For I Have Sinned a Cate Harlow Private Investigation

by Kristen Houghton

  “And Joshua did seem to change when he was nine or ten, you’re right. Our parents didn’t know why Joshua was what my mom called moody. The few times when they tried to talk to him about why he seemed so down, he became upset, saying nothing was wrong, and for them to just leave him alone. That was so unlike Josh. He also told them once that they didn’t know anything about life. Imagine that, he was not even a teen yet and here he was telling our parents that they knew nothing about life! Josh did have a couple of tough years though. My mother finally decided that maybe it was a hormonal thing. You know, like he was going through puberty early or something. Dad wasn’t too concerned. He said that Josh was just having some quiet times and that a lot of kids go through that.

  “One strange thing though, was that he stopped playing any sports, even swimming which he was really good at and loved. He just up and quit the team. Dad didn’t understand that at all. Josh had won junior swim competition medals. Mom said that he was shy about his body, almost as if he hated it, because he was always a skinny kid. I don’t know. He read a lot the summer he turned eleven and until the day he disappeared, he was what my Dad called a bookworm. But, no, there was nothing that happened here at home to justify why he was suddenly moody.”

  I write that down. I love technology but find that a pen and a pad are sometimes quicker for my needs. Keying info into a tablet takes too much time. I’m old-fashioned that way.

  “What about school? Any fighting, any bullying, or enemies?”

  “No, nothing like that at all. Other kids liked him a lot. He never had any problems with them. In fact he was always the peacemaker if kids got into a fight or had problems with each other. They respected him. Our school was small and everyone knew each other.”

  “Did he have a lot of friends? A best friend or girlfriend?”

  “You know, not really. He got along with everyone, boys and girls, but he liked being by himself. We were really best friends. No one knew him like I did.”

  “Was there anything you can remember about Joshua’s behavior right before he disappeared? I know you must have answered a lot of questions from the police, but I need to ask you some, too. Memories are funny sometimes, Marie. From a distance of years you might remember something small but significant that you forgot to tell the cops. Can you think of any problems, anything that may have upset your brother? Whatever you can remember, no matter how small will be a help, Marie. Think about the week before he went missing. Think about the last time you saw him.”

  She drained her coffee and cuddled the empty mug to her chest. Tears appeared in her eyes and one trailed its way down her cheek before she brushed it away. I waited.

  “The thing is, Cate, I don’t know. I wasn’t here the week before he left. I was away at camp. That summer was going to be my first year as a junior counselor and I had to go for a week of training during Spring break. I left really early the day after Easter Sunday while Josh was still sleeping. I should have said goodbye, but I didn’t want to wake him. I know that he hadn’t been sleeping well. I used to hear him at night walking around in his room.

  “The last time I saw him was after dinner on Easter.” She began really crying then and buried her face in one hand while the other held the mug as if it were a protective talisman. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay Marie, that’s okay. This is hard, I know. Tell me about that Easter then. Did you notice anything different about him that day? Did he say anything that seemed strange or out of place to you?”

  Marie was wiping her face with a napkin from the tray and trying to compose herself.

  “I don’t think so. My grandparents were here. We all had dinner together and after helping mom clean up, Josh and I went outside. We were out on the back porch just sitting and watching the birds flying back to the tree in our yard. I guess they had built a nest. It was quiet. You know, it was that time of the year, April just like now.”

  "Were you talking about anything special?"

  “Nothing really. I mean we were kind of tired. I did mention how excited I was to be a junior counselor and what I was going to do. He just told me to enjoy what I was doing and to take care of myself at camp. That last part? That was nothing out of the ordinary. My brother always looked out for me and was forever telling me to be careful.”

  She stopped.

  “Anyway, the last thing I told Joshua before we went into the house was that pretty soon we’d hear chirps from baby birds. See, my brother loves all animals. He wants… wanted to be an artist and draw pictures of animals in their natural habitats. And he said…” She stops and her eyes well up again at the memory of the last time she ever saw her brother.

  “What Marie, Joshua said what?”

  “He said, ‘Baby birds need protection.’ That's the last thing he said to me. ‘Baby birds need protection.’ The very last thing he said to me was about birds and the next morning I was gone.”

  Chapter 4

  Before I go to the police archives office, I stop at a local Italian trattoria near my office. Besides having tables both inside and out for customers, the trattoria does a brisk take-out business. The last time I ate was at Melissa’s earlier this morning and it's now past one in the afternoon,. I’m starving. A nice Italian sub is what I want. I inherited my green eyes and coloring from the Dutch ancestors on my Dad’s side but I got my healthy genes and love of food from my mother, whose ancestry is a nice combo of Italian with a sprinkling of French.

  As I’m watching Enzo, the owner of the place, masterfully create my generously proportioned Genoa salami, capicola, provolone, hot peppers, and onion sub, my cell buzzes a text. It’s from Will. Will be at your office late this afternoon.

  I smile. Will refuses to use text lingo. To me, with my background in linguistics, text-speak is just another language. Usually, I don’t use it much either, I prefer to call rather than text. But just to bust him I reply, “C u la8r”. It’ll drive him crazy.

