Miss Julia Lays Down the Law

by Ann B. Ross

  “Why, Coleman, you know I’ll help any way I can.”

  “Okay. Here’s the problem: you left a partial finger- and palm print in a smear of blood on the granite countertop above the head of the victim. The assumption has been that you got the blood on your hand from one of the puddles or spatters on the floor or on the victim, then transferred it to the countertop. I’d like to see how that happened. Would you be willing to show us exactly what you did when you walked in and found Ms. Clayborn on the floor?”

  “Well,” I said hesitantly, my eyes darting around, “I’m not sure I can recall exactly what I did. I was in a state of shock when I realized that she was no longer with us, and I was kind of operating on instinct or impulse or something. More or less.”

  “We understand that,” Coleman said in a kindly tone, “and this is all unofficial—no notes and no recordings will be made. I just want to see if what I suspect will prove to be true, and whether it will or not, either way, it will not damage you or your testimony.”

  “Well,” I said again as I looked into Coleman’s honest eyes, “I trust you, Coleman, so I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Good. Let’s walk down to the lab.” He took my arm and led me out into the hall, where I saw a number of deputies gathered around, Lieutenant Peavey towering over all. We led the convoy halfway down the hall and turned into the department’s laboratory. A wall of cheap kitchen cabinets with black Formica countertops, centered by a sink with rust stains, ran down the right side of the room. The flock of deputies crowded into the other side.

  “Okay,” Coleman said, stopping me short of the cabinets. “Deputy Caine, please assume the position.” There was a murmur of laughter as a woman deputy carefully lowered herself to the floor, where I saw that an outline of Connie’s body had been drawn in chalk. Deputy Caine was about Connie’s size and, with Coleman’s help, she arranged herself within the outline. And as she did, my mind flashed back to what I had found, and I could almost see Connie again as she lay half on her stomach, one side of her face with its one eye staring ahead, one knee pulled up, and one shod foot sticking out beyond the end of the cabinets.

  I blinked away the association, noting to myself that Deputy Caine was clad in a dark navy uniform consisting of long pants and boots, and not clunky shoes and a dress that was hiked up to reveal pink nylon step-ins—which I doubted Deputy Caine would have had on even if Coleman had gone so far as to explicitly re-create the scene by exposing her undergarments.

  Coleman crouched beside her, adjusting her position in small ways, a nudge here and a nudge there, then he looked her over. “Comfy?” he asked.

  “Just get on with it,” she told him.

  “All right,” he said, standing and looking around the expectant audience. “We’ve got to use our imaginations a little here. This cabinet right here,” he said, pointing to the door above and to the side of Deputy Caine’s head, “represents the dishwasher, which is located on the right side of the sink cabinet both here and in the Clayborn kitchen. Notice that the victim’s head is pretty much aligned with the join between the dishwasher and the next cabinet. See that, Miss Julia?”

  I nodded, trying to visualize a stainless steel dishwasher door instead of a stained plywood cabinet. “I see it, but I can’t swear to it.”

  “That’s all right. We can, because measurements were taken and drawings were made, and I’ve reproduced them here. Now, Miss Julia, you come over and squat down beside the victim in the same place and position as you did that day. Then I want you to go through the motions—as well as you remember them—just as you did then.”

  He stepped back and I stepped forward, reluctantly, I admit, for I had no real desire to go through those awful minutes again, even if I could recollect my exact movements.

  “Well,” I said, “I know I squatted down beside her. Like this.” And I carefully adjusted my feet near, but not touching, Deputy Caine and resumed the position I’d taken as well as I could, in spite of creaking joints and aching muscles. “I called her name, then I touched her shoulder. Like this.” Deputy Caine’s shoulder was soft and warm, not at all like the feel of Connie’s shoulder. “Then I pulled down her skirt tail, which I now know I shouldn’t have done, but at the time I was trying to save her some embarrassment, not knowing that she no longer cared about such things.” I went through the motions of pulling down a skirt.

  “And,” Coleman asked, “you were still crouched beside the body?”

  “Oh, yes, I hadn’t moved an inch and my limbs were letting me know it, too. But there was so much blood coming from under her head and so many spatters around that I was very careful not to move around in them. But then, just as I realized that Connie was actually dead, the power went off and the lights went out.” I shuddered, swept again by the fear I’d experienced in those moments.

  “So what did you do when that happened?”

  “I had only one thought, and that was to get out and away. Squatting there beside a dead acquaintance in the dark, I heard what I thought was a shuffling movement, and I was scared out of my mind.”

  “We understand,” Coleman said. “So try to react just as you did then. You heard something. You were frightened. Don’t tell us. Show us what you did.”

