by T. J. Jones
"You're a big hit with the high school boys. Learn anything useful?" I asked Maggie.
"Just that Clara wasn't in school today, flu bug or something. How about you?"
"Quite a bit. Some of it was kind of odd." I watched Wally tapping away. Did he know where his Muse was, and would he eventually slip up and tell us? "I'll tell you about it on the way back to Jacksonville."
Jasmine pulled into town at six-thirty with Maggie's convertible. We left our stuff at the motel since we planned to be back the next night. It would be a short night's sleep because we hoped to be in Charleston by nine the next morning. Jasmine was wound up, happy to be included.
"What a shit hole." She commented as we drove out of town. "How did Camille ever manage to get out of this mess. Tommy said she was the class Valedictorian, but I'm guessing that was no big deal, considering."
"People are people Blue, don't be so judgmental." I groused from the back seat. "Good ones and bad ones everywhere."
She actually seemed to think about that. "Yeah, your right I guess." She finally admitted.
I leaned forward. "What? Did you just say that I might be right? Maggie, you're my witness, write this down or something."
Jasmine laughed. "Alright, don't get carried away. But look at my Mom. All the advantages in the world, and look what she's done with it. Pretty sure Maryanne paid her off because she's already gone again. So much for maternal instinct."
"On a positive note, you're stuck with us." I reminded her. "Just saying, I'm old and wise, you should listen to me. Everybody has stuff to deal with and they all deal with it differently. Sometimes there are reasons people do things that we don't understand. We can stew about it and hate them for it, or just learn from them and try and do it better." I was feeling pretty smug, almost forty and all.
Maggie spun around in her seat. I couldn't see her clearly in the dark car, but from the tone of her voice she was clearly angry. "Was that little lecture for my benefit Slater? Talk about being judgmental! Are you trying to say I shouldn't hate my father? Jesus!"
Talking always got me into trouble, even when I had the best intentions. "That's not what I meant, Maggie. I really was talking about Divine. She's not your Dad, and I didn't mean to compare the two. I understand why you'd hate Frank, because I hate him too. I guess I'm not that evolved, because I can't forget about what he did and I probably never will."
The anger in her voice turned to sadness. "I guess that makes us a good pair Slater, because I'll never forgive that lousy bastard either."
We drove through the night for several miles in dead silence until Jasmine spoke up. "Shit! I thought we were talking about me and my problems." It helped to laugh.
Chapter Eight
I hadn't been to Charleston in eight years. I'd been stationed there for eighteen months, and it was probably the best duty I had during my twenty years in the Navy. Most of the time I lived off ship in the barracks, worked short days while we waited for deployment, and drove home on the weekends.
While most of my single friends were out chasing the local girls, I was still stuck obsessing over Maggie's older sister, Angela. I kept telling myself I was working on getting over it, but that wasn't really true. By then she had married Charlie, a man forty years her senior that had leveraged a hedge fund into a considerable fortune rumored to be worth seventy-five million dollars when he sold his share. Tongues wagged, but looking back, I had never known Angela to be happier, and the reason never dawned on me. It had probably helped to stop her father's abuse.
At the time I held out hope for his early demise, leaving me to pick up the beautiful pieces. That was a selfish fantasy, but it kept me from dating seriously, always pining for the day Angela would be single again. Looking back, it seems nuts, and it probably was.
But had I not been obsessed with Angela, stayed in Charleston and joined my buddies pursuing the local girls, I just might have found one. Then what? Every little step we take, every tiny decision we make as we stumble through life, good or horribly bad, brings us to today. And when I looked over at the redhead driving us into the city, today was definitely where I wanted to be.
She glanced over at me and smiled. "Penny for your thoughts."
"I was thinking that it's not so bad turning forty, maybe I'm getting things figured out. Have you noticed a change? Do I seem especially wise to you lately?"
"I don't know if that was wisdom or bull-hockey you were throwing around last night, but I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"I would never tell you how to feel about your father."
"I say it doesn't matter, but of course it does. Someday you need to tell me everything. I know there's a lot I don't know, but at some point, your not telling me will start to feel like lying, and that's not okay. Being honest with each other, that has to come first."
"No argument there. But for now, let's work on making sure Wally didn't do something to his old flame."
Deflection, it works for some people.
"My ex made a couple of phone calls. I have the name of the detective we're supposed to talk to. He wasn't sure, but he thought the case went through their office."
Charleston is a beautiful city, a mix of the old and the new. Shimmering glass towers, scientifically engineered by men with complicated computer systems to weather the worst of hurricanes and global warming stand a hundred feet from stone and brick structures designed with common sense, sweat, and the misery of slave labor long before the Civil War. Both are beautiful and functional for the most part. The building that housed the "Team" that we needed to talk to was functional, and that was about all I could say for it.
Charleston's police force is compartmentalized and crimes such as murder, or any death considered suspicious, was handled by special investigators. They were housed in a two-story mundane looking building that was part of a city services complex that included a jail and fire department.
