A Crying Shame: A Jesse Watson Mystery

by Ann Mullen

“Howdy, stranger,” a woman’s voice said.

  We both turned around at the same time. Claire still had her hand on the key.

  “Hello, Abigail,” Claire said as she left the key hanging in the lock and hugged the woman. “It’s so nice to see you, again. How’re you doing?”

  “I’m fine, but I have my doubts about your husband. What’s going on with that man?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m here to get the rest of my clothes and the kid’s stuff. I told Carl he could have the house and everything in it except a few personal items, like the photo album of my family. My father died and those pictures are all that I have left of him. I want my kids to have their own pictures of their grandfather so they’ll remember what he looked like. I don’t want them to forget him.”

  “I understand, dear,” Abigail said, touching Claire’s hand. “I was very sorry to hear about your dad. I know that must have been devastating.”

  “This is my sister, Jesse,” Claire said, changing the subject. “I don’t think the two of you have ever met.”

  “Hello,” I said as I held out my hand. “Claire’s says you’re a real hellion and mischievous to the core… and that she just adores you.”

  “Ah, now I remember,” Abigail said. “You’re the black sheep in the family that I’ve heard Claire talk about.”

  “I was until my brother, Jack, told the family he’s gay. Now my star shines brighter.”

  “What happened to your arm, dear?”

  “Mud wrestling,” I joked.

  Abigail put her small arm around my shoulder, looked at Claire and said, “I like your sister already. Before you leave, why don’t the two of you come over and have dinner with me?”

  “We wouldn’t want to put you out, Abigail,” Claire said.

  “You’re not putting me out. I still have that thief of a housekeeper cooking for me.”

  “Why don’t you get rid of her if she steals from you?” I asked.

  “She’s my sister,” Abigail responded. “Besides, the only thing Isabel steals is food. It’s a private joke between us. She’s a mess, but I love her.” Abigail turned to leave. “Don’t forget about dinner. We can’t have you driving back home on an empty stomach. I also want to hear about what you’ve been up to. Carl says you have a boyfriend. He’s so mad. Oh, I guess you know it’s against the law to cross crime scene tape. Good luck, and don’t get caught. You know we still have that private security patrol.” She waved as she walked away.

  “Hey, I like her.”

  “I figured you would. You both have so much in common—your big mouth and your inability to stay out of trouble! You two should be sisters.”

  “I behaved myself, just like I promised.”

  “I wonder when Carl told her about my boyfriend. I didn’t think he talked to her. He told me he thought she was nosey, he didn’t like her, and he didn’t want her around me.”

  “It sounds to me like Carl has a control issue.”

  “He’s controlling, jealous, mean-spirited, and we know he’s a cheater. He’s told me more than once that you had a crush on him. I knew it was a lie. I also knew about the pass he made at you on our wedding day.”

  Claire turned the key, pushed open the door and broke through the tape. She walked into the foyer and punched in the numbers to the security alarm. “Don’t worry, Jesse,” she said as she put her hand on my shoulder. “I understand why you didn’t tell me about Carl. It was too late. We had been married for a while before I found out. One of my friends finally told me after I caught Carl cheating. She said that you rejected Carl and he laughed at you. I can understand why you didn’t tell me. I would’ve probably done the same thing under the circumstances. I’ve learned that Carl can’t be faithful to anyone. I should’ve…”

  “Claire, what’s that smell?” I looked at Claire. I put my duffel bag down on the floor and pulled my 9MM out of it. I lay my purse on top of the bag and instructed Claire to do the same.

  “Put that thing away,” Claire said. “There’s no one here, and if there was, with that cast on your arm, you’re liable to shoot me instead of the bad guy.”

  “You’re right about one thing, Claire. I doubt very seriously if there’s anyone here… alive, that is. That smell is the smell of death.”