  I closed my eyes and relived those frightful moments so that they seemed to be happening again and, in spite of having determined never to put such a strain on my protesting knees again, I put my right hand on the floor and reached with the other one for the countertop. By pushing with one and pulling with the other, along with a wrenching of stiff joints and quivering muscles, I managed to gain my feet and turn toward the crowd of deputies, ready to flee the scene as I’d done before.

  “See that!” Coleman said to the onlookers. “That’s what I thought happened. Show us your hand, Miss Julia.”

  I turned both hands up and, to my surprise, my left palm and fingers were smeared with a dark powdery substance. “What did I do? What is this?”

  “Fingerprint powder,” Coleman said, a smile of satisfaction on his face. “It’ll come off.” He handed me a paper towel.

  Turning to the deputies, he went on. “Miss Julia has just shown us what I think happened. Forensics checked every spatter and pool of blood in that kitchen, looking for where her hand picked up the blood and then transferred it to the edge of the counter. But they didn’t find anything, because she didn’t transfer it. She just happened to take hold of the countertop at the exact spot where Ms. Clayborn’s head hit when I think she fell. And since the countertop is black granite, Miss Julia wouldn’t have noticed the blood. So when she grasped the counter edge and pulled on it to stand up, the blood got smeared to look like a transfer. And I’m convinced the medical examiner can prove that the impact of the victim’s head on the edge of that granite counter both fractured the skull and caused the cut across the wound.”

  “She fell?” I asked in wonderment. “Nobody killed her?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Coleman said. “And a second look by forensics may prove it.” Turning aside, he said, “You can get up now, Deputy.” And Deputy Caine got to her feet in one swift, graceful movement—so different from my awkward rise.

  “One more question, Miss Julia,” he went on. “When did you close the dishwasher door?”

  “Close it? I didn’t close it. It was closed when I got there.”

  “Right. Now, here’s the thing,” Coleman went on. “When the first responders got there, the dishwasher door was closed—not locked, just closed, and nobody questioned it because the only fingerprints on it were Ms. Clayborn’s. But a second, more careful look turned up a small smear of blood on the inside of the door near the corner. I’m suggesting that Ms. Clayborn had climbed onto a chair—there was one overturned—and perhaps up onto the counter itself to reach the high cabinets. Somehow or another, she slipped and fell, hitting her head on the sharp edge of the counter, then bouncin
g off the corner of the open dishwasher door. From there, she fell to the floor into the position we found her, and I’m suggesting that the impact of her head on the corner of the door caused the second wound on the forehead—the bruise—and also caused the door to spring closed when she fell to the floor. I think we can prove that by seeing what the door does when it’s given a fairly heavy lick at the same spot.”

  Even though I was still in a daze of awe and confusion at Coleman’s proposition, and still wiping black powder off my hand, I could see the nods and smiles among the deputies. It made sense to them and even to Lieutenant Peavey, who had not just a smile but a grin on his face. Case solved.

  • • •

  “How did you figure all that out?” I asked as I stood with Coleman at the door leading out of the sheriff’s office. I was just before leaving for home, having been assured that neither I nor anyone else was a suspect in the death of Connie Clayborn.

  “From watching you crawl out of my tent and using me as ballast or leverage or whatever to get to your feet. In other words, I saw that you needed help of some kind to get up, and when I read your description of what you did that day in the Clayborn kitchen, it just made sense that you’d reach for something to pull yourself up with.” He smiled with well-deserved but unassuming pride. “Just paying attention to detail was what it amounted to.”

  “More than that, Coleman, more than that.” I pressed his hand, gave him a grateful smile, and started to open the door. “Oh, I almost forgot,” I said, turning back, “will you be seeing Lamar Owens anytime soon?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “I want to make sure he has a hat or scarf or something. You lose a lot of heat through your head, you know. If you’ll see to it, I’ll repay you for whatever you get.”

  Coleman smiled. “We’ll find him something. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh, one more thing, Coleman.” I stood with my hand on the door, ready to leave but still troubled by questions. “How can you be sure that Connie Clayborn fell? She could’ve been pushed or thrown against the counter, couldn’t she?”

  “Could’ve, yes. But remember, she wasn’t a small woman, so think of what it would take to push or throw her with enough force against the counter to cause the kind of wound she had. And remember—well, you may not know this, but the autopsy showed no bruises or handprints or other evidence that would’ve been there if someone had grasped her and thrown or pushed her. I know you thought you heard somebody in the house, but they found no evidence of anybody. There’ll be an inquest, I expect, but it’s looking accidental.”

  “Well, I guess it’s a relief that no one is getting away with murder. But, I declare, Coleman, I wish you’d come up with this several days ago. You would’ve saved a lot of wear and tear on my nerves.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, well, I was sign sitting. But the guys would’ve gotten it sooner or later.”

  I wasn’t too sure about that, but I thanked him again, wished him a good day, and, finally, walked out the door of the sheriff’s department—a free woman, thanks to him.

