A Cold Case of Killing

by Glenn Ickler

  “That would be improvident and might prove importune,” I said.

  “I assume that means we’re improvising.”

  “Your assumption is impeccable. I will knock on the cottage door at three thirty, come hell or high impossibility.”

  The cottage was a narrow one-story wooden structure painted dark brown, with an even darker brown door and two small milk-chocolate-brown-trimmed windows facing us. Behind the cottage was a patch of grass, with a sidewalk that led to a blacktopped alley. Parked in the alley was a small black Toyota sedan.

  I pointed toward the Toyota. “Think that could look as big as a frickin’ tank coming toward you?”

  “Maybe, if it was going fast enough,” Al said.

  My watch dial read 3:28 p.m. Still no backup confirmation, and no officers in sight.

  “Looks like we’re on our own,” I said.

  “Think we’re imperiled?” Al said.

  “I know I’m impatient,” I said.

  “Let’s be impetuous,” he said.

  I turned on the tape recorder in my shirt pocket and we walked to the cottage, where we stood on the doorstep looking at my watch. On the stroke of 3:30 I took a deep breath, seized the brass knocker, and rapped on the door.

  The door opened wide enough to reveal the face of a woman with close-clipped blonde hair, and I found myself looking into the most intense pair of blue eyes I had ever seen.

  “Marilee Anderson, I presume,” I said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Cold Case Warmed

  WITHOUT REPLYING to my Stanleyesque greeting, the woman backed up and opened the door wide enough for us pass through. She closed the door behind us and slid the locking bolt into place.

  We were in a small entryway, and our hostess gestured silently toward an archway that led into a living room with windows on two sides, an opening to a hall on the far side, and a narrow open doorway to a combination kitchen-dining area on the other side. The floor was bare pine boards and the furniture consisted of a threadbare beige loveseat, two unpadded straight-backed wooden chairs, a dark wooden coffee table with assorted nicks and scratches, and two tired-looking metal floor lamps. All of the furnishings appeared to be of pre-World War II vintage. No newspapers or magazines cluttered the table and no TV set was in sight. “Spartan” would be a generous adjective to describe the comfort rating of the room.

  “Please sit down,” the woman said, gesturing toward the love seat. Her natural voice was higher in pitch and much more pleasant than the fake one she’d used on the phone. We sat and waited for further word. She was short, about five-foot-two and slender. Her blonde hair was clipped to a virtual crew cut, with flecks of gray visible at the temples. Her face, with its intense blue eyes, was strikingly similar to the advanced-age picture of Marilee Anderson that Al’s friend had created. She was dressed like a scarecrow in a baggy dark blue T-shirt and sloppy khaki slacks that concealed any feminine curves her body might have had.

  She seated herself in a wooden chair, facing us across the coffee table before she spoke. “Your assumption is partially correct. My name was Marilee Anderson when I left my parents’ home. Now I’m simply called Mary.”

  “Pleased to meet you, whatever you’re called now,” I said. “I’m called Mitch; he’s called Al.”

  “I’ve seen your picture, Mr. Mitchell,” Marilee said. “I’ve been reading your paper with a great deal of interest every day for the past couple of weeks.”

  “I can imagine that you have,” I said. “And I’ve been writing about your disappearance with a great deal of interest for the past couple of weeks.”

  “And you’ve been creating a great deal of public interest in my disappearance. What prompted you to pursue this story in such detail?”

  “I have—I mean we—Al and I—have always taken great interest in cases that baffle the police. We like to try to solve them before the police do.”

  “I’m sure that’s very commendable in your line of work,” Marilee said. “However, the memories your stories have brought back aren’t very pleasant for the subject of this particular unsolved case.”

  “I’m sorry to have dredged up an unhappy past, but when this all started I assumed, along with everyone else, that you were no longer living. I still pretty much thought that until you opened the door just now.”

  “You weren’t expecting to see me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Who were you expecting to see?”