  “Don’t say that, Jesse. It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. Trust me, Claire; I know that smell, and I’m telling you it’s the smell of death. There’s someone dead in this house and they’ve been here for a while. All we need to do is follow the odor.” A fly breezed past my face. I brushed it away with my good arm. “… or follow the flies.”

  “That’s gross, Jesse. There’s no one dead in this house. It’s probably the trash or the garbage disposal.”

  “Rationalize it all you want, but I think we’re in for a real surprise. Come on, let’s search the house. Were you serious about the photo album and the clothes?”

  “I made that up. I took everything I wanted when I left. I didn’t plan to come back. Why do you ask?”

  “I was going to tell you to get it now, because when we find the cause of that smell, we might want to exit quickly.”

  “You’re being dramatic,” Claire said as she walked down the hall, passing the large living room to the right and the library to the left. “Phew, it does smell rotten in here. I bet Carl left food on the counter. He was always bad about that. He was so lazy sometimes. It used to drive me nuts.”

  As we walked into the large eat-in kitchen, the smell seemed to be a little less putrid, but not by much. There wasn’t any food left out on the counter, and when I opened the refrigerator door, I discovered that the only food it contained was a half-empty six-pack of beer. The top compartment contained one frozen TV dinner. I turned around and said, “I think that smell is coming from the living room or the library, but let’s eliminate the upstairs first.”

  “Don’t forget the laundry room and the recreation room.”

  We walked to the back of the kitchen and checked the laundry room and then crossed the hall to the recreation room. The odor was awful, but not nearly as bad as it was when we first entered the house. We climbed the stairs and examined the bedrooms. The odor was noticeable in the master bedroom in the front of the house, but it still wasn’t as bad as the smell downstairs.

  “The culprit is downstairs,” I told Claire. “We need to search the living room and the library. Get ready. It could be ugly.”

  “Why didn’t we check those rooms out as soon as we walked in the house? It seems only logical...”

  “I had to prepare myself. I was scared. What can I say?”

  “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything. You’re the tough one in the family. Mom always says that.”

  “I’m not so tough, Claire; I just act that way. It’s all an act. Come on, let’s go downstairs and finish our search.”

  Claire grabbed my good arm as we descended the stairs.

  I worried that if I should have to use my gun, would I have the strength in my hand to do it. I’m right-handed and have a cast on my right elbow. A cast is a sure sign of weakness. Would I be able to pull the trigger? What am I saying? Who needs to shoot a dead person? And I was sure that there was a dead person in this house. I sure would feel like a fool if the smell was coming from a dead animal and wasn’t the odor of a decomposing corpse.

  Slowly, Claire and I walked into the living room. The lamp I had heard about was still turned over, and the droplets of blood still lay on the hardwood floor. If there was blood on the large Persian rug, I couldn’t see it. I bent down on my knees and looked closer at the blood stains. I could see small white fibers in the blood that looked as if someone had swabbed the area with a Q-Tip. I saw more of the same fibers in all the blood droplets. I looked around at the bar and saw black dusting powder everywhere. The more I looked, the more dusting powder I saw.

  “The police dusted this room from top to bottom,” I said as I put my hand up to my mouth. I covered
my nose.

  Claire walked around the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. “I don’t see anything unusual,” she said. She walked over to the sofa and pulled the cushions out, and then threw them on the floor. She used one hand to cover her nose and the other to search in the crevices. She came up with a small, shiny object.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t you know that the sofa is the best place to look for evidence? Everyone at some point in time has lost something in a sofa.” She held up her find for me to see.

  “What do you have?” I asked as I walked over to her.

  “I found an earring, and it’s not mine.”

  “Have you seen it before?”

  “Oh, yes, I have,” she replied. “It belongs to the woman who Carl was having an affair with… the one whose husband shot Carl in the leg when he found out.”

  “That just means it could’ve been here for a long time. That affair happened a while back. He sure has a lot of nerve. He needs to have...”

  “It could still be going on, for all I know. Carl is a rat to the core.”

