by Amy Vansant
“I don’t think he’d hide anything in his living room or kitchen. Let’s go down there.”
Charlotte could see the back bedrooms and the bathroom doors were open, but the first door on the right, the one that Mariska used as an office in her home, was locked.
“I’m guessing in here.”
Darla pulled out her tools and got to work.
“It’s also the only door with a key lock,” she mumbled. A moment later, the door eased open.
The room inside looked like a cross section of a police station. Even the floor had cheap linoleum tile instead of the carpet that ran through the rest of the hallway and bedrooms. There were binders and papers piled everywhere, and a phone with twenty unused extensions.
“Has he been working as a cold case detective from his home?” asked Darla.
“Maybe he consults?”
A two-drawer file cabinet sat next to a sturdy metal desk. Cardboard tabs labeled the drawers as Solved and Unsolved.
Charlotte opened the Unsolved drawer to find it full. She flipped through the tabbed folders.
“Jessica Hampton…Anthony Vera… These are the cases he brags about solving,” she said, recognizing the names from Harry’s endless tales of heroics. “They’re all in the Unsolved drawer.”
“He’s been lying?”
“Unless he switched the labels on his drawers.”
Charlotte pulled open the Solved drawer. There was only one folder hanging in it, labeled Erin Bingham. She looked over her shoulder at Darla before extracting the file and laying it open on the desk, careful not to disturb the mess around her. Inside were a few yellowed newspaper clippings about Erin’s disappearance held together with a paper clip and a lined piece of paper with a sketch of a home and lot.
“That’s my house,” said Charlotte, noting her address scribbled in the corner.
The drawing of her backyard had an X where she’d discovered Erin’s body.
“I don’t think this is new. I think he made this drawing a long time ago.”
Darla squinted at the paper.
“How can you tell?”
“It’s done with a Bic pen model 3452, which they discontinued in two thousand two.”
“Really?”
Charlotte smirked. “No, but wouldn’t that be cool if I knew that?”
“Ha! That would be very cool.”
“It just looks old. Maybe he did it to remember where he buried the body.”
Another sheet of paper, clipped to photocopies of what appeared to be the love letters found at George’s house, had the words ‘orange tree’ written in red ink.
The back of the folder held a plastic baggie. This wasn’t the Ziploc she’d lent Harry at her home, this was an official evidence bag. Charlotte pulled it out and held it to the dying light filtering through the partially closed blinds. There was no mistaking what she held.
Darla stopped flipping through a pile of binders she’d found stacked against the wall and moved to the window, drawn by the contents of the bag.
“Is that hair?” she asked. “And blood?”
Behind a clump of dark hair tied with a string, a small swatch of white cloth stained reddish brown sat, small and terrifying.
“It must be Erin’s. It looks like there are nail clippings, too.”
“Oh gross. Why?”
“In case he needed them?”
“For what?”
“For making sure George was arrested. See the scratchy little bubble in the bag? I bet the bullet used to be in here. He kept it waiting for the day he’d have everything he needed to finally solve the case. Namely, the body.”
Darla covered her face with her hand. “This is so awful.”
“This means he had to have buried the body. Where else would he have gotten her hair and nails? And she was already bleeding when he found her; he took a piece of her shirt.”
Darla shook her head
“No. This is nutty fruitcake with a big dollop of cuckoo cream on top. Why didn’t he just turn George in if he had all this evidence? Why would he bury a girl?”
“Maybe he found Erin, suspected George, and wanted more time to think about what he should do before he sent his boss to jail?”
Charlotte recalled the conversation she’d had with Harry on the day he’d found the bullet.
“He mentioned the request for a larger patio took him by surprise. Maybe they laid the cement over her and he lost his chance to go back? He said the extra work was a pain, but maybe he was angry about the cement for a whole other reason.”
Darla stared at her, shaking her head.
“Baby girl, you had me up until the part where he buried her. There’s no point in a sane person’s life where you think, well, I’ll just bury this body for now.”
“Yeah. I’m having trouble with that part, too.”
Darla’s gaze roamed over Harry’s office, inspiring Charlotte to do the same. They ended up staring at a cheap particleboard shelf filled with books about forensics and cold cases. There was a boxed DVD set of the television show Cold Case and tiny figurines of police officers mixed with a single Sherlock Holmes. The bookend was a realistic human skull.
“I’m starting to get the shivers,” said Darla, staring at the skull. “Please don’t tell me that is real.”
“Please don’t ask me to check. I’ve had my share of skulls this year.”
Charlotte looked back at the opened Solved drawer, devoid of files.
“Darla,” she said.
Darla jumped. “What? What is it?”
Charlotte looked at her. “What if he was never going to turn in George?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“What if he wanted to solve a cold case? He failed in Chicago. When Erin fell in his lap, maybe he saw a chance to stack the deck in his favor.”
Darla turned back to the bookcase.
“You might be right,” she said.
Charlotte placed the hanging folder back in the drawer. As she did, she spotted a small megaphone tucked in the back. She grabbed it and held it aloft for Darla to see.
