Hex on the Ex

by Rochelle Staab

  “Walter?” Mom repeated my question to him.

  I sunk in my seat, listening to mumbles and fumbles on the other end of the phone—my parents at their chaotic best. “Remind me to teach them how to put a phone on speaker,” I said to Nick as we transitioned to the 134.

  He threw me a doubtful look.

  My father returned on the line. “No fingerprint results yet. No murder weapon. What happened at your meeting with the devil worshiper?”

  “Oh,” Mom said in the background. “Walter, come and sit next to me. I want to hear.”

  I nudged Nick. “You can field this one.”

  “Horus sent us to a collector in Silver Lake, where we found another copy of Schelz’s pamphlet. The collector wouldn’t give us the name of the guy who sold it to him.”

  “Nick thinks the seller will call. I have doubts,” I said.

  “Tell Pratt about the comic store,” Dad said. “Let her convince him to reveal the source.”

  “Like she would take orders from me,” I said. “I’m not talking to her without Oliver.”

  After my parents hung up Nick said, “I’m hungry. How about a burger at Carney’s?”

  “Love it.”

  He exited the 134 at Coldwater Canyon and made a left at Ventura. As we passed the Sportsmen’s Lodge, he pointed through the window at the driveway. “Isn’t that Jarret’s car?”

  Jarret gunned his red convertible sports car out of the hotel parking lot. He sped in the opposite direction, too fast for me to catch more than a glimpse of the dark-haired passenger in the front seat.

  “I wonder why he isn’t at the stadium?” I said. Jarret often joked about not knowing what the world beyond a baseball diamond looked like on summer afternoons.

  “You didn’t hear? They took him out of the lineup. No official statement from the team. The press is calling his absence a forced leave,” Nick said. “Who was the woman with him?”

  “I didn’t see a face. My guess would be a model, a lawyer, or a bartender.”

  “I know you’re angry with him, but if Jarret is innocent the odds are he knows the killer. I don’t trust the guy but he might be of some help.”

  “If we can believe him,” I said. Hell was freezing over if Nick looked to Jarret for answers, but I knew Nick was right—I needed to talk to Jarret again whether I wanted to or not.

  We parked in the lot next to Carney’s, a bright yellow burger-and-hot-dog diner built inside a railroad car off the boulevard. Taking the metal steps to the platform, we went inside, dodging children running up and down the long, narrow aisle. The menu I knew by heart hung above the shoulder-height counter fronting the kitchen.

  Behind the counter, aproned clerks took orders, poured drinks, and loaded hot dog and burger buns with tomatoes and onions, adding squirts of ketchup and mustard, and a ladle of chili. A cook flipped burgers and fried onions on the grill. Another cook manned the deep fryer.

  Tables filled with customers sat along the long skinny row of car windows behind us. Businessmen and women read BlackBerrys or chatted between bites of chiliburgers. Pastel-clad soccer moms broke hot dogs in half for the toddlers in high chairs.

  I ordered a cheeseburger (no bun), and Nick ordered a chilidog and fries. While Nick waited for the food, I took our drinks outside to an empty picnic table on the empty redwood patio. I was hungry and curious. Jarret was tooling around town with some woman? Sounded to me like the perfect time to return his call.

  He picked up on the second ring. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you, Lizzie.”

  “And here I am. This better be good,” I said.

  “I can’t really talk right now.”

  “I can. I’m listening.”

  He lowered his voice. “It’s not a good time. I’m with…a business associate. Will you let me take you to dinner tonight? Alone? I can explain.”

  I reluctantly agreed, aware I might regret the decision. Nick came out of the diner with our food. He set the box on the table and sat beside me with a question on his face, nodding after I mouthed, “Jarret.”

  “What time should I pick you up?” Jarret said.

  “Let’s meet somewhere.”

  “Whatever makes you happy, Lizzie. How about the Daily Grill at seven?”

  “I’ll be there.” I hung up and said to Nick, “I’m having dinner with Jarret.”

  “Great. Ask him who he really thinks killed Laycee. Want me to come along?”

  “Wouldn’t that be fun? No.”

