ELIZABETH ATE A SUB sandwich at her desk Friday and studied the hat that sat in front of her. "Why did someone put it in the trash rather than in the dryer with Louella Belle?"
Hammer's voice came from the hallway. "Talking to me, Chief?"
"Nope. Just myself."
"Fine as long as you don't expect an answer."
She groaned. "Smart-ass."
Hammer chuckled as he walked toward the break room.
She dialed Skelly.
"Logland Veterinary."
She laughed. "You are such a wise-acre."
"Cat okay?"
"She even ate hard food this morning."
"I don't think she had a jaw injury," he said.
"I know. She held out for soft food because I'd been giving it to her. Now she knows I won't coddle her."
Skelly's tone held humor. "Coddling never hurts, Elizabeth."
"I'll remember that if you break a leg. Listen, I have a business question."
He listened while she explained where she'd found the hat, and added, "Even if it held evidence, it's been in that barrel – or someplace – for days. An attorney would say any evidence on it was the height of meaningless."
"She had no wounds, so I wouldn't expect any of her blood. I can check it for any fluids. Felt wouldn't have usable prints."
"I'm not sure why, but I want to hang onto it for a day or two. Hey, did anyone claim Louella Belle's body?"
"Sadly, no family. Her attorney arranged for her to be sent to Leaving the Farm Funeral Home."
"Any services?"
"You'd have to ask John Stone," Skelly said.
"I might do that. Talk to you soon."
"Promises, promises," Skelly said.
Elizabeth flushed as she hung up. Skelly and his insinuations.
EN ROUTE TO THE GROCERY store, Elizabeth drove around the Logland town square. Two days before Christmas, with the temperature at an almost-balmy thirty-three degrees, the middle of the square would usually host people looking at the decorated tree or kids throwing snowballs.
No one strode on the shoveled walkways. On top of wanting justice for the two victims, she resented that the person had stolen the town's Christmas joy.
Not a single child played in a yard along the drive to the Hy-Vee. Aloud, she said, "We've got to catch this killer."
In the grocery store, she found the manager. "We haven't seen any video from the night Stanley was killed. Is the store having problems getting it?"
"It's fine to share with police. I told your officer I'd look into it, and I called the regional office. They said our contract is with a local firm. They haven't called back."
"I bet I know who that is. They don't monitor in real time, do they?"
He shook his head. "They keep the digital files for a few weeks, and we can ask for them. Beyond that, I think they're gone."
"I'll have someone talk to them. I also wondered if the two clerks who were here that night are on duty."
He frowned. "I think you folks already talked to them."
"Officer Calderone did. Sometimes people remember more a couple days later."
"Kimberly's here. I'll have her meet you in the café."
After checking to see if she wanted one of her parents present – she didn't – Elizabeth and Kimberly sat in the deserted store café.
They nursed hot chocolate as Elizabeth broached her topic. "I'm sure it's hard to think about being one of the last people to see Mr. Buttons."
Kimberly nodded vigorously. "Alive, you mean."
"I know you talked to Officer Calderone. Sometimes we remember things a couple of days later that didn't initially occur to us. Our subconscious mind bugs us, so to speak. Can you think of more about that night?"
Kimberly frowned. "I think I told Tony everything." She flushed at Elizabeth's smile. "He knows my uncle, so we call him Tony."
"I would too, if he was my neighbor or something."
She nodded. "I've thought more about the guy who left the store a minute or two after Mr. Buttons."
Elizabeth tried to look encouraging as she sipped hot chocolate.
"He was kind of cute." She flushed. "But old. I mean, at least twenty-one or two."
"Old," Elizabeth said.
"He doesn't come in much, and he never says anything except hello or thank you."
"Tall, short?"
"Taller than you, but not as tall as Tony."
That left about eight inches of uncertainty, but Elizabeth didn't say so. "Thin or heavy?"
"Pretty thin. He had a dark-colored coat on that night. He usually dresses, well, pretty stylish."
Stylish was not a word Elizabeth often heard used to describe men. "You mean like the latest fashion?"