  “I don’t really know. Possibly the person who’d given information about you to Henry Moustakas, or maybe the person who killed Henry Moustakas.”

  “Poor Old Hank,” she said. “I feel so sorry for him.”

  “Do you have any idea who killed him? Or why?”

  “No, to both. But I don’t think it had anything to do with me. I certainly hope it didn’t. I assume you must have other questions on your mind.”

  “Hundreds,” I said. “Let’s start with the day your father sent you to the store and you never came back. How about a play-by-play of that day’s events?”

  “So you can solve the case of the missing East Side teenager before the St. Paul police do?”

  “I’d like very much to do that.”

  “Me, too,” Al said.

  “Very commendable. All right, I’ll tell you about that day, but after that I’m going to ask a big favor of you.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Marilee said. “Anyhow, here goes.” She paused to gather her thoughts before she began and I snuck a peek at my watch. It read 3:35 p.m. Twelve minutes until Al’s phone would ring and the interview might come to an unpleasant end.

  Two of those precious minutes went by as Marilee excused herself to get a drink of water. She offered us drinks as well but we both said we were fine. When she returned from the kitchen she began walking in tight circles in the center of room, head down, looking at the floor as she talked.

  “I didn’t want to go to the store that morning, but I could see that Papa was very uptight about something and I didn’t dare tell him I wouldn’t go. My only hope was that Jimmy would be working, and that we could sneak a couple of kisses and play a little touchy-feely if there weren’t any people in the store.

  “When I was almost at the door of the store, I looked through the glass and saw Jimmy behind the counter. It looked like he was alone and I was just reaching for the door handle when a man I detested, a slimy creep that people called Slick, came around the corner of the store and grabbed me around the waist and pulled me away from the door. I let out a scream and he put one stinking, dirty hand over my mouth and began hauling me up the street. It looked like we were heading toward a big black car that was parked by the fire hydrant a little ways up the block on Arcade Street.

  “I was fighting like everything to get away but Slick was really strong. He kept towing me along with one hand clamped over my mouth and I couldn’t get loose. He told me to shut up, said that I was his girl from now on, that my father had given me to him to keep. Then all of a sudden Jimmy was there, trying to pull me away, and Slick had to take the hand off my mouth to fight with Jimmy. I starting screaming like crazy and fighting with Slick until Slick swung his fist and hit me right in the face, just below my eye, and I fell on the sidewalk with him still holding me with the other hand.

  “I didn’t know what was happening except Slick finally let go of me and I rolled away and got up. That must have been when Jimmy bit him, like he told you in your story. Jimmy yelled at me to run and I took off across Arcade Street as fast as I could go. I looked back once and saw Slick running after Jimmy waving a knife, and that scared me more so I ran even faster. I ran until I saw the church where Mama took me to Mass whenever she could make me go. I went up the front steps and tried the front door and it was open. I went in and ran down the center aisle looking for a place to hide. I went all the way around past the altar and ducked into one of the confessionals.

  “I
sat in there and caught my breath and started crying and wondering what to do. I didn’t know if Slick had killed Jimmy and was looking for me or what. All I could think of was what he’d said about me being his to keep because Papa had given me to him. That meant I couldn’t go home or Papa would give me back to him, and I’d heard about what Slick did with his girls. I was bawling my eyes out and Father Paul must have heard me because he knocked on the confessional door and asked if I needed help. Oh, Lord in heaven, did I ever need help.

  “I came flying out of the confessional and just threw myself at Father Paul. He wrapped his arms around me and held me and told me everything would be okay and finally I stopped crying. He asked me what had happened and I told him that Papa had given me to Slick and that I got away and that I couldn’t go home, and then I started bawling again. I just wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere where nobody could find me, not Slick or Papa or even Jimmy.”

  Marilee stopped walking and looked up. I saw tears glistening in the corners of those intense blue eyes. “I need another drink. Sorry,” she said, and she walked briskly to the kitchen. When she returned, she resumed her head-down circling and her narrative.

