by Julie Ramson
“Maggie! Didn’t think you would be in today!” a voice called.
Damn. Double damn. My office neighbor, Mr. Slick walked up to me. As usual, he stood too close and put his hand on my arm. I took a step back. He advanced.
“Oh, hi Jason.” My voice was not enthusiastic. Actually, his name is not Mr. Slick. It is Jason Umber and I can’t stand him. We have been office neighbors since October and you would think by now he would have caught the drift that I am not interested but the man has the sensitivity of a rhino.
“You must be very busy to come in on a day like this!” He moved in closer.
Jason is a relationship therapist. Whatever the hell that is. What he is, is oily. He stands too close and looks at my mouth or my chest whenever he talks to me. A real charmer. About my height with hazel eyes, he has long, sandy brown hair that's often pulled back into a short ponytail. He wears expensive slacks, cashmere sweaters and a gold watch. He is probably nice looking but he gives me the crawlies.
“I am. In fact, I am just on my way out the door. Have a good one!” I made my escape as quickly as I could. Oops. Not quickly enough.
“Wait! Since the weather is so awful I was hoping we could get together for lunch!” he called.
Uh huh. When hell froze over and pigs flew.
“Can’t! See you later!” I waved a hand and flew out the door.
Whoa. The sleet was worse. I hunched my shoulders and walked quickly to the National Bank where I had my account. There weren’t many people out because of the weather. The bank is a three story building about one block from my office. I entered and stepped up to the teller’s window. I knew the young woman behind the glass, Carrie. She and I had chatted whenever I came to the bank. I smiled and asked her to please verify that Emily Hastings’ check was good. She stepped away and picked up a phone on the desk behind her. The check had been written on City Savings and Loan. I waited, fingers crossed while she called them. She smiled and then came back to the window.
“Maggie, the account has sufficient funds to cover this,” she said, “but it won’t be available to you for two days while it clears. Looks like business is picking up?”
“Hope so!” I laughed. “Thanks, Carrie. I’ll wait a few days to write checks on it!” I’d wait a few days to write my rent check but tonight I was celebrating. I deserved it.
I thanked her again, took the deposit receipt for my business account and left the bank. I walked back to my office, delighted that I had a real client! Okay, focus on wills. Not writing them, but finding them and getting paid for them! This would be interesting, at the very least.
I thought of Emily’s wistful look at the photo of all of us in my office. We are, if nothing else, the stereotypical Irish family. My mother, Helen, is the definition of Irish Catholic Mother, which means she carries a rosary in one hand, food in the other and loves God, St. Patrick and John F. Kennedy - but not necessarily in that order. She is a small, compact woman with dark hair, blue eyes and is usually smiling. She is also a keen judge of people and, when we were children, had the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a bat. She could see us do or even just plot pranks at hundred yards. She was widowed 6 years ago when a drunk driver slammed into my father on his way home from Mass. I guess if you have to go that would be the optimum time in God’s eyes.
But none of us has gotten over the loss of Dad yet. I doubt we ever will. He was a good guy, a really great father and he had left a huge hole in all of our lives. I miss him every day.
Mom got a good settlement from the driver who killed Dad, though, and now spends her time taking cruises to anywhere. She lives with my father’s mother, Anna. This is not a match made in heaven. Gram moved in about 20 years ago after Gramps made his final exit and Mom once said, “If I had known I would have your father for 30 years and your grandmother for God knows how many more, you would not be here.” I don't think she was kidding. Gram is a really tiny woman with steel gray hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her neck. She is also the essence of black Irish and can see the downside in anything. She loves my sister, Mary Grace - first grandchild and all that - and because she has done exactly what she was supposed to do. She married a wonderful Irish boy, Michael and had two children - a boy, Kevin and a girl, Katie. Gram adores my brother, Saint Sean, who is a detective in the Chicago Homicide Division of the police department. Unfortunately, he is not married. His only failure. He is otherwise perfect - just ask my grandmother.
