The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  “I think he’s headed to the second floor.”

  Above her head, she heard a loud screech, the sound of a seldom opened window being forced up on tracks desperate for oil. “Take cover,” she shouted as she pressed her body tight against the wall.

  A plummeting object flashed past her line of vision. It hit the lawn with a sickening thump. Small bare feet. Navy blue shorts. Tiny baby blue T-shirt. It was the body of a small boy. He couldn’t have been more than two or maybe three years old. An ugly red splotch bloomed in the center of his forehead. A large diaper pin attached a white piece of paper to the front of his T-shirt. In red crayon, bold letters proclaimed: “This is my son. I didn’t do him. Cops did.”

  Nausea threatened to eject the three cups of coffee Lucinda had inhaled that morning on the way to work. “Cops did” That meant her, she knew. She shot that child. She killed that little boy. Her ears roared so loud she didn’t hear the final shot fired from inside the house. It wasn’t another round from the semi-automatic rifle. This time, the trigger was pulled on a .45 caliber revolver. That bullet only traveled a short distance: down the barrel of the gun, into the mouth and out the back of the head of the shooter.

  Eleven

  In the aftermath of the shooting, the bogeyman of her missing eye raised its ugly head again. In a politically charged situation like this one, everyone wanted a scapegoat. Lucinda, the cop with the missing eye, seemed perfect for the role. She was pounded in the press, and the department withered under questions about keeping her on the job. Lucinda stopped reading the newspaper and watching the local news.

  A review of radio chatter and interviews with the other officers on the scene, and with those working in dispatch that day, made it clear everyone believed the shooter was the only person inside the home. Lucinda had no reason to think otherwise. Internal Affairs could not blame Lucinda’s bad judgment for the shooting. That was their first choice for solving the public relations problem – it was a solution that took all the responsibility away from the department itself. But, it was a non-starter.

  They took no pleasure in the vindication of Lieutenant Pierce – they needed a culprit. Internal Affairs contracted with outside experts who ran through a re-enactment of the shooting again and again hoping to prove that Lucinda’s monocular vision caused the death of the child. No matter how many times they re-played the scenario, the result was the same – it made no difference whether the shot was fired by someone with one eye or two. There was no way for anyone to know that the suspect in the house would use his own small child as a shield.

  Lucinda was reinstated, and so was now in charge of finding the killer of Dr. Kathleen Spencer. Her cubicle was alive again – and so was she – resurrected in the pursuit of death. She no longer saw the grime on the window that filtered and muted the light before it reached her desktop. She only saw the light itself shimmering on the pile of police reports stacked in front of her.

  Each one contained comments from the officers who’d canvassed the Spencer neighborhood in the immediate aftermath of Kate’s death. Not one of them saw anything, heard anything, or even had a theory about the reason for her murder. The one exception was Ms. Craddick – loopy Rose Craddick – who saw a man with a hood pulled up to cover his face. No doubt she saw the killer. Big doubt that her identification of the perpetrator was anywhere near correct.

  Lucinda knew there had to be some leads in these reports just the same. She poured through them again paying close attention to the most insignificant details about life in the Spencer household. As she worked, she made a list of people she wanted to personally interview for a second time and the questions she wanted to ask them.

  The phone on her desk rang interrupting her review. “Pierce,” she said. She stood as she listened to the dispatcher telling her about a possible homicide or suicide. “I’m on my way,” she said as she hung up and slid into her jacket in one fluid motion.

  She drove into a tired looking neighborhood where every house had sagging gutters, falling shingles or flaking paint, if not a combination of all three. She parked in front of a too-bright blue ranch house where a rusty chain-link fence surrounded a weedy front yard. Grass and unidentifiable foreign invaders, their heads top-heavy with seeds, bent over and brushed the sidewalk.

  The front door opened into the living room where the body lay half off a worn sofa. She smelled the lethal mix of spent gunpowder and blood under the dominant odor of stale beer and over-ripe tomato sauce. On the floor between the sofa and the coffee table, a scattered mound of crushed beer cans filled the space.

