The dog trotted over, carrying the remains of a slice of pepperoni in his massive teeth. “You shouldn’t have that,” Ronda muttered and, groaning, reached over and pulled hard on it, willing him to open his mouth. “Ahhh, even that hurts.” Winning the battle, she patted him on the head and promised, “I’ll get you some nice doggie food in a minute, Adonis,” and started into the bedroom.
Once she had showered, pulled out her hair with a pick, and put on a uniform—she smelled the armpits first and made a face—she shuffled into the kitchen and, noticing the pile of mail, leaned over and carefully picked it up. She threw it on the table in a revised mound of shapes and colors. A dark green postcard slid from the stack and she tried to remember where she had seen the logo. Oh, yeah. It was from a comedy club on the river where she had done some standup routines a couple of months ago. She turned it over and read the handwritten note from Jimmy Millard, the owner. “When are we gonna see you again? People are askin’.” Hmm. I’ll have to think about that, she brooded, too tired to figure it out at the moment. She laid it back on the table, isolating it from the pile.
Ronda shambled over to the kitchen sink, selected a glass heavily ringed with sour milk, drew some water, and planted it on one of the few empty spaces left on the counter. Reaching in a cupboard, she pulled out a canister marked “sugar.” She inspected the inside and noticed she was low on her joy pills, her black beauties. She palmed a couple, threw them in her mouth, and guzzled down the entire glass of water. I’ve got a few more minutes, she thought. I’ll let those lovelies do their job.
She plopped down at the table, stared at the pile of bills, and pondered how she had ended up in this mess. You know, Mom, you were right. I could have made something of myself, but I always seemed to make the wrong choices. By the time I was in high school I earned my own money in waitressing jobs and fast-food restaurants. My grades were decent and I was pretty confident. But, you know, I came last, after the other four, and by then without a decent-paying job you were sliding steadily downward. You were so tired and overworked that you didn’t have much time for your youngest daughter. No clue who my father was. Gone. Missing. Ronda began to stack the bills in piles: pay, leave, throw out. But I’m not complaining, Mom. You got me used to taking care of myself, paying for my own clothes, and often for the grocery bill. But you were right that I’d follow in your footsteps, especially with men.
His name had been Jim Burke. By then she was out of school and working as a bartender in a dive on South Main called Dirty Dave’s. Jamie, as she liked to call him then, was a truck driver, a hard drinker and smoker, who straggled his way into the bar during a massive downpour on a jet-black night. She should have seen that as an omen. You always said I was the foolish one, Mom, she sighed. Ronda had never met someone like Jamie, who had seen the entire country from highways that crisscrossed every state. He had the gift of gab and the charm to go with it. Two hasty months later they were married.
And that’s when the fun began, thought Ronda. He had not used her well. Between booze, womanizing, and long jobs away for weeks, he’d come home and she was the one he’d pounded on. They were married five years. Well, she thought, it might have been five years, but in bruises, aches, broken bones, and pain, it was more like twenty-five. She thought about leaving town, just disappearing. But why should she let him chase her away from the only home she’d ever known? She just wanted out but couldn’t afford a lawyer.
The first couple of years she always worried that he’d show up. She signed an order of protection with the Endurance Police Department but knew it would be a worthless piece of paper when he turned up unexpectedly. But one blissful day she heard he’d been knifed and had died in a bar in Waco, Texas. She could breathe easy again.
Tully hired her five years ago and paid her a decent salary. He was a very demanding boss, a management style that she was used to, and it didn’t bother her at first. But Bill was moody and she finally reached a point where she could tell as soon as she got to work if he was listening to his demons or playing the clever and charming host. She made herself indispensable, and he left her in charge whenever he had to be gone. Ronda was an efficient manager and had a huge and loyal following among customers. Tully knew she brought in business.
Often Ronda was aware of what happened in town before the police knew. And she listened and watched people’s body language. Damn, I could have made a good psychologist, she thought.
Her head had stopped hurting and she felt a little energy pick-me-up. She put a cigarette in her mouth, lit it, and drew in the smoke deeply, coughing a couple of times.
She picked up the green postcard. She made some extra money—when she could get a night off—by playing in dives along the river. She had a funny—albeit raunchy—act that had built up a fair following. But as soon as she made a little cash, the brakes went out on her car or a pipe broke under her kitchen sink. She managed to scrape along. But never again would she depend on a man for her living. She was fine, safe, and sometimes lonely. She occasionally brought a man home and they used each other to stave off the emptiness. That was enough, she thought.
If only I could get a stake together, I’d go to California. Everyone had told Ronda that she had a natural gift for comedy and she loved to make people laugh. She didn’t have the means to get out of town. Well, maybe she could change that. Tired of living from paycheck to paycheck, holding off the collection agencies that called on her phone—and her phone was always a few payments from being turned off—she knew she had to do something soon. She was smart, heard things, and could find an edge, a way to use what she knew to get a stake. But how? she thought.
Then, just as she gathered her keys and purse and started for the door, her cell went off. It was her friend, Shannon, who worked at the Endurance Register.
“Yeah, what?” she said. “I gotta be at work and I’m headed out the door.”
