Granny Gets Fancy

by Harper Lin

  “Aaaagh!” he shouted, leaping back at the sight of a little grandmother pointing a gun at him.

  He stood there for a second, too stunned to speak. One of his feathers floated to the floor.

  I didn’t say anything at first either. What did one say in a situation like this?

  While I had seen Chief Running Horse on lots of local commercials—his were even cheesier than Peter and Penny Price’s—I had never met him. He had a broad face, skin that had seen more than one session in a tanning bed, straight black hair, and very pretty blue eyes. He was most definitely not Native American. Part Mexican or Italian, perhaps. I had seen Indians in old B Westerns who looked more convincing than him.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded at last. His hands were in the air. At least he didn’t put one palm forward and say, “How?” I might have had to shoot him if he had done that.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m selling this house. I’m a real estate agent. Haven’t you seen me on TV?”

  No one who was legitimately in a house and discovered an intruder felt the need to justify his presence.

  “You already sold this house to James Garfield, who is now dead. You don’t have any right to be here.”

  He paused for a second, fear in those bright-blue, very non-Indian eyes. “Did you kill him?” he asked.

  “No, I’m investigating his murder.”

  “The police have already been here.”

  “The police are idiots.”

  Chief Running Horse nodded. As a professional con man, which was what anyone using a stolen identity to get ahead in their career certainly was, he would have already made quite an accurate assessment of the abilities of the local police.

  “So what are you really doing here?” I asked, moving my pistol slightly forward to emphasize the fact that I wanted an honest answer.

  “I was curious,” he said. “No one knew James Garfield here, and then someone killed him. Plus, someone has been watching this house.”

  “Really? Who?”

  He shook his head. His headdress looked quite impressive when he did that, but I was sure he already knew that.

  “I don’t know. The day after he moved in, I stopped by for a courtesy visit, and I noticed a black Mercedes parked across the street. I didn’t think much of it. Then I drove by a couple of days later to check out another house in this neighborhood that might be going up for sale and saw the Mercedes again. Nobody parks on the street here. Visitors all park in the driveways, and there are no shops to go to.”

  I considered this.

  “So you saw a suspicious car, and that was enough for you to break into the house of a murdered man and rummage through his things? I don’t buy it.”

  “I saw the person watching this house another time after that.”

  “When?”

  “I was having a drink at the Candlelit Lounge late on the night of the murder. A couple of guys came in from the charity dinner, all shaken up and talking about how Garfield got killed. That’s when I really got suspicious of the black Mercedes. I had noticed it before but didn’t really think anything about it. Now I put two and two together. I figured that whoever owned that car might have bumped him off and might have wanted to get inside his house for some reason. So I drove over here. It was late, maybe eleven, and as I passed by, I saw a dark figure on the porch. Whoever it was spotted me and rushed around back. I was too scared to follow and drove away.”

  “What did this figure look like?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark, and I only saw him for a moment.”

  “Him?”

  Chief Running Horse cocked his head and studied me. “I guess it could have been a woman. Can I put my hands down now?”

  “No. Did you see the black Mercedes?”

  “I didn’t. The streets here wind all over the place. The driver could have parked on another street and cut across the yards. You don’t want to park right outside a house you plan on breaking into.”

  Spoken like a career criminal.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was scared.”

  “Scared people call the police, especially after they’ve driven safely away. Here’s what I think. I think you figured whoever killed James Garfield wanted to break into this house to steal something valuable. You came here with a spare key you shouldn’t have in order to look for it.”

  “No, not at all!”

  “Shut up. You’re a fraud and most likely a criminal wherever it is you come from.”

  He put on a self-righteous look. “How dare you criticize my heritage!”

  “Can it. You’re not Native American.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You know what I think? I think you’re not supposed to be here either. If you’re on official police business, why did you hide in the closet? And where’s your badge?”

  I glared at him. He glared back at me, a far more impressive glare, considering he was the one with a gun trained on him.

  I gestured with my gun toward the photo on the bedside table. “You know who that is?”

  He turned and looked at it. From his expression, I could tell this was the first he’d noticed it.

  “That’s … creepy.”

  “Yes, it is. Recognize her?”

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  “Tell me about James Garfield.”

  “The president? A terrible man. He broke many promises to my people.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you. Tell me about James Garfield your client.”

  The fact that Chief Running Horse would mess with me when I had a gun on him told me a lot about him, none of it good.

  “He contacted me a couple of months ago. He was in town for a visit, he said, staying at a B and B. He wanted to buy a house. First, he went to another real estate agent, Frederick Gold. But I stole Garfield right out from under that paleface’s nose.” He chuckled. “I showed him around various properties, and he picked this one. He liked it because it was old. A big history buff, that guy.”

  “Did he say why he wanted to move here?”

  “He said he had relatives in town.”

  That was interesting. Grimal had said Garfield had no family here.

  “What relatives?”

