Fatal Footsteps

by Brenda Donelan

  “Who would do that?” Blake furrowed his brow.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Marlee said.

  “Why are you asking around about Beth and Tim? It’s not like you’re a cop or anything,” Blake said.

  “I knew both of them, although not very well. And it really chaps my ass that they both died and nothing is being done about it,” Marlee said.

  Blake raised his eyebrows and looked directly at Marlee but didn’t offer any additional information.

  “What did you know about the relationship between Beth and Tim?” Marlee asked.

  “I think ‘relationship’ is overstating what was going on. They were just getting together once in a while. It wasn’t anything serious,” said Blake.

  “Really? I heard Tim thought about marrying Beth before she broke it off with him,” Marlee said, not naming her source of information.

  Blake burst out laughing. “I don’t know where you’re getting your facts, but Tim wasn’t all that interested in Beth. Sure, they slept together a few times, but she didn’t mean anything to him. I know she wanted to sink her claws into Tim and would do whatever it took,” commented Blake.

  “So, you’re saying that Beth was the one who wanted a relationship, not Tim?” Marlee asked, confused by the conflicting information she was receiving from Tim’s roommates.

  “Yeah, Tim was just using Beth for sex,” Blake said.

  “That doesn’t sound like the Tim I knew. It doesn’t sound consistent with anything I’ve heard from anyone else either,” Marlee said, letting the implication hang in the air.

  “I’m not lying. Why would I?” Blake asked defensively.

  Marlee shrugged, not baiting him any further.

  “Maybe the other people you talked to didn’t know Tim as well as I did,” Blake said. “Of course, his family wouldn’t know much about his sex life.”

  “Were there other women Tim was seeing at the same time?” Marlee asked.

  “Probably. I didn’t keep track of everything he was up to. I’ve got my own life,” Blake sneered.

  “But you seemed to know quite a lot about Tim and Beth. How is that?” Marlee asked.

  “Why do you care? Did you have the hots for Tim?” Blake asked.

  Marlee started laughing. “No, I didn’t. I’m worried that his death and Beth’s aren’t being taken seriously enough by the police or anyone else. Don’t you want to find out what really happened?”

  “What does it matter? They’re both dead, and they aren’t coming back. What are you getting out of all of this?” Blake accused. “I think you just like the attention.”

  “Yep, you have me all figured out. I’m asking all these questions just so I can get attention for myself. That’s my only motive,” Marlee said, not trying to hold back the bite of sarcasm as she glared at Blake. “And what happened between you and Beth on the night of the party when she died? People saw the two of you walking upstairs together.”

  “We’re done here. I’m not talking to you any more, you psycho bitch!” Blake said as he stormed off.

  “That was uncalled for,” Marlee thought as she pondered Blake’s accusations about her involvement. She only wanted to get to the bottom of what really happened to Beth and Tim. Why would anyone ever think she was only asking around to get attention for herself? But maybe she was. Who was she, a sophomore college student, to think she could figure out both mysterious deaths when a trained police force was working on them? Did she really think that her involvement was essential to getting to the bottom of both cases?

  Marlee sat in self-reflection for a few minutes, deciding if she had the best of intentions in nosing around these cases or if she was doing it to fulfill some need of her own. I’m only trying to help, she thought, reassuring herself that her motives were pure.

  She walked down the stairs and retrieved Jasmine. Only John was in the basement living room chatting with her. “Ready to go?” Marlee asked. John waived good bye as they left. The other two roommates were likely just waiting for them to get the hell out of their living space.

  They left the home and met Barry and Doug at the pre-established location. They each ordered up gigantic burgers with an overflowing portion of fries and dug in. Marlee chugged a Diet Pepsi as she crammed the salty fries in her mouth. She was so excited about what they learned from the Stairway to Hell guys that she talked with her mouth stuffed full of food. “They certainly don’t have their stories straight. Each one of them has a bit of a different story to tell. And Blake and John’s stories actually contradict each other.”

