Punish the Deed (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  “Stop it!” she said out loud. You are not looking for a possible victim here. You are looking for a suspect. And he might not even be a serious suspect. A private citizen has every right to leave his home and leave his own car behind. He has the right to take a dog with him if he wants. There is no sign of any disturbance inside. No indication of any kind of confrontation. Reasonable cause for a forcible entry does not exist.

  But to go AWOL the day after a woman is murdered at his place of work? The timing could simply be a coincidence, she argued to herself. There is such a thing as coincidence.

  But no matter how many times she repeated that phrase, she never really believed it.

  Eighteen

  On the drive home, Lucinda stopped at the market. Chester greeted his heavily laden roommate at the front door as if he knew she had something for him in one of the bags. His movements around her legs became frenzied when she pulled out the can of treats and shook them in her hand. Then he lay down with the side of his face on her foot, rubbing and purring. When she pulled off the lid, he jumped to his feet and stared up at her.

  “Is that smell appealing?” she asked with a laugh. He answered with a loud meow as he twined around her legs again. Careful to avoid the onset of vertigo, she knelt down and gave Chester a handful of crunchy, anti-tartar treats, put away her groceries and checked her voice mail.

  The third message was from her surgeon’s office. “Ms. Pierce, this is Michelle at Doctor Rambo Burns’ office. I am calling about the cancellation of your procedure. We would like to reschedule your surgery and, of course, your pre-op visit, but if you are not ready to do that yet, we could give you a referral to a counselor who understands the issues you are facing, who has experience helping people with the anxiety and fear generated by facial reconstruction. Just give us a call at your earliest convenience and let us know how we can help you.”

  Lucinda slammed down the receiver. “Damn you,” she shouted at the telephone. Chester ran for cover. “Damn you. Damn you. Damn you. I am not afraid. I am not anxious. I am busy. Busy. Busy. Busy. Counselor? What do you have? Shit for brains? I told you I was busy. I told you I had an active homicide investigation. Damn you!”

  No matter how she raved, she knew she raged because Michelle had happened upon the truth – the truth of the fear she denied to everyone, the nervous apprehension she tried to deny to herself. But it was real, no matter how hard she tried to repress it.

  She knew plastic surgery was part science, part art. She trusted the technical side that required knowledge and skill sets. She knew Rambo possessed both in abundance. The artistic part of the process, however, terrified her. In attempting to restore her looks, to make the damaged side look like the natural side, the smallest mistake or even a glitch in the healing process could make her face look even worse than it did now. A mirthless chuckle rocked Lucinda. Yeah, right. As if that’s possible.

  Mumbling, she walked away from the phone and into the kitchen. She pulled out cheese, bread, lunch meat and condiments to fix a sandwich for dinner. The sounds and smells of food preparation lured Chester out of hiding. He waited at Lucinda’s feet for a tidbit.

  She usually obliged but tonight her thoughts were too dark to notice Chester’s discreet begging. Did I really cancel because I was busy? Or because I was afraid of the procedure? Or is it deeper than that? Am I still struggling with survivor’s guilt all these years after my mother’s death? I thought I’d dealt with that. But have I really? She chastised herself for worrying about herself at a time like this – she had a homicide case on her hands and it required all of her attention.

  She took two bites out of her sandwich and abandoned it on the kitchen counter. Pulling out her notes on the investigation, she sat sideways on the sofa with her legs up and knees bent, the Fleming file balanced against her thighs. She went through page after page, searching for something she might have missed. Anything she could have misinterpreted. But every time her thoughts stalled on the question of the perpetrator, her mind drifted over to the lip reconstruction surgery now on hold.

  She slept fitfully that night, waking up several times with non-productive thoughts about the investigation or the procedure. But when her eyes popped open just after five a.m., she was thinking about the board of directors of Communities in Schools, Shari Fleming’s employers, and she knew exactly what to do next. She dressed quickly and headed into her office.

  At her desk, she dug through her inbox and found the Board of Directors list she had requested. To her delight, it was right there as promised. She whispered “Thank you” into the empty room but knew she’d have to do more to express her gratitude to the research and documentation staff just as soon as she closed this case. She scanned over the list, noticing a few familiar names of people who were notably active in the community. It was too early to start stopping by homes – well, she could, but she was certain they’d be more cooperative if she didn’t wake them up at an unsociable hour on a Saturday morning.

  While she waited for a more reasonable time to come around, she checked each director for a criminal record. She found a few minor traffic violations but nothing more. No surprise there. Uncovering a violent felon on the board would be nice, but the odds were stacked against that.

  She took out a city map, plotted the different addresses of the directors and planned the order of each visit. When she finished that up, she remembered that she hadn’t returned Charley’s call, grabbed the phone and dialed the Spencers’ number. When Charley’s father answered, Lucinda said, “Hi Evan! I was thinking about taking Charley out this evening, would that work for you?”

  “Sure would,” he said. “In fact, you could do me a big favor.”

  “What’s that?” Lucinda asked.

  “She really wants to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and I really don’t want to sit through another couple of hours watching Johnny Depp reprise his hero pirate role.”

