Li grimaced. “I don’t think Oscar could choose how he died.”
Leo flicked his eyes up at Li. They were bitter black pools. “Does it matter? None of us saw anything out of place. I think the cops are taking crazy pills. That man probably just stood up too fast and hit his head on a shelf. No murder.”
And yet there were all those inconsistencies. The bag of sugar. The missing cane. The imaginary groceries. The list in the pocket. Oscar’s multiple trips to the store. Li’s brain spun at the mess it all made. “They seem pretty convinced.”
“Bully for them. But I’m telling you that nothing out of the ordinary happened that night. It was a normal night for us. Except for the mess we have to clean off our floors.”
A normal night. Interrupted by murder. No one noticed anything out of place. Definitely not a killer cloaked in shadows swinging impossible weapons. Did that mean—?
Leo dropped his gaze back to Maxim. “Why are you just standing there staring at the door? Go home, Liam.”
Li shuffled into the bare parking lot. A lost day of pay. Fantastic. He kept his eyes glued to his trudging feet. He could always head home and work on his essay for English 102. Then again, he didn’t really want to read or write about murder, domination, and frustrated escapism right now. He should have picked a different class.
“Oh dear … is the store closed?”
Li glanced up, and a warm blush crept up his neck. A woman hesitated next to a sleek silver Jag gleaming like a wet seal in the sunlight. Her hand lingered on the hood as if afraid to let it go. Her thick chocolate curls surged over one shoulder. Her eyes, the rich blue-violet of spring irises, grew wide and startled. Li cursed his hormones. The woman had to be in her thirties.
“D-do you work here?” Her voice stuttered softly. “Is the store closed?”
Li cleared his dry throat. “Sorry, ma’am … Yes, ma’am … We … uh … had a small … incident yesterday.” Incident. What a nice, sweet gloss to put on a cold-blooded murder.
Tears bloomed in her eyes. “I … I heard. The police … They told me my husband was … was … He died here.”
Li fought to keep from gaping. This was Oscar Lindstrom’s widow? Uh-uh. No way. Does not compute. She had a fresh, peaceful beauty that didn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t harmonize with the sour aura around Oscar. Then Li yanked back on his feelings. This was clearly a grief-racked woman who lost the man she loved. “I’m so sorry, Mrs …?”
“Lindstrom. Call me Kathryn.”
Well, that proved it. Oscar’s widow. Li still had trouble fitting them together. “I’m sorry for your loss, Kathryn. Is there anything I could do to help?”
“I … I just wanted to see the place where he … he …” She opened her purse, fished out a Kleenex, and daubed her eyes with it.
“The police have taken custody of the store. I’m afraid you can’t …” He swallowed to moisten his throat. He didn’t want to make her cry.
Kathryn nodded. “I understand. I just … I wanted to see this place. I had never heard of it. We never shopped here. I-I just wondered why he would be found here of all places. I never heard him leave the house.” Her eyes flickered with indecision. “He … He was found here, wasn’t he?”
“Unfortunately … yes. He was. I … I found him.”
Kathryn’s lips parted, her eyes spreading into huge, shocked windows. She abandoned the Jag, crossed to Li, and began brushing his bangs off his forehead like a mother prepping her child for the first day of school. “You poor boy. I just can’t imagine … That must have been terrible. And you’re so young …”
Last time a woman said things like that to Li, she ended up becoming someone he couldn’t trust. Li took a half step backward. “I’m okay. Really.”
Kathryn’s maternal instincts would not be cooled. She stepped forward, straightening his tie, tidying his hair, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulders. “I just never believed this would happen. Oscar was such a good boy. He worked so hard all his life. No one would want to hurt him. I never believed those silly threats.”
“Threats?”
Kathryn tugged at the end of her hair and bit her lip. “Oh … They were just little pranks. Probably from old chef colleagues of his. Maybe it was an inside joke. Nothing serious.”
Rationalizing, Li thought. “You never know.”