  “Maybe it was intentional,” suggested Doug in a rare moment of speech.

  Everyone turned toward him for clarification. The upside of talking very little is that when Doug did speak, they all hung on his every word.

  “What do you mean, Doug?” Jasmine asked, smiling as she talked to her cop crush.

  “Maybe they all decided to tell you a different story to keep you guessing. You know, give three different stories, some of them bogus and some true. You don’t know what’s true so you check into everything, which is a huge waste of time,” Doug said.

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Barry said, nodding in agreement.

  “I can’t figure out if the Stairway to Hell guys are all working together to stump us, or if they are working independently and don’t know for sure what each one is saying to us,” Marlee said.

  “Or maybe a bit of both,” Doug added.

  Again, everyone turned and waited for him to expand on his thought. “They may all think they’re working together, but one or two might be telling their own versions, true or false,” he stated.

  “But they would have to know if they have an agreed-upon story and one of them deviates from the script that we’ll figure it out eventually, and the cops will know about it,” Marlee said.

  “Jasmine, your microphone was kind of muffled, so I couldn’t always hear what you were saying. Did you find out anything of importance while you were talking to the guys?” Doug asked. Now that he’d broken the ice by talking there was no shutting him up.

  “Not really. The guys are planning to stay at Blake’s cousin’s house for the rest of the semester and find a new rental this summer. Nobody knows anything else about the fire. They lost almost everything they had, which wasn’t much. Their landlord helped them in finding some towels and bedding at the second-hand store. A campus group gave clothes and money to replace their books for classes. None of the guys had anything else to add about Tim or Beth. Adam was really defensive when I brought up the subject, but John and Blake didn’t object to talking about it,” Jasmine reported.

  “You know who else I’d like to talk to?” Marlee asked. “Blake’s cousin. He may have overhead something or have some suspicions of his own he would be willing to share if anyone asked him. I also want to talk to Grandpa Edgar again at the nursing home, and I’m going to pay another visit to Eddie Turner’s place.”

  “Eddie Turner?” asked Doug. “Is he the slimy boyfriend at the trailer park?”

  “That’s him,” Marlee said. “He’s a real creep, but I think he might have some more information. If I catch him when he’s drinking, he might be willing to talk.”

  “From what you told me earlier, it sounds like Eddie’s always drinking,” Jasmine said.

  With the plan set in place for the next day, the foursome departed the Fryin’ Pan, and Barry dropped off Marlee and Jasmine at their dorm.

  “Tomorrow’s the day we find out what happened to Beth and Tim,” Marlee said with confidence. “I can feel it in my bones!”

  Television and movies tend to portray murder as premeditated, but most are the unintentional consequence of a fight or a poor decision. Premeditated murders are planned, and every effort is made to conceal the identity of the killer. The deaths resulting from a bad decision tend to leave clues all over the place.

  Chapter 27

  Classes were an inconvenient necessity the next day. Marlee made it t
o every class, but learned absolutely nothing. She was present in body, but not in mind or spirit. As soon as her last class finished, she rushed from the building and back to the dorm to call Barry.

  He picked up on the first ring and agreed to join her in talking to Grandpa Edgar at the old folk’s home. Barry knew that Grandpa Edgar had said that Tim had come to see him and asked for the key to the shed at the farm. The point of this visit was to determine if that actually happened, and if so, when. After all, Tim could have asked his grandfather for the key months or even years earlier. Senility had a way of playing with the memory, making what happened years ago seem like a recent event.

  It was mid-afternoon, and Grandpa Edgar had just woken from his nap. Marlee saw that as a positive sign. The rest may have allowed him to refresh a bit. She recalled her last visit with him when he began to fade after a short conversation.

