Lourdes was able to answer a test set of tricky questions on states’ rights and moral law, the essence of the 1858 debates. I was proud that I’d had a small hand in her success.
In response to the library’s warning bell—ten minutes till five o’clock closing—we packed our books and papers and headed for the exit.
“Did you hear about the crazy lady this morning, Mrs. Porter?” Lourdes asked.
I stopped short. “What about her?”
“I didn’t want to talk about it before because you would think I didn’t want to do my lessons. But now it’s okay, right?”
Very okay, I thought. “What about the crazy lady?”
“She got attacked. She was in back of our store in the alley. Johnny thinks maybe she was looking for more knives that got accidentally thrown out and someone attacked her. An ambulance came to take her away.”
I drew in my breath. “What time was that, Lourdes? Do you remember?”
“It was before I left to come and see you, Mrs. Porter. First I changed my clothes, though, so I think it was about two thirty.”
I let out a long sigh. Two thirty. About one hour after Zoe was released.
Chapter 19
We left the library on the dot of five o’clock. Lourdes offered to give me a ride home, but I didn’t want to take her on my next errand—to visit Rhonda in the Lincoln Point Hospital. Neither did I want to wait very long on the bench outside in the chill, already dark evening. As soon as Lourdes turned away from me to walk toward the parking lot, I punched in Mary Lou’s cell phone number. I had a reason for not using my home number.
“I need a ride,” I said to her. “Come alone.”
Mary Lou chuckled. “What is this, Mom? Are we in the CIA now?”
“I’ll explain when you get here. Can you make up an excuse for not going right back home?”
“Sure. I’ll tell my daughter I want to call her on her new cell from some remote location.”
“Smart.”
Once we clicked off and I was left in the now-deserted civic center, I wished I’d taken Lourdes up on her offer. I crossed my legs and pulled my jacket closer around me. I looked in vain for signs of life. Where were all the artists and actors? Wasn’t there a considerable population of dogs that needed walking? Intrepid joggers or cyclists that should be exercising? Dedicated teachers working late at the high school across the way? (Not even I would have been there on the Sunday evening of a long holiday weekend.)
The city maintained a large expanse of lawn around the three civic center buildings and another lawn on the other side of the semicircular Civic Drive that was the Abraham Lincoln High School campus. I remembered times when I’d enjoyed a quiet, solitary evening walk in this neighborhood, especially after a long day of classes and meetings. Ordinarily a beautiful urban setting, the area now felt like a frightening, shadowy wasteland.
Would I be this nervous if there weren’t a murderer loose in Lincoln Point?
I told myself the murderer might right now be in the very hospital I was on my way to visit. I was safe. Except from whoever put her there. Zoe? I pictured the newly released Zoe, in the midst of a temper tantrum, on her way to harm everyone she thought had wronged her.
I sat huddled on the bench, my jacket collar up around my ears, trying to make myself small and invisible until Mary Lou arrived. Though it wasn’t late, the overcast February sky and deserted streets contributed to an atmosphere more like the dead of night. I looked behind me, past the enormous city hall, at the back of the police building, and saw a few lighted windows, but they seemed far away and gave little comfort. There were many shadowy walkways, overgrown trees, and dark corners between me and the dim lights of the LPPD.
A flash of light brought my head up. A vehicle came from my left, from Nolin Creek Pines, the housing project where Lourdes lived with her two sons. The lights were high enough to be on a minivan or an SUV. Not Mary Lou’s, however. Unless she’d decided to take the longer route via back-streets, she’d be coming straight down Springfield Boulevard, approaching from my right.
Where was she, anyway? Without traffic, it was little more than a five-minute drive from my house. She might have had a hard time leaving Maddie behind or making up a story for why she wouldn’t be back with me in a few minutes. She might be changing her clothes, thinking our errand required more than the casual garb she’d worn all day.
She couldn’t know how desperate I was to be picked up.