"I don't even know what's latest for men." Kimberly paused. "His jeans were ironed, and he had on what I think was an expensive sweater. Dark blue."
Bingo. Calderone had been right. Kimberly had more to say to another woman. "This is very helpful. Hair color?"
"Not blonde. Not red either. Kind of brownish. Not dark brown."
"Okay, Kimberly. If he comes in, I would like to talk to him. Maybe he saw something in the parking lot that would be helpful."
"Should I ask him to call you?"
"I was about to say definitely don't do that. If you can quietly give us a call when he comes in, fine. Or ask your manager to. If not, you don't need to tell or ask him anything. Just call us when he leaves." Elizabeth handed her a card with the station number on the front and her cell phone handwritten on the back. "Call me rather than 9-1-1, if you don't mind."
Kimberly took the card and her eyes brightened. "Am I like a junior detective?"
Elizabeth smiled. "I'm sure you'd be a good one, but please remember to simply call."
BACK AT HER DESK, Elizabeth buzzed Hammer. "Who has better contacts with the firm that does some of the local retail stores' security monitoring?"
"The place I know is called All Eyes on You, and the manager is usually pretty helpful. She grew up here."
"The Hy-Vee manager said she hasn't called back. He bet he didn’t tell them it was important. Can you check it out? I want to know if Stanley Buttons interacted with a slim guy in ironed blue jeans right before he died."
"Who irons blue jeans?"
"Apparently this guy. Should make him easier to spot."
Five minutes later, Elizabeth took a call on her cell phone from an excited Wally. "On the online police report a few days ago, it said two more bikes had been taken. I think I found them."
Within ten minutes, Elizabeth and Calderone stood next to the middle school bike rack. It did indeed hold the two missing bicycles. Wheel tracks in the snow indicated they had recently been placed there.
Wally looked as excited as if he'd won the lottery. "Bet they were brought here last night."
"What makes you sat that?" Elizabeth asked.
He gestured behind him. "You can see this spot from the backs of those houses. During the day, someone would have seen anyone over here."
Calderone popped open the back of his pickup truck, which he'd brought to retrieve the bikes. "Good point. What even made you look here, Wally?"
"When I was eating my oatmeal today, I thought more about where they'd be. Cause I figured whoever took them mostly wanted to screw with you guys."
Elizabeth smiled. "I thought so, too."
Wally literally puffed out his chest. "I got to thinking if I did it, I'd hide 'em in the back of a shed or in plain sight. So I started looking at bike racks around town."
"I'm impressed," Elizabeth said.
Calderone put on gloves so he could lift the bikes into his truck. He gave Wally an exaggerated wink. "Heard you're coming by the station Christmas Eve. Hammer spikes the punch."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FINDING THE BIKES HAD been a boost but, as Elizabeth expected, they'd been wiped clean of prints. She told Calderone and Hammer to go ahead and call the families who reported them stolen so they could pick th
em up. At least one crime would be solved by Christmas.
She decided to cross one more item off her Friday to-do list. She firmly believed that talking to a victim or assailant in their home environment could explain a lot about them. Absent that in Louella Belle's case, her home could offer more traces of her life and maybe which aspect of it led to her death.
Officers had done a cursory search of the house soon after the murder. Because she wasn't looking for anything to incriminate Louella Belle in a crime, the state's attorney for the county said Elizabeth could go through her belongings without a warrant indicating what else police expected to find.
She called Louella Belle's lawyer, John Stone and said she'd like to stop by Louella Belle's former home after work.
"My only caution is not to remove anything without talking to me first. I've hired someone to do an inventory of her things."
"I won't. My officers have been in her house, but I haven't. Does someone inherit her home and possessions?"
Stone spoke quickly. "She had her will with me, but left no instructions for any material items."
Elizabeth didn't tell him that was a pretty good non-answer.
She drove to Louella Belle's neighborhood and parked her small Ford two doors down from Louella Belle's place, not wanting to attract neighbors' attention. Sidewalks had been cleared, but Christmas Eve was forecast to bring more snow. South-Central Illinois seemed to be on a path for fifty total inches of snow this season, a lot compared to the past few years.