  “Here’s your sandwich, Cate,” says Enzo, handing me a neatly wrapped sub. “I put in a lot of the Genoa just the way you like it.”

  I grab an ice tea, smile my thanks, pay him, and head out the door to savor it in my car.

  ****

  The Vault, as the police archives department is known, is located on a dead-end street. There are two new personal storage warehouses and some old office buildings that have been there since the turn of the 19th century. I park my car a block from where I have to go, and downing the last of my ice tea, walk down to the front door on the side of the building. I’m a little early, but Jimmy won’t mind. On the way over I make a pit stop at his favorite deli to get him a nice corned beef on rye and a cream soda. It pays to feed those who help you. The beer will have to wait until he’s off duty sitting on a bar stool at the Shannon Rose.

  I walk in the door but don’t see Jimmy at his desk; he must be off in the back. There's a bell-button on the wall by the door and I push it. A few minutes later Jimmy comes walking from the back of the Vault carrying a box.

  “Hey, Cate! How’s the girl?”

  “Good, good, Jimmy. How about you? Everything good?”

  “Yeah, can’t complain, huh? Let me put this box on the desk. I got to go through it for some high up lazy-ass lieutenant who can’t get his tired old butt down here to find what he wants. Asks me to do his work, can you beat that? Give me a break. I should say screw him but I won’t. I know where my bread gets buttered.”

  I laugh. Jimmy's got a way with words and an opinion of everyone and everything. Fortunately he likes me and he thinks what I do for a living is great “for a girl” if a bit dangerous.

  “C’mon, kid, I’ll take you to the back and you can get your hands dirty on this, what’s the name? oh yeah, Mc-El-roy file.”

  The file room is a veritable warehouse of boxes of evidence. Stacked floor to ceiling are sealed boxes with old stories of crimes committed, police investigations, personal frustrations, and the sadness of people's lives. Jimmy locates the file box I n
eed, which is way up on top of the ribbed steel compartments, climbs up a ladder, and carries it down for me. It’s small and dusty.

  I take the box over to a cart that’s been set up as a desk and, perching myself on a cracked leather stool, open it. There isn’t much. A few pictures of Josh McElroy, an old shirt, a backpack emblazoned with the name of his school, the original police report and notes of the investigation, and a police officer’s list of what was found in the backpack. I look at the statements the cops took from the members of the McElroy family, neighbors, classmates, and teachers. As Marie said, no really close friends. Nothing out of place there, simple statements: good kid, above average student, no problems with classmates, wonderful son and brother. There are no clues as to why he disappeared.

  I empty out the backpack carefully and find everything that was documented. There's the usual student stuff like pens, pencils, a couple of sticks of gum dried hard as plaster from age, a flyer advertising some local band, a key which the list describes as a locker key, and an old three-subject notebook. Some of the pages of the notebook are dog-eared as if he were bookmarking them. Opening them up, I see that they’re filled with hand drawn pictures and that they are surprisingly good. One picture captures my attention; it's a picture of a female lion standing tall and alert. Between her massive front paws she is holding two cubs that look out at the world with calm eyes. A male lion sits to the right of the lioness, his shaggy head up and proud. To the left, as if it is a distance away, there seems to be some other animal drawn in a stalking position. I look closely and see that it is a hyena. Its yellow eyes are staring directly at the cubs. The detail is excellent.

  There are various drawings of the hyena; some showing large pointed teeth and a snarl. Always the yellow eyes are prominent and staring. Drawn by a teenage boy, these pictures evoke evil and menace. Why this theme? There’s got to be an answer and that answer may lead me to Josh himself. The cops might have bypassed the drawings as just something a kid might do, but I think that the drawings may hold a clue to Joshua's disappearance.

  I read and re-read the statements from Josh’s family. Sometimes fresh eyes see a word or phrase that might give a clue someone else may have missed. I check carefully and concentrate, trying to imagine how they felt and how they looked when they were giving their statements. God knows they were scared, stressed beyond belief that this was happening at all. The statements are all accompanied by notes from the cop who took them, notes that may prove to be crucial. Were the parents and siblings believed to be telling the truth? Yes. Were the individual statements, taken from the parents and from Marie, concerning any family problems, consistent? It seemed so. Who was the last person to have contact with the missing person and what happened? At the house, his mom waved goodbye as he walked to the library. It’s a cat-and-mouse game because the cops are going in cold and everyone is a potential suspect. The police have to eliminate family members as persons of interest. This is unbelievably hard on the family because they’re desperate to have the cops find their loved ones. At the same time they’re imagining what horrible things may have happened to them.

  Everything about the investigation the morning after Joshua went missing seems to be upfront and by the book. The officer who did the initial interviews at the McElroy home wrote that the parents, Joseph and Denise McElroy, seemed to be genuinely upset about their son and he had no reason to suspect either one of them. The sister, Marie, who had to come home from camp, was almost hysterical and a doctor had to be called to sedate her.

