Ink, Red, Dead (A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery)

by Slan, Joanna Campbell

  “Then the fur flew,” I finished the story for him and dried my hands as the kitchen timer sounded. “Oops, time for Martin’s ten o’clock feeding.”

  Detweiler shook his head. “Do you seriously expect to get up again at two? And then six? How will you function at work?”

  “I have no idea.” I marched past him to where Martin sat mewed in his cardboard cat carrier. “My big concern is getting him to poop. I’m supposed to dampen a cotton swab and rub his kitty bits until he feels the urge.”

  Detweiler doubled over laughing. “Kitty bits? Cotton balls?”

  “Ha, ha, ha. When you are old and having trouble pooping don’t come crying to me, buddy.”

  He gave me a sad smile and said, “I hope to be old and crying to you. There’s nothing I’d rather do than grow old together.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Well, I can think of something…one thing….”

  I cleared my throat and offered him a glass of iced tea.

  Detweiler left an hour later to go over files on his cold case. I didn’t know much about that project other than it was gruesome stuff. When I’d asked him about it, he said, “You don’t need to know. Part of my job is to make sure that innocents like you never know about the monsters who walk among us.”

  “You won’t tell me anything?”

  “I can tell you the basics. What’s been reported in the news. For ten years now women have been disappearing all around St. Louis County. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern. Often they’d gone out to eat or to a movie or to the mall or shopping. Their cars are found empty. Their purses are there, untouched. There’s no sign of a struggle.”

  “That means they went with someone willingly.”

  “Yes. Or they were overpowered so quickly, they couldn’t fight.”

  “But if they were overpowered, that would more than likely have happened outside of their cars.”

  “Yes.”

  “Their purses would probably be missing, too, since most of us wear purses over our shoulders.”

  “Right.”

  “Anything else the same?”

  “They were all between the ages of thirty and fifty. All had dark hair. None of their bodies have turned up.”

  “What color hair did Sandra Newcomber have?”

  “Dark.”

  “You’re thinking another woman lured them into a car? Marla Lever? She had an accomplice?”

  “I don’t know. Be careful, Kiki,” he said.“Never park next to a van with a sliding door. Always stay aware of your surroundings. Have your keys ready when you go to your car. Get in, lock the door immediately, and then fuss with your seatbelt.”

  “You really think Marla Lever was involved in this?” I looked up into those amazing Heineken bottle green eyes of his and saw doubt. “You don’t, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t, but I could be wrong. She’s still unconscious. When she comes to, if she comes to, she’ll have to go through rehab. Who knows how long it might take for her to respond to our questions? If she ever does.”

  “She couldn’t have done all that herself. How would she have shoved a body into her freezer? I mean, you didn’t say how big Sandra Newcomber was, but Marla couldn’t weigh more than 140. Her arms were flabby. It wasn’t like she worked out and could bench press her body weight!”

  “I know. It could be done, but it doesn’t seem likely, does it? Again, she could have had an accomplice. She wouldn’t be the first to pair with a man. Or even another woman. History is full of killing duos. Usually the dominant personality persuades the weaker one to join in.”

  I nodded. “I guess. I mean, she just seemed to me like a harmless cat lover gone cuckoo for coconuts.”

  “I hope that’s all she is. Because if she is part of a murderous twosome…”

  “The other half is still out there.”

  Chapter 17

  Rebekkah strolled in late, but the sullen look on her face changed to excitement when she saw Martin. In fact, she volunteered to take a turn feeding and stimulating him. Taking advantage of her good mood, I edged toward an important conversation. “Look, you and I have always gotten along. I’d like to go back to that sort of relationship. I know you aren’t happy. Is there anything I can do to make things better for you?”

