Grave Errors

by Carol J. Perry

  “Sure,” he said. “She was happy that I pay so much attention to detail.” He stood a little straighter. “Guess I was able to help her out quite a bit.”

  “No kidding,” I said, fully aware that I was about to meddle. “That’s great. What did you tell her?”

  “Mostly I told her how things work around here. I really know the old place inside out. Better than anyone in Salem, probably. Used to work here, you know. Back in the day.”

  “Yes, I remember,” I said. “You must know every inch of the place.”

  “I do. I told her about how the diapers used to come in dirty and leave spic and spandy clean. Want to know how?”

  “Yes. I do,” I told him with all the sincerity I could muster. “Sounds fascinating. How did that work?”

  “Well, first the truck driver pulls up to the dock and opens the back door of his truck. Another guy comes down the ramp with a rolling hamper. You saw those? They have numbers on them that match the truck numbers. The poopy diapers are in bags you know. The driver tosses the bags into the rolling hamper. The other guy pushes the cart up the ramp and into the laundry. I told her about the different machines, but you’ve already seen them, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Okay. When the driver comes back to start his route the next day, his cart has been hosed out and sterilized and down the ramp it comes, all full of nice clean dry diapers for babies’ bottoms. Neat, huh?”

  It was neat. I could visualize it. Down the ramp the cart would come. But it wouldn’t be full of clean, dry diapers. It would hold the soaking wet remains of James Dowgin. Minus one of his shoes.

  CHAPTER 40

  It became clear that we were going to spend more time at the Wypee-Dypee building than we’d planned. I called Aunt Ibby, suggested that she go ahead and eat without us, and regretted turning down Nate’s offer of that PBJ.

  Since I was involved in all that was going on—after all it had been my vision in the bathroom mirror that had started it—I was pretty sure that I was no longer in the “meddler” category. I decided to push my luck. Thanking Nate for his helpful information about the transportation of diapers, both clean and dirty, I walked over to where Pete still stood beside the washer-extractor. I didn’t say anything, not wanting to intrude on whatever was going on, but hoping to give the appearance of being a part of it all.

  Pete gave an almost imperceptible nod in my direction and continued his conversation with the tech who’d fished out the wet shoe.

  So far, so good. Nobody has told me to go away.

  “Have it checked for everything,” Pete said. “Prints, blood, DNA, forensic chemistry, the works.” The tech, carrying the bagged shoe at arm’s length, headed for the door.

  “Forensic chemistry?” I hadn’t heard Pete use the term before. “What’s that?”

  “Pretty much bugs and leaves and slime,” he said. “It’s like what Doctor Hodgins does on Bones. Entomology, minerology, palynology. All that stuff. Gives us an idea of where the shoe has been. Trace elements. Particulates. They probably won’t find much since it’s been underwater for a while, but it’s worth a try.”

  Memory of the shoe vision crossed my mind and the proverbial lightbulb went off. “What if you were trying to figure out where a shoe had been and that shoe’s been in a plastic bag ever since it was in the place you’re trying to find?” The sentence was convoluted, but Pete got it right away.

  “The work boots Emily wore on the soil testing trip. They still have dirt on them.” He took my hand. “Let’s take another ride. These guys can finish up here. Better call Dorothy and tell her we’re on our way.”

  On the way from the wild woods to Dorothy’s, I felt more like a detective than a meddler for the second time that night. (It’d have to be a plainclothes detective, I thought with a rueful downward glance. Clothes didn’t get much plainer than these.) Dorothy must have been standing beside her admission/intercom panel waiting for us. She buzzed us in the second Pete pushed the button beside the name which still—sadly—read “Emily Alden.”

  “What’s going on?” When she opened the door, Dorothy’s voice was excited, her eyes bright. “Have you figured out what happened to her? Was there something on her phone?”

  Pete and I looked at each other. Between the vision and the discovery of James Dowgin’s shoe, neither one of us had mentioned the phone. “Jesus. The phone. Lee. Where is it? Back at your place?”

