by Liliana Hart
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“I can be there about dinner time,” Ben said.
Jack laughed. “Of course you can,” he said and hung up.
We drove past the Town Square to Main Street, and then took a right onto Purgatory. It was actually a pretty cool street with boutique shops and a café. Jack parked in front of Sole Mates and we got out to talk to Maria Green.
The BOGO sign was out on the sidewalk, but sidewalk traffic was light, and there was no one in the store. Maria stood in front of a display case, taking shoes out of boxes and putting the display shoes on the shelf.
She was a pretty woman. Young. Hispanic. Probably mid-twenties and voluptuous. Her pregnancy was just starting to show. Her hair was long and dark, and a fringe of bangs framed exotic black eyes. Her red dress hugged her body and emphasized the slight curve of her belly and an impressive showing of cleavage. She stood on four-inch stilettos. If there was anyone ever to exude sex appeal, it was Maria Green.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling at us over her shoulder. “Everything is buy one, get one half off.” Her accent was thick.
“I’m Sheriff Lawson, and this is Doctor Graves,” he said, showing her his badge. “We’re here to talk to you about Rosalyn McGowen.”
Her expression fell, and I saw genuine sadness in her eyes. “Such a sweet woman. But I already talked to the police officers yesterday. I didn’t see anything.” She put down the shoes and came over to us. “The baby makes me so sleepy. It’s a good thing the store doesn’t open until ten. I would never make it. I go to bed and sleep like the dead, and when I wake up I’m sick as a dog. Everyone tells me it will pass.”
She said the words, but she didn’t look like she believed them.
“I’m here to see if you can fill in some details,” Jack said. “Why don’t we sit down since you don’t have any customers at the moment?”
The store wasn’t very big, but there was a large ottoman in the middle of the floor that could seat at least six people, and there were two ladies’ chairs angled next to the floor to ceiling mirror. Maria and I took the chairs, and Jack sat across from us on the ottoman.
“This might seem like an odd thing to ask, but Mrs. McGowen’s murder is very unusual. We believe whoever killed her was very familiar with her schedule. Not only her schedule, but they’re familiar enough with everyone on the street’s schedule that they could slip in and out without anyone seeing them.”
Maria cocked her head and stared blankly at us for a few seconds, and then raised her brows in surprise. “You think someone on Foxglove Court killed her?” She brought her hand to her stomach in a protective gesture. “One of my neighbors is a murderer?”
“We think so, yes,” Jack said. “And you might want to keep that bit of information to yourself for the time being.”
She waved away the suggestion. “No one talks to me much,” she said matter-of-factly. “No one but Katie and Rosie. And Robert and Carl are very nice, but they are always gone. I don’t think I fit in. Someone has called immigration on me twice. I’m an American citizen,” she said passionately, her chin going up a notch.
“Who do you think did that?” Jack asked.
“I think it’s that no good Harrison Taylor. Or maybe his wife. I have a way of making an impression on men,” she said, a satisfied smile crossing her face. “I am from Colombia. When a married man touches you in ways you have not invited, you grab him by the balls and squeeze until they cry like little girls.” She made a closed fist like she was squeezing his balls, and I wished I could’ve witnessed that event. “Now when he sees me, he scowls and runs away like the rat he is.”
“What was he like toward Mrs. McGowen?” Jack asked.
“He hated those cats,” she said, shaking her head. “One of them gets out from time to time. Harrison came out one morning and the cat was on the hood of his car. I could hear him yelling all the way down the street. Everyone came outside to see what the fuss was about. Harrison said he was getting his gun and was going to shoot the cat, so Carl went over and got it off the hood and took it back to Rosie.”
“Have there been any other incidents like that?”
“Not really,” she said, shrugging. “It’s quiet for the most part. Everyone watches out for each other. It’s nice to be able to go away for a weekend and have someone watch the house or water the plants. Those kinds of things. It’s just impossible to think that something like what happened to Rosie happened on our street.”
“What about Richard Selby?”
She hesitated and broke eye contact, thinking it through before she answered. “He’s very quiet. Seems to work a lot. But he has kind eyes. I don’t think his marriage is a happy one.”
“What about Monica Middleton?”
She let out a breath. “Then you know?”
“About their relationship?” Jack asked. “Yes, we know.”
“I saw him sneaking through the trees one night. Just his shadow at first, but he came into the light enough that I saw his face. We have a big spot light in the back because it gets so dark and Clark is always worried about intruders. I tell him this isn’t the kind of place like that, but we lived in Miami for several years before coming here, and old habits are hard to break.”
“No one else besides Harrison had any problems with Rosalyn?” Jack asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not that I know of. She was just a nice old lady.”
Chapter Fourteen
A long time had passed since breakfast, and I needed to put something in my stomach and then head to the funeral home.
“What do you want for lunch?” Jack asked.
“I don’t care. What do you feel like?”
I knew from experience that the subject of where to eat was a vicious cycle and one of the most difficult questions to answer in marriage.
“I feel like a burrito,” Jack said.
“Go to Nacho Taco. There’s a burger place right next door and we can go to both.”
