“The Grim Reaper? There’s a rumor swirling that the guy was a hitman from out of town.”
Already the word was out? “Lola, that’s supposed to be confidential information. Of course, Edna spilled the beans last night...”
Lola mimed zipping her lips. “What would he be doing in Etonville?”
“Good question.”
The highway through rural New Jersey guided us past small towns and farms. The day was sunny and pleasant, so I didn’t mind the ride.
Lola was another matter. “Are we lost?”
I pointed to a roadside sign that read “Lennox, Population 915.” It had lost a few residents since the last census. “Almost there.”
“How much business could they do, stuck way out here?” Lola asked.
I took the exit from the highway and drove a mile to the center of town—the general store, the church, and blocks of apartment buildings. I scanned the GPS until I found the street I was looking for: Lancer Avenue. I made a left turn.
“Dodie? What is going on? Where are we?” Lola asked, a little impatient.
I should have been honest with her from the beginning. “I have to confess. There’s no wedding venue out here.”
“Uh-huh.” She crossed her arms.
“I had to make this trip. I can explain it to you after…”
“After what?”
I pulled up in front of 782 Lancer. It was a two-story, yellow-brick apartment building that had seen better days. The exterior was scruffy, the windows dirty. No resources had been devoted to the landscaping of the front of the building, which consisted of a patch of dry grass and a leafless tree. Barbara Mercer traveled from Chicago to this address. Why? An elderly woman exited the front door and stared at us as we stared at her.
I vaulted out of the car. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Lola.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
Before I could object, she’d joined me on the sidewalk that ran past the apartments. “Excuse me,” I said to the woman who was sweeping the entranceway. “Do you live here?” Possibly the super?
She paused and grasped the edges of an oversize gray sweater, as if for protection. “Why?” she asked wearily, her face a mass of wrinkles from her forehead to her chin.
“I had distant relatives who lived here some time back…”
Lola did a double take, her jaw dropping.
“…and I was wondering if they were still in the area,” I finished.
The old woman regarded me suspiciously. “Relatives? And you don’t know if they’re here?” She continued to sweep.
I ignored the implications of the question and played my ace in the hole. “Mercer. Their name is Mercer.”
The woman stopped and looked up. “Nobody lived here by that name.”
“Are you sure?” I was disappointed
“I ought to know. I’ve been the super here for forty years.”
I whipped out my cell and showed the super a photo of Carlos and Bella I’d taken on opening night. “Do you recognize him?”
“You mean Johnson. Mark Johnson.”
Johnson!?
Lola looked at me as if I’d gone bonkers.
“Crazy persons, if you ask me.” She pulled dead leaves off her broom.
“Crazy? Why do you say that?”
“Him creeping around at all hours, her with those nutty outfits. Claimed she could read fortunes. Reminded me of vampires. Or zombies. One of those two.”
Lola stiffened beside me.
“Did they live here long?” I asked.
“You from the police too?”
Too? “No…”
“Everybody’s interested in the Johnsons lately.”
“So I guess they had a lot of visitors?”
“Only the old lady came regularly. Until last summer.”
My pulse shot up; my mouth went dry. “Barbara,” I said.
“That’s right. I think she was his mother.”
“She passed away last summer.”
“About the time they skipped out,” the old woman said.
“Did the…Johnsons leave a forwarding address when they left?” I asked.
“Address?” she hooted. “They didn’t even leave the last month’s rent.”
“Must have been in a hurry,” I said.
Was Mark Johnson related to Barbara Mercer…and eventually became Carlos Villarias? “Thank you. Have a good day.” Lola appeared stuck to the ground. I tugged on her arm to get her to move.
“What happened to the son?” the super asked, leaning on her broom.
“The son?”
“Nice kid. Normal. Too bad he had wacky parents.”
