A Memory of Murder

by Nichelle Seely

  My count reaches twenty when she says, “I’m listening.”

  “Okay, well — I heard that Daniel Chandler was killed with blunt force trauma. The thing is, I’d like to get access to the crime scene, see if I can remember anything that could be used as a weapon that’s now missing.”

  I can hear her breathing on the line.

  “Unless you’ve got the weapon already, in which case…” I let that trail off.

  Another long pause. “We don’t have the weapon.”

  “Any idea what it might be?”

  She sighs, long and gustily. “Something narrow, cylindrical. But there’s also some wounds with anomalous shapes.”

  “All right, let me see if I can help you.”

  “Steve pulled you out of the scene once already. Unauthorized entrance. Why do you want to get back there? What’s the real reason?”

  “I was trying to do the same thing, see if something was different from how I remembered it before.”

  “You said you didn’t see anything wrong.”

  “Olafson yanked me out before I could get a proper look. And I didn’t have something to look for specifically. Now I know something about the weapon.”

  Yet another long pause. I wait her out, walking in circles. I hear background office noises. A man laughs, a phone rings, someone answers it.

  Finally, she says, “You’ll contaminate the scene.”

  “I won’t. I’ve already been there — once more won’t make any difference. Your techs have been there, haven’t they? What have you got to lose?”

  “My job, for one.”

  “But if I can give you something to help, it might go a long way to solving the crime. You could look for the weapon.”

  Silence. I count to thirty-seven.

  The detective sighs. “All right. I’ll meet you there. And don’t make me regret this. Or you will too, I swear it.”

  Candide arrives shortly, parking her SUV carefully in one of the many spaces on the sea of empty asphalt. Silently, she leads me around the back of the building, to what was once the loading dock. We’re on the scraggy edge of Youngs Bay. Cormorants float in the spaces between the broken pilings. The black birds perch on the tops, wings spread to dry after an afternoon of diving for fish. An occasional tuft of grass sprouts from the rocks along the shore, and the thorny curl of blackberry brambles twines from the undergrowth. I’m struck by the sheer verdancy of even the waste spaces. Every cranny is filled with moss or lichen or dandelions, sometimes all three.

  Candide gives me some gloves and opens the door, keys jingling. “Don’t touch anything. Don’t run off. Don’t pick anything up.”

  “I know how to manage a crime scene. Plus, I already touched things when I was here on Saturday. You’ve got my prints on file.”

  We make our way through the maze of halls to Daniel’s office. The room is much as I had last seen it. Fingerprinting dust is everywhere, and to my surprise, the papers and computer and books are still all present.

  “Aren’t you guys going to analyze the computer?” I can’t believe they haven’t taken the electronics into evidence. Not only does it likely contain pertinent information, it has intrinsic value. Someone might steal it.

  “We don’t have all the resources you had in Denver. Gotta wait for a forensic team from the State Police to help us out, and they’ve been tied up with a shooting at one of the parks.”

  “Aren’t you originally from Portland?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, don’t you have some pull? Can’t you get some CSI guys from your old home county? Favor for an old friend, that kind of thing?”

  “I don’t have those kinds of relationships.”

  She must have left some bad blood behind her. But I’m one to talk. “Candide, it’s been over three days since the crime.”

  She glares. “Leave it, Audrey. It’s not my call. Or yours.”

  “Okay, okay.” It’s not okay, but whatever. She’s right. It’s not my call.

  “Well? Any weapon ideas?”

  “Let me just look, all right? I need a few minutes to stand here and remember, and then see what’s different.” I walk over behind the desk. Close my eyes. I want to sit down but I know Jane won’t like that. I understand — preserve the scene, especially if the forensic guys haven’t been here yet.

  Plus, there’s blood in the chair.

  I don’t know what I’m doing, and having Jane hovering in the background is distracting. The memory of the office, and what I’d seen while talking to Daniel previously, are vague and unformed. I’d been concentrating on him, and not on the surroundings. The images that come to mind are hazy, and I don’t know if they’re more my imagination than not.