  “Father Paul managed to calm me down again, and when I’d stopped crying, he walked me into a little room in the back of the church and had me sit in a chair. He said he knew of a place where I might be able to go for a day or so to be safe from my father and from Slick. He got on the phone and talked for a long time with somebody, and then when he finished he said he could take me to a safe place in Minneapolis. He said they’d let me stay there for as long as I needed to hide from Papa and Slick, and that nobody would tell anybody where I was unless I said it was okay.

  “We got in his car and he drove me over here, to St. Adolphus. There’s a convent next to this cottage—you maybe saw it before you knocked—and Father Paul took me in there and we were met by a nun named Sister Cecilia. She hugged me and said they had an empty room that I could use for the night, and longer if I thought I needed it. I said I thought I would need it longer, because I couldn’t go back where Slick or my father could get hold of me. She said I could stay until we could work out some safe place for me to go, to some relative or something.

  “The only relatives I had were Uncle Eddie and Aunt Rose. Uncle Eddie lived right next door to us so I couldn’t go there, and anyway I didn’t like him because he was always putting his hands where they didn’t belong. I was afraid to go to Aunt Rose because I knew that she’d call my mother or that Lauralee would open her big mouth and blab to some of her friends that I was hiding at their house. So I was pretty much stuck, and they let me stay here even after the cops and my parents stopped hunting for me. I didn’t know that Papa had killed Slick so I was still afraid of him, too. After I’d been here awhile, some of the nuns started taking turns home-schooling me so I wouldn’t be a dummy all my life. I just stayed and stayed and the nuns took care of getting me clothes and books and anything else that I needed.

  “When I was eighteen, they gave me a job in the office working for Father Joseph. I’ve worked with him ever since, and I love my job and I love the people here. Father Joseph has been really good and loving to me all these years. And don’t get any wrong ideas. When I said loving, I didn’t mean anything sexual. Father Joseph is gay. When I was—”

  Al’s cell phone rang. “Oh, sorry,” he said. He took the phone out of his pocket, answered it and talked for about thirty seconds before saying goodbye. He was facing Marilee when he ended the call and the way he held the phone I was sure he’d taken a picture. Marilee didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m awfully sorry to interrupt you like that,” Al said. “I’ll turn this thing off so it doesn’t ring again.” He held the phone up toward Marilee as he turned it off and I suspected he had snuck another picture.

  “That’s all right,” Marilee said. “I was almost done. All I was going to say was that when I was a little older, they moved me into this cottage with a retired nun who was ninety-some years old. I took care of her for a couple of years until she died, and I’ve stayed here in the cottage ever since.” She let out a sigh of exhaustion and sat down in one of the wooden chairs.

  “Don’t you ever get out into the world?” I asked.

  “Sometimes I go for walks or do some shopping close by, but not very often. And when I do, I always wear dark glasses and a big hat or a hood so nobody really sees my face. I was leaving the church to come back here when that woman in one of your stories saw me. She saw my eyes because I was barely out the church door and hadn’t put the dark glasses on yet.”

  Another question popped into my mind. “Jimmy and Lauralee both said you were pregnant when you left. You haven’t said anything about the baby. What happened to that baby?”

  Marilee sighed again. “The baby never made it. I had a miscarriage a few days after I got here. The poor baby probably got hurt while I was fighting with Slick. I intentionally left that part out of what I told you. Please don’t put it in your story.” The intense blue eyes stared unblinking into mine.

  “I guess I can skip that detail. But tell me, after all these years of hiding, what caused you to meet with us now?” I asked.

  “When I saw your story about talking to Jimmy, it seemed like you were getting so close that you would eventually find me. It looked like you would never give up until you did. So I called you to tell you my story in return for the favor I mentioned before.”

  “And what is the favor?”

