by Deb Baker
Gretchen poked her head inside. His bedroom. Drawn blinds on the windows kept the room cast in darkness, but she could tell that it wasn’t occupied at the moment. She flipped a switch on the wall next to the door and an overhead light came on.
There had better be a phone in here or she’d have to go back down those steps and risk another encounter with Andy. That is, if she hadn’t killed him.
For good measure, she also locked the bedroom door behind her. That would slow down the professional lock picker.
The nightstand didn’t offer up a phone. Neither did the top of the dresser.
The man didn’t have a phone? What was the world coming to?
In the future, she’d be telling her children old-fashioned stories of street-side pay phones and phones with cords. If she lived to have kids.
Gretchen’s eyes lit on a glass curio cabinet in the corner that she hadn’t noticed at first. She walked over, peered in-and sucked in her breath in surprise.
The cabinet contained rocks, a fairly sizeable collection. Each specimen had an identification tag attached to it.
Gretchen opened the curio and picked up a rock. Read the tag.
Exchanged it for another. Read another tag.
And another.
The rocks had long complex names that she couldn’t pronounce, let alone decipher. Granodiorite, gabbro, anaorthosite gneiss.
And every one of them had a place of origin neatly printed underneath the name.
Cairo.
Jericho.
Zimbabwe.
The same exotic places she’d daydreamed about. The travel stickers had come from these faraway cities. They had been placed lovingly on a doll’s travel trunk by a young girl named Flora.
Gretchen had found John Swilling’s rock collection.
48
Caroline sits in an interrogation room with Matt Albright. Good thing Gretchen took off down the street before the detective found out about their escapade at the museum. He’s working his jaw like he’s trying to restrain an angry outburst. It crosses her mind to push him a little. What happens when her daughter’s boyfriend gets really angry? She’d like to see him at his worst.
If he’s not the right guy for Gretchen, she wants to know now.
“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You spent the night at the museum after I specifically told you that it was off-limits?”
“You never told me any such thing.”
“I warned your daughter. The two of you violated police orders. That building is under investigation. It’s a crime scene. I can’t believe it.” He studies the ceiling like he might find the answer written up there.
Caroline feels a tinge of compassion for him. He’s in a tough place, sitting on the fence between his professional ethics and his personal relationship with her daughter. Would he be exhibiting this kind of frustration with two women he didn’t know? She doesn’t think so. He feels helpless and is afraid for them. His emotions surface as anger. She studied psychology in college and is putting it to good use.
She won’t let him get to her.
His elbows are on the table. He rubs both hands through his hair. “Where is she?” he asks.
“I said I’ll tell you but not yet.” Calm down first.
“The guy you hog-tied insists he was protecting you.”
“Hardly likely. He broke in. He had a knife.”
“You think he’s a killer.”
“Yes.”
“Both Flora Berringer and Allison Thomasia were murdered with a geologist’s hammer, not a switchblade. The killer didn’t use a knife on his victims. The guy you assaulted is in trouble for breaking and entering and carrying, but not for murdering a woman in a cemetery. Not for stashing bones in an armoire.”
Could Matt be right? Caroline isn’t sure. But Jerome, not exactly a harmless guy, is off the street. “I wouldn’t discount him if I were you,” she says.
“Where is she?”
“At the banquet hall. She has my cell phone.”
She gives him the number and he dials with his thumb. “No answer.”
“The phone was running low on power.”
They are out in a front entry room of the police station when another cop pulls Matt aside. Whispers. She hears only one word. Berringer.
“I’ll have someone take you home,” Matt says to her. “I’ll let you know if we need anything else from you.”
He has dismissed her, distracted.
The detective stops at a window and speaks clearly, so Caroline doesn’t miss a word. “Locate a car in central Phoenix,” he says to the dispatcher. “Have the squad pick up Gretchen Birch and bring her here.” He gives the location of the banquet hall before disappearing down the hall.
49
Gretchen was rigid with shock. She stared at the rock collection. It had to be John Swilling’s collection. What was it doing in Mr. B.’s apartment? Was her landlord actually Richard Berringer? No wonder the man had been so eager to donate space for their luncheon. The club members had been thrilled. They wouldn’t have considered turning down his offer. How devious!
She glanced out the window to the street below. A car pulled up on the side of the building and Julie Wicker got out of the driver’s side.
A little late for their meeting, but Gretchen would forgive the woman for not showing up earlier. She needed her help and was relieved to see her alive and well.
She raised the blind. The window rolled open easily. Gretchen called out to her. “Am I glad to see you!”
Julie looked up, startled. “What are you doing up there?”
“It’s a long story. I have to get out of here immediately. Do you have a phone?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“Are you alone?”
“No, I mean, yes, but if I don’t come out in the next two minutes, call the police. Wait. Call them anyway.”
Julie said something else, but Gretchen couldn’t hear because she was already at the bedroom door, then at the apartment door, then creeping quickly down the steps straining her ears for any sound of movement below.