  I held my breath and waited. Either she would recognize and respond to my sincerity or she’d get huffy, and we’d have a miserable day. For the longest time, she didn’t answer. Then, when I’d almost concluded she wasn’t speaking to me, she glanced up from Martin who was cuddled against her chest and purring. Her eyes, hazel like Dodie’s, filled with tears and her voice quivered. “I’m such a screw up. I should have never left Missou. But I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to waste more of my parents’ money. I hate working here in the store. I hate it! I’m not good at crafts. I never have been, and it makes me angry how stupid I look when I can’t do stuff.”

  With that, she dissolved into tears. I ran to the bathroom, brought her a box of tissues, ran to the refrigerator and brought her a Diet Coke. “We’re two savvy people. We could brainstorm ideas, right? I mean, if you could do anything—anything at all—and you knew you couldn’t fail, what would that be?”

  “I dunno.” She sniffled.

  “You can do better than that.”

  “I like helping people. Not with crafts. Talking to them.”

  “Tell me the last time you lost track of everything because what you were doing was so intriguing.”

  “My sorority volunteered to help out at Big Sisters. I worked with a little girl to help her with her reading. That was totally awesome.”

  From there we brainstormed ways Rebekkah could get involved in charity work. That led us to her considering the field of social work. Next I helped her list a few agencies whose directors I’d met through scrapbooking. “Why don’t you go on an informational interview with them? Use my name.”

  “What’s an informational interview?” she asked.

  It’s easy to forget how young someone is. Or what we know. We all take our body of knowledge for granted as if those facts and skills came with our genetic code. Of course, they didn’t. We acquired the information one piece at a time from this source and that, from this experience and that overheard conversation, from watching other people struggle and succeed, or sometimes watching others fail.

  I explained that she could ask her interviewees what they studied in college, what skills they use in their jobs, what skills they wish they had, what a typical day was like, and what challenges they foresee coming down the pike for their industries or associations.

  Rebekkah nodded. “That makes sense. I could also ask them what they look for in a new hire.”

  “Right, and remember, there are always changes on the horizon. A college education is a degree in learning, not an end-all and be-all. But I can tell you as someone who dropped out of school, I regret not having that degree every day of my life.”

  “Why? You do pretty well for yourself. You aren’t making the money a doctor or lawyer might, but I guess there are plenty of unemployed English majors. At least that’s what Garrison Keillor says.”

  “With a degree, you’ll earn $1.3 million more in your lifetime. Four years isn’t that big of an investment of time, and certainly the cost pays for itself. Besides that, a college degree gives a person confidence. When I was a kid, a high school diploma was the standard. Now it’s that four-year degree. While in some ways I know it’s silly, I look around when I’m at a gathering, and I think I’m probably the only person there who is uneducated. That puts a real crimp in my self-esteem. Let’s not debate whether it should or not. Just trust me on this.”

  Chapter 18

  After Rebekkah called around and scheduled interviews, I took a few minutes to collect Marla Lever’s photos and scrapbook materials. To keep materials straight for the “My Life Highlights” class I’d been teaching, I needed some sort of storage system. Eventually I hit on the idea of using empty
pizza boxes labeled with the name of each scrapbooker on the end. I stacked these containers in alphabetical order. Each box served as a miniature storage locker, holding photos, journals, paper supplies and ephemera the scrapper planned to put in an album.

  Marla’s photos were pretty much as I remembered them. I studied the subjects and their spatial positions, a clue to people’s relationships. Marla’s husband always stood to the far outside edge of any photo, his body not touching hers or anyone else’s. Marla appeared with her arms draped over her children’s shoulders. Ali and her brother Allen stood side-by-side, their faces nearly identical, with only their hairstyles making them distinctive.

  They were twins, and they took after their mother. I hadn’t realized that.

  The other little Lever was the image of his dad, from his pointed nose to his round face and protruding ears. Tommy Lever stood on one foot, off-balance, posed mid-motion, his outline a bit blurred as if he hadn’t been completely still when the picture was snapped.

  Each scrapbooker had been encouraged to keep a journal for at least a month. From this, she would cull one day and build a page called “A Day in My Life.” I pointed out that our lives change gradually, and we don’t notice what we’re no longer doing or what our new habits are. But when you compare a day today to a day ten years ago, you can see how your life has evolved.