  “I don’t ever want to be found. I want you both to promise never to tell anybody where I am, where this conversation took place. I love my life here and I don’t want to be dragged back to St. Paul to see my old mush-mouth mother who let Papa scream at me and whip my ass while he got his rocks off with me laying naked across his lap.”

  “I understand your feelings, but keeping your whereabouts secret might not be so easy,” I said. “The St. Paul detective who’s been hunting for you for twenty-five years will do everything he can to make me talk.”

  “Isn’t there some short of shield law that says reporters can’t be forced to reveal their sources?” she said.

  “I don’t know if that would apply here. This would be a matter of where you are, not who you are.”

  “So you won’t keep my secret?”

  “I’ll try to, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  Marilee turned to Al. “What about you?”

  “Same thing,” he said. “I won’t tell anybody, but if it goes to court and it comes down to a choice of telling or going to jail, I’m certainly not going to choose jail.”

  “I guess all we can say is that we’ll do our very best,” I said.

  Marilee bowed her head and was silent for a moment before she said, “I should have known better than to call you. I should have taken my chances on not being found, but first Old Hank called you and then Jimmy. I got really scared.”

  That puzzled me. “How does Old Hank fit into this?”

  “Old Hank was the church janitor and he saw me almost every day for the Lord knows how many years. When he called Mr. Jeffrey to set up a meeting, he used a phone in the church office. I overhead him talking and realized that he had pegged me from that picture you ran showing what I look like now. That really got me worried; I didn’t want the old fart to rat on me.”

  “Oh, my God!” Al said. “Did you kill Old Hank?”

  “No, I did,” said a female voice behind us.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sister Jonathan

  MARILEE’S EYES WIDENED and her mouth fell open in surprise as she shot up from her chair. I snapped my head around so fast I heard my neck bones crack. Or maybe it was Al’s neck bones that I heard, as his head had whipped around just as snappily.

  The words that astonished us had come from a short, stocky woman with tinges of gray in her close-cropped black hair. She had an oval face ending with a squared-off chin, a prominent nose, and dark eyes that flashed as menacingly as Jack Nicholson’s in The S
hining. She was dressed all in black—a short-sleeved pullover top that hung outside loose-fitting, ankle-length slacks that brushed the tops of leather running shoes.

  “Sister Jonathan!” Marilee said. Her tone indicated that she was as stunned as Al and I were.

  Oh, my God, a Jonathan Doe, I thought. Funny how the mind works in a moment of surprise. I got up from the love seat, Al rose beside me, and we turned to face the newcomer.

  “Missy Mary, I’ve been listening to you babbling away, spilling out your whole life story to these two, and I decided it was time to step in,” Sister Jonathan said. “Didn’t I tell you that you were a fool to invite them here? Now they’re going to expose you to the whole world, and this place will be swarming with cops and TV cameras and reporters from all over hell and gone.”

  Marilee was still staring slack-jawed and wide-eyed, as if she’d been struck by lightning. She regained control of her jaw and said, “Did you . . . did you just say that you killed Old Hank?”

  “That’s what I said,” Sister Jonathan said. “It was the only way to shut him up.”

  To me, Marilee said. “I begged him and begged him to cancel the meeting with you, and he finally promised to call it off.”

  “But he didn’t keep his promise,” Sister Jonathan said. “He didn’t intend to shut up like her cousin did after I called her. I went to his house that morning to make sure that he’d canceled the meeting, and he laughed at me. He said there was a reward for information about her and that I’d have to cut his throat to keep him from talking to the press. Well, I wasn’t tall enough to reach his throat, but I still had the last laugh.”

  I finally found my voice. “Wait a minute. You’re a nun and you went out and killed a man?”

  “She’s not really a sister,” Marilee said. “She’s Father Joseph’s housekeeper. Her last name is Jonathan and we all call her Sister because she’s been living in the convent with the nuns for so long.”

  “Twenty-six years,” Sister Jonathan said. “I was here when this one came in as a green, ignorant, teenage dolly, and I’ve taught her all about the pleasures of life.”