The Advice Column Murders

by Leslie Nagel

  Marc smiled faintly. “Not true. Just better than him.”

  Zehring thumped the file. “You are a loose cannon who refuses to follow orders. You think you know more than your superiors about running this department.”

  “I know more about running a homicide investigation than George Drummond does.” Marc stopped smiling. “Sir, there is a high likelihood that he’s got an innocent man in custody. The prudent course here is to—”

  “ ‘Prudent course’? That’s ironic. You continually allow nonauthorized personnel to compromise both your judgment and the conduct of official investigations. Not too prudent, Detective.”

  Marc felt himself losing his temper, and he reined it in with an effort. “You’re referring to Ms. Carpenter. Her assistance has never adversely affected one of my investigations, nor has she compromised my judgment. On the contrary, she—”

  “She’s doing it now!” Zehring pounded his fist on the desktop, making Mrs. Zehring jump. “That damned woman has got your balls in her hip pocket. Time and again, she’s used your fascination with her to gain access to confidential information. She fills your head with crazy theories, getting you to sneak around behind my back, undermining my authority, and making us all look like idiots!”

  “Her crazy theories have helped this department put away two murderers, dismantle a drug ring, and solve a host of other crimes,” Marc said tightly. “My ego can stand taking help from a civilian, if it gets the job done. I guess yours can’t.”

  Zehring flushed dark red. “What did you say?”

  Marc ignored the question. “Are you going to let Drummond fuck up the Weller case, just to prove you’re in charge? If you do, then I’m not the one letting Charley Carpenter lead me around by the balls.”

  “How dare you?” Zehring was practically spitting in his face. “You—she—the facts of that case are not the issue! The chain of command—the reputation of my department…”

  As Zehring raged on, the futility of this conversation settled over Marc like a blanket. Honestly, he felt relieved. He calmly removed the wallet containing his gold shield from his breast pocket, pulled the shield free, and, before his Chief’s disbelieving eyes, tossed it on the desk. It skidded off and landed near Zehring’s feet.

  Then he turned and walked out.

  Chapter 20

  A text to Afiya led Charley to the sandbox at Shafor Park. “They do not yet know that their mother is dead,” Afiya murmured. She was keeping an eagle eye on the twins from a nearby bench. “Please be careful what you say.”

  “Of course.”

  Charley walked over and perched on the low wall of landscaping timbers that enclosed the sandbox and provided seating for children and their minders. A young father sat nearby, trying to keep a toddler from putting the sandy contents of a plastic teacup into her mouth. Children shrieked and laughed as they scrambled over the complex of climbing equipment nearby. Massive oak and ash trees provided shade as they swayed in the soft spring breeze, flinging bright coins of sunlight across the park with delicious abandon. When school let out in a few hours, the ball diamond and wide green lawn would be packed with older kids, tossing Frisbees and shagging fly balls. But for now, the preschool crowd ruled.

  The twins were busily excavating their way to China and hardly spared her a glance as Charley pulled off her flats and starting burying her feet. Pippo kept up a running commentary, speaking softly in a language known only to her and her brother. She seemed to be directing operations as Hank labored away with a blue plastic shovel, widening the hole while Pippo used the slush pile to construct a berm around it, her small hands patting and shaping the sand. He grunted and asked what Charley assumed was a question. Pippo’s unintelligible response evoked a frown, and then a nod.

  Charley watched them work for a few minutes, reluctant to break into their private world with her grown-up questions about evil deeds that threatened to destroy their security. This was, she realized, her first opportunity to really observe these children, much less speak to them, despite living right next door. They seemed oblivious to everything but one another, totally self-sufficient in the strange and wonderful way of twins.

  They were dressed alike in cotton shorts and striped T-shirts. Both were slender but well fed, almost identical in height and weight. They shared their mother’s brown hair and eyes and their father’s regular features. They were clearly twins, though not, of course, identical. Charley tried to look at them objectively, to filter out her knowledge of their gender, to see them as Paxton Sharpe must have, until Judith dropped her bomb. Were Pippo’s facial features more feminine than those of her brother? Did she stand differently, move differently, speak more like a girl than her twin brother?

  No, Charley decided. At four years of age, the androgyny of early childhood still masked gender. Unless and until adults imposed the outer, cultural signifiers of hair and clothing, it was simply impossible to tell.

  “No boys allowed!”

  Charley glanced over to the jungle gym, where two girls in pigtails and pastel play clothes had taken possession of the top platform, much to the evident distress of two little boys relegated to the ground below. By age three or four, most children understood that the world was divided in two, she reflected. Pippo wouldn’t make it through one day in kindergarten before a classmate demanded to know if she was a boy or a girl, if the obligatory school physical didn’t force the issue first. With Paxton set on enrolling the twins this fall, Judith had to have been feeling the pressure.

  “You’re the lady next door.”

  Charley turned to find two pairs of eyes regarding her solemnly, the excavation temporarily abandoned. “That’s right.” She smiled. “I’m Charley. It’s nice to finally meet you both. I hear you helped Lawrence bake cookies yesterday.”

