by Diane Morlan
“I suppose so. I didn’t think of that. She called me a fool, Jennifer. I guess she was right. What do I know about these things? I should mind my own business. If I had arrived later, I would’ve seen who did this to her. Or, if I had stayed longer, maybe the person who killed her would’ve gone away. I feel so sad and guilty.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about. You didn’t do anything. If you had stayed longer, you might have been hurt or killed, too. I’m starting to get ticked off at whoever did this. He’s causing all of us a lot of problems. But we’ll find out what did happen to her and you can count on that.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet but you need a good night’s sleep and so do I. Why don’t you call Jacobs and tell him you’ll come in first thing tomorrow. You need to go home and get some rest. You don’t want to talk to him now, you’re too upset.”
I sat there feeling helpless while she called Lieutenant Jacobs and was surprised when he agreed. I guess he actually believed her explanation if he agreed to let her go home. We walked out to the parking lot and I wrapped my arms around her and told her to get some sleep. I would be at her house at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to go with her to the Sheriff’s Department.
19
Turning onto Minnesota Street, I saw something on my front stoop. It looked like a large bundle. When I swung the Honda into the driveway, my headlights swept over the bundle and it began to move. It was a person. He stood up and walked toward my car.
I locked the doors and shifted into reverse, prepared to back out of the driveway and head to somewhere safe. As the figure came closer, I recognized Edwin. Opening the window, I yelled at him. “What’s the matter with you, scaring me like that? Don’t you know there’s a killer running around loose?”
“Jennifer, I need your help. Marty is dead.” He burst into tears.
Good Lord, after an excruciating day I thought would never end, Edwin expected me to comfort him. He looked so pitiful I actually felt sorry for him.
Shaking my head, I sighed, resigned to the fact the day might never end.
“Come in, Edwin.”
I pulled into the garage, got out of the car and ushered Edwin into my kitchen, closing the squeaking garage door behind him.
I put on the coffeepot, selecting a hearty flavored decaf. I didn’t need to stimulate him, just get him to calm down enough to go away. I had planned for us to sit in the kitchen but Edwin strolled into the living room, checking it out. I steered him toward my uncomfortable sofa, keeping the comfy chair for myself.
“Jennie, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I loved her so much.” Edwin put his head in his hands, completely oblivious to the fact that what he said might hurt me. As usual, it was all about him.
I couldn’t bring myself to comfort him but I bit my tongue to keep from scolding him for calling me Jennie. “The police will find out who did this, Edwin.” His head snapped up and he shouted, “They know who did it. You friend the nun killed my Marty. I hope she burns in hell!”
“Bernie did not kill Marty. Why would she do that?”
“Because that nun murdered Wes and Marty knew it and she had to shut Marty up. And now my Marty is gone.” He started sobbing again.
“Edwin, did Marty tell you Bernie killed Wes?”
“Of course not, but Marty was frightened about something and the deputies said Bernie was the last person at my house. When I got home from Mass, I walked in and found my Marty lying on the kitchen floor. There was so much blood. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to sell my house.”
There was the Edwin I knew and used to love. His heart is broken and his thoughts are on the bottom line. At least I hadn’t said it out loud when I thought of it.
“Did Marty tell you she was afraid of someone? How did she act when she found out Wes had been killed?”
“I don’t know, Jennifer.” He waved me away. He cocked his head, took a deep breath and began to answer my question. “She seemed sad at first. She cried and said now she’d never get her share. I thought she meant he had hid some assets from their marriage, but how could that be? He’d been in jail when they divorced years ago. I tried to comfort her but she pushed me away, grabbed her cell phone and marched out of the room while punching the keys and mumbling about what she deserved.”
I poured us some coffee and dug out a half empty bag of Oreos that I found in my barren cupboard. Sitting across from him I asked, “So, Marty said you and she had a big fight and you told her to leave. What was that all about?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jennifer, don’t you start on me, too. The cops had a field day with that. Are you the one who told them about the fight?”
“No, Edwin. I never once considered you would kill Marty.” To myself I added—you’d just be obnoxious, condescending or belligerent.
“I got pissed because she took my Visa and charged almost $2000 on clothes and stuff. She must think I’m made of money.”
“When did you and Marty have this fight?”
“I don’t know, last night. I didn’t mean it when I told her to get out. I was still pissed when I left for church but after Mass, I decided I could forgive her. I was planning to take her to lunch and letting her stay, if she promised not to touch my Visa again. Instead, I walk in and find her dead on my kitchen floor.” He started a fresh round of tears.
Megan and I had left Marty shortly after twelve. Edwin would’ve arrived home by twelve-thirty, twelve forty-five at the latest. So, the killer came to the house after Bernie left and before Edwin came home. That considerably tightened up the time-line.
Someone no one saw or noticed came into the house after Bernie left. That part of town didn’t have alleys, so the killer had to walk around the house to enter by the back door. The neighbors had remembered Bernie because she wore a habit. The person who came there after Bernie must have been in some way invisible to the people in the neighborhood. Somehow, he got in and out unnoticed.