She used the key John Stone provided and walked into the house. Someone had turned the heat fairly low, and cool, stuffy air enveloped her.
The bungalow's interior proved to be more spacious than its exterior implied. The living/dining room combo was easily twenty five feet long, and fifteen feet wide. Sofa and chairs were a severe dark blue, and end tables held only lamps, no books or needlework. The only extraneous item was a narrow, open box that held a fountain pen. It sat on a small table next to the phone.
Elizabeth crossed the room's width and entered a broad hallway. On the left was the kitchen, and immediately across the hall, the bathroom. To the right, the hall ended with two bedrooms that faced each other.
Between the bedrooms, a narrow staircase provided access to a second floor, which from the outside appeared to be more of a dormer than third bedroom.
Elizabeth stood in the doorway to the most lived-in looking room, Louella Belle's bedroom. "Heck of a way to spend the Friday before Christmas."
She moved to the almost six-foot-long closet that faced the bed and slid open the door. The metal door track squeaked in protest.
The clothes were organized by color, and Louella Belle had fewer than a lot of women her age. Some older women, including Elizabeth's mother, kept clothes they no longer wore. They could hold sentimental value. Others were a smaller size than they now used – but maybe hoped to wear again.
Generally, Louella Belle had dressed in neutral or dark colors. Elizabeth had never seen her in spring pastels or gay holiday sweatshirts.
Hangers at the far left of the closet bore two outfits with a few wrinkles, maybe items she had recently worn and intended to wear again before washing them. Elizabeth felt in the pockets of two pairs of pants and found nothing, but a brown herringbone jacket provided several pieces of paper.
Before she finished unfolding the first one, Elizabeth recognized it as the half-page flyer with the two Maxwell children. She reread the text about poisoning kids with food, then squinted to read small print Louella Belle had added under the photo, in red pen. "Dead before forty."
"Gee, Louella Belle. That's harsh."
A smaller piece turned out to be a white three-by-five card folded in half. It had the name of Donald Dingle, a phone number Elizabeth recognized as city hall, and one additional word. Laundromat.
"Damn that man!" She now felt certain that Louella Belle wouldn't have been in the laundromat if Dingle hadn't told her to keep an eye out for students loitering there – or whatever he had told her. Had she not gone into the laundromat, she would be alive.
Did she anger her killer by demanding information about what they were doing, or did an evil person simply walk into the place looking for someone to kill? The latter seemed less likely, but some people were unhappy close to Christmas and took it out on innocent folks.
Furious, Elizabeth replaced the paper in the jacket pocket. She then took out her own notebook and jotted a note to tell John Stone she would like to keep the card that referred to Donald Dingle.
Ten minutes later, the bedroom had yielded nothing unexpected for an older, retired woman. The absence of almost all personal effects bothered Elizabeth– no photos, letters, mementos, or even decorative bric-a-brac.
The second bedroom made up for the almost Spartan condition of the room in which Louella Belle had slept. Along one wall were pictures of the family of her youth. While a few included parents, most were a young Louella Belle with a girl perhaps two years younger than she. The resemblance was so strong Elizabeth thought she had to be a sister, maybe a cousin, but sister made more sense.
Photos of a smiling Louella Belle seemed to indicate she had not always been a sour prognosticator. But when Louella Belle was about twelve, the photos stopped, save one. In that one, Louella Belle stood between her parents, each somber, all in dark clothing. The mother's black dress could have been that of a Puritan in the seventeenth century, just slightly shorter.
Elizabeth felt certain the three Simpsons had attended the funeral of the other child. "How awful," she whispered.
Nothing on the walls indicated how the little girl died. Feeling like an intruder at a wake, Elizabeth opened two of the four built-in cabinets under maple bookshelves. The detritus of a child's short life stared at her -- small stuffed animals, a toy wooden caboose, children's books, and what looked to be a scrapbook.
