The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  Claudia grabbed his collar and put her face in close. “You’re history, Fry.” She whirled, aimed a finger at Ridley. “You too. Both of you.”

  “Wait a minute!” said Ridley, looking wildly around for support. He pointed at Markos, who lay curled on the floor, blood seeping from his mouth and nose. “This guy made me into a fool! He’s—”

  “You made yourself into a fool, Bobby,” said Claudia.

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Turn in your badge and your gun.” She turned back to Fry. “Yours, too.”

  “You bitch,” said Fry. He touched his nose gingerly. “You have no right.”

  “I have every right, Fry.” Claudia gave him room, stepped back. She took them all in. The chief stood silently at the door, watching. “You crossed the line here and we both know it. Wearing a badge doesn’t give you license to do what you just did, and I won’t have it.”

  Eyes riveted to Suggs.

  He sighed, and said gruffly, “You heard the lieutenant, and she speaks for me. About time you all figured that out. You—Ridley—and you, Fry—you’re out of here.”

  Claudia and Suggs locked eyes. Then she rattled off instructions, pivoted and left, snagging Sergeant Peters on her way out of the room.

  “I’m going out to the Lancashire house,” she told him. “While I’m gone, get someone to rouse Matheson and bring him in here. I’ll be sending Moody back here. I want him to sweat Matheson and find out where Eleanor is.”

  Peters’ eyes widened. “We don’t have jurisdiction.”

  Claudia nodded. “Don’t worry about it. He’s still part of a murder investigation. Meantime, I’ll take the heat.”

  “You know he won’t come without a lawyer.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “And Ron—get someone else to round up Lucille Schuster. I don’t care if she has to sit in this station for the next two days. She’s going to remember more than she told me before she leaves.”

  Claudia spent a few minutes with Suggs, then grabbed her purse to go. As she strode toward the station house door, every eye was on her. No one said a word.

  Chapter 26

  The index finger was broken, snapped as casually as a pencil. Claudia gently replaced the woman’s hand, and signaled the crime technician to move in close for a photograph of the finger.

  “His, too?” The technician gestured at Harold Lancashire’s still form.

  Claudia shook her head. Not necessary. He was a psychic, not a medium; his finger had been left untouched. The killer sought those who spoke to spirits. Anyone else in his way was incidental. And the finger—it held particular significance for the killer. It fueled him further, somehow. It told his story.

  But what?

  What?

  It was Tuesday, six-fifteen in the morning. Claudia had been up around the clock. She needed food, coffee. She had to touch base with her daughter, something more than the telephone calls that tied them together lately. She agonized for a shower.

  With a final look at Betty Lancashire, Claudia stepped outside. Garish red and blue lights pulsed significantly from patrol cars. Mitch Moody spotted her, came over.

  “I heard about the excitement at the station. How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “I’ve been better,” said Claudia. She cleared her throat. Too many cigarettes. “Anything from the canvass?”

  Moody shook his head. “Not so far. We banged on every door, but nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Our best bet is still the boy, but his parents aren’t letting us within a foot of him.”

  Claudia nodded. “Where are they?”

  Moody gestured toward a parked van. “The boy’s sleeping, and the parents are waiting for you, but they’re real, real itchy. They want to get him home.”

  “Understandable.” Claudia pulled at a cramp in her shoulder muscle. “I’ll go talk to them in a minute.”

  “By the way, you connect with Carella yet?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s been dogging that lawn boy—”

  “Billy Pyle?”

  Moody nodded. “The kid’s got a thing with peeking in windows, all right, but from everything Carella could find out, he wouldn’t as much as pull the wings off a fly. Dumb as a lamb, but gentle as one too.”

  “Emory’s sure?”

  “As much as he can be.” Moody shrugged. “Still making a couple of checks on his own, but he told me this morning he doesn’t think they’ll go anywhere. You know”—Moody scratched an ear, looked down—“a couple of us, uh, got a little uncomfortable about how best to play our hands, what with the way Chief Suggs was blustering about Markos and all—”

  “Look, it’s okay, Mitch.”