Listening to her phone as she pulled the door open and trudged down the stairs in the lowering sunlight, she thought she finally had a way to get that stake. Shannon Shiveley had been working with Brenda Norris on a very profitable blackmail scheme. Shannon had spilled her guts one night when she was drunk at one of Ronda’s parties. According to Shannon, Brenda had been sleeping with somebody—some married somebody—and Ronda needed to figure out who that was. Listening to Shannon, she knew she had to nail down a name before Shannon did. She thought she had an idea already. This could be her ticket to ride.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
GRACE
* * *
Grace glanced at the clock on her desk at the Endurance Register. 11:30. I’ve been at this for the last three hours. She arched her back and raised her arms behind her stiff neck. She was sitting on the sofa with myriad piles of papers stacked in every which direction. Two cold-case boxes for the 1968 fire were the center of Brenda’s investigation. She had made a timeline with gaps and inconsistencies about the case, and Grace began looking at that timeline after reading and rereading nearly every paper in the box. So far she had a solid grounding in the facts of the case. Time to sit back and review it in her head.
The fire had erupted in the home of William and Terry Kessler, who lived on a farm outside of Endurance, on the night of January 25, 1968. A massive blaze broke out before anyone discovered it. The fire marshal estimated that it began around 2:00 to 2:30 a.m. The two-story house sat among a few trees on a ten-acre farm that was in an isolated setting. It had a barn nearby filled with hay, as well as a few horses and cows. None of the livestock was injured nor was the barn destroyed since it was fifty yards from the house. Fire crews from nearby towns answered the call but they were not able to save the Kesslers’ home.
Onlookers reported that massive orange flames escaped from the upstairs windows and the heavy, black smoke could be seen for several miles. Winds of fifteen mph sent the smoke hurling into the night and hampered the firefighters’ efforts. The house and its contents were a total loss.
“By the time we arrive
d,” Deputy Fire Chief Richard White reported, “the house was fully engulfed and we realized it would not be a salvage operation. The best we could do was to keep the fire from spreading to other structures.”
Grace sifted through the papers and lifted up another newspaper story published several days after the fire. State examiners on the scene the day of the fire stayed to study the debris for several days. The Endurance Register carried a story about their work and explained that they sorted through the rubble to determine the point of origin and the cause, one layer at a time, and they placed objects in evidence bags for the police. Grace glanced at some of the piles she had set aside on the floor. Those must have been some of the items they found, she thought.
The paper, wood, and plastics in the house ignited quickly and some bottles of linseed oil, liquid solvents, and cleaners in the downstairs kitchen exploded. Even the furniture back then was probably toxic, I’d bet. Examiners looked for an igniter—a pile of rags or an electric heater—but didn’t find one. Everything was blackened and charred and the coroner estimated that two or three breaths of the carbon monoxide would have put people to sleep in a fire of that magnitude.
Two weeks later the state fire marshal’s office issued a report that the fire was incendiary and undoubtedly set. Their determination came from eyewitness reports of the flame and smoke colors, evidence of multiple pours of gasoline in various parts of the house, and an absence of any other possible cause. They continued to work the case, but no perpetrator was ever caught.
“Hi, Grace.” Jeff Maitlin stuck his head in the frame of her open office door.
His sudden voice broke her concentration and made her jump.
“Oh. You startled me. I’m going over the fire story Brenda was checking out.” She noticed that the light blue dress shirt he wore brought out the blue of his eyes.
“Find anything interesting?” He leaned on the door frame. My, that man is a dresser, she thought. Hard to believe I only met him a week or two ago.
“Right now it’s just a mass of facts and jumbled ideas, but I think I’ll have it under control sometime today. Get my book review?”
“Yes, and thanks for getting it in early.” He walked over to the sofa and looked into the cold-case boxes. “Looks like you have plenty to do.” He smiled.
Grace held up a huge pile of papers. “I really find this fire story interesting. I can see why Brenda did too. I imagine she knew some of these poor people.”
Jeff nodded and turned to go. He stopped at the door as if trying to figure out something else to say. Then he added, “Well, I’ll leave you to your research.”
Watching his departing back, Grace felt a flush spread over her face. Well, she thought, he didn’t have to walk back here to thank me. He could have sent an email. A heavy sigh escaped her mouth. Grace, you are too old for this silliness.
She turned back to the family information and within seconds she was totally absorbed in the details. William and Terry Kessler had lived in the house on their farm since shortly after World War II. Their son, Ted, was born in 1952 and went to the local schools. His body was never found, and speculation was that he had fled town after the fire. Hmmm . . . he would have been fifteen or sixteen when that fire took place. From all reports of witnesses and people who knew him, he was a quiet kid. But a store owner in town came forward and said he thought Kessler was devious. Perhaps he was a quiet kid, but the store owner had caught him shoplifting small items several times in the previous year. He didn’t turn him in to the police, but he did talk to the parents, who assured him they would punish the boy and paid him for the stolen items.
