EQMM, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "They must have had reason to rule it a suicide,” I said.

  "Sure,” she said. “Lack of curiosity, that's why. The two guys back then—Harmon Brewster and Frank Flannery—they styled themselves after Jack Webb and Harry Morgan. Joe Friday and Bill Gannon. Just the facts, ma'am. You know what I mean."

  I looked oddly at my mom. “No, I don't."

  She looked peeved. “Dragnet. A television show. You must have heard of that somewhere along the line, haven't you?"

  "Nope. Just remember an awful movie long time ago, when I was in grammar school. Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks were in it. That was called Dragnet. I saw it at a Saturday matinee. It sucked."

  She still looked peeved. “The things you young'uns don't know. Dragnet was a television show about police detectives in Los Angeles. Harmon and Frank idolized them, wanted to do everything by procedure and by the book, and the book told them that all the signs pointed to a suicide, so therefore, it had to be a suicide. Case closed. For them. But not for me. I remember trying to talk to them about it, and they just wanted to joke about cookie recipes and what I did with my nightstick at night by myself. Jerks."

  "Why wasn't it closed for you? What did you know that the detectives didn't know?"

  "That Mimi wasn't one for killing herself. She was doing all right. She was popular, she enjoyed her job, she had lots of friends. Was even thinking about going back to college. Nothing to indicate a suicide."

  I looked at Mom for a moment, keeping quiet, and said, “Mom. Come on. You know how it is. Suicides have their own logic. What did the evidence indicate?"

  She grimaced. “It's all in there."

  "I'm sure it is. But you tell me. What does the evidence show?"

  Mom turned her head to look out the window. There was a faint smear of skin lotion across her cheek. “Death by strangulation. Last meal of potato chips and cocktail peanuts. Blood alcohol content showed that she'd had some drinks. No bruising on her arms, no bruising on her legs, to indicate she'd been bound. And before you ask, no, the hyoid bone in her throat wasn't broken. So she wasn't manually strangled and then hung to cover it up."

  "Still..."

  "And one more thing. She had had sexual intercourse prior to her death."

  "Rape?"

  "No sign of bruising or bleeding. Most likely consensual. Like I said ... Mimi enjoyed life. She had no reason to kill herself."

  Mom coughed and said, “Daughter ... I'm getting tired. Look, you'll do this thing for me, won't you?"

  I picked up the old file folder. “Will you tell me how you're doing?"

  "I'm doing fine."

  "Mom..."

  "Kiss me and get going, will you?"

  Other times, this would have descended into the sharp little exchanges that mothers and daughters seem to call their own, but this wasn't like any other time. I got up and kissed her forehead—still cool and moist, today's victory was lasting—and said, “All right, Mom. I'm on the case."

  She reached up, squeezed my hand, a weak grasp, and the victory took a bit of a hit. “I knew you would. I knew you would, Stef."

  * * * *

  Home was a condo unit overlooking the harbor, pricey indeed, but the realtor never did mention the twice-daily event of low tide, when the mud flats stunk like the tail end of a circus elephant parade. But I was used to the stench and sat on the deck, file in hand, and got to work.

  Mimi Summers, of 125 State Street, apartment 3. Born February 1, 1944, in Dover, N.H.—the next city north of Porter—and died August 12, 1967, at the Virgin Mermaid, Ceres Street, Portsmouth. Just over twenty-three years of age. There was a black-and-white photo of her. Cute girl, big black bouffant hairdo, like something Jackie Kennedy would have been wearing back then, still mourning the death of her husband. Nice, charming smile, and it made me a bit melancholy thinking of that smile stilled, so many years ago, when she should be alive now, ready to receive her first Social Security check.

  I dug into the file, saw the crime-scene photos. Hard to match the formal portrait with her death portraits. Face puffy, swollen, lips protruding, rope deep into her throat. Poor dear. The photos showed the process of the photography: her hanging from the rafter, taken from a distance; close-up photo of tilted head, like she was trying forever to hear something; another photo of her on the floor of the restaurant; and yet another, on the gurney, ready for a final ride to the county medical examiner's office.

