A Bias for Murder

by Sally Goldenbaum

  “Yes. There are no secrets in this town, are there?”

  “Jacques told us. He was concerned about Tom’s behavior. And I am, too. You need to be careful, Adele.”

  “It was unnerving, but he was drunk, that’s all. He’s a harmless fool.”

  Po nodded. Adele was probably right. But she was wrong about one thing—there were plenty of secrets in this town. Perhaps dangerous ones.

  “It will take more than a drunk to frighten me away. He has a demanding wife, that’s all.”

  “But when people drink too much, you don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “Some people are more dangerous when they’re sober, Po. But don’t worry. If I am anything, I am cautious.”

  “Adele,” Po said suddenly, the question coming to her unexpectedly. “Why did you leave Crestwood the way you did, and not return?”

  “I left for college,” Adele said. It was a pat, no-nonsense answer, without the personal touch of their earlier conversation.

  “But after that, when Ollie came home. When your mother died. You didn’t seem to be around much. Perhaps I am treading on personal ground—please tell me if I am. But did you not get along with your mother?”

  “Oh my, is that what people thought?” Adele sat down on a stone bench near a garden of mums and looked out over the yard. The sun was sinking in the west, dappled light painting patterns on wide stretches of lawn. Eerily peaceful, unnaturally quiet.

  And Adele began to talk.

  “I loved my mother, though we disagreed about many things. Ollie, mainly. She babied him too much. Protected him so severely because of his learning disabilities that when she got sick, she made Joe Bates promise to stay here forever because Ollie had never lived alone.”

  “Why didn’t she want you to be that person?”

  For a long time Adele didn’t answer, but Po could see the years passing across her mind. Sadness and happiness, pain and joy. Finally she said, “It was my father whom I disliked. Intensely. He was not a good man, at least not in all respects. His affairs during mother’s pregnancies—she lost three babies—were cruel, but when he bedded a friend of mine on a college break, then threatened me later if I said a word, it became too much. My mother urged me to leave this town and make a life for myself away from it all. She used to come and see me every chance she got—she was a good person. But she needed the money Walter Harrington provided. She needed it for Ollie.

  “My father never cared for Ollie. ‘Broken’ was the word he used. I, the healthy twin, survived. Ollie was weakened. An accident, my father said, and he made it clear to me that I should have been the accident. Not Ollie. Not the boy.

  “But Walter Harrington did genuinely worship my mother, in spite of all his transgressions. And when she laid down the rules, he complied, leaving her and Ollie to live their life as mother saw fit.” Adele rose from the bench and began walking back toward the house. Po fell in beside her.

  “We weren’t exactly the all-American family, were we? But we survived. And I think my mother did the best she could. But even knowing that, I resented what this town, this house, stood for, for a long time. But when Ollie died, I decided I’d at least give it a try—try to make peace with some of the demons.”

  “I think you have,” Po said. “Or are on your way.”

  “Not yet. Not completely. I still have that armor on, I guess. As long as there are still people out there who think I murdered my brother, I can never really fit in here, can I?”

  The sad plea from the strong, implacable Adele Harrington touched Po in a way that made her shiver in the cool fall air. She pulled her wool sweater closed and buttoned it. “Adele,” she said, touching her arm lightly, “Hang in a little bit longer. I think that will end soon.”

  And for better or worse, Po knew instinctively her words to be true.

  Chapter 27

  Po pulled out of Adele’s driveway and headed home.

  This time she wouldn’t be distracted. She would go through every single piece of paper, every picture she had taken from Joe Bates’s apartment. And she’d find the answers to all her questions. At the least, she’d get closer to the ties that bound Ollie Harrington to the few people he allowed in his life each day.

  She thought back to her brief conversation with Adele. Why was Joe Bates so insistent that he get Ollie’s musings? What had Ollie written that was so important to someone like Joe Bates, someone who didn’t even like to read? Joe wasn’t sentimental, that much she knew about him. But he loved Ollie Harrington like a son. And Ollie’s murder had turned him into a mumbling old man, a man determined, maybe, to bring his murderer to light. That would have been Joe’s goal. Of course it would.