  “No, no, I need to say this.” Moody sought Claudia’s eyes. “We should’ve stayed with you all the way. Carella at least followed up, but—”

  “Forget it, Mitch. Really.”

  It was always there with cops, the guilt, the backward look, the idea that if only they’d done this instead of that, if only they’d made one last call, one last follow-up, pointless death would simply stop.

  “I’ve been around the same blocks you have, Mitch,” Claudia said gently. “I just went around them first. That’s all. Let’s just let it go, all right?”

  After a brief pause, Moody said, “Okay. Um, what next? You want me to head back to the station? I don’t think there’s anything else I can do out here. Crime techs’ll be here another hour or so.”

  “Where’s the M.E.?” asked Claudia. “He should’ve come and gone by now.”

  “Car trouble.”

  “Great.”

  Claudia thought for a minute. “Tell you what, Mitch. Go on back. Peters radioed in that Matheson got there about ten minutes ago. Kicked and screamed the whole way, and he’s furious. And his lawyer’s on the way.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Uh-huh, but we can turn that to our advantage.” Claudia gave Moody a sharp look. “Don’t cave in. Push him, and push him hard. I talked to Suggs and he’ll be in there with you, ready to lay some old-fashioned fire and brimstone on Matheson. Let Matheson know he’s all alone. Two things need to come out of your interview: An admission that he was feeding Overton with hush money and a location where we can find his wife.”

  Moody shook his head. “He’ll never go for it.”

  “Yes he will,” said Claudia. She smiled thinly. “He’ll give up Eleanor for an opportunity to distance himself from Overton and Markos.”

  “You’re convinced he’s got Eleanor stashed somewhere?”

  “Not a doubt in my mind,” Claudia answered firmly. “And what you need to do is show him that we’re prepared to believe him where Overton is concerned, and keep it quiet—if he plays ball on Eleanor.”

  “But actually, Eleanor’s nothing we even have to worry about. It’s Flagg’s case.”

  “We need her.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Politics, Mitch. One-upmanship. We’re about to look like jackasses because Sug—” Claudia bit her tongue, “because we’ve been pushing Markos as the killer. Now we’re taking it back, and we’re about to alarm everyone with the prospect of a crazy out there. It’s not going to go down well.”

  “Basically, you’re talking damage control.”

  “More like survival. The press is going to be all over us,” said Claudia. “We’ve got to cut all ties to Markos and Matheson fast, and the two are so bound together that this is the only way we can. If we don’t eat our mistakes now we’ll be eating bigger ones later. Someone—maybe even the governor—will send down a task force to take over. We’ll never get a chance to pursue the leads we need to.”

  “What leads?” asked Moody, exasperation showing. “We don’t have any leads.”

  “Yeah,” said Claudia briskly. “We do.”

  * * *

  The boy wore pajamas printed with loopy-earred puppies. A speck of blood half the size of a dime stained one leg cuf
f. The parents hadn’t noticed. Right now, they were grateful believing he hadn’t seen his dead grandparents. He had, though. He may have seen the killer.

  Christine and John Dillard watched protectively as Claudia gently closed her hands around the boy’s. His name was John Joseph Dillard Jr., but everyone called him J.J. to avoid confusion with his father. He had soft eyes moist with tears and round with fear.

  All of them were crammed in the back of the Dillards’ van. The Dillards refused to bring the boy anywhere near the house. The van served as a cocoon.

  Claudia hated herself for having to do this, but there was no choice. She smiled at J.J., asked him about puppies, about games, about his favorite cartoons, anything to warm him up, to compel trust in a night where it had been shattered. Her eyes never left his face. Her hands stayed on his, a tiny polygraph for truth.

  Then, finally: “J.J., honey, you know how it is when you watch a really scary show, and it’s hard to go to sleep because you think the bad guys are hiding somewhere? That maybe they’re in your closet?”

  “Monsters!” said J.J.

  Claudia gave his hands an approving squeeze. “Right! Monsters.” She thought rapidly. “Did you ever see a monster yourself, J.J.?”

