A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries)

by Judith K Ivie

  My heartbeat quickened. “What did you find?”

  “It’s a box of Papa’s old papers,” she almost whispered. “Well, more like a bag, an old leather pouch of some sort. It was locked in the bottom drawer of Papa’s desk, and it’s just stuffed with documents of all sorts. Some are trial records, I think.”

  I was simultaneously elated and stunned. “It was in the bottom drawer of his desk all this time? In forty years, you and Ada never opened it?”

  Lavinia seemed shocked by my suggestion. “Why, no! Papa’s desk was strictly off limits to us as children. When he died, his solicitor had his will and bank account numbers and the deed to the house, just everything we needed. Frankly, until now, we had no reason to look any further. In fact, we had forgotten all about that locked drawer.”

  As flummoxed as I was by the idea of the Judge’s desk remaining untouched for four decades, I could almost understand his daughters not wanting to invade their father’s privacy, even after his death. The Judge had been a formidable personality. I struggled to keep my tone even.

  “After all this time, you still have a key?”

  “Oh, no. I don’t believe we ever had that.”

  I stifled the urge to start tearing at my hair. “Then how did you get the drawer open?”

  Lavinia giggled conspiratorially. “We used a crowbar, Dear. It was one of the tools that dreadful plumber person left behind, so it seemed fitting. I know it was terrible of us to deface Papa’s desk that way, but we were so distraught about you being injured the other night, we were quite determined to put an end to this terrible situation. So when Ada remembered about the locked drawer, we just pried the damned thing open.”

  I don’t know what astonished me more, hearing Lavinia curse or picturing the sisters having at their father’s sacrosanct desk with a crowbar. Clearly, there was more to these old ladies than met the eye. I decided to think more about that later. Right now, I was dying to know what they had discovered.

  “What did the trial records reveal? Did you find any documentation that might relate to the skeleton in your father’s basement closet?”

  “I believe we may have, but these papers are all so confusing. I do hate to impose on you yet again, particularly after what happened last time, but Ada and I were hoping that you might …”

  I was already on my feet and shutting down my computer. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I promised. “I think the best thing to do is to turn those documents over to the police and let them sift through them for leads, so just pack them all up again and wait for me. And whatever you do, keep all the doors locked until I get there.”

  After gulping down two painkillers, I grabbed my tote bag and hurried to the back door. As the last person out of the building, I punched in the code on the wall panel that would activate the security alarm, then fumbled to shut the big door and turn my key in the outside lock. The system gave you only thirty seconds to accomplish this. If you were not successful, as I knew from sad experience, automated klaxons went off and the outdoor lights flashed embarrassingly until you could get back inside and enter the deactivation code. I found the whole thing a huge nuisance and heaved a breath of relief when I heard the deadbolt slide into place.

  Rhett’s pen was empty in the lingering dusk, and even the pesky squirrels seemed to have called it a day as I trudged to the gate that opened into the alley behind the Law Barn. Staff habitually parked there, leaving the spaces out front for the clients. At this hour, the only vehicles in the alley were my sedan and what seemed to be the blue painters’ van I had seen earlier in the day, which was parked right beside me. The Best Painters sign confirmed my guess, and I envied whoever it was in the neighborhood who was getting their kitchen or bedroom freshened up.

  A toolbox sat on the ground between our vehicles, along with a couple of well-used buckets and a pile of plastic drop cloths. Several lengths of pipe leaned up against the van. Looks like someone else is putting in a long day, too, I thought, lowering my overloaded tote bag to the ground and fumbling in it for my car’s remote door opener. How much easier life would be if we didn’t have to keep track of all these keys and lock everything up all the time.

  It was my last thought before a muscular arm went around my throat from the back, and something hard jabbed me in the back. “Open the car door, and keep your mouth shut,” hissed a male voice close to my ear. “One peep and yours will be the next body those nosey friends of yours will find. It won’t be pretty, either. A forty-four makes a big hole.” His laugh was humorless, and he punctuated his demand with more jabs.

  He’s lefthanded, I registered calmly, because he’s using it to hold the gun, and his right arm is around my throat. I must make him let go of me, or I won’t be able to do anything at all before he shoots me.

