Ada Unraveled

by Barbara Sullivan

  William Townsend is a fortyish former professional wrestler who currently weighs in at two hundred and fifty pounds. William began his training under the famed Deacon Harks of LA and only came to us recently. He has a deep dark secret somewhere in his past. I love deep dark secrets. But we haven’t gotten to know him well enough yet to find out what it is.

  Willie usually takes care of our risky house calls, and should have done Deadbeat Dad’s subpoena delivery this morning instead of me, but he had a dentist appointment.

  By the way, the Preventive Investigations Division label is at the insistence of our web page designer, who also insisted we keep our hot button links on our main page to a maximum of three. He felt it would look better and reduce confusion.

  The trouble is our work doesn’t divide easily into three major categories. The other two “divisions” we ended up listing on our web site are the Personal Inquiries Division and the Surveillance and Unsolved Crimes Division. Our net presence is really pretty impressive overall, but it gives the false impression we’re a giant investigative agency working out of some beautiful office building somewhere. Not a good thing.

  Most of our clients like it just fine that we work out of our home on a private road in a nice Southern California one-to-five acre neighborhood. It’s our web manager who has delusions of grandeur, not us.

  Matt still hates our web page. He thinks the three headers should have been four, namely Background Checks, Personal Investigations, Surveillance Services and Asset Searches. He’s probably right. Those activities constitute most of our work. But the net-guy won the argument by telling us how much more the fourth hot button would cost.

  After settling the issue of Hannah and Gerry, we climbed into bed to watch the evening news. I dozed off wondering what Hannah and Gerry’s internet logon IDs were, but was woken a short while later when channel eight began reporting on a missing woman from Coyote Run, Cleveland County.

  Coyote Run was the next town over from Iguana, which was the town where Ada Stowall died. And where her home was. And where my leg sunk three feet into some hideous stench.

  After that I couldn’t turn off my mind for wondering if my leg had sunk into the remains of the missing woman.

  I wandered the house seeking distraction. Wisdom offered furry company. I watered the house plants that I’d neglected for several days and planned our trip to Camp Lejeune to see our son Harry, before he took off for Asian wars. Drank some hot chamomile tea. Did a little yoga.

  I tried every trick, but the truth was I couldn’t stop thinking about Ada’s house. Hollywood couldn’t have created a more perfect horror house, graveyard and all.

  The phone rang and I hurried to pick it up before it woke Matt. I was at the other end of the house from him but found myself whispering anyway.

  Gerry’s soft voice asked, “Did I wake you?”

  And well she should ask. It was almost midnight. I figured she was calling to tell me she didn’t want to take the job after all. But that wasn’t it.

  I said, “Glad to hear from you. I’ve been wondering all evening what’s going on at Ada’s house. Thought I’d never get to sleep. So has Tom called you?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach him to find out what they uncovered in that awful hole but he’s swamped. They’ve got another missing woman up there. I wasn’t even able to connect with him. And of course, the sergeant I reached wasn’t discussing police business with me.”

  I remembered that Gerry lived nearer the coast, like me. Just farther south and higher up in income bracket. Way higher.

  And then I cringed for the fifth time, thinking about the conversation she might yet have with her brother Tom, with his awareness that she’d been with me at Ada’s house. Maybe all the activity would let that trouble go by.

  “So you haven’t spoken to your brother since…?”

  “Yes, actually. We’ve spoken. He called to read me the riot act. He called to tell me I must not trespass, I must not spy, I must not cavort with PI’s. There were another seven I must nots but I won’t bore you. It’s the I musts that I’m…angry about.”

  “What are those?”

  A pause.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I get to live in an ivory tower so I can’t complain, but, every now and then I remember what it was to be free. Free of mommy rules, free of wifely rules, free of rich woman’s rules. Pitiful, huh?”

  Pitiful? No. Normal.

  “Is that all he said?”

  A pregnant pause.

  She wasn’t going where I wanted her to, so I said, “Okay, so you’re pitiful. Speak to me.”

