Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

  “How old did you say you were when you went into the system?”

  “Seven.”

  “And your mom . . .” Whatever he’d been about to say, he apparently changed his mind.

  “She wasn’t all bad,” I tell him, once again indulging my lifelong need to come to her defense. It’s something my shrink has talked with me about a lot, though I don’t think the talking has changed anything.

  “I know my mother tried to make an honest go of things at times, because I remember her taking me with her to a restaurant and telling me to sit in a booth for hours while she waitressed. And she had a newspaper delivery route at one point, because I have memories of her handing me papers and me climbing out of the car to run them up onto the porches. But then the car gave up the ghost and she couldn’t do it anymore.” I pause and sigh. “The money was never enough even with those jobs, and the men were always there as a backup, I suppose, though at the end it seemed like it was a revolving door of them.”

  I pause, looking out the window at the passing scenery. Spring, with all its promise, is evident everywhere: in the brilliant, verdant leaves on the trees; the bright yellows, pinks, and purples of the wildflowers springing up alongside the road; and the rich, velvety brown of just-tilled fields made ready for planting. It provides a stark contrast to the darkness surrounding the memories I’m resurrecting. Bob remains quiet, the only sound in the car the slight hiss of an air leak in a window somewhere and the hum of the tires on pavement.

  “One of those men killed her,” I say finally. “He did it while I slept in the next room. I found her the following morning.”

  From the corner of my eye I see Bob shoot a glance my way. I can’t see his expression, but I can guess what it is. It’s the same expression everyone gets when I tell this story: pity.

  “She didn’t die easily,” I go on eventually, feeling my throat tighten. Even now, all these years later, that image, that fact, hollows out a spot in my chest, releasing a flood of locked-up emotion that threatens to choke my throat and flood my eyes. My head starts to throb with the effort of holding back tears. “She was strangled and stabbed, ironically with her own knife, one she kept under the mattress as a means of protection in case . . .” I can’t finish but know I don’t need to. Bob will understand.

  “Did you see the man who did it?” Bob asks.

  His question surprises me. Most people are compelled to offer stuttering condolences and then escape as quickly as they can when I describe what happened. Apparently, the detective in Bob has won out over his empathy. Or maybe . . . An idea buds in my mind, and I ponder it for a few seconds, weighing its potential. Then I tuck it away for later perusal.

  “I didn’t see his face,” I tell him. “My mother always made sure I was in my room with the door shut before the men arrived. But sometimes I peeked out through the keyhole. I caught glimpses of the men, their backs, their legs, their shoes. And I heard their voices and . . . um, other things. But I almost never saw their faces. The house we lived in when she died was very small—it had been a carriage house at one point before someone threw up some interior walls and decided to rent it. The front door was only about ten feet away from my bedroom door, and it was off at an angle, so I couldn’t see the men until they were walking past my room to go to my mother’s bedroom.”

  “But you saw something of the man who killed your mother?”

  “I did. The phone rang during the night, and it woke me. I heard my mother talking and telling someone to come over. I think I drifted off after that, but I woke again a little while later when someone knocked on the door. I climbed out of bed thinking I’d see who it was, but I realized my bedroom door was closed, and my mother had made it clear to me that when my bedroom door was closed I was supposed to stay in my room. I did, but I put my eye to the keyhole.”

  I glance over at Bob to gauge his reaction to my story. His expression is one of thoughtful curiosity now rather than pity, and his eyes are focused on the road ahead.

  “I heard a man’s voice,” I continue, “and it was one I’d heard before. It stood out because he had an accent, a Southern drawl. My mother had several repeat customers, and I knew I’d heard this one before. All I could see of him was his pants, his shoes, and his right hand. He was wearing a ring with a big red stone with what looked like numbers around it on his fourth finger, and his pinky finger was a stub, cut off just above the knuckle. Later I figured out it was probably a class ring, but at that age I didn’t know what a class ring was. I remember his pants were cuffed and creased, and dark blue in color. His shoes were black, and they had little tassels on them. Loafers, I would later learn, but again, at the age I was then, I didn’t know one kind of shoe from another. And his feet and legs were wet because it was raining outside.”

  “Did you stay awake the whole time the man was there?”

  “No,” I say with a sigh. “It was standard stuff, and I was tired. I went back to bed and woke sometime later. My door was open, and I could see that it was daylight outside. Morning time was always my mother’s off time, and since my bedroom door was open, I figured she was up already.” I pause, caught up in a memory of her. I can see her in my mind’s eye, her fine, delicate features beneath a messy pixie cut of hair that inevitably stood up near her crown thanks to a persistent cowlick, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, her blue eyes tired but full of love as she looked at me across the table.

  “Mornings were our time,” I say, fighting back tears. “If she wasn’t up already, I could wake her once the sun was up. I looked in the kitchen first, but she wasn’t there. I went to her bedroom and found her in bed. I tried to wake her, but I couldn’t.” I turn and stare out the side window, losing my battle with my tears and not wanting Bob to see it.

  Silence marks the next few miles, and it’s a surprisingly comfortable quiet.