Around midnight Edwin finally wound down. I thought he’d leave until he said he had nowhere to go. “My house is a crime scene and the cops won’t let me in. All the motels in town are full of tourists here for that stupid Polka Daze. I don’t have anywhere to go. This is your town, not mine.”
I stood up about to tell him that it was his own fault that he didn’t have any friends. He’d lived here for years. He didn’t have many more friends in the city where he grew up. But I was too tired to argue. I got him a blanket and pillow. “You can sleep on the sofa tonight. Find a place to go tomorrow night. And you’ll have to be out of here by seven in the morning. I have an appointment.”
“Fine. Fine,” he mumbled, stretching out on the sofa, turning his back to me. Edwin never did understand the concept of an attitude of gratitude.
After locking the door to my bedroom, I noticed the bags from the Christmas Shop. I was about to stash them on a shelf in my closet when I remembered the pickle ornament. My curiosity got the best of me and I opened the box and read the “Story of the Pickle Ornament.”
It turns out that this German tradition is actually a legend about German immigrant, John Lower. "The Christmas Pickle" appears to have had its beginning right here in the good old U. S.A.
The story goes that John Lower was born in Bavaria in 1842. He left Germany with his family and immigrated to the United States. While fighting in the American Civil War, John Lower was captured and sent to a prison in Andersonville, Georgia. He soon fell ill given the poor conditions of the prison.
Starving, he begged of a guard for just one pickle before resigning to his death. The guard took pity on him, found and gave John Lower a pickle. Lower family lore declares that the pickle gave him the mental and physical strength to live on. After being reunited with his family he began the tradition of hiding a pickle on the Christmas tree. The first person who found the pickle on Christmas morning would be blessed with a year of good fortune... and a special gift, just as John Lower had experienced!
What a nice story, I thought as I donned my Sponge Bob sleep shirt, took two more pills and crawled into bed. No Decker fantasies tonight. Not with Edwin in the next room. Besides, I had a headache.
I was awakened in the middle of the night by shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed calling my name and shaking my foot. I heard him crunching a piece of paper, opening it up and crunching it again, over and over. Then he called my name.
“Jennie, get up. Get up now!”
I sat up in bed, still half asleep. Edwin hovered at the foot of the bed shaking my ankle. “Don’t call me Jennie,” I said, still groggy and wondering why he was crackling paper.
“Jennie, the house is on fire. We have to get out of here!”
Confused, I got up, grabbed my cotton housecoat and donned a pair of slippers.
“How did you get in here? I locked the door.”
“Never mind. We need to get out. The house is on fire. Damn it, Jennie, move!”
When I heard sirens coming closer, my brain finally kicked in and I followed Edwin out of the bedroom toward the back door. I hit the button to open the garage door, which slid open effortlessly. We ran through the garage and out into the night, brightly lit by the flames coming from the front of my house.
I ran down the driveway then glanced behind me at the facade of my townhouse. The row of shrubs lining the front of the structure danced in the blaze. Soon the attached houses on each side would be flare up as well.
The fire truck pulled up and suddenly the place swarmed with people in slick yellow coats unwinding hoses and spraying water on my house. A firefighter ran over to us. “Are you alright? Is anyone else in the house?”
We assured him we were fine and the only people in the house. “What about the people on each side of my house? Are they okay?”
He pointed toward the street and replied, “Everyone is fine. Please step across the street, behind the truck so you don’t get hurt.”
My slippers slapped against my heels as I followed Edwin across the street. I glanced up to see Megan waving to me from the curb. I ran over and threw myself into her arms. I began to shake, aware of the danger I had eluded.
“My God, Jennifer. Who started your house on fire?”
A squad car pulled up near us and Detective Decker lunged out of the car and ran over to me. Grabbing my arm, he twirled me around and enveloped me in his muscular arms. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Who started the fire?”
I let him hold me for a few moments while I assured him I hadn’t been hurt. When he let me go, Edwin moved up next to me, a haughty leer on his face. “Jennie, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
I opened my mouth to tell him to mind his own business, when lightning flashed, and thunder crashed and the skies opened up. In seconds, we were drenched and so was the fire.
Megan yelled to us to follow her and we ran to her front porch. Her farmhouse style home with its long front porch, the width of the house, accommodated a wooden glider, several chairs, and a round wicker table. I was on the second step when Detective Decker grabbed my hand to stop me. “I see you’re busy. I have to go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
Before I could say anything, he crossed the street, got into his car, maneuvered around the firefighters’ equipment and turned the corner. What the hell had just happened? I glanced at Megan who nodded her head and rolled her eyes toward Edwin. I looked back at him; I shouldn’t have been surprised at the nasty sneer on his face.
“For a guy with no place to sleep, you shouldn’t look so smug,” I said, mad enough to spit.
“Oh, who cares? As soon as the fire trucks get out of my way, I’ll drive over to Glencoe and sleep in my office.”
Megan stepped in front of him. “Edwin Heinz, get off my porch.”
“It’s still raining,” he protested.
“Who cares?” Megan and I said in unison. Sometimes great minds do think alike.
