The Silver Anniversary Murder

by Lee Harris

  When Ariana came in, she told Wally we would be back in the morning and he could go then. She thanked him for helping out. He didn’t seem to mind. The bed, he said, was very comfortable.

  We got to the house so early the next morning that I was afraid we would awaken Wally Junior, but he was up and about, eating a bowl of cereal and listening to music on a small radio. We sat and chatted with him till he was ready to go, both of us feeling rather jittery. No one except us— and Jack—knew of the buried treasure, and we thought that was the best way to keep it.

  Finally, Wally stripped his bed, stuffed his clothes in a duffel bag, and said good-bye. When he had driven away, we drove into the garage, closed the door, took our necessary tools, and went to the patio. Once again I was grateful that the trees and shrubs formed a natural opaque fence on both sides of the house and in the back. Someone would have to climb a ladder to see over the greenery, and we didn’t expect that to happen. Nevertheless, we looked around the backyard carefully before starting our work.

  First we removed the umbrella and stand, then lifted the heavy table and moved it away. The bricks looked undisturbed. We both ran our hands over them, and the surface was smooth.

  Carefully, we began to pry up the bricks. Ariana had the original diagram her parents had given the lawyer and we followed it as we had a few days ago. It crossed my mind that on that day, we had not known what to expect, and today, we were in the same position.

  Ariana scooped out the soil beneath the bricks and nodded as she felt the stiff plastic sheet we had replaced with such care. “So far so good,” she murmured.

  We wriggled it out, tapped the dust off, and set it aside. The real test was coming. We scooped earth out, both of us working silently.

  “It’s not here,” Ariana said, her voice breaking.

  “Keep going. We buried it pretty far down.”

  “It’s gone, Chris. He’s taken it. My parent’s life savings are gone.” She sat back and brushed her eyes with the backs of her earthy hands.

  I knelt at the brick edge and kept pulling handful after handful of earth out of the hole. And then I felt something. I looked up at her. Tears were streaking her face. “There’s something here,” I said.

  “There is?” She bounced over, stuck her hands into the hole, and looked up, smiling. Then she dragged the thing up and out of the hole.

  It was the plastic-covered suitcase. Quickly, she opened it and peered inside. “Oh,” she breathed. “It’s here. He didn’t find it. It’s here, Chris.”

  “I’m so glad for you.”

  “Thank goodness. He must have looked through the house and given up. I’m so lucky.” She closed the clasps and set it aside, and we began to reverse the process. We took a lot of earth from the flower bed near the garage and used it to fill in the space the suitcase had occupied and to keep the bricks even. When we were finally done, it looked good. We put the table back over the bricks, as it seemed a natural place for it. We pushed the umbrella stand under the table and set the umbrella in its groove. Then we put our tools away, took a final walk through the house, locked it up, and drove back to the hotel.

  The room had been made up and we sat in the two chairs, the money-filled suitcase on Ariana’s bed next to her straw bag.

  “Here’s my plan,” she said. “We can’t carry all this money on a plane, so I’m going to drop you at the airport as soon as we have a flight home for you. Then I’m taking off in the car.”

  This surprised me. “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere where I can put this money away safely.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m not sure, Chris. I don’t think we’ll ever find my parents’ killers. I know I have to go to the police in your town and tell them who I am, and I have to get back to the lawyer in New York. But I don’t know if I’m ready to do those things yet. I have to think.”

  “We learned a lot, Ariana. There’s a killer out there and we almost brushed shoulders with him over the weekend. One important thing we’ve learned is that he’s careless. Driving that car of your parents was stupid. He must have known the police were looking for it. And parking illegally was dumb. I think we can get him, although I have to admit I’m not sure where to go from here.”

  “Then do it. I’ll pay your expenses when I come east to claim my parents’ bodies.”

  “Before we go anywhere, don’t you think we should try to find out what’s in the car? The lawyer might be able to get us into it.”

  “That’s a good idea.” She went to the phone and called him. When she got off, she said, “We can meet him at his office and he’ll take us to the car.”

  So that’s what we did. Wally drove us to a station house where we found the car in the police parking lot. Their crime scene people had removed and inventoried everything inside. The police were now holding these items as “vouchered property/crime evidence” in a large property vault in the building. Wally stayed with us along with a police officer who watched us like a hawk while Ariana went through everything.

  It was quite a haul. Ariana’s parents’ wedding rings and watches and other jewelry were in a suitcase. Ariana picked up and held each precious piece, wetting it with her tears. Her father’s watch was still working and had eastern time on it. Her mother’s, a small, gold wind-up, had stopped. There were rings and bracelets, a necklace with a pendant, her father’s wallet, her mother’s handbag.

  She opened the handbag and looked at its contents. The wallet had about a hundred fifty dollars and some change. “Her driver’s license isn’t here. I wonder what he did with it.”

  “What about the car registration?” I asked.

  “It’s not in my father’s wallet but his license is.” She showed it to me.

  “I’m glad you got these things back, Ariana.”

  Wally Keller said, “They’re not hers yet. We just have permission to look, not to take. Everything here is evidence and will become part of the case material. These things must be held here until the DA in Oakwood’s county makes a formal request. Then they’ll be returned to the DA under seal.”