She examined the detectives’ notes from their conversations with people at the high school. They interviewed several teachers and their impression of Ted Kessler ranged from “wonderful kid” to “moody and disinterested.” Evidently he loved science and hated math, Grace thought, from the interview notes of those teachers. He had gone out for football but didn’t get much playing time. The football coach kept him on the team and put him in occasionally when they were far ahead. He reported that Kessler was a quiet boy, kept to himself, and didn’t have more than a friend or two. One of his friends was a kid named Nick Lawler.
The third body in the house was identified as Nick Lawler. The Kessler parents were found in their upstairs bedroom, burned beyond recognition. Lawler’s body was found, also burned beyond recognition, on the floor beside the bed in the third bedroom. The Kessler kid’s bedroom was empty. The coroner determined that all three had died of smoke inhalation.
Numerous witnesses came forward to tell of how the Kesslers had “taken in” Nick Lawler. His parents were transients, often in trouble with the law, and certainly into various drugs. The Lawler boy had struck up a friendship with Ted Kessler over football practices and had taken on the role of “guardian” of the younger boy. Well, thought Grace. I suppose bullying happened even back then. Lawler spent weeks at a time with the Kesslers and roamed the fields with Ted Kessler, fishing and hunting.
Detectives questioned the Lawler parents. They knew the Lawlers well since the family had drifted in and out of trouble. They were careless people, careless with their drugs and booze and careless with their son and his four siblings. Both parents had extensive police records for theft and drug possession, and they had lost their children a couple of times to Child Services. Mr. Lawler managed to make a little money with odd jobs for people who felt sorry for him, but mostly they lived off the government dole. The children were dirty, ragged, and neglected, and lived in a tiny house south of the tracks on Myrtle Avenue. Nick had an inconsistent record of attendance at the high school and, according to his parents, had never been to a doctor or hospital because he’d never been sick. If he’d had bruises, scrapes, and injuries in that house, thought Grace, he’d never have seen a doctor. Free dental clinics didn’t exist then either.
During high school Lawler played football but never really distinguished himself. He was good-sized for a high school player but didn’t always make practice. The coach, like many others, felt sorry for him and bought him shoes for football his sophomore year when Lawler couldn’t go out for the season because he needed cleats.
Grace yawned and rolled her shoulders a couple of times. This Lawler kid might have come from a horrible background, but he must have been a charmer to get so many people to be kind to him or take him in.
Gazing at the brutal coroner’s photos, Grace thought again about how lucky she had been to escape the fire in her off-campus house in college. Her hands began to shake slightly as she held the photos. Don’t think any deeper. But her mind kept spinning. These people didn’t stand a chance. The fire started in the middle of the night and was widespread before they even woke up—just like her college roommates, Gail and Robin. And the fire marshal said it was set. What possible motive could the Kessler kid have for burning up his family and friend in such a merciless, barbaric act? I wonder where he is today, thought Grace.
Brenda had organized all the information in the cold-case files. She had also kept a timeline and running set of notes and questions of her own. Near the notes on the Kessler boy she had written, “Poe?” and next to it “279.” Then she had scribbled “what if?” What did this pertain to—the fire, the parents, the house, or the Kessler boy? Grace couldn’t decide what Brenda meant and decided to look at some of the objects. Maybe they’d give her some ideas.
They must have originally been in evidence bags. But now several items had fallen to the bottom of the box and Grace pulled them out and set them on the table. She examined them: several bottle caps, worn and dirty, sat on the table, along with some shards of pottery or dishes. A small knife, perhaps a Swiss army knife, lay on the table beside what looked like frames or part of a frame for old glasses. A number of coins—someone had cleaned them off—sat in a small pile in the bottom of the box, and Grace could see that not one had a date on it later than the mid-1960s. Well, that makes sense. Another coin—it looked like a good-luck pi
ece of some kind—sat among the other coins. Grace picked up each of them and scrutinized them, along with the glasses frame. The coins weren’t unusual and the good-luck piece—if that is what it was—had a bird on it and a small hole through the middle. It looks like a Raven. Poe again?
It’s like a puzzle, she thought. She turned the good-luck piece over in her fingers, and wondered whose pocket it might have occupied. Or perhaps someone found it on the floor of the house after the fire. Maybe Nick Lawler carried it because it gave him some hope in the ugly surroundings of his own home. Oh, shut up. You’re being a romantic now. She didn’t see anything else unique or unusual in the bottom of the box or among the items she had already examined. What could you have meant by your notes, Brenda? Why Poe? She suddenly remembered that she had heard the author’s name somewhere else recently. Where?
She figured the math. If Ted Kessler were fifteen at the beginning of 1968, how old was Brenda? She walked over to her desk and slipped the copy of Brenda’s obituary out of a pile of papers. Brenda had been born in 1953. So when the fire occurred she was fourteen, just a year behind the Kessler boy. How old was Nick Lawler? She checked with the detective files of his record and found he was seventeen when the fire happened. Did Brenda know either of these guys? Grace looked over at the bookshelf and realized she had sent Brenda’s yearbooks home to her brother. Deb would have the same books at the Historical Society. Grace could check them and see if they had any photos of the three.
Three May Keep a Secret (An Endurance Mystery) Page 10