  Strangely, I felt no fear, just an odd detachment and abject weariness. My ankle hurt, and my elbow was beginning to throb again. I was fed up with this situation and the people who had created it. I was tired of pompous philanderers and crazed ex-husbands and religious fanatics. I was sick to death of trying to clean up other people’s messes. I had already had my life threatened twice in the last two years trying to do so, and the fact that yet another lunatic seemed to be holding me at gunpoint pushed me over the edge. A cold rage settled over me, and my mind cleared wonderfully. I knew quite clearly what I was going to do.

  “Hurry up!” he hissed again. I slapped sharply at the arm around my throat and pointed toward my tote bag where it lay at my feet.

  “Key’s in there,” I gasped, exaggerating my distress. “Can’t reach it like this.”

  As I had hoped, he let go of my throat. Instead, he grabbed my right arm above the elbow and squeezed it for emphasis. “Get it! Make it quick!” Pain shot through that abused joint, and I saw stars. I grew even more furious.

  I bent over the tote bag and made a show of pushing the contents around, ostensibly to find the opener. A glance to my left confirmed that he was indeed holding a weapon of some sort in his left hand. With my head bent over the tote bag, I raised my eyes enough to spot the lengths of pipe I had noticed leaning against the van. The split second it took me to calculate that they were within my reach was all it took me to decide to go for it. I fumbled in the bag for another moment as I focused on the nearest pipe and mentally rehearsed my move. Before I could lose my nerve, I grabbed the pipe and whirled to bring it crashing down on his gun hand with the full force of my pent-up rage.

  My attacker howled in anguish. The weapon fell from his hand and skittered off beneath the van. He fell to his knees, clutching his left arm with his right. I grabbed my tote bag and ran around to the other side of the car, where I managed to let myself in and squirm over the gear shift into the driver’s seat. A few seconds more, and I tore recklessly out of the alley. I felt ten feet tall and bulletproof, so full of adrenalin I couldn’t have let up on the gas pedal if I had wanted to, which I didn’t.

  I took

  Old Main Street at breakneck speed and didn’t stop until I reached the well-populated parking lot of the bank on the corner of the Silas Deane Highway. With the car doors locked, I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket and punched 911. When the police dispatcher answered, I gave her a brief summary of what had happened and a description of the van. I asked that Lieutenant Harkness be notified and announced that I would be pulling into the Police Department parking lot in less than five minutes. Then I drove circumspectly out of the lot and down the highway, careful to observe the posted speed limit. It wasn’t until I had parked carefully within the lines of a visitor space in the Police Department lot that the reality of my near miss set in. Had I been out of my mind? Temporarily, most certainly, but what had my options been? To submit meekly to whatever the brute’s demands were with no assurance that he would then let me go? No, the role of victim wasn’t my style. Given any sort of choice, I would put up a fight every time, but frankly, I didn’t know how many more fights I had in me.

  As I turned off the engine,
my teeth began to chatter. I began to shake, then whimper. Not long afterward, for the second time in as many years, a nice, young officer found me sobbing hysterically in a police department parking lot and escorted me into the building.

  * * *

  Shortly before six, a war council of sorts had assembled at the big table in the Henstocks’ kitchen. To my left sat John Harkness, who had called this meeting and followed me to

  Broad Street in his unmarked sedan from the police station. Henry the dog sniffed madly at John’s shoes and cuffs, excited by this masculine presence in his kitchen. Occasionally, he yipped sharply in an attempt to get this new alpha male’s attention. John ignored him. I had given my statement to young Sergeant Fletcher, who, unfortunately, was becoming quite accustomed to dealing with incidents involving me and my partners. Beyond expressing appropriate concern for the mother of one of his former schoolmates, he had barely raised an eyebrow to find me once again sitting beside his desk, just gotten right down to business. I was grateful for his matter-of-factness. It helped me get a grip, which John had already indicated I was going to need. The fact that my tormentor had gone to the trouble and expense of painting his van blue, changing the magnetic signs on its doors to “Best Painters,” and lurking in the vicinity of the Law Barn for the past several days before actually accosting me indicated premeditation and patience of frightening dimensions. My stalker was real, and he was serious.

