Pretty Corpse

by Linda Berry

  ***

  Scrawny little Vincent Pera now had the unique distinction of being the only known witness who could positively ID The Strangler. As an invaluable asset to the case, Pera was informed that his food, shelter, and medical would be paid for until his services as a witness were no longer needed. Pera could not have been more elated if he had won the lottery. His lodging, Lauren knew, would be shabby tenement housing in some low-rent district of the city, but he’d have the luxury of electricity and hot water. He could shower, do laundry, and have his life’s biggest desire fulfilled. Pera, she discovered, wanted desperately to have a dentist extract his remaining teeth and replace them with a set of sparkling new dentures.

  “It’s teeth what gives a man dignity,” he told the detectives with an air of wisdom. “You got good teeth, people treat you with respect.”

  ***

  News of the breakthrough in the case spread through the station like a flash fire, and immediately lifted morale. Lieutenant Hardy did an abrupt about-face in his attitude toward Lauren. His face was flushed with pleasure when he told her to go home and get some sleep. She’d been up for close to twenty-four hours. Lauren had made Lieutenant Hardy, Jack, and the rest of the top brass look good. Really good. No one openly heralded her accomplishment, but no one mentioned her neglect to follow orders, either.

  Exhaustion had set in by the time she pulled into her driveway, yet she was buoyed by a flutter of hope. They were closing in on the suspect. It was just a matter of time before he was recognized from the sketches, and now a witness could place him at the scene of the crime.

  She was jolted out of her complacency when she checked her messages. The sharp, indignant voice of David Wong sliced into the quiet of the room like a knife blade. “Thanks for leaving me out of the loop, partner. When I got to the park at our agreed time, I found police units and CSI scouring the area. Seems you couldn’t wait. You just had to dive in with no back up.” A long pause. “You in this for the glory, Lauren? A phone call to let me know I wasn’t needed would have shown some respect. You even know what that is?” His voice clicked off.

  Realizing with a painful jolt the extent of her betrayal, Lauren flushed with shame. With the disturbing arrival of The Strangler’s envelope this morning, and the whirlwind following her discovery of the shaft and Vincent Pera, she had forgotten about David. David was everything she valued in a partner. He showed her kindness and loyalty and a courageous willingness to risk his reputation to be her co-conspirator. He believed, as she did, that getting The Strangler off the street was more important than blindly following every bureaucratic dictate. She rewarded him by breaking her promise and treating him like he didn’t matter.

  Maybe it was for the best, she reasoned. David would now be convinced she couldn’t be trusted, and he’d be motivated to get a different partner. A sense of loss overshadowed her sense of achievement. Sadly, David was the second truly decent man she had driven from her life in just a matter of days.

  Lauren paced restlessly in front of the TV. The new developments in The Strangler investigation made the headline story on the six o’clock news. The revised sketch showed the suspect in all his bald glory, and the anchorman informed the public that a witness had come forward who could identify him.

  Lauren felt the familiar dread settle in. A violent offender was at his most dangerous when he experienced an emotional shift in his world. Today, his sense of control had tipped away from him. Cold fear crawled along her spine. The Strangler’s world was coming unhinged. His need to act out his rage would rise to a feverish pitch. Nervous sweat dampened her t-shirt. She couldn’t sit still and wait for lab reports.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  LAUREN made a strong pot of coffee, filled a tall mug, and carried it into her office. She got out her files on the case and thumbed through them, pulling out her interview notes with the two Oakland victims. Hunched over her desk, she studied them in detail, hoping to catch something she missed. The two girls did not share friends or hobbies, but Lauren kept coming back to two similarities—they both enjoyed music and were involved in music programs at their churches. Ginger had a good singing voice and sang in the choir at her Episcopalian church. Bernadette loved classical music, studied piano, and attended St. Michael. Bernadette remarked that she took private piano lessons from Mrs. Agnes Keener.

  Church and music. A remote link, but all Lauren had to go on. She pulled out the phone book, found Mrs. Keener’s number in Oakland, and dialed. A cheerful voice responded on the second ring. After identifying herself, Lauren told Mrs. Keener she was working The Strangler case and asked if she could speak to her in person. Mrs. Keener sounded surprised, then confused, but she agreed to see Lauren.

