by Rich Foster
“Ray, what can I do for you?” asked Jasper Howard. He was a broad florid man who spent too much time at a desk under artificial lights. His neck bulged over the collar of his shirt and his balding head reflected a light sheen of light.
“I’m curious about Alan Chandler’s financial health. Delaney said you were being tight lipped about it.”
Suddenly Howard stopped using “Ray” and was calling him “Sergeant.” The familiarity was gone. Howard had become all “banker.”
“Do you have a warrant, Sergeant Maddox?”
“Oh I could get one, Jasper,” said Ray, showing that two could play the name game. “Of course if I need to get one, I might also pull a search warrant for that poker game over at the Chamber of Commerce. Hell, I know it’s not big time. But it would sure be a shame to see some local business people busted just because you don’t want to play ball.”
Mr. Howard visibly paled. He sat down a little too quickly at his desk, as if the thought made his knees weak.
“Now suppose I had a five thousand dollar check from Mr. Chandler. Would you cash it?’
Jasper pulled his keyboard over and typed for a moment.
“No.”
“How about a thousand?”
Jasper swung his head know.
Maddox pressed on, “How about a hundred?”
This time Jasper held up his thumb and first finger, just slightly apart.
“Barely,” he answered.
“Do these folks pay a lot of bounced checks fees?”
Howard acted offended. He tried to hide behind the privacy of banking.
“I really don’t see how I can tell you that.”
“Let’s cut the crap Jasper. Give me what I want now or I will get a subpoena. When I serve it on you I will be in uniform and I’ll bring every cop I can muster. I’ll park squad cars in your parking lot, stand in your lobby drinking coffee and take a lot of time looking very slowly over your records. Don’t worry! It will hardly disturb any nervous clients who may decide they should bank elsewhere.”
Howard paled even more. Maddox had seen a rosier corpse.
“They have bounced a number of checks lately.” The words pained him to say.
“And?”
“The mortgage is two weeks late and a loan for Mrs. Chandler’s business has been called.”
“Thank you Mr. Howard” said Maddox. “The Department appreciates your cooperation.”
Maddox returned to the station and changed into his uniform. He stopped at his desk to pick up his messages. The first was from the Assistant District Attorney. The Gardner case was postponed for a week. What a relief, he thought. It gave him more time to develop something on the Chandler case.
“Hey Sarge!”
Maddox glanced up to see Delaney crossing the room toward him
“Universal Indemnity and Life has a policy on Chandler.”
Maddox raised his eyebrows.
“There’s a five hundred thousand dollar policy of term life,” said Delaney. “It was written almost a year ago.”
“Covering whom?”
“The husband.”
“Nothing on the wife?”
“Not a thing. So far it’s the only policy I’ve come up with. But Lilly Chandler is the beneficiary.”
“And the policy is currently in force and up to date?”
“Yep. They paid the premium last year. But as of today a check for a renewal hasn’t been received.”
“Not a bad motive.” said Maddox. “I just had a chat with Mr. Howard over at Pioneer. I persuaded him to be more civic minded. He demonstrated it by being more forthcoming this time. It seems that financially the Chandler’s are skating on thin ice, and it’s been getting warmer lately,” said the Sergeant. He strapped on his gun belt. “I’m going to canvass the neighbors. Something smells.”
Maddox drove across town in his cruiser. He took his time thinking about the approach to take with the neighbors and Mrs. Chandler. He liked to hold his cards close to the chest. Most people found silence to be a strong incentive to talk when the police were asking the questions. Nervousness made them loquacious.
It was a pleasant morning; cool air blew in his opened window. Scents floated in as he drove, something being grilled at a restaurant, fresh cut grass by the school, road tar where the city crew was re-surfacing. The world was scrubbed and refreshed following the rain. The greenery seemed deeper, richer and more vibrant. The sky was Maxfield Parrish blue.” Beaumont appeared charming and innocent. On a day like today it was odd to think that one of its citizens may have murdered another.
Warren Court where the Chandler’s lived was a quiet street of newer homes. They were large by Beaumont standards. Most were two stories and wood sided with brick facing. Overhead the trees were still reaching toward their full summer bloom but they created large pools of shade on the walks and lawns.
The Sergeant eased the cruiser to the curb across the street from the Chandler house. However, he remained seated in the car, apparently lost in thought. In reality he was watching the houses to see whose curtains twitched. Every neighborhood had someone who kept an eye on the neighborhood. These people were usually considered snoops and gossips by their neighbors, but they were often invaluable to the police. Shortly, he noticed the lace curtains pull back on the old white clapboard house next to the Chandler’s. The house didn’t fit in. It was older than the rest and was more akin to a farmhouse than the suburban tract of the others.
Marie Torres and her husband had lived in the house for fifty years. It was her family’s farm. It was never a prosperous farm. They didn’t own enough acreage for grain crops, and truck farming was feast or feminine. If it was a good year the markets were flooded with vegetables and prices fell. When the rains failed to come things were bad for everyone and there was little too sell no matter how high the price.
