The Codebook Murders

by Leslie Nagel

  “Picking up a signal.” The other tall one—a young female, by the voice—had shifted the copper wand to one hand and now held up a small silver device. She swept it from side to side. “I’ve got multiples.”

  “Mul—multiples?” Harding choked.

  “Oh, no!” the small, fat one cried out. “We may already be too late! If they’ve breached the foundation…”

  “They? M-mice? Rats? In my house?” Harding was sweating profusely now, his heart hammering in his chest, unable to tear his eyes away from the cage and its hideous occupant.

  “There’s definitely at least one rodent on the premises,” the young female said firmly, waggling the silver device for emphasis.

  “Sir? May we enter?” Clipboard repeated. Her voice became louder, more urgent. “Every second counts! You can still save your home, but only if we act right now. We have to head them off before they reach the ground floor. Once they breach, this entire place will be overrun!”

  “Omigod!” Harding could hardly breathe, he was so terrified. “Yes, yes, please! Come in! You have to help me! You have to keep them out!” He retreated, gasping, as the three white-suited figures pushed inside, the cage swinging dangerously close to him.

  “Basement?” Harding pointed, and the female with the silver scanner charged through the doorway on the left.

  “You should wait outside with me, sir,” said Clipboard. “This could get bloody.”

  The tall one thrust the cage toward him as if to illustrate the point, and he wailed in fear. Clipboard grabbed his arm and dragged him toward daylight and blessed safety. He fell through the front door and onto the porch. As he stumbled to his knees, grateful to be alive, the door slammed and he heard the lock shoot home.

  Charley handed the cage to Frankie. “He’s going to start peeking in the windows. Start in the kitchen, and make it look good.”

  “Roger that. He’s kinda overweight. Hope the guy doesn’t have a heart attack. Svengali, you’re with me,” Frankie murmured to the rat, as Charley took the stairs two at a time.

  She figured they had fifteen minutes tops before Harding became suspicious.

  Vanessa was checking the basement, but Charley guessed anyone as afraid of critters as Harding Knox wouldn’t keep anything of value down there. If he had a box of contraband items, he’d hardly keep them sitting out in his living room, either. Storage closet, she thought, or maybe a back bedroom.

  The first door on her right was a tiny linen closet, the shelves filled with haphazardly folded sheets and towels. A pink-and-black-tiled bathroom was next. She peeked behind the shower curtain, just to be thorough, and grimaced at the hair and soap scum clumped around the drain. From below she could hear shouts and banging. She chuckled but kept moving. Next came what was clearly Harding’s room, the double bed unmade, both it and the floor strewn with dirty laundry. A stack of paperbacks teetered on a scarred walnut nightstand. A quick scan of titles revealed only recent releases, nothing Regan Fletcher would have owned. Charley checked the closet, then under and behind the bed. Nothing. The last door on her right was closed but not locked.

  Bingo.

  She stood in a second, smaller bedroom, sweltering and smelling of mothballs. The room contained a single iron bed, neatly made, a floor lamp, and a sagging armchair that had seen better days. On the bed sat a cardboard box with the flaps folded open. Next to it were arrayed half a dozen objects. A stack of photos lay fanned across the white coverlet.

  Charley pulled off her goggles, gloves, and hair covering, wiping her sweaty face with her paper sleeve. She picked up a trophy. The gold-toned topper depicted an open book with a quill pen lying across the pages. She peered at the tiny brass plaque, pitted with age: CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST 1975/SECOND PLACE.

  Setting the trophy back on the quilt, she turned to the box. It was empty except for a wool peacoat, dark blue with yellow leather sleeves. Charley held it up. Across the back an arc of gold letters spelled out OAKWOOD VARSITY CHEERLEADER. She turned it around and drew in a breath. Embroidered in golden-yellow thread above the left breast curved a name in script: REGAN.