  “Johnny Depp is kinda cute and appealing in an offbeat way.”

  “Doesn’t do a thing for me, Lucinda. Now, you, on the other hand . . .”

  Lucinda cut him off. “Later, Evan. I’ve got to run – duty calls. Tell Charley I’ll pick her up around six or so tonight.”

  Lucinda didn’t know much about the politics of boards but instinctively knew the wisdom of putting the board president at the top of her list. Thomas Klein was upper management for the regional telephone company and he lived in a suitably large and ostentatious home in a gated community. She disliked him from the moment she saw his up-tilted, puggish nose. She found him annoying from his first words. He tilted up his chin, looked down at her chest and said, “And what do you want?”

  Lucinda tried to get him to look her in the eye throughout the interview but she could never get him to look at her face at all. It was even more irritating than the stares and rude questions she got from others. None of that would have mattered, though, if he had given any useful information at all, but he was exceedingly unhelpful.

  Like a politician, he never answered any of her questions; he just used each one as a springboard to talk about what mattered to him. He complained of hearing about Shari’s death on the news – somehow, he took that oversight as a personal insult – and he worried about the impact of the murder on donor dollars. He did not, however, express any concern about the grief of the new widower or the emotional impact of the crime on staff of the organization he represented, even when Lucinda gave him the opportunity. All he wanted to talk about was his inconvenience, his embarrassment and the difficulty of maintaining his image when his position forced him to become involved in what he called “a sordid mess.”

  Lucinda walked out of Klein’s front door shaking her head. Did he avoid my questions simply because he’s an egocentric asshole? Or was he evasive because he has something to hide? When she reached the car, she wrote Thomas Klein’s name on her list of suspects. She laughed at herself. Suspects? Not hardly. All I’ve got are one missing employee of the school district a
nd two people I can’t eliminate – whose worst crime is probably habitual obnoxiousness which, unfortunately, is not a felony.

  Nineteen

  By geographical serendipity, the next four board directors were all men. Although each one of them could account for their whereabouts at the time of the murder, not one had any useful information to impart. Unlike Klein, however, they showed appropriate empathy for the victim’s family and staff. The five she interviewed that morning along with Superintendent Irving were all of the men in the group and only the first one was at all suspicious. Next up: the three women on the board.

  Lucinda pulled up to the home of Estelle Castro. White strands streaked through once pitch-black hair and a warm smile beamed from a kind face. When Lucinda introduced herself and displayed her badge, Estelle’s cafe-au-lait complexion turned ashen gray.

  Estelle would not answer any of Lucinda’s questions before she asked some of her own. “How is Conrad Fleming holding up?” “Have you talked with her staff?” “How are they?” “What about the people at the school district? Are they traumatized?” “Have counselors been provided?”

  Lucinda realized that Estelle wouldn’t be able to concentrate until her concerns were addressed so she responded to the flurry as best she could. Then she managed to steer Estelle back to the reasons for her visit. Estelle readily admitted that she didn’t have an alibi – her husband had been out of town on a business trip, leaving her home alone.

  “Did anyone drop by that night?” Lucinda asked.

  “Not a soul.”

  “Any phone calls?”

  “I had several,” Estelle said. “But I couldn’t even estimate when I talked to anyone without checking around with them. Except for the first call that night,” Estelle said with a nod. “Oh yeah, that one was a bit different. I couldn’t forget that. It came in right around six fifteen.”

  “Why does that call stand out?”

  “It was Monica Theismann. I thought her brother the attorney was a pain. But that woman! All she ever wants to do is stir up trouble and tear people down.”

  “Why was she calling you, Ms. Castro?”

  “She thought, as a board member, I should be aware of the immoral conduct of my Executive Director.”

  “Immoral conduct?”

  “She said that Shari Fleming was having an affair with Robert Irving. Preposterous. I hung up on her.”

  “Why were you so certain that it wasn’t true?”

  “I’ve known the Irvings forever – Trudy better than Robert. I knew the background of Monica’s infatuation with Robert. Trudy and I had talked about it before – rather cattily, I must admit. Trudy and I thought Monica was a joke.”

  Very interesting, Lucinda thought. The same night of the murder, Monica was attacking Shari Fleming’s reputation. Maybe there is a possibility there.

  Estelle continued. “I got a couple of calls from friends, one from another non-profit organization looking for donations, volunteers and potential new board members. Then the last call I got was from my daughter out in Texas. I’m not sure when she called but it was late enough that she apologized for calling at that time.”

  Estelle promised to provide her with phone numbers for all her callers that night. She moved to the highly improbable list in Lucinda’s mind.

  “How well did you know Shari Fleming?” Lucinda asked.

  “Not well at all, really.”

  “Really?”

  “You’ve got to understand a little about the organization. Sure, I knew Shari by reputation and how she conducted herself in meetings. But personally, no. Over the three years I’ve spent on the board, I have seen her only at board meetings and events. She was pleasant, competent, knowledgeable and obviously committed to the work. But we never chatted together at all. Have you talked to any other board members?”

