Maddie Cochere - Two Sisters and a Journalist 01 - Murder Under Construction

by Maddie Cochere

  All of us sat stunned with our mouths hanging open.

  “Grandmama, did that really happen?” Kelly asked.

  She took her bottom plate out, rinsed it in her water glass, and shoved it back into her mouth. “It sure did.” She paused for extra effect. “But not to me. I read it in the newspaper. I think it happened in New York. Wouldn’t that be fun though? Some stupid criminal shows up in a church to rob the old ladies playing bingo, and one of the senior citizens grabs his gun and becomes a hero.”

  Hank laughed so hard, I thought he would cry, but I wondered what in the world was wrong with Mama today. She was over the top silly and not her usual cranky self.

  “But did you win any money?” I asked again.

  “Twenty bucks,” she said as she pulled two tens out of her pocket and handed one to Kelly and one to Keith. “Did you bring my comics?” she asked Keith.

  “They’re in the car. I’ll go get them,” he said.

  Mama continued to confuse me. “What comics?”

  “Hawkeye,” she said. “Don’t you keep up with the kids and what they like these days? Keith’s got the new issue starring Lucky, the dog who loves pizza. He’s loaning it to me.”

  I looked over at Pepper and Hank and shook my head. I was simply out of the loop sometimes when it came to my family.

  Kelly piped up, “Aunt Jo, we went with Uncle Hank to a birthday party yesterday, and Keith knocked over the table with the cake before the girl even got to blow out the candles.”

  Mama did her loud squinty eye laugh again. After a few hoos and phews, she said, “You kids get yourselves in the worst predicaments.”

  If I didn’t know better, I would think she was stoned.

  “It wasn’t Keith’s fault,” Hank said. “A couple of the kids were roughhousing, and one pushed the other into Keith. Thankfully, the birthday girl’s father saw it happen, so we weren’t blamed. I have a couple of action shots of the cake going over though.” He beamed with pride.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” I said. I was glad to step away from the table.

  I threw the door open and had a pie thrust under my nose.

  “I come bearing gifts,” Jackie said. “Chocolate Bourbon Pecan.”

  My car was in the driveway. My purse hung from her arm.

  I threw my hands up and gave her my best I can’t believe you look. “Where did you go last night? Why did you abandon me?”

  “I didn’t abandon you. I just didn’t come forward when the cop showed up.”

  “Jackie, he walked in on me when I was on the toilet. It was horrible.”

  She couldn’t control herself and convulsed with laughter interspersed with snorts.

  “Who is it?” Mama yelled from the dining room.

  “It’s Jackie,” I yelled back. “She brought pie.”

  Keith came running to take the pie. Jackie and I stayed in the front room to talk.

  “I didn’t tell the Patterson police you were with me,” I said. “I kept lying and saying I was alone and only there to use the bathroom. I’ve been worried all day thinking about being arrested again for lying to the police.”

  “You’re not in trouble,” she said. “As soon as they took you to the station, I called Sergeant Rorski. I told him we didn’t have anything concrete as to who murdered Ruby Rosewell, but we did know who she was. I made it clear that he needed to get you out of the Patterson police station before you started talking, and the chief over there took credit for helping to solve the case. Trust me, he called right away.”

  “Now that he knows we’ve identified the body, why aren’t we talking to him today? Why aren’t we giving our statements?”

  “It’s the Buxley police department,” she said with sarcasm. “They still think of her as just a prostitute, and there’s no urgency. He said he’d see us both Monday morning.”

  I was happy to hear she would be there, too. She believed me about my dreams, and I knew she would help to buffer the sergeant’s growing irritation with me.

  “Ok, good,” I said. “Let’s go eat pie.”

  “Wait,” she said as she pulled the folder from Paula’s apartment from the side pocket of my purse. “You need to see this.”

  She spread papers out in front of us on the coffee table. I picked up a photograph and said, “This is the man Stewie was with at Mama Rosie’s for lunch on Wednesday.”