  “Would it be okay to come out now?” Lauren glanced at her watch. Six forty-five p.m.

  “Well, I’m just getting dinner.” Mrs. Keener sounded clearly flustered.

  “It’s rush hour, Mrs. Keener. It’ll take me forty-five minutes to get there. That gives you plenty of time.” Lauren’s tone was firm. She knew she was bulldozing the woman, but she wanted the interview now, before Mrs. Keener made inquiries and discovered Lauren wasn’t a detective.

  “Well, I suppose that would be all right.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Keener. Are you still at 5711 Rosemont Drive?” Lauren read from the phone book.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll see you within the hour.” Lauren hung up the phone. Anxious to get on the road, she took a quick shower, dressed in gabardine slacks and a chestnut-colored cashmere sweater, and headed across town to the Bay Bridge.

  ***

  After weaving through the dark, narrow streets of the working-class neighborhood, Lauren located the address and parked the Jeep at the curb. The small bungalow, lit by a bright light on the front porch, had a manicured yard and white picket fence, its quaint charm unique to the neighborhood. The surrounding homes were of the same 1940s Craftsman style but had been poorly maintained. A faded sheet served as a curtain in the front window next door, and a car with a missing wheel rested on a cinder block in the driveway. Several houses had bars over the windows, which spoke of a high burglary rate, yet Mrs. Keener’s house bravely faced the night with just a fresh coat of white paint. Well-tended flowering bushes hugged the walkway, and potted plants thrived on the porch.

  Lauren pressed the bell, heard footsteps on a hard surface, and then a short, stout figure was silhouetted on the other side of the screen.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Lauren Starkley, Mrs. Keener.” Lauren nodded to the badge she wore on her belt.

  “Just a moment, dear. I have to turn off my burglar alarm.”

  Her hand went to the side of the door and Lauren heard the beeps of the alarm code, then Mrs. Keener unlocked the screen door and stood to one side.

  Lauren entered, and scanned the living room, which was furnished with a few choice antiques, a love seat and two chairs. Photos lined the mantle, a polished piano stood against one wall, and throw pillows, doilies, and cats were in ample supply. A Burmese lounged on the hooked rug before the fire, and a Siamese and tabby stretched luxuriously across the sofa. Mrs. Keener’s soft white hair, sparkling hazel eyes, and fleshy pink face blended perfectly with the room. She was as cozy and plump as the overstuffed chair she offered Lauren.

  “Would you like some tea, Ms. Starkley?”

  Lauren’s eyes swept over the delicate china tea set on the coffee table. “Thank you, but I won’t be taking up that much of your time.”

  Mrs. Keener picked up the Siamese, took its place on the sofa, and draped the cat across her lap. She absentmindedly stroked its fur, watching Lauren with a questioning gaze.

  “Mrs. Keener, I understand this is a difficult topic, and I’m sorry to burden you, but as you know, one of your piano students—”

  “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Keener looked troubled. “Bernadette. Such a lovely girl. Her mother told me about ….” She paused and cleared her throat. “Bernadette hasn’t been herself s
ince, you know.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Why, she can’t concentrate. And she’s very moody. Before ….” Cough. “She used to be such a delightful girl.”

  “I understand you play piano at her church.”

  “Yes. For the last thirty years, I dare say.”

  “Mrs. Keener, have you noticed any male at church who had an unusually close relationship with Bernadette?”

  “Hmmm.” She thought for several seconds. “No one in particular. Bernadette’s very active with the music program, and popular with the whole congregation. Knows all the families. All the young men. But she dropped out, you know. She doesn’t attend anymore.” Mrs. Keener shook her head. “Such a loss, really.”

  Like Tina Duff, Bernadette appeared to have withdrawn from the world around her. A tragic symptom of rape victims. “Do you know a teen named Ginger Florendo?”

  “No. Doesn’t sound familiar. Does she attend St. Michael’s?”

  “No. She’s Episcopalian.”

  “Ah. Then she probably attends Crosswinds.”

  Lauren tried to think of another angle, another question, realizing that coming here tonight was turning into another dead-end. She mumbled absentmindedly, “Ginger sings in the choir. Do you ever play at Crosswinds?”