  The boy nodded solemnly.

  “You did?”

  He nodded again.

  “All by yourself?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Wow, that must have been scary! And you must have been awfully brave to look.”

  J.J.’s mother was holding him on her lap. The boy tucked his face into her arm. She stiffened visibly.

  “I think that’s enough, Detective,” she said in a low voice.

  Claudia released one hand long enough to hold a finger to her lips. She shook her head, gave Christine Dillard a cautious look.

  “J.J.,” she said, rubbing the her hand over the child’s, “you saw a monster tonight, didn’t you?”

  There was no response.

  “What did the monster look like?” Claudia persisted. “Big?”

  Almost imperceptibly, J.J. shook his head affirmatively.

  “Look at me, honey,” Claudia coaxed. “Please?”

  Reluctantly, J.J. turned his face back.

  “The monster was big. As big as me?”

  J.J.’s eyes drifted up and down Claudia. He nodded.

  “What else did the monster look like, J.J.?”

  “Black,” the boy answered.

  Black. A black man? Or merely dressed in black? Claudia probed gently, consciously framing everything in terms of a monster.

  “Black everywhere, only not his face, and he had, he had shiny eyes and big black circles around his eyes,” J.J. said finally.

  Puzzled, Claudia said, “Like a raccoon?”

  The boy turned to his mother. “What’s a r’coon?”

  “It’s a fuzzy animal, baby. You remember. It has big black rings around its eyes.”

  “Like a r’coon!” he announced triumphantly to Claudia. “A monster r’coon!”

  She rewarded him with a smile. Good. Make it a game. Distance it from reality. That would come later, in nightmares, at odd moments. One day, in adult grief.

  “Did the monster have antennas, J.J.? Did he carry anything with him?”

  Feeling his small hand tense in her own, Claudia wished she could take it back. Too late. J.J. furrowed his brow. He began to cry, and he pulled away again.

  “No more,” John Dillard said sharply. “Please leave now.”

  Claudia patted the boy’s hand. “You’re a good boy, J.J.”

  She looked at the parents tiredly, and thanked them. Dawn was breaking when she got out of the van. She stretched, rotated her shoulders.

  Dear God. The boy had seen it all.

  Because he had, Claudia knew where to look.

  Chapter 27

  Claudia slept without moving for three hours. She didn’t think she’d drift off, but she did. When she woke, ravenous, Robin had already left for school. They’d missed each other coming and going.

  After a shower, a hit and miss round of exercises and a long overdue, bone-numbing two-mile jog, Claudia went back to the station. Suggs had gone home, but Mitch Moody was still there, weary but jubilant.

  “I’ll be damned if you weren’t right, Claudia,” he said. “Matheson stormed and threatened, but he opened up easier than canned tuna.”

  Claudia exhaled relief. “So where is our misguided Eleanor Matheson?”

  “Hold on, just a sec.” Moody went to his desk and shuffled through notes. “Some place in Orlando called Pyramid. It’s a pricey psychiatric center. Has a spa, Nautilus room, tennis courts, and shrinks who don’t bat an eye the whole time they’re charging you two hundred dollars an hour. She’s there under an assumed name.”

  Whistling, Claudia said, “And?”

  “And—you’ll love this—Matheson freaked when he saw the notes Overton kept of the money changing hands.” Moody blew a kiss in the direction of Markos’ cell. “Matheson’s lawyer kept advising him not to say anything, but Matheson told him to shut up. Anyhow, turns out that for the first two payments—the ones for a thousand bucks—Overton and Matheson met in a parking lot at a Publix store in Flagg. He’d give her an envelope. But when the price went up he had one of his flunkies make the drop to her home personally. And even though Markos upped the ante, Matheson swears he thought Overton was just as much involved. He said he was desperate, trying to figure out what in the hell to do to turn things around when she was killed. And then when we came to visit, he went over the bend and concocted this business about Eleanor doing a Houdini act. He’s begging us not to let the media know.”

  Claudia laughed. “Good job, Mitch.” They exchanged high fives.