Edwin pulled up his collar, stuck his hands in his pants pockets, and moseyed down the steps and across the street.
“How could you stay married to that ass for so many years?”
“I plead insanity. But, I think I just found out what the urge to kill truly means. Can I crash on your couch after I get done talking to the firefighters?”
“Well, ma’am,” the firefighter said, “We found this glass in the bushes. It looks like someone threw a beer bottle filled with gas at your house and started it on fire.”
“A Molotov cocktail? Who would do a thing like that?” I glanced at the bottle and recognized the label—Leinenkugel.
All of a sudden, Detective Decker walked in to the lighted area and stepped around the fireman, “Someone who wants you to stop nosing around. This is where you step back, Jennifer. It’s too dangerous for you to keep snooping. Your hubby and I can’t be around all the time to protect you.”
“He’s not my hubby and he wasn’t protecting me. He was just being his normal obnoxious self. Where did you come from? I thought you left.”
“I did but when Edwin’s car passed me going ten miles over the speed limit I had to make a choice; either pull him over and give him a ticket or come back here and be with you.”
My throat closed up and I willed myself not to cry. “I’m too tired to deal with this tonight. I’ll come in to the Sheriff’s Department in the morning with Sister Bernadine. I suppose you think she tried to burn down my house, too.”
I turned and slowly climbed the stairs to Megan’s porch. We walked in and when she turned off the porch light, I looked out the little window in the door. Detective Decker was still standing there. He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned away. I bit my tongue to keep from calling him back while I watched him get into his truck and slowly drive away.
When the firemen put away their equipment and the truck drove down the street, Megan and I took a quick tour of my townhouse. Nothing seemed to be amiss but the place smelled acrid and smoky. My foam neck brace was lying on the floor next to the bed. I must have taken it off in my sleep. My neck felt okay, so I left it there and grabbed some dry clothes. We opened a few windows and turned on exhaust fans in the bathroom and kitchen, then locked up.
Back at Megan’s, she pulled out the sofa bed for me and I gladly collapsed on it. Asleep before she switched off the light, this night had finally ended.
20
Monday
Megan shook me awake in what seemed like two minutes after I fell asleep. “Jennifer, get up. You promised Bernie you’d go with her to see Jacobs and Decker.”
I dragged my tired body into the shower. It woke me up but I still felt as if my limbs were made of stone. I dressed and was digging my keys out of my purse when Megan handed me a fried egg sandwich on toast. “Eat this on your way. Here’s a cup of coffee. Go!” She stuck a thermo cup in my hand and pushed me out the door.
I crossed the street, pushing the remote on my keychain. My garage door shrieked open in jerks and starts. What the heck was wrong with that door? I’d have to check it later; I had to get to the Sheriff’s Office. I took a bite of the sandwich and gulped down some coffee before I backed out and down my driveway.
I met Bernie on the steps to the station house. We had arrived at practically the same time. I told her the condensed version of last night’s excitement. “Unless they can prove you were the one who tried to burn my house down last night, you should be off the hook, Bernie.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears, Jennifer. Father Werner had me in his office last night. I thought he’d blow a gasket but remarkably, he seemed understanding. He knows I’d never hurt another human being and he even said he’d come with me today if I wanted him to. Just knowing he is standing by me is enough.”
We went in the front door this time. Walking up to the glass-fronted window I was about to tell the perky young blonde receptionist that we were here to see Lt. Jacobs when she looked up and exclaimed, “Sister Bernadine! How are you?”
> Bernie smiled. “I’ve been better. How are you, Angelia? And how’s your mother?”
“She’s much better, Sister. Thanks for helping us get her into the nursing home. They take really good care of her there.”
“I knew they would. Is she making friends?”
“Oh, heavens, yes. One of us kids visits her almost every day and sometimes I think we’re intruding. The other day I came right when bingo started and she made me go with her so she wouldn’t miss it. Thank you so much for talking to her an making her realize it was best for her to be there.”
“I was glad to help, Angelia. We’re here to see Lieutenant Jacobs. Is her around?”
“I’ll let hm know that you’re here. You can sit and wait over there,” she said, pointing to two cushioned benches against the wall. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” She picked up the phone. This was worse than the waiting room at the dentist’s office. I hoped Jacobs would call us soon.
A few minutes later Jacobs ambled through the door. “Good morning, ladies. Thanks for coming in.” He waved his arm with a flourish showing us the door he wanted us to go through.
We were ushered to that same small grey room. This time it smelled like urine. I wondered who was here before us.
“Well, Sister, looks like there’s been some excitement since I last talked to you.” Looking at me he said, “Are you alright Jennifer?”
When I assured him I was fine and the damage to my house only minimal, he turned again to Bernie.
“Okay, Sister, let’s go over everything again.”
Bernie told the whole story again with Lieutenant Jacobs asking questions and helping her to be more specific on a number of points. It took over two hours but finally Jacobs decided he’d learned everything Bernie was willing to tell him. He appeared to believe her when Bernie said Marty had been alive when she left her. He noted time lines and made other notations in his little notebook.
