The Klumps Mysteries: Season One (Episodes 1 through 7)

by DL Cook

  Don never liked going to Town Hall. It made him nervous for some reason, and there was always a line. The building had its own security and they treated him like everyone else. That he had a badge and a gun and was there on official police business made no difference.

  “To the end of the line,” the one uniform who wasn't sleeping directed him around the corner.

  “But I am the Police Commissioner,” Don began.

  “I don't care if you're the President. Back of the line,” the man pointed and shook his head like Don was the dumbest person in the universe.

  It took him half an hour to reach the entrance and metal detectors again.

  “Empty out your pockets, put them in the pan,” the same man droned. “Belts, coins, anything metal, goes in the pan.”

  Don simply walked through. The magnetometer went crazy.

  “Sir, did you empty out your pockets?”

  “No,” Don replied.

  The man huffed and rolled his eyes. “Go back through and empty your pockets, sir.”

  “I'm not an idiot,” Don muttered.

  “Um hmmm,” the man said, “change, belt, anything metal. Come on sir, you're holding up the line. These other people have important business here.”

  Don glanced back apologetically. He threw his coins into the pan. He removed his gun and his belt. He placed his car and house keys next to the weapon and extra ammo clip. Don stepped through the metal detector. It blared.

  “Sir! Step back and remove all metal objects!”

  Don frisked himself. His badge. That's what he forgot. He threw it into the pan with a sheepish smile. The pan made its way through the x ray machine as he stepped once again through the metal detector. Blessed silence. Don caught his falling pants and waddled over to the conveyor belt to collect his things.

  “There. That wasn't so hard, was it? You are holding up the line sir. Please take your things from the collection area.

  Councilmen from the past watched from their portraits as Don reassembled himself. He found the sign for the elevator bank and followed it. All but one of the elevators were out of order. Typical. When it arrived the woman operating it wouldn't let him in.

  “For council members only,” she said from behind her desk, which took up most of the elevator.

  “How am I supposed to get up to the fourth floor?” Don didn't bother to conceal his annoyance.

  She shrugged. “Beats me. Take the stairs.”

  “It says they're for emergencies only.”

  The woman shrugged again and jammed the button to close the door. Don put his arm in the way and made to get in.

  “Sir. You can't be in here.”

  “The elevator is empty!”

  “Sir, you are interfering with council business. Let go of the door so that I may pick up my waiting passengers.”

  “Where are they waiting?”

  “On the fourth floor.”

  “That's where I'm going! Let me in. This is official police business.”

  “Sir, step out of the elevator or I will call security.”

  “I will arrest you for incompetence!”

  The woman rolled her eyes at him and popped her gum. She pressed a red button, sounding an alarm. “Every day it's something...” she muttered.

  “It's you!” Don shouted before sliding into profanity. Burly guards, unhappy about being roused from their slumber, escorted him out of the building. So ended Don's every visit to Town Hall.

  “I don't know why I bother,” he told Peggy and Duncan back at the station.

  “I was going to say—but you left before I could—that they have a website.” Peggy turned her laptop so it faced Don. “Douglas Hadiger was chair of the budget committee when Swinton was brought in.”

  “Oh yeah.” Don sort of recognized the fat face. “You think he'll talk on the phone? Or maybe I should send Tom to fetch him.”

  “No. You can't do either.”

  “I know he's powerful and all, but this is a murder investigation. I'm sure he'll want to avoid bad press, and for once it won't be about us.”

  Peggy shook her head. “He's dead. Six months ago.”

  “How'd he die? Was there an investigation? I don't remember.”

  “I'll see what I can find out, but this obituary says it's suicide.”

  Don sighed. “Marcy was the coroner then?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do you remember that case?”

  “No. But six months ago, didn't half the station go to that retreat at Sunshine Valley Lake?”