11
I practically dragged Lola to my MC. Once we’d slammed the doors and I eased away from the curb, the old woman watching us make our escape, I said, “I can explain.” On the ride back to Etonville, I filled Lola in on the digital forensics work Pauli had done with the obituaries.
“I can’t believe it. Pauli got all this information on those seventeen, then you happened to find that one of them…Barbara Mercer…made regular trips to New Jersey. We come here on a whim… and now the ‘Johnsons’ might be…?”
“The Villariases?” I said.
“And Barbara Mercer was Carlos’s mother.” Lola was bewildered. “What does it all mean?”
When you put it that way… “Not a clue,” I admitted. “It started with that sheet of newspaper we found in his bedroom, and then it kind of mushroomed from there. Especially when I found out that he had the same name as that Spanish actor who played Dracula.” I apologized for deceiving Lola about the purpose of our trip to Lennox.
“When I asked you to look into Carlos’s background, I was hoping for an uncomplicated explanation for his meeting with the guy in the Grim Reaper costume. Who turned out to be a hitman from out-of-town.” She tugged on a strand of hair. “But this…”
“I know you’re worried about Carlos and the show. The cause of death of the mob guy has been made public...” I had no intention of sharing Bill’s concerns about the tox screen and his intention to delve into Daryl Wolf’s blood tests. “…so there’s no need to worry about Carlos’s meeting with him Halloween night.” I fervently hoped that was true.
“It’s so bizarre. Carlos with the same name as the Spanish actor. Carlos and his supposed mother, Barbara Mercer.” She paused. “And his real name is…”
“Mark Johnson.”
“But you said the obit listed her son as Ethan Mercer,” Lola persisted.
“Maybe she had two sons?”
“With different names?” Lola asked.
We rode in silence until we’d arrived at the periphery of Etonville, the Lennox experience having disturbed both of us.
“What happened to Mark Johnson’s son,” Lola said.
“You mean Carlos’s son.”
“Why would Carlos and Bella change their names?” she asked. “If they did.”
That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
Lola turned in her seat to face me. “What do you plan to do with what you discovered?”
“Nothing. It’s not a crime to change your name. There might be a ton of good reasons the Johnsons became the Villariases.” I wondered about that.
“Can we keep this between us for now?” Lola asked.
I took Lola home, then stopped at the Shop N Go to pick up salad fixings for Bill’s chili dinner and cruised the streets of Etonville. Pauli’s digging had resolved one issue—the probable significance of the Daily Herald—but had raised another huge one. The true identity of the Johnson/Villarias family. It had no bearing on Bill’s investigation of the victim, so there was no harm in honoring Lola’s request. But the accumulation of “data points,” as Pauli would have said, was unsettling. The name change,
the Chicago connections, the Grim Reaper on Halloween… Never mind, I told myself. I needed to refocus my energy on wedding plans and leave the Villariases to work out their past and present.
* * * *
By the time I got back to Bill’s place, he was already settled into his favorite recliner, beer and chips in hand. The delicious aroma of chili bubbling in a pot wafted out of the kitchen.
“Hey, it’s kickoff time. Where’ve you been?” he asked.
I planted a kiss on the top of his head. “Chili smells delicious. Lola and I did a little reconnaissance—”
“Don’t tell me. A wedding venue, right?” He chuckled. “You two have had your heads together on this.”
Wow. That was easy. I was prepared to tap dance around my disappearance this afternoon. Lola and I did have our heads together today…just not about our nuptials. “How’d you guess?”
I perched on the arm of his easy chair. “We should decide how big we want this thing to be. Fifty people? A hundred? A hundred and fifty?”
Bill hit the release arm on the recliner and popped forward. “A hundred and fifty? We’re not inviting the entire town of Etonville, are we?”
“Nope. And I’m good with a small affair.” I ruffled the spikes of his brush cut, now standing at attention. “If it wasn’t for my mother, I’d be into a trip to Vegas. And we need a date.”