  “Of course. But she’ll get them eventually.”

  “Eventually is the key word.”

  What was missing was anything belonging to the killer. I assumed he had taken a hotel room and brought his luggage there. Since we didn’t know his name, we couldn’t find out which hotel he was in or whether he had hopped on a plane after the car was taken into custody.

  We left when Ariana had inspected every last item. Wally drove us back to our parked car and we said our good-byes. The next stop was the airport.

  As soon as the plane took off, I began to have misgivings. A girl in her early twenties was driving around alone with possibly a million dollars in a suitcase. I opened the airline magazine and flipped to the map of the country in the back. That made me feel a little better. The distance between Madison and Chicago was not as far as I had thought. Perhaps Ariana was heading home where she had an apartment, a bank, and some friends. I would call her tomorrow to see how she was doing. Meanwhile, I was exhausted. I ate what passed for dinner, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

  16

  When I return from a trip, long or short, I try to make it up to Eddie. I know he loves Jack and Elsie, but I can tell that he misses me when we talk on the phone. I arrived in New York very late at night and had a long drive before I reached Oakwood. Jack was as welcoming as I had ever seen him, and for the rest of the night I basked in his hugs and kisses and his warmth beside me.

  Eddie was overjoyed to see me at breakfast and couldn’t stop telling me everything that had happened while I was gone. I drove him to school and continued to the supermarket to replenish my refrigerator and shelves. Having spent several days being waited on and cooked for, I needed to return to my more normal mode. The early start to the day put me back home before ten with a full day ahead.

  Now I needed to gather my thoughts and pass them on to Sister Joseph, the General Superior of S
t. Stephen’s Convent. She is my last resort when I am working on a homicide and I hit a dead end. And it was quite some time since I’d last visited the convent. The school year would now be over at the college, and I would be able to walk the paths I loved, sit in the shade of trees I had watched reach maturity during my fifteen years there, and visit all the wonderful women who had kept an eye on me.

  Angela was on bells as usual, and we chatted happily for several minutes before she rang Joseph’s office upstairs in the Mother House.

  “Sister Joseph.”

  That voice cheers and warms me every time I hear it. “Joseph, this is Chris.”

  “How good to hear from you. How are you? How are the men in your life?”

  I went through the required reports and asked questions of my own. “And I saw Arnold Gold not long ago and he sends regards. I must get you all together at my house one of these weekends.”

  “May I hope for a visit soon from you and those who tag along?”

  “If you want just me, I can come tomorrow. If you want one or more of the tagalongs, it will have to be Saturday.”

  “Saturday then. It’s not urgent, is it?”

  I laughed. The reason for many of my visits have at least partly been to discuss a homicide with her. “Not urgent, but interesting. Very interesting.”

  “I will sharpen my little gray cells. Will you join us for our midday meal?”

  “Definitely. Eddie will come. I have to check with Jack.”

  “We’ll have enough, I promise.”

  With the appointment made, I read my Times and then sat at the dining room table with my notes. Ariana had given me every name, address, and phone number she had acquired during the trip, so I would be able to get in touch with people if I had questions. I gathered all these small notepapers from various hotel pads and paper-clipped them together. As I did so, I read each name. I recalled I hadn’t asked Aunt Junie if she had been to the Brinkers’ wedding. I was sure she had; her husband was brother of the groom, perhaps even his best man. If I could only find a friend of the Brinkers, someone they might have confided in, I might begin to see who had wanted to kill them. It had to be someone from their past.

  I waited till noon to call Ariana’s Chicago number. There’s an hour difference in time and I didn’t want to wake her. But there was no answer and no machine to take a message.

  Eddie and I had lunch together and decided to swim later in the afternoon. At one, I called Nick Brinker’s number in Portland. His wife answered.

  “Jessie, it’s Chris Bennett calling from Oakwood, New York.”

  “Oh, hi, Chris. You’re back home. Did you get everything worked out?”

  “Not really. How’s your mother-in-law doing?”

  “She was real happy to meet you and Ariana. Nick talked to her on the phone after you left. She forgot your name, but she remembered the visit.”

  “Jessie, could you or Nick find out if she went to Ron’s wedding? And does she remember any names of people who were there?”

  “I wouldn’t count on the names, but I’ll have Nick ask. When I call, sometimes she isn’t sure who I am. It’s so sad. She was such a smart woman until this happened.”

  “Thanks, Jessie. Nick can call me at home, and if I’m not here, just let me know when a good time would be to call back. Unless, of course, she doesn’t remember anything.”

  “He’ll probably ask her when he visits this weekend. She’s better in person than on the phone.”

  So am I, I thought.

  When Jack came home that night, he carried with him the final reports about the two bodies in the morgue. No traces of drugs were found in either victim, except for the chloroform in the woman’s body. Neither victim had any alcohol in their system and both had been murdered an hour or so after consuming a meal. Since similar food was found in both bodies, we could assume they had been killed around the same time. It didn’t tell me much, but at least the last of the information had come through.