“No! No one would hurt my Oscar! All they did was leave a package with a raw beef heart inside it on our doorstep. With a little note written on a page torn out of Oscar’s first book. That’s not the same thing as hurting someone! That’s not a crime! That’s not … not …”—her voice collapsed to a whisper—“… murder.”
The word cracked her peaches-and-milk complexion. Tears raced over her cheeks. She fumbled in her purse for another Kleenex. Li reached out to pat her shoulder. His hand froze. His thoughts scrambled over the information she gave him. That “prank” did not play in the same playground as a ding-dong-ditch or even a bag of dog poop on a porch. Someone took the effort to buy a raw beef heart and wasted it by dumping it at Oscar’s door. Then added a note scrawled on a page of Oscar’s book, violating Oscar’s work. It was action with real hate behind it. And some history too.
When he did pat her shoulder, the gesture was awkward, unfocused. “Don’t worry, Kathryn. The police will catch the killer. They’re professionals.” His reassurances felt a little hollow to him.
Kathryn slipped the soiled tissue into her purse. “Everything is a mess. Nothing makes sense. Every detail the police tell me is confusing and out of place. A big muddle. What’s going on? First, Oscar tells me that he’s staying in his home office until late. Then, the police tell me he’s been found dead in this grocery store I’ve never heard of. Then, my neighbor, Staci, tells me that Oscar never left the house. Now you’re telling me Oscar was found here. I don’t know if it’ll ever get sorted out.”
Li quirked an eyebrow. “What exactly did Staci see?”
Staci Belmont could not be a real person. Detective Hughes was glad of his iron poker face, because he might have laughed. Standing in the doorway of a house one across, two down from Oscar’s, Staci looked plucked out of an eighties workout video. Jane Fonda would have coveted that body: thin, lithe, virtually breastless. This figure—what little there was—had been squeezed into an electric blue leotard and white tights flaunting good muscle in her legs. Clashing fuchsia leg warmers cozied up her calves. Her frizzy cloud of peroxide-blond hair looked at home clamped under a neon sweatband.
“Ooooo, you must be the police!”
Her voice, piercing as a whistle, buzzed in the detective’s ears. He resisted the urge to cover them. He flashed his badge at her.
“Yes, of course!” she squealed. “You must be here about poor Kathy’s husband. I told her I didn’t know if what I saw would interest the police, but I see it must have. Please come in! Sorry for how I’m dressed. I was about to go to my aerobics class.”
Stepping into the living room proved one thing: this house never had a woman’s touch. Despite Staci being the charming hostess, she clearly never left so much as a skid mark on the place. Not a permanent fixture, Detective Hughes surmised. This was a house that wore cologne and aftershave, would never wear perfume. A bachelor pad.
The walls were paneled and trimmed in dark brown wood of vague origins. A choir of electronic singing bass filled the place of honor above the working wood fireplace’s mantle. Fishing poles were racked against the far wall. A big screen TV—a studly sixty inches—dominated a corner by the front window. Detective Hughes and Adam elected to sit in the matching brown leather club chairs. Staci folded herself into a perfect lotus on the pool-table-green sofa. If she made any contribution to the room, it was probably insisting that there would be no neon signs advertising beer on the walls and maybe that pale blue throw slung over the back and arm of the sofa.
“Am I right, Detective?” Staci asked. “Are you here about Kathy Lindstrom’s husband?”
Detective Hughes didn’t think a wo
man like Kathryn deserved the truncated “Kathy,” but he let it slide. “Yes, Miss Belmont. I understand you are friends with her.”
“Oooooo, yes! Kathy and I have been friends about four months. Ever since I met my boo, Tommy, at Harper Lodge.”
“And her husband? Were you friends with him?”
Staci tilted her head and scrunched up her face. “Ehhhh, not really. He wasn’t the friendly type. Tommy knew him from work. We never saw much of him.”
“I see. Miss Belmont, would you mind going over what you did Sunday evening?”
“Oh, of course, Detective. Well, Tommy and I went to see the Sea Lions/Scorpions game at Jordan Field at about two p.m. It ran a bit long so we didn’t get home until six fifteen. I took a shower and then sat here on the couch while Tommy showered. You can see Kathy and Oscar’s house from here. See?”