  “He’s nice,” Hank offered. He glanced at Pippo, who hadn’t taken her eyes off Charley. She leaned toward Hank and said something that sounded like “Semmel bub!”

  “And big!” he translated. Both children giggled, and Charley grinned. She’d have loved to quiz them about their secret language, but now was not the time.

  Choosing her words with care, she addressed Pippo directly. “After you slept over at our house, I found your toy dragon. I hope you got it back?” Pippo ducked her head, then nodded. Encouraged, Charley continued, “And the little carved monkey inside? I love funny animals. Can you tell me where you got it, Pippo?”

  Pippo’s eyes widened, and for an awful moment Charley thought she’d blown it. Then the little girl turned to Hank and began speaking rapidly in a jumble of nonsense syllables.

  “It was a present,” Hank reported. “The tree troll said it was for being good.”

  Tree troll? Charley controlled her surprise with an effort. She decided to approach that zinger from an angle, rather than head-on. “You were being good,” she asked, “the night you got the monkey?”

  “We’re not supposed to get out of bed, but Pippo heard a noise,” Hank explained.

  The last thing she wanted was to frighten this child, but Charley needed information that only Pippo could provide. She kept her voice light. “That sounds like a real adventure. Where did you see the tree troll? In the basement?”

  “We’re not allowed to go down there,” Hank said primly. “He was in the kitchen. Pippo wanted juice. We’re allowed,” he added with spirit. Honestly, she thought, these two were just too cute. “The tree troll saw Pip and said he could have the monkey if he’d go back to bed and not tell anyone.”

  Charley nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Then what happened?”

  Hank and Pippo conferred. “Pip went back to bed, like the tree troll said.”

  Hardly daring to breathe, Charley asked, “What did the tree troll look like?”

  Hank gave her a “duh” face worthy of a teenager. “Like the tree troll.” He pointed at Afiya. “In the stor
y.”

  “Ah. Of course.” Charley remembered that Afiya had been reading fairy tales to the twins from her tablet. Tree trolls didn’t exist, but the child had seen someone, possibly—Charley’s stomach clenched with a chilling realization—probably the murderer. With an older witness, she’d have pressed for more details, but her instincts told her that wouldn’t work here.

  She considered the fact that the twins knew both Paxton and Brandon. Could one of them be the mysterious tree troll? It was possible, given the unpredictability of a child’s imagination. This child in particular seemed to dwell half in the real world and half in a fantasy world of her own, with her secret language and her belief in magical creatures. In the dark, late at night, anyone might seem like a troll, an elf, a fairy queen. Who could say? Perhaps, Charley thought suddenly, the illustrations from that story might provide a clue to Mr. Troll’s identity. All at once she was eager to get home.

  Pippo was whispering to her brother again. “The monkey’s gone,” he said reproachfully. “Do you know if we can get it back? Pip says the tree troll will get mad if we lose it.”

  “Well, then, it must be found.” Charley stood and brushed sand off her backside. “I’ll go look for it now, okay?”

  “Okay,” Pippo said, startling her. She smiled up at Charley with total faith in the power of adults to keep her world safe.

  As she returned Pippo’s smile, Charley’s heart broke for this motherless little girl. Too soon, both twins would discover that their world wasn’t safe at all.

  She drove home slowly, considering what she’d learned. Pippo had seen the murderer and lived to tell about it. But what had she actually seen?

  As she parked in her driveway, Charley noted with relief that the boulevard was once again free of that ominous yellow tape. Perhaps things would return to normal around here, she thought.

  Hurrying inside, she found Afiya’s tablet on the living room mantelpiece. She opened the Book Reader app and brought up the story Fee had been reading to the twins. Charley examined the picture of a small, bent figure, wearing a dark green cloak with a deep hood that hid most of its face. The picture rang a faint bell in her memory. Did Brandon own such a garment?

  She thought again about the lack of concealment around the Sharpes’ side door. A hooded cloak or sweatshirt, even a rain poncho, would be a pretty good way to hide one’s identity. She recalled that Brandon had been carrying a bulging duffel when he ran away. He’d certainly have been smart enough to take anything incriminating with him.

  Now what? This case was still throwing up mud clods, she thought in frustration as she dropped into an armchair. Damn these Sharpes. She’d rarely encountered a family more burdened by secrets, lies, and fear. The fear didn’t seem to prompt better behavior, but it sure made them keep their sins tightly under wraps.

  What, she wondered yet again, was the greatest sin? A young woman with an unwanted pregnancy made to feel like a villain instead of a victim? A man who cheated on his wife? Judith’s lie about Pippo’s gender? Or was it Judith’s more terrible lie about Sarah’s lost child?

  Family. Duty. From the beginning this case had revolved around those twin concepts, two simple words that could mean such different things to different people, she thought, as she traced her finger over the illustration.

  All at once she froze. Charley stared at the picture, struck with a possibility that was so startling and so out of left field—and yet, if she was right, it explained everything, including the identity of the murderer.

  She stood and began pacing as she turned it all over in her mind. That niggle of inconsistency, the false note that had been bothering her, had finally jarred itself loose. A lie told and a truth withheld, and with that revelation came a cascade of conclusions, each one falling logically into place, one after another, in a rush of comprehension that left her breathless.