The vehicle on my left had slowed down. An SUV for sure. I strained to see the color. The dark green of the Porter SUV? Impossible to tell. To make matters worse, the vehicle had pulled over between streetlights. On purpose? I felt my heart race. I couldn’t determine the driver’s gender, let alone intentions.
The vehicle had drawn close to the curb and was rolling along at a very slow pace. Not parking, not driving through. I could think of no other reasons for this maneuver except to grab and mug me or abduct me. I saw now that it was an SUV of a light color. Silver or beige. I wished I knew what kind of car Zoe drove.
I thought of getting up and walking to the right and toward the street. Maybe Mary Lou or some other benevolent motorist would come along just in time. If I walked in the other direction, back toward the projects, I’d be deep in narrow tree-lined pathways and would end up in a neighborhood that was not the best even in the light of day.
In my panicky state, no option seemed good to me, but I chose to move rather than be a sitting target. At one point in its crawl toward me, a sliver of light fell on the SUV’s windshield and I saw a hooded driver of undetermined gender.
I looked ahead of me, down Springfield Boulevard. Two vehicles, both SUVs, were lined up behind a red light at the crosswalk in front of the high school on one side and Rosie’s bookstore on the other. I grumbled at the inanity of having that traffic light operate whether school was in session or not.
I took a breath. Surely one of the two waiting cars would be a safe harbor. Springfield Boulevard dead-ended at Civic Drive, so the vehicles had to either turn into the parking lot next to the bookstore, which was closed, or take Civic Drive in one direction or the other.
I walked to the curb, intending to flag down whichever car came my way. I was now halfway between the library and city hall.
Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong.
The city hall clock rang out the first eight notes of the Whittington chimes, marking the quarter hour. The melody I usually loved was startling this evening and nearly sent me to my knees. Five fifteen. It felt like midnight.
The SUV on my left, the one I thought of as the stalker vehicle, stopped, its driver perhaps also surprised by the loud chimes. I heard its engine growl, as if the driver had put the vehicle in PARK and then stepped on the accelerator. To intimidate me? It was working. It could be a problem with the car, I reasoned. Maybe one of the dashboard lights came on and the driver is testing something.
Another growl. I took another step away.
The first SUV in line on Springfield Boulevard moved in my direction. I crossed my fingers. I heard the toot of a horn, saw an arm wave at me out the window, and knew it was Mary Lou.
Whew. I raced toward her.
At the same time, the creepy SUV pulled away from the curb and squealed away, passing Mary Lou on the wrong side of the street and racing down Springfield Boulevard.
“What a jerk, huh?” Mary Lou said, indicating the stalker vehicle.
I buckled myself into the green Porter SUV, my heart racing.
“What’s up, Mom? You’re all out of breath.”
“Take me to the hospital, please,” I said.
Once Mary Lou realized I wanted to go to the hospital as a visitor and not a patient, she relaxed her shoulders, and we were on our way. I was embarrassed to tell her how frightened I’d been of what might have been an imaginary threat. Now that I was safe and warm in her car, listening to a Three Tenors CD, I thought of a couple of benign scenarios. The driver of the slow-moving SUV
might have been trying to read a map (then why not park under a streetlight?), or he might have been having a heart attack that I should have responded to (then how could he race away once I was out of reach?).
Maybe there were no benign scenarios after all.
“I brought you a peanut butter sandwich,” Mary Lou said.
Thus, the extra time it had taken her to get to me. In the long run it worked out well since I was hungry and she’d arrived in the nick of time.
“How thoughtful.”
“I had a snack myself as soon as I got home, so I’m fine, but I didn’t know how long this latest errand would take.”
I unwrapped the package and bit into eight-grain bread, creamy peanut butter, and homemade (by crafts group president Karen Striker) pear jelly. All was right with the world.
Except for Rhonda’s and Zoe’s part of it.
I briefed Mary Lou on the attack on Rhonda.
“All Lourdes could tell me was that ‘the crazy lady’ was knocked over, and the attacker hit her with something from the alley, then ran away. The ambulance came and took Rhonda to the hospital.”