Detective Hughes glanced out of the window from this vantage point. He could clearly see the front flower beds of the Lindstrom house, two ice-white pools floating in the green sea of grass. A shard of the house itself was visible: a sliver of porch, a scrap of roof, and one unobstructed window.
“It was that window,” Staci indicated. “I noticed it was lit when I sat down and I looked at it. Oscar was standing in the window. I could see his shadow.”
“Pardon me, Miss Belmont,” Detective Hughes said, “but how can you be sure it was him when all you saw was his silhouette?”
“I have seen him stand at that window many times since I started coming to Tommy’s house. His silhouette is very distinct. That’s his office window, by the way. Kathy told me he likes to spend long hours in it, and I have seen him myself, standing at that window like some general planning campaigns. I’m sure it was Oscar last night.”
“Very well. Then what happened?”
“I read my magazine. Every so often, I’d look up at the window. Oscar was always there. When Tommy and I went to dinner, he was still staring down the world. He didn’t move the entire time. We came back here at ten and he was still scowling at us through the window.”
“Don’t you think that’s rather peculiar behavior?”
“Ooooo, not for Oscar. He did it all the time. He was like a statue up there.”
Detective Hughes stared at Oscar’s house as if the darkened window across the way held all the secrets to this mystery. Perhaps it did. “When did you and … erm … Tommy learn about Oscar’s death?”
“Early this morning. Tommy’s boss at The Gazette, Frank Dixon, called him and told him what happened. I decided to take Kathy for breakfast and shopping. I couldn’t imagine how it must feel to lose your husband.” Staci lifted her slim, bony shoulders in an unconcerned shrug. “Then again, I’ve never been married.”
Frank Dixon. There he was again. A suspect with a reach as long as Constance Henderson’s. “Tommy works at The Shorewood Gazette?”
“Oooooo, yes! Didn’t I say? Oscar and Frank were colleagues. Oscar wrote the restaurant reviews. Tommy writes for sports. That’s why we went to the ballgame.”
A rumble in the driveway. The beep of an electronic car lock. Staci clapped her hands together and giggled. “Ooooo!” The detective thought his skull would split if he heard that squeal one more time. “Tommy’s home!”
Based on Staci Belmont, Detective Hughes pulled up a rather scary image of the infamous “Tommy.” A man with a Tom Selleck ’stache, a shirt featuring the set of Hawaii Five-O or Miami Vice, and a fat gold wristwatch that could be mistaken for rapper bling.
He was mistaken. “Tommy” was a tall, well-built man with wind-and-sea-swept curls of chestnut hair. His dark slacks and leather belt emphasized his lean waist while his white dress shirt—open at the collar and rolled at the sleeves—celebrated the admirable size of his shoulders. A perfect romance novel specimen of testosterone. His eyebrows arched high over his hazel eyes as he met his unexpected guests.
The detective and his partner stood and introduced themselves.
“Tom Delancey,” Staci’s boyfriend replied. “Sports writer for The Gazette. You’re here about Oscar, I suspect.”
Staci cooed. “Ooooo, yes, Tommy. I was telling them about last night.”
Detective Hughes settled back in his club chair. “Yes. Could you tell us your version of what happened that night?”
Tom sat next to Staci, who rested her hand on his thigh. Adam turned to a fresh page in his notebook, scribbling his notes without even looking at the paper.
“I took Staci to Jordan Field to see a game. The Shorewood Sea Lions and the Cemetery Scorpions. I’m happy to report we trounced the Scorps six to five in extra innings. It ran long, but it was a great game. But you can learn about all the details in my article on Thursday.”
“What happened after the game, Mr. Delancey?”
“Staci and I came back here. It was about a quarter after six when we got here. She took a quick shower, and we discussed having a late dinner. I took a shower and then worked on my article on the game for a couple of hours. I always like working on my pieces immediately after the games, so it’s fresh in my mind. I think it was about eight thirty when we went to dinner at Page & Simon.”
“Did you notice Oscar Lindstrom at any time?”
