime scene unit and have him meet Sam back here. Phil’s probably over on the green, but he can leave one of his associates to that part of the investigation. I want him to see what he can find here, and I want Sam to check this inventory with those lists.”