  On the table, an open pizza box held three slices of dried pizza, an open can of beer and a piece of paper. On the note, written in large letters, was a short message: “I am a sorry son of a bitch.”

  From down the hall, Lucinda heard the muffled rants of an hysterical woman and the low murmur of a soothing voice attempting to calm her distress. Lucinda approached the body as closely as she could without disrupting the scene. The bullet, it seemed, had entered straight into the victim’s mouth and blown out the back of his head. His death – in all likelihood – had been instantaneous. The only weapon Lucinda could see was a handgun across the room on top of a large screen television. She peered around the body seeking but not finding another weapon that might indicate the injury could be self-inflicted. She heard a thumping in the hall but ignored it until she heard a voice shout, “Ma’am, you can’t go in there.”

  Lucinda stood up straight and turned from the body. She saw a wild-eyed woman standing in the entrance to the hallway. “I know who did it,” she shrieked.

  A uniformed officer came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Ma’am, you need to come back to the bedroom.” Then he turned to Lucinda and said, “Sorry, Lieutenant. She found the body. She’s the victim’s mother.”

  The woman looked straight at Lucinda and shrieked again, “I know who did it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You want to tell me about it?” Lucinda asked.

  The woman jerked a shapeless purse in front of her body and dug inside. Her impulsive, rapid movements sent a reflexive spasm of tension through Lucinda’s chest. In automatic response, her hand flew to the butt of her gun, but the woman’s hand emerged from her purse without a lethal object, just a harmless cassette. “I’ve got the evidence,” she said waving the tape in the air.

  Lucinda held up a paper bag beneath the cassette. “Drop it in here, please.”

  “No. No. You’ve got to listen to it,” the woman insisted.

  “Ma’am, I don’t have a tape player with me. Please just drop it in the bag.”

  “But . . .”

  “Ma’am, just drop it in and we’ll go outside and you can tell me what it says.”

  The woman cast an uncertain glance at Lucinda then released the tape. It landed with a thunk inside the paper sack. Lucinda handed it to an evidence tech, put her arm around the woman’s shoulder and led her outside.

  Lucinda slid behind the wheel of her car and looked over the crazed woman now seated on the passenger’s side. The woman’s hair spiked out in a hundred directions – Lucinda was certain it was not the woman’s normal hairstyle. It didn’t go with the conservative gray suit and black blouse. It wasn’t in harmony with her hosiery-clad legs and basic black pumps. Lucinda pulled out a notepad and pen. “Ma’am, could you please tell me your name.”

  “You’ve got to listen to that tape. All you need to know is on that tape.”

  “I will – I promise. But right now, you need to calm down and talk to me.”

  The woman took a deep breath. The she ran her hands over her head in a futile attempt to get her unruly hair back in place. She smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt, looked at Lucinda and said, “Okay.”

  “Your name?”

  “Frances Wagner.”

  “And do you know the name of the man inside the house.”

  “Yes.” Frances’ chin quivered. “It’s my son.”

  “His name, please.�
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  “Terry. Terry Wagner.” Her voice cracked with each syllable she uttered. “She did it. His wife did it. You’ve got to arrest her,” she blurted out in renewed agitation.

  “Ma’am, I need you to calm down and help me out.”

  Frances closed her eyes and nodded her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why did you come over to your son’s house, Ms. Wagner?”

  “Because of the message. The message on the tape. When I got the message, I came over.”

  “How did you get the message?”

  “I came home from work on my lunch hour. I was going to make a sandwich and toss in a load of laundry. But first, I checked the answering machine. It was blinking.”

  “What did the message say?”

  “It said, ‘Frances, call the police and get them to come over to the house. Do not come yourself. Please. Do not come here. Just call the police. I’m sorry, Frances. I just couldn’t take it anymore.’” The features on Frances’ face slid downward like an avalanche. She slumped over in the seat and sobbed.