Detective David Harrison looked like the building; serviceable, mundane, and not likely to be moved easily. He was probably due for retirement soon, too heavy to walk a beat, and didn't seem interested in detective work or our problems.
"Really isn't right me even talking to you, and if not for the higher ups, I wouldn't be." He said after the introductions had been made. "We work with PI's some when we have to, but they're all local guys. With valid licenses. In this state." Having made his point, he leaned forward and punched away on his computer board with two pudgy fingers. "This is a new system, top of the line. I can't run it for shit yet, but I'm learning."
"Elaine Johnston, died about two months ago. The obit said the death was under investigation as suspicious, but there was no follow up." Maggie explained patiently.
"Kind of remember something about that. I was out there." He must have found what he was looking for, and sat reading for a moment. He finally looked up. "Knew I could find it. Seventy-two. Went down the stairs of her apartment the hard way. Died from head trauma before the ambulance arrived."
"It was just a fall, an accident?"
"Coming back to me now. Neighbor claimed there was an argument, and that she heard yelling. Someone found the old lady at the bottom of the steps a couple hours later, but it wasn't clear when she fell. It was late and most of the people in that building are elderly. The old gal that heard her, she said it wasn't the first time they'd made a raucous. The husband claimed he was in bed and asleep the whole time."
"No cameras? No security?" I asked.
"Not the Ritz Mr. Slater. Buildings in that area don't have security doors. Poor lighting and there was no railing on the steps. The building owner is ass deep in trouble, but without any evidence of foul play we couldn't bring charges. Those two fighting all the time, maybe the husband pushed her down the stairs, maybe she went out for a smoke after the fight and just fell. That age, people's balance isn't great."
"The neighbor, she was sure that Mrs. Johnston was fighting with her husband, not someone else?"
"She's eighty and doesn't hear great, but
that's what it sounded like." He wasn't totally useless as a detective, because he did ask the obvious question. "Something make you think there was someone else there? Who is it your representing?"
We could have claimed client privilege, but that would have been the end of his cooperation. He would have us out the door in half a minute. I explained as much as I dared. "The man we're representing, he knew Lainey a long, long time ago. He just wanted to be sure she died of natural causes, because the newspaper made it sound like it might have been something else."
"Old flame? How long ago did he know her?"
"Fifty years, give or take."
He whistled softly and showed some interest. "Long time to hold onto a crush, almost unnatural. You think that might have been him arguing with her that night instead of her husband?"
"No. Just covering the bases. He's four hundred miles from here, doesn't have a car, and I know for a fact he hasn't left his little town in years. War veteran, seventy-four, and he can barely walk."
Harrison leaned back in his chair. "Well there you have it, case closed far as I'm concerned. Your guy didn't do it, and I can't prove the husband did either. She took a tumble and it killed her."
"Yeah, that's probably all there is to it. Okay if we go chat with that old lady and the husband? It would help if you could give us the address, save us some time."
"Alright, just don't piss off the old fart any more than he is already. He's threatening to sue the city because the code violation wasn't caught in the last inspection. What's your email? I can send the whole file to you with two clicks, coolest thing you ever saw."
"Well, that wasn't what we wanted to hear." Maggie said as she put the car in gear.
"No, but it's still a stretch to think Wally would push her down the steps. According to this file, that was a Saturday night, and the funeral was on the following Tuesday. Camille picked him up from the shelter on Wednesday afternoon. That's five days, probably four nights. Where did he stay during that time?"
"You're presuming he was here on Saturday and that it was Wallace that she was arguing with. Maybe he found out she died somehow and got a ride up here with someone to go to the funeral." She said. "Maybe Lilly brought him."
"Lilly didn't have a car, or a driver's license according to the Sherriff." I reasoned.
"Well, who else would have brought him all the way up here? He didn't hitchhike."
"If someone brought him, how did he end up at the shelter?" All good questions we could ask Wally, but given the state of his memory he was an unreliable witness to the crime even if he was the perpetrator. "Do you think Wally's memory is as bad as it seems? I get the impression sometimes that he remembers things but just doesn't want to tell us."
"I would bet anything that he knows where Lilly is." Maggie agreed. "But I think the times when he seems to confuse the two of them, I think that's real. I'd say he definitely has a degree of dementia and he shouldn't be living alone."
"He's not going to thank us for telling Camille that, but I'd say you're right."
The apartment building was a rundown fourplex, two apartments up, two down. We knocked on both of the lower doors and got no answer, then went up the stairs. There was a railing now, but it wasn't even close to code height. I'd spent a few sleepless nights studying for my Contractor's License and I had managed to retain that much. The steps weren't code either, too narrow and steep, undoubtedly built before Charleston had building codes. There was one dim light bulb, and tumbling down the steps looked more likely than not. We knocked on the door of Mr. Alfred Johnston.
After a moment he came to the door, older than Wallace by at least five years, but with clear eyes and a strong voice. He opened the door a crack, but left the two security chains in place. He wasn't happy to see us at first.
"What'd you want? You from the insurance company?"
