A Killer Past

by Maris Soule

  Several cars were already parked in the lot beside the Rivershore Elementary School. Jack parked back near the far edge of the building, got out of his car, and locked it. The night air was cold and crisp, causing his nose hairs to tingle, but it hadn’t snowed since the day after Halloween, and the sky was clear, a three-quarter moon already high above the school. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He hoped this meeting didn’t last too long. Not that he had anywhere to go, he just wasn’t looking forward to a long-drawn-out discussion about how bad things had gotten and how the police weren’t doing enough.

  He watched more cars pull into the lot and park. Singles, couples, even a family of four exited the vehicles and headed for the main entrance. Before he finished his cigarette, Jack stubbed it out on a metal post, made sure it was fully extinguished, and dropped it into the outside pocket of his overcoat. Taking his time, he ambled toward the entrance.

  A teepee straw bundle, tied with binding twine, was propped up next to the entrance door, three large pumpkins at its base, while pictures of hands colored to look like turkeys covered the door’s glass panes. A sign had been taped on the outside of the door, covering several of the ‘turkeys’ and directing those attending the Neighborhood Watch meeting to go to the student cafeteria. Even without the sign, Jack could have found the location by following the sound of voices. Neighbors were greeting neighbors, women giving hugs, men shaking hands, children gathering in groups. Jack eased himself into the room and took a chair at the back.

  Phil Carlson, in full uniform, stood at the front of the cafeteria talking to a short, pudgy, white-haired woman who could have been anywhere from sixty to eighty. It took Jack a moment to find Mary Harrington. He’d just started thinking she hadn’t come to the meeting when he spotted her talking to an overweight, elderly man who practically hid her from view. For the first time since Jack had met her, she wasn’t wearing sweatpants, and the tailored black pantsuit and light-purple blouse she had on accentuated her slender form. He had a feeling she’d been quite a knockout in her younger years. The way the man talking to her was smiling, Jack knew he wasn’t the only one who found Mary Harrington attractive.

  Jack could tell the moment she spotted him. Her smile turned to a frown, and she gave a slight shake of her head. He might have gotten up and gone over to talk to her, except a middle-aged woman wearing the typical Rivershore Hospital’s nursing uniform of a pink top, white slacks, and white shoes picked that moment to sit next to him. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Dolores. Dolores Tredwell. You look familiar. Have we met before?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said and offered his hand. ‘I’m Sergeant Jack Rossini. You’ve probably seen me at the hospital.’ He nodded toward the front of the room. ‘I’m just here to give Officer Carlson a hand, if he needs it.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ She laughed and shook his hand. ‘For a moment I thought we had a new neighbor. I mean, you’re not in uniform so I thought, that is …’ Again she laughed, almost a giggle. ‘I don’t know what I thought. You’ll have to excuse me. I just finished a fourteen-hour shift, and I’m not thinking straight.’

  ‘You’re forgiven.’ Jack glanced around the room. ‘Does everyone here live on Maple Street?’

  ‘Quite a few of us do, but I think Ella also talked to people on Oak and Archer. They’ve had trouble on Archer, you know.’ Dolores laughed again. ‘Of course you know. You’re the police. Were you there that night? I saw those boys when they came in, babbling that some old lady had attacked them. I didn’t see the tox report, but they had to be high on something. Those two were no wimps. I wouldn’t have wanted to run into them at night.’

  ‘But they were saying an old woman attacked them.’ Jack looked over at Mary Harrington.

  ‘That was what they said at first, then their friends showed up, and the boys changed their story, claimed someone dressed in black attacked them. Later I heard they changed their story again, said they simply tripped and fell.’ She shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ she said, and faced forward at the sound of a gavel pounding on a table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘WILL EVERYONE PLEASE sit down,’ Ella ordered, her voice cracking on the word ‘sit’.