  “So you don’t know for sure that the man you saw was the one who killed her?” Bob says after a time. “If you slept all night, someone else could have come into the house without you knowing it.”

  “Oh, but I do know. I know because a partial impression of that ring the man was wearing was found on her neck. The coroner’s report has both a written description of it and a photo of the mark. It’s so clear you could make out the number nineteen on her neck, presumably part of a date. And there were only three finger impressions on the left side of her neck, which is where the hand would have been if he was choking from the front. Then there’s the timing. The man arrived right at ten. I know that because my mother loved the show The X-Files and she was watching it when the man called. I heard the closing music playing when the man arrived.”

  I pause, sucking in a shuddering breath. Even all these years later the memories are hard on me. “The thing that sometimes haunts me in my dreams?” I say, staring out the windshield but seeing into the past. “He had to have come in my room, or at least looked in on me. Because my door was open, and my mother didn’t open it. Her time of death was not long after that man arrived. He killed her and then came to check on me.”

  Bob glances over at me but quickly faces forward again.

  “He could have killed me, too,” I say just above a whisper. “Probably would have if I’d been awake.” I swallow hard. “How long did he stand there watching me? Did he stay in the doorway or walk over to my bed? What thoughts went through his mind?” I take in a bracing breath and blow it out. “In my dreams I sometimes see him, a faceless man standing next to me, that four-fingered hand reaching for me.”

  “Maybe he left and came back to kill your mother later,” Bob suggests. “Maybe it was her who opened your bedroom door.”

  I shake my head. I know he’s trying to ease my nightmares, but I’ve thought this whole thing through six ways from Sunday and I know what has to have happened. “It rained that night up until eleven,” I tell him, “and the yard and driveway of our house were mostly mud. According to the police file, there was only one set of tire tracks and one set of sho
e prints out there.”

  Bob shoots me a dubious look. “You have the police file?”

  “I have a copy. It had been a cold case for two decades when I finally asked for it. I had to wait until I was eighteen and on my own, out of the foster system. And for the first six years or so, I was focused on getting an education. It wasn’t until I graduated and got my first job that I really started to think about my mother’s death and the fact that her killer was never caught.”

  “Where did it happen?” Bob asks. “I mean, where were you living when your mother died?”

  “In Milwaukee. A detective who was working my mother’s case got in touch with me from time to time when I was a teenager. He was the one who gave me a copy of the file. He was getting ready to retire and I guess he felt guilty or something.”

  “Are you still in touch with him?”

  I shake my head and give Bob a wan smile. “He’s dead. Died four years ago of a heart attack. He was a heavy smoker and very overweight.”

  Bob nods knowingly. “I was on that fast track myself. Fortunately, getting shot turned my life around.”

  I give him an amused look.

  “I know, it sounds silly,” he says with a chuckle. “But it’s true. I was two hundred pounds heavier than I am now, retired because of my weight, and well on my way to an early grave. I was filling in on a case because Detective Hurley was sick, except he wasn’t really sick.” He blows out a breath and his lips vibrate. “That part of the story doesn’t matter.”

  “It must have been scary for you.”

  “Scary and an eye-opener. I was in the hospital for a long time and almost died due to complications. When the doctors told me how close I still was to dying because of my weight, it struck home with me. I was in rehab for months, and by the time I got out I’d already lost close to fifty pounds.” He gives me a sardonic look and adds, “Not a diet plan I would recommend, however.”

  “And not one I want to try,” I assure him.

  “Anyway, once I had that much of a start, I got determined. I joined the gym and kept at it. Changed my diet and my lifestyle. And here I am, two hundred–plus pounds lighter, feeling good. I’m even back to working full-time.”

  “That’s quite a story. You should do motivational talks.”

  Bob’s hands tighten on the wheel and his face flushes. “No, I’m not much for public speaking. I’m not much for talking at all outside of what I need to do for work. I’ve shared more non-work-related stuff with you on this ride than I do with most people when I’m with them all day.”

  “I’m good that way,” I say, smiling. “People always open up to me. I think it’s my size. Clearly, I’m no threat. And I like to think my social work training has helped make me approachable.”

  Bob makes a sound—a guttural grunt of sorts. I’m not sure if it’s a commentary or a digestive issue. “You picked a good career considering your upbringing,” he says. “I can’t imagine a childhood like that. And you seem relatively normal despite it all.”

  “Define ‘normal,’” I say with a laugh. “I have a good case of obsessive-compulsive disorder that my shrink thinks is due to my need to bring order into my life. And I keep finding random items in my pockets, things I’ve picked up and taken without any knowledge of doing so. I do it with food, mostly, but sometimes it’s other things.”

  “You have a shrink?” Bob says, and I curse silently, wondering if I’ve crossed over into TMI territory and jinxed any hope of a relationship with him down the road, not to mention my continued ability to do this ride-along thing.

  “I do,” I confess. “It was part of the intake process into the foster system in the beginning, and when it was determined I had some behavioral issues, it continued. At one point it was court ordered. That was when I was twelve and got into a bit of trouble. A little matter of a boy I liked and a car he stole.” I shrug. “I wasn’t found guilty of anything, but the foster parents I had at the time told the judge that I was difficult to handle and had no respect for authority.” I chuckle. “They were right that I had no respect for their type of authority, which was to function as their household slave while their own kid lounged around and did whatever she wanted.”