  She chuckled. “You’re good, you know that PI?”

  “Sure.” But it was nice to hear.

  “Tom said….”

  She stalled out. Afraid to share? Thinking? I let the silence sit between us this time. Waiting her out.

  She began again. “There’s something else, Rachel. I think you need to have a better picture of Eddie and what he’s been through, what he’s going through now. Much of this comes from Tom. As you are aware, I didn’t even know about him. And when I first pressed him about Eddie, after the bee, well, Tom relented and shared.”

  I repeated my request of this afternoon. “I need dates, Gerry. Details. Times and places.”

  For my timeline.

  At last she began in earnest. “Okay. Tom first heard about Eddie back in mid-September. Around the 14th. The time of the wild fires that burned so much of the ridge…when they raged through. That’s when Eddie appeared. Maybe because of the fires. Maybe the fires drove him above ground, sent him up the road to his grandma’s. This I’ve gleaned from several sources.

  “Anne also told me a slightly different version. She said the girls helped Victoria force Jake to go get Eddie. Jake knew--all along. About…the prison. About all of it. Anne says he confessed this to Victoria and Victoria went nuts.”

  She stopped. It was hard to say. Hard to hear. I wasn’t liking Jake Stowall. He was becoming a villain, in my book. She went on.

  “Ada’s body was found after you found Jake’s. You found Jake’s remains on the twenty-second, right?” I nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see me. She went on as if she could. “The very next day, a neighbor, one who didn’t want to be identified, called the sheriff’s to complain about a terrible smell. She thought it was a sewer line break, maybe behind the Stowall house. Tom said he’s heard the tape of this call. Her comments were…strange. It was like she was directing them to a specific spot out behind Ada’s house, but didn’t want them to know who she was—or how she could see the spot, let alone smell it. The department took the call seriously because of that. They listened to their guts. All cops and deputies do. So they traced it.

  “Turned out the call was from a public phone, at a gas station out on the main road that goes by Ada’s neighborhood. But I think we just saw the woman, this evening. Up in the next house.”

  So did Ada’s only neighbor make another call? After our little visit tonight?

  I said, “Are you sure that was a woman in the upper window?”

  I had my doubts. I’d finally peeked up at the window—very discretely—and I couldn’t tell if I was seeing a woman or a man.

  Gerry thought and said, “No, honestly. I…I only saw a figure. A silhouette. Anyway, Tom and another deputy went over to take a look and they found her—Ada--just this side of the old Stowall cemetery. That was on September 24th. Tom also confirmed our mom’s memory. Jake and Ada were buried on September 26th.”

  She stopped again. I waited, thinking about the young Tom Beardsley stumbling upon a rotted corpse.

  Gerry said, “The condition of the remains precluded pinning down the time of death, or any injuries she may have suffered.”

  I said, “Not even an estimate of time of death?” Persistent me.

  “I pressed him, too. Tom says the ME guys think she probably died in late spring or early summer. Unofficially, of course. Just a guess. Tom said the Stowall lawyers showed up at the
morgue before the ME and his team could get to Ada. They whisked her away. Had her cremated.”

  Stowall power-plays again.

  So Andrea’s late June visit with Eddie may well have been connected with Ada’s death. Unfortunately for Andrea. But I wouldn’t be the one to tell her this.

  “Tom told me that all hell broke loose when he called the discovery of a body in. More deputies arrived, finally even the Pinto Springs cops. They all showed up and began congregating, taking pictures, talking in little groups, he said. He caught some of it. Caught the whisperings that it was about time.”

  About time what, that Luke killed her? How callous. How inhumane.

  I said, “The Pinto Springs cops interfered with the county Sheriff’s work? How did that go down?”

  “Not well. I understand the two head honchos on the scene had a face-off in front of the house. Tom’s immediate supervisor, Detective Commander Mark Spangler, in charge of sheriff’s investigations, was one of them, and some nasty guy from PSPD, a Detectives Captain Dean Broward was the other. So political issues got tangled up in the whole situation. But Tom’s super backed down, for reasons Tom never understood. And after that it was a joint effort.