  I count backwards slowly, trying to simply let it happen. Slowly, the pressure of the chair forms behind me. The feeling of plastic under my fingers, the click of keys. Papers, slightly haphazard, on the desk. I glance at the clock: just after midnight.

  It’s not the same as my experience on the beach. This vision is less immersive. I’m aware of Jane’s presence, of the blood. I screw my eyes shut. Clock at five past twelve. Fluorescent light. Hot and stuffy room. The doorknob turns, creaks open. Is it who I’ve been expecting? A tall figure. A man. It looks like Eric North — but is that because I want to see him? And he’s carrying something in his right hand. But I don’t feel the same sense of menace that I felt with Victoria, the invasive unwelcome awareness of danger.

  I’m afraid I’m making it all up in my head. Flowers said sometimes people do just that.

  I think you’re pulling it out of your backside.

  Ignoring Zoe’s interjection, I open my eyes and look around, back to my detective brain and Jane’s toe-tapping impatience. The desire to find something amiss, something that will justify getting her to break procedure, is strong, but there’s nothing.

  I close my eyes again, letting the image of Eric coalesce, focus on what he’s carrying. This time it seems like a narrow cylinder of some kind, hanging down from his hand. But he isn’t holding it like a pipe. I try to get a clearer image, but the object changes to a paintbrush, and then to a beer bottle. His face flickers to that of Jason Morganstern before reverting back to the artist.

  Okay, I have to stop. There’s too much chance of my imagining things. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Just exercising my super-power to solve crimes like Wonder Woman. I rub my eyes and blink the room back into focus.

  “Sorry, detective, I’m not remembering anything. I don’t recall seeing anything like what you’ve described. It was all papers and files and stuff. My guess is that the perp brought whatever it was with him. I wish I could hand it to you on a platter, especially after you’ve taken the trouble to bring me here. But I can’t, and I don’t want to give you a false lead.”

  My honesty could elicit a couple of different reactions, but it succeeds in disarming the detective. She sighs and runs a gloved hand through her hair, then grimaces because she’s just possibly shed a few fibers into the forensic traces in the room. “I didn’t think it would work, anyway. Too much to hope for.” She gestures for me to precede her out the door.

  To offer a carrot, I say, “You might want to check into the church finances. Chandler told me he had sold some of the artwork to pay bills.”

  “We’ll do that anyway. Money is usually right up there in the top tier of motives for murder.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “We’ve got our eyes on some possible perps.”

  “How, when you haven’t even processed the crime scene?”

  “Don’t start. Forensics aren’t everything. Means, motive, opportunity — those things are telling, too.”

  “Any tie to Harkness’s death?”

  “That’s been ruled accidental.”

  “And do you believe that?”

  The detective doesn’t reply. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say. Candide closes the office door and ostentatiously makes a big X over the portal
with yellow crime scene tape.

  “Listen,” I say. “Thanks for this. If I come up with anything I’ll let you know, okay?”

  She nods, but also frowns. “You should do that anyway, as part of your civic duty. Anything else is concealment. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.” Then something insinuates itself into my awareness. “Hey, Detective. Do you smell smoke?”

  Jane and I look at each other. The acrid scent of smoke has already filled the narrow hallways of the admin suite. A thin haze hangs near the ceiling, making the overhead lighting yellow and wan.

  I cough. “What’s burning?”

  I have my answer when we burst into the fellowship hall. Someone has thrown flaming bundles of rags, soaked with accelerant, in through a broken window. The foam-filled chairs and sofas have gone up like the devil himself is sitting on them. Palls of black and stinking smoke swirl around the hanging lights.

  “Come on!” I yell. “Out the back way.”

  “The computer! We need to analyze it! If we lose it, we lose everything.”

  “Don’t be stupid!”

