1 A Dose of Death

by Gin Jones

  "There's nothing interesting about the case at all?" Helen said. "Not even how long he's eluded the cops?"

  "Not really," Tate said. "Some people are fascinated by what he steals. It's unusual from a personal point of view, but not a professional one."

  "What does he steal?"

  "Remote controls mostly," Tate said. "A few times he left the remote and just stole the batteries, as if he's trying to make some sort of point. People have reported that they didn't even know they'd been robbed until they used the remote to play a DVD, and nothing happened. When they checked to see if the batteries were dead, the compartment was empty."

  "That's all you know?"

  "About these particular burglaries, yeah." Tate said. "That's pretty much it for my expertise with burglary in general too, come to think of it. It's a pretty basic and mundane crime. No hairs to split that haven't already been split a thousand times. Now, if you want to talk about choosing the right piece of wood for a lamp stem, I could go on for hours about that."

  "No, thanks." Helen struggled to her feet. "I just wanted to know about the burglaries."

  "The local newspaper's archives would probably tell you more than I can." Tate stood too. "Their offices are down the street. That's where I'd start if I were investigating the case and wanted to know more about the other burglaries."

  "That's where Geoff Loring works, and I'd rather not run into him."

  "The guy's a twit, isn't he?" Tate said. "A lot of the paper's recent stories are available on-line if you've got internet access."

  "Of course I do." Helen had always kept her indispensable contacts database in her Rolodex, where she could safeguard it against hackers and computer malfunctions, but she'd used computers for everything else while she'd worked in the governor's mansion. "Why didn't you tell me that right away?"

  "You were paying for my time, and I've got expenses." Tate picked up the wood he'd been turning when she'd arrived and reached for the lathe's power switch. "Good wood, like reliable legal advice, is never cheap."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The newspaper's on-line archives had references to the petty burglaries going back almost three years. The earliest ones were simply entries in summaries of the police log, but about two years ago, Geoff Loring had noticed the pattern, concluded they'd all been done by one person, and coined the nickname of the Remote Control Burglar. From then on, each incident was covered in a separate article. All told, there were close to fifty of them, and it took Helen all afternoon to find them and then print them for later study.

  After dinner, Helen chatted with her nieces online, reassuring them that she was fine, the police were doing their best to investigate the murder, and she'd hired an attorney to take care of cancelling the contract with the nursing agency.

  "The same one who failed to get a restraining order?" Lily asked.

  "That wasn't his fault," Helen said. "I have complete confidence in him."

  "What was his name again?" Lily asked.

  Instead of answering, Helen asked Laura if there was any news about a possible addition to the family, which was always a reliable way to change the subject. Even Lily respected her sister's fascination with all things procreational. Getting Laura involved was the only way to distract Lily.

  By the time Laura ran out of newly discovered tidbits about pregnancy and infant care, Helen was able to avoid giving Lily Tate's name by claiming it was late, and she needed to get some rest.

  Helen tried to go back to the newspaper articles about the Remote Control Burglar, but it turned out that she really was too tired for the sort of detailed analysis that would be necessary for any insights the police and the reporter had missed. She decided it would be best to get a good night's sleep and return to the clippings when she was refreshed.

  After breakfast the next morning, Helen checked the newspaper's website to see if there was any breaking news on the investigation of either the murder or the burglaries. The only thing she found of interest was the notice of a memorial service for Melissa, scheduled for late that afternoon. She hadn't expected it to be so soon, but if there were no family members who might need to travel to get here, she supposed there was no reason to delay putting Melissa to rest.

  No matter how much Helen had loathed the nurse, she felt obliged to attend the service. As her ex-husband's ambassador, she'd been to plenty of memorials for people she'd detested. She could do it one more time.

  Helen called the car service and arranged for Jack to pick her up in time to arrive halfway through the service. Normally, she'd have planned to arrive early, slip in and out quickly and largely unnoticed, but it had struck her that it would be interesting to see who else was mourning Melissa. Pierce was adamant that Melissa had no family, no significant other, while Tate was confident that the killer would turn out to have been someone close to the victim. Helen hadn't thought to ask Tate whether killers routinely showed up at memorial services, the same way arsonists reportedly showed up at the fires they set. If so, someone should be checking out everyone who attended the memorial, and the police weren't likely to do it, not as long as they were convinced the Remote Control Burglar was their culprit.

  After checking her closet to make sure she'd kept at least one outfit suitable for attending a funeral, and finding a plain black sweater set and black pants, Helen settled down to study the print-outs she'd made from the newspaper's archives. Even after Loring had realized the crimes had likely been committed by a single person, the articles were short, mostly just paraphrasing of the police blotter summaries, with the occasional bit of speculation about the culprit's motive for taking such inconsequential items. They verged on opinion pieces, rather than investigative journalism.

  There was one longer article by Geoff Loring a few months ago, starting with a summary of the dates and locations of the burglaries, the names of the victims, and a fairly detailed list of the items stolen from each location. He'd also interviewed the police chief, eliciting only the standard response about how the police department was doing the best it could with limited resources. The article also included a few comments by random people on the street, most of whom seemed to think the burglaries were some sort of joke, not to be taken seriously.

