The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  “6D?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lieutenant Pierce’s apartment?”

  He grinned at the confirmation. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He listened to the rising elevator and grabbed a fire extinguisher from its bracket in the hallway and stood by the door to 6D.

  The manager stepped into the hall and asked, “You the guy who called?”

  “Yes, I’m staying with a friend. Hurry!”

  “You think there’s a fire?” Ridley asked.

  “No, I just thought I’d be prepared.”

  Ridley put an ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “I know. I haven’t heard anything since I called. Now I’m really worried.”

  Ridley hit the doorbell.

  “Just open the door, Ridley. She could be dying.”

  Ridley rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and unlocked the door. “Lieutenant Pierce, Lieutenant Pierce,” he hollered through the open doorway. He turned back to the other man. “I still don’t hear any―”

  The bottom end of the fire extinguisher smashed into his forehead. Ridley crumpled to the floor. The attacker moved fast. He dragged the unconscious manager, his keys and the fire extinguisher, into the apartment and shut the door. He considered and rejected the possibility of strangling Ridley. He wanted to scare Lieutenant Pierce not just piss her off.

  He pulled out his pocket knife and cut the cord off the toaster in the kitchen. He used it to tie Ridley’s hands behind his back. He cut another cord off a living-room lamp and bound his feet together. He grabbed a kitchen towel off a cabinet pull and stuffed it into his mouth. He crammed Ridley into the closet and tossed in the fire extinguisher and the cellphone.

  When he turned from the closet door, he spotted Chester sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. A cat. Visions of the cats of his childhood flashed through his mind. He saw the smashed faces. He heard his mother’s cold voice. He looked upward and saw the ceiling fan. This time, he’d do it differently. He’d hang the cat from the fan and let it spin. Then she’d come in and see her cat making lazy circles in the air. “Here kitty, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty,” he said approaching Chester. When he lunged, Chester took off down the hall.

  He followed the fleeing cat into the bedroom and saw the bed skirt twitch. He got down on all fours and peered under the bed. Chester greeted him with a hiss and a growl. He reached towards the cat. Chester snapped out with his claws, the effect of their sharpness dulled by the heavy work gloves on the man’s hands.

  The man grabbed Chester’s hind leg and pulled, dragging him out from under the bed and holding him upside down in the air. Chester curled up in a ball and buried his teeth in the man’s forearm.

  “You bastard,” the man yelled and grabbed Chester’s collar and jerked. Chester writhed as if he had no bones and with two twists pulled his head out of the collar, flipped in the air, landed on his feet and ran.

  The man threw down the collar and ran after him, his mother’s yells echoing in his head. Rage coursed like broken glass through his veins. The edge of his vision pulsed with red. He cast his eyes everywhere but saw no sign of the cat. He swung his arm and knocked a lamp on the floor. He panted with clenched teeth, each breath escaping his throat with a whistle.

  A loud thump from the hall closet penetrated the edge of his anger and with it came understanding. I have to get back in control. He closed his mouth, flared his nostrils and breathed deep, feeling his chest, his stomach, fill with air. Then, he let it seep out of his nose.

  Another thump. He ran to the closet and flung open the door. The manager froze, legs pulled back ready to slam his feet into the wall again. His attacker picked up the fire extinguisher and smashed it into Ridley’s face. His captive’s body went limp. He shut the door and got back to work. He’d have to forget about the cat for now. He had work to do.

  He stood in the bathroom by the toilet and pulled on his latex gloves. He pulled a snapshot of Kathleen, Charley and Ruby from his pocket and let it drift to the floor between the toilet and the wall. He pushed it with his toe, back a little closer to the corner, then went into the bedroom.

  He opened Lucinda’s walnut jewelry box and sifted through the contents looking for something unique and instantly recognizable. He found it. A black-enameled galloping horse. Its silver mane, tail and hooves studded with tiny rhinestones. He pulled the garnet ring out of his pocket and placed it in the box. Then, he had a better idea. He picked it up and went into the kitchen.