  “That’s Terry Cord.”

  “You’re kidding.” I said it more in surprise than that I didn’t believe her. Obviously, they knew each other, but I was surprised they knew each other well enough to have lunch together.

  She handed a few of the papers to me. “Look at these. They’re all appraisals for properties in southeast Ohio. I did some cross-referencing, and every one of them is low. Too low. Telcor purchased the properties based on the low appraisals, but they were reappraised later at a higher value for resale to developers. There are also properties here that were sold as blighted when they weren’t, and low interest loans were made to people who could never pay them back. These properties were deliberately undervalued and, in some cases, effectively stolen from their owners.”

  I couldn’t believe Stewie was involved. “Was Stewie doing both appraisals? The low and the high?”

  She nodded her head. “I know you guys had a good time last night, Jo, but you need to see these. I found them when I was running searches on Cord this morning.” She pulled out copies of newspaper clippings from several years ago. There were pictures of Stewie and Terry Cord together. Stewie worked on Terry’s campaign for city council. Terry was elected, but he only served one term. There were allegations of kickbacks to the councilman for awarding building contracts to select builders of housing projects. “He was never indicted,” she said, “but he hasn’t run for political office since. Not until declaring his candidacy for mayor in Marietta.”

  My heart sank into my stomach. “Stewie is part of the fraud.”

  “It sure looks that way.” She handed one last paper to me. “According to this, Telcor is owned by Breiner out of Germany, but the thing is, both Breiner and their company address are fake. Telcor is all Terry Cord. He doesn’t have his name attached to any of the business, but I spent a couple of hours with Big Arnie this morning, and, by the way, he said he would probably mentor you. He wants to meet you.” She flapped her hands at her own interruption. “But anyway, I spent time with him this morning, and he has a source in Pittsburgh who checked into Telcor’s banking. The money routes through several offshore banks before finally going to one in Chicago held in his wife’s maiden name. There are over twelve million dollars in the account.”

  We sat quiet for a few moments. It was a lot to take in.

  “Cord probably had big plans for when he became mayor in Marietta,” I said.

  I gathered all the papers and shoved them back into the folder. Without enthusiasm, I asked, “Ready for pie?”

  She smiled and said, “If there’s any left.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Spending the afternoon at Mama’s had been fun and proved a welcome distraction. Jackie regaled everyone with her take on last night’s events. I considered protesting her embellishments, but Mama was enjoying the storytelling so much, I didn’t intervene.

  Rousing rounds of Pictionary followed, and I found myself feeling content and comfortable. It had been months since we’d all been together at Mama’s, and it felt good to be with family.

  Matt dropped by at five o’clock to pick up Jackie, and I left twenty minutes later after promising Pepper I would go with her to Figure Perfect tomorrow evening. It was an easy promise to make after eating a ton of mashed potatoes today.

  It seemed silly to go to bed so early, but I was exhausted and planned to climb under the sheets as soon as I got home. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping until morning.

  I thought about calling Stewie, but what would I say to him? Hey, I know you’ve been cheating people out of their property and homes. I’ll
be telling Sergeant Rorski all about it in the morning. Oh, and by the way, your friend, Terry Cord really did kill Paula Radford, and I’m going to prove it. Yeah, that would be a good conversation.

  I struggled to keep my eyes open as I turned onto Clark Street. I didn’t bother with the garage door opener, and I left the car in the drive.

  When I walked through the foyer and into the living room, I saw the light blinking on the answering machine I had hooked up to the red phone. I kicked off my shoes, grabbed a beer out of the overstuffed chair, and dropped sideways into it. I had restocked both the chair and the kitchen refrigerator with beer yesterday before my date with Stewie. I wanted to be prepared in case he wanted to come in afterward, but in hindsight, I was glad now he had declined.

  The red light blinked a number three. Three messages? I was with Jackie and Pepper today. Who would leave three messages?