  But Detective Candide has already run back into the warren where Chandler’s office is.

  “Goddamn it!” I cough again, deep hacks that wrench my chest. Already the heat is stifling.

  Let her go. She made her choice.

  Reflexively, I push Zoe out of my mind. “Detective! Come back!” Cursing, I make my way back towards the office, expecting to meet her in the hallway. But it isn’t until I stumble through the ragged ends of yellow tape and into Daniel’s office that I find her, yanking plugs and cords from the box of the CPU.

  Both of us are coughing like last-stage emphysema patients.

  “Get the flash drives!” yells Candide, as she bundles the computer into her arms.

  “There’s no time!”

  “Get them! It’s evidence!”

  Rather than argue, I scoop the memory sticks into my pockets from where they lay on the desk. “Now, come on!”

  We stumble into the hallway. The heat from the fellowship hall has increased, and smoke billows above our heads. I bend double, following Jane with her awkward load.

  The fellowship hall has filled with smoke and an acrid chemical smell. Plastic chairs and tables warp and twist. The carpet smolders, and flowers of flame bloom from the nap. Pictures form squares of heat and light on the walls. My eyes water and burn.

  Jane yells, “We need to get out!”

  No shit, Sherlock. What was your first clue?

  I push Jane ahead of me, toward the back exit. Where the hell is the fire department?

  Then she trips, and falls face down. The computer flies from her arms and crashes on the floor, the box breaking open.

  “Leave it!” I shout. “We have to get out!” The carpet is in flames, with streamers of fire licking towards us. I can scarcely breathe.

  “No!” She fumbles for the hard drive amid the broken components.

  The heat makes a twisting, searing tentacle that wraps around us both. I grab Jane’s collar, and pull her away from the computer and towards the exit. I hit the crash bar and feel her weight against my back as she careens into me. Then we’re both outside, filling our lungs with sweet damp air that feels like a gift from the gods.

  Candide stumbles past me to her car. She grabs the mic and chokes out an emergency call. I can hear the calm voice of the dispatcher as the detective requests fire trucks. Someone else has already called, because the sirens split the air while she is still talking. I bend over, hands on my knees, coughing and sucking oxygen deep into my lungs, coughing again. Behind me, the Church of the Spirit continues to burn.

  The back alley is too hot to bear, and we run around to the front. I am shocked at the extent of billowing flame. Sheltering my eyes, blinking back tears, I can barely make out individual piles of material set at discrete intervals along the base of the building. I try to take pictures with my phone, zooming in through clouds of smoke and quivering heat waves. The heat is like a breath from hell, and I retreat back to the edge of the parking lot. Candide joins me. Her face is red and ash sprinkles her hair.

  “Audrey, are you all right?”

  “Yes. You?”

  She nods.

  “It’s arson, Detective. Look.” I point out the flaming piles, now almost gone.

  After the pumper trucks arrive, Jane and I just watch the building consume itself. Those big interior open spaces fan the flame like a wind tunnel, and the water jets take care of what’s left.

  No pictures. No papers. No files. Nothing.

  So. Now what?

  I think I know who killed Victoria Harkness. I don’t know who killed Daniel Chandler. I don’t know if the image of Eric North was cosmic residue or overactive imagination. If I were still a cop, I would get some backup and go over to see North and try to rattle his composure. See what shakes loose. But I’m not a cop anymore. And what’s worse, I’m not used to not being a cop. I’m not used to playing a completely lone hand. And being almost burned alive has given me pause. As it is no doubt meant to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  WHEN I GO downstairs the next morning, the first thing I smell is smoke. My jacket is hanging in the basement to air out — even after a whole night, I can smell it. Now that I’m safe, the thought of that fire gives me the shakes. I’d like to think whoever did it thought the building was empty, but that doesn’t pass muster. Our cars were in the parking lot. Either we were the targets or acceptable collateral damage. Either way, the killer has escalated his behavior. I’ve got to tie up all the loose ends, get proof positive. Before someone else pays the price.

