Murder Scene

by Richard Montanari

  ‘Should I take a peek at your iCal?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Let’s start with the morning part,’ Ivy said. ‘What time did you wake up?’

  More finger calisthenics. ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘I’m going to put in a request that you never again say that word in my presence. Ever. Can you oblige me on that?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I appreciate it,’ Ivy said. ‘Let’s start with geography. Did you wake up in this house?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What time?’

  He shrugged twice. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Before noon?’

  ‘What time does Price is Right come on?’ he asked. ‘The new one. The one with that funny guy from Cleveland. Not the old one.’

  Ivy hadn’t watched the show in years. She had no idea what time it came on. She’d look it up. ‘Eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Right around there, then.’

  Finally. A note. She wrote this down. ‘Were you alone?’

  ‘I was with Maggie.’

  ‘She can confirm this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess so.’

  ‘Who is this Maggie?’

  Dodge pointed at the back door of the shack. It took Ivy a few moments, but she finally saw what he meant. It was a grimy plastic salad bowl, dotted with dead flies. Next to it lay a rusted chain.

  ‘Maggie’s a dog?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  This raised a quill. ‘What kind of dog is Maggie, Dodge?’

  ‘A mutt. Got some hound in her, but mostly a Rott.’

  ‘A Rottweiler?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ivy moved her hand closer to the grip on her weapon, glanced around the yard, toward the tree line. The truth was she’d rather hurt some humans she knew than hurt any dog. Unless that dog was trying to eat her. ‘Where is she right now?’

  Dodge glanced at the sky, as if Maggie might be flying overhead. ‘Can’t say for certain about where she is this very minute, but my brother took her with him to the Home Depot this morning.’

  Ivy relaxed a little.

  ‘Don’t know what, if anything, you’ve heard about this bad business that happened out at the Gardner farm,’ Ivy said. ‘My inquiries at this point are just routine, but I still have to make them. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Dodge Deacon shifted his weight onto his left foot, slightly away from her.

  ‘Look, you and I don’t really have a history, Dodge. I had a few run-ins with your daddy, that’s true, but you and I both know that was Ray’s doing. You ask for something hard enough and long enough in this life, you get it. I didn’t put him in Lucasville. He put himself there. I was sorry to hear of his passing.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘I need to know what you know about this business, Dodge.’

  Dodge Deacon just stared at his boots.

  ‘Were you out by Cavender Road recently?’

  ‘Cavender Road?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t go out there.’

  ‘But your truck has the bar lights on top, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  Ivy retrieved her notepad. ‘It’s registered to you. A 2014 F-150, white in color.’

  ‘See, now, that’s Chevy’s truck.’

  ‘Then why is it in your name?’

  Dodge again looked at the sky. Ivy had a good idea why.

  ‘There’s isn’t anything you can say that’s gonna make me clutch my pearls, Dodge. We’re just two folks talking.’

  ‘It’s because of the credit.’

  ‘The credit?’

  ‘Chevy don’t have none. He had to buy the truck on time, see, but he couldn’t get the credit. Mine is still good.’

  ‘So you’re saying Chevy drives that 150?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  At this Ivy’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. It was from someone at BCI. This was good. She answered.

  ‘Can you hold a minute?’

  On the phone, a man’s voice said that he could. Ivy turned back to Dodge Deacon.

  ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

  Ivy stepped away, took the call. It was Special Agent Gary Baudette from BCI. He told her he was en route to the scene with his mobile crime lab, and estimated his time of arrival at around forty-five minutes. Ivy thanked him, signed off, looked at the angry clouds to the west. She hoped the rain would hold off. She stepped back to where Dodge Deacon stood.

  ‘I’d like to continue our discussion, but I have to be somewhere,’ Ivy said. ‘Can we talk later today?’

  Dodge said nothing.

  ‘I know you know full well where the police station is, but I’m going to give you my card so there’s no misunderstanding.’