  The paperwork gave a little jolt to the back of my brain, seeing familiar handwriting: statements from the neighbors, faithfully transcribed by my mother, to exist forever in these files, so long as there was a Porter police department and someone to look over its records. The same handwriting that used to remind me to pick up groceries on the way home from school, or tell the school nurse about a fever, here recorded the findings of cops from more than four decades ago. There were also a few newspaper clippings from the Porter Herald. LOCAL BARMAID FOUND DEAD was one headline. A preliminary autopsy report: death by strangulation by self-induced hanging. The contents of her stomach, the alcohol level in her blood. A receipt from the evidence locker. And a few other odds and ends as well, including a memo from the lead detective on the case, Harmon Brewster, to the chief of police at the time, indicating that the case was closed and that no further investigation was warranted.

  That was that. I closed the folder, breathed in the stench of life from out there on the mud flats. I went to the phonebook and looked up something, and then decided it was time to make dinner.

  * * * *

  I had the next day off, and after a brief visit to make sure Mom had some sort of breakfast—and by some unspoken agreement, neither of us said anything about the Mimi Summers case—I did some poking around. I had three places to go to. The first was the easiest. 125 State Street, apartment 3. After so many years, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I wasn't disappointed. The place was right in the middle of downtown, an old frame house that had been gutted and renovated. People no longer lived at 125 State Street; it was now a dentist's office and a home health supply store.

  From there I walked to Ceres Street, taking my time, watching the tourists at play. Even now my mom cackles with laughter thinking about tourists coming to this old port city. When I was a child and she was on the force, Porter was still a rough-and-tumble port town whose bars had sawdust on the floor, and where Navy personnel and crewmen from the freighters got into bloody brawls in said bars. Now, after years of rehab and hard work on the part of the Chamber of Commerce and others, the city is known for its colonial history and charming shops and pubs.

  Like the ones crowding Ceres Street, a narrow cobblestoned avenue flanked on one side by brick buildings and on the other by docks and the harbor. My mom told me that during the street's heyday, cops would only travel down it in pairs after dark, sometimes with their weapons drawn. It had been that rough.

  Now, well, the Virgin Mermaid was no more. It was a shop specializing in stained glass, called, in a manner of breathtaking boredom—I kid you not—the Glass Menagerie. I stood before it, looked at the wrought-iron lamppost nearby, and thought of my young mom handcuffing Mimi Summers's friend so she could go about her work. The thought actually made me smile. I opened the door and walked in.

  It was cool, and the place smelled of fresh flowers and cinnamon. There were tables and shelving and placed there and hanging in the windows were pieces of stained glass. They looked pretty interesting—flowers, birds, seascapes, and landscapes—but my interest was beaten down pretty quickly when I saw the nearest price tag, about equal to my monthly rent.

  The place had changed a lot since its bar days, but the rafters had remained. I recalled the crime-scene photo, and looking up, moved around some until the spot came into view. Right there. That was where the rope was knotted, that was where it had been, that's where Mimi Summers's life had ended, right—

  "Excuse me, can I help you?” came a soft voice.

  I turned and a sweet young thing was there, about ten yea
rs younger than me, dressed in a sleeveless black number that showed off her arms and her tattoos of skulls and flames. Her hair was black as well, with streaks of pink along the side.

  "No, I think I'm all set,” I said.

  "I see,” she replied. “I noticed you were looking at the wooden beams. Was there something there that interested you?"

  "Not now. Maybe forty years ago."

  She looked puzzled. “I ... I'm not sure what you mean."

  I shrugged. “Neither am I."

  * * * *

  My third stop of the day was in a semi-rural part of Porter, where a small trailer park rested. In my years on the force, I'd gotten to know all of the trailer parks in town. Some were good, and some were not so good, like the one I drove into. Pleasant Valley Estates had a grand name, but it wasn't in a valley, wasn't an estate, and didn't look very pleasant. The mobile homes were old, sagging at their foundations, with rust stains on the sides, and standing puddles of water in muddy areas that should have been lawns.