“Why didn’t you just say you wanted a burger?” he asked, turning to look at me. “Why can’t we just go to one place?”
“Because I want you to be happy and get what you want to eat. This way, we both get what we want.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
I was pretty sure he was going to expound on that, but a call came in on his radio. Kendra Cormac was the daytime dispatcher for the county.
“Sheriff, a call came in a few minutes ago of a reported gunshot at 409 Foxglove Court. I know that’s Rosalyn McGowen’s street and figured you’d want to check it out yourself.”
“Thanks, Kendra. Heading that direction now.”
“Gunshot,” I said. “Who lives at 409?”
“Carl and Robert.”
Jack turned on his lights and sirens and thoughts of lunch were forgotten. We turned onto Foxglove Court a few minutes later. I recognized all but a couple of the faces standing in Robert and Carl’s yard, but I knew by process of elimination that one was Keith Middleton, Monica’s husband, and the couple standing arm in arm had to be Tom and Lynette Miller.
Janet Selby was there, her arms around two boys in their early teenage years. She was wearing yoga pants and a long sleeve Lycra shirt, and her hair was up in a ponytail and sweaty at the temples.
Frank and Edna Bright were on their front porch, watching from afar and not interacting with the others. Abby Clearwater stood just behind Janet, holding the hand of Katie’s soap opera obsessed toddler. Katie sat on the front porch, Robert’s head against her bosom and her arms around his shaking, sobbing body.
Everyone had a shell-shocked, deer in the headlights look about them as they stood and watched. Robert’s blue Prius was in the driveway, the trunk open and bags of groceries still in the back. Carl’s truck was also in the driveway, which didn’t jibe with what he’d said about getting home from work every day around four o’clock.
Jack left his lights on, but turned off the sir
ens, and we got out of the car and headed to the porch. Katie looked up at us with tear drenched eyes and shook her head, like she wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“Robert,” Jack said softly, kneeling next to them on the porch stairs. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Robert kept sobbing as if Jack’s words hadn’t penetrated at all. I’d seen grief like this often enough to know that he probably hadn’t heard. Jack looked up to Katie.
“Someone called 911 when a gunshot was heard,” he said.
She nodded and kept stroking Robert’s back like he was a child. “Inside,” she whispered. “Carl’s inside.”
“Robert, I’m going inside now,” Jack said. “I’m going to see Carl.”
I’d grabbed a pair of gloves out of habit, and I opened the screen door, holding it open for Jack.
There was a smell about death. And new death smelled different than old death. Old death hinted of dust and decay. But with new death came the coppery tang of blood and the release of bladder and bowels that tended to coat the inside of the nostrils and throat. It was a smell you got used to if you were around it enough.
“Damn,” Jack said. There wasn’t a body in sight, but we knew there would be one.
The house looked the same as it had the day before—bright and light and cheerful. I noticed the grocery bags just like the ones in the trunk of the Prius on the kitchen counter. One of them had fallen off and bright yellow lemons had rolled across the floor.
We hadn’t gone into the other parts of the house the day before, so we were unfamiliar with the layout, but it didn’t take long to find Carl Planter. He was in the hall bathroom, fully clothed in the bathtub, a revolver on the floor just below his limp hand.
“I’ll get my bag,” I said and headed back to the car. It wasn’t often that we arrived at scenes that fresh. Pristine was another question. Usually whoever found the victim touched the body, checking to see if they were still alive, contaminating the scene in some way. Suicides were all worked as homicides until the suicide could be determined for sure.
I suited up at the car and pulled my hair back. That seemed to set off a reaction from the onlookers and several of them started crying. I texted Sheldon and let him know he needed to bring the Suburban for a pick up and gave him the address. Lily and Tyler were both in class for most of the day, and they’d be upset they’d missed the autopsy opportunity, but I couldn’t wait on them.
Robert and Katie hadn’t moved from the front steps, though Robert’s sobs had subsided some. Neither of them paid attention to me as I moved around them and headed back inside. Jack stood in the hallway outside of the bathroom, and I handed him a pair of gloves.
“I’ve called it in,” he said. “I need to talk to Robert. The sooner the better.”
“You find a note?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I haven’t looked anywhere but the bathroom.”
“It’s convenient he did it in the tub,” I said. “Makes the cleanup easier.”
“Carl seemed like a pretty thoughtful guy,” Jack said, but it was something to put away for later.
The bathroom was directly across from the guest bedroom, and I assumed that was its intended purpose. I found it odd that Carl would choose the guest bath to take his life in. Usually people wanted the comfort of the familiar before they ended things.
The bathroom had a modernized fifties feel to it with a white pedestal sink and a claw foot tub. The walls were mint green on the top half and white wainscoting on the bottom half. There were built-in shelves above the toilet with neatly stacked white towels in various sizes and candle artfully arranged. The shower rod hung from the ceiling and was in the shape of an oval, so the curtain could be pulled all the way around the freestanding tub.
I hated to see Carl this way. I’d enjoyed our conversation the day before, and I’d instantly liked him and Robert. Seeing him now was a very different picture from the vibrant man I’d met the day before.