  Dodge held out a hand, Ivy handed him a card.

  ‘You won’t make me come looking for you, right?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘I aim to straighten this out, and you can help me, Dodge.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  As Ivy climbed into her vehicle, she glanced back to where Dodge Deacon stood. His shoulders were shaking.

  He was crying.

  When Ivy returned to the Gardner farm the scene was buzzing with activity. Baudette and two of his BCI agents were setting up.

  The Bureau of Criminal Investigation was a part of the Ohio Attorney General’s office, with more than four hundred employees, covering the three divisions – Laboratory, Investigation, and Identification. The laboratory section handled evidence processing, firearms, documents, anything a full-service laboratory might process.

  Agent Gary Baudette was in his mid-forties, a lifer. He was from a small town in Franklin County, near Columbus. Ivy had never seen him without a tie. He was a trim man, on the shorter side, but solid. Today he wore a navy blue BCI windbreaker.

  ‘Afternoon, Ivy,’ Baudette said.

  ‘Good to see you, Gary.’ This was a common enough greeting, even though the circumstances that put them in the same place were rarely good.

  ‘Coroner’s come and gone,’ Baudette said. ‘He’s pronounced her.’

  ‘He say anything about cause or manner?’

  Baudette shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What about time?’

  ‘Nothing official yet.’

  When Ivy stepped away Baudette and his two investigators began to process the immediate scene. A good deal of the lab work took place in one of BCI’s labs – the nearest one in Richfield, Ohio – but there were many parts of the investigation that began at the crime scene, including blood samples, touch DNA, and footwear.

  Baudette directed the agents to collect a few of the items near the body, specifically the ‘crown’ found nearby the victim’s head.

  At the side of the field, Ivy took out her knife, cut open a large paper evidence bag, spread it out on the grass. She placed the crown on the paper.

  The circle of wire was about seven or eight inches in diameter. It looked to be made of a long, green twig, wrapped in galvanized wire, the sort you might use to hang a heavy picture frame. It might have been a thin wire coat hanger. On either side was a fixed bird’s wing.

  The wings were spread, and were attached to the base with thin wires wrapped around narrow bone.

  Baudette stated the obvious. ‘That is definitely man-made.’

  Ivy pointed to the area where the wing was attached to the wire. It looked like short pieces of plastic or wood, with an oval shaped hole in the center. ‘What is this right here?’

  ‘That’s the radius and ulna,’ Baudette said.

  Ivy looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A crow’s wing is not all that different from the human arm,’ Baudette said. He pointed to parts of his own arm. ‘Humerus, ulna, radius.’ He wiggled a few fingers. ‘Even digits.’

  ‘You just happen to know this?’

  Baudette smiled. ‘You live, you look, you learn.’

 
; ‘So, you’ve run across this before?’

  ‘Nothing exactly like this. But whoever did this has some knowledge about these birds, of bird anatomy in general.’ He pointed to the area through which the wires looped onto the crown. ‘There was a lot of care in removing this wing from the bird without damaging the bone structure.’

  ‘Let’s get some more close-up photographs of the victim’s head,’ Ivy said. ‘I want to know if she has any scratches that might be consistent with this.’

  Ivy took out a tin of Altoids. Baudette took one. Ivy took three. They were probably going to be her lunch.

  ‘Did we find anything like this crown at the Paulette Graham scene?’ Ivy asked.

  ‘Didn’t see anything like it,’ Baudette said. ‘But the victim’s body and the scene itself were pretty well compromised by the elements. A lot of animal activity and a pair of snowfalls between time of death and discovery of her body.’

  Ivy had taken a lot of photographs of that scene, and she knew that BCI took an extensive array of their own, plus a video. She had copies. She made a mental note to go over them all again, this time under magnification. If there was something she missed, if there was anything resembling this crown of wings, it would open the investigation up in many ways.