  Mary glanced toward the door. Coming to this meeting had been a mistake. She’d tried to back out when on the way over Ella had told her she’d invited homeowners from Archer Street, along with those on Oak and Maple. So far, thank goodness, none of the Archer Street people had shown any indication of recognizing her from the night before Halloween, but with Sergeant Rossini here, who knew what might happen, especially if he brought up the incident with the two boys. People might remember she was wearing this same black pantsuit and black jacket that night.

  All she had to do was slip by Ella and out the door. Although Ella had picked her up and brought her to the meeting, it wasn’t that far back to Maple Street, and it wasn’t that cold out. Mary figured she could leave a note on Ella’s car saying she’d walked home.

  ‘Come sit by me,’ Fred Strong said, and snagged her hand before she could move.

  ‘I need to …’ Mary started, but Fred wasn’t listening, and she found herself being pulled toward two of the dozens of folding chairs that had been set up in the cafeteria.

  Fred had been one of Harry’s closest friends, and for the last twenty minutes – ever since she’d arrived with Ella – Fred had been talking to her about Harry and the many fishing trips the two of them had taken when they were younger. She’d enjoyed sharing those memories. That was, until she saw Sergeant Jack Rossini enter the cafeteria.

  She doubted if many others in the room knew Rossini was with the Police Department. Unlike the uniformed officer standing next to Ella, Rossini was dressed like most of the men in attendance, his brown-tweed sports jacket, white shirt, multicolored tie, and brown slacks gave no indication he wasn’t a homeowner. He’d had on a tan overcoat when he first entered the cafeteria, but he’d immediately taken it off and draped it over the back of the chair next to him.

  He looked tired, and she mentally cast a thought in his direction. Go home. Get some sleep.

  He didn’t leave; instead he looked directly at her, and for a moment she thought he might get up and come over to where she and Fred were standing.

  She’d scooted to the left, using Fred’s bulk to block her from view.

  The next time she chanced a glance Rossini’s way, he was talking to Dolores Tredwell. Mary hoped the nurse was telling him he looked tired and to go home and get some rest, but from Rossini’s expression, Mary knew that wasn’t the case. He nodded and said something.

  Damn, what were they talking about?

  Her?

  Stop being so self-centered, she chided herself. After all, Rossini was a good-looking man, and Dolores was divorced. Mary had no idea if Rossini was married, divorced, or a widower. Could be Dolores and he were simply getting to know each other, making plans to meet later.

  Go now, Mary willed the two. Take off. Go get a drink somewhere. Make wild passionate love.

  They didn’t leave, and now it seemed she couldn’t leave either, not until the meeting was over.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call you,’ Fred said as he sat beside her, the folding chair giving a creak that made her wonder if it would hold his weight. ‘With your Harry gone and my Silvia having passed on last year, bless her soul, I was thinking you and I should get together for dinner and a movie sometime.’

  No way, Mary thought and smiled his way. ‘That sounds like a nice idea, Fred. Give me a call sometime.’

  And I’ll make sure I’m busy.

  She didn’t need another man in her life, not when she had a task to accomplish.

  Mary barely listened as Ella introduced Officer Phillip Carlson of the Rivershore Police Department and thanked everyone for coming. The thoughts running through Mary’s mind weren’t about starting a Neighborhood Watch, but how to eliminate a gang with
out reverting back to the person she was before moving to Rivershore.

  That gang members had bothered Shannon, upset Mary. If anything happened to her granddaughter …

  ‘And now,’ Ella said, interrupting Mary’s thoughts, ‘Officer Carlson will tell us what we must do to make our neighborhood safe.’

  Want to make the neighborhood safe? As far as Mary knew, there was only one way. Eliminate the gang leaders. Attack before being attacked.

  But did she want to become a killer … again?

  She wasn’t ashamed of the jobs she did for the agency. She and others, working together and alone, had eliminated dictators, cartel bosses, slave traders, gunrunners, and other malfeasants. Over the years, since leaving the agency, every time she heard or read about an untouchable being killed in a car accident, a plane crash, or committing suicide, she wondered if it was truly an accident or suicide or if the deceased might have had a bit of help.