  “Yes.” Don recalled freezing his butt off, huddled with Libby in a tent. It poured the entire week, swelling the so called lake to the size of a car. “Libby is forbidden from buying anything off that deals site again.”

  “I was away then too, visiting my folks in Georgia.” Peggy sent her assistant Duncan to find the records on the Hadiger case. She typed on her laptop and turned it to Don again.

  “Is that the hospital surveillance footage?”

  “Hmm hmm.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Watch.”

  Don watched. He saw nothing suspicious. Libby went looking for a dog or something and so wasn't there to ask questions while he collected himself. “Those doctors and nurses are running to Swinton's room?”

  “Yes.”

  “What's wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you showing this to me?”

  Peggy tapped the screen. “She's out of place,” she pointed at a blond nurse.

  “She's just walking there. Ah. She's walking away from the scene, but one would expect her to run toward it.”

  “Precisely,” Peggy froze the grainy image.

  “But that doesn't necessarily prove anything,” Don mused, “because you wouldn't expect all of the doctors and nurses to come running when there's an alarm. Maybe she had somewhere else to be, was on break, and so on.”

  “Absolutely,” Peggy agreed. “Still, I made Duncan scour the surveillance footage to see where else she was that day.” She opened another file with a few mouse clicks. “This is another camera, in the next hall, a few minutes after what you just saw.” The video showed the woman exiting the hospital. It blinked to another angle, showing the woman getting into a waiting car.

  “Okay, so it was the end of her shift and she was going home,” Don said.

  “Except,” Peggy clicked open another file, “she just entered the hospital not twenty minutes before. That's her wandering the halls. See there? Doesn't really know where she's going. Not what you'd expect from someone who works there. Recognize that man in the video?”

  Don watched himself talking on his cell phone, probably outside Tom's room. The blond woman came up to him. Don shrugged and the woman turned away. Then he called her back and pointed with his free hand down the hall.

  “Do you remember what she asked you, Don?”

  “I think she asked me where the ICU was. I met our suspect...”

  “It didn't strike you as odd that a nurse was asking you directions?”

  “I didn't think about it, you know? Some reporter was bothering me about what happened. Two officers down, one a murderer. My brother in law was in the hospital. I had a lot on my mind. If I noticed the nurse's uniform, maybe I thought she was a stripper or something, or it was her first day, I don't know.”

  “Probably a good idea to get the sketch artist in here?”

  “No. I don't remember what she looked like. I have trouble with faces. And anyway, Caspar is an abstract expressionist. His sketches never helped identify anyone. They're nice to hang around here, though.” He pointed at one, a jumbled mess of lines, swirls, and clumps. “Livens up the place.”

  “True,” Peggy agreed. “Shame the union doesn't let us get a real sketcher.”

  “Pffft. Whatcha gonna do? We have any footage of the car? Enough to identify the model, maybe the license plate?”

  “The computer's working on it,” Peggy said.
“But these images are of such low quality, I don't have high expectations.”

  “Yeah, I don't understand how we're supposed to use this surveillance footage. It's never in HD.” Don squinted at the enlarged pixelated face of the fake nurse and prime suspect in Swinton's murder. He had Peggy print him a copy anyway. “There's no footage of her going into Swinton's room, is there?”

  “No. The camera in that hall was out of order.”

  “Of course it was,” Don sighed. “Still, I think you're right that she's involved. If anything, we should find her so she can explain what she was doing in the hospital that day. Good work, Peggy. This is a solid lead. Finding Swinton's killer will go a long way toward solving his crimes.”

  Deputy Cinthia Evanovich pulled to the curb when her partner Kurt Dunce said they arrived. It was a nice neighborhood and all that, but she really didn't want to be here, some thirty miles from home.

  “We always get the shit jobs,” Kurt said as he slammed his door closed. “Mettler-Klump doesn't even know our names.”

  Cinthia made a face. “Of course Don does. Remember, he said he only hires good people because we're the best police department in town.”