  Unless and until they had an ID on this victim, they could not begin to piece together these two lives, where and if they crossed paths, if they knew each other from school, social media, church, sports, hobbies. At this moment the only thing that tied them together was that they were white teenaged girls found dead in remote clearings in Holland County, Ohio.

  That was the official line. Ivy knew in her heart it was more than that. She looked at her watch.

  Chevy Deacon was about to get off shift.

  28

  The house stood in silence.

  Will had walked the neighboring blocks for an hour, putting off this moment. He told himself that it was merely an excursion to learn the neighboring streets, perhaps to meet some of the neighbors, or to get a general lay of the land. He’d learned that the nearby homes were neat and trimmed Cape Cods with small front yards, each defined by a pastel shade and contrasting shutters. He learned that mail was delivered into a postal box at the street. He’d learned that these side streets did not have sidewalks or bike paths.

  With each turn of a corner he glanced toward Platteville Road, looking for the finial that he knew graced the roofline on the large gabled end of Godwin Hall, more than once seeing it rising into the clotting gray clouds.

  Will walked in ever tightening circles until he found himself standing in front of the structure. Before him, on a weathered gray sign, was the house’s name.

  He had not known what to expect at this moment, whether he would feel mere curiosity or something else, something deeper, something entwined among the roots of his heritage. Godwin Hall was the reason he was in this place at this time.

  He was, of course, giving the structure too much power.

  It did not live and breathe. It did not know the story of William Hardy, Amanda Hardy, and Bernadette Hardy. It did not care about the millstone of grief on his shoulders, or the life they had left behind. It was brick and stone and mortar and wood. Nothing more.

  He opened the notebook he had prepared. In it were a dozen or so photographs. Three of them he had gotten from Patrick Richmond on the day he had learned of his inheritance. The rest he had downloaded from the internet. Each showed a moment in the history of Godwin Hall.

  But now that he was standing in front of the house it was different. Could this be a home to Detta and himself? Would she ever come to think of it as a home?

  Will had expected the yards surrounding the house to be wild and unbound, tall grass, untended shrubs. Instead the grounds were neatly kept: azaleas, spirea, boxwoods.

  Will turned his attention back to the porch. To the right was a huge flagstone on the ground. It was just a few feet from the bay window on the one-story wing of the house.

  The warning arrived fully formed in his mind. When it landed, it felt like a damp hand around his heart.

  You don’t want to end up like Daniel Troyer.

  His first sensation, upon entering Godwin Hall, was the smell. Beneath the layers of mildew and neglect, beneath the furniture polish and pine-based cleaning solutions, Will smelled pipe tobacco and gardenias and fermenting apples. He smelled old plaster and dry firewood.

  Ahead and to the right was the steep staircase leading to the second floor. The treads were covered in sun-faded cocoa brown carpeting with small, cream-colored fleur-de-lis. The center of the treads were worn bare to the ticking. Dust bunnies lurked in each corner.

  To the left, tucked beneath the railing in the entry hall, was an old oak sideboard, cluttered with items. There was a teapot and two cups with saucers, gold and white; a wooden antique yarn pull; a basket full of carefully folded burgundy linen napkins. He looked more closely at the teacups. In each was a dried red rose.

  Next to the sideboard was a stack of baskets, the uppermost packed with pine cones. Next to it, an old steamer trunk in front of a half-door that led to the area beneath the steps.

  The muddy boots go here.

  The second thought also came to him unbidden. For an instant it raised the hairs on his arms.

  He moved through the first floor, into the parlor to the left of the entry hall. In the center of the room was a large brocade sofa, piled with cardboard boxes. The sofa was a mauve silk, worn through at the arm rests. The mantel of the fireplace held more teapots, as well as ceramic and metal figurines, mostly birds, sitting as silent adjudicators overlooking the empty room.

  The dining room held no table, but there was a three-section mahogany breakfront that appeared to be in good condition. On each of its shelves were crystal plates and glassware, and yet more figurines. In the center of the piece was a drop front secretary. The top had a beautiful molded cornice.