  Might be you next time, Lake.

  Thanks for the reminder.

  Because it’s always the innocent who get hurt, isn’t it?

  Yes. The innocent. Like the body on the mattress. I still can’t look directly at it. Instead, I see it darkly, through a distorted funhouse mirror; fuzzily, through a layer of distorting gauze; distantly, through the wrong end of a telescope.

  I feel the ringing begin, the high pitched tone, and I shake myself. I can push the image away, but I can’t focus on anything else. It lurks behind my every thought like a half-seen stalker in the woods.

  Maybe that’s why, despite the pressure of the investigation, I stay in my house all morning and into the afternoon. It’s not fear. Or anxiety. It’s not. I’m giving my subconscious the time to process and collate, and come up with a solution for what to do next. I don’t want to be distracted, which is why I ignore Phoebe’s phone calls.

  The scanner app on my phone is playing non-stop, a curtain of white noise, and between bouts of static I hear about loose dogs, an argument on a downtown street corner that becomes a fistfight, complaints about noisy neighbors. And then I hear an arrest go down. It isn’t that explicit, but I know the codes and can read the intent contained in terse bursts of dialogue. Backup units called to aid in apprehending a dangerous suspect. My anxiety spikes. I get a hollow feeling in my belly. The address is one I recognize. Because I was just there.

  Claire Chandler has been taken into custody. And my brain snaps back into focus.

  Within hours the Church of the Spirit social media page is crawling with speculation. All comments are couched in appropriate rhetoric, offering prayers and thoughts, but everyone has an opinion. The majority agree her motivation is supposed to be revenge for his philandering.

  I guess Daniel’s secret life isn’t so secret after all. Astoria is a small town, and there’s no one like your neighbors for rooting out the dirt.

  Honestly, I’m reeling. Claire, guilty? I just didn’t get a resentful, good-riddance vibe from her, when she told me about her husband’s death. She didn’t say anything about his ‘getting what he deserved’ or ‘well, at least I have the life insurance.’ Although she was angry and hurt because of his cheating, she’d known about it for years. So why kill him now? And what about Harkness’s murder? I had half-assumed both killings wou
ld have the same perpetrator. But the M.O.’s are different: forced drowning versus bludgeoning with a blunt object.

  I pace around my house for what seems like ages. The lack of furniture enables me to cover a lot of distance without tripping over anything. Bonus.

  The police couldn’t have arrested Claire without evidence for the warrant, so there must be something. Strong circumstantial evidence, plus the statistical likelihood that the surviving spouse is the guilty party. Depends on how stringent the judge is.

  I don’t believe that Claire is guilty. But. Is it just because I know her, and don’t want to think of her that way? Anyone can be a killer, given the right provocation. But a murderer? No. Murder demands a certain detachment, a certain coldness, a certain level of ego. Or desperation.

  But. My beliefs don’t mean anything. What’s needed is evidence. And I don’t have any. Not yet.

  I go down to my incident room. Stare at the collage of photos, strings, and notes. Who among my suspects had connections to Daniel? Jason Morganstern: I remember how Daniel treated him at the vigil, Morganstern’s flash of belligerence and anger. My own evaluation of ‘no love lost.’ Next, Eric North: he gave a picture to the church, but his relationship with the bookkeeper was minimal. There is a connection between Jason and Eric, though. A successful artist mentoring a beginner.

  Could they both be involved? That might explain the difference between the two killings.

  Or am I completely wrong, and Claire has been guilty all along?

  First, I go to Jason Morganstern’s place of work. The sound of welding and metal banging on metal echoes throughout the warehouse. Shouts. Ribald jokes. Smell of diesel and heat.

  “Morganstern’s not here,” says the foreman.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “Let go.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “What for?”

  The foreman looks around, shifts a toothpick in his mouth from one corner to the other. “Stealing. I heard.” He shrugs.