  “The only one too,” Kurt snorted.

  “I'm sure that's not how he meant it.”

  “Whatever. Made us go halfway across the state to do what, exactly?”

  “Don's super smart. He knows what he's talking about. If he thinks we'll find something, if he has enough confidence in us, then we better not disappoint him.”

  Kurt shook his head. “Like I said. He don't even know our names. That's why we got assigned on this wild goose chase in the middle of nowhere. I say we find a bar, get a couple of brewskies, then head home and tell him we found nothing.”

  “Maybe that's why he doesn't know your name. You've done nothing to make him notice you.”

  “Whatever, let's get this over with.”

  Cinthia rang the bell. After a few moments she opened the screen door and knocked on the wooden one behind it. When there was no answer she knocked again and tried to peer in the window, cupping her hands around her eyes. She saw the floor through the cracks in the blinds, but not much else.

  “No one's there,” Kurt said from the lawn. “Just as I expected,” he added.

  “Can I help you folks?” An old man emerged onto the porch of the neighboring house.

  “No,” Kurt said and headed back to the car.

  “Yeah,” Cinthia said. “Does anyone live here?”

  “Oh, not for a while,” the old man supported himself on the fence. “Nice family lived here, but moved away without a word. I thought at first they went on vacation, but it's been a year. I don't think they're coming back. I still take their mail and mow their lawn, but...did something happen to Scott and his family?”

  “I'm not sure,” Cinthia replied. “One day they're all here and the next they're gone?”

  “Yes, pretty much. Do you want to take a look around? I have a key.”

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  The house was empty of furniture. “Did you see a moving truck or anything?” The dusty floor creaked. Their steps and voices echoed throughout.

  “Not that I recall,” said the neighbor. “Maybe they came at night. I'm a sound sleeper.”

  One of the bedrooms upstairs had something left on the door, the remainder of a child's drawing. “Do you know if they pulled their daughter out of school before they left?” Cinthia interrupted the old man's story about his new blood pressure medication.

  “Such sweet girls. I don't know, I'm sorry to say.” He went on to talk about his own children and grandchildren.

  When they finished the tour Cinthia asked if they could take the mail. The man was happy to provide it. He was still talking about the new mail carrier when they drove away.

  “Well that was pointless,” Kurt said from the driver's seat.

  “I wouldn't say so,” Cinthia thumbed through the mail. “I think Don will be pleased.”

  “What, that we listened to an old man's life story?”

  “He was a nice enough guy, but no. We found out Swinton has a wife and kids. Two daughters. The question is, where are they? That the family suddenly moved is also new information that might be useful.”

  “But we know they moved. Swinton got a job with us because he knew some politician's nephew or something.”

  “But why the sudden move? And the house was gutted. Did you see that? They even took the pipes. And all in the middle of the night. That old man has nothing to do, so he'd know all about it if it happened during the day.”

  “If you say so,” Kurt shrugged.

  The tattered siding, cracked porch, the stink of rot all reminded Lucus Chalmers of the movie Deliverance. He had a bad feeling about the house. This was not a part of town he'd visit willingly, so he was glad for Tom's company.

  Lucus urged Tom to put his PSP away and then knocked on the door. The address numbers rocked back and forth with the motion. Either no one was home or they pretended not to be. He reviewed the fax to make sure they had the right place. The house didn't seem appropriate for someone who could afford a team of big city lawyers.

  “You wanna check around back?” Tom didn't quite know what to do with his free hands. He drew them together to clap lightly.

  Lucus considered the giant snarling dog behind the chain link fence. “Better not.”

  “Okay,” Tom clapped. “I think someone's inside though, and they're up to no good.”

  Lucus had the same feeling. “What makes you say that?”

  “Someone just looked out the window and made face at me.”

  “What kind of a face?”

  “Like they're crazy.” Tom contorted his facial muscles to show what he saw.

  Lucus imagined someone tied up or in a cage. “You hear that?”