She thought she heard something. Before letting herself out, she peeked cautiously into the break room. Andy sat on the floor, moaning and holding his head.
What if he had a concussion? “An ambulance will be on the way soon,” she said. He nodded weakly.
She had to get medical attention for him.
The warm sunny day shocked Gretchen after so much time spent indoors in low lighting. She blinked like a mole.
“What in the world is going on?” Julie asked.
“I need to use your phone. I might have made a terrible mistake. A man inside might die because of me.”
“Mr. B.? What did you do to Mr. B.?”
Gretchen shook her head in frustration. “Not Mr. B., Andy Thomasia. I thought he killed his wife. I hit him pretty hard with the stage gun. We have to call an ambulance.”
“What can I do?” Julie said.
“Stay with me. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. But I’m pretty sure that Mr. B., the guy who owns this building, is Richard Berringer.”
“Impossible,” Julie said.
“He has his grandfather’s rock collection upstairs.”
“No!”
“Give me the phone.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Julie keyed in the emergency number and spoke into the phone, giving their location and requesting an ambulance to assist with an injured man inside the building. “Now we can relax,” she said after hanging up.
“Perfect. Let’s go in and wait with Andy.”
“The ambulance attendants will take good care of him. There isn’t anything we can do. And if the man who lives upstairs really is Richard, we could be in significant danger. We need to get away.”
Julie looked frightened. She should be, Gretchen thought. We both should be.
Gretchen chewed the inside of her lip and considered the dilemma. There wasn’t any
thing she could do about Andy’s condition. And she wasn’t absolutely sure that he hadn’t killed his wife. And what about Mr. B.? Owning a rock collection wasn’t enough evidence to assume that Mr. B. was a killer. Was it?
She had made too many assumptions as it was.
“Okay,” Gretchen said, scanning the street for signs of Mr. B. “Let’s get in your car. We’ll lock ourselves in.”
Was that enough protection? The killer had rammed her mother’s car in an attempt to murder her. Would he do the same to them if he found them here?
Looking up and down the street again, she didn’t see Mr. B., but he could turn a corner at any moment. Had any of the club members asked what his full name was? Yes, she remembered that April had. He’d said it was a long Slavic name, that everyone called him Mr. B.
“Where’s Caroline?” Julie asked.
“Another long story. I’ll tell you later. Why don’t we move the car?”
Julie nodded, checking out passing pedestrians. “I agree. We can wait down the street for the ambulance to arrive. Or drive around the block. Or something. But we shouldn’t stand in the open like sitting ducks.”
The temporary security of Julie’s car gave Gretchen a moment to reflect on her own impulsive personality, and how much trouble she had caused. First Jerome, then Andy. She was leaving a trail of carnage behind her.
Matt had been right all along. She shouldn’t have involved herself in police business. But to be fair, Gretchen didn’t invite threats. They appeared out of nowhere. She’d been perfectly content working on the play, minding her own business.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The drama of past and present mysterious murders had lured her away. She’d wanted to be enticed into something else. Anything other than directing that play.
So she’d seen a killer in every man she encountered. She’d disarmed one and tied him up. She’d pistol-whipped another.
Was she the crazy one?
Julie was on the phone talking to the police, explaining that their lives were at risk, that a man might be stalking them and that they needed protection. She sounded more worried and frightened as she spoke.
“Yes, yes, we will. No, that’s not possible.” She glanced at Gretchen and covered the phone with her hand. “I’m not going to the police station, which is what they are suggesting.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Gretchen asked, recalling that Julie had refused to go to the museum the night before because of the police. “We’ll be safest there.”
“No. I have an issue with that. I’ll drop you off, though.”
“Let’s stay together.”
“Should we wait here?” Julie asked. “The officer thinks it will be fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“How about at the museum?” Even if Mr. B. was Richard, the club had changed the locks to the museum and only Gretchen and her mother had keys. “He can’t get into the museum.”
“Great idea.” Julie gave the address to the police officer and hung up. “A police car is on the way. They said to stay inside.”
It would be over before she knew it. In fifteen minutes the police would arrive, if they weren’t still there. Hadn’t Andy said he’d seen a cop at the museum? All her potential suspects were being rounded up. She may have been mistaken in some cases and injured the wrong people, but one of them was guilty. Andy Thomasia, Jerome, or Mr. B. One of them was a killer.
It was really over this time.
50
“She has multiple personalities,” Richard Berringer says while the technician sits at a computer. The detective remains standing, appears detached. People probably lie to him all the time. Best to focus on the truth and keep an honest face.
“Her head is in a good place when she remembers to take her medication,” he says, studying the black Velcro wrapped around his fingers. “But that’s hit-or-miss. When we were kids, before the meds, Rachel would do cruel things and then blame me. Everybody believed her, including my parents. She’d do horrible things to animals and kids too young to talk, then she’d blame me. She nearly suffocated herself and accused me of attempting to kill her. That was the end for me.”