“I caught a glimpse of him in his office window when we left for dinner. I didn’t really pay attention when we got back.”
But Oscar was dead by eight thirty. So how could they see him?
Detective Hughes stowed that point away for the moment. He moved on. “I heard that Mr. Lindstrom was your colleague at The Shorewood Gazette, Mr. Delancey.”
Tom gave the detective a smile that stretched across his face. “Emphasis on ‘was,’ Detective. He resigned on Friday.”
“Were you surprised?”
Tom’s brow furrowed, giving the question serious consideration. “A little, I guess. But Oscar did things on his own terms. He never let anyone tell him what to do or how to write. The editors weren’t comfortable touching his articles. Oscar … well … he had a kind of holier-than-thou personality. He was king, and we were all peasants.”
An attitude Detective Hughes felt in the Lindstrom house.
“How did the paper handle his resignation?”
“You’ll have to ask Frank about that.”
“And you? How close were you to Mr. Lindstrom? Were you friends?”
At this, Tom burst into laughter, a warm, young, untroubled sound. “Friends? Oscar Lindstrom did NOT have friends. He was a tyrant at times. I was his colleague. We weren’t bosom buddies. I’ve had dinner with him and his wife a few times, but that wasn’t a friendship. Oscar was a man who lived for himself.”
Detective Hughes steepled his fingers and came back to the point that muddied this murder. “You must have heard that Oscar Lindstrom was found at Esther’s Family Grocery.”
Both Staci and Tom looked perplexed.
The detective elaborated. “It’s a small grocery store found off Shorewood Avenue. Not very popular. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk from here.”
Tom frowned, eyes clouded with confusion. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Staci bit her lip. “I think I have. Not fondly, if I remember. Some of the girls in my aerobics class complained about the terrible state of its organics. I definitely didn’t shop there.”
Not many people did, it seemed. The fact Oscar was found there at all became more and more outlandish. Why was he there?
Tom must have read the detective’s thoughts. “Why would Oscar be found there, Detective? He wouldn’t have known about it, and if he did, he would never take one step inside. He didn’t leave the house when we were here. Like I said, we saw him in his office.”
Once again, the man was locked into his office, the throne room of his imaginary empire. The endless back-and-forth in this case was making Detective Hughes dizzy. Where was Oscar and when did he get there? What happened?
He had to examine that office.
Picking a lock was a science and an art.
Charming
the building manager had been easy. Finding the apartment building address had been effortless. Learning the name of his quarry had been child’s play. The internet took all the struggle out of this work.
Morley was actually glad of the lock-picking. It let skills the internet hadn’t been able to kill have a chance to stretch and grow.
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the kid wasn’t coming home too soon.
He felt the cheap lock give, and the door swung open. Now he had to be quick. He had a deadline, a usual experience for his past life as a reporter. The Lady wouldn’t be happy if he dawdled. And he had no definite time when the kid would come home. He slipped inside, footsteps as light as a cat’s shadow.
Morley pulled out his handheld tape recorder, an old friend from his newspaper days, and started it.
“Report on one, Liam Andrew Johnson. Age twenty. Birthday: March eleventh. Address: Apartment 317 in the Arcadian Estates building, 224 Allen Avenue. Prior addresses: Small apartment in Long Beach, family’s home in Jefferson. Eldest child of Gene Johnson and Margaret Bailey. One sibling—sister, Annaleigh. Finances are shaky. Prior job was a waiter for the Howard Line of luxury cruise ships. Got tangled up in some interesting deaths there and was fired under unfriendly circumstances. Will investigate further.”
He moved through the studio apartment like a machine, sifting, sorting, and replacing documents and files in the tiny space, continuing to record his report. The Lady wanted as much as possible. The Lady wanted to know everything about this kid, a kid, Morley thought, who wasn’t worth the gum stuck to his shoe.
“Johnson takes a class at the Shorewood Community College. English 102. Apartment kept clean and organized. Furniture is third-hand at best.” His sharp journalist eyes dropped to the foot of the bed. “Brand new sneakers though. Interesting.” He moved to the closet to investigate the kid’s clothes.
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