Carl was a big man, and he took up every inch of the tiny claw foot, his legs bent to accommodate his height. He was fully dressed, even his boots were still on, and I noted the dried mud and concrete on them. These were his work boots.
He’d used a small caliber revolver to do the job. The hole in the side of his temple was small, black powder marks around the hole. The bullet hadn’t gone all the way through, so it was still rattling around inside his brain somewhere. I didn’t need to take his temperature for an exact time of death. He was still warm, and rigor hadn’t started to set in yet. Based on that and the time Kendra had gotten the 911 call, I knew Carl had been dead for less than an hour.
All in all, it was a neat scene. There wasn’t a lot of blood. Except for the hole in his head, it just looked as if he were sleeping. I picked up the hand that hung down over the side of the tub and examined it closely, and then I took a swab for gunshot residue and put it in an evidence bad. I’d be able to look at the particles from his hand and clothes under the microscope when I got him back to the lab.
I left the shell casing and weapon for Martinez to document and photograph, and just as I stood, I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall.
“Yo, Doc,” Martinez said.
“Yo, yourself,” I told him. “Not much left for me to do here. He’s definitely dead. And he was neat with it. I’ll get out of your way so you can document.”
“Sheriff’s in the kitchen trying to talk to the husband. We got the financials in for Carl and Robert not too long ago. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. Carl makes a damned good living. Robert makes about half his salary, but it’s not terrible. Looks like they bought a lake house a couple years back and are making payments on that. But I’d say it’s normal expenses for people with their level of income.”
“You tell Jack?” I asked.
“Not yet. I emailed everything to him.”
I left Martinez to do his job and made my way back to the kitchen. Katie was at the stove, pouring hot water from a kettle into a big mug. I watched her steep the tea and put a healthy shot of whiskey in it.
“For his nerves,” she whispered as I came through.
Jack and Robert were sitting at the kitchen table, much like they had the day before. Once Katie had set the hot mug in front of Robert, Jack said, “Would you mind finding Officer Chen and giving her your statement? She’s outside with the others.”
“Sure,” Katie said and left.
I took the seat next to Jack. Robert was shaking and his teeth were chattering. Shock would do that to a person. I physically put his hands around his mug and held them there until he could do so himself.
“Robert,” Jack said. “I know this is very difficult, but I need you to talk to me right now. I need to know exactly what happened. Just tell me about your day, up to the time that you got home.”
He gripped his mug a little tighter, but didn’t drink. “We’re hosting a luncheon tomorrow. Nothing big. Just a few friends over for the afternoon.” He shrugged and tried taking a sip of his tea. I’m not sure the whiskey Katie put in even registered. “It’s just a normal Friday. I kissed him goodbye when he left for work a little after five. He was running late this morning because the timer on the coffeemaker didn’t go off like it was supposed to so he had to wait for the pot to brew. I headed over and met the running club after he left. I did three miles.” His voice quivered at the end and he took another sip.
“Take your time,” I told him.
He nodded and took another sip and then breathed in deeply, steadying himself. “I came back after my run and showered and dressed for the day. That was about eight o’clock. By eight-thirty, I was at my desk in the office working. I stopped around ten and went to do some errands. I stopped by the post office. When I came out of the post office, I got a call from Carl saying there was a warrant to look at our bank accounts and records because Rosie had left Carl her house.
“I was so upset about that,” he confessed. “It seemed like such an invasion of privacy. But Carl told m
e it was no big deal and that y’all just had to look because it was part of the process. Once you looked, then you could eliminate us off the list and move on to finding who really killed her.”
“That’s right,” Jack said.
Robert nodded. “Carl was always right about stuff like that. He was good at being logical about things. After he called, I drove through Starbucks to get a latte, and then I headed to the grocery store from there. Like I said, we’ve got a garden luncheon scheduled for tomorrow and I was going to make a peach sangria and tea sandwiches.
“When I drove down the street, I got this feeling that something was wrong, you know? People were out in their yards, and they were looking toward our house. When I pulled in the driveway, I saw Edna and Frank outside, which is really weird because we rarely see them, even though they live next door.”
“No one said anything?” I asked.
“I asked JoAnn why everyone was standing around, and she said they heard a gunshot. Everyone was trying to figure out where it came from. I told her it was probably someone out messing around in the woods, but she said no and that it sounded real close. She said they called the police. I told her it was probably nothing and popped the trunk to start grabbing bags.
“But I noticed the smell as soon as I walked in the door. That’s when I started to get that tightness in my chest. Carl was supposed to be at work. No one was supposed to be home, but I saw his truck in the driveway, and I thought maybe he came home early to surprise me. I put the bags on the counter and I just started walking. I don’t know what I expected to find.” His breath started to hitch again and he put his cup down when his hands started shaking. “And then I found him in the bathroom.”
“Did you touch him?” I asked.
He shook his head no. “I couldn’t. I could see he was already gone. I just turned around and went back outside. I think my face must have said it all because Katie came up to give me a hug and I just fell apart.”
“Do you have someone you can stay with for a little while so we can finish up?” he asked. “Maybe Katie?”