  Marla hadn’t finished her “A Day in My Life” page. Her pizza box labeled Marla Lever #1 held the paper I’d chosen for the class, along with the embellishments we were working on, and of course, her photos. I flipped through her journal. Quick notes had been scribbled on the pages. A few were too poorly scrawled for me to decipher.

  She started diligently to write about her routine, getting up in the morning and continuing through her daily activities that included making the rounds of several spots known for good trash. On Thursdays she wrote “Devon-lawn,” which I assumed meant her son-in-law was supposed to do her lawn work.

  One of the suggestions I had for the class was this: “Locate your personal calendar or even your checkbook register for the past year. Those entries will tell you what you did, who you saw, and so on. If you have blank dates, go back and look at your credit card statement. If you pay by credit card, that not only records your purchase, it also records what you bought. Of course, your buying habits will change as time goes on, but those purchases are clues as to what was happening in your life.”

  Some of my students had trouble coming up with one document or the other. But not Marla. She brought in her calendar from the year before, and calendars for many years back, her check register, and her credit card statements. She even had all her cancelled checks and receipts. Finally, she astonished me by bringing in a stack of papers clearly used as her “to do” lists. In fact, she had so much paper, I’d assigned a second pizza box to Marla to keep it organized.

  Of course, now I knew why she was able to bring in all that junk. Marla’d never seen a piece of paper that she didn’t want to keep!

  Rummaging through the paperwork in Marla Lever #2, I noted a few of the receipts detailed vet visits, going back several decades. Seems she’d owned at least one cat or two maybe even three or four for most of her life. Several notations on her calendars bore the message, “Call Devon—cat food!” Was her son-in-law supplying her with cat food? Did that qualify as aiding and abetting a hoarder? Or was he performing a humanitarian mission? Did his wife know and accept that he was trying to help? Or was that a sore spot in their marriage?

  The alarm chimed on my cell phone. I asked Rebekkah if she’d watch the front of the store while I played Mama Cat to Martin.

  “Can I watch?”

  “Sure. I’ll bring him up front so we’ll be available if a customer drops in.” I stopped and thought a second. “Hey? Could you do me a favor? I’m working with Mert this afternoon over at Marla Lever’s house. Would you take care of Martin for me while I’m gone?”

  “Sure. I’d love to. Anytime you bring Martin in, I’m glad to help. You want me to drop him by your house after work?”

  “Could you? That would be really helpful.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Could you put Anya’s cat, Seymour, in the spare bathroom and close him up before you take Martin in? I don’t want a cat fight on my hands.”

  “No problem. Good thinking. I’ve heard you need to introduce a new pet slowly. They get upset about losing their status just like people do.”

  I bit back a smile at that.

  Rebekkah had gone from sullen to sunny. Life was good.

  Chapter 19

  Back at the Marla Lever’s house, I tied up newspapers and tossed them out the open window. After a half dozen or so bundles piled up, I ran outside and carried them to the recycling bin. Half the living room floor was now clear. When we stopped for our scheduled water break, Laurel pulled out her iPhone and started playing with it. “Got this last week and I love it! I’ve loaded all these cool apps on it. Wait till you see!”

  Mert did a slow survey of our progress. True to her word, she had Johnny video the scene, taking particular care to go through the house slowly and open all the doors and drawers. She diligently kept a careful log of any item that might have value. These things she locked in a trunk in the back of her truck. There wasn’t much of value to record: a VCR, an old camera, a nice pair of binoculars, and a boom box.

  “You go around to the back of the house, Kiki, and start working toward the inside from the back door. That way we’ll have paths into the center of the house from both directions. Maybe we can get air circulating if we clear a space.”

  I didn’t groan but I wanted to. My new location meant I’d be hauling garbage, kitchen waste. Yesterday I’d gotten accustomed to the smells of Marla’s house. Coming back today, the stink hit me anew.