  He found and opened a can of cat food, half hoping the scent would lure the cat out of hiding. When it didn’t, he set the ring in the bottom of the food dish and dumped the can of food on top of it. Can’t make it too easy for her, can we? He chuckled at the thought.

  He picked the manager’s keys from the floor as he left the apartment and locked the deadbolt. As he rode down the elevator, he pulled off his latex gloves and wrapped them around the keys. He hopped into his car and headed out of town. He slowed as he crossed the James River, tossing the keys and the gloves out the window and down to the water far below.

  Fifty-One

  Lucinda drove out of downtown Lynchburg, past the historic homes on Rivermont Avenue. Just as that avenue became Boonsboro Road, she turned right and then made an almost immediate left on to Peakland Place. The original name of the street was Catawba Drive named for the forty-foot-high trees that lined the road. Their fragrant, white, orchid-like blossoms attracted hoards of bees and butterflies in spring. In the fall, long cigar-like seedpods would fall from the clusters of heart-shaped leaves and litter the street.

  Early in the twentieth century the street had changed to its current name of Peakland Place, the trolley line extended to its western end and luxury-home construction begun and continued unabated for two decades. The pride of the neighborhood, a broad, well-maintained, artfully landscaped median strip, ran the length of the residential street.

  Lucinda drove down this peaceful avenue, made a U-turn after a couple of blocks and parked on the street in front of a large, white-brick home with black shutters that sat up on a small rise. Like many of the homes on that side of the road, the private driveway approached the home from the rear off Boonsboro Road. Lucinda climbed a flight of steps through the yard and up to the front door. She rang the bell.

  A small, frail, white-haired woman pulled open the door and staggered back two steps. Her right hand fluttered like an injured bird at her throat. “Oh my heavens,” she said.

  Lucinda held out her identification. “Lieutenant Pierce, ma’am. I’m investigating the murder of your daughter-in-law, Kathleen.”

  “Oh my, yes, yes. Evan told me about your . . . your . . . your injury, but it’s still a bit of a shock.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Lucinda said. From most people, comments like that annoyed or angered Lucinda. This time, though, she felt as embarrassed and contrite as if she’d intentionally distressed the elderly woman.

  “Please, come in, Lieutenant.”

  Lucinda stepped on to the slate floor of the foyer. Straight ahead of her, a broad stairway of walnut treads with a curving walnut railing and white carved supports led up the stairs. To her right, a formal living room with a white carpet stretched over to an ebony black baby grand piano nestled into the alcove of a large bay window.

  Lily Spencer led Lucinda to the left into a smaller sitting room with two opposing white loveseats and several ornately carved walnut chairs with needlepoint seats and backs.

  “Please have a seat,” Lily said sweeping her arm to the loveseat by the window. Lucinda sank into the cushions and Lily perched on the edge of a chair that stood perpendicular from Lucinda. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “I’d like you to tell me about your children, ma’am.”

  “Child, Lieutenant,” she said with a smile. “Dr Spencer and I had only one child – Evan. And you’ve met him.”

  “Mrs. Spencer, I know you and your husba
nd had another son.”

  “Why, whoever told you that was quite mistaken, Lieutenant. Evan is our only child.” Her lips pursed tight, emphasizing the red lipstick that seeped into the wrinkles around her mouth.

  “Mrs. Spencer, we have scientific proof.”

  “Oh my,” she said as both her hands flew into the wounded bird flutter. She popped to her feet. “Tea. We need tea. I’ll make a pot of tea.” She turned and headed out of the other door to the room.

  “Mrs. Spencer, please, sit back down.”

  Lily looked back over her shoulder, her eyes as wide as a cornered rabbit. Rather than returning to her seat, she scurried even faster out of sight.

  Lucinda trailed behind her into an attractive, roomy kitchen decorated in Delft blue and white. She took a seat in the breakfast nook and observed the woman as she made preparations for tea.

  The activity of putting on the kettle, pulling out a teapot, and measuring the tea leaves appeared to calm her. Lucinda decided that waiting patiently until the ritual was complete was the best way to get the information she wanted.