  A preliminary report written by an Officer Coronato reads:

  “The alibis of the people in the neighboring area check out. Several people saw him leave the house around ten in the morning with a couple of library books and a gym bag. The head librarian, a Mrs. Brenda Rosehill, said it was common for Joshua McElroy to be at the library from around ten until near five during a school break. She said he usually read in the main lounge area and then drew pictures from the books he read. Said in days leading up to the disappearance, he seemed the same as always to her. She doesn’t remember seeing him the day he went missing so there’s a hole in the timeline. Everyone’s stories check out. There’s no reason to suspect any one of them. Looks like a runaway kid but we’re still checking everything out. No leads, no signs of violence or a struggle. Joshua McElroy left to go to the library between nine-thirty and ten. His mother went food shopping that afternoon and came home around five-twenty-five. She just assumed her son had come home at his regular time. Right before the usual family dinner hour of six o’clock, she went to call him to help set the table but he couldn't be found. He seemed to just have vanished after leaving his house.”

  Another report about two weeks later confirms no leads found in the disappearance of Joshua McElroy. Known sex offenders in the area and beyond had been questioned with no results. Unmarked police cars have been watching the McElroy house but have found nothing out of the ordinary. Cadaver dogs brought to the McElroy property found nothing.

  ****

  “Hello Father. Do you remember me?

  “Joey! It’s so good to see you again, my son. Oh my Joey. It’s been so long.”

  Chapter 5

  Catherine Harlow, Private Investigations has had a minor face-lift. I notice it as soon as I open the door. The pleasant, lemony smell of furniture polish hits me immediately. Armed with copies of the McElroy files I arrive back at my office around four-thirty to find that Myrtle has done a fantastic job of tidying up; as a nice touch, she has put fresh flowers in a vase on my desk as well as on her own smaller one. Even the plants have semi-revived due to her special maternal touch. It looks good; how long it will stay that way is something else entirely.

  Myrtle greets me by coming out of the bathroom wearing rubber gloves and carrying a bucket and mop.

  “Good, you’re back.”

  “Wow, Myrtle, you are one hell of a lady.” I smile, putting down my files on a shiny, neat desk.

  “More like one hell of a cleaning lady, miss,” she frowns. “I’m away for two weeks visiting my cousins and their grandbabies and this place looks as if a tornado hit it not once but twice. You should at least throw out the half-empty cartons of food. Haven’t you heard of rats? This is New York City, you know.”

  Roaches would be the more likely culprits, but the owner of the building is a good guy who checks for what he calls “those in-door pest things” every two weeks. He’s from Italy and there isn’t a rat or a roach that would dare cross him. He’s that vigilant about his property.

  “Yes ma’am,” I say like a chastised middle-school-er. “Thank you for cleaning up.”

  That gets a smile from Mrs. Myrtle Goldberg Tuttle and an announcement.

  “That nice young Detective Benigni was here. He stepped out to get something but he’ll be back in about twenty minutes.” Then she coyly adds, “Do you want to freshen up, honey?”

  I size up the situation and her intention. “Myrtle,” I say, “if you are thinking that Detective Benigni is here for a romantic assignation of any kind, get it out of your head. I’m helping him on a case, that’s why he came here. I don’t need to freshen up. I’ve already had two showers today so I’m going to assume that I’m still fresh.”

  “But honey, you were married and…”

  “Were is the key word here, Myrtle, we were married and we were divorced over four years ago.”

  Myrtle looks at me and sighs. I know she has some Jewish mother idea of my getting back together with Will and living happily ever after. That’s not going to happen. Occasional sex, yes. Friends, sure, most of the time anyway. Married? Never again.

  “It’s not an option, Myrtle, not an option at all,” I say to end the conversation as I start to check my email. But Myrtle seems intent on having the last word.

  “Well, you’re not getting any younger and he is familiar territory if you know what I mean.”

  These are both statements I know all too well so I have no answer. Thanks Myrtle.
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  ****

  I’m re-reading the file on Joshua McElroy when Will steps through my office doorway. He’s carrying a large bag of chips and a Pepsi,which are either his snack or a late lunch on the run. Truthfully he has some bad eating habits for a guy who expected a wife to be a gourmet cook. I wonder what happened to his chicken cacciatore cooking police partner, Debbie.

  “Hi Myrtle,” he says and she acknowledges him with a nod and a big, motherly smile. Like most women, she really adores him.

  “Cate, have you got a few minutes?” He gets right to the point. If Myrtle had any hope of sparks flying between us she’s got to be disappointed. I’m a little bit disappointed too; no sarcastic banter, no ha-ha’s with which to regal me about dumb stuff at the precinct or on the streets. He’s just all business.

  “Sure.” Putting down the file and leaning back in my chair I give Will my full professional attention and gesture him to the chair in front of my desk.

  “An hour before the official M.E.'s report was sent over to my office I received a special delivery letter with the seal of the Archbishop of New York asking about the body. That was a shock since I didn’t have the report from Giles yet. Seems the bishop got some very detailed information about the dead man with the priest collar. His letter says that a sealed note was slipped under the door of his residence early this morning. Now that’s interesting, but disturbing. Who had this type of info except the officers on the scene, you, me, Giles, and the people down at the morgue, right? I’m pretty sure the info didn’t come from my people. It’s always possible but I seriously doubt it.”

  “Interesting,’’ I nod. Will is good at his job.