Had Lourdes mentioned a hooded sweatshirt or was that my overactive imagination again? I wondered now. Had she said, “the attacker ran away,” or, “the attacker drove away in a silver SUV?”
I needed to calm my mind. A vigorous Italian aria by the late Luciano Pavarotti didn’t help much.
“And you think Zoe was the perp—that’s what they call them on those Law and Orders Richard says I watch all day—why? Because the timing is right?” Mary Lou asked, making it sound like flimsy reasoning on my part.
“Or one huge coincidence.” I ticked off other reasons. “And she has a temper, and she was afraid that Rhonda would come after her. Maybe she decided to take the initiative.”
“Or maybe it was Rhonda who attacked first in the alley and it was self-defense on Zoe’s part. Or whoever’s,” Mary Lou suggested.
“Could be. Maybe Zoe is in the hospital now, apologizing to Rhonda for hurting her.” My voice reeked with sarcasm. “But seriously, I wonder why I’m rushing to judgment against Zoe?” I asked.
“So Skip will be proved correct?”
Now that was an interesting rationale. For the whole week, I’d been hoping Skip and the LPPD were incorrect, because I wanted June to be happy and have her life back. It was possible that June’s latest noncommunicative tone with me, and Zoe’s walking out on me (though who could blame her for rushing out of a jail?) wasn’t sitting right with me, and now I wanted my nephew vindicated.
Very silly, I realized. I doubted Skip himself thought that way.
I chewed the last bite of my peanut butter sandwich, pitying what the justice system would be like if I were an official part of it.
Mary Lou made a U-turn on Civic Drive and headed up Springfield Boulevard. The town’s hospital, at the top of Lincoln Point’s only hill, was a couple of miles north of where I lived.
“What did you tell Richard and Maddie?” I asked, as we passed my neighborhood on the left.
Mary Lou grinned. “It was tough. I couldn’t say we needed some special time since we were together a lot of the day. So, I said we were going to stop off at the gym because we were thinking of joining.”
“I’d never join a gym. Why now, on a Sunday evening? Are they even open on Sunday evenings? And why would you join one ten miles from your new neighborhood when there are probably ten better-equipped gyms in Palo Alto?” (I may have overreacted, but only because I wanted to protect Maddie especially from the knowledge that I was leaving her out of something she’d love to do.)
Mary Lou shrugged. “Okay, I’m not very good at improvising. They asked the same questions. I had to . . . uh . . . make up something else.”
“What?”
Even in the dim, jerky light of a row of streetlamps we passed, I could see Mary Lou flush with embarrassment.
“I sort of hinted that there was someone there you wanted to meet.”
I was confused. Who would I want to meet at a gym? A crafter? A student? A suspect? What would keep Richard and Maddie happy about not being with us?
“You mean, someone who wanted my advice? A former student?” I asked.
Mary Lou shrugged, fortunately able to avoid eye contact because she was driving. “Nuh-uh. More like a . . . guy.”
“A guy? As in, I have trysts at the gym, or I’m going to pick up a guy?”
“I sort of implied that you were interested in expanding your base of friends.”
I slapped my hands on my knees. “You told them I’m looking for a boyfriend. I don’t know whether to congratulate you on your creativity or send you to your room without dinner.”
But by now I was laughing and Mary Lou knew she’d gotten a pass.
Mary Lou parked in a lot next to a helicopter landing pad. In my many months of coming here during Ken’s illness, I’d never seen a helicopter alight, but the markings were kept freshly painted, so I had to assume it was an active site. I pitied people who were a plane ride away when they needed emergency service as well as those who needed to be transported from one facility to another while in pain.
We walked to the ER entrance, located at the end of one of the five wings that came out radially from the center (where, of course, there was a statue of Abraham Lincoln, with anonymous children at his feet, as if he’d been a biblical leader).
