The Advice Column Murders

by Leslie Nagel

  Too bad Jackie was out of business, Charley thought wryly. She could use some advice right about now.

  As she stood waiting for the crosswalk at Far Hills Avenue, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder where Pippo had found that monkey. According to Oliver, he’d visited Sarah about ten- thirty or eleven, which was presumably after the twins’ bedtime. Judith had them out running around from early morning until the discovery of the body. If Pippo didn’t go into the basement that morning, then how did the child acquire the carving? Was she a night owl? Charley considered the fact that Pippo only spoke to and through her brother Hank. Even so, if she’d snuck down there at any point, surely she’d have told someone Sarah was dead. Wouldn’t she?

  Sarah could’ve taken the monkey upstairs after Oliver left. But why leave evidence of his visit lying around? Sarah wasn’t on good terms with her mother. According to Oliver, she’d shooed him out the door rather than risk discovery. That suggested Sarah wanted to conceal his visit, not flaunt it.

  So, if Sarah hadn’t given Pippo the monkey, who had?

  Someone who’d been in that basement after Oliver left, that’s who.

  That settled it. Charley needed to speak to the twins without Judith present. If what she suspected was true, little Pippo might be the key to proving Oliver’s innocence.

  Chapter 15

  Charley arrived home to discover that her conversation with the twins, or any other member of the Sharpe family, would have to wait.

  “Judith won’t answer.” Lawrence stood on the front porch, gazing anxiously at the house next door. “I’ve called and knocked several times. I’m worried about those babies, Chip.”

  “I know, big guy.” Charley patted his massive bicep, an act that felt a bit like palpating a boulder. “You’re sure they’re home? It looks deserted.”

  “They’re in there, all right. Brandon, too.” Lawrence scowled. “He and his daddy pulled in a couple hours ago. It was quiet for a bit. Then the good doctor did some of his world-class shouting and took off again.”

  “Judith told him about Pippo,” Charley guessed. “He’s probably off having a tantrum or getting drunk or whatever. Who knows how a control freak reacts to the news that he’s been made a fool of?”

  “As long as he does it far away from that poor little girl. What must be going on in her head?” Lawrence sighed unhappily as he turned away. “I’ve got to see to the dinner.”

  Charley remained on the porch, gazing at the Sharpe house. What, indeed? She was determined to find out.

  They had planned a dinner party to celebrate Marc’s return, inviting the Brights, Afiya, Trent, Dmitri, and Vanessa. Heddy mysteriously had “another commitment.” Even Vanessa didn’t know what she was up to. Unfortunately, the guest of honor would not be attending, either.

  “Chief Zehring’s got him cross-referencing parking violations by street or something.” Charley pocketed her cellphone. “Marc says to save him some dessert.” He’d said a couple of other things, too, suggestions that made her blush, but she wasn’t about to share those with the group.

  “Since Columbo’s been sidelined, I assume you’re still investigating?” Dmitri rubbed his hands together. “How do I get in on the action?”

  Trent elbowed him in the ribs. “You don’t. We’re already in enough trouble, and Marc doesn’t need any more hassle, either. Honestly, if he isn’t careful, Dwight Zehring’s going to lose the best investigator in the Miami Valley.”

  Dmitri pouted. “Not fair. The way I see it, Charley’s unearthed two huge secrets, and all thanks to ‘Ask Jackie.’ It’s a crying shame we’ve got to hang up our pens, or whatever.”

  “You’re mixing metaphors.” Charley spoke absently. Something Dmitri had just said was tickling the base of her brain. Two secrets…

  Before she could examine the thought more closely, Lawrence called them to the table. As everyone sat down to dinner, windows open to the mild spring air, they heard shouting from next door.

  “—care what you say!” Brandon’s voice came clearly on the breeze. Everyone around the table froze, listening. “I’m not sticking around to find out!” This was followed by the sound of a heavy door slamming.