  There was one large drawer that spanned the width of the cabinet.

  No silverware. Needles and thread.

  Again, this thought came to him uninvited. Just a casual thought, really. A speculation of sorts. Wasn’t it? He decided not to look inside the drawer.

  The small kitchen was empty, void of any appliances. In one corner was a square table with a single chair. On the surface of the table was an old pad and a pen. Nothing was written on the paper.

  In a room off the dining room was a single bedroom with a small bathroom attached. There was no bed or furniture in this room, save for a pair of nightstands pushed to the wall. On the floor was a rolled-up area rug with a tag attached.

  Upstairs were the six guest rooms, three on either side of the long hallway. Will poked his head into each. All were empty, dust-laden. A few had old metal bed frames with no mattresses on them. One had a stack of ceramic wash basins in the corner.

  At the end of the hall was a large guest room with a balcony.

  Will crossed the room, opened the doors, strode onto the terrace, which seemed firm and solid. He looked out onto the immense green field lined with trees on either side, again struck by the quiet. He saw a large house on the other side of the Fairgrounds, its gabled end facing him. This was Veldhoeve. It seemed to grow from the mist, having no foundation or footing, but rather offering the illusion of floating.

  Will imagined, for a moment, this scene as it might have been when Godwin Hall opened, the huge sycamores and birch trees mere saplings at the time, the winding river visible for miles into the surrounding hills of Holland County.

  He wondered who it might have been, which tradesman had stood in this very spot, proclaiming Godwin Hall straight and plumb and level and true. Again, his waking dream engaged, and he heard the sounds of children running across the bright and festive midway below, the trill of the calliope, the rich aromas of fry cakes and birch beer.

  Welcome home, Will Hardy.

  Will walked down the stairs, looked for the door leading to the basement. When he strode into the dining room h
e found his fingers upon the handle attached to the drawer in the breakfront. Before he could give it any further thought he opened the drawer to find that, indeed, there was no silverware in the drawer. Instead there were three small spools of brightly colored thread, and dusty pin cushions stuck with tarnished silver needles.

  ‘Now how did I—’

  Before he could finish the question to himself he saw a long shadow falling across the floor in the late afternoon light. It seemed to move toward him.

  Will spun around.

  There was a man standing behind him.

  29

  Judge Judy became Dr Phil, who became Ellen. Show after show, channel after channel.

  Detta glanced at her watch. It was now four minutes since the last time she’d looked. Now there was another judge.

  She turned off the TV, took out her phone, scrolled through her playlists. There was absolutely nothing she wanted to hear, no soundtrack for this day.

  How did this all happen? she wondered. How did her life become this other girl’s life, this Lifetime Channel movie about a girl who loses her mother, and then she and her father move to some godforsaken place in the country?

  She knew how it happened. She just didn’t want to accept how it happened.

  When her father had mentioned the possibility of leaving New York, leaving his job and their life, Detta had thought it was something that would pass, that it was one of his therapy friends who had suggested it to him to help get through his grief. She didn’t think he was serious.

  Then one day, when she was sitting in the kitchen of the sublet, he just announced that they were going to do it. Just like that. As if he were telling her what was for dinner.

  In the end, there was not much to pack. The fire had all but wiped out everything they’d ever had. The only pictures Detta had of her mother were the four pictures she had uploaded to Facebook. One was of Mom and Dad sitting at a table of a café on Houston Street, Da Tommy Osteria. In the picture her mother and father are sitting next to each other in the garden section of the restaurant. It was her mother’s thirtieth birthday party, and it had been a surprise.

  As a rule, her mom did not like surprises, but she had quickly gotten over her faux-rage at this one. She had let her daughter take more than a few sips from her sparkling wine. Detta had paid dearly with a kid-size hangover the next morning, but at the restaurant she had been flying high. It was why, of the ten or twelve pictures Detta had taken, all but this one were out of focus.