  I stopped before one that had a small wooden sign out front, consisting of two wooden skunks holding a nameplate between them: BREWSTER. I parked the car and went up a creaky set of steps, and knocked at the door.

  And knocked on the door a few more times before it was answered, by a stooped-over older man, wearing a soiled white T-shirt and black sweatpants. He was almost completely bald, with a thatch of white hair for his eyebrows, and twin tufts coming out of his ears.

  "Yeah?” came the voice, as he opened the door a bit.

  "Mister Brewster? Harmon Brewster?"

  "Yeah, that's right. Who are you?"

  "Stephanie Powers. I'm with the Porter Police Department. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes, about an old case of yours."

  His eyes squinted some. “Show me your ID, then."

  I did.

  He looked at it and then looked at me, and passed my ID back, hand trembling. “Says here you're an officer. Not a detective. Not even a sergeant. What's up with that, girl?"

  I used the lie I had rehearsed on the way over. “I'm taking night courses to get an advanced degree in criminal justice. As part of the program, they require you to look at a cold case from the department files, take a fresh look at it. That's what I'm doing."

  He peered at me some more and said, “I know you, don't I?"

  "No, I'm afraid you don't."

  "Damn, you look damn familiar. Powers ... hold on. Your mother, she wouldn't be Jackie Powers, would she?"

  "That she is."

  "Hah.” His face took on a bit more life. “You anything like her?"

  "I hope not,” I said, and that got the desired response.

  He opened the door wider. “Then I guess you can come in."

  * * * *

  When I first joined the force, I liked to pretend that my uniform gave me an invisible shield as I entered trailers and unheated shacks and walk-up apartments that had last been renovated during the Eisenhower Administration. Seeing the junk and filth that people could live in, from all ages and backgrounds, made my skin crawl, and I got through it by pretending my uniform had magic powers.

  Sure wished I had my uniform on today.

  The living room smelled of old medicine and mothballs. The television was on and set to the History Channel—a most popular channel with old men and book-reading geeks, I've come to discover—and the furniture consisted of a couch and two chairs, all covered in a plaid fabric that was shiny with use. He sat down on the couch and I took one of the chairs. The other chair was piled high with old newspapers and magazines. The carpet was orange shag, faded almost to white. As he sat, the legs of his sweatpants rolled up, revealing skinny white shins. He coughed some and I spared a glance at the paneled wall. Lots of photos of a much younger Harmon Brewster, as a Porter cop, and then later, as a Porter detective. As a detective, I saw what Mom had mentioned earlier: Harmon was sharply dressed for the time, with a wide, mocking grin that announced to the world that he was on top of the police world and was enjoying it mightily. There were a few family pictures as well, the color in the photos faded, making everything look yellowish.

  He coughed some more and said, “What case? Which one?"

  "Mimi Summers."

  "Who?"

  "Mimi Summers. Summer of nineteen sixty-seven."

  He shook his head. “Sorry, don't remember. A long time ago ... I mean, Jesus, nineteen sixty-seven. What else can you tell me about it? Was it a homicide?"

  "Apparent suicide,” I said. “Mimi worked at the Virgin Mermaid, on Ceres Street. She was found hanging from the rafters by an on-duty officer."

  He slapped a hand on his knee. “Cripes, yes, Mimi ... I remember Mimi. My, that was a long time ago. Mimi Summers. What a hot ticket. Nice little bod, nice smile, gave us boys free coffee at night ... I remember now."

  "Do you remember anything about the case?"

  He shrugged. “Cripes, that was a hell of a long time ago. Check out the case file, if it still exists. Just remember she hung herself ... and you know what I thought at the time? What a waste of a perfectly hot little girl. Just a waste."

  I smiled, clenching my teeth all the while. “I suppose the medical examiner came back with a finding of suicide, right?"

  "Sure they did,” he said. “Mm ... we even had them check the bone in the neck ... the hyoid. Always snaps if it's manual strangulation with a hand or garrote. Never from a suicide like that. Never. And yeah, I remember now. The hyoid was intact. There you go. Suicide."

