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

by Laura Belgrave

  “I don’t . . . look, can’t you turn that faucet off?”

  “Forget the faucet, Gloria. It needs a new washer. Now what about Farina?”

  “I don’t know anyone named Farina.”

  “Fine. If it helps we’ll call him Bonolo. Either way, he’s the one who gave you up.”

  “I . . . you’re crowding me,” Addison mumbled.

  “No, I’m not, Gloria.” Claudia leaned in almost nose to nose. “This is crowding you.” She held the pose for a moment, then backed off and stood. “Get used to it. It’s what a jail cell feels like all the time. Bonolo, Farina . . . he knows that. It’s why he didn’t risk going to the bookstore himself. Are you really so naïve that you don’t get that yet?”

  Addison pushed furiously at her hair, trying to tuck it behind her ears. Her eyes flitted to the sink, then to the video camera. She was fighting tears, and her mascara had begun to run.

  “You’re in over your head, Gloria. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You need to.”

  “No! I’m not even supposed to be here! Nothing was supposed to be like this!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like people dying!”

  “Hemmer.”

  “He wouldn’t quit about his house! His paint! His precious patio! But now, everything’s gone bad. Bill told me if I didn’t drop off his package he’d make sure I went down if the Hemmer thing got worse. I swear I didn’t know what was in it. He told me books. I guessed it might be something else, but—”

  “Back up. How could ‘the Hemmer thing’ get any worse? The man’s dead.”

  “I . . . I don’t know. They kept me out of that.”

  “Who’s ‘they’? And kept you out of what?”

  But Addison had stopped feigning confidence long ago. She began to cry seriously, the sultry woman morphing into a scared girl. Claudia watched the transformation and when Addison rooted through her purse for a Kleenex, she handed her a box of tissues, content to watch the young woman’s face grow blotchy with emotion and failing makeup. She felt a twitch of sympathy for Addison, not because of her tears but because she’d learned how to be provocative without understanding that it wasn’t a survival skill.

  Finally Addison tapered off and when she did, Claudia handed her a cup of tap water from the sink. Then she quietly asked what frightened her more—jail or “they.” Addison’s eyes welled up again, but she bit down on her lip and took a deep breath. Claudia flipped the fan to “off,” then asked again. Addison looked at her gratefully and in a shaky voice stripped of hope, she started talking.

  Chapter 28

  For a man who professed not to be a night owl, Chief Suggs sounded wide awake when Claudia called him from her office at one-thirty in the morning. She heard a TV on in the background and supposed he’d been injecting himself with reruns to keep his eyes from slamming shut.

  “It’s about damn time you called, Hershey,” he said by way of greeting.

  “How’s the Charley horse?” she asked.

  “Better. What’ve we got from our little she-devil?”

  Claudia gazed at the chair Addison had vacated a short time earlier. “More than we had. Not as much as we wanted.”

  Suggs groaned.

  “What Addison told me sort of fleshes out some of our speculation, but—”

  “—but no smoking gun.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

  While the chief nattered on Claudia stretched the telephone cord to her office door and peeked into the multipurpose room. A lone patrolman labored over a report at a far desk. She closed her door, then turned her back to it and lit a cigarette. The office was small enough to stretch the phone cord to the utility sink. It made for a good ashtray when the risk factor was minimal.

  “So what exactly did Addison give us that we speculated but that still amounts to zip?” Suggs asked.

  “Well, for one thing, she’s sleeping with Boyd Manning.”

  “Well, you said you overheard him use the name ‘Gloria’ on his cell phone. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Manning’s the one who paid for her house, which she spends almost no time in because mostly she lives with him in his Feather Ridge home.”

  “Bigger. More plush.”

  “Uh-huh. The Willow Whisper house is actually an investment. Manning’s thinking is that three or four years after the development is built out the house can be turned around for a much higher price.”

  “Manning pay for Farina’s house, too?”

  “Addison says she doubts it. She claims Manning hates Farina. He didn’t bring him in by choice.”

  “So who did bring Farina in?”

  “Our princess claims she doesn’t know.” Claudia heard Suggs scoff and said, “Yeah, I’m not convinced, either. She’s protecting Manning. Every time I asked her about him she’d dummy up. She says they’re lovers and that’s all.”

  Claudia frowned at smudge spots on the faucet. She wiped at them with a Kleenex. Addison said she’d originally met Manning at a club in Miami, but didn’t recall which club or the circumstances, just that their encounter turned into “head over heels love” for both of them. She drove up to Indian Run to see him twice afterward. On the third visit she moved in, happy to put her temping jobs aside forever.

  “Hershey! You still there?”

  “I’m here.” Claudia tossed the Kleenex into her trash can. The smudges hadn’t come off. “Just thinking.”

  “Well, try and think out loud every now and then. You got any idea what Addison might be protectin’ Manning about?”

  “I wish.” Claudia tapped an ash into the sink. “What she said is that Farina told her Hemmer might’ve known ‘some stuff’ that he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Like what?”

  “Addison claims ignorance. Farina supposedly told her it was about business and insisted that if Hemmer didn’t go, Manning could wind up with more than just a black mark in the community.”