  “Stick the earring in your pocket and let’s finish our search. Put the cushions back, also. Let’s walk the room once more. We don’t want to miss anything.”

  We walked the room and came up empty.

  “There’s no one here, and there isn’t a place to hide a body, so…”

  Claire and I stopped and stared at each other. The same thought went through our minds at the exact same time.

  “The library,” we both said.

  “There’s a hidden room behind the bookcase,” Claire said. “It has stairs that lead down to a basement that we used as a wine cellar. That has to be it! What better place to dispose of a body? That is, if that odor is what we think it is. I have my doubts. I find it hard to believe that Carl could possibly be capable of doing something so awful. He just doesn’t have it in him. He’s too much of a wimp.”

  “I’ve said the same thing about him many times.”

  We turned and walked to the room across the hall. As soon as we entered the library, the smell became intolerable. I noticed a few flies on the ceiling.

  “Blowflies,” I said, trying to resist the urge to gag. “I studied about them in night school. Blowflies lay larvae that turn into maggots. Usually, when blowflies appear, the corpse has been a corpse for at least a couple of weeks, but their appearance also depends on other things… like the environment. Has the body been out in the sun, or closed up in a basement? Is the temperature a hundred degrees or thirty degrees? Many factors have come into play by the time these nasty creatures surface.”

  Claire walked over to the bookcase and pulled one of the books on the shelf forward. We were instantly assaulted by the flies. The odor was so strong; it sent us running for the front door. We made it outside just in time to throw up on the lawn.

  Claire slipped on the snow and fell face down in her own vomit. The sight of her fall and subsequent face-in-the-puke made me heave again. It was an ugly sight.

  Abigail came running out of her house with a portable phone in her hand. “I knew there was a bad smell coming from that house! I was out in my yard covering my prized rose bushes. It snowed and that no-good, lazy gardener didn’t show up, so I had to do the job. The odor was awful. It came from a vent close to the ground. You found a dead body, didn’t you? I knew the police should’ve come back out here.”

  “Call the police,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “There’s been a murder committed!”

  CHAPTER 14

  The sound of sirens in the background incited a quick response from me. I grabbed Claire by the sleeve of her jacket and started to rub clean snow in her face as I turned to Abigail and said, “Help us, will you, please?”

  “Sure,” she responded. “What can I do?”

  “Run into your house and get a clean, wet washcloth for Claire. Bring a dry hand towel, too.”

  She turned and ran, following my request. She was back immediately. “I saw you holding a gun when you came out,” Abigail said. “What did you do with it?”

  “I dropped it over there in the snow.” I pointed to a spot right outside the door.

  “We need to do something with it. Our police department frowns on people carrying guns. We might have a problem here. What really happened to your arm?”

  I looked down at my cast and said, “I was in a car accident.”

  Claire cleaned herself up while Abigail and I collected the duffel bags and put them in Claire’s car. I held onto our handbags and stuffed my 9MM into mine. Abigail was extremely impressed with my gun.

  “We must have a conversation about your little toy one day.” She had a gleam in her eye that conveyed a fondness for what she probably considered the forbidden things in life. I would’ve bet that she’d never held a gun in her life, if I was a betting person.

  “You’re not the first person to call my gun a toy. I guess I just don’t think of it like that. If you could see the destruction this toy can do, you wouldn’t ever call it that again.”

  “I’d love to see it in action!” she squealed. “You’ll just have to show me some day.”

  Sometimes I believe people have too much money. It makes them behave in the most outrageous manner. They become self-involved, they’re bored, and they find pleasure in the oddest things. Abigail was all of that; but I still liked her. Go figure.

  By the time the police arrived, we had stored our belongings in Claire’s SUV and were standing outside in the freezing cold, waiting for them. Claire had the letter from Carl in her pocket. Abigail stood beside us dressed in her full-length mink coat (the one I figured she probably wore while she covered her rose bushes) and was holding her phone in her hand. This woman really has class, I thought to myself. Who else would be at a crime scene, dressed to the hilt, and obviously excited about the prospect of being involved in such a caper?