Maggie gave him a big smile. "No, but we heard about your trouble. We're representing a law firm from Jacksonville, and we'd like to talk to you." Okay, we were working for Tommy Ackerman and his wife, so what she said was true, technically. It's a known fact that doors tend to open more easily for attractive people, and Maggie Jeffries fits that description. I'm pretty sure he would have told me to go to hell, but he swung the door open for her as fast as he could unlatch the chains.
"I don't like ambulance chasers." He said as he waved us in. "But the attorney I've got talks like I should settle for next to nothing, and that ain't right. How the hell did you hear about this all the way down in Jacksonville?"
"We had to come to town on another matter, and we read about your wife's death. Looking at those steps, I would think you have a case." She was on a roll, that was mostly true, technically. "I am so sorry for your loss. Can you tell us what happened?"
"Like you said, damn steps are too steep and there was no railing. I gave her hell if she smoked in the apartment, so I guess she snuck out for a cig after I went to bed. I told her smoking would kill her, just turned out to be quicker than I thought." I could see he thought that was funny, but when we didn't laugh, he didn't either.
"The police report intimated that you two might have been fighting."
"Yeah? Fifty-two years of marriage, who doesn't fight? They saying I shoved her down the stairs? I went to bed at ten, and the neighbor downstairs came home at two because he works in a bar, and he found her in a pile down there. I got sleep apnea, and that damn machine is so noisy they could drop an A-bomb and I wouldn't know it. My poor Elaine could've been down there screaming for help and I'd never have known it." He drew a breath, seemingly overcome by emotion. "Thinking about it about breaks my heart. Isn't that emotional distress? I deserve compensation for that, don't I?"
"So, back to the facts. You were in bed by ten, never heard a thing after that?"
"Damn apnea, just like I said."
Maggie stood and I followed her lead. She extended a hand which he grabbed and held on to. "We have your contact information Mr. Johnston, I'll talk to our team about the possibility of representing you." Not one thing was true in that statement.
"Thank you. You be sure they send you back, I don't want to talk to nobody else!"
"You'll be hearing from us very soon."
The door closed and we heard the chain locks and deadbolt falling into place. The door across the hall creaked open slowly and a tiny, wrinkled face looked up at me. She narrowed her eyes and studied me, then spoke. "You the cops?"
"No. We're friends of an old friend of Elaine's, from years ago."
She closed the door quietly, unchained it, and pulled it open another six inches. She was tiny, four feet seven or eight inches tall, with very dark skin and very white hair. She eyed us both again without saying a word, then seemed to make up her mind and pulled the door open all the way. She put a finger to her lips to silence us then motioned for us to follow her. We walked down a short hallway into the main room of the apartment: living, dining, and kitchen all in one room. There was a bathroom where I could see a rusty tub and one other door I presumed led into the bedroom. It was tidy, but smelled a little funky if I'm being honest. There was a monstrous old couch and she told us to sit down.
"I don't want that old prick next door overhearing what I got to say. Would you like some coffee?"
"We're fine, right Slater?" I nodded and Maggie started asking questions. "You knew Elaine well, Mrs. Lewis?"
"How'd you know my last name?" She asked shrewdly.
"It's on your mailbox downstairs." And in the police report, I thought to myself. As usual, Maggie's instincts were spot on. The old lady was no fan of the police.
"I liked Elaine, when I could get her away from Al. He ran her ragged and barely let her out of his sight, always chewing on her for something. I still say he shoved her down those steps."
"We've been told those two fought a lot."
"I'll say they did, yelling all the time. I told that idiot Detective from the police about it but he didn't pay no mind. Said there weren't any laws against fightin
g with your wife. Damn fool just wanted to go on his way and track down another donut by the looks of him."
Maggie smiled at that. "Our friend, did Elaine ever mention Wallace Weston to you?"
"Sure. I thought more than once over the years living across from them, Elaine was going to leave Alfred and run off to find Wally. She always said she was a damn fool for marrying the man she did, and I always agreed with her. Wally would have to have been pretty God awful to be worse than that asshole she was married to. I seen him that night, that Wally, talking with her out in the hall, and he didn't seem so awful. Handsome too. If she had a brain in her head she would have just walked off and got in the car with him, left that prick Al in the rearview mirror. Scared to leave him I guess after fifty-some years, and too proud to admit she'd made a mistake."
"So, that night, you're sure it was Wallace Weston, and he was here talking to her? Were they fighting?"
"It got a little loud, him begging her to go with him and her telling him to just go away, that it was too late." She shrugged and smiled timidly. "I may have been listening by the door. I stuck my head out once and she about bit it off, so I didn't stick my nose in any further. Makes me wish I had now. I could have pushed the both of them down those stairs."
"What?" I asked without thinking.
She laughed at my expression. "Not down the stairs in a pile, down the stairs and away from Al. All she had to do was screw up her courage a little and climb in that car. Her life would've been different." She snorted. "Least she'd have one!"
"You said there was a car, and you saw Wally get in it?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah, window in my bedroom, I can see the street. After she sent him away, he climbed in that car and went away."
"Could you see who was driving or what kind of car it was?"