  I pushed the button. The first message was from 1:08 this afternoon. “Hey, Two Sisters and a Journalist. This is Bertie at Margaret’s Nail Confections. I talked to my girls, and Wendy was the one who did that dead girl’s nails for the wedding. She said they talked a lot, and the girl was real nice. She gave her a card for a dance studio she was opening soon. The dance studio on the card is Paula Charlotte’s Dance Center. Hope that helps. Bye.”

  Goosebumps covered my arms. The dancer at Pink Elephants had heard Ruby say Charlotte as her name over the phone. Charlotte must be her middle name. It was one more piece of information to fall into place.

  Message number two was from 4:54. “Jo, Stewart here. Just wanted to say hello and tell you I had a good time last night. I thought maybe we could get together later and talk more about your theory about what happened to Paula. Talk to you later.”

  That was sad. He liked me, and I could see where I might like him a good deal better if we spent more time together, but there could be no working this out now. At least not until he got out of jail.

  Message number three was from 5:40, which was shortly before I came in. There was no message. It was thirty seconds of dead air. If it was the heavy breather, he didn’t breathe a message.

  I erased all of the messages and set my beer bottle on the floor. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I only wanted to rest them for a minute.

  ~ ~ ~

  I woke up with my head hanging off the chair’s armrest and drool on my cheek. I was cricked all over from sleeping in the chair, and it hurt to stretch my limbs.

  The room was dark. I stumbled to a lamp and turned the switch. My eyes felt like they were two sizes too big for their sockets. I checked my watch. It was twelve forty. I had been asleep in the chair for over six hours. No wonder I felt so crooked.

  I carried the beer bottle to the kitchen and tossed it in the trash before checking the doors and windows to be sure they were locked. I left the light on over the kitchen sink and slogged my way up the stairs. It would feel good to climb into bed.

  The hallway was dimly lit at night by a few recessed lights along the walls, so I didn’t bother with the bedroom lamp and simply made a beeline for the bathroom. I stopped in my tracks when I saw a glimmer of light out the window. It was a small light, like the one I had seen two nights ago. It wasn’t moving away this time, it was coming toward me.

  Was this the same person I had seen before? Why were they in the construction site? What were they looking for?

  I suddenly felt cold. What if it was the same person who peeked in my kitchen window? Maybe it was the same person who opened the window to my murder room? I may have seen them running away that night. Were they coming back now?

  The light was halfway across the site now. I quickly checked the windows in the two spare bedrooms. Both were locked. I ran to the murder room. Even before entering, I could see by the dim hallway lighting that the blinds were closed. I stepped into the room and flipped the wall switch for the overhead light.

  I was momentarily stunned. Someone had been in the room. The white board was clean. Everything tacked to it was gone, and all of the information I had written was wiped off. My laptop was gone from my desk. Absolutely everything I had pertaining to Paula’s murder had been stolen.

  Whoever did this might still be in the house, but my instincts told me I was alone. If someone wanted to hurt me, they could have done it while I was sleeping in the chair for six hours.

  I raced back to the bedroom window and peered out again. The light was past the first dirt mound now and would soon be to my back yard. I knew I had to get out of the house.

  I ran through the darkness and grabbed my keys before bolting out the front door. I made sure it locked behind me.

  Now what?

  I could drive away. That would ensure my safety. I could run over to Pepper’s. I definitely should call the police. Someone had broken into my house and stolen my laptop, and the prowler from Friday night might be in the construction site.

  But a little voice in my head said if I was going to be a private investigator, I needed to handle some of these situations by myself. I suddenly felt emboldened and decided to find out who was skulking around in the site on my own.

  I ran across my front yard and through the Irwin’s yard next door. I cut between their property and Mrs. Wyler’s and ran back to the construction site. This put me near the third mound of dirt where I had found Paula’s body.

  It was dark, but I knew the ground was flat here. The moon was a sliver and kept the night from being pitch black. I crept behind the mounds of dirt to keep them between my house and me. When I rounded the second mound, I saw my upstairs windows clearly. There were glimpses of light in my yard. I moved closer to the bushes at the edge of the property and peered through. The moving light was gone, and I didn’t see anyone.