  “Hi!” Marlee said cheerily as she walked into the old man’s room. He was sitting in a recliner by the window looking at the snow-covered ground. He turned when she and Barry walked in and gave a smile of recognition. “This is my friend, Barry, and we came to visit you.” Edgar made an attempt at getting up to shake hands with Barry, but the cop strode over and grasped Edgar’s hand so the old man didn’t have to get out of his chair.

  “We came to talk to you about your grandson, Tim,” Marlee said. “Tim DeWitt.” Grandpa Edgar nodded his head in recognition, and Marlee continued. “Did he ask you for the key to the shed on the farm?”

  “Yes, he wanted the key because he knew I always kept it locked.”

  “When did he ask you for the key?” Marlee asked, not sure if Edgar would be attuned to time frames.

  “Not that long ago. Maybe a week,” Edgar replied.

  “Was there snow on the ground when he asked you for the key?” Marlee inquired.

  “Hell yes, there was snow on the ground! I just said it was last week,” Edgar barked.

  “Why did Tim want to unlock the shed?” Barry asked, noticing the old man’s irritation with Marlee.

  “He didn’t say. Just knew I had the key and wanted in,” Edgar stated, now calm.

  “Did Tim ever talk to you about his sister, Pam, being responsible for Billy’s death at the shed?” Marlee asked. She knew she might be pushing it with the old man, but his time of lucidity was limited and they needed to find out what he knew.

  “Tim always said Pam killed Billy. Nobody believed him. We all thought he’d snapped when Billy died, and it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. But he stuck to the story, and it never changed one bit in the way he told it. I started to think maybe he was telling the truth,” Edgar said.

  “What do you think of Pam running the farm?” Barry asked.

  “I thought one of my sons would follow in my footsteps, but they had their own interests. When I had two grandsons, I hoped one of them would take over. Since Billy was older, it was naturally his birthright. But then he died, and Tim wasn’t old enough to take over when I retired. So, Pam’s parents talked me into letting her run the operation,” Edgar reported.

  “Are you happy with what she’s done?” Barry asked.

  “She’s done okay, for a girl. I just don’t like the idea of a woman running the farm. Everybody says I’m old fashioned, but it’s just the way things were when I was younger,” Edgar said.

  “What did you think of Tim running the farm when he graduated college?” Marlee asked.

  “I think he will do a great job, if the cops ever find him. The only problem will be getting Pam uprooted from the place. She won’t leave without a fight,” Edgar said, either unaware that Tim had been found dead or had forgotten it.

  Marlee and Barry looked at each other. Their shared glance confirmed that neither thought they should bring up Tim’s death. If Edgar already knew, then he had forgotten. If he didn’t know, then the family or his doctors made the choice not to tell him. Either way, it wasn’t their place to update the old man about his grandson’s death.

  “What do you think Pam would do if someone tried to take the farm away from her?” Barry asked.

  “She would do whatever it took to stay there,” Edgar said as he gazed out the window.

  “Does that include killing someone?” Marlee asked.

  “Pam is capable of about anything. After all, she killed my Ethel in 1982. That was her first step in getting control of the farm,” Edgar said bitterly.

  “She killed your wife?” Marlee asked.

  “Damn right. She knew what time Ethel ate breakfast and when she took her insulin shot. Pam locked her in the bathroom while I was gone, and she went into diabetic shock. Then she died. It was all part of Pam’s plan to get the farm. Tim and I talked it over, and we think that’s what she’d done. We were talking about it the last time he was over here. She came to visit me that same day, just after Tim was here. It was all I could do not to accuse her, but Tim said he was working to prove Pam’s guilt, so I stayed quiet,” said Grandpa Edgar, a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

  “I bet Pam overheard the conversation between Tim and Grandpa Edgar,” Barry said as they walked to the car. “That goes a long way in explaining why Tim died shortly thereafter.”

  “If we can take Grandpa Edgar at his word. I know he thinks he’s telling us the truth, but his time frames and some facts might be out of whack. With dementia, it can be difficult to determine what’s accurate and what isn’t. From what I learned in my psych class, people often remember things from years ago, but have trouble recalling recent events,” Marlee said.