  After a long pause, Mrs. Keener answered, seemingly with reluctance. “Yes, on occasion. I play the organ at weddings and funerals.”

  Lauren looked up sharply. “The organ?”

  “Yes.”

  Grasping at any weak link that connected Mrs. Keener to both girls, Lauren described Ginger. “Pretty, and Filipino.”

  Mrs. Keener mulled this over. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Why is she important?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Privacy issue.”

  Mrs. Keener’s expression changed as she put two and two together. Lauren wanted her to understand the full impact. Two girls in her neighborhood were victims of a violent crime. She wanted the elderly lady to impose the faces of real people over the numbing statistics. “Have you seen the latest sketch of The Strangler, ma’am?”

  “They have a sketch?” Mrs. Keener arched her brows in surprise. “Heavens, no. That’s one reason I don’t watch the news. Those kinds of things frighten me so.”

  “They also have an eye witness who can ID him.”

  “A witness?” Her gray eyebrows knitted together fleetingly, and she broke eye contact.

  Silence lengthened between them. Lauren waited. If Mrs. Keener knew something and wasn’t forthcoming, an uncomfortable silence might pry open her guilty conscience. But the old lady’s face showed no expression.

  “The suspect is around thirty, six feet tall, thin face, blue eyes, bald,” Lauren said. “Anyone at your church fit that description?”

  “People come and go.” She focused on her cat and suppressed a yawn. “Me oh my. It is late, isn’t it? I have a long rehearsal tomorrow. A wedding.”

  Lauren knew she should take her cue and leave. Instead, she asked, “May I use your bathroom? Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “It’s right around the corner, dear.” Mrs. Keener nodded toward the hall. “The hall light switch is on the left.”

  Lauren turned on the light and saw the bathroom at the end of the hallway. She walked slowly past a closed door, then Mrs. Keener’s bedroom, and she quickly scanned its furnishings. A handmade quilt covered the antique bed, and a few red roses in a crystal vase were reflected in the mirror above the vanity. A hint of a fragrance Lauren couldn’t quite place lingered in the air. She continued down the hall, locked herself in the bathroom, and pulled back the lacy curtain above the toilet. The backyard was surprisingly deep with a boxy structure at the far end, shadowed by trees. Frustrated that she didn’t have a flashlight, she flushed the toilet, waited a few seconds, and left, pausing long enough to test the handle of the closed door in the hallway. It was locked.

  Mrs. Keener had not budged from her place on the sofa. As Lauren entered, she rearranged the cat, got to her feet, and walked her to the door.

  “Thank you for your time.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, dear.”

  Lauren stepped onto the porch. “You’re quite a gardener, ma’am.”

  “Oh dear me. I can’t grow a thing. It’s my son. He takes care of the place for me.”

  “He’s a gardener by trade?”

  “Oh no,” she sniffed. “Gordon would be insulted to be called a gardener.” Mrs. Keener did not elaborate but was already locking the screen door between them. “Good night, Detective.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Keener.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  LAUREN hiked to her Jeep, then sat staring at the street without starting the engine, replaying in her mind the entire visit with the mild-mannered music teacher. Something didn’t sit well. Mrs. Keener’s world seemed a little too perfect, too cozy—the cats, the doilies, the white picket fence. Mrs. Keener had performed the sweet-old-lady routine without a hitch. Lauren had detected her discomfort when she mentioned they had a sketch of the suspect and an eyewitness. Why was that? Lauren had assumed by the frilly decor that the old lady lived alone, but now she wasn’t so sure. What was behind the locked door?

  A troubling memory stirred in the back of her mind. She drove slowly down Rosemont Street remembering the fragrance coming from Mrs. Keener’s bedroom. Lemony, combined with a sweet, woody aroma. An old memory shook loose, and she recalled a Christmas play at Courtney’s middle school two years ago. One of the three wise men carried a pot of smoking incense.

  Frankincense.

  Holly, Lauren recalled, had told her Frankincense was in the oil blend used to anoint The Strangler’s victims. Buzzwords associated with the suspect’s elaborate ritual moved to the forefront of Lauren’s mind—organ music, funerals, weddings, roses, Frankincense. She realized she should have quizzed Mrs. Keener about her son, Gordon—his age, description, occupation.