  Charley’s seat at the table faced the dining room window. She caught a glimpse of Brandon stomping down the Sharpes’ driveway with a bulging duffel bag on his shoulder. She craned around to get a view out the living room window in time to see him cut across the Carpenters’ lawn and disappear into the gathering dusk.

  “Sounds like somebody’s skipping town,” Vanessa murmured. Charley had brought everyone up to speed on the case. Opinions on the various players’ guilt or innocence were split, with Vanessa firmly in the Brandon camp. She cracked her knuckles. “Want me to go bring him back?”

  “Over my dead body, mikró korítsi,” Dmitri said mildly.

  “Double standard,” Vanessa accused. “I’m not a little girl, and you’re not the only one jonesing for some action, big brother.”

  “Now we’ve got two young men out there.” Bobby shook his head. “Angry, scared, and on the run.”

  Trent’s expression was grave. “Desperate people do desperate things. Let’s hope both of them come to their senses before anyone else gets hurt.”

  “I’ve been thinking about your anonymous tipster.” Frankie heaped succotash onto her plate and passed the bowl to John. “Doesn’t it have to be someone who knew Oliver had been there that night?”

  Charley buttered a fresh rosemary roll. “Yeah—Judith. She’s protecting Paxton.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” Frankie countered. “If she knew about Oliver’s visit, wouldn’t she have told the police straightaway?”

  Lawrence cut Bobby’s grilled chicken into bite-sized pieces. “That would be the best way to protect her husband,” he remarked.

  “Or Brandon. Or herself, for that matter.” Afiya reached over and positioned Bobby’s glass and cutlery so that he could use everything more easily and without embarrassment, a job that was usually Charley’s, but which her friend accomplished without fuss and, seemingly, without even thinking twice about it. The gesture squeezed Charley’s heart.

  And then Lawrence’s and Afiya’s words registered. She gasped aloud.

  “My God, you’re right. I’ve been thinking in terms of someone deliberately framing Oliver. But he was there that night! Drummond’s been questioning the Sharpes, treating them as suspects. If they’d known about Oliver’s visiting Sarah, they’d have thrown his name out there pretty damned quick. Well, crap,” she murmured. “Does that mean none of them is the tipster?”

  “Someone made that call,” Trent said. “A neighbor?”

  Charley considered this, then shook her head. “They canvassed the entire area that evening, remember? A neighbor would have no reason not to tell the police about a stranger or a strange car right away.”

  “Not necessarily,” he countered. “People often hesitate to get involved when the police come calling.”

  “Maybe the tipster just forgot until later?” Lawrence suggested.

  Vanessa leaned forward. “Who forgets seeing a strange car but remembers the plate number? No one. There is no way this was a neighbor. And if it wasn’t any of the Sharpes, either, then you’ve got another player in this case, Charley.” She sat back. “There’s only one reason why someone would’ve noted that plate number, and that’s if he or she was the killer.”

  “I thought you were convinced it was Brandon,” Dmitri said.

  Vanessa tossed her head. “Changed my mind.”

  “That’s a leap, young woman,” Bobby cautioned. “We don’t know that the killer made that call.”

  “Forgive me for going all lawyer on the situation, Charley,” John said, “but you only have Oliver’s word for what occurred that night. Are you certain he was telling the truth? After all, he did admit to
sabotaging your renovation project. What,” he asked pointedly, “do you really know about the man?”

  As eight faces turned to her, awaiting her response, she flushed in irritation.

  “John, I really hate when you’re right. Fine. I don’t know much about Oliver’s background. But I cannot accept that he’s a murderer. You didn’t see him, hear his voice when he talked about his beloved Sarah. Besides,” she reasoned, “he wouldn’t call in an anonymous tip on himself.”

  “Which brings us back to my original question,” Frankie said. “If the Sharpes didn’t call, and Oliver didn’t call, then who did? Who else knew Oliver was with Sarah that night?”

  “Someone who saw him leave.” Vanessa lightly thumped the table to emphasize each point. “Someone who was watching and waiting for a chance to sneak into that house. Someone who knew Sarah or one of the other Sharpes, who wants the investigation pointed at Oliver Duncan and no one else, who—”

  “You made your point.” Dmitri stilled her hand with his own. “Enough with the wild conjectures, already. And for the record, you just described the entire Sharpe household.”