  And maybe he was getting close. Too close.

  Po suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and found Gus Schuette’s phone number on her cell. She tapped it in.

  “Gus,” she said quickly, knowing he probably had a store full of customers. “You mentioned recently that Joe Bates had come into your store shortly before he was killed. Joe wasn’t much of a reader. What was he buying?”

  As busy as his store was, Gus liked to chat, and Po waited patiently while he confirmed that Joe didn’t seem to read much, but he sure loved Gus’s garden magazines when he used to come in the store more often. But that day—Gus remembered it clearly, he said, because it was shortly after Ollie’s murder, and Joe was a broken man. He’d shuffled into the store, made his purchase, and shuffled out, head down, face a mask of sad anger. He’d picked up a book Gus had ordered for him. Not a garden book at all.

  Gus didn’t need to finish.

  Po knew. It made sense now, what she should have figured out weeks ago. She hurried out of the store and drove home, scattering leaves on her driveway in all directions. Around her, night was settling in, the tiny solar lights like fireflies along the drive.

  Po turned off the ignition and reached into the back seat for her purse. And then she remembered the box in the trunk. It had been with the rest of the things she’d gathered from Joe’s burned-out apartment, but she’d forgotten to bring it in, then forgot it was there. A brilliant stroke of luck. She lifted it out of the trunk and carried it into the warm welcoming lights of her kitchen.

  Po felt her phone vibrate and pulled it out of her pocket and saw the voice messages. She must have missed the call when she was at Adele’s or Kate’s. She set the box in the den, returned to the kitchen and held the phone to her ear.

  The voice message on the other end was tight and controlled.

  “Po, this is Halley Peterson. Perhaps you and I need to have a talk.”

  Po frowned. No, not yet, she said to herself.

  She switched on more lights, then turned her radio to a Saturday jazz concert. The mellow strains of an old Miles Davis rendition of “Summertime” filled the room. Po found odd comfort in the clear trumpet sounds, but she knew it would take more than music to get rid of the chill in her bones. She needed Max, someone else in her home.

  A quick call to his home went unanswered. Po started to call Kate, then quickly realized she didn’t want Kate around right now, not tonight, and was relieved when she got voice mail. She left a mundane message and hung up.

  Minutes later, with a large mug cradled in her hands and the sweet scents of orange and spices wafting up from the steaming tea, Po returned to the den and sat down behind Bruce’s big desk, lifting the lid off the cardboard box.

  “Bruce, help me here,” she whispered. “Let’s get this over with, however sad and distasteful a task it may be.” She pulled out Ollie Harrington’s yellow pads and began to read.

  The pieces flowed together seamlessly, as they often did when the most obvious situations suddenly came into focus. The only questions remaining would have to come from someone else.

  Po shoved the papers into an old portfolio of Bruce’s and snapped it shut. Another
call to Max confirmed that he wasn’t answering yet, and Po knew she couldn’t wait any longer.

  It needed to end tonight.

  She returned to the kitchen and thumbed through her tattered book of numbers until she found the address. And then, with her heart in her throat, Po grabbed the portfolio, her purse and a jacket, and headed into the dark night. She paused briefly before climbing into her car and looked up into the sky. Millions of stars were flung across a deep velvet blanket. A perfect starry night.

  Stay with me Ollie and Joe, she whispered. We’ll make it right.

  As Po drove down the street, she tried Max one more time. And then she remembered a late meeting he’d told her about. He’d stop by later for a nightcap, he had told her earlier. Po thought about waiting for him, then decided to forge ahead. The sooner she got all the answers, the better for everyone.