  I ate part of my cheeseburger and a few of Nick’s fries, too distracted to finish. I was foolish to call Jarret, stupid to agree to dinner. Jarret’s apology wouldn’t appease me. I had no idea what questions to ask him. The information we’d gathered so far felt like the mess in the spare drawer in my kitchen—a jumble of mismatched, half facts. What was the point of meeting with Jarret, aside from making him suffer? Well, actually, a little suffering would be good for the louse.

  “Dave didn’t call us back,” Nick said.

  “Another dead end.”

  “Research is a slow process. You have to follow each lead until you hit a wall or discover a turn.” He tossed our garbage into the trash can at the corner of the patio. “Come on, we can call Dave from the car.”

  Nick started the engine and turned the air conditioner on full blast. “Now where to?”

  I had no idea. Maybe we’d already hit the wall. “My house, I guess. Do you mind if we stop at my office on the way so I can go through my mail?”

  He turned east on Ventura then parked in an empty space outside the small complex where I leased an office. Leaving Nick in the car, I entered the courtyard of suites bordered by a row of coral gladiolus and opened the door to my one-room office. A small stack of letters scattered on the floor beneath the mail slot. Junk. Junk. Junk. Phone bill. Bottled water service bill. I tossed the junk, left the bills on my desk to pay on Monday, checked the service for messages, and then locked the door behind me.

  “Dr. Cooper.” Building manager Yuri Ivanov lumbered out of his office in a geometric print shirt and held up a finger for me to stop.

  “Hi, Yuri.” I smiled, curious. The beefy Russian did an excellent job of maintaining the property but rarely chatted with the tenants. “Crazy hot out, isn’t it? I came by to get my mail.”

  He grunted. “A woman detective come here about you today,” he said in his thick accent. “You in trouble? I don’t like trouble.”

  My ears burned. I didn’t have to ask who or why, but I wanted to know what Carla thought she’d accomplish by annoying my landlord. If she sought my attention, she had it.

  “I’m sorry she bothered you.” I cringed with embarrassment. “I’m not in trouble. What did she want?”

  “She show me picture of dark-hair woman and light-hair man. Ask me if they visit you. She want me to tell her if you pay rent on time. When you come to work. Sound like problem to me.”

  “Everything is fine, Yuri. I’ll be back in my office on Monday. I assure you, nothing illegal is going on.”

  Yuri grunted, appearing wary but appeased. We crossed the patio together and he stopped outside his office door. “Rent is due on first.”

  “No problem. Have a nice weekend.”

  I had my phone out before I hit the sidewalk. I dialed Oliver’s secret number and got an automated message. Great. He was probably still in court. “It’s Liz Cooper,” I said at the tone. “Please call me. Carla Pratt phoned, and then went snooping around my office building this afternoon, asking questions. I hope she isn’t bothering my neighbors, too. We need to talk.”

  “She knows you’re stalling her,” Nick said, easing into traffic after I got in and blurted out Yuri’s account of Carla’s visit. “Did you think she’d be polite and wait for you to call?”

  My logical love. “I can’t see her until I have concrete information to get her off my back. Is she trying to manipulate me into a meeting?”

  “I think you already know the answer,” Nick said.

>   We passed the Big Sugar Bakeshop near Vantage Street and I made a mental note to buy Yuri a box of doughnut muffins on Monday morning as a peace offering.

  “Let’s call Dave,” I said.

  We reached him at his office in the Police Administration Building downtown.

  “I talk to you two more than I talk to Robin,” Dave said over the speaker.

  “Robin isn’t avoiding the police,” I said. “Give us some good news and we’ll leave you alone.”

  “I don’t know if you’d call it good, but I have news,” he said. “Herrick Schelz is still incarcerated and he’s not Indiana State Prison’s model citizen. He’s had eight disciplinary actions. There are two names on Schelz’s approved visitor list. Kenneth Rosenfeld—”

  “His trial attorney,” Nick said. “Rosenfeld must be on the long side of seventy by now.”

  “And Margaret Smith, listed as his daughter. She’s been visiting Schelz twice a year since the early nineties. Her last visit happened in January. No visits from a wife or other children.”