  I finished my water and did as Mert asked. Since Marla didn’t part with much, her kitchen trash can was only half-full. Her refrigerator held a dozen eggs, a package of bologna, a container of moldy cottage cheese, a half a package of Velveeta and a stale loaf of bread. Her refrigerator freezer was packed with more plastic baggies of ground beef. I dumped all this in a black Hefty garbage bag, carried it out to Mert and told her what I’d found.

  “Thanks for letting me know. That meat’ll smell something fierce if I don’t dump that bag quick-like. I’ll take it home. Garbage pickup is tomorrow in my neck of the woods. The rest of this mess can stay in the Dumpster, but this here’ll attract bugs.”

  “More bugs,” I said.

  “More and more and more bugs.”

  In the pantry, I discovered cans of Campbell’s soup in three varieties: tomato, beef with vegetable and chicken noodle. I also found generic rice and ice tea mix. That must have been the mainstay of Marla Lever’s diet. I packed the cans into a box, took it outside, brought in another box, filled it, and stopped. I looked around. The cupboard was bare.

  I opened all the other cabinet doors in the kitchen. Nothing but dishes and glasses and cups.

  In the drying rack sat twenty pet food bowls of different shapes and colors. They’d been neatly washed. An automatic pet watering system sat in the corner of the kitchen. The tank that provided the “automatic” refills was nearly dry, and it bubbled as I shook it.

  Five place mats with “Meow!” and “This house guarded by an attack cat!” formed a line near the watering gizmo.

  Obviously the cats were supposed to eat in shifts. I wasn’t sure how that worked, because I was fairly certain that cats wouldn’t appreciate the importance of standing in line and waiting their turns, but I could have been mistaken. Maybe Marla had them trained.

  What was wrong with this picture?

  I went to find Mert.

  “Got a sec?”

  She nodded impatiently, took off her hood and walked me to the only shady spot, the place under the maple tree. “Welcome to my office. Make it snappy. I got work to do.” Mert ran a hand through her hair. “Ali Timmons stopped by again this morning. She’s
sucking the energy right outta me. I mean, she shows up and cries and carries on and ever’thing comes to a screeching halt.”

  “Sorry about that. I’ll get here early tomorrow. I don’t have to work at the store. Took the day off.”

  Mert rubbed her eyes with a shaking hand. “It ain’t about you. I know you’re giving me what time you can. That Ali Timmons is dancing on my last nerve, that’s all.”

  “Why is she being such a pest?”

  Mert shook her head and stared at the house, then toward the hulking green Dumpster that was nearly full with trash. We’d topped off three of those rolling blue recycling bins.

  “I think it’s about money.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “Pert near. Her hubby is outta work. Has been for some time. Her mom should be paying for this, but Mrs. Timmons will have to go through some sort of legal wrangling to make that happen. And she feels guilty. She knew her mother was hoarding animals again. Even though they weren’t speaking, a family friend had stopped by and seen all the kitties. But what could Ali do? If they’d list hoarding as a mental illness, maybe she coulda had power of attorney or something. The way it is, Ali Timmons and her mother’d go ‘round and ‘round with her mom saying there weren’t all that many cats—and the daughter tearing her hair out.”

  I sympathized. My mother and I didn’t see eye-to-eye about much. There comes a point where you quit trying to find common ground and content yourself with keeping your distance. You revolve around each other like magnets do, with a powerful force field holding each of you at arms’ length, but an equally powerful attraction still there that keeps you from floating away.

  Mert gestured toward a lawn chair. Grabbing us both a bottle of water, she said, “Shoot. What’s on your mind?”

  “Something’s wrong here.”

  Mert snickered so hard water squirted out of her nose. “You think? Let’s see. We got a prime lot in Ladue with a tear-down on it. Tons of junk everywhere. Piles of cat do-do everywhere. More stacks of newspaper than the St. Louis County Library has. A dead woman in the freezer. Other’n that, this is just your everyday, ordinary cleaning job.”