  I pause, shaking my head with the memory as if I can somehow shake it away. “I went through a litany of shrinks in the beginning because most of them were a waste of time. The first one was a guy who had developed a theory he was testing out, something to do with scare tactics. His idea of therapy was to frighten the daylights out of me anytime I said or did anything he thought was disrespectful. The idiot had one of those blast horns he would fire, and a scream machine, and this chair that delivered mild shocks when he pushed a button. He was a real whack-a-doodle.”

  Bob laughs.

  “I didn’t stay with him very long, thank goodness. But some of the ones that followed weren’t much better. Once I turned eighteen, I wasn’t required to go to therapy anymore, but I’ve kept with it for the most part. It seems to help me.”

  “What made you pick social work for a career?”

  “Two things. One noble, one not so much. The noble reason was that there were social workers I dealt with during my years in the foster system who really helped me and looked out for me the best they could. I thought I could do the same thing for other kids in the system, particularly since I had an insider’s perspective.”

  “And the other reason?” he prompts.

  “It was a boy—a boy I had a crazy mad crush on who was also studying to be a social worker.”

  “And did you get the boy?”

  “Not exactly. He’s a good friend and someone I still see from time to time, but his interests led him elsewhere.”

  Bob looks at me with sympathy. “He liked another girl?”

  “Actually, he liked another boy.” I shrug. “I tried for a while to convert him, but to no avail.”

  Bob chuckles and we fall into another comfortable silence. I’m thinking about the frat boys we’re hoping to talk to, and I start planning in my head, playing out different approaches and the potential responses. After a few minutes of this, I look over at Bob and say, “Can I have your phone for a moment?”

  Bob gives me a sidelong look of suspicion. “Why?”

  “I want to review the info on the frat boys that Jonas emailed to you.”

  “Why?” Bob asks again.

  “If I’m going to be talking to them and asking them questions, I need to be able to keep their details straight, don’t I?”

  The comfortable atmosphere between us vanishes as Bob pulls the car over to the side of the road, shifts into park, and turns to stare at me in disbelief. “You’ve gone mad, woman,” he says.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You can’t seriously think I’m going to let you talk to these boys,” Bob says in a tone of disbelief.

  “Why not?”

  He sighs and combs his fingers through his hair. “Look, Hildy, I said you could come along, and I might even let you listen in when I question these boys, but this is an official investigation, and you’re not an official member of the team.”

  I anticipated this objection and have an answer ready for him. “Just how much information do you think you’re going to get out of anyone strutting into this fraternity with your air of officious authority and your flashy badge? Who do you think these guys might be more willing to talk to, you or a harmless-looking lady like myself?” I flash him my best friendly, nonthreatening, lady smile, one I’ve used often in my job. I learned the value of seeming innocuous, sometimes even vacuous, long ago.

  “We need official authority if we’re going to use what they say later in any sort of legal proceeding,” Bob argues.

  “If someone divulges something you think is evidentiary, then you can always question them again later. But I promise you, if you go blustering your way into that fraternity this morning questioning people like the cop you are, they’re going to clam up, lawyer up, and not give you anything useful. These Greek houses
are a tight-knit, secretive, protective bunch as it is.” I pause and give him my best pleading look. “Let me have first crack at them. We can do it with an open phone line if you want. That way you can hear everything I say and everything they say. Or I can record my conversations on my phone if you like.”

  Bob gapes at me, and then laughs. “You actually think I’d let you go talk to them alone?” Apparently, this is a rhetorical question, because he doesn’t give me a chance to answer, which is just as well, since I’m certain he wouldn’t like what I have to say. “You really are a madwoman! I never should have agreed to let you do this ride-along.”

  “Come on, Bob,” I cajole. “Let me do it. I’ll get more out of them than you will. And I’m trained for this sort of thing.”

  “Not a chance. For one thing, you’re not trained for this sort of thing, because you aren’t a cop. And for another thing, it’s too dangerous. What if it turns out that whoever killed Toby is someone in that fraternity? You could be chatting with a cold-blooded killer.”

  “In a fraternity full of people,” I remind him. “Hard to get away with murder when there are dozens of witnesses around.”

  “What if it’s a conspiracy of some sort?” Bob poses, clearly unwilling to give in. “It could be more than one person is involved.” He gives me a quick once-over. “It wouldn’t be that hard to make someone like you disappear. I could do it easily.”

  The way he says this, combined with the look he gives me, is both titillating and frightening. I sigh. I can tell it’s time to compromise. I have him upset enough with plan A that he’ll hopefully be open to plan B, which was my goal all along. Bob Richmond doesn’t have a clue that I’ve just played him.

  “Okay, how about this?” I suggest, trying to sound contrite. “We go in together, but you don’t say anything to anyone about being a cop. It’s far enough outside your jurisdiction that no one should know you. We’ll tell them we’re a couple, the boy’s aunt and uncle, say, and we’re trying to find out more about his death because his poor mother—we can say she’s your sister—is struggling with guilt.”