  Would they even need a Neighborhood Watch if a certain gang leader had an accident?

  Mary quickly dismissed that thought. There would be no accident. Pandora no longer existed.

  Or did she?

  ‘You, all of you here tonight,’ Officer Carlson said, pointing at his audience, ‘along with all of your neighbors, are our best resource. Get to know each other. Know what cars you drive, what your normal schedules are: when you go to work, to school, and come home. Talk to each other. Going to be gone? Tell your neighbors. Ask them to keep an eye on your house. Then, if you see something out of the ordinary, call us. Call the police.’

  Mary watched the officer stroll across the front of the room, his gaze scanning the crowd. ‘If you see someone breaking into a house, or a group of kids or people hanging around, call us.’ He stopped and faced one woman seated in the front row. ‘Don’t confront them, that’s our job. See someone being attacked, like that woman was the other night, call us.’

  And what good will that do? From what Mary had heard, the police were called and the attackers were still on the loose.

  ‘And those boys,’ one woman from the second row called out. ‘They were attacked on my street.’

  ‘Did you see the attack?’ Officer Carlson asked, stepping closer to where the woman sat.

  Mary cringed, her gaze locked on the back of the woman’s head. Had this woman seen her? Could she identify her?

  ‘No,’ the woman admitted, shaking her head. ‘But I heard all about it, and one of my neighbors saw what happened. She told the police what she saw, but no one believed her.’

  ‘We’re following up on that report,’ a deep male voice said from the back of the room, and Mary knew it was Rossini speaking … and how he was following up on that report.

  ‘I’d like to introduce Sergeant Jack Rossini, head of our Criminal Investigations Unit,’ Officer Carlson said and pointed at the back of the room.

  Mary saw Fred turn to look that direction. She didn’t. She held her breath, hoping Rossini wouldn’t say anything about interviewing her or about his suspicions.

  ‘We follow up on all reports,’ Rossini said, and Officer Carlson nodded.

  ‘And here’s the information we need in a report,’ Carlson said, once again taking control of the meeting. ‘We need the time of the day when the incident occurred, where it happened, and what you witnessed. We want as many details as you can supply. A description of who was involved, whether it was a man or a woman, how tall, their build, hair color, skin color, and age. Was there a car involved? What was the license plate number?’

  ‘What if it’s dark out and you can’t see the license plate?’ another woman in the audience asked.

  ‘Then tell us as much as you can about the car. Was it a sedan or an SUV? What color? Was it noisy? Music noisy or muffler noise? Could you see how many were in the car? Tell us anything you can about them. The more information you give us, the faster we can find these people and stop what’s going on.’

  ‘I’ve seen a black car driving up and down Maple Street,’ one woman said. ‘I don’t think it belongs to any of my neighbors.’

  So she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the car. Mary wasn’t sure if that made her happy or not.

  ‘Then after this meeting, tell me what you remember about this car,’ Carlson said, and looked around the room. ‘Folks, that’s what we need to know. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with this car being on that street, but you need to be aware of its presence and call us if it keeps hanging around. Some of you have young children. We don’t want anything happening to them.’

  Mary nodded. She hadn’t thought of a pedophile in connection with the car, but it certainly was a possibility, especially since she and Shannon had seen it hanging around on Halloween.

  ‘What is being done about these gangs?’ a man seated somewhere near the back of the room asked. ‘All I’m hearing lately are stories about fights and shootings. This used to be a quiet, peaceful town. What is going on?’

  Others in the audience sounded their concerns, and Mary hoped Carlson or Rossini would give some specifics, like the names of the gang leaders or where they usually hung out. If she was going to eliminate the threat of these gangs harming others, those details would certainly make her job easier.

  But neither man supplied that information.

  Typical of the Police Department, Carlson spoke in generalities. The police were working on the problem. It wasn’t as bad as the media made it sound. Having a Neighborhood Watch would help.