  “He didn’t say anything else about that. Garfield seemed like a pretty private person. You get a feel for people in my business. Some want to tell you their whole life story. Buying a house is a big step, and they see you as a new friend in a new phase of their life. Others just want a house and see you as just another salesman. He was more like that.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?” I wanted to wrap this up. I still had my gun leveled on him, and my arms were getting tired. His arms must have been getting tired too. They were still above his head.

  “Not much. He bought the house right off. No mortgage. Said he had sold a lot of assets back in Cincinnati. Oh, he was in the business, too, but on the building side of it. Had a few contractors come through to check the place over and make sure it was a good investment.”

  “When’s the last you saw him?”

  “The night he moved in. I invited him to dinner at the Candlelit Lounge. It’s my favorite place to eat, and I always take my clients there. They have good bison steaks. Bison is the meat of my people. Much leaner and richer in protein than the white man’s industrial farm beef.”

  “Whatever. What did you talk about?”

  “He had a lot of questions about Cheerville and high society here. I told him what I could, but I’ve always been given the cold shoulder by the rich in town. Bunch of racists.”

  “They may very well be,” I said, remembering a collection of lawn jockeys I saw once at the Cheerville Seniors Center, “but I don’t think they’re judging you on your race.”

  He took on a sanctimonious look. “My people have always faced oppression.”

  “You mean criminals have a
lways been put in jail for breaking the law. I suppose you’re right. Can you remember anything unusual about the conversation? Did he ask any strange questions? Ask about anyone in particular? Did he seem nervous?”

  “I could tell he was a recovering alcoholic.”

  “How so?”

  “He had a drinker’s face. The white man’s firewater had its grips on him. He didn’t drink during dinner, but when I ordered a glass of wine, he stared at it. And stared and stared.”

  I gestured at the corner. “All right. You sit on the floor over there, and I’m going to search this room. Then we’ll move to the next room.”

  “I’ll help you. We’ll get this done faster if we split up.”

  “So that you can steal anything valuable? Not a chance. Sit.”

  He retrieved the feather that had dropped out of his headdress and sat. Meticulous fellow. Didn’t want to leave any evidence of his being here. I rummaged through the boxes, keeping my gun within easy reach. He didn’t try anything.

  And I didn’t find anything. Upstairs and downstairs, the boxes were filled with everyday household items and clothing. Nothing remarkable for a man of Garfield’s age and wealth. The only unusual item was his book collection. I never realized there had been so many volumes written about a president who got assassinated less than seven months into his presidency. Besides the books, there were several volumes of clippings of old newspapers reporting the crime and the trial and execution of the assassin, Charles J. Guiteau.

  After snooping through the final room, I turned to Chief Running Horse, who had obediently followed me around the house, sitting in a corner like a punished schoolchild.

  “I don’t understand this,” I admitted.

  “He’s hiding something, and whatever it is won’t be found in the stuff he brought from Ohio. Find out who that woman is in the photo, and you’ll find out why he was murdered.”

  I nodded. “I think you’re right. But I have another tough question—what am I going to do with you?”

  Six

  He stood and gave me a smug smile. “You’re going to let me go.”

  “You seem awfully confident,” I said, pointing my gun at him.

  He didn’t bother putting up his hands. “You’re breaking and entering just as much as I am. You can’t call the cops, and you aren’t going to shoot me. So it looks like you have no choice.”

  This man had the irritating habit of being right about too many things. I held out my hand. “Give me your key.”

  Without any hesitation, he reached into his fringed buckskin pants and pulled out the house key. I could tell he had expected me to ask him for it. After setting it on a box, he stepped away. “One thing I don’t understand.”

  “Only one thing?” I replied. “You’re better off than me.”

  “Why are you doing this? What’s your angle?”

  “My ‘angle’? My angle is that I don’t like seeing people get killed and murderers go free.”

  “Whatever. What are you getting out of it?”

  This man just didn’t understand. “A sense of justice. Some people actually want to improve the world.”

  He laughed as if I had said the stupidest thing he had ever heard. He obviously thought it was an excuse, that I was hiding something. Chief Running Horse or John Smith or whatever his real name was couldn’t comprehend the idea that some people weren’t one hundred percent selfish.

  He held up his hand. “May the Great Spirit guide your path.”

  “Get out of here before I shoot you.”

  He chuckled and walked out the door.

  I peeked outside from behind a curtain. Chief Running Horse strolled down the street and did not look back. Once he was gone, I checked that the coast was clear and got out of there.

  An hour later, I was sitting in front of my computer with Dandelion curled up asleep in my lap and a cup of chamomile tea in my hand, searching the internet. Many people my age were helpless with computers, but I’d always kept up with any technology that might prove useful to my work, and the internet was so very useful.

  At least when you weren’t getting distracted by staring at cute kittens like the Cheerville chief of police was.

  The first thing I looked up was Doxazosin. It turned out to be a medicine for managing enlarged prostate. Like the blood pressure medication, it was a common enough thing for a sixty-five-year-old man to take, and it gave me another insight into his murder.