  “Schelz’s wife testified against him, no love there,” I said. “If I remember correctly from the article we found, both children were minors at the time of the trial.”

  “Right,” Nick said. “The social worker Schelz murdered came to investigate complaints of child abuse.”

  “The abuse allegation would block the children from visiting Schelz in prison until they became adults,” Dave said.

  I did some quick math. “Which means if Margaret began visiting her father when she turned eighteen, she’s close to our age or older. Did you get any contact info on her?”

  “Curran Road in Bull Valley, Illinois—and I already checked,” Dave said. “The house at that address was destroyed in a fire last December. No forwarding address on the owners or tenants.”

  Chapter Twenty

  As soon as we entered my house, Nick put on his glasses and stood by the living room window, thumbing through e-mails on his phone. I plunked on the couch with Erzulie and opened the GPS app on my smartphone. I typed “Bull Valley, Illinois” at the prompt and hit the “Start” button.

  A map flashed on the screen with a red pin marking the center of Bull Valley. I clicked the pin on the map to request directions. A gasp caught my throat.

  Nick pocketed his phone. “What’s wrong?”

  “You have to see this.” I pointed to the map. “Bull Valley, Illinois, is five miles west of McHenry—Jarret’s hometown.”

  Nick sat beside me and studied the screen. “This means Jarret may have known Schelz’s daughter Margaret. Hell, Jarret could have seen the pamphlet and remembered the symbol.”

  “Twenty years later? Jarret has no interest in the occult.”

  “He’s superstitious.”

  “True,” I said. “But his superstitions are meaningless baseball rituals and good-luck charms. It’s not like he’s some kind of fanatic with an altar to the devil in his stadium locker.” I winced. Nick displayed occult symbols all over his house. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you—”

  “I understand what you meant. I just don’t understand what you’re doing. You seem determined to defend Jarret even though he didn’t mind entangling you in Laycee’s murder. Do you still have feelings for him?”

  “Not in the slightest. But I know Jarret well—murder and devil worship are completely out of character.”

  “Like the man who walked into a beauty shop last year and gunned down his ex-wife and seven other people? His friends and neighbors thought murder was out of character for him, too.”

  “That case was a child custody dispute gone bad,” I said. “Jarret didn’t have a motive to murder Laycee.”

  “How can you be so sure? It’s not up to you to understand his motive or solve the crime, Liz. Jarret put suspicion on you by telling the police you hated Laycee. Meanwhile, I see a viable case building against him. A connection to Schelz’s daughter links him to the symbol.” Nick went to the den and opened my laptop. “Let’s see how many Schelzes and Smiths are listed in the Bull Valley phone book. If I have to, I’ll call each one to find Margaret.”

  “And what will you say to her if you do?”

  “I’ll ask if she knows Jarret. If she does, I’ll notify Eagleton.”

  “I asked Jarret about Herrick Schelz yesterday. He never heard of him.”

  “And of course, Jarret would never lie to you,” Nick said with a sneer. “Think about it. What if Schelz’s wife moved the children to Illinois after the trial? All three of them could live in the Bull Valley area.”

  “Four. The mother and three children,” I said. “Mrs. Schelz was pregnant at the time of the murder.”

  “There’s a chance Jarret and one of the two older kids are the same age. Five miles is a close enough area for the McHenry and Bull Valley school systems to overlap. Maybe he went to school with Margaret. What’s your computer password?”

  “‘P,’ three pound signs, ‘W,’ two exclamation points, then ‘D.’”

  As Nick typed at my laptop, I stared at the small map on my phone screen, spinning through the possibilities of a connection two thousand miles away. Jarret would never remember a specific occult symbol after all these years. But Nick was right—the connection between the symbol and Jarret’s hometown was difficult to ignore.

  I stood behind Nick at the desk, watching him scroll through the Bull Valley White Pages. “Anything?”

  “No Schelzes. Damn. I suppose that would have been too easy. Maybe Schelz’s wife changed the family name to Smith after the trial to escape notoriety,” he said, typing again.