  “I can’t believe I walked right into his set-up. I even saw the pipes leaning against the van, and it never occurred to me to wonder what a painter would need with piping,” I groused to Margo, who sat next to me and carefully wrapped another ice pack around my injured elbow, tsk-ing with concern. Across from us was Strutter, hunched bleak-eyed and weary over a cup of tea. Ada and Lavinia alternately perched on either side of her or fluttered about, refilling cups and replenishing our plates with homemade pecan shortbread.

  The document-filled leather pouch Lavinia had mentioned sat on the floor next to John, but we had other territory to cover first. “From the outset of this investigation, we have theorized that the individual who has been attempting to intimidate someone at MACK Realty with anonymous poison pen letters might be the same man who posed as a plumber to gain access to this house.” John had his small notebook open on the table in front of him. He had self-consciously taken a pair of reading glasses, obviously new, from the pocket of his blazer. They perched on the end of his nose as he referred to his notebook, frowning with concentration. “As of today, we have abandoned that theory.”

  “But why?” Strutter exclaimed. I groaned in frustration. If only I knew.

  Margo patted me absently, her eyes locked on John’s face. “Hush, now. We need to pay attention to what John is sayin’.” I raised my eyebrows but stayed quiet.

  “Because thanks to Mrs. Putnam’s lead,” John nodded to Strutter in acknowledgment, “we determined this afternoon that your poison pen pal was, in fact, one Reginald Dubois, a University of Connecticut employee assigned to guard duty in the botanical lab.

  It was Strutter’s turn to groan. “I knew it! As soon as I figured out that was Reggie I was looking at on that Web cam … but he wasn’t there today. Did you find him? How do you know he wasn’t the one who attacked poor Kate outside the Law Barn?”

  “Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf!” yapped Henry, dancing around John’s feet. For the first time, John looked at the little dog directly. He leaned forward slightly.

  “No! Now sit,” he said firmly. Henry’s little butt hit the floor. Margo smiled to herself as the rest of us exchanged astonished looks, and John continued.

  “As you know, we dispatched a team of detectives to UConn earlier today to determine Dubois’ whereabouts and take him in for questioning, if that seemed warranted. When they arrived at the lab where the so-called corpse flower is housed, they were informed that Dubois had called in sick, citing the overwhelming, uh, odor of the plant as the cause of his headache and nausea. They obtained his home address, which turned out to be a small apartment near campus, and knocked on his door.

  Even from across the table, I could tell that Strutter was holding her breath. “Then what, Darlin’?” Margo murmured encouragingly. John shot her a don’t-call-me-that-in-public look, and she lowered her eyes with unaccustomed meekness.

  “Dubois came to the door and let my detectives in without a problem. His alleged sickness seemed to be genuine, as he was lying on his couch with aspirin and antacid on the table next to him. When questioned about his former relationship with Ms. Putnam and the threatening letters being mailed to her workplace from Storrs, he confessed readily. Whatever the legal situation regarding their marriage, he said, he considered them married in the eyes of God. Therefore, she was an adulteress, and Dubois felt it was his duty to warn her, however oddly, of the repercussions of her behavior.” He looked up from his notes and peered at Strutter over the top of his new eyeglasses. “By that, we assume he meant her recent remarriage.”

  John paused to allow the rest of us to digest his narrative. He looked down at Henry, who remained sitting and quiet at his feet. Casually, he patted the furry head. “Good dog,” he said. Henry squirmed with delight and belly-flopped onto the floor.

  Ada and Lavinia looked at each other, then back at John. “That’s all there was to it?” Ada ventured. “Surely, there must have been more motivation than that to prompt a barrage of hateful letters such as that.” Margo and I nodded in agreement.

  “Dubois was actually quite docile, according to my investigators. Poison pens often are, when they’re confronted. When my men reminded him that Charlene had every right to marry, since his marriage to her in Mexico had not been legal even by Mexican law, and that sending letters of that sort through the U.S. Mail constituted a felony, he backed right down. Apologized, even. My detectives gave him a severe warning and left him lying on his couch.”