  “You’re just pissed because it’s looking more and more like Pam is the culprit, and you’ve been focused on Tim’s roommates as the killers,” Barry said with a little swagger as he opened the car door.

  “I’m not pissed!” Marlee shouted. “It’s just that a senile old man might not be the best historian. Granted, he seemed lucid today, but who knows if he was accurate about his dates and times. Pam might have come to visit him days after Tim was there. She might be completely innocent of everything. I have a hard time believing she killed her cousin to gain control of the farm when her grandparents retired. Then Pam killed her grandmother to hurry along their departure from the farm. Then when her brother starts making plans to take over the farm after his graduation, he dies mysteriously too.”

  “You don’t think three deaths linked to one person in a family is more than a coincidence? Especially if that person has a motive for the deaths?” Barry asked, incredulous.

  “It sounds really bad when you put it that way,” Marlee said with a laugh. “But let’s keep in mind that Billy’s death was ruled an accident and the grandma’s death was due to diabetic shock. Tim’s death is the only one that has been ruled homicide, and there’s no proof that Pam was involved.”

  Barry gave her a hard look as he backed out of the parking lot, and they continued back into town and to the trailer park where Eddie Turner lived. He parked across the street, and they engaged in an argument before Marlee exited the car. Barry thought he should be involved in the interview, but Marlee knew the aging rocker would be put off by Barry’s presence. Better to let Eddie think she was there by herself.

  She could hear Whitesnake music blaring from inside as she pounded on the door. Eddie flung the door open and motioned her in with a fling of his head. He was dressed much like before, dirty and scruffy. He held a drink in his hand, and the whole trailer reeked of booze and cigarettes.

  “I see you couldn’t stay away,” he said with a sneer, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Come on in and take a load off.”

  Marlee paid particular attention to her surroundings. She chose the chair that was located furthest from Eddie and closest to the door in case she needed to run. “Have you been over to a college party house called Stairway to Hell?” she asked, jumping right into the heart of what she wanted to know.

  “Sure, who hasn’t? Everybody knows about that place. They throw some of the best parties in town. T
hrew, I mean. Not any parties happening there now since the whole fucking place burned to the ground.” Eddie chuckled as he lit his cigarette and blew the smoke directly at Marlee.

  “What have you heard about the fire? I know that you’re in with everybody around town. I just thought that if anyone knew what caused the fire, you would,” Marlee said, playing to Eddie’s inflated ego.

  “Want a beer?” he asked, grabbing a can of generic beer from the refrigerator and handing it to Marlee.

  She took the can, popped the top and took a sip. She vowed not to say anything until he spoke. Eddie walked around the kitchen and finally settled in his worn recliner.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard some scuttlebutt about the fire,” he said, not offering any details.

  “So, what did you hear?” Marlee was on the edge of her seat and ready to ring Eddie’s neck. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now.

  “I heard Tim DeWitt’s psycho sister did it.”

  “But why? What would be her motive?” Marlee asked.

  “Like I said, Pam’s a psycho. I never heard why she started the fire, just that she did it,” Eddie said, not divulging anything further.

  “Who told you this?” Marlee persisted.

  “Just overheard it at a bar downtown. Don’t know who said it,” Eddie replied evasively.

  She was exasperated. Knowing that Eddie had more information on the fire than he was willing to divulge, she changed her course. “I’m sure you heard about Tim being missing,” Marlee said and Eddie nodded. “He was found dead on his grandparents’ farm. Have you heard anything about that?”

  “I heard that sister of his has killed before. She killed a cousin just to get her hands on the place,” Eddie said as he puffed out more smoke. “Psycho. From what I hear, she probably killed Tim too.”

  “Do you believe that, or is it just idle gossip around town?” Marlee asked. She’d never been able to figure out if there was fact to the allegations against Pam or if it was just small-town gossip.