Bill peeked over my shoulder. The game was underway. The New York Giants had taken the field against one of their archrivals, the Philadelphia Eagles. Bill was a convert to Giants fandom, having lived in Philly for many years. New Jersey was his home turf now. I’d lost his attention until halftime.
“Let’s decide this week? And make Lola’s life easier.”
“You got it,” he said and smiled at me. “C’mon, get a drink and join me.”
I had an unexpected thought. “Bill, what happened with the stake?”
“That was interference,” he cried to the television. “Did you see that? The Philadelphia guy had his arms all over the wide receiver. Where’s the refs?” He looked at me. “What did you say?”
“I asked about the stake.”
“What stake?” He groaned as the Giants missed a crucial third down completion.
“The one at the crime scene. Any fingerprints? Any idea how it got there? Why someone planted it on the victim?”
A car commercial came on, and Bill muted the game. “Why are you asking? Not getting the investigative itch, are you?”
“I’m curious, that’s all.”
Bill pulled me onto his lap and wagged a finger in my face. “I recognize that look. So…here’s what you want to know. One, no fingerprints. Two, don’t know why it was at the crime scene. Other than it fit a Halloween vampire theme. Three, it’s a standard metal spike. Could have been bought at any hardware store. The kind used on construction sites or landscaping. I don’t need to tell you to—”
“Keep it quiet,” I said.
“Especially from Etonville’s ears…and from your teenage high-tech authority,” he added with a knowing look.
Pauli. Based on my escapade down the shore in September, Bill knew what my digital forensics expert was capable of.
“Anyway, I’m heading to Chicago tomorrow.” Bill munched on a potato chip.
“Chicago?”
“I’m meeting with an organized crime unit of the Chicago Police to get a handle on this Daryl Wolf. Probably an alias. Lots of fake IDs out there now.”
Tell me about it. “Can’t you talk over the phone or email?” I asked.
“Possibly, but Chicago has a model for police chief mentorship and I’ve been tasked with observing their process. I’ll be back by Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully with more information on Wolf or Smith or Johnson. Whatever his actual name is. Anyway, whatever I find will help me unlock the victim’s last hours. Where he went, who he might have met. Who saw him. What he was doing in Etonville.” Bill unmuted the game. “Can you check the chili?”
“Yep.” I headed to the kitchen.
I could hear Bill yelling at the television again. I busied myself at the center island with the salad. What if Bill’s trip to Chicago revealed something about Etonville’s star actor, and Mark-Johnson-aka-Carlos-Villarias might be about to have his identity changed from a “data point” to a “person of interest?” Bill would be away three days. Three days until Dracula hit the stage again. I’d intended to stay out of the investigation business and here I was, back in the middle of the mess. Why? One, I wanted to ease Lola’s fears about Carlos. Two, my curiosity about the actor had gotten the better of me. Three, I had to admit I might have something to prove. If, as Lola suggested, my identity might change as Bill’s wife and I was about to wrap up my investigative career, I was going out in style.
In the future? Whatever life threw at me, I was ducking.
* * * *
It took all of my considerable performance skills to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening pretending to share Bill’s joy as the Giants beat the Eagles by five points. I complimented his culinary talents and praised his taste in expensive red wine, all the while I, distracted, fielded a mental flurry of questions. Why did Carlos change his name? Did it have anything to do with Daryl Wolf? What if Bella knew more than she was saying? Who else had been interrogating the super in Lennox about the Villariases?
Bill was on his way to Newark Airport by seven a.m. I’d awakened to see him off and there was no way my head was hitting the pillow again. I made a pot of coffee, grabbed a legal pad and pen, and wrote. Even though Daryl Wolf’s death was not a homicide, there were too many loose ends. Maybe we should have a conversation with Carlos….