  Mixed with the relief on Strutter’s face was cold fury. She stared at John stonily. “And did he once ask after his son? Did he even remember Charlie’s name?”

  John’s eyes and tone, when he answered her, were gentle. “According to the investigators’ report, the subject of your son was not raised. I’m sorry. But at least we now know where Dubois is and can keep an eye on him. It’s very unlikely that you will be bothered by him again.”

  Strutter hid her face in her teacup, and I hastened to fill the sudden silence by getting back to the subject of our meeting. “And at least we know that Dubois isn’t Van Man, since he couldn’t have been talking to John’s detectives in Storrs and been assaulting me in Wethersfield at the same time.”

  John took off the new specs and pocketed them. “You might say that’s the good news. The bad news is, the guy in the van is still out there somewhere, and we don’t have a good description of him.” He threw me an apologetic glance, but it was true. I hadn’t gotten the license plate number, and I still couldn’t identify my assailant in a line-up. Except for when I turned to smash his left wrist with the pipe, he had been behind me, and after that, I had been intent only on getting into my car and fleeing the scene.

  I bristled with what little energy I could summon. “But I know I did some serious damage to his left arm. It might even be broken. The pain would be awful. He would almost have to seek medical help, and that means someone, somewhere must have seen him. He might be sitting in an emergency room right now, for all we know.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement, and John continued. “From your statement of how he reacted to your …”

  “Self-defense,” I inserted coldly.

  “Yes, of course, Sugar,” Margo soothed, and John grinned at me.

  “Yeah, you defended yourself pretty good there,” he agreed, and my ire subsided as quickly as it had risen. “I think any of my officers would think twice before taking you by surprise. We have every major medical facility and walk-in center in the region on alert for a left-wrist injury, but there’s been no feedback yet. My guess is that no matter how muc
h pain he’s in, our guy hasn’t gotten what he’s after yet, and he’s not going to stop until he gets it.”

  Lavinia, circling the table to refill cups, stopped in her tracks. “But what is he after, Lieutenant? Do we even know for certain?”

  John met her imploring gaze directly. “Again, all we’ve got at this point is a working theory, but we think it’s a pretty good one, and we have all of you to thank for helping us put it together.”

  Ada spoke up. “Do stop fussing, Lavinia, and come and sit down. We all need to hear this.” Lavinia did as she asked.

  “As of this afternoon, we have been able to separate the perpetrator of the poison pen letters from the circumstances surrounding the discovery of female remains, circa nineteen-forty-five, in the basement of this house. What we know so far about that is that at some point during or following the construction of a brick-and-mortar compartment next to the boiler, the body of a young-ish white woman was concealed there. On June twentieth of this year, Miss Ada and Miss Lavinia were visited by a middle-aged man purporting to be a plumber, who had been hired to repair a leak in the pipe running between the boiler and the brick enclosure. During the process of partially dismantling the enclosure to gain access to the pipe, he discovered the skeletal remains. From the way he fled the premises, that was not what he had been expecting to find.”

  John flipped back a few pages and squinted at his notebook. No one suggested that he put on his glasses. “From that point on, it’s pure conjecture, but this is what we believe may have happened. While the Henstocks were occupied in the front parlor with Ms. Putnam, the plumber returned through the side door, slipped back into the basement, and removed the remains, probably in a sack of some kind.

  “He left the same way and transported the remains, probably in his van, to the Spring Street Pond. How he ever managed to do it in broad daylight beats hell out of me, but somehow he dumped the body into the pond without being noticed and made his escape. Since there wasn’t any meat left on the bones … sorry, Ma’am,” he apologized after catching Lavinia’s audible gulp, “he probably assumed the skeleton would just sink into the muddy bottom. But there must have been an air pocket in the remaining fabric of the clothes, or it got stuck in the reeds, because Kate’s camera caught an image of it when she stopped to take a photo of the swans. We retrieved the body the next morning, and subsequent testing established the approximate age of the victim and time of her death.”