  She pondered, measuring all she knew as fact, and all she’d been told but was not proved. As she did so, the case became crystal clear. Only amateurs pursued investigations by following motive, Marc always said. But in this case, motive meant everything. She’d been so wrong, from the very start. They all had. All the motives they’d tossed around for why anyone would kill Sarah Weller, and they hadn’t had a clue.

  Now that she thought she knew the truth, what should she do about it? There was no time to lose. In a few days, Oliver Duncan would be indicted for murder. After that, getting the police to investigate someone else would be like pushing molasses uphill. But that wasn’t the greatest danger. Devious, bold, and above all, desperate, the murderer had killed twice and wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.

  She checked her cellphone; no word from Marc. Was he still in his meeting with Chief Zehring? Or had he not bothered to call, assuming she wasn’t interested in the outcome? Her worries from earlier returned, but she shoved them all down. No time for relationship drama, not when there was a killer on the loose.

  With her apprehension mounting by the second, she grabbed her keys. She yanked open the front door and stopped dead, surprised and thrilled to find Marc standing there, looking good enough to eat. He was dressed to kill, in fact, wearing, by her estimation, several thousand dollars’ worth of designer menswear. A distant part of her brain registered this fascinating anomaly, even as her current agitation overrode her curiosity. Freshly showered, shaved, and bright-eyed, he showed little sign of having had a sleepless night. Unlike her. She wondered if she looked as wrung-out as she felt.

  His smile disappeared the moment their eyes met. “Something’s happened.”

  “Not yet, but it’s going to.” With a glance toward the family room, where Lawrence and Bobby dozed in front of a televised Reds game, she led him onto the front porch. She quickly outlined her new theory of the case, including what she’d learned from talking to Paxton and the twins. Marc listened in silence, his expression grave, cobalt blue eyes locked on hers as she laid out the logical path that led to a double murderer.

  When she finished, he asked, “What physical evidence do you have?”

  “None,” she said simply. “At least not yet.”

  Frowning deeply, he paced to the end of the porch and back several times, finally coming to a stop in front of her. She held her breath as she awaited his verdict.

  “Drummond will not be interested in a theory without proof, not when he has Oliver with a bloody murder weapon and witnesses who saw him standing over the second victim,” he said at last. “We’re going to need a confession.”

  “ ‘We’? You believe me?” she asked, flooded with relief.

  He sighed. “There must be something in the air today, but yes, despite the absence of evidence, or of any solid police work for that matter, you have convinced me that this theory is worth pursuing.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Charley threw her arms around him. “I have an idea on how to get that confession, but first I need more information. Then I’m going to need your help.” She stepped back. “Getting involved with another one of my off-the-reservation schemes could cost you your job, Detective, especially this time. I’ll understand if you need to steer clear.”

  Marc cleared his throat. “Actually, as of about thirty minutes ago, that’s no longer an issue. I quit.”

  Charley’s mouth fell open. “You WHAT? When? Why?”

  “I quit, this morning. Zehring started reaming my ass over involving myself in Drummond’s case, not to mention clocking him in front of witnesses. As I stood there, it occurred to me how futile it would be to point out all the ways Drummond is botching the investigation. The Chief’s mind was made up. Then he started in about you.” Marc’s jaw tightened. “He considers any collaboration with you a weakness and proof positive that I’m a lousy cop.”

  “You actually—I mean, you just…quit?” Charley stammered, totally flabbergasted. “Over me?”

  “Not just over you, but yeah. I sure as
hell did.” He framed her face with his hands. “The fact is, you are more important to me than any job. When my thoughts got to that point, I dumped my badge on his desk and walked out.”

  Charley struggled to process this new reality. “What will you do?”

  “Anything I want.” He shrugged. “Sweetheart, it’s honestly for the best. The Chief and I haven’t been on the same page since I got here. You know I’ve turned down about twenty job offers in the last six months, thanks to media coverage of the book club and Prescott murder cases. When I was in Chicago last week I received several more, including an intriguing offer to get in on the ground floor of a tristate special-crimes task force the governors of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky are kicking around. Once funding is secured, they’re moving ahead with it.”

  A cold fist gripped Charley’s heart. “That sounds…amazing. So you’d be off to join this task force?”

  Marc’s eyes flashed with impatience. “Charley, you need to get it through that stubborn red head of yours: I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.” He slid his hands down to her shoulders and gave them a light squeeze. “Dayton is almost exactly in the geographic center of the tristate, as well as the crossroads of Interstates 70 and 75, making it a huge center for heroin distribution, human trafficking, a host of evils. They’d headquarter the task force right here, which I made very clear is the only reason I’d consider getting involved. And even if I do, which is far from certain, it’s at least a year down the road. The truth is…” He paused, clearly on the verge of saying something else.

  “The truth is, what?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “Let’s stay focused. It’s not relevant to this case. Suffice it to say that, as of now, I am a free agent.” Marc stepped back. “Nothing short of a confession is going to free Oliver Duncan, so I will help you get one.” He surprised her with a smile. “Besides, your plan needs work, babe. I’m not letting you place yourself at risk again.”