  She punched the address into her phone and followed Siri’s directions. She led her to a neighborhood just to the east of campus. It was a pleasant street, with modest houses and new condominiums mixed together. The address was in a small complex of town homes, and Po found 707 Elm Street easily enough. There was a light in the window, and Po sat in her car for a brief moment, then walked up the short walkway and rang the bell.

  “Hello, Halley,” she said.

  * * * *

  Kate finally reached Max as he was leaving his restaurant meeting. “Please come, Max. I got this kind of weird message from Po—and now she’s not picking up.” The frantic edge to Kate’s voice startled Max. Before he could respond, Kate rushed on. “She asked me to bring pie to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “I don’t get it, Kate.”

  “Max,” Kate said, exasperated with the occasional slowness of such a smart man. “I’ve never made a piecrust in my life that didn’t end up being used as a doorstop. Something’s wrong.”

  Max didn’t argue. Po had left him a message, too—she said to come over as soon as he could.

  Kate was waiting at the curb when Max picked her up and in minutes they were in Po’s kitchen. Hoover greeted them but Po was gone.

  It was Kate who noticed the address book. And the only name on the open page was one they recognized. Halley Peterson.

  * * * *

  “Come in, Po,” Halley said. Her face matched her white T-shirt except for red, bleary eyes.

  Po followed Halley into the small living room and sat down across from her. “It’s time you told me the truth, Halley.”

  Halley nodded, but when she began to talk, the tears started again. She grabbed a tissue from the nearly empty container and looked steadily at Po. “I don’t know where to start, Po, but first you need to know I adored Ollie Harrington. Sincerely. He was my best friend.”

  Po had a response to that—that Halley had a peculiar way of expressing it—but she held her silence, waiting for the answers she was seeking.

  “I didn’t know what Joe had of Ollie’s. Just some of his writings. And I knew he was a beautiful writer. He used to read things to me that he’d written.

  “Jed thought if we got them back, maybe we could publish them, honoring Ollie in a special way. A book of essays, maybe. Jed said Adele would never do that. But wouldn’t Ollie love it? And I knew he would. He always wanted to write a book. He was so gifted. He wrote like a poet. So I tried hard to get them, to do something decent for Ollie.”

  “You tried to break into Joe’s apartment after he died—”

  “Joe had told me he had Ollie’s notes. He rescued them because he thought Adele would throw them out. And then that day—the day he died—Joe called me and said he needed to talk to me. That it was a matter of life and death. We planned to meet the next day.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I told Jed. And he understood. He knew Ollie was a great writer, he said. And that’s when he told me his idea of publishing his essays, if only I could get them.”

  “And when you knew I had them—”

  “I lied to you that day, Po. I was so upset. I loved him, you know.”

  “Jed?”

  She nodded and the tears began to flow. “I told you I hadn’t told anyone that you had cleaned out Joe’s place. But I had.”

  “You told Jed.”

  She nodded. “Because I still thought…or wanted to think, that they were his essays that we would publish in Ollie’s honor. But when I drove by that night, I saw Jed going into your house. I confronted him later and he said he was getting some keys he’d left in your kitchen. When you want desperately to believe someone, lies can be easily masked.

  “But I guess I didn’t trust him completely, and I was angry and sad. I was starting to feel used and I hated myself for it. And then you kept after me with questions. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone until I could figure out what to do.”

  “Did you know what Joe had of Ollie’s? Did you know what the notes were?”

  “Not at first.” Halley looked up at Po and her eyes were filled with grief. “Just that they were Ollie’s writings. Things from his classes.” Her voice was ragged with tears.

  “Po, Jed was the first love of my life. I’m thirty-six, and he was my first love. I didn’t know what to do about that, don’t you see?”

  “I understand, Halley. Love can do all sorts of things to one.”