  Afiya poked at her food. “I cannot stop thinking of the little ones. So many lies, so much heartache, and right next door. That poor family is very unhappy.”

  “And in the end, family is all we have, isn’t it? Now, no more murder talk. This is a party.” Bobby raised his wineglass and smiled his lopsided, beloved smile at each person around the table, ending with Charley. “To family.”

  Her eyes pricked with tears as eight glasses were raised in response.

  “To family.”

  Chapter 16

  Charley lay on her bed in her summer pajamas, an emerald tank top with lacy trim and tiny matching boy shorts. Her curly red hair, still damp from the shower, clung to her bare shoulders. It irritated her, and she jumped up, stomped to her dressing table, and grabbed a fat cloth hair tie, sweeping the entire mess into a twist on top of her head before flopping back down. She felt restless, unable to concentrate, and knew that the conversation at dinner was largely to blame. Another player in the case? Was it possible?

  Despite the legitimate issues Frankie had raised, Charley kept coming back to motive, and that kept bringing her back to Judith. Paxton was the likely killer, and his wife wanted to shield him. Perhaps Judith had called in that tip and simply gotten lucky, because the person she was trying to frame had actually been there? No, Charley decided reluctantly. No one was that lucky.

  You want Paxton to be guilty. Stop twisting facts to fit the theory you want.

  She gazed out the window. For the past few days she’d been watching a pair of robins build a nest in one of the hawthorn trees that dotted the boulevard and gave their street its name. Oblivious to the turmoil of their human neighbors, the birds and their busy comings and goings were oddly comforting. At this late hour, her small friends had fallen silent, although she knew they were out there in the dark, waiting for the dawn. Charley sighed, wishing her life were that simple.

  She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, unable to slow her racing thoughts, knowing that sleep was, as usual, out of the question. Okay. The tipster had Oliver’s plate number, so the tipster knew Oliver had been in that basement. She racked her brain, trying to think of a single rational reason why any of the Sharpes would’ve waited and tipped off the police anonymously, rather than implicating Oliver right away. She came up empty.

  Who else would have been coming to see Sarah? She’d never lived in Oakwood, hadn’t been in touch with any of her old school friends from Fairborn, or with anyone at all since she ran away, not even Judith’s cousin Rachel. Except Judith. Someone who followed Sarah here from wherever she’d been living? An ex-lover? Someone who owed her money, or vice versa? Maybe she’d stolen something, or witnessed a Mafia hit, or—Charley huffed a breath, annoyed with herself.

  “Rational reasons, Carpenter,” she muttered. There were two big problems with that entire line of speculation. First, she had little information about Sarah’s life since she’d left home. Even Judith hadn’t seemed to know much about what her daughter had been doing. Second and more important, why would such a person—why would anyone outside the Sharpe household, for that matter—bother implicating Oliver? All they had to do was keep their mouths shut and wait for the police to arrest Paxton or Brandon.

  The fact was, someone had seen—or heard—Oliver leave through that side door. With a start, Charley remembered Vanessa’s words: Someone who was watching and waiting for a chance to sneak into that house. Someone who knew Sarah or one of the other Sharpes. Had Sarah truly been the intended victim? Or had it been a crime of opportunity, as Paxton and Judith maintained? Was there a homicidal maniac out prowling the streets of Oakwood, watching from the shadows as innocent families lived and played and slept, spying and waiting for a chance to strike at any available target? Charley shivered and glanced over to be sure all three dormer windows were securely closed. Until the police caught Sarah’s killer, fresh night air was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  Where the hell was Marc? He’d texted about ten-thirty to say the dispatcher had succumbed to a migraine, and he was covering until her replacement arrived. That had been over an hour ago. Charley had given up waiting and had grumpily prepared for bed. It was far too late for him to come calling now. She picked up a small stuffed giraffe and flung it across the room. She’d had a few dispatches of her own she’d planned on sending tonight, and they didn’t involve a switchboard.