  "But she didn't leave a note."

  "Honey, how long you been with the department?"

  "Five years,” I said.

  "Hah. When it's been fifteen, come back and check with me. You find people kill themselves over the stupidest things, and they don't always leave a note. We didn't have anything else at the time, so there you go. Suicide. Poor little girl ... always wondered how she ended up there at the Virgin Mermaid."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Girl couldn't hold her liquor. You get one drink into her and ... Well, I'm talking out of school, but the poor thing's been dead for years. One-Drink Mimi.” He laughed, a honking sound that made my skin feel like ants were crawling on it.

  I nodded politely and said, “You've been very helpful. Your partner ... Frank Flannery."

  "What about him?"

  "I was hoping I could talk to him as well. See what he remembered about the case. Do you know where he is?"

  Another honking laugh. “Sure I do, and you can talk to him, but it's gonna be a pretty one-sided conversation. Poor bastard's been dead about twenty years now. He's up at Memorial Hill Cemetery."

  "Oh, I'm sorry."

  "Well, shit happens, you know. Got run down by a drunk driver, right after he left the American Legion Hall. Poor Frank. I'm sure he had a buzz on but still ... young high-school kid, drunk on wine coolers, took him out. And Frank shouldn't have been drinking there anyhow."

  "Really?” I asked. “Why's that?"

  He rubbed at his chin, and I saw a patch of stubble where he had missed shaving that morning. “Frank had a nickname he hated ... and most people left him alone, but you know how guys are. Once they got drinking, especially vets. Ol’ No-Balls Frank, that's what they called him ... though he was the ballsiest cop I ever knew. Saw him take on three drunk sailors, off of a submarine in the Navy Yard for refueling, and he had them on the ground, knocked out, cuffed, before I even got out of the cruiser."

  "How did he get a nickname like that?"

  Another rub of the chin. “Frank was in the Army, in Korea. Got wounded on some frozen hill. Some mortar shrapnel took him out in the crotch. No-Balls Frank. Oh, he could piss and all that, but that's about it. No wife, no kids ... just the job."

  He nodded up at the family pictures. “Days like these, I sometimes envy him. See that? My goddamn wife Esther. Divorced my ass once I retired, so she could get a piece of my pension. And my worthless son Jake. Some computer whiz kid who thinks he's my dad
now ... made me give up my driver's license when my eyes got bad, so here I am, stuck except for cabs or some neighbors take pity on me and get me out of this dump."

  "Oh."

  "I know what you're thinking,” he said stubbornly. “Then why do I have the picture up there? ‘Cause the damn thing covers a hole in the paneling, that's why."

  "I see.” I started to get up and I said, “Well, I appreciate your time, Mr. Brewster, and—"

  He grinned, revealing yellow teeth. “You can do me a favor, girl. Considering all the time I just gave you."

  "What's that?"

  "There's a packie outside of the trailer park. Why don't you stroll over there, grab me a six-pack. Don't mind what it is, long as it's cold and has a bite. Be a good girl."

  My smile finally slipped. “I'm sorry, I really don't have the time."

  His smile slipped even further than mine. “Don't be such a stuck-up bitch. It's not like I'm asking you to show me your tits or anything. Just a goddamn six-pack. I'll pay for it, you know."

  "It's warm out, and still light,” I said. “Don't you think the walk would do you good?"

  "I don't want to go for a goddamn walk!” he barked. “I just want some beer!"

  Then it all came together: alone in the trailer, license and car taken away from him, hands trembling. No doubt the packie knew him quite well, and no doubt his son had told the store's owners not to sell his father any booze.

  I made for the door and said, “Sorry,” again as he called out something about me being as bitchy as my mother, and two worthless bitches like us, yadda yadda yadda.

  When I got in my car, my hands were trembling almost as much as his.

  * * * *

  Off to see Mom again, and going into the room, I could tell it had been a bad day. The room wasn't lit, she was curled up on her side, just breathing, staring out the window, out at the great big outside that promised so much fun and life. I wondered how she could stand it. I walked to her bed, kissed her forehead. Dry and very hot.