My relationship with her is more.....turbulent. Gram sees me more as the oil to her water, probably because we have never really seen eye to eye on anything and it doesn't look like that's going to change.
Most of the girls in the family are named Mary Something. My mother and aunts did that because they believed the girls would be more likely to emulate the Blessed Virgin if they were all named after her. This hasn’t worked out as well as they had hoped for some of us.
I am the black sheep. Worse. I am not only unmarried but I broke an engagement to a Perfectly Good Man. Oh yeah, right. I was engaged to Norman the Boring. I looked ahead at life with him, clunked my head on the wall a few times and ended the misery. Trust me, being alone is better. I can order pizza with anchovies any time I want - providing I have the money. I clean my one bedroom apartment if I feel like it, which is unlikely, and have a dog named Killer. He is a huge black mutt, probably part Labrador, maybe part retriever – definitely part elephant. He is male, sort of. I had him fixed. I got him last fall when I came home from work one night and found him rooting through the garbage behind the apartment building. He has big soulful eyes and was so thin I felt sorry for him. I gave him my dinner - a big Mac and fries. He adopted me on the spot.
Since I am a single woman living alone, I let him. I thought that a guard dog was probably a good idea. Wrong. Well, actually it probably is a good idea, but it’s just that Killer is not that dog. He hides in the bathtub when the phone rings, much less when anyone comes to the door. Coward doesn’t begin to describe him. Worse, once anyone is inside the apartment, he becomes their best friend and for a dog treat would happily lead any would be rapist or murderer to my bed. For a pat on the head, he would probably also deliver the few pieces of jewelry I have and then roll over for a belly scratch. He is not the most discerning of dogs.
On the positive side, though, he loves me unconditionally. He doesn’t notice dust, eats whatever I give him, never complains and couldn't care less if I don’t wear makeup. The perfect male.
But now, I had a paying client! I would check the probate court but first, a bit of detective work was in order. I didn’t have anything else to do and I didn't want to return to my office right away since Mr. Slick was probably lying in wait behind the potted plant in my office building, I detoured into the office parking lot. My car, a Honda CRV, sat parked there. It looked silver because of the sleet but was really a bright blueberry blue purchased in wealthier times. It had all the bells and whistles and I loved driving it. I got in and sat for a few minutes with the defroster and heat turned on full blast. I contemplated my next move. I could call Saint Sean about getting into the house but he would argue with me and just aggravate me before he would (probably not) agree to let me do that.
Problem: I wanted to go in and look around. At a crime scene. The cops could object to that. Rationalization: I wouldn’t hurt anything. After all, it was now January 7 and Mrs. Hastings had been murdered on December 2. That meant the house had been sitting for about five weeks as a crime scene. Anyone official who wanted to check out anything there had probably already done so. Several times.
I could just drive over and sort of check it out on my own. Probably no one was there. Cops don’t usually guard crime scenes - or at least not five week old crime scenes.
Problem: Breaking and Entering the house was illegal. Rationalization: That would only matter if I got caught. While the illegal stuff gave me pause, I quickly overcame any potential guilt. After all, looking at the house was hardly a crime. Even going into it
was probably okay. Emily now owned the house - maybe - and she had retained me to check out the house for the will.
One good thing about all the years I spent in Catholic schools with the nuns was that I learned how to handle guilt. Most of the time. If I hadn’t learned how to bury a lot of guilt in the back of my mind I would never have survived grade school at St. Mary’s much less high school at St. Patrick’s. While the nuns may have thought they were teaching us good moral values, they were really teaching us coping mechanisms for guilt and how to avoid remorse. Not to mention great rationalization techniques. I could justify just about anything I wanted to do in my mind. Thank you, Sister Alethius.
Plus, I thought as I went on rationalizing, Sean had other things on his mind. He had been tied up since last summer on a case where two kids had found a decaying wooden box with some tattered hundred dollar bills in it - and a skeleton - in a local forest preserve. And Lily Hastings’ murder. In fact, he had a number of ongoing cases right now, which was good, since it kept him out of my hair. So why would I bother him about a short trip to see Aunt Lily’s house?