  “Harding, you are a sneaky bastard.” Charley gazed at the dead girl’s name as she pondered the significance of her discovery. This was without question the box of items for the intended memorial, the tribute to Regan that had never materialized. Harding had swiped it and kept it secret for forty years. He’d clearly been in the process of sorting through the contents, no doubt prompted by PJ’s excited announcement in biology class earlier.

  She touched a finger to the silk threads, still bright yellow against the rich blue wool, even after so many years. Regan Fletcher had worn this very coat, probably with pride and pleasure in what it represented. Charley gently replaced the coat in the box and turned to the items on the bed. The very meagerness of the collection was heartbreaking, the scant remains of a young life, cut cruelly short.

  An ominous silence had fallen downstairs, and Charley worked more quickly now, aware she might be interrupted at any moment. She set aside another trophy, this one for a cheer competition in Regan’s junior year. A framed sketch in pastels of a bowl of fruit was amateurish but hinting of a talent that would never have the chance to develop. Beneath the sketch she found two yellow block “O” varsity letter patches, each with a tiny pom-pom design.

  There was, in fact, one book, the 1978 edition of The Acorn. Heddy had examined this yearbook at the school and found nothing of interest, but Charley opened it anyway. This copy’s pages were covered with signatures and messages from classmates, all addressed to Regan. Many of the messages were indecipherable, almost certainly inside jokes or then-current cultural references that, forty years later, were over Charley’s head. Another kind of code, she thought. Teenager code. Cool kids’ code.

  As she turned pages, scanning the notes and signatures in hopes of finding some sort of clue, she began to notice something else. The tone of quite a few messages was pretty dark, if not outright hostile. TWO MONTHS TIL GRADUATION—GOOD RIDDANCE said one, and MAY THIS BE OUR FINAL EXCHANGE read another. Victims of Regan’s blackmail, eager to escape her influence? If they’d needed more confirmation that the dead girl had enemies, Charley supposed this was it.

  When she got to the last page, she paused in surprise. Someone—an extremely talented someone—had covered the blank white endpapers with an intricate drawing in black ink. At first she thought it was a jungle scene. But upon closer inspection, she realized it actually depicted a cozy room furnished with bed, nightstand, desk, and chair. Each piece was elaborately carved; pots of flowers covered every surface. The room was further obscured by a lush vine laden with blooms that curved in through a hexagonal window, twisting and trailing through the headboard, between the chair legs, across the ceiling, and around the perimeter of the illustration. Butterflies and birds, perfectly rendered, chased through the foliage, each leaf exquisitely, lovingly drawn. Charley could almost feel the sunshine streaming through that window. She could imagine the texture of the patchwork quilt as it draped over the bed.

  Clearly, not everyone had hated Regan Fletcher.

  She closed the cover and examined the four numbers embossed into its spine: 1978. This had to be the book in Berkeley’s doodle, she thought. He’d even drawn it inside a box. The doodle appeared next to his notes from interviews of Regan’s former classmates. That made sense; one of them must’ve told Berkeley about the box and its contents. But was it just a thoughtless margin doodle? Or had the reporter believed it would contain a clue to her killer?

  Over three hours had passed since she’d spoken to Berkeley. Surely he was finished with his article by now, and he’d promised to “catch up” with her. She hoped she’d find him waiting at her house; that would be handy. But it was more likely he’d have called Marc’s cellphone, the only other number he had. Yet again, she cursed her own temporary lack, then wondered in irritation
when she’d become so dependent on the stupid thing.

  Charley placed the yearbook back in the box, along with the trophy and other mementos. She needed to examine it all in detail, but later, when she had more time.

  That was everything, except for the photographs. As she scooped up the stack to return them to the box, she hesitated. Maybe she should take a quick peek, just in case they showed anything important.

  Charley picked up the first one and almost dropped it again in surprise. It had been taken through a window. The subject was Regan Fletcher, standing in front of a mirror in nothing but a bra and panties. She was brushing her hair, oblivious to the photographer, in what was clearly her bedroom.