  Despite the official police stance that every crime was serious, they hadn't seemed any more concerned about the incidents than the general public was. Helen could understand why the police would work harder at catching a killer than catching a petty burglar, and even why they might have felt a little guilty when that petty burglar had become a vicious killer. But why did they think the one type of crime had morphed into the other?

  As far as she could tell, there hadn't been any sort of gradual escalation that might hint at the future violence. If the police theory was correct, the burglar had made a sudden switch from one end of the crime spectrum to the other, from petty property crime to extreme personal violence. Pierce had told her that a knife had been used to threaten one of the more recent victims, which, in hindsight, might have been viewed as a warning that the burglar was about to get violent. But Helen couldn't find anything in the newspaper reports about a knife being used. Just random break-ins. Virtually the only consistent element of the crimes was the complete lack of violence. Beyond that, no one had suggested any apparent pattern, in terms of when they happened, where they happened, or even how the homes were broken into.

  What was it about Melissa's murder that made the police think it had to be related to the burglaries? She read and re-read her printouts, and she still couldn't see anything in the newspaper articles that could possibly lead to that conclusion.

  The police might well have evidence that she didn't know about, but she couldn't imagine why they'd have withheld information on the earlier crimes that no one was particularly interested in solving. Instead, it felt as if the police thought there was only one possible criminal in the town, so everything that happened was attributed to him. It was, perhaps, a reassuring theory for the citizens, but it didn't make any
sense.

  In Helen's experience, pretty much everyone was a criminal, at least in his heart of hearts. A little tax evasion here, a little office-supply theft there. Not the sort of thing that was ever caught or prosecuted, but it set the stage for bigger things. Little larcenies could easily escalate into major larcenies if the opportunity ever presented itself, but the fundamental nature of the crime—theft—would remain the same. Over the years, several of her ex-husband's acquaintances had been convicted of embezzlement or fraud, but she couldn't imagine any of them committing murder, not even to keep from being caught for the underlying crime. Perhaps the tendency to stick to one type of crime was limited to politicians, whose egos had deluded them into rejecting, right up until their sentencing, the possibility that they'd be punished. A more realistic criminal might be quicker to turn to violence to avoid being caught.

  Helen glanced at the time and realized Jack would be there in a few minutes. There had to be a pattern to the burglaries, something that would help identify the criminal and show that he wouldn't have been anywhere near Melissa. Unfortunately, finding that pattern would have to wait. She needed to get ready for the wake.

  Helen shoved the newspaper articles into one of her unused scrapbooks for further study and changed into the black pants and sweater set she'd found earlier. She fetched her back-up cane and headed out the front door to wait for Jack. As she reached the bottom of the porch steps, she couldn't help glancing at the far side of the yard, where the police tape still marked the scene of the crime. What had Melissa been doing over there?

  She hadn't reached any conclusions by the time Jack arrived a couple minutes later. He waited for her to settle into the back seat of the luxury car and then headed back down her driveway. "Are you sure you want to go to Melissa's wake? You two weren't exactly close."

  "I owe it to her anyway," Helen said. "Besides, maybe the person who killed her will be there. Tate thinks it's her significant other."

  "You don't think it's the guy the police are looking for?"

  "A burglary gone wrong just doesn't make sense to me."

  "That's what I thought too," Jack said. "I've known some petty criminals in my time, and they're not usually violent. People steal little things all the time, but they'd never get physical about it. Like the other day, I was taking this guy home from the airport, and he seemed like a nice guy, didn't complain when we ran into some traffic, and even gave me a decent tip. But then when I was taking his luggage out of the trunk, one of the suitcases popped open, and inside was a whole linen closet's worth of hotel towels and flatware and even a cheap little iron. He could have set up his own bed and breakfast with all the stuff he'd taken. He laughed about how he didn't even want the iron, and he was going to have to pay extra because of the weight of his luggage, but he didn't care. He was just trying to get even, because he thought the hotel charged too much. He might have been irritated if he'd been caught by the hotel security guards, but he never would have even considered punching one of them."

  "People can panic when they get caught. That fear can lead to anger and then violence."

  "Over a few trinkets?" Jack said, shaking his head dismissively. "And not just a little shoving match, but actual murder? I don't think so. I mean, what's the worst that would have happened if Melissa had turned in a petty burglar? Whatever the penalty, it couldn't be as bad as a life sentence for murder."

  She hadn't thought of that. She'd have to ask Tate about the likely sentencing for the burglaries. Until then, it was reassuring to know that Jack agreed with her about the unlikeliness of a petty burglar turning to murder. Jack certainly had plenty of time to observe human behavior, and the incentive to understand what he observed, in order to keep the passengers happy or at least reasonably satisfied.

  Two people's opinions about human nature wasn't enough to completely discount the police theory, though. They might know something she didn't, something that would explain why the burglar would have been willing to kill, rather than something less drastic, like running away or even just fighting the charges in court.