“I guess he likes to talk people off ledges, too,” said Darla.
Charlotte squeezed the trigger.
“Hey Darla, we should get out of here.”
Her voice sounded low and creepy.
Darla’s eyes grew wide. “The anonymous phone call! That’s the voice I heard when I answered Frank’s phone; the call that told him about the orange tree.”
“Shoot! My fingerprints are all over it!” said Charlotte, rubbing the handle on her shirt.
“Now you’re wiping off his fingerprints!”
“They’re going to find it in his file cabinet, shouldn’t that be enough?”
Holding it with her shirt, she dropped the megaphone back into place and pushed the drawer shut.
“Why didn’t we wear gloves?” she asked, rubbing down the handles of the file cabinet.
“I didn’t think for a second we’d find anything. Certainly not locks of hair and some kind of sicko museum to cold cases.”
“Look,” Charlotte pointed to floorboards propped between the file cabinet and bookshelf. “There are the clean floorboards. He did swap them out.”
“The crazy thing is this almost makes sense to me now,” said Darla. “I don’t know what that says about me.”
Charlotte nodded. “I think we have it. Penny shot at George to scare him, accidentally hitting Erin who was hiding in the closet. When the coast was clear, Erin ran for home, but she was hurt worse than she thought. She ended up collapsing near my future home, possibly trying to avoid Al’s car. Harry found her, maybe on his way back from patching the hole, maybe just before. Either way, he thought he had a case to solve.”
“If he fixed the closet first, he would have seen the blood in the closet. Wouldn’t he have said something to Penny?”
“Maybe he thought there was a fight and was embarrassed to say anything. Even patching a bullet hole, the blood was in a strange spot. You
wouldn’t assume a murder took place. You’d think maybe Penny punched George in the nose or someone cut their hand trying to fix the wall and then gave up.”
“And then he found Erin and he knew their history…”
“Exactly. He realized the blood in the closet was hers, and hid her body so he could be the one to solve her case. He assumed George had murdered her, so he went back and swapped out the floorboards to have proof of Erin’s being there.”
“But why wouldn’t he think Penny killed her? She was the woman scorned.”
“Would you call someone to patch your wall with blood in the closet if you’d just killed a girl there?”
“Probably not.”
“And George was gone, mad at Penny. Harry probably thought he was laying low.”
Darla sighed. “All this when that poor girl was trying to end it with George and do the right thing. What terrible luck.”
Charlotte grimaced. “Let’s get out of here. We have to tell Frank.”
Darla took one step outside the room and screamed, which in turn made Charlotte scream. She caught her breath, still shaking, and stumbled forward, pushing her way into the hallway past Darla who stood frozen, staring toward the kitchen.
Charlotte saw the figure at the end of the hall. It took everything she had not to scream again.
“Harry,” she said.
“I’ll tell you what’s terrible luck…” he said.
“Now Harry, don’t do anything stupid,” said Charlotte, holding up her hands as she visually searched him for weapons. He appeared unarmed. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the hallway, she saw he was pale as a boiled potato, beads of sweat covering his brow.
“Not your bad luck,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Mine.”
“What?” said Charlotte. She felt like she was clinging to the wing of a jet; no one was moving and yet everything was moving too fast.
“I was wrong again?” said Harry, putting his hand on the wall to steady himself. “Penny shot her?”
“Yes,” she said, the world beginning to focus. “Harry, Erin was hiding in the closet. When Penny shot at George, the bullet went into the closet and hit her. Penny and George took their argument to another room and she ran out.”
“Then you found her,” said Darla, trying to push forward.
“Stay back,” said Charlotte throwing out an arm.
“The hell I will,” said Darla. “I’ve lived my life. You get behind me.”
The two of them began to wrestle, both vying for human shield status.
“Stop it!” barked Harry. “I’m not going to hurt either of you.”
He turned and shuffled into his living room, flopping into his La-Z-Boy and breathing heavily.
The girls followed him.
“Are you okay?” asked Charlotte.
Harry’s eyes opened and focused on her. “Cancer.”
Charlotte remembered Harry’s makeshift belt. She’d suspected as much.
“Harry, we need to get you to a doctor,” said Charlotte. “You don’t look well.”
“Or maybe we’ll just bury you in a yard for safe keeping,” muttered Darla.
Charlotte shot her a look. “Call 911.”
Darla found Harry’s phone and dialed.
“I deserve that,” he said, “I wanted to solve one case…I saw the blood. Thought George shot her…”
“But you buried her!” said Charlotte. “How could you do such a thing?”
“She was already dead. Nothing could change that.”
Harry clenched his fists.
“Harry?”
“Hurts,” he hissed, straining against the pain.
“Just take it easy. Someone will be here soon.”
Harry looked at her with his milky blue eyes.
“I’m sorry—”
“Harry, please relax. I’m not the one who can forgive you. What you did was a horrible thing. You kept her family in the dark for years.”
“Tell them I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a whisper.