I was really being considerate of Sean.
I had an idea of where Mrs. Hastings had lived on California Avenue. It wasn’t far from my home or new office but I hadn’t spent much time in that neighborhood. It was populated with older couples who had been there forever and some new younger families in starter homes. Thirty years ago it had been a solidly blue collar, middle class neighborhood but the years had not been kind to the area. I put the CRV in gear and started off.
This leads to one minor flaw of mine. I have no sense of direction. In fact, I can’t find the corner without a GPS. I knew the general area of Mrs. Hastings’s house but not the address. I had left that at the office. Damn. I would have to wing it. I am not an idiot when it comes to directions - although some would argue that - but I am challenged. I was trying to remember the neighborhood. I decided to drive down California Avenue and look for the house with the yellow tape. How hard could this be?
I started the car, hitting the gas and turning the wheel – then slid the first 20 yards toward the street. Yikes! I tapped the brake and continued on. Fortunately, there weren’t too many other idiots on the road so I was fairly safe. California Avenue was a few blocks west of where I thought it was but eventually I got there. I drove slowly, checking both sides of the street and finally found a three flat with yellow police tape flapping in the wind. The address probably matched the one given to me by Emily. I hoped. It was the only crime scene on the block so I guessed I was probably right. I parked down the block from it and got out.
The house was a tan brick and looked as though it had seen better days. The scattered pieces of yellow police tape gave it a forlorn air as if it had been used and discarded by someone. I walked toward the front of it.
There were three mailboxes in front but only one had a name, Hastings. The other two were blank. All were empty.
I walked up to the house. There were about six steps to the front porch where a welcome mat was angled off center. The storm door was not locked but the wooden door behind it was. Damn. I climbed down the stairs and headed for the back yard. I wished I had asked Emily if anyone else had lived in the house. Didn't look like it.
I turned to the side and walked carefully on the broken sidewalk that curved around the house, trying to avoid falling on the ice or broken cement. The back porch had another set of stairs, five of them, leading up from the yard. It was small with some empty and frozen flower pots on it. Dead branches peeked out of the pots, sad brown sticks. I tried the door. The storm door was unlocked but again, the back door was not. It was locked tight. I saw the window to the left of the porch, boarded up with unfinished lumber. Ah, the killer's entrance.
I walked over to the window and looked more closely at the wooden planks over the window. I gently picked at the wood. If I could just get one or two planks off I could reach my arm in and around to unlock the door. That was the plan anyway. The lowest wooden slat was sort of loose - or at least it was loose after I pulled it away from the window frame. It took a lot of tugging and I tore one of my gloves on a nail.
But it worked and I got at least a few inches open to push my arm through. I could feel the lock and with some wiggling around, got it to turn. I was in!
I entered the kitchen, carefully closing the door behind me. It was small, with an eating area off to the left. It had the look and feel of an abandoned room. There was black fingerprint dust everywhere and a chalk outline of a body in front of the sink. The floors and counters were covered in broken dishes, pots and pans, flour, sugar and other spices and food. Every drawer had been pulled out, every cabinet emptied. The flooring had been ripped in places. Bloodstains could be seen on the old linoleum and on the wall behind the chalk outline. The refrigerator was avocado and its door stood open, empty. The matching avocado oven was pulled from the wall and its door was hanging at an angle. It was also empty.
I looked at the eating area. The small square table was scarred and worn. Above the table on the wall was a cork board covered with papers. I stepped carefully through the debris and around the chalk outline to look at it. A few coupons, a grocery list for things like fruit, toilet paper and cat food. Cat? Where was the cat? I made a mental note to ask Emily. There was also a photograph of Emily with an older woman, presumably Mrs. Hastings pinned to the board. She was seated and appeared small and rather frail with snow white hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a flowered dress and was smiling. Emily was standing behind the older woman and had her hand on the woman’s shoulder. She too was smiling. In light of all that had since occurred, the smiling faces were very sad.