  “That was in September, and here we are again, with the same stuff happening, almost a month later.”

  She stopped, took a deep breath.

  “There’s a greater message here, Rachel. Politics trumps all. Tom said he heard some of the guys making fun of the ‘trio of bored housewives wanting to play Sherlock and Watson’. Apparently Broward is taking the message forward, all the way up the chain, with the addition that you probably stepped into the family’s pet cemetery. I wouldn’t get your hopes up that our little backyard discovery this evening, behind Ada’s, will be investigated anytime soon.”

  “What?!” I sputtered. “There’s something dead in that hole! What are they thinking? That it’s the family dog? The cops can’t just ignore this, no matter how connected Jake Stowall is!”

  “I know, Rachel, it is beyond belief,” Gerry said. “Tom’s outraged too, believe me. He’s working his way up the ladder of command to override this stonewalling, but it may take a day or two. You know, Broward is a Stowall too.”

  More clan influence. But I still couldn’t remember where I’d heard the name. Much later I would realize I hadn’t heard this name before, I’d read it. On the genealogy. And, probably the two halves of my brain had been talking to each other, bouncing ideas back and forth between themselves, creating that cranial echo the French call déjà vu.

  I was also thinking negative thoughts about how the Ada Stowall crime scene had probably been destroyed, how there were probably a thousand cop foot prints and hundreds of cop cigarette butts muddling the area by the time all was said and done.

  Gerry’s words pulled me back to the real, out of my musings. “…after Ada’s body was dug up, some of them went into the kitchen of that house, to hang around. The cops, I mean. While most of the Sheriffs had left, Tom stayed. He was feeling bad for her. He didn’t want to leave until her body was loaded in the ME’s wagon and taken away.

  “Tom joined the cops in the kitchen, Mosby and Learner, you know, the ones at the autopsy. They took the scene over from Broward. Tom said the kitchen fell silent and stayed that way, as if he’d blundered in on some top secret meeting. Shortly after, Tom was told to leave officially.”

  I said, “This is so strange. Didn’t your brother think it was strange? Ada’s house is in the county.”

  “Yes. But Tom had already been told to let the PSPD have the lead on the investigation. He didn’t like this. But he couldn’t argue without risking insubordination.”

  I’d given up feeding my brain. Way past yawning.

  “Later, back at the office, Tom says the word came in. Eddie Stowall had been found in some sort of cage, in the cellar.”

  “They found him in a cage?”

  The basement! The dim light in the basement. And then Andrea’s words flashed through my mind. “Ada just wanted her boy…free.” She hadn’t meant free in an abstract way, she had meant that he was literally a prisoner!

  “Exactly. But the cage was unlocked. Eddie even told them he just went upstairs whenever he was hungry. Tried to tell them it was his punk bedroom. Claimed he designed it himself. Anyway, the cops told the sheriffs later that Eddie must have run off. The cops say they never saw him leave but that the door was left open while they talked to Luke in the front rooms. Claimed Eddie must have snuck out the back door.”

  “Is this corroborated? Did any others see him, like the M.E. and his assistants?” I had a bad feeling about where this was going.

  “Don’t know.”

  I said, “And what about Luke? What was his explanation? And why wasn’t he arrested?”

  Another delay. She was being careful.

  Gerry continued. “I don’t know what Luke said about the basement cell. The point is Eddie is a broken man. He probably never left that house. It doesn’t make sense that he would have wandered off that night on his own. At least that’s what the sisters say.”

  I wondered why it mattered how Ada’s adult son got out of the house. What did she think the Two Horsemen Learner and Mosby had done to him? She needed to get to the point. Suddenly I was exhausted and struggling to keep focused and awake.

  Gerry said, “Eddie stayed gone for days. Then he showed up at Jake and Ada’s wake, with her quilt.”

  I said, “What do you mean, Eddie is broken?”