  “Yeah, and if he got bounced from Indian Run there’d go her meal ticket,” said Suggs. “Still, you’d think she’d ask him something about all this—use a little pillow talk, get him to open up.”

  “Addison’s sense of curiosity is about as advanced as her intelligence,” said Claudia. She took a satisfying pull on her cigarette, then waved at the smoke in the air. “She never liked Farina, but harassing Hemmer didn’t seem that big of a deal if it would make life easier for Manning. So she went along.”

  For a minute the chief said nothing. Claudia listened to the muted tones of his TV while he absorbed the information. It was too late for Leno. She cranked her neck a few times to work out kinks, wondering what he was watching.

  “Everything goes back to Hemmer,” he said at length, “so what is it he knew that was so threatening he had to go? What the hell did that man know?”

  “That’s still the million-dollar question,” said Claudia.

  “What about Addison?”

  “I let her go for now with the impression that I have a soft heart.” Claudia ignored Suggs’ snort and said, “She’ll run straight to Manning and maybe he’ll make some kind of play we can capitalize on.”

  They kicked it around a little longer, then Suggs asked whether the medical examiner’s office had been in touch yet on the skeletal remains. He hadn’t, nor did he seem to appreciate Claudia’s call for an update.

  “He told me I’d get it when I get it,” she said. “Should be a preliminary tomorrow, though. I left my home number with him.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re actually thinking of getting some sleep.”

  Claudia looked at her watch. It was nearly two o’clock. “Might as well. There’s not much else I can do here tonight.”

  “Except maybe clear the cigarette smoke from your office,” Suggs growled.

  Claudia whirled, as if she expected to see the chief standing behind her. She took a hasty last puff, then ran the tap and doused her ci
garette. She thought she heard him chuckling, but that might’ve been his TV.

  “Good night, Hershey,” he said evenly.

  “Good night, sir.”

  Chapter 29

  Most Saturday mornings were leisurely defined in the Hershey household. Robin was old enough so that Claudia didn’t need to bound out of bed to put breakfast on the table, nor did she really have to cut the grass or wash her car or run six loads of laundry before her coffee and the morning paper. She could do those things later in the day, or on Sunday, or not at all.

  On this particular Saturday Claudia had grudgingly set her alarm for eight o’clock because there was much to do on the Hemmer case and the John or Jane Doe case that practically sprang from Hemmer’s backyard. But it wasn’t the alarm that woke her. It was the slow realization that she had more or less been awake for at least a half hour, bathed in sweat and tangled in bedding. For a while, she lay as she was and listened hopefully for the sound she knew in her gut would not be forthcoming. The air conditioner’s steady drone had ceased.

  Claudia swore and disengaged from the sheets. Even if it was possible to get a repairman out on a Saturday, it wouldn’t be possible without paying a premium. She fumbled into a robe and went to investigate, recalling the last time she’d had a problem with the A/C, remembering that she’d told Hemmer about it.

  She stared at the thermostat, flipping it on and off a few times. She explored the air handler tucked away in a hall closet, then went outside and studied the condenser. It was nothing but a giant metal box with a fan inside. A lizard on top eyed her warily, but it didn’t move and why should it? She had no idea how to bring the ugly box to life again and therefore scant reason to do more than look at it, which would not get it fixed.

  Claudia retreated to the kitchen and put on coffee. While it brewed she fed Boo, then thumbed through a phone book in pursuit of A/C repair shops that advertised weekend emergency service. The first two she called answered with a recording. She was about to dial a third when the phone rang in her hand. She jerked with surprise, then barked “Hershey residence, what?”

  After a pause, a voice said, “The ‘what’ is a John Doe, Detective.”

  Claudia recognized the caller as Paul Morrison, chief medical examiner for Flagg County. He was respected for his expertise, but almost no one cozied up to him socially because he was curt with peers and treated those who weren’t peers as idiots. Personally, Claudia liked Morrison well enough, but recognized the futility of trying to smooth her gruff greeting. She shot ahead with questions.

  “So we’re talking a male?”

  “It’s all in the pelvic bones.”

  “Right.” She scanned the kitchen counter for scratch paper, then settled on the margins of a page from the phone book to scribble notes. “What about age?”

  “Ossification indicates late teens, early twenties.”

  “Race?”

  “Caucasian. Without advanced tests I can’t be more specific.”

  “Height? Weight?”

  “Five-seven to five-eight. Thin to average weight.”

  “Any identifying characteristics?”

  “His right arm measured dominant, predictive of a right-handed individual. His left leg was slightly shorter than the right. That might suggest a mild limp. I also noted a fracture of the left tibia, but it was indicative of an injury that would have predated his death. His teeth, though intact, showed signs of decay and other neglect consistent with someone who rarely saw a dentist.”

  “So I shouldn’t count on dental records to help with an ID.”

  “No, but all is not lost. We can extract mitochondrial DNA from the bones, which would verify or discount identification if you were able to suggest a preliminary ID from some exemplar source. Are you with me?”