  “I can’t claim credit for the whole thing,” said Mitch. He shook his head admiringly. “You should’ve seen Suggs. He rode Matheson like a cowboy on a rodeo bull.”

  The image elicited a chuckle. But Claudia’s expression turned serious again almost immediately. “What about Lucille Schuster? Right now I need her more than Matheson.”

  “She flat-out refused to come. Told Benny—”

  “Puppy face? That new guy on patrol?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Mitch uncomfortably.

  “Damn it, Mitch. Someone with a little experience should’ve been hitting her.” Claudia sighed. “Never mind. That was up to Peters. What’d she say?”

  “She told Benny she’d talked to us enough. As far as she was concerned, she’d done her civic duty—that’s how Benny says she put it—and she wouldn’t even hear of riding in with him.”

  “That was it?”

  “Told Benny it was her bottom line.”

  “That’s what she said, huh?”

  “That was it.”

  Claudia glanced at her watch. Ten-thirty. “I bet I can make her change her mind.”

  * * *

  Lucille Schuster was leaning against her desk, serenely quoting Dickens, when Claudia stormed into her classroom unannounced. Thirty-two heads swiveled toward the door. Any break in routine was welcomed. Schuster’s face turned white.

  When Claudia reached the woman, she turned her back to the class. The kids couldn’t see her face. They couldn’t hear her words. To judge intent, they didn’t have to.

  “Mrs. Schuster,” Claudia said so quietly the teacher had to lean in hear, “I’m investigating four homicides that occurred in less than a month. It makes me very edgy. Do you follow me so far?”

  Lucille Schuster nodded mutely.

  “Good, because when I’m edgy to begin with, I tend to take it personally when people ignore my invitations. Still with me?”

  The woman blinked furiously and nodded.

  “Excellent.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t interrupt.”

  The teacher whispered an apology.

  “You ignored my invitation to review a film with me this morning, a reasonable request which the young but fully certified Officer Benjamin Kr
amer was good enough to convey on my behalf. So now I’m here in person to issue the invitation all over again. Personally. I’ll be exceedingly disappointed if you say no.”

  The clock in the room was of the old-fashioned variety, a big round job with a tick designed to throw sheer terror into students during exams.

  Claudia heard it and allowed herself a thin smile. “Tick-tock, tick-tock, Mrs. Schuster,” she said. “Are you going to join me over coffee back at the station now, or would you prefer to think it over in a cell?”

  Lucille Schuster tensed. “I, um, I—what about them?” She gestured plaintively toward her class.

  Claudia turned and took a lingering look at the students, smiling. “Well, now,” she said quietly, her eyes still on the kids, “we’re both government employees, aren’t we?”

  “I . . . yes, I guess.”

  There would be hell to pay for this later, but Claudia’s ugly mood was gaining on her. Turning full face to the students, she swept her arms magnanimously, and said, “Class dismissed.”

  * * *

  The first time Claudia watched the video, she’d been mildly amused by the Halloween costumes, the absurdity of the party. Grown men and women playing dress-up, showing off as geisha girls, clowns, Zorro, Abe Lincoln . . .

  Right now, the third time into the video in as many hours, Claudia wasn’t amused at all. And Schuster—the most she’d learned from the woman was that Overton had been paid with two fifty dollar bills. It further established that the medium had stopped at the 7-Eleven, using one of the fifties to buy a pack of cigarettes.

  Schuster sat stiffly, her forehead furrowed as she watched the film journey the length of the party. Now and then she offered commentary, but nothing she hadn’t already said, and nothing of consequence.

  Claudia fantasized slapping the woman silly. A cardinal tenet of all homicide investigations was that everyone had something to hide, and everyone lied: suspects, witnesses, family members. Lucille Schuster was doing both now, and Claudia knew it.

  Draining her coffee cup, Claudia hit the VCR’s pause button and stood to stretch. As angry as she was at the teacher, she was more so at herself. What was she missing? Overton had left the party before eleven Halloween night. According to the medical examiner, it was impossible that she had been killed after midnight, twelve-thirty at the latest. The party continued on; not a single guest left before one.