  She sighed. “He was covered with bruises. Layered, some yellow, some green, some blue-black. From older to newer. Apparently Luke had been beating him. I heard that he has scars on top of scars. And that they kept him in the basement, like a…crated, bad dog.”

  I thought she was done, but she started up again.

  “And…Eddie’s in his forties, Rachel, and big. Soft from years of lying in the cellar, and big from living in a cage with nothing to do but eat. There’s talk that he may be brain damaged, that he’s stupid.”

  In his forties, in a cage. What would living in a cage for decades do to a person? I needed to make a connection with these sisters. I needed to get on Elixchel’s phone list and make some calls to the others.

  “He’s changing now, but slowly.”

  I said, “Changing…how? No, tell me about the sisters.”

  Now she was going too fast. “Martha, Mary and Anne are taking care of him now. And maybe Andrea is too. We always called them the sisters at the bees, but of course they’re aunts now, too. Well, have been, come to think of it. But they just didn’t know it—thought poor Eddie was dead, like I did. Everyone.

  “Elixchel says he’s…physically frightening, so I think she’s seen him too. It’s like…he’s growing a beard for the first time. He has peach fuzz on his chin. How weird is that?”

  Great. And I had us skulking around playing Cops and Robbers, scaring the bejesus out of him. Yet, I couldn’t help thinking more than ever that I really needed to get inside that house, meet him, and find out what he knows.

  Gerry said, “Oh, I nearly forgot. Tom says they sent an evidence team out to where you discovered Jake’s body, up there on Applepine Ridge? And they found that hypodermic needle he spotted in one of your pictures. The lab is analyzing the contents now, whatever was left, that is.”

  Venom, of course. Unless he was a diabetic. I asked.

  “No. That’s just it. He was homeopathic, hated that his wife had begun taking medicines. No, what I’m suggesting is…well, okay, the needle could of course turn out to be from some junky out picnicking during the firestorms. But it could also be…maybe a weapon? Does that make sense? The hypodermic wasn’t burned badly. Must have been protected somehow, by the dirt, but….”

  But it was burned some, so it was from before the fires.

  And finally Gerry’s earlier comment sunk in.

  “Gerry, what did you mean the sheriffs are busy with another missing woman? I just heard about the one this evening. Have th
ere been others?”

  “Yes, there are two now. Turns out they frequented the same bars around town. What has the guys worried is that the women lived within a twenty-five mile radius. And they were both middle aged or older. Detectives don’t like to see patterns like this. Tom always says there are no coincidences.”

  “Will you give me Tom’s number?”

  My question shocked us both. What was I thinking?

  “Why? It’s late. And, he’s stubborn Rachel. If you press him on this, wake him up late, it’ll just make him mad and he’ll shut down.”

  “Sorry. Guess I’m more tired than I know. I was thinking I could call him first thing in the morning.”

  I’d held back, trying to preserve my objectivity, but it seemed so obvious.

  After a moment of silence she said, “And I think you should.”

  Gerry fell silent again. I sensed she had something more she needed to share, something important. But I was so tired.

  Gerry said, “I’m worried, Rachel. I’m afraid you think police, deputies, are stupid and lazy. You know, the old-donut-and-coffee saw. And some of them are, of course. That’s true of any large group of people. But most…most of them are trying to do a good job. The really smart ones—or the politically savvy ones—rise up the ladder. The rest of them, well they may not have advanced degrees, but they do have very stressful jobs and sometimes getting through the day without getting killed or losing self-control is the best they can do. I think they just don’t know how to deal with huge problems. Politically. Emotionally. I think they don’t know how to chew gum and walk on eggs at the same time.”

  She made me laugh. “That’s a good one, Gerry. But let me assure you, I have nothing but the highest regard for our defenders. I’m married to one, remember? And yep! Some of them can be real dumb. But most are really good. Most have a hero’s heart and a saint’s soul—even if they only have a normal brain.

  “I love our warriors, Gerry. Like a mother. Like a sister. Like a wife.”

  And then she gave me Tom’s private number.