  The first one to arrive on the scene was Detective Frank Trainum. I cringed at the sight of him as he walked up to me and Claire. “Strange seeing you two here,” he said. He looked directly at me. “I would’ve figured you’d be too busy trying to conceal evidence.”

  “I would’ve figured you’d be too busy chasing down the wrong person and be walking around with pie stuck all over your face for your effort,” I replied. “It’s too bad that two measly, know-nothing women had to do your job for you. I bet you weren’t aware that there’s a hidden room in Carl Benson’s house. Yep, big old nice wine cellar, right under the library.”

  Abigail couldn’t control herself. She burst out into laughter, turned to the detective and said, “I told you one day you’d meet your match, and now I think you have. She burned you on this one, Frank.” She looked at me and said, “In my day we called them a Speak-Easy.” She turned back to Frank and said, “I’m taking these two ladies inside so they can warm up. We’ll be having tea, so when you’re ready to interrogate them, just come on over. I’d appreciate it if you’d give these ladies a little time to recover from what they just encountered. Both of them are still a little shaky. We’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

  Detective Trainum turned to me and said, “I see that you crossed crime scene tape. I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest…”

  “Just a minute,” Abigail said. “That tape’s been busted for two days. I saw it myself and was going to report it, but I figured you already knew. You’re such a good cop.”

  The detective’s face turned red and he was obviously not happy with the two of us having an eyewitness to the fact that we didn’t cross posted tape. He had lost an opportunity to toss me in jail—something I’m sure he would’ve enjoyed.

  “Do you know who the victim is?” He pointed to Carl’s house.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “As soon as Claire pulled that book and the bookcase opened, the stench overcame us. We had to run outside. Watch out for the flies; they’re everywhere.”

  Claire pressed a button on her key chain pad to lock h
er car doors. “Just in case someone gets any ideas about searching my car without a warrant, they’ll have to come to me first. I have one heck of a security system on that thing.” She gave Detective Trainum a hard look as we turned to walk away.

  “It’s probably just like the one I have on my Caddy,” Abigail said as she led us, arm-in-arm, up to her house. “Pete, that husband of mine, makes sure I have every security device installed on everything, but he still won’t let me have a gun. I figured he was afraid I’d shoot him if he made me mad. Who knows? I just might.” She winked at me.

  Abigail gave us the grand tour of her house. I found it to be fabulous. Claire told me she had seen it many times and was still fascinated by it.

  “Abigail’s antique furniture is some of the best I’ve ever come across,” Claire said. “Her canopy bed is made of a deep, rich mahogany with carvings of such detail; I’m in awe of the craftsmanship. Every piece of wood on every piece of furniture in her house was hand-carved.”

  “I’ve traveled to many places to acquire some of my pieces,” Abigail added. “I wouldn’t part with any of them, unless I die. I can’t do anything about it then.”

  She ended her tour in the parlor where we were to have our tea.

  “Please have a seat and I’ll see if I can’t find my sister.” She exited the room, mumbling to herself about having to do everything. “You just can’t get good help anymore.”

  Claire and I sat down on the settee. I rubbed my hand on the fabric and said, “Abigail has a great house. This fabric feels luxurious.”

  “She has excellent taste,” Claire said. She leaned over and whispered, “I knew she was rich, but I didn’t know how rich until I read that her husband’s net worth is approximately sixty million, and his money continues to grow. I read about them in an article in Money Review Magazine. They go on a cruise three times a year.”

  “Do you think she’d take me with her if I asked?” I said, jokingly.

  “I most certainly would, my dear,” Abigail said as she walked into the room carrying a tray.

  “Here, let me help,” I said, taking the tray from her hands. “Is there anything else I can do for you, like scrub your walls, do your laundry, or massage your feet?”