  With a sigh she returned her attention to the laptop open beside her. She couldn’t seem to stop nibbling around the fringes of the case, to let it rest, hoping for answers to at least some of the many questions surrounding Sarah Weller.

  Opening up a search engine, she typed in palette knife. Dozens of images popped up on her screen, including one of the late, great Bob Ross applying paint to a canvas. Palette knives were generally thin and flexible, but they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including rectangular blades with squared-off ends. Inconclusive, but something to file away, she thought.

  On a whim she navigated to Facebook and searched for portia delgado. She got several hits, but the profile picture of the fourth one showed the angular master sergeant posing with a pretty brown-eyed girl of about twelve, as well as a plump, smiling woman who looked like an older version of Portia. Mother, Charley thought, which explained how a single mom could jet around the world with Colonel Paxton Sharpe. When, wondered Charley, with all that military service, had Portia found time to get pregnant? She clicked on PHOTOS. There were many, mostly featuring the little girl engaged in various activities, or posing with the grandmother. There was no father in evidence. Interesting.

  Next, she ran a Google search on HETEROCHROMIA and read the details with interest. The bicolored eye condition could be caused by an injury, as in the case of David Bowie. However, it also occurred naturally in eleven out of one thousand births, most often inherited through the mother. The most accepted theory was that it was caused by inbreeding, a morally reprehensible and medically harmful practice that led to genetic mutations, mutations that determined, among other things, melanin distribution in the irises.

  She thought about Judith being molested by her male relatives and shuddered. What a nightmare her early life had been. But while her personal trauma might explain her decision to essentially steal her own daughter’s newborn, did it excuse that terrible betrayal of trust?

  Not a chance.

  Charley pondered the apparent lack of trust between any of the adult Sharpes. An image of Brandon filled her mind: angry, dejected, frightened. What motive could he have for harming Sarah? She was no threat to him. Or was she? Charley wished she had a better sense of his relationship with his father. He seemed to both worship and hate the man, an inner conflict that probably explained his hostility. If Brandon thought Sarah had come home to cause trouble for Paxton, wo
uld that motivate him to silence her forever?

  And what of Paxton? She didn’t buy his vague all-night-diner story for one minute. He was a military doctor, bossy, precise, and controlling. Such a man would keep meticulous records, including receipts, and probably demand Judith do the same. So where had he been during that missing two hours?

  Charley huffed in irritation. Once again, she was wasting time on speculation without a shred of proof. Well, she thought, maybe she should turn her energies toward something that could be proved.

  Where, she wondered yet again, was Sarah’s baby? This question continued to niggle. If she was still alive, the girl would be about fifteen years old. Could Sarah have learned about her daughter somehow? Judith certainly wouldn’t have told her, Charley decided. But that didn’t mean Sarah hadn’t suspected the truth at some point. A chance remark by Judith, a glance, an inflection…

  She thought about this. What would Sarah do? If Judith took the baby to Catholic Social Services as she’d claimed, then there should be a birth certificate somewhere. Could Sarah have found it? Charley sat up, suddenly energized. This was something she could check.

  As she started researching, she immediately discovered that there was a difference between a “Certificate of Live Birth” and a “Birth Certificate.” Curious, she read on. Birth certificates were the official record of a child’s live birth. They were issued by the state after verification by hospital authorities. Hospital births have plenty of witnesses, so that process was a well-oiled bureaucratic machine.

  Of course, Charley thought, Sarah’s baby wasn’t born in a hospital. She’d given birth at the home of Richard and Mary Weller, with Mary as midwife.

  In the case of a home birth in Ohio, the family was required to file a Certificate of Live Birth, or CLB, with their county’s Clerk of Courts. There didn’t seem to be a deadline for getting this done. Charley pictured rural families, too remote or too poor to travel easily into town, possibly without health insurance, hands full with a new baby, getting around to the paperwork aspect of modern living in their own sweet time.