  Lucinda placed her hand on the distraught woman’s back and waited for her to regain her self-control. When Frances sat back up, Lucinda asked, “Who was the message from, Ms. Wagner?”

  “That woman he married. My daughter-in-law Julie,” she spat out.

  Before Lucinda could ask another question, squealing tires drew both women’s attention to outside the car. A green Monte Carlo swerved into the side street. It zigzagged from one side of the street to the other as if being steered by a trained chimp instead of a licensed driver. It jerked to a stop beside the house with two wheels up on the sidewalk and the front end kissing the post that held the stop sign.

  The door flew open and a middle-aged woman in a black T-shirt and blue jeans jumped out onto the sidewalk. Her long brown hair was clasped in a clip at the back of her neck and swayed back and forth as she ran for the front gate.

  Frances reached for the door handle. “What is that damn bitch doing here?”

  Lucinda laid a restraining hand on Frances’ left arm. “Please stay in the car, Ms. Wagner. You know who that is?”

  “Julie’s mother. Vivienne the tramp.”

  The maligned Vivienne, meanwhile, reached the patrolman blocking passage into the yard. She attempted to brush past him and cried in outrage when she was stopped.

  Lucinda got out of the car, then leaned down and stuck her head back in. “Ms. Wagner, stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Vivienne slapped an envelope over and over into the officer’s chest. “You’ve got to let me in. I’ve got to see the person in charge. I’ve got evidence.”

  “I’m the investigator in charge,” Lucinda said.

  Vivienne spun around. “Good. That guy deserved to die. I’ve got the proof right here.”

  All eyes were on Vivienne after that statement. Neither Lucinda nor the patrolman noticed Frances ease open the door and get out of the car. They didn’t hear her stealthy approach. When they saw her, she was in mid-flight after launching into a flying tackle aimed at Vivienne’s body. Both women slammed into the ground. Frances straddled Vivienne not caring that her position forced her skirt high up onto her hips revealing a lack of underwear beneath her pantyhose. Frances grabbed a hank of her hair in each hand and pounded Vivienne’s head into the ground. “You lying bitch,” she screamed.

  The patrolman plucked Frances off Vivienne. Frances squirmed in his arms with strands of Vivienne’s hair still clutched in her hands. Lucinda helped Vivienne to her feet. As soon as Vivienne was standing, Frances lunged at her again but the patrolman held her tight.

  “Cuff her,” Lucinda ordered, “and stick her in the back of your car until she calms down.”

  The officer complied with a grin. Lucinda escorted Vivienne to her car. Once they were both inside, Lucinda said, “You’re the mother-in-law of the deceased – correct?”

  “Unfortunately, yes, I am. I don’t know how my daughter was stupid enough to marry that sorry son of a bitch.”

  Lucinda’s eyebrows raised as her internal radar noted that she used the same words as those written on the note beside the body. “Your full name, please.”

  “Vivienne Carr.”

  “You said you had evidence?”

  “Yeah,” she said, handing an envelope to Lucinda. “Not evidence of the murder but evidence of what he did to deserve it.”

  Lucinda slid the pack of photographs out of the envelope and flipped through an array of shots displaying blackened eyes, busted lips, bruised arms, taped ribs. “Are these all shots of your daughter, Ms. Carr?”

  “Yes, yes they are. That sorry son of a bitch used her for a punching bag. I told her she needed to leave him before he killed her. But she kept telling me that he’d kill her if she left.”

  “Did your daughter call you and ask you to come over here?”

  “No. That crazy woman called me up and told me my daughter killed her boy. I told her it was about time.”

  “Ms. Carr, do you think your daughter killed Terry Wagner?”

  “I’m not saying that. I don’t know. I’m just saying if she did, it was self-defense. He deserved to die.”

  “Ms. Carr, where is your daughter now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lucinda stared at her without saying a word.

  “Honest to God. I don’t know where she’s at. I wish I did. She must be scared to death.”