  Helen waited while Jack maneuvered the Town Car into the too-small space in front of the funeral home. When it came to a full stop, she said, "Maybe the burglar didn't just panic. Maybe Melissa just said the wrong thing, and he over-reacted. She was good at pushing people's buttons."

  Jack got out of the Town Car and opened her door. "If Melissa was that bad, she had to have annoyed lots of other folks, and they'd have wanted to kill her more than some random burglar would."

  "True." Helen slid out of the Town Car and then retrieved her cane from the back seat. "I want to see who shows up and who signed the guest book. Folks who were supposed to be her friends and coworkers could have been terminally annoyed by her."

  "Does Tate know you're doing this?" Jack slammed the car door shut.

  "Sort of," Helen said. "I'm counting on you to call him if they try to throw me out of the service."

  * * *

  Helen could hear quiet murmurs in the adjoining room, but the entry area was deserted. She stopped at the table with the guest book. She needed to sign it, but it might be best not to use her real name. Geoff Loring might see it later and become suspicious about what she'd been doing here, given her history with Melissa. But she had to write something. Even if Melissa didn't have any close family, there had to be someone who cared about her, and who deserved whatever comfort another signature would provide.

  What happened to the books after the services, anyway? Helen had been to funerals as the state's first lady, and sometimes the guest books had been destined for presidential libraries, while other times they went to the grieving family members. But what happened when there was no historical value and no close family? Why even collect the signatures if they would just clutter up the home of some distant relative who would toss it onto a shelf or put it in a box in the attic until it disintegrated?

  Helen flipped to the front of the guest book. Even though she'd timed her arrival toward the middle of the service, when the bulk of the visitors had already arrived, there were barely two pages worth of names. Really only one page worth in any other format, but the book had been printed with three times as much space as normal between each signature line.

  It looked like the nursing agency's owner, Gordon Pierce, had been the first to arrive, followed by several people whose signatures had RN after them. Presumably, they were Melissa's co-workers. But that was about it for mourners. Either Melissa's past clients weren't able to visit, or they hadn't liked her any more than Helen had.

  Helen turned to the next page. At the top, finally, was a signature she did recognize. She'd seen it the other day, on the paperwork denying her restraining order. Judge Samantha Nolan. She probably attended all the local funerals, at least briefly. Even though judges were appointed for life in Massachusetts, rather than being elected, they were still political appointees. Short of impeachment, judges couldn't be terminated, but if enough people complained to their representatives, a judge could find her career dead-ended, with assignments to distant, unpopular, courthouses and to the most boring of cases.

  Helen felt more than heard the approach of footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting. She looked up to see a perky-faced man young enough to be in high school, wearing an oversized black suit and trying unsuccessfully to look solemn.

  He stopped beside her and bent toward her solicitously. "Do you need any assistance?"

  "I'm fine," Helen said. "Just needed a moment to prepare myself."

  "Shall I escort you inside?"

  Helen hesitated. She hated having to assume the social mask, pretending she'd had any positive feelings toward Melissa. There was no point in staying out here, though. She wasn't going to learn anything more from the guest book.

  She placed her hand on the young man's arm and let him walk her into the adjoining room. It was, not surprisingly, much smaller than the places where she'd attended services on her ex-husband's behalf, and, even so, it felt far too
large for the handful of people seated facing the casket and lectern. People spoke in hushed tones, and the occasional bit of laughter was quickly squelched with a guilty glance to see if anyone had heard the inappropriate sound.

  Helen stood in front of the casket, paying her respects, just as she'd done for countless people she hadn't even known as well as she'd known the nurse. Melissa was no longer the muddy, bloody, contorted mess she'd been when Helen last saw her. She'd been made to look younger and more relaxed than she'd ever been in life. Helen half expected the corpse to be holding a Diet Pepsi can or two for the journey into the next world, but Melissa's empty hands were crossed over her chest.

  Helen continued over to the receiving line, which consisted of just one person: Gordon Pierce. Today's ascot was a somber gray to go with his dark gray suit and white shirt. "I'm sorry for your loss," Helen said automatically.

  Pierce took her free hand, the one not gripping on her cane, in his. "Thank you for coming. It would have meant a lot for Melissa to know how much you appreciated her."

  Now wasn't the time or place to get into just how much Helen hadn't appreciated Melissa or anything to do with his agency. For the moment, she needed to keep Pierce mollified, long enough to pump him for information about who might have had a motive to kill Melissa. "I was hoping to meet some of her other patients. Are any of them still here?"

  "It's so kind of you to ask." Without letting go of her hand, Pierce glanced at the three other people in the room, and then shook his head. "There were a few patients here earlier, but they're old and don't get out much. Besides, most patients tend to take their paid care-givers for granted and don't really think of them as human beings."

  Who were those three people then? They didn't seem to be nurses, not with their frayed clothes and shaky hands. Had the funeral director dragged them in from the streets to fill the room and make it seem like more people had cared about Melissa, in the ancient tradition of hired mourners? Did anyone really do that? If not, they might be people who truly cared about Melissa. Maybe even her next of kin. Prime suspects, according to Tate. Exactly the sort of people she'd hoped to meet here.