  Whoever killed him knew of his condition. An enlarged prostate put pressure on the bladder, forcing the patient to go to the bathroom more often. Some of my older male friends would run off two or three times during the course of a lunch. All the murderer had to do was wait in a stall, peeking out to check on each man who came in. Sooner or later, James Garfield would show up.

  And Chief Running Horse had clued me in on another aspect of both James Garfield’s character and perhaps his murder. Garfield was obviously a heavy drinker but was off the sauce. He was struggling, though, as was evidenced by his staring at the real estate agent’s glass of wine.

  I hadn’t found any AA tokens or Twelve Step manuals in the house, and Grimal hadn’t mentioned anything like that being found in his car or on his person. Garfield was going it alone. Sadly, I’d known a few drunks in my lifetime, and one coping mechanism they used was to have a lot of sweet drinks. This took care of the physical compulsion to always have a drink in hand, and the sugar from the drink gave a bit of a high similar to that from the sugar content in alcoholic drinks. I remembered finding a lot of fruit juice and soda in Garfield’s refrigerator.

  Of course, drinking a lot of anything would have made his trips to the bathroom even more frequent. Had the murderer known this about him too? That would have shortened the murderer’s waiting time.

  Next I uploaded the photo of that young woman to TinEye. This was a reverse image search engine that used image recognition software to find online matches. I was interested to see if he had gotten this image off the internet instead of taking it himself.

  No luck. The search couldn’t find anything even close. James Garfield was obviously taking pictures of this woman himself.

  Obsession? Stalkers often raised their victims to an almost cult-like status. It would not be unusual for a stalker to frame a photo and put it by his bed.

  I called Grimal. “Find the killer yet?” I asked.

  “We will.”

  “Emphasis on the ‘we.’ A couple of questions. First, did you find anything to indicate that James Garfield was in a program for recovering alcoholics?”

  “No. Judging from his face, he was a heavy drinker. Autopsy hasn’t been done yet, though.”

  “Did you find his phone?”

  “No. That’s a bit odd, actually. It wasn’t on his person or in his car, and no one turned in a lost phone at the country club.”

  That was too bad. It might have had more photos on it that could have given me a lead. Perhaps the killer took it. Did our knife-wielding, cocaine-sniffing bathroom loiterer know Garfield had been taking pictures of that woman?

  “Do you have any women complaining about stalkers in town?”

  “No. We had a case last year, and the judge gave the guy a restraining order. An ex-husband who couldn’t deal with the woman getting a new love and moving on with her life. I had to arrest him for breaking it. He wasn’t violent or anything, but he still got a big fine.”

  “It wasn’t James Garfield?”

  “No,” Grimal said, sounding confused.

  “What did the woman look like, the one who took out a restraining order?”

  “Forties. Heavyset. Short brown hair. Why?”

  “Never mind.” I hung up.

  I petted Dandelion and considered all this. It looked like I was at a bit of a dead end. Whenever that happened in a case, I realized that I needed to take it from a different angle. Garfield’s possessions and physical state had given me all the clues they were going to, and now I needed to go down a different path if
I wanted to learn more.

  But what path? I didn’t know, so I did what everyone did to waste time these days—I browsed the internet.

  James Garfield had a pretty big online footprint. As Grimal had said, he had been a major player in Ohio’s real estate development, buying land and building on it. He had made millions and had owned a sizeable company.

  Then suddenly, earlier this year, something had changed. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that he had announced his retirement and had sold his business. The paper expressed surprise at this move since it had been so sudden and his business had been growing. Another article from a history magazine reported that Garfield had recently donated $500,000 to the James Garfield Presidential Library.

  There was also the website of the James Garfield Historical Society with some articles by the man himself. It was all very specialized and technical. I wondered how many readers these articles got. I also found him referenced in JSTOR, an online archive of academic articles. It was a subscription-based service, so I couldn’t read beyond the abstracts. Those were enough to tell me he had written several lengthy articles about the Garfield presidency for leading historical journals. The murder victim had been quite the accomplished historian.

  Digging deeper into the news reports and going back several years, I found many articles about his business successes. What I didn’t find was any mention of family or his personal life. Garfield had either been a very private man or didn’t have any family and personal life to speak of. I was beginning to suspect the latter.

  “So short of going to Cincinnati, how am I going to find anyone to tell me about this fellow?” I asked Dandelion. All she did was stare at me for a moment then start licking herself. Not a terribly helpful answer.

  I shooed her off and decided to go to the one place I knew Garfield had visited—the Cheerville Country Club.

  After driving up that long, sweeping driveway and having a uniformed attendant park my humble little Nissan next to all those Mercedes and Jaguars, I was ushered inside to the membership office.

  The gentleman behind the desk greeted me with a handshake and smile that lacked warmth. I realized I had not sufficiently dressed for the part. Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have even been able to enter his office. Women had not been admitted to most country clubs even as recently as the ’90s. They still weren’t welcome in most.