  I put one hand over my mouth, embarrassed. “Pete. I forgot all about it. It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk at the school.”

  “You don’t have it?” Dorothy looked from Pete to me and back again. “Is it still in your desk?”

  “I locked it,” I said. “Put the key in my jeans pocket.”

  They both looked at my jeans. “Not these,” I said. “It’s in the ones I wore to school.”

  The question was spoken in unison. “Where are those?”

  Pause. Remembering. “I put them down the laundry chute.”

  “Safe enough,” Pete reassured me. “Don’t worry about it. But for now, let’s get a look at those boots.”

  By this time Dorothy appeared thoroughly confused. She deserved to be. I gave a fast explanation about why we wanted to pick up Emily’s dirty boots, and soon, bagged boots in hand, we left the apartment with a promise to pick up Emily’s phone and be back within the hour.

  How are we going to do that?

  Too vain to accompany Pete into the police station dressed as I was, I waited in the locked car while he carried the boots inside. I closed my eyes, reclining the seat a bit, and realized how hungry I was. I wondered if any of that casserole remained edible. I’d nearly dozed off when Pete returned. “Nice going, babe,” he said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “There are cleats on those boots and there’s plenty of dirt still on them. This may be just what we need to narrow down the location of Charlie Putnam’s stash of poison.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I’d hate to think of a mall going up on top of whatever evil stuff is buried there. I think about little kids, babies in strollers, people eating in restaurants. Pete, people could die if we can’t stop it.”

  “We’ll do all we can, Lee. I have a good feeling about it.” I wasn’t at all sure about my feelings, as mixed up as they were between reality and things I saw in mirrors and a giant black shoe. He reached across the police radio and patted my hand. “All we can do is do our best,” he said. “We don’t win them all. But let’s go to your place and get that key, and see what we can find out about what happened to Emily. Maybe we can win that one.”

  We parked in the driveway next to the garage and went into the house through the back entrance. I tapped on Aunt Ibby’s door, explained that I needed something from the pocket of my jeans, and followed Pete into the laundry room.

  “I haven’t washed today,” my aunt called, “so whatever it is should still be there.”

  The laundry, which tumbles down the chute from my bathroom, falls into a deep wicker basket between the washer and dryer. The jeans were right on top. I had a few seconds of panic when I fished into a front pocket and came up empty. The second attempt yielded the key and I held it up triumphantly. “Got it.”

  So began another wild ride, this time to the Tabby. I tapped my access code into the pad beside the big double glass doors which still bear the gold leaf letters spelling out Trumbull’s. One door swung open and we entered the lobby. A closed-up school at night must be very similar to a closed-up department store. There were no school noises, no store noises. Lighting was dimmed and the place even smelled different. We climbed the stairs to the mezzanine landing where I pressed the light switch, illuminating the classroom.

  As usual, I averted my eyes from the black shoe as I approached the desk. Sitting in my chair, I inserted the key into the locked drawer and reached inside. It was empty.

  The voice came from the shadows at the back of the old shoe department. “I guess you’re looking for this?” Dakota Berman appro
ached, both arms upraised, Emily’s phone in one hand. I saw Pete reach for his gun. “Don’t shoot me.” Dakota said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Put the phone down, move away from it and put both hands on your head,” Pete barked.

  Dakota followed orders, watching from a distance as Pete picked up the phone, keeping the gun trained on him.

  “Okay, Berman. Spill it. What’s the story? How did you get in here and how did you get the phone?”

  “I took it out of the drawer and stuck it in my pocket when you were all looking at the big screen. I just wanted to see if there was anything about me on it.” His voice quavered. “She knew about me. Emily knew about me and the pills.”

  “The pills?” I asked. “The pills Emily took that night?”

  Pete lowered his gun. “Mr. Berman has a record. Selling oxy pills back when he was in high school. Stole them from his grandma’s medicine cabinet, right Mr. Berman?”

  Dakota nodded, hands still on his head, the blue eyes frightened. “Emily knew about my record. I . . . I thought she might have texted Dorothy or somebody about me. I . . . I thought if you found out you’d think I had something to do with the pills she took that night.”