  The old lady had implied Gordon was more than a common gardener. Lauren thought of the untraceable hybrid roses used by The Strangler. She blew out a long sigh of exhaustion. Her brain was short-circuiting. She was chasing ghosts. The buzzwords were just coincidence, strung together by her own heightened sense of urgency and desperation. Lauren chewed her bottom lip. Coincidences were all she had to go on.

  She pulled over to the curb, fished a flashlight from her glove box, and hiked two blocks back to the Keener bungalow. Keeping to the shadows at the edge of the driveway, she contemplated her next move. After a few minutes, the lamps went off in the front room and a rectangle of light appeared in the darkness at the back of the house. It was the locked room across from the old lady’s bedroom.

  Though Lauren had not included trespassing as part of her hastily conceived plan, it was unquestionably what the situation called for. With the stealth of a cat, she scaled the picket fence and followed the gravel driveway into the yard. Virtually no light shone from the hazy sliver of moon, which enabled Lauren to disappear into a canvas of solid black. She crept to the side of the house, reached the window, and peered over the sill just as Mrs. Keener left the room and the interior light went out.

  Silently cursing, Lauren continued to follow the curve of the driveway back to the hidden structure under the trees. Her nerves tingled as she spotted a wooden shed the size of a one-car garage. The Strangler’s victims had been assaulted in a small, unfinished room like a shed or garage. Her heart beat faster. Attached to the shed was a greenhouse about thirty feet long. Gordon Keener might have the perfect setup here to grow specialty roses.

  Lauren trailed the outer wall to the rear of the shed. When the building stood between her and the house, she clicked on the flashlight. The beam traveled the length of the wall but found no windows. She cast the light through the dusty glass of the greenhouse, but translucent sheets of plastic hid the interior from view. Lauren switched off the beam and retraced her steps to the front door of the shed. She turned the handle. It didn’t give. Thinking it might be
sticking in the frame, she pressed against it lightly. Instantly, a high-pitched, pulsing alarm shattered the night. A bolt of adrenaline shot through her. She raced out of the yard and jogged the two blocks to her Jeep, then drove down the street as an Oakland police cruiser rushed past going in the opposite direction.

  ***

  Lauren pulled into the parking lot of Lyon’s Restaurant and waited for her jangled nerves to calm down. The clock on the dashboard read eight p.m. Right about now the Oakland cop would be talking to Mrs. Keener, and then he would scout around the property for five minutes, find no evidence of a break in, and chalk it up to an electrical glitch. This happened frequently with home alarms, wasting an officer’s valuable time.

  Seated at the counter in the coffee shop, Lauren ordered the meatloaf special and black coffee. While she ate, she pondered why the old lady needed high security for a tool shed. Yard tools were hardly the cash cow sought by burglars, and padlocks discouraged most. The security system made no sense. What were they trying to protect?

  She ate quickly, paid her bill, and headed back to Rosemont Street, parking in the shadows one house down from the bungalow. Sitting low in her seat, she waited. For what, she didn’t know. There was no evidence that either mother or son had committed a crime. Nothing justified a warrant. All she had were a few worthless strands of circumstantial evidence. Yet Lauren’s instincts told her something wasn’t quite kosher in the little white bungalow. She intended to sit and watch and pray for a break.

  Thirty minutes ticked by. Lauren struggled to stay awake. She’d been up around thirty hours straight. Her brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and her lids felt lead-lined. Another grueling half hour passed. That was all she remembered until she was startled awake at ten thirty. Shit. An hour and a half had passed. What woke her? The quiet street looked as it did when she passed out.

  Blinking hard to snap out of her stupor, Lauren pulled a credit card, cell phone, and a couple tissues from her handbag, tucked them into her pants pockets and climbed out of the Jeep. The crisp, cold air started clearing her head. She did a repeat of her earlier trespassing act, creeping deep into the Keener’s backyard, now with familiarity. After feeling her way along the rough wall of the shed, she clicked on her beam. The light reflected off a chrome bumper three feet in front of her. Suppressing a gasp, she turned off the beam. Someone had driven the vehicle in while she was dead to the world.