  “You little pervert,” Charley muttered. “Seems like Kendall was off the mark about you.”

  She shuffled the stack and found several other photos of Regan: in her bedroom, climbing into the family car, standing at her school locker. She’d posed for some of the pictures, sitting on desks or smiling with other girls. Lower in the stack she found shots of the varsity cheer squad at a football game. Crowds packed the stands. Charley squinted at the uniform of an opposing player and identified the scowling Spartan of Valley View High School. With a start, she realized these must be pictures of the game. That meant these were the last pictures taken of Regan before she was killed.

  They’d learned that Harding was the yearbook committee photographer. However, Charley could see the work of two different cameras here. Some of the photos were similar in style to the ones she’d just seen of Regan; Harding’s handiwork, she thought in disgust. However, other prints had broader white borders and were subtly superior, with crisper image quality. All of the photos included ghostly pink time stamps in the lower right-hand corner. The second photographer had taken a number of shots of the actual game, while Harding had focused on the crowd—specifically the cheerleaders. All of his photos had captured the squad on the sidelines. Charley saw Regan and Kendall and half a dozen other girls, Regan always in the center. There she was, and there, and there, and—Charley stared at a wide shot of the game that included the crowd. There were the cheerleaders. But where was Regan?

  Charley went back and started arranging the photos by time stamp, interspersing the work of both photographers. Sure enough, Regan was present at nine twenty-two, then gone at nine twenty-six. Those shots were both the work of the second camera, as were all the remaining photos of the game. The last shot from Harding’s camera had been taken at nine-twenty, when Regan was still in the lineup. Why had he stopped taking pictures? Had he seen Regan leave the stadium and followed her?

  Charley picked up one of the last shots in the sequence. This one had been taken after the game was over. The photographer had climbed into the stands, and the image captured the celebration as hundreds of fans, players, and band members mobbed Mack Hummon Field. The scoreboard in the background showed the game’s final outcome: OAKWOOD 24/VISITOR 21. As Charley started to place the photo on the stack, she froze. She bent closer, peering at the tiny faces, hardly able to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Was that…

  The door burst open. Harding Knox stood in the doorway, red-faced and perspiring, his damp polo shirt sticking grotesquely to his sagging gut.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Vanessa and Frankie arrived close on his heels, breathless and equally sweaty. They’d both pulled off their goggles and gloves.

  “Sorry, Carpo,” Frankie said, chagrined. “He smelled a rat, literally.”

  Heddy appeared behind them, her neat bun in ruins, grass stains on her white lab coat. “He slipped in through the back door.” She frowned. “You didn’t have to push me down, young man. I’m over seventy.”

  Harding ignored this. “I’m calling the police!”

  “Go ahead.” Charley returned his stare. “With all the storm-related issues, you’ll be lucky to get an officer here in less than an hour. Besides, we haven’t committed any crime.”

  “No crime? You broke into my house! You’re stealing property!”

  Charley held up a hand. “In the first place, it’s neither home invasion nor breaking and entering if you invite us in. Which you did. Second, we didn’t claim to be any kind of law enforcement. That would be illegal.”

  “Yes, it would,” Vanessa agreed.

  “Third,” Charley continued, “we have not yet, nor are we planning to steal anything of yours. We’re here to restore stolen property to its rightful owner.”

  “This is not stolen property. These items were given to me.” Harding shouldered her aside and began scooping photos off the bed.

  “Given to the Regan Fletcher memorial committee, you mean. And a few of these you definitely took without asking permission.” Charley reached past him and plucked a photo. She held it up and watched all the blood drain from Harding’s face. “Regan’s bedroom window. Where were you?”

  He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I, uh, I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Either this stuff is yours or it’s stolen. Which is it?” Frankie demanded. “Make up your mind, you sick pup.”

  “We can prove these pictures came from your camera.” Charley had no idea if this was true, but she spoke with complete confidence. “They’ll match yearbook photos you took, photos clearly ascribed to you.”