I moved into the dining room located just behind the kitchen. It, too, was dated and thoroughly ransacked. The table was oblong, made of oak wood dulled with use and cleanings. There was a large open hutch, also oak, standing against the wall on the left. The upper part had four glass doors, hanging open. Behind them were four shelves. They were filled with porcelain figurines and crystal vases, flowered boxes and glassware. Some, but not all, were broken. A large clock sat in the center of counter part of the hutch below the upper cabinet, smashed, its workings scattered. The lower half of the hutch had cabinets with oak doors, again all hanging open. I could see some tarnished silver serving dishes and old tablecloths.
The opposite wall held several old paintings, hanging askew, and lots of photos. There was a small oil painting of a church and path leading to a cemetery with trees in the background. It looked lonely. Another was a more cheerful harbor scene, filled with sunlight and crisp white sailboats. Several smaller paintings were scattered on the floor. Some of the framed photographs still hung on the wall but most were lying on the floor, glass shattered. I studied the wall photos first. Two of them showed a much younger Mrs. Hastings in a wedding gown and a smiling man with dark hair and a mustache. Her husband, Herbert, I guessed. They were faded and done in sepia tones.
Several other pictures on the floor showed Mrs. Hastings with a young Emily at various ages from toddler to gapped toothed child to adolescent. Some included Lily, some had other adults and kids.
One larger photo showed the same smiling man standing with two other men. The photo was old, again in black and white that had faded to sepia. One of the other two men was older and looked out, unsmiling at the camera. The third man was much younger than the other two and looked bored.
Other photos looked as though they had been spilled from an album. Mrs. Hastings with a birthday cake, a couple with a man about 10 years older than Emily, one of her dressed in a coat and hat in front of a church, one in front of a Christmas tree. There were no more pictures of the presumed Mr. Hastings.
I crossed back to the hutch and looked more closely at the porcelain figurines and crystal that had not been destroyed. I don’t know porcelain but these looked like the inexpensive statues found in many dimestores and drugstores in the 1950's. The crystal was thick and appeared to be cut
glass. Granted, I am anything but expert on crystal, except for Waterford, which every good Irish girl knows, but these did not look expensive. The shelves were dusty.
I closed the cabinet doors. I felt like an intruder. Well, I was an intruder. But I felt like an intruder into her life not just her home. I felt guilty and rather ashamed of my prying. Get over it, Mag. You have this case and you need the money. Besides, what happened to Mrs. Hastings? And the cat? I was really doing Mrs. Hastings a favor, not prying into her life. I'm the good guy. The hero.
I started to move toward the door leading into the living room when suddenly the hairs on my neck prickled. Someone was behind me. Before I had time to turn around, something hard hit the back of my head and I fell face first to the floor. Lights out.
CHAPTER TWO
“Maggie! Mag!” I could hear the yelling dimly through cotton. I opened my eyes and found myself face down on the floor of the dining room. I turned and looked up to see Jimmy Martin’s face. He was kneeling next to me and had a stricken look on his face.
“What - what hap-pened?” I couldn’t remember where I was or why I was there. I turned over and struggled to sit up. My head spun. Then it throbbed on the back where something had hit me.
“My question to you exactly, Mag.” Jimmy looked relieved that I was talking and put his arm under me to help. I tried to sit up more. My right knee throbbed and I could see a hole in my slacks. Damn. These were almost new. There was blood on my coat. My face throbbed.
“Are you okay? Do you hurt?” Jimmy lifted me to a full sitting position.
“Yeah, I think so. But, yeah, I hurt.” I probably sounded dazed. That’s how I felt.
Jimmy frowned. “Maggie, exactly what are you doing in a house cordoned off as a crime scene?” Jimmy sounded both anxious and upset. Jimmy and I had known each other since before preschool. His family lived four doors down from my family’s house and he was always best friends with my brother. As children they had tortured me with teasing and as teenagers they tortured me with bad practical jokes and horrible blind dates. I always thought of Jimmy as another pesky and obnoxious brother but somewhere along the way I thought his feelings for me might have changed. Fortunately, he had never pressed the issue or confronted me with it.