  “Smith” produced eight results in Bull Valley and over a hundred in the surrounding area. Nick printed out the list. “I’ll begin making calls tomorrow.”

  “What if Margaret attended school and married in another city, and then relocated to Bull Valley long after Jarret left?” I said. “I realize Bull Valley and McHenry are small towns, but a lot of years have passed since Jarret lived in Illinois.”

  “We know Schelz’s daughter lived near Jarret’s hometown. We also know Schelz’s symbol was left on a dead body inside Jarret’s house. I say we follow the clues we have.”

  “I agree. Someone in Bull Valley must be able to help us locate Margaret.”

  “What about Jarret’s parents?”

  “Ask them to help incriminate him?”

  “What if Margaret Smith helps to clear Jarret by telling us what happened to the rest of Schelz’s pamphlets?”

  Made sense. I folded my hands on the top of my head. Nick’s cell rang and while he took his call, I dialed the Coopers in Illinois.

  A recording came on after the fourth ring. “Yah, this is Marion and Bud. Leave us a message at the beep and we’ll call you back. You have a good day.”

  “Marion, this is Liz. I talked to Jarret—he’s fine. But would you please give me a call? I have a question for you.” I hung up, hoping I did the right thing.

  Nick finished his call with, “We’ll be right there.” He turned off his phone, smiling.

  “Right where?”

  “Vic Walkowiak came through. Some guy named Weisel will talk to us about the pamphlet for cash.” Nick took his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go.”

  “Where? I have to meet Jarret at seven.”

  “We’d be able to walk there and still get you to dinner on time,” Nick said. “Weisel works a mile from here.”

  Neon beer logos, discount offers, and “CAlottery” signs filled the windows of the liquor store on the southwest corner of Moorpark Street and Whitsett Avenue. We parked behind the store and crossed the small lot to the rear entrance.

  Liquor bottles in every label, shape, and size lined the wall behind a long counter stacked with boxes of gum, jars of candy and jerky above, and cigars and cigarettes below. A lone customer paid for his twelve pack of beer at the register near the front door. Nick and I wandered along the refrigerated cases on the wall then through the wine aisles until the customer left.
/>   “I’m Nick Garfield. Are you Weisel?” Nick said to the clerk at the register.

  The long-necked, hook-nosed clerk furtively scanned both entrances and the security mirrors up in the corners. Apparently satisfied, he nodded at Nick. “Yeah.” Then he ran his eyes over me. “Who’s she?”

  Be polite. We want information. I smiled. “I’m Liz. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your first name.”

  “Everyone calls me Weisel. Did you bring the money?” he said with a hushed tone.

  “Let’s talk about the pamphlet first,” Nick said.

  “Which pamphlet?”

  “Can we cut the intrigue? I’m interested in where you got the pamphlet you sold Vic.” Nick put a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “A nice, simple exchange.”

  Weisel reached for the bill and I spotted a tattoo on the back of his hand, an inverted pentagram with a goat’s head in the center. He pocketed the cash and said, “I got the pamphlet from a customer.”

  “You can do better than that,” Nick said.

  “A woman.”

  “Her name? A description?”

  “Never got her name. She comes in to buy scotch.” Weisel curled his lips in a wry grin. “If a customer looks old enough to buy liquor and pays with cash, I don’t ask for ID—unless it’s a girl I want to take out on a date. This lady is too old for me.”

  “How old?” I said.

  “Like your age, maybe? Short brown hair. Flat-chested.”

  The combination narrowed our odds from one in a few million to one in a few hundred thousand. Locally.

  Nick pulled out another ten-dollar bill. “How did you end up with her pamphlet?” The clerk reached for the money. Nick pulled back.

  Weisel turned his palm down, showing his tattoo. “She saw my tat and asked if I worshiped Lucifer. I’m not into the left-handed scene anymore, but some people see my ink and want to save my soul. They come in Saturday night for booze and want me to meet them at church Sunday morning. This lady said her old man preached a different kind of religion and wrote something I should read. Then she gives me the pamphlet. Just gave it to me, like a gift. I took it, figuring Vic might be interested.”