  Lucinda rattled off the list of the six men.

  Estelle laughed. “Oh, the Boys’ Club. I’m sure they all gave you the impression that without their individual presence on the board, the organization would disintegrate – some probably were less subtle about their importance than others. But the bottom line is that all of us could disappear overnight and there wouldn’t be a single ripple effect on the program.” A shadow passed over Estelle’s face. “Well, anyway, we could have as long as we had Shari.” She sat quietly for a moment with her eyes closed.

  “The board members serve a maximum of two three-year terms. That means the most long-standing director has been involved for six years – less than half the time of Shari. She’s the founding executive director and has total control of the program. All we do is come to monthly board meetings and fundraising events.

  “Sure, we take our fiduciary responsibilities seriously. We review the financial reports and audits, ask the appropriate questions and make minor suggestions. Make sure that Shari had everything she needed to keep working her magic. To keep the funding rolling in, we make annual major contributor calls, but considering most of those folks are former members of the board it isn’t exactly a hard job. In fact, I’ve served on several boards throughout the years and this one is no work at all in comparison. We just sit back and bask in Shari’s success.

  “We have absolutely nothing to do with the day-to-day operations. We never visit the schools or talk to the other staff members unless Shari brings them to a board meeting to make a presentation or get an award. Except for the board president. He does visit the different locations but he doesn’t really do anything. He just struts around making a nuisance of himself and acting important.”

  “What do you mean “making a nuisance of himself”?”

  Estelle grimaced. “That would be violating a confidence.”

  Lucinda stared at her.

  Estelle squirmed. “Well, it’s third-hand information, anyway.”

  Lucinda did not move or make a noise.

  Estelle sighed. “Okay. But I was told this by Trudy. She heard it from her husband. Shari had gone to the superintendent for advice about her concerns.”

  “What concerns, Ms Castro?”

  “Tom Klein, the president of the board, was hitting on some of the younger social workers on Shari’s staff. A couple of the women went to Shari about it because Klein made them worry that if they didn’t give him what he wanted, they might lose their jobs.”

  “What did the superintendent tell her to do?”

  “Trudy said that he told Shari to confront Klein and give him a copy of the organization’s policy on sexual harassment. He said she should make it clear to him that he would modify his behavior or she’d tell the entire board about it. And the superintendent told her that if necessary, he’d help her make that happen.”

  “Do you know what Shari did?”

  “She thought about it for a few days because she was worried about being fired – Klein was her boss, after all. But then she told the superintendent that she’d thought about it and was ready to face off with him.”

  “Had she done it?”

  “I don’t know. Trudy doesn’t know. She said the superintendent didn’t know. He was just aware that she planned to confront him sometime this past week.”

  Wonder why Irving didn’t share that piece of information with me? And why didn’t his wife? To Estelle, Lucinda said, “Thank you very much, Ms Castro.” Handing her a card, she added, “Please call me if you think of anything else.”

  Lucinda learned nothing new from the interviews with the two remaining women on the board. They did corroborate major pieces of Estelle’s story and shared her scornful opinion of Thomas Klein, but for entirely different reasons. They knew nothing about the suspicions of sexual harassment. But three people did, Lucinda thought. I can understand why Klein never brought it up. But why didn’t either of the Irvings? Was there a reason they concealed it from me?

  Twenty

  Lucinda had time to do little more than dash by the apartment to feed Chester and then head downriver to the Spencers’ loft. Evan opened the door when she rang th
e bell, then he yelled down the hall, “Charley! Lucinda’s here!”

  “Hurry up, girlfriend,” Lucinda chimed in. “We want to have time to grab a bite to eat before the movie starts.”

  “Oh, no hurry,” Charley said with a giggle. “I can fill up on popcorn and candy at the movies.”

  “Yeah, right, kiddo,” Lucinda responded.

  Evan put a hand on Lucinda’s arm. “Lucinda?” he said in a voice tone more tender than she wanted to hear. Oh please, Evan, don’t go there. She was relieved when Charley chose that moment to gallop into the living room and save her from having to push Evan away.

  A tri-corner hat was perched on top of Charley’s head. Her face wore a big grin and Lucinda’s old eye patch. “Aye, me hearties,” she said.

  Lucinda and Evan burst out laughing at the little girl’s pirate impersonation and the tension that filled the room just a moment earlier disappeared as they shared the pleasant moment together.

  In the car, Charley bubbled over with excitement about seeing the movie then moved on to how happy she was to see Lucinda. “I knew you were busy trying to catch bad guys but I still missed you a lot.”

  “I missed you, too, sweetie.”

  “But, Lucy, I thought you’d be in the hospital this weekend.”

  “The hospital?”

  “Yeah, on account of your surgery was supposed to be yesterday.”

  “How did you remember that?”

  “You told me, Lucy.”

  “But that was weeks ago.”

  “I wrote it on my calendar so I wouldn’t forget. How come you’re not in the hospital?”

  “I had to change that, Charley.”

  “Why, Lucy? Were you scared?”

  “No, no.” Lucinda shook her head. “I’m just really busy and couldn’t get away.”