I texted Lola, who was in the middle of a mani/pedi at Snippets, and offered to pick her up for a late breakfast. She agreed and added a string of emojis that featured a thumbs-up, a smiley face with one eye winking, and a cup of coffee. Next, I took a long, hot shower, shampooed my hair, and rummaged through my half of Bill’s closet for clean jeans—laundry had to be a priority later—and pulled on a T-shirt and hoodie. The weather in New Jersey in the fall could be anywhere from the low forties to the high seventies. Today it was a mild seventy-one.
I studied my hair in the bathroom mirror. It was curlier and bouncier than before, and I was relieved that Etonville had ceased to be fascinated by my appearance. Still, I had doubts about my wedding hairdo. By the time Bill and I settled on a date, my hair could be down to my shoulders again. Or gray, for that matter.
Benny had agreed to open the restaurant, and I assured him I’d be in by noon. I climbed into my MC and cranked the engine. As it purred, I reviewed my plan of action. Lola and I were going to visit the old Hanratty place to speak with Carlos. Tell him that he was seen with the Grim Reaper, arguing; that we discovered Carlos Villarias was a twentieth-century Spanish actor; that Bill and the Chicago Police were decoding the last hours of the victim. If he had anything to confess about his relationship with Daryl Wolf, at least one of those disclosures should rattle Carlos’s seemingly agitation-proof cage. No need to mention Barbara Mercer or Mark Johnson or Lennox. Yet.
I hoped Lola was on board.
I eased my MC to the curb on Anderson, where I could see into Snippets salon. Carol was on the telephone, handling appointments, while her assistant manager trimmed Penny’s bangs. Edna was having her hair styled. The Banger sisters waited patiently in the reception area, riffling through magazines. It was a cross section of Etonville’s gossip machine. I had to be careful what I said.
I pushed open the door to the loud whirring of hair dryers and the chatter of customers.
“Dodie!” called the Bangers.
I waved. “Morning, ladies.”
“We’re thinking of getting our hair cut like yours, dontcha know,” said one of them.
I stopped in my tracks. What did their beaming faces mean?
“We
like your curly, short bob.”
It wasn’t that short.
“Or else we’re thinking of going Jane Fonda.” The other sister flipped the magazine to show me a layout of the actress in a variety of hairstyles. “A layered look or a sassy shag with curvy side bangs.”
“It’s kind of sexy, don’t you think?” They looked at me expectantly.
I studied their gray permanents. “Sure. Go for it.”
Edna motioned to me. “Heard the chief is off to Chicago. Code N,” she whispered, loud enough for Penny to hear her.
Code N. A newsworthy event. “A quick trip,” I said casually. How did she find out so fast? I only learned about his travel last night.
“That’s a euthanasia for ‘police biz,’” Penny snickered.
“A…euphemism?”
“Whatever. That dead hitman is going to put Etonville on the criminal map, O’Dell.”
Geez. I hurried to the back of the shop. “Hi, Lola. Almost ready?” I said, my widened eyes signaling that we had to make our escape.
“Got my last coat of lacquer.” She studied her nails. “I’m not sure about this color. Afternoon Delight.”
“It looks great.” I cocked my head toward the door.
“Hi, Dodie,” said Carol. “Any more thought about your wedding hairdo? I can lend you some magazines with ideas if you want.”
“Thanks. I’ll get back to you.” I returned to Lola. “We’d better get going. I need to stop at the Shop N Go for floor wax.”
Lola stared at me.
“Johnson and Johnson?” I said meaningfully.
I could see the light bulb flicker on. “Oh yes!” She withdrew bills from her wallet.
“Dodie, are you all right?” asked Carol. “You look a little tired lately. Planning a marriage ceremony and reception can be exhausting.”
It would be if I was doing that. The other ladies agreed. I thanked Carol and hugged her, and gently escorted Lola out the door. “We’ve got about two hours.”
“That should be enough time for break—”
“Here.” I handed Lola a cup of coffee. “Breakfast.”
She removed the lid. “Aren’t we going to Coffee Heaven?”
Killing Time Page 13