  “Did you think we didn’t know about your record?” Pete asked. “What were you going to do with that phone without her pass code anyway?”

  “I have her pass code.” He looked embarrassed. “She let me borrow this phone once when I couldn’t pay my own phone bill.”

  “What’s the code?”

  Dakota recited a four-digit number and Pete handed the phone to me. “Try it, Lee.”

  I did. It worked.

  “Good. That saves us some trouble. Okay, Berman. How did you get in here?”

  “I came back here after you let me go from the station. Everybody had gone to lunch or somewhere. So I hid way back in there, where they used to keep the shoes. I stayed real quiet and looked at everything on Emily’s phone. There’s nothing there about me. In fact, there’s nothing interesting on it at all. Just girl stuff, work stuff and some texts from her boyfriend. Pictures of flowers and cats. It was stupid, I know. I waited until everybody left, then I was going to sneak it back into the drawer, but by then somebody had locked it. Then the school got locked up too and I couldn’t get out without setting off the alarm. So I hid again.” He sounded close to tears. “I didn’t know the police kept old juvie records. I hadn’t told anybody about me selling pills, except for Emily and Mrs. Shores, of course.”

  Pete and I spoke at once. “Mrs. Shores?”

  “Sure. I had to tell her so I could get the job as super. She hired me for part-time security guard in those old buildings too. Nice lady.”

  “Berman,” Pete said. “Think carefully. Did you work as security guard at the old diaper laundry last Monday night?”

  “Me? No. Another guy works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I stayed home and watched football. Pats/ Steelers. The Pats won.”

  “There was no security guard there on Monday night,” I said, almost to myself.

  “You can put your hands down, Berman,” Pete said. “You know, don’t you, that taking that phone from Ms. Barrett’s desk was against the law?”

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “You can press charges if you want to, Lee.”

  “I . . . I’d rather not involve the school.”

  “You can change your mind later if you want to. Berman, take a seat over there. Put your hands on the desk.”

  Dakota did as he was told.

  “We’re going to give you a ride home, Berman.” Pete said, holstering his gun and putting Emily’s phone into his pocket. “We’ll be returning the phone to Dorothy Alden. It’s her property and we’ll see if she wants to press any charges against you for stealing it.” He looked at me. “Lee? Shall we escort Mr. Berman out?”

  I turned out the classroom lights and we three walked together down to the front door. I tapped in my exit code, covering the pad with my other hand to prevent prying eyes. Pete’s car was close to the entrance. Unlocking it, he opened the rear door and directed Dakota to the passenger seat on the right side, made sure he was properly seat belted, and closed the door. Then—surprisingly—he handed me the keys. “I’ll ride in back with Mr. Berman to be sure he behaves himself. You all right with driving this over to Dorothy’s?”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Not exactly. I’ll take responsibility. I just feel more comfortable if this one isn’t sitting right behind you if I drive, and I have no grounds to cuff him. So,” he asked again. “you all right with driving this over to Dorothy’s? It’s only a couple of blocks.”

  I didn’t even bother to answer the question. Maybe I don’t cook or sew, but Pete knows I can drive damn near anything with wheels. So away we went.

  CHAPTER 41

  I parked the Crown Vic in a visitor’s parking space, and the three of us entered the building, Dakota in the lead. Pete pushed the button beside Emily’s name and, once again, Dorothy answered immediately.

  “Pete Mondello and Lee here,” Pete said, “and we have Dakota Berman with us. We’ve got your phone and Berman has something he wants to tell you.”

  Dorothy buzzed us in. “I could have just opened the door, you know,” Dakota said. “I have keys to everything.”

  “Yes,” Pete used his very-patient-cop voice. “We know.”

  We rode the elevator up in relative silence. As soon as we all stepped off on the fourth floor, I saw Dorothy’s door open a crack. “Lee?” she called softly.

  “Yes. We’re here.”