  She had a feeling that meant they didn’t know how to stop the violence, that the gang leaders, like so many leaders in the criminal world, used subordinates to do their dirty work, leaving no evidence that they were connected. Nothing to incriminate them.

  How she missed ADEC’s research department. They were the ones who gathered the information, filtered out the extraneous, and zeroed in on the real behind-the-scenes culprits. Once the target was identified, her role, along with the other agents, was to get close to that person and quietly and efficiently remove the problem, leaving no evidence that ADEC or any law enforcement agency was involved.

  As far as Mary knew, only once had the research department made a mistake.

  Her luck the mark was hers.

  By the end of the Neighborhood Watch meeting, Mary didn’t feel she’d accomplished anything by coming. There’d been talk about drugs, robberies, gangs, and abandoned houses, but nothing that gave her what she wanted.

  As people rose from their seats, some going up front to talk to Officer Carlson and Ella, others gathering in groups to talk to each other, and some leaving, Mary once again considered leaving and walking home by herself. She changed her mind when Fred Strong took a firm hold of her wrist and said, ‘I know you came with Ella, but let me give you a ride home. It would give us a chance to get to know each other better.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she lied, not liking the way he was possessively holding onto her arm. She was beginning to suspect his idea of getting to ‘know each other better’ might involve more than talk. ‘I promised Ella I’d help her finish up here.’

  Fred glanced around the room. ‘She doesn’t need your help. Come on, let’s go.’

  She didn’t react until his fingers tightened around her wrist, and he took a step forward, pulling her toward the door. He didn’t react until she stepped back and twisted her wrist down and toward her body, freeing her wrist from his grasp. He stopped and faced her, his expression going from surprise to a frown.

  Mary knew her own expression was rapidly changing. Someone had put an arm around her shoulders, stopping her escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘WANT TO HELP me put up these chairs?’ Jack asked, smiling at the shocked look Mary Harrington gave him the moment he stopped her backward motion.

  ‘Yes… . Of course,’ she said, after a slight hesitation. Then she smiled at the man who had been holding her wrist. ‘Thanks for the offer, Fred, but my mama taught me you always go home with the one that brung you.’

  ‘I was
just …’

  The man didn’t finish his excuse, and Jack said nothing. Silence, he’d learned, was often more effective than words.

  ‘I’ll … I’ll call you …’ Fred said, looking at Mary as he took a step back. ‘Sometime.’

  She also didn’t respond, and Jack had a feeling if Fred did call, she either wouldn’t answer the phone or would tell the guy to get lost. He also had a feeling, considering how rigid her shoulders felt under his arm, that she’d also like him to get lost. He lowered his arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, keeping her gaze on the other man’s retreating figure.

  ‘You’re welcome. That was a nice escape.’

  She glanced up at him, then away, her expression guarded.

  He grinned. ‘If these people want protection, they should hire you to patrol the streets.’

  ‘Is there something you wanted, Detective?’ she asked, half-turning toward him.

  ‘Just to say hello.’ He chuckled. ‘I take it you don’t like being pushed around.’

  ‘It’s not one of my strong suits.’

  ‘And I’m not a detective,’ he said. ‘Just a sergeant.’

  She gave a nod. ‘I’ll remember that, Sergeant Rossini.’

  ‘A Neighborhood Watch only works if people report trouble. Pretending it didn’t happen, even if you do best your attackers, doesn’t put the criminals behind bars.’

  ‘After tonight, I’m sure you’ll be getting calls if anyone in this neighborhood sees trouble.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  She gave him a sweet, grandmotherly smile. ‘In fact, I would like to report that my granddaughter and I also saw that dark-colored sedan. According to my granddaughter, it went by the house several times on Halloween night. I only saw it once that night, but I did see it again, a few days later.’

  That wasn’t the report he’d had in mind, and she knew it. ‘This isn’t funny, Mrs Harrington. I could arrest you for hindering a gang-related investigation. For all I know, you were on Archer Street that Thursday night trying to buy drugs from those two … or maybe you were there to sell drugs.’