  What was going on? I stared hard. I blinked my eyes several times and tried to pick out movement in the yard, but there was none. I was almost ready to go back into the house when I saw him walk through my kitchen. He passed the sink, and the light illuminated his face. It was Terry Cord. The man who murdered Paula was in my house.

  It was definitely time to call the police. Terry Cord was the last man I wanted to face on my own. I backed up and ran behind the mound of dirt. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

  A soft voice whispered urgently out of the dark, “Jo, what’s going on?”

  I jumped three feet in the air.

  “Stewie! You scared the snot out of me! What are you doing here?”

  “I was doing some last minute work on the Jackson closing, and I had a strange feeling I should come by your house to see if you were ok. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw you running between the houses. What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know,” I said breathlessly. “Someone stole my laptop and erased all of the work I’ve done on Paula’s murder. And now Terry Cord is in my house.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes. I saw him,” I said excitedly. “I know he murdered Paula, and I think he intends to kill me, too.”

  “He’s not going to hurt you, Jo,” he said. “He’s just going to get the folder you took out of Paula’s apartment, and then he’s leaving the country again. By the time the police figure out what happened, we’ll both be in Germany, and we won’t be back.”

  Confusion clouded my mind. Stewie knew that Terry murdered Paula?

  “Stewie, I -”

  He cut me off.

  “Jo, I’ve told you before. Don’t call me Stewie.” His voice took on an angry tone. “I can’t stand that name. You sound like my mother. Stewie this and Stewie that. Every day she made that disgusting soup with lima beans and called it stew-for-Stewie.” He changed his voice to a high-pitched whine when he said the words again. “Stew for Stewie. Every time you call me Stewie, I want to punch something.”

  I felt lightheaded. Paula’s words flashed in my mind, the soup killed me. I took a step back. The business card I had found. It had to be Stewie’s. The letters TS were from his last name of Tofts. The ALS.COM was from his app
raisals business. Stewie was the one who dumped Paula. The words were barely audible as they came out of my mouth. “Terry didn’t kill her. You killed her.”

  He didn’t deny it. “All those years of waiting for Terry to run for office again, and that slut gets pregnant and wants Terry to leave his wife and marry her. She was a prostitute for crying out loud. No one would have cared that she died, and everything would have worked out just right, but you had to put your big nose in it. Such a shame, too, because I liked you, Jo.”

  It was then I saw a glint off the knife in his hand. I took another step back. I tried to scream, but it was as though my throat had constricted and no sound came out. I turned to run, but only managed a few steps before he grabbed my arm and yanked. I pulled hard in an effort to wrench my arm away.

  It felt as if we were moving in slow motion, yet my mind was in hyperdrive. In another second, he would have the knife plunged into my body. I planted my left foot and swung my right foot with all of my might into his groin.

  What happened next was surreal. I had an out-of-body experience. I hovered high above us and watched as Stewie grabbed my foot and flip me onto my back. I landed with a thud and a loud oomph. My foot hadn’t connected with his groin at all. The knife was raised and coming down fast. I willed myself to move. I saw my body scoot and manage a half roll. The knife plunged into the fat pad on my hip.

  I snapped back into my body and had no trouble screaming as loudly as I could. The pain was searing. Stewie was on top of me in an instant with his hands around my throat, cutting off my voice and breath. I clawed at his hands. Paula’s voice filled my mind again, pull it out quick and use it.

  There was no longer any pain. A burst of adrenaline surged through my body as I grasped the handle and pulled. I drove the knife upward into Stewie’s body.

  His hands let go of my neck, and I gasped for air. He raised himself up before falling over with his hands around the knife. He didn’t have the strength to pull it out, and he made strange gurgling sounds before falling quiet. I tried to stand but fell twice before I was steady and could limp away. I was terrified Terry Cord would find me.