  I stopped beside my car, a sudden thought blooming in my mind—Roberta had said all along that Coleman should’ve been on the case. Maybe she wasn’t as balmy as I’d thought.

  I left then, but on my way home a few questions raised their ugly heads. What was Connie’s husband really doing in his house the night that Lamar Owens and I had also shown up there? Communing and computing just didn’t seem answer enough. And speaking of Lamar, what had happened to his beloved scarf, begrimed though it was, but also laden with my fingerprints? Coleman had not mentioned those fingerprints, so had they not been found, or had the deputies decided that the scarf had no bearing on what they were thinking at the time was a murder case?

  Furthermore, were the deputies still looking for who or what had set off the house alarms? Or would Lamar’s scarf give them a reason to assume that he’d been the likely burglar who’d been scared off by the lights and sirens? I’d hate for him to be blamed for something that had essentially been my idea and, thus, my fault, even though Lamar had never seemed the least concerned about the possibility of lengthening his arrest record.

  I would watch out for him, though, and if the presence of that scarf near a crime scene came back to haunt him, I would confess to my sudden urge to wash the filthy thing, and I would also confess my part in our trek along the fire lane. Until and unless that happened, I decided, I would just keep it to myself. But even if it did come up, all they could pin on me or him concerning that fiasco was a misdemeanor trespassing charge, and I had a good lawyer. When I could find her.

  Turning onto Summit Avenue, I began castigating myself for having suspected Pastor Ledbetter—how could I have done that? And why had I beaten myself to a pulp over keeping his secret when it hadn’t amounted to a hill of beans? For days I’d let myself roil around in a state of turmoil over telling on him or not telling. But that’s what comes from being a person of high moral character, and I guessed I’d do it again given the same circumstances.

  I turned off Summit onto Polk, then made a left turn into my own driveway. My heart sped up at the sight of Sam’s car, and I hurried inside the house. The kitchen was empty—maybe Lillian had made a tactful retreat—so I hurried through it calling my beloved’s name.

  He met me in the hall, and let me just say that we had quite a nice reunion. It took some time, however, after we were seated together on the leather sofa in the library, for me to tell Sam all that had happened in the few days, which I readily admit seemed much longer, that he had been gone. Sam was highly impressed with Coleman’s acuity in being able to turn a murder into an accident, all because he’d seen an aged woman struggle to her feet. And Sam was delighted to hear about Lamar Owens—at least the part he played in the events that I chose to tell.

  As for the night runner, Sam, like me, wasn’t so sure that the man had chosen our street on which to run simply in order to admire the gracious homes along the way. We decided that it was more than likely that Stan Clayborn really had suspected me of some complicity in his wife’s death and was keeping an eye on me. I shuddered at the thought, but felt safe enough with Sam home and Lieutenant Peavey satisfied with the conclusion of the Clayborn case.

  As for Pastor Larry Ledbetter—well! Sam was irate at our pastor’s unconscionable behavior toward me, and he even went so far as to spring to his feet, ready to track him down and forcibly express his displeasure.

  “It’s all right, Sam,” I said. “Really it is. He’s more to be pitied than condemned. His heart was in the right place, wanting to take care of Emma Sue and to preserve his position in the church—we really can’t blame him for that. He just had too high an opinion of that position and got his priorities wrong.”

  I drew Sam back down beside me and held his hand. “The only thing that I would blame him for,” I went on, “is the way he treats Emma Sue, but she pretty much put him in his place at Mildred’s. I just hope she’ll stick to it. Anyway, he wanted to take Connie down a peg or two—as did we all—but he turned out to be the one who got taken down, which might prove the best thing that could’ve happened.”

  “Well,” Sam said, pulling me close, “I intend to let him know that I don’t appreciate the untenable position in which he put you. And I’ll tell you something else, Julia, this is the last time I’m leaving you alone. From now on, when I have to go somewhere, you’re going with me. You get into too much trouble when I’m gone.”

  “Yes, but I manage to get out of it, at least so far. Mainly because, I readily admit, of having friends in high places.” I leaned my head against his shoulder, comforted by having him home. “But I missed you, Sam. I really missed you.”

  After a while, Sam said, “Hold on a minute. I have something for you.”

  He went out into the hall and returned with a professionally wrapped package. “I hope you like it, honey. We didn’t have
time to look around much, but there was a nice shop next to the hotel. So I brought a gift for my sweetheart.”

  I quickly unwrapped it, deeply appreciative of his thinking of me while engrossed in discussions of judicial appointments, visiting with old classmates, and lunching with the governor. I carefully folded back the tissue paper under the lid, and there was Sam’s thoughtful gift—the last thing I would’ve ever expected.

  “Oh, Sam,” I said, pulling it out to its full length and admiring its softness and distinctive design. “A Burberry scarf! How did you know it’s what I’ve always wanted?”

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