  “What?” Tom clapped.

  “Like a muffled scream maybe?”

  “Nope.”

  Chalmers had the urge to knock down the door and go in with his gun drawn. Something wasn't right. But what if he was wrong? Maybe it was just this creepy house. This neighborhood. It always made him jumpy, with its mountain hicks in their meth dens. If he barged inside without permission or a warrant and there wasn't anything illegal going on, a team of lawyers would destroy him and the department. But still...Lucus knew in his gut that something here was seriously wrong. Perhaps they should try the old policeman's trick, something that would excuse them if they found nothing wrong. A good probable cause excuse to get in. Some kind of imminent danger to the house's occupants and neighbors.

  “Say Tom?” Lucus motioned with his head at the door and winked.

  “What's up, Chalmers?”

  “Do you smell gas?”

  “Sorry about that.”

  Lucus expected a yes or no answer. Yes if Tom was with him and no if he thought it was a bad idea. “Say again?”

  “I think the tamales might not have agreed with me,” Tom patted his stomach.

  Another muffled sound. Perhaps someone struggling. “You hear that? Come on, you had to hear that.”

  “Sorry about that,” Tom smiled sheepishly and patted his stomach. “Tamales...”

  “Have you been passing gas this whole time?”

  “Yes. Sorry about that.”

  Lucus began to doubt what he'd heard. But still, the vibe this place had...there was something wrong here. As they walked back to their car Lucus took out his pad and wrote down the license plate numbers of the nearby vehicles as well as their models. He made special note of the green Honda Civic because it was parked directly in front of the house. It also had out of state plates, which was fairly unusual in town, especially in this area. On their drive back to the station Lucus asked Tom to lower his window and advised him not to eat so many tamales in the future.

  Duncan came back from the records room with a thin manila envelope. “That's all we have on Doug Hadiger,” he took out three sheets. One was a photograph of t
he councilman slumped over his desk. Another was a group portrait of the officers at the scene, behind the body and no doubt organized by Marcy, the photograher. The third was titled “Coroner's Report.” It named the deceased, pronounced suicide as the cause of death, and contained no other information except Marcy's handwritten shopping list off to the side.

  Don closed his eyes and counted to ten. “So we have absolutely nothing on the councilman. Was he cremated?”

  “The article says he's buried at the new cemetery.”

  Don put Peggy in charge of getting a court order to dig Hadiger up, and once they did to coordinate with Mort.

  “Good work. You might even get a promotion for this,” Don finished his call with one of the two out of town deputies. “Swinton has a wife and two daughters. Kirk and Samantha are coming back soon with the details,” he told Chalmers who had just returned.

  “You mean Kurt and Cinthia,” Lucus corrected.

  “Right, right. Jeez, what's that smell?”

  “Sorry about that,” Tom said.

  “You're rotten inside, Klump.”

  Tom chuckled. “Tamales...”

  “I ate them and I'm fine. What else did you have, Klump?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn't have that pizza I saw you eating? Or the bag of popcorn?”

  “Yes. I had those too.”

  “Did you also go to that new bakery?”

  “No,” Tom said, his tone signifying the opposite was true.

  “Uh huh. You have powdered sugar on your nose, liar. Don't slander your sister's delicious food. So what have you guys got to report? What did Quilton have to say for himself?”

  “Quinton, boss.”

  “Right. Well?”

  “We didn't get to talk with anyone, though Tom saw someone in the window,” Lucus said. “I had a bad feeling about that place, Don. Something's definitely wrong there. But we had no probable cause. I didn't want to get any more heat on the department.”

  Don nodded. “Good thinking. But your hunches are often proven right. You know you could always do the old trick. You know the one: 'do you smell gas?'”

  “Sorry about that,” Tom looked up from his video game.

  Don wrinkled his nose. “Oh my God.” He coughed. “Something died inside you and my eyes are burning. I can't see!”