  Oh, yeah. She was with him. He was telling her to figure out who the victim was, then bring him the victim’s comb, toothbrush, bedding—something still likely to have a trace of the person’s DNA. He’d compare it to the DNA isolated from the bones, then award her a gold star if there was a match. That could be useful later. It didn’t help now.

  “Any idea how long the victim had been buried, Dr. Morrison?”

  “As little as one year. As many as three. There were no hair remnants, but the deceased’s clothing was remarkably well preserved, which along with other factors would—”

  “So crime scene got clothes! That’s something.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t interrupt.”

  “My apologies.”

  “As I was saying, the clothing was surprisingly intact and given other variables I believe the body was probably concealed beneath the ground closer to a year or two, rather than three. Greater precision obviously calls for additional tests.”

  “Obviously.”

  “As for the clothing itself, your victim wore nondescript, lightweight blue jeans, a cheap, short-sleeved cotton shirt, tattered socks, a vinyl belt, threadbare jockey shorts and brown loafers so worn he could probably feel pebbles through the soles. He had no watch, no rings, no wallet.”

  Claudia had filled the margins of one phone book page. She flipped to another, pen poised, mind racing.

  “What about cause of death? Can you give me that?”

  “Not with any medical certainty. But I can narrow down the manner of death to blunt-force trauma. John Doe had two severe skull fractures, the most significant one depressed on the outer layer of the cranial vault.”

  “In other words he was bashed on the head with something.”

  “Very good, and if that bit of information makes your pulse quicken then you’ll be ecstatic to learn that what he was bashed with was recovered beneath the remains.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I don’t joke. The victim was struck twice on the head with a piece of rebar that measured two feet and four inches in length and one-half inch in diameter. Crime scene pulled it up after the remains were removed.”

  What Claudia knew about rebar could be measured in a thimble. Morrison must have suspected as much, because he lectured her about its properties as if she were just joining the construction trades. She filled margin after margin in the phone book while the medical examiner informed her that rebar described steel reinforcing rods used in concrete construction. It was manufactured in a variety of standard diameters and typically sold in lengths of twenty to sixty feet.

  “Builders cut rebar all the time to suit their specific purposes,” Morrison said. “After all, one wouldn’t use the same size of rebar to reinforce concrete blocks in a house as one might use to shore up the concrete work in a bridge.”

  “No,” said Claudia, “one wouldn’t do that.”

  If Morrison detected her sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “The rebar crime scene found is in the lab undergoing further analysis. Rebar is often coated with epoxy or zinc to help prevent corrosion, and perhaps our piece can be traced to the original manufacturer and from there to buyers.”

  That would take forever. Claudia sighed, and Morrison must have heard her.

  “Take heart, Detective. I don’t need further analysis to tell you right now that the characteristics of the rebar found in the grave perfectly match the fractures in the victim’s skull. Thus, manner of death is blunt-force trauma. Mode is homicide. You have the murder weapon. Really, all you need now is ID on the victim—”

  “—and the killer,” Claudia finished.

  “Have a good day, Detective.”

  “And right back at you, Dr. Morrison.”

  They hung up and Claudia tore her scribbled pages from the phone book. She opened some windows and poured a cup of coffee, then checked in with the station to see if Farina had been spotted overnight. He hadn’t, which came as no surprise. But a BOLO was out on him now. Maybe they’d get lucky and someone would spot him.

  Claudia dampened a paper towel and wiped perspiration from her face. The air rolled in still and heavy through her open windows, and the sky sat low with thick clouds. Showers had been f
orecast, although of course half the time rain the weather gurus predicted rain they were really only covering their asses in case some freak storm sneaked by their radar. She tossed the paper towel in the trash and roused Carella with her next call. She brought him up to date on Addison and the John Doe, and asked whether the description of the victim matched anything he’d turned up in missing persons reports.

  “The reports are on my desk at the station,” he said, “but there were only four cases still open and none of those that are sound even remotely like our guy.”

  “All right, Emory. Thanks.”

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  Claudia tapped her pen against the counter. “Our John Doe had bad teeth and cheap clothes. He could’ve been homeless or a drifter, someone no one cared enough about to call in missing.”

  “Maybe no one even noticed him missing.”

  “Maybe.” She took a swallow of coffee and lit a cigarette. Her house. She could do what she wanted. “The crime scene’s too old to tell the whole story.”

  “But the rebar . . .”

  “Yeah. That’s interesting. Willow Whisper might’ve been under construction at the time our guy took a hit. Rebar could’ve been laying all over the place.”

  “So you’re thinking he was killed right there?”

  “It’s got that feel to it, Emory.” Claudia pushed hair from the back of her neck. “And the fact that the rebar was tossed in the grave with our guy makes me think it was an impulse kill. Someone panicked. Someone knocked our guy on the head and got rid of him and the evidence in one go.”

  “And . . . maybe that’s what Hemmer knows? Could that be it?”

  Claudia thought about the timeline. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Hemmer’s house probably wasn’t even finished. But check with the building department, see what kind of sign-off dates they have on the development.”