As we entered the crowded waiting room I cringed at the condition some of our citizens were in this Sunday evening. I wasn’t cut out for medical work and hated seeing even a little blood seep through a bandage. I wondered what I was doing here.
And someone else was questioning my presence, also.
“Why don’t we just issue you a radio and put you on the on-call list?” Skip asked, coming up behind me.
“That would be very nice, thanks,” said Mary Lou, who recovered more quickly than I did from seeing her cousin.
“I’m just visiting the sick,” I said. “I’m thinking of volunteering. How do you think I’d look in candy stripes?”
That got a laugh, which was my goal.
“I’m just the driver,” Mary Lou said.
Skip shot me a look, addressing Mary Lou. “I know what that’s like.”
“Now that we’re here, let’s talk,” I said, pointing outside the waiting room to a small lounge area that was empty at the moment.
We took seats on wooden chairs with thinly upholstered, blue paisley covers that looked like the chairs in every medical waiting room I’d ever been in. Mary Lou and I looked to Skip with questions on our faces. He took the cue.
“Rhonda is pretty banged up but they’re saying she’ll be okay. It looks like whoever did it wasn’t out to do away with her permanently—just wanted to make a point.”
Mary Lou shuddered. “Nice way to make a point.”
“She’s sedated now and can’t talk.”
“Is she the one we’re calling the crazy lady?” Mary Lou asked. “I can’t believe I’ve been seeing her in the grocery store and all over town and she might be a killer herself.”
“Is she the killer?” I asked Skip. “Is there any more evidence than there ever was about who killed Brad Goodman?” Does the killer drive a silver or beige SUV? I wanted to ask.
“We’re a little farther along, but not much. Johnny Ortega, one of the shift supervisors at Willie’s, ID’d her as the woman he’s seen hanging around his store and in the alley behind the shop. We verified that the knives in the various objects around town were from Willie’s, and he confirms that he’s thrown out a few old ones.”
“So that’s the connection we . . . you needed.”
“There’s no problem connecting her to the mischief around town now. She had a key card in her pocket. We finally got a warrant and were able to search her motel room. She had a pile of Willie’s knives—”
“And fruit?” Mary Lou asked. She wasn’t smiling, but she drew one from Skip.
“No fruit. But from the numbe
r of knives she had stashed under her bed, some of which were new, she must have either broken in or posed as a customer and somehow stolen a bunch.”
“Premeditation,” Mary Lou said, leading me to believe she did watch television crime dramas when we weren’t looking.
I thought about how I carried what could be called luggage every time I left the house—either a very large purse or a purse and a tote. It would be no problem for me to scoop a dozen pieces of silverware or other sundries from Willie’s counter into any of my carryalls, there to nestle among assorted crafts tools that didn’t make it to my tool box.
Skip had been unusually forthcoming this evening. Because it was Sunday and technically his day off? Because for this case, more than others, he knew the solution would affect him personally and he wanted it over and done with? Or just because he was hungry and hoped to be invited to dinner at my house? He couldn’t know there might not be a dinner tonight, depending on when Rhonda woke up.
I took advantage of the situation and pressed on. “It sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress. You must know for sure now that the woman’s real name is Rhonda Edgerton Goodman, right?”
Skip nodded. “Yeah, we did learn that. One of her many drivers’ licenses was in her real name.”
“What’s missing?” Mary Lou asked.
“We can’t connect Willie’s knives to the murder weapon, which was decidedly not a knife used to spread cream cheese on bagels. Goodman was stabbed with a serrated workshop knife, very sharp.”
“Ouch,” Mary Lou said.
“Neither can we say the knife used to slash the paintings was also the murder weapon.”
Something Skip said prompted me to think back, and I pictured Rhonda with a leather briefcase, looking perhaps as sophisticated (and not crazy) as she had when she brushed by me on her way out of the jail’s basement visiting area. I envisioned her dressed like a lawyer, posing as a customer, surreptitiously emptying the contents of Willie’s white plastic container into her briefcase. Posing.
Malice in Miniature Page 21