  Harding’s shoulders sagged as the fight went out of him. “A buddy of mine lived across the street from the Fletchers,” he mumbled. “I took those when he was in the shower.”

  The women made noises of disgust and indignation. Charley channeled her own outrage into her interrogation, her voice clear and sharp, her questions equally so.

  “You stole Regan Fletcher’s privacy, Harding. Not a nice thing to do, but you did something even worse.” She held up the photo she’d been examining a moment ago. “Care to explain this? The time stamp says ten-oh-two. And that man right there”—she tapped a corner of the picture—“that is Carter Magellan, on the field. This photograph proves he was telling the truth about when he left the game that night. When those witnesses saw someone leaving Smith Gardens a few minutes before ten, it couldn’t have been Carter. This picture would have helped him at trial. Why would you keep this a secret?”

  Harding remained silent, gaping at Charley, a deer in the headlights.

  “How about I tell you what I think?” she asked. “Your so-called relationship with Regan was a lie. She asked you to pretend to be her boyfriend so she could cover the fact she was still seeing Carter. But what she didn’t know was that you were in love with her.” She indicated the photos of Regan. “Obsessed, in fact. You were jealous of Carter. You wanted him to be found guilty, even though you knew he was innocent.”

  Harding sank onto the bed, eyes dropping to the floor. “Being with Regan was amazing. She was so beautiful, so confident, not afraid of anything.”

  “Did she know how you felt?”

  His cheeks flamed. “She caught me taking her picture once. She didn’t say anything, but later she told me she knew about”—he waved a hand at the spill of photographs—“those. She said she’d tell if I didn’t do what she said.”

  Heddy clucked her tongue. “What did she want you to do, young man?”

  “Pick her up at her house and pretend to her parents we were going out on a date. Call the house at set times when one of her folks would be sure to answer.” He sneered. “Play the perfect, harmless boyfriend, but only to them, never where any of the kids at school would see.”

  “You’d pick her up, but she’d meet Carter instead?” Frankie asked. “You knew they were still seeing one another?”

  Harding squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah. I knew.”

  “That explains why you didn’t tell the investigators you two were dating,” Vanessa said. “When the truth came out, you’d have been a laughingstock. But why didn’t Regan’s parents say anything?”<
br />
  “Because Douglas was convinced to the point of obsession that Carter was guilty,” Charley said. “Just like his concealment of the ransom demand, his hatred overrode his need for truth.”

  Harding asked, “What ransom demand?”

  “Never you mind. Tell us about that night,” Charley commanded. “There were two of you photographing for the yearbook?”

  “Yes, myself and another senior, Tim Anders.”

  “You stopped photographing the game once you saw Regan leave the stadium. Did you follow her?”

  Harding swallowed and wiped a hand over his sweaty face. Vanessa moved behind him and wrenched open the window, letting in a blessed breath of air.

  “I was photographing the crowds, the cheerleaders, stuff like that,” Harding began. “Anders had a high-end camera with lightning-fast shutter speed, so he shot the game play. I saw Regan and Magellan make eye contact a couple of times. I guessed something was going down, especially with how wired she’d been all week. Her parents were sitting two rows behind Carter. They were watching the two of them, especially old Douglas Fletcher. Regan hated the way her old man kept her on a leash.”

  When he fell silent, Frankie kicked the bed frame, and Harding flinched. “We get it. She had daddy issues. Did you follow her out of the stadium or not?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Harding grumbled. “Near the end of the fourth quarter, the cheerleaders finished a routine, and when everyone turned toward the field again, Regan just dropped her pom-poms and walked out through the main gate. I’d been expecting something, like I said, so I followed her. It was jam-packed under that archway, and it took me a few minutes to worm my way outside. But when I got to the sidewalk, she’d already disappeared. I looked around, even ran across the street and checked the faculty parking lot, but there was no sign of her, just a few younger kids playing tag and some cops on traffic duty.”