  Lucinda pressured Vivienne about her daughter’s whereabouts for a little longer without getting anywhere. She did get Vivienne’s solemn commitment to stay away from Frances and not to contact her by phone, email or snail mail. Lucinda then went to the patrol car and got the same promises from Frances before sending both women on their way.

  Twelve

  When Lucinda got back to the station, she issued an all points bulletin on Julie Wagner. With that chore out of the way, she set the Wagner case aside and moved her attention back to the more puzzling Spencer murder. She worked her way through the stack until the print blurred in front of her. Then, she stopped for the day and headed home.

  She pushed open her apartment door and received a warm welcome from Chester. The thought of food animated him to an extreme, and at this moment, it was obvious that tuna was on his mind. He wove between Lucinda’s legs at manic speed, threatening to trip her up as she walked through the small foyer. The fear of falling over him or stepping on his tail had diminished with time and therapy but it was still a problem. She scooped him up to avert disaster and headed into her small galley kitchen.

  After feeding Chester, she got busy slapping together her own sustenance. She laid a slice of muenster cheese on a piece of bread and slid it into the toaster oven. While the cheese melted, she pulled out a container of sliced turkey and poured a glass of white Merlot. She slapped a couple of slices of the meat on top of the cheese, folded the bread in half and took a bite before heading into the living room.

  She plopped into the recliner, raised the leg rest, picked up the remote and clicked on Nancy Grace. Nancy’s hour of emotion-laden, judgment-filled crime reporting usually eased her stress and took her mind away from the nagging worries of her caseload. Tonight, however, her thoughts about Kathleen Spencer’s murder kept churning in her head. She was oblivious to both the audio and video until she heard the word “ring”.

  “That’s right, Nancy. The police don’t care at all about who murdered my daughter. They just want to know how she got that ring. We keep telling them it isn’t her ring.”

  “Tell us about that ring,” Nancy said. “What does it look like?”

  “Well, it’s a big flashy thing – expensive one, too, if that diamond is the real thing.”

  “The police say it is, Ms. Haver. Didn’t it have rubies on it, too?”

  “Yes. A little ruby heart on each side. But it wasn’t my daughter’s ring. I don’t know how it got on her hand.”

  Lucinda pushed down the leg rest and leaned forward in her chair.


  “Thank you, Ms. Haver, for coming on the show tonight and telling us about your girl. Ladies and gentlemen, if you know anything about this ring or about the murder of Ms. Haver’s twenty-eight-year-old daughter, Kristy, please call the Riverton Police Department. Ellie, have you got that number up? There it is. If you know anything, give them a call. Please help Ms. Haver solve the mystery of her girl.”

  Nancy Grace then cut to a commercial break. Too late, Lucinda realized she should have jotted down the police department phone number. She grabbed a paper and pen hoping it would flash up on the screen again. She sat rigid on the edge of the chair waiting for Nancy’s return, waiting for more information. She wanted to know names, places, anything, everything. But when the show resumed, Nancy was off on another case.

  Lucinda raced to her computer and pulled up Nancy Grace’s page. She found nothing there about the ring. She clicked the link to email Nancy and pounded out a plea for more information. She’d barely hit “send” before a message popped up in her in-box, one of those automated ones telling Lucinda that because of the volume of email, Nancy was unable to respond to each person individually but appreciated the email just the same.

  “Damn,” Lucinda muttered. She got phone numbers off the Internet for CNN and Court TV. Dialing those numbers only got her to recordings stating the company’s business hours. She knew, though, that Nancy’s shows had dedicated lines and she always had an open door for law enforcement. She just needed that number.

  She called Ted. When he answered, she didn’t waste time with a greeting. “I need to get hold of the producers of Nancy Grace’s show at Headline News or Court TV.”

  “I don’t have them, Lucinda. What’s up?”

  “Someone in the department has to have them.”

  “Sure, the media relations department does. But they’re all gone for the day and they’re not about to tear in there to look them up for you. It’ll have to keep till tomorrow.”