Richard hasn’t moved since he sat down in the chair, not a muscle, but the detective-what’s his name… Albright?-paces. The cop’s voice and facial features don’t display any emotion, no inflections whatsoever. He sounds like the computer program that they are running to record his blood pressure and pulse, to verify the truth.
How can his blood pressure not be through the roof? But they told him he passed the pretest with flying colors. And they have control questions. It’s all been explained to him. He’s more than willing to go along, whatever it takes to make them believe him.
He’s careful to conceal his anger, to not let it control him. That’s how she won before, driving him to the point of explosive rage.
“Anything to make me look bad,” he continues, trying not to reflect too much on his sister and the memories that are surfacing like monsters from the depths of a lagoon. “When I was a teenager, my parents had me committed to an insane asylum. As bad as it was, it was better than living in the same house with her. Two years later, I was out, but I didn’t go home. I kept in touch with my parents, though. By then they knew the truth about Rachel, but they didn’t send her away. She got shock treatments instead. At least I escaped that.”
Richard’s voice is becoming emotional. He has pent-up anger, but he can’t let them see the rage. The detective leans against the back of a chair, hunches his shoulders forward to stretch his neck muscles. “Go on,” he says.
“When our mother disappeared, I knew Rachel must have killed her. I came back to Phoenix and told the police my suspicions, but I was the one who had been institutionalized, not Rachel. Nothing came of it.
“Some unexplainable force wouldn’t let me leave this city. I hated the house and all its memories, but I couldn’t run away from my past. I bought the building I own now, paid it off as quick as I could. Rachel owned the family home, although she didn’t live in it. We kept our distance from each other.”
“She didn’t bother you?”
“Not really. She had become good at hiding the crazy side. She said she had a therapist and the right medications. I didn’t see her much. Then recently I heard that she had died.”
The detective glances at the technician then back to Richard. “Could you get to the point, please? I understand that your sister did you a huge injustice, but if she’s dead-”
Richard shakes his head. They have to believe me! Otherwise she will have won again. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he says. “She had different personalities. She could be anybody she wanted to be. She killed that woman in the cemetery and faked her own death. She’s still in Phoenix, but she isn’t Rachel Berringer anymore.”
Another glance between the two men. Richard wants to rip off the polygraph equipment and run away. They aren’t believing his story. He never should have come here.
“Explain,” Albright says.
“Rachel isn’t really dead. I’m telling you the truth. She’s simply taken on a different personality.”
“And what would that personality be?”
Richard leans in closer.
“She’s become someone else, one of our relatives,” he says. “And she will kill again, if we don’t stop her.”
“Give me a name to go on.”
“Julie Wicker,” Richard says.
51
Gretchen unlocked the museum door, disappointed that the police weren’t there to greet them. “I’m going to wait outside,” she said, watching Julie pull a large tote out of the backseat and walk up the sidewalk toward her. The woman carried a ton of stuff. Not that Gretchen should talk. She usually had Nimrod and all his supplies with her.
She felt a pang of loneliness, missing her lovable creatures. Wobbles and Nimrod. What a pair.
“The police told us to wait inside,” Julie said.
“I need fresh air. Don’t w
orry about me. I’ll stay close by the door.”
“Call me when the police arrive,” Julie said. “I’ve been so busy with the play, I haven’t had time to go through the museum.”
“Sure. Take your time, but watch out for the ghost.” Gretchen tried to make light.
“Ghost?” Julie stopped. “I forgot that the house is supposed to be haunted.”
Gretchen grinned. “That’s what Nina thinks. Remember? She insists that Flora’s spirit is trapped between two worlds, that she has unfinished business on earth and that her spirit needs to be reconnected somehow.”
Reconnected to her head, Gretchen thought, but that’s morbid and Julie seems nervous as it is.
Gretchen didn’t tell Julie that she believed right along with Nina that the house was haunted. Hadn’t strange noises alerted them to the contents of the armoire? And later hadn’t chimes warned of Jerome’s presence? If not for the intervention of the ghost, they may have been killed.
She wasn’t ready, though, to announce it to the world.
“Maybe I won’t go inside after all.”
“No, really, it’s nothing to be afraid of,” Gretchen said. “If the house has a ghost, I’m sure it’s a benevolent ghost. I’ll come inside, turn on lights for you, and we’ll prove that the building is safe.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
Julie stepped over the threshold.
So did Gretchen.
52
“Last year,” Richard says after Detective Albright refills their coffee cups, “she gave me my father’s rock collection.” The technician is done. Richard’s fingers are free. “I was so grateful. Finally, a piece of family history, a small treasure, for myself. But then I couldn’t help thinking that she had a motive for that generosity.”
The detective seems to perk up at the reference to rocks and asks Richard about his father’s work, which Richard expands on. “He traveled most of the time, one geological dig after another.”