  “Just wanted to be sure it was you,” Dorothy pulled the door open wide. If she was surprised that Dakota was with us, it didn’t show in her facial expression. “Come on in. I made some coffee and I have some pound cake. Store bought.”

  Any kind of food sounded good to me. I thought Pete must be hungry too, though he hadn’t mentioned it. We crowded into the small living room, Pete and Dakota sat on the couch, Dorothy and I sat on kitchen stools facing the two men. Emily’s phone lay on the counter in front of Dorothy. I sipped strong coffee and hoped my stomach wouldn’t gurgle when the sweet pound cake hit it.

  “We haven’t looked at the contents of the phone yet, Dorothy,” Pete told her. “But your young friend here has.” He pointed one finger at Dakota. “Tell her what you’ve done, Berman. She can decide whether or not she wants me to arrest you. Then we’ll take a look at what’s on that phone.”

  Dorothy looked confused and who could blame her? Dakota began to talk, first in halting tones, and as he warmed up to his story he seemed in a hurry to finish it. “I’m really sorry, Miss Alden,” he said. “I should never have done it, but I was afraid people would think I had something to do with the pills.”

  “The pills she had in the medicine cabinet? They were prescription pills. From a doctor in Boston. Why would anyone think you had anything to do with that?” Dorothy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”

  “See, I didn’t know she had prescription pills,” Dakota said. “I was surprised when I heard about it. She’d told me she never took anything but aspirin. Didn’t want anything to do with drugs. I was surprised about the wine too.” He smiled, a kind of far-away looking smile. “She wasn’t much of a drinker either.”

  “So you’d say that swallowing a bunch of pills and drinking wine while relaxing in a bubble bath was completely out of character for her?” I said.

  Dorothy stood up. “She’d never do that!”

  “Which? Take pills or drink wine?” Pete wanted to know.

  “Neither one.” Dorothy almost shouted. “She’d never take a bubble bath. She was deathly allergic to all kinds of perfumes and detergents and colognes and any of that stuff.”

  “Are you sure?” Pete stood too.

  “Of course I’m sure. I have some of the same allergies, but hers were worse. Neither one of us could even wear makeup.”

  Well, that explained that.

  “What would her reaction to som
ething like bubble bath have been?” Pete asked.

  “Her face,” Dorothy said, touching her own face as she spoke. “Her face would get all blotchy and swollen. Me too, only not as bad as hers.”

  Blotchy and swollen. Pete had used those words when he’d described the autopsy pictures.

  “It’s the soap. The bubbles,” I said. “Pete, did the forensic chemist guy take a sample of the detergent from the laundry?”

  “He did. I remembered what you said about what you saw in the . . .” he broke off mid-sentence. “He did.”

  Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. The white powder I’d seen in the vision must have been the detergent we’d seen in the five-gallon buckets. I was sure of it. “Did they preserve any of the Emily’s bath water?”

  “I don’t believe so. Remember, we were looking at an overdose case. They would have drained the tub when they removed the body.”

  At Dorothy’s stricken expression, Pete apologized. “I’m sorry. This is painful for you. Do you want me to arrest this one?” He jerked his head toward Dakota who had slid down deeper into the couch cushions, as though he was trying to make himself smaller. “For stealing your property?”

  “Dakota? Oh, no. He’s really a good kid. Emily liked him and so do I. He’s sorry, aren’t you?”

  The big blue eyes brightened. “I really am sorry, Miss Alden. But Detective Mondello, I think I might know something important about this. I mean I didn’t know it was important. It’s just a thing I do. I don’t like to waste stuff. Emily understood that. She didn’t like waste either. She even saved the edges of rice paper I cut off my tombstone pictures. Used it for writing paper.”

  And that explains that!

  Pete interrupted. “Get to the point, man,” he said. “What do you know that’s important?”

  “I’ve think I’ve got that bottle the bubble bath powder was in.”

  “What?” Pete glowered. “You removed something from the crime scene?”

  “It wasn’t a crime scene then,” Dorothy reminded him. “You just said so.”