“You’re going to confess everything now, right?” she asked.
He nodded, grimacing with the pain. “If I can…I…I give up.”
Harry’s eyes closed and Charlotte heard the sound of sirens in the distance.
“They’re almost here, Harry.”
Harry didn’t move.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Hey Frank,” said Darla. She was on her cell standing in Harry’s front yard as they loaded him into the ambulance. “You wouldn’t believe what happened.”
“Darla!” said Charlotte. If Darla told Frank they broke into Harry’s house, all the evidence they’d found could be inadmissible.
Darla waved her away.
“I was walking with Charlotte when we saw Harry just about collapsing as he went into his house. We helped him inside and they’re taking him away in an ambulance now.”
Nice.
“He doesn’t look good. But I’ll tell you what looks worse…”
Darla told Frank that while they were waiting for the ambulance they stumbled onto Harry’s fake police station. The replaced floorboards were in plain view but she’d let Frank come and inspect the rest of it.
“Who knows what you’ll find,” said Darla before disconnecting.
When she hung up Charlotte caught her eye.
“Did he buy it?” she asked.
“Not a word. But it’s enough for plausible deniability. He’s on his way over.”
Terrified that Frank would forbid her from sharing all her new information with Declan, Charlotte put herself half way down the street by the time he arrived at Harry’s house. Mariska and Darla joined her and they walked home together.
“I never saw Harry,” Mariska said. “I’m so sorry! I swear I kept guard the whole time.”
“I think he stopped his walk early,” said Charlotte. “He didn’t look good. He probably took a shortcut home.”
They told Mariska about what they’d found, Mariska gasping at every new morsel of information. By the time they reached the bit about the bloody shirt, Charlotte was worried they might need a second ambulance for her.
Charlotte went home and called Declan. She tingled with excitement knowing she was a phone call away from giving Declan the closure he needed.
Case solved!
It wasn’t until she began the story that she realized how horrific it was. Being accidentally shot by a jealous wife while hiding in the closet of a married lover wasn’t the most glamorous way to die. Being buried by an obsessive-compulsive cold case detective was adding insult to injury.
Charlotte heard her voice relaying the details as if it didn’t belong to her. Who was this girl telling Declan all this painful information? Why would she want to do that?
“So no one did it,” said Declan when she was done.
“What?” She felt relieved that he was still on the phone and hadn’t decided to kill the messenger. “I said it was Penny, remember? And then Harry buried her hoping to solve the case.”
“No, I know,” said Declan, his voice monotone. “But no one really did it. Penny shot her by accident. What Harry did afterward is disgusting, but she was already dead. There’s no real villain. No one for me to blame except maybe…”
Charlotte waited, but as the silence stretched, she realized who he had in mind.
Erin.
Erin and George had cheated on Penny, and she’d paid the ultimate price.
“I’m going to go,” said Declan. “I have to tell Seamus.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Charlotte.
“It’s not your fault. Thank you for letting me know. Thank you for your help.”
“I—”
Charlotte fell silent. Nothing made anything better.
The phone disconnected.
A day went by, then two. Was she supposed to call Declan, or give him his space? She began scoring the days on her chalkboard, like a prisoner whiling away her sentence.
On day three, she bro
ke down and called him, but the phone went to voice mail.
She understood Declan’s need to be alone. Being accidentally shot by a jealous wife while hiding in the closet of a married lover wasn’t the most glamorous way for his mother to die. He had a lot to process. He had every right to his space.
But she didn’t have to like it.
On day four, she bought a shelf and neatly arranged the pile of books from her living room floor. She thought, build it and he will come.
He didn’t.
It had taken her three hours to assemble the shelf and he never showed. Apparently, Field of Dreams and IKEA had little in common.
On day five, Harry passed away. It didn’t help that there would be no earthly justice for his part in Erin’s disappearance. The doctors said he died of complications from bone cancer, but Charlotte suspected he’d succumbed to a broken heart. Even after doing unspeakable things to ensure his success, he couldn’t solve a murder. At eighty years old, he’d blown his last shot at cold case glory.
Harry lived long enough to confess everything to the police, including how he stole George’s trash for weeks in hopes of finding more evidence against him. He discovered George and Erin’s love letters, which he buried beneath George’s favorite orange tree. For Harry, the letters confirmed George’s guilt. He never dreamed Penny might have pulled the trigger, or that Erin’s death could have been an accident.
He planned to plant evidence until the police found it impossible not to arrest George. Along the way, he also intended to claim responsibility for the identification and capture of Erin’s killer.
His last words were, “I moved the file…”
The nurses didn’t know what it meant, but Charlotte did. Harry had prematurely moved Erin’s file from Unsolved to Solved. Maybe he thought he’d jinxed the case by moving it from cabinet to cabinet before his suspect’s conviction.
Or maybe, in the last moments of his life, he relived the fleeting joy he’d felt moving that file to the solved drawer.
On day eight, Charlotte returned to Harry’s home when his son arrived to run an estate sale. She hoped Declan would show, but he didn’t.