  As Lily poured the hot water into the teapot she said, “Just five minutes, Lieutenant, and the tea will be ready. I think you’ll like it. It’s Lady Grey, a lot like Earl Grey, but more delicate. Simply lovely.”

  “I’m sure it is, ma’am. While we’re waiting, could you tell me what you and Evan argued about the last time you were in his house?”

  “Oh my. Oh my. Oh my,” she muttered as she zigzagged around the kitchen as if she were lost in her own home. “The tea will be ready soon.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Spencer. I will say just one more thing and then I’ll keep quiet until the tea is ready. I would not be poking into the privacy of your past, ma’am, if it wasn’t important. Quite frankly, there are lives at stake. Please think about that.”

  Lily gave no sign she heard a word that Lucinda said. She filled a small pitcher with cream and set it in the middle of the kitchen table. She cut a lemon into wedges, arranged them on a plate and placed it beside the creamer. She dropped sugar cubes into a crystal bowl, and topped it with a delicate pair of tongs and set that on the table, too. Then she carried over a pair of translucent bone china cups and saucers covered with small hand-painted violets. “These are my favorites. Lovely, aren’t they? Not at all the style today, but I never grow tired of them.”

  “Yes, ma’am. They are quite lovely.”

  Lily smiled weakly. “The tea should be just about right by now.” She poured them both a cup. “Sugar?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “One lump or two?”

  “Just one, please.”

  Lily dropped a cube into Lucinda’s cup and two into her own. “I always had a bit of a sweet tooth,” she said with a girlish blush. “Lemon or cream?”

  “Lemon, please.”

  Lily placed a wedge on Lucinda’s saucer and poured a dollop of cream into her own cup. She slid into the chair opposite Lucinda and took a sip of her tea. “You said lives were at risk, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Does that mean that whoever took Kathleen’s life has taken another life as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It appears that way. Several lives. And we’re afraid there may be

  more, if we don’t find him soon.”

  Lily’s face contracted in pain. “Kathleen was strangled, yes?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lucinda sensed she was on the edge of a breakthrough. It took all of her self-control to allow Lily to ramble on with her line of thought and not grab her by the shoulders and shake the answers out of her.

  “Her face was damaged, was it not?”

  “Horribly damaged, ma’am.”

  “As if she were hit over and over again?”

  Lucinda nodded.

  Lily’s head fell forward. “I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed this day would never come.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Lucinda said placing her hand on the parchment skin of Lily’s forearm.

  “But it’s here now,” she said and exhaled a heavy sigh. She raised her head up, straightened her spine and faced Lucinda with watery blue eyes. “There’s nothing to do then but deal with it straight on.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, I do have another son – our first son, Kirk. Our last name wasn’t Spencer, though, when he was born. It was Prescott. Our oldest son was Kirkland Prescott, Junior – named after his father.

  “He was a quiet baby – too quiet, I suppose. But that’s only my thinking in retrospect. At the time, I thought I was lucky. Then, when he was a toddler, the tantrums began. Children have tantrums, we told each other. It’s just a phase. He’ll grow out of it, we thought.

  “Looking back, though, his fits were less like the tantrums of other children and more like the rages of a wounded animal. Uncontrollable. Violent. Destructive rages. We wanted another child, but thought we should get Kirk under better control before introducing sibling rivalry into the mix. We sent him off to a public school for kindergarten. Teachers there couldn’t control him either and we had to withdraw him. We hired a private tutor – a long string of them actually. Kirk drove them off rather quickly. He was a bright boy, but very volatile.

  “When Kirk turned eight, the tantrums stopped as suddenly as they started. Overnight, Kirk transformed into a quiet boy, a docile child. So much so we were able to enroll him in public school again. I suppose we should’ve been alarmed by the abrupt and total change. But, quite frankly we were relieved – simply relieved. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Spencer, I certainly can.”