Eventually Beaumont had spread out toward them. Their farm was attractive to developers because it was flat. Infrastructure costs would be lower. That and the neighboring farms were too large for the local builders to take on. So a few years back the Torres’ had received an offer “too good to refuse.” Their dirt driveway became a paved street. The barn and chicken coops were razed and replaced by the Chandlers and Chan’s houses. The truck garden and pasture were divided into lots. The developer sold off some lots individually, the others he built spec homes on. Consequently the neighborhood had more diversity of style than some tracts. The Torres’ ended their years of dirt poor farming with more money in the bank than they had ever dreamed possible. However, they had managed to get along in life by living modestly, so instead of packing up and moving they stayed in the familiar old house.
Maria Torres found having neighbors an asset. It gave her something to watch and an occasional person with whom to chat. Her husband was a man of few words so she enjoyed the conversation and the morsels of gossip. She didn’t gather gossip with any intent of animus, nor did she actively pass it on. For Marie it was like watching a soap opera on television. She enjoyed the unfolding story of her neighborhood.
As he lifted himself out of the patrol car, Maddox saw the curtain quickly close but a small slit remained. As it became evident he was coming to the Torres’ house it closed completely. The door swung open even as he was swinging his hand to knock. She was a small wiry woman though age had stooped her shoulders.
When he introduced himself Maddox was surprised that she extended her hand. Citizens were usually reluctant to shake hands with a cop. Perhaps it was the uniform, or perhaps they feared crime was contagious. Her hands were cool to the touch. The fingers seemed fragile despite being swollen by arthritis.
“Yes officer? How may I help you?”
She spoke a little louder than expected. Evidently, he thought, she was a little deaf but her eyes were sharp.
“Your neighbor Alan Chandler has gone missing. I wondered if you would answer a few questions.”
“So that is what it was about,” she said somewhat cryptica
lly. “Won’t you come in?”
Marie Torres had a trace of the immigrant fear of authority. Consequently she was relieved the cruiser was not parked at her house and she didn’t care to be seen with a policeman on her doorstep. So she invited him into what was a small austere living room that smelled of furniture polish and the pervasive odor of old age.
Maddox lowered his bulk onto a padded chair that matched the sofa. Both pieces appeared too new for the room’s other furniture.
“What were you referring to?” he queried.
“The other officer who came, he stopped at the Chandler house.”
“Yes, that was in regards to a missing person’s report, Mrs. Chandler filed. When did you last see him?”
Mrs. Torres thought. “I suppose it would be last Sunday. I had covered my flowers because the radio said we might get a frost. I was afraid my petunias might get burned. They can be so delicate. While I was pulling the sheets off the flower beds Mr. Chandler came out in the yard to pick up the newspaper.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Oh he was just wearing a robe and slippers, this was early, you know.”
Maddox was used to long answers. Some people needed to talk around a subject for a while. He never rushed the process because he believed given freedom to talk, people ended up both re-calling and telling more.
“That was the last time you saw him?”
“Yes.”
He waited to see if there was more but she seemed emphatic in her answer.
“Of course I assumed he was there later on. I mean you can’t argue with yourself can you?”
His patience was being rewarded.
“Later being when, and what did you hear?”
“Oh it was late Sunday night. My husband had gone to bed after the news but I had stayed up mending. I don’t know why, but it gets harder and harder to sleep as I get older. Anyway, I made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I was going to take it upstairs with me after I put the cat out.” Marie paused to catch her breath, excitement simmered in her eyes and under the surface of her voice. Maddox was leery of witness who became too eager to help but he let her continue.
“Well they were having a fight! The noise! It was hard to believe! I’ve never heard anything like it from them. Well, I’ve heard him on an occasion, his voice carries, and I’ve heard him yelling. But, Mrs. Chandler she is always so calm and sweet. I found it hard to believe it was she. Her language was shocking. It’s not like she was one of our hired farm hand, not that we have them anymore.”
“Could you hear what they were fighting about?”
“Not really, and I’m not sure I would repeat it if I did. One doesn’t like to gossip, you know.”
Maddox nodded his head in agreement while thinking about Marie Torres shivering on her back porch as she tried to take the sordid details in. Human curiosity would have kept her glued to the porch.
“I am sure you wouldn’t, but this is a police investigation so you would be helping.”
Mrs. Torres was encouraged by this affirmation of her character.
She continued. “Mostly, I heard the four letter words. Folks seem to shout those much more clearly. But they were surely unhappy with each other.”
“So you are certain it was the Chandlers?”
“Well who else could it be at that time of night? I assume it was both of them. I recognized Lilly’s voice, I mean Mrs. Chandler’s,” she corrected herself. “She was screaming a blue streak at him, I think she was crazy mad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well it didn’t make sense. It was just a long string of curse words. Then the stuff started breaking.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“It sounded like dishes. I could hear thumps against the wall and the sound of glass breaking. Went on long enough I doubt they have anything left to eat on in the house.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing! All at once the noise stopped, so I went up to bed. The hot chocolate was so cold I decided to leave it for breakfast.”