  About eight o’clock, the phone rang. Jack picked it up and took it into the family room so he could talk sitting down.

  “Joe,” he said, “haven’t heard from you for a while.”

  Joe Fox, I thought, judging by Jack’s many uh-huhs. “Sure,” he said at last. “She’s right here.” He handed me the phone. “Joe Fox.”

  “Hi, Joe. Enjoying the good weather?”

  “Well, I’d rather be playing golf but I’m enjoying the little bit of outdoors I walk through twice a day. How are things at your end?”

  I hadn’t told him about my trip or who I had accompanied. “Everything’s fine here. I’m a swimmer, not a golfer, and I’ve been doing my laps in the afternoon with my son.”

  “I envy you. Any closer to finding our killer?”

  “I wish I could say I was. You’ll be interested to hear that I’m visiting Sister Joseph this weekend to see what she thinks.”

  “Ah, your friend the Franciscan nun whom I gave a hard time to a couple of years ago.”

  “The very one. I’m gathering my notes and thoughts and suspicions to pass along to her.”

  “Suspicions?” he asked, homing in on the key word.

  “Oh, Joe, it’s just a figure of speech. I have nothing and no one in mind. All I’m sure of is that those poor people were killed by someone who knew them many years ago, maybe as much as twenty-five.”

  “Well, we have some interesting news. I’ve given it all to Jack, so there’s no need for me to repeat it. If you decide you want to have a look, give me a call tomorrow and I’ll set something up.”

  Jack was grinning when I got off the phone. “They made quite a find,” he said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Was there any furniture in the SUV you found in Madison?”

  “None at all. There were suitcases and bags of personal items, all of which belonged to the victims. Ariana went through every piece of jewelry—tearfully, I may add— and the handbag and wallets and their contents.”

  “Well, Joe’s got the furniture.”

  “Really?”

  “Probably not all of it, but a bunch. This guy must have filled the vehicle, driven to an out-of-the-way spot, and dumped it.”

  “My goodness.”

  “Someone called the police and said there was furniture scattered around on a piece of farmland a few miles from here. He wasn’t sure when he had last walked that way, so we don’t know when it was dumped. I’d guess around the time of the homicides.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Is that a meaningful syllable?”

  “It is to me,” I said. “Joe said I could look at it—he didn’t say what it was—if I called tomorrow. I think I’ll take him up on it. So what could have happened to the rest of it?” I wasn’t really asking Jack. “You know, maybe he or they rented a U-Haul for a day and filled it with the bigger pieces. People who move around a lot probably don’t accumulate things the way Aunt Meg did.” Our basement still had cartons of her memorabilia seven years after she had died.

  “Good point. You might check the rental places, although if these guys were smart, they got it somewhere else, maybe even in Connecticut. It’s not that long a drive.”

  “I will make some calls tomorrow. And maybe more possessions will turn up in other out-of-the-way places.”

  “So the case moves on.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It does indeed.”

  Joe Fox gave me an address when I called the next morning, and I drove up to White Plains to a police property storage depot to look at the Brinkers’ furniture. I had made arrangements with Elsie, promising that Eddie and I would swim when I got back.

  Joe met me there. It was a large space, a kind of giant lost and found. A uniformed officer led us to an area that was taped off and marked PETER AND HOLLY MITCHELL. It seemed a long time ago that I had thought of the unfortunate couple by those names. Brinker was still my secret until Ariana claimed the bodies.

  We skittered under the tape and I began rummaging through
the drawers in a nice-looking old desk. It quickly became apparent that anything that might have shed light on the Mitchells/Brinkers had been removed. There were no checkbooks or bankbooks, no paid bills, no letters. I found pencils and pens and paper clips and the kind of generic materials every desk drawer is home to.

  In the bottom file drawer, I found several folders, each with a different heading. One was CAR, and in it were records of when the car had been serviced. A quick glance showed regular maintenance. Another folder, marked MISCELLANEOUS, contained the expected assortment of unrelated materials. There were pictures of shoes and clothing, a photocopied street map of an area just outside Oakwood, magazine ads possibly related to Mrs. Brinker’s work, and several newspaper clippings.

  I paged through them and found an article from the local paper detailing a local homicide I had worked on a couple of years ago. My name was underlined in blue ink and my phone number and address were written along the white space on the side.

  “Look at this, Joe.”

  He took the clipping from me and read it, then turned it to see what was in the margin. “Is it possible this is how she knew you?”

  “You know as well as I, anything’s possible. And I still don’t know whether the victim or the killer called me. But yes, this could be the connection. Maybe Mrs.”—I stopped myself from saying Brinker—“Mitchell read this, clipped it, looked me up, and thought about calling me in connection with her problems. It mentions I’m an ex-nun— people always seem curious about that—and maybe she thought that would make me trustworthy.”

  “I could have vouched for you,” Joe said with a glint in his eye. “Now why do you suppose they would leave that clipping in the desk?”

  “For me to find. What was the purpose of calling me in the first place? There was nothing I could do. This may have been a person—or two people—basking in her final success. I’ve thought several times that if I hadn’t left the phone off the hook, we could have lost that phone number when we got back to my house. I’m glad I did what I did.”