  Lily sighed and then moved on. “My husband and I decided it was time for another child. Eleven months later, Evan was born. That’s when Kirk’s tantrums started up again. He ranted and raged whenever I held Evan. He demanded I put down his replacement – that’s what he called his little brother. Fortunately, the tantrums did not manifest themselves outside our home this time, so we were able to keep him in school.

  “We made several appointments for him with a child psychologist. The psychologist assured us it was only sibling rivalry – just a temporary phase – it would pass with time. We just needed to give our oldest son more attention and more affection. The psychologist’s dismissive attitude of the problem made me feel guilty at the time, it angered me later, but then, Kirk never threw a tantrum in front of the psychologist so how could he have known?

  “One day, I put Evan down for a nap on a Saturday afternoon. My husband was out playing golf. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch. I heard a loud thump from upstairs. I thought Evan had crawled over the railing and fallen from his crib. I raced up upstairs. I discovered Kirk leaning over Evan’s body, pulling on a rope he’d wrapped around his little brother’s neck.

  “I screamed. I cursed. I shoved Kirk off Evan so hard – so very hard – that I knocked him across the room and into the wall. I scooped up Evan. He was choking but he was still breathing. I rushed out of the house, jumped into my car and sped to the hospital.”

  Lily burst into heart-wrenching sobs. Lucinda rose to offer comfort to Lily but she waved her away. “No. Don’t.” Lily took a sip of her tea. “Don’t show me any kindness or I’ll never make it through.”

  Lucinda returned to her seat. Lily closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She opened them and shook her head. “Evan was fine. Some bruising, but no permanent damage. But I’d left Kirk lying on the floor. I didn’t know if I’d hurt him or not. And I didn’t care.

  “In fact, I refused to return home with Evan until my husband had Kirk put away. After thirty days, the mental health professionals at the facility expressed the opinion that Kirk was no longer a danger to anyone. They recommended outpatient treatment with a psychiatrist and chastised us for not showing Kirk enough affection and for playing favorites with our younger son. They said the problem had less to do with Kirk than it did with the family. We had a dysfunctional family, they told us, and we were scapegoating our oldest son. Making him bear the bu
rden of the family’s sins. Because of this, he had emotional problems requiring professional help. They also recommended family counseling for all of us.

  “We took Kirk to his psychiatry appointments twice a week. However, I refused to see a counselor myself and I was not capable of showing my oldest son any affection. My husband tried but all his attempts were awkward. We never – never – left him alone with Evan again. For the most part, Kirk didn’t seem to mind that. In fact, he usually acted like Evan didn’t even exist.

  “The psychiatrists seemed to be helping Kirk. The number of tantrums diminished and then they disappeared. Kirk was a quiet child once again.

  “That’s when things got odd in our neighborhood. At the Roberts’ home, their cat had a litter of five kittens. One by one, they disappeared. I knew Kirk played with the Roberts boy but at the time never gave that a single suspicious thought.

  “Then it was the Stanhopes. They had a Lilac Point Himalayan they were very proud of. They paid a hefty stud fee to breed her to a champion sire. The result was six kittens. One disappeared. The neighborhood buzzed with rumors of a satanic cult stealing kittens in the night for use in ritual sacrifice.

  “A couple of days later, I received a shrieking phone call from Debbie Stanhope. She said that Kirk was no longer welcome in her home and neither was I. She claimed she’d caught Kirk sneaking out of her house with one of her valuable kittens. She demanded that I return the kitten he had stolen earlier that week. When I told her we did not have her kitten, she wanted to know how much I got when I sold it. I hung up on her.

  “When Kirk came home I asked him about what had happened. He said, so sweetly – so sweetly . . .” Lily choked on her words. She took another sip of her now cold tea. “He said, ‘Mama, it was so pretty and soft. Tommy and I wanted to show it the grass. We wanted to see if the kitten liked the grass.’ He looked so innocent. He sounded so sincere.

  “In that moment my heart melted. I forgave my troubled boy for everything and I took him in my arms. For days, Kirk seemed normal to me, just like any normal little boy. I thought the psychiatrist had found the key that opened the door to a normal childhood for Kirk.