“Has there anything else out of the ordinary?”
“No, except I haven’t seen his Jeep since then. Of course you say he’s missing.”
There didn’t seem to be anything left to ask so Maddox rose.
“Give me a call if you think of anything else. Will you?” he asked.
He was glad to be out of the house. The odor of old age seemed to have permeated him. He breathed in the fresh morning air inhaling deeply. Rather than go down the walk and around he cut across the wide lawn that ran between the two houses. The lots were bigger than most. They were certainly beyond his budget. On the far side of the Chandler house he came to their driveway. Nothing seemed to be stirring inside, the drive was empty of cars, and the garage was closed. He stopped in the driveway and listened. He could hear music. It was muted but readily heard. Mrs. Torres would have had no trouble hearing shouting voices. The music was coming from the neighboring house so he continued on. The house was faced in brick with a distinctive reddish trim. A stone lantern pagoda decorated the lawn.
Probably Asian he thought to himself. The color was one he had come to associate with Asian houses. “I guess those sort of generalizations are politically incorrect.”
He pushed the doorbell button and it rang a real bell. At least it sounded like a real bell tolling not the usual da-de-da-da of most doorbells. A petite Asian woman answered the door.
“Please don’t walk on the grass when you go,” she said.
Ray was momentarily speechless. Recovering quickly he apologized.
“Yes I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. When I didn’t see the Chandlers car at home I just continued walking.”
She began to ease the door close, as if hoping to shut of any questions the authorities might have for her.
“I was wondering if I might have a word with you about the Chandlers.”
Mrs. Chan held her ground. She kept one hand on the other and her other arm braced against the back of the door as though it were a shield. Or possibly he might charge it and she might need to slam the door.
“I don’t now anything. I hardly know them.”
Once again the door began to close. Maddox held his hand up, palm out, like he was directing traffic.
“When was the last time you saw them, Mrs…” he left the sentence hanging but she skipped offering her name.
“I saw her car leave this morning. Maybe an hour ago. I haven’t seen his car since he left Sunday night.”
“You saw him leave?”
“No, I just heard a car backing out about three-thirty in the morning. I have not seen his car since, so it must be him.”
“Are you sure it was their car?”
“Well I heard it start up and back down the drive. Then I heard the screech of his tires and the car roared away. It was Sunday night, I remember because it was so foggy.”
“Did you hear anything else, perhaps earlier in the evening?”
But Mrs. Chan was not to be drawn out.
“I mind my own business. Please stay off the grass,” she said as she pushed the door for the third time.
He could always get a formal statement later if he needed it, so this time he let her win. The door latch snapped shut followed by a firm turning of the deadbolt. Carefully he stayed on the paved walk until he reached the street. Looking back he saw a small neatly lettered sign along the right of way “Please Stay Off the Grass!”
He crossed the street and slid into the patrol car. The engine came to life and he pulled away from the curb. The street curved gently to the right and then terminated in a cul-de-sac. Maddox wheeled the car around. There wouldn’t be much point canvassing these houses, but he might put Delaney on the ones up the street. Recalling the fog of Sunday night he thought it was unlikely anyone saw who was in the car, but it was worth the time to try. He wanted to pinpoint who or at least how many people left at three-thirty that night.
Coming toward him a red car came d
own the street, slowed and turned into the Chandler’s driveway. It disappeared alongside the house. Ray slowed his pace and pulled to the curb once again. He got out and walked over to where he could see up the driveway. Lilly Chandler was pulling a few grocery bags out of the passenger side of the car.
“Mrs. Chandler?” he asked as he came closer.
Lilly was startled. Then the uniform appeared to register with her. Maddox sensed he could detect a faint shudder of relief pass through her; the recognition which said this person is not a car-jacker, rapist or robber. But he was still a threat.
“Have you found Alan?” Her body language said he was still a threat.
“Not yet, I just have some questions Mrs. Chandler.” Rather than appearing relieved by this lack of “bad news,” she appeared worried. Fear seemed to linger in her eyes. He wondered if it was the “not knowing” that made her nervous or was it that she already “knew” what happened to her husband. Was it worry or was it guilt?
“May we go inside?”
He helped her with the groceries. She unlocked the back door and entered the kitchen. As he set the bags on the counter he noticed a stack of bills nearby. The red past due was clearly visible. He moved away.
“I take it you haven’t heard from your husband.”
Lilly shook her head, and said “No.”
She spoke softly. The word was barely audible.
“May I see the note from your husband?”
“I threw it out.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? It was just a note, it wasn’t important.”
“It could be. Where did you throw it out?”
“Here in the kitchen but it’s probably in the can out back.”
“Can we look?” Maddox asked.