She hesitated for only a few seconds before pulling out the scrapbook. What could it possibly tell her about Louella Belle's adult life? Elizabeth would suggest that John Stone remove the photos and scrapbook before a firm arrived to inventory the contents of the house. These items should not end up in an estate auction.
She sat in a rocking chair, album on her lap, and began thumbing through it. The first two pages held only photos of Louella Belle with her parents, plus an older woman Elizabeth assumed was a grandmother.
When Louella Belle was about two, the second daughter arrived. "Our new Bundle of Joy," read the first caption of mother, newborn, and a rapt Louella Belle. She looked at her little sister with an adoring expression.
Soon, the expressions reversed. The sibling, Deanna Dawn, reserved her most radiant smiles for her big sister. Photos included birthday parties, lots of snow people, and a bunch of first (and last) days of school. Several showed the girls in a large vegetable garden, pointing to huge pumpkins and watermelons.
And then the obituary for Deana Dawn Simpson, who died of anaphylactic shock after eating shellfish. In flowery language, the article listed her favorite color (yellow) and happiest time of her life (a trip the prior year to Disneyland). Parents and sister Louella Belle were described as devastated.
Aloud, Elizabeth said, "And there it is. Food as poison."
Only when she spoke did Elizabeth become aware of her stuffy nose and the tears rolling down her cheeks. Louella Belle had been wracked with pain, but the only way she could assuage it seemed to be to cause some for others.
A noise near the back door made Elizabeth sit up straight and gently place the scrapbook on one of the shelves. She should have heard the person walk up the steps on the back porch.
No lights were on in the house. Dusk had fallen, and Elizabeth had been so engrossed she hadn't noticed.
The back door handle jiggled, and someone scraped metal on metal. Perhaps a key in a lock. No, Elizabeth thought, a key would mean a click and entry. She lowered herself to the floor and crawled to the door that led to the hallway.
After several seconds of metall
ic sounds, something crunched on the back doorframe. The likely burglar had apparently succeeded in wedging a screwdriver or something similar into the lock or doorframe, and was about to enter the house.
As the door pushed open, she unsnapped her holster, confident that the burglar's entry would hide most sounds she made. Gently she drew her gun from its holster and undid the safety. The gun had a round in its chamber, but she hoped not to fire a shot.
A nearby streetlamp provided just enough light for Elizabeth to see a man's shape move through the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets. He worked quickly, likely looking for cash or items easily pawned.
Logland had relatively few burglaries, and thieves who'd been interrupted generally had only their burglary tools. She reasoned tools could include a knife, but most burglars weren't looking for a fight. The plan was always to get in and out quickly without meeting a resident.
When Finn Clancy moved from the kitchen into the hallway en route to the living room, Elizabeth considered identifying herself. She held back. If he had killed Louella Belle, maybe whatever he sought would help prove it.
Clancy picked up the fountain pen in its box, snapped it shut, and stuffed it in a pants pocket. Then he turned to head toward the bedrooms. As he started toward them, Elizabeth stepped into the hallway, holding her gun at her side.
"Fancy seeing you here, Mr. Clancy."
He stood still, then grinned. "Guess we both had the same idea, Chief."
"And what would that be?"
"You know," he wet his lips, "checkin' on Louella Belle's house."
Elizabeth took one step closer to him. "Do you have a firearm or any other weapon with you?"
Clancy spread his hands and shrugged at the same time. "Chief. You know me."
"I do." Elizabeth raised her gun a few inches. "Do you have any weapons on you?"
Clancy's shoulders sagged. "No."
"Face the wall, put your hands above your shoulders and on the wall, and spread your feet well apart."
Clancy complied. "Jeez. Can't we settle this without all this formal stuff?"
"Stay facing the wall." Elizabeth took her cell from her pocket and pushed the emergency call option. When the 9-1-1 dispatcher responded, she said, "This is Chief Elizabeth Friedman in Logland. Transfer this call to my station, please. We have a ten-sixty-two in progress at the home of the late Louella Belle Simpson."
Final Cycle Page 13