  “Jed wouldn’t give me a copy of the book he had published, you know. He said he was embarrassed by his first effort, and really didn’t want me to read it. I could read the next one, he said. I was so foolish. Even though I thought it was odd, I did what he asked. But when you left it with me the other day, I paged through it and knew what I guess I’d known for a while—I knew that I had heard those beautiful, lyrical words before. Ollie used to read the passages to me after he’d written them. I’d sit in wonder, imagining the stars he wrote about, the pathways and galaxies and amazing dimensions of the universe.”

  “So it was Ollie who wrote A Plain Man’s Guide to a Starry Night.”

  Po was talking more to herself than to Halley.

  “Yes.”

  A loud noise behind them startled both of the women.

  Halley spun around as Jed Fellers walked into the low light of her living room. He dropped Halley’s house key on the table and walked over to where she stood, resting one hand on her arm.

  “Halley, I love you. I’ll explain all of this.” He looked over at Po and asked her politely to sit down.

  Po saw the bulge in Jed’s coat pocket. She sat down on the edge of the couch. His voice was dangerously calm. He kept his hand on Halley’s arm and continued, his eyes never leaving Po’s face.

  “It’s too bad that you pursued this to such lengths, Po. We’d all be better off—you, me, Halley—if you had left it alone.”

  “But Ollie and Joe weren’t left alone, Jed.”

  “I didn’t want it to end like it did. I’m not a monster, Po.” Jed half-smiled as he spoke, and Po felt chills run down her back.

  “Ollie wrote those essays in my class, you know. Shared them all with me. They were brilliant, so I photocopied each one. All I had to do was add a transition here and there and a title. It all made a kind of logical sense to me. I was his mentor, after all.

  “I called Ollie into my office when the publisher sent me a copy of the book,” Jed continued calmly, “and I told him what a great thing it was—he was a published author, wasn’t that great? I explained that it didn’t matter whose name was on it, he was the vision behind it, and we’d celebrate together.”

  Beside him, Halley shook her head. “You’re a fool, Jed Fellers. Ollie would never have agreed to that. I could have told you that.”

  “You’re right about that. In his simple way, Ollie had a ridiculous sense of right and wrong. Black and white. He said it was dishonest. Against the law. He explained that he was going to go to the chancellor and tell him. I tried e
verything I could think of to change his mind. I needed that book publication, for God’s sake. The tenure committee was breathing down my neck. The department chair was at stake. Ollie didn’t need it. I did. When Ollie wouldn’t cooperate, I had no choice.”

  “But to kill him?” Halley screamed at Jed and jerked her arm away.

  Jed slapped her. “Calm down,” he said. His voice was monotone now and Po recognized the lack of emotion, the distance, and it frightened her.

  “Po, you don’t get it because you’ve always had it easy. You and Bruce. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Jed’s tone was changing dramatically, and Po stiffened. “You killed a lovely man, Jed. And you stole from him.”

  “Not a theft, Po!” Jed’s voice changed again. It was loud and threatening now. “Who do you think taught Oliver those things? Who?”

  “I’m sure you taught him many things, Jed. But you also took his words and told people they were yours. Ollie must have told Joe Bates about it.”

  “Of course he did. And Joe would have done anything for Ollie. Joe took the original essays after Ollie died, I was sure of it. All written on yellow pads, just like everything he wrote. Everything he turned in to me.”

  “So you tried to burn his place down? It was you, not Halley.”

  Jed laughed. “Halley? Halley couldn’t hurt a flea, but she’d do anything for a friend.” His hand moved up to Halley’s neck and he tugged lightly on a strand of her hair. “But when Halley couldn’t get the notebooks, burning the place seemed the easiest way out.”

  “And now what?” Po turned to face him directly. She’d known Jed Fellers for over a dozen years. Or she thought she had. But suddenly, she was forced to face a man she didn’t know at all.

  Jed stood straight and looked her in the eye. “I don’t know, Po. What do you think we should do?” He shrugged and looked at her with total disinterest. “I thought I’d find the manuscripts before you did, and no one would ever have known. But you butted in. And I know one thing, I can’t let you destroy my reputation.” His hand slipped into his pocket.