Murder! Too Close To Home

by J. T. Lewis

  Looking thoughtful for a moment, she seemed to be gathering her thoughts.

  “She wants control, losing that power just because her hired hand was captured is not in her nature. It seems a little out of character that she acted so quickly though, as everything up to this point indicated she had all of her T’s crossed before she made a move.”

  “We were figuring that she may have had this as a backup plan all along, holding it back until she needed it, maybe planned months ago,” I added my contribution.

  Sounded like we were all on the same page, whether that page was the right one remained to be seen. Betty told us she had some information on the hunt for the woman’s identity, so we followed her into the conference room to go over the results of her investigation.

  “OK, I quickly got through the women who bought the pens and went to parochial school, mostly soccer moms, a few grandmothers, and some professionals. None of the handwriting matched according to Percy, and as a whole, none of their personalities seemed to match the woman we are looking for.”

  “Following up with the other women that bought the pen only, we came to much the same result. Most are mothers or grandmothers, no arrests save for a DUI, and two have moved out of the area. One is a writer, and four are teachers, six have been divorced but have adjusted well.”

  “Again, their personalities or history didn’t seem to indicate a deep-seated hatred or sociopathic tendencies. Percy has also cleared this group of handwriting samples.”

  The room was silent. My heart fell, Betty had put so much energy into this part of the investigation with no results.

  “I’m sorry, Betty,” I said sympathetically, “sometimes these things just don’t pan out.”

  A small smile appeared on her face.

  “Oh, but I do have a potential suspect,” she replied, her smile widening as she spoke. “We just put it together this morning.”

  “One Jasmine Delarue purchased a pen in January, had it mailed to her PO Box. Her mailing address is listed as PO Box 1124, here in Allenville.

  Oh, and one more thing…until six months ago, she didn’t exist.”

  Chapter 74

  March 26, 1997

  Jasmine Delarue, it was a mysterious name for a mysterious woman. Could this really be the identity for the woman responsible for a series of vicious murders?

  “Do we know anything about her?” I asked hopefully, getting too used to being behind the eight ball lately.

  “I went to the post office this morning, found the worker that rented the box to her, one Ben Hurst, a very willing witness by the way. He remembered her immediately as she apparently made quite an impression on him.”

  “He gave a description of a woman in her early thirties, blonde hair, and sunglasses. She wore a baggy tee-shirt, but very tight jeans which Ben described in way too much detail. She also spoke with a very pronounced southern accent.”

  “Mr. Hurst also informed me that he had only seen her a couple times after that and that he attempted to make conversation each time but had little success. Seems she was much ‘colder’ on her subsequent visits, appearing to just want to get in and out as quickly as possible. He also volunteered that since she was one of his customers, he noticed that most of her pickups were at night when no one was around.”

  “She hasn’t picked anything up for about two weeks, even though there is something in her box right now.”

  My ears picked up on this, “Can we get a look at it?”

  “Not without a warrant, which I am waiting on right now,” Betty said with some excitement. “Shouldn’t take long, as I expressed the gravity of the situation, possible involvement in the murders and that the package could get picked up at any time. AP Courtney ran it over to the Judge personally.”

  We were all smiles when she finished. Seemed Betty has been pretty busy lately, handling most of this end of the investigation almost totally on her own.

  When we had been together lately, we were either too tired physically or too tired mentally to talk of the investigation, preferring happier topics.

  Pretty much anything that didn’t concern death was high on our list.

  I reminded myself once more to make arrangements for a long trip as soon as we’d cleared this case off the board, a result that I was long past being ready for.

  As if on cue, AP Rand Courtney busted into the room, slightly red faced and out of breath. He smiled broadly at Betty as he walked the warrant over to her, until he saw me sitting at the table.

  Although ten years her junior, Rand has had a little crush on Betty for quite awhile now; semi-ignoring the fact that she is happily married.

  Betty for her part found it cute, telling him several times he was wasting his time, but with no apparent effect on Rand’s feelings. I have offered to take him out back for a lesson in manners, to which Betty just laughed. She reminded me that I have nothing to fear, as long as I kept behaving myself that is.

  “I got that warrant for you Betty,” he gushed as he handed the paper to her. “Judge Miller signed it immediately once I explained the circumstances.”

  “Thanks Rand; you’ve really helped the investigation.”

  Grabbing up her stuff, she looked around before announcing, “Anyone wanna come?”

  Frank and I got up to follow while Rand held up his hand like he was volunteering to go as we filed out of the room, leaving him standing there…poor kid.

  Chapter 75

  March 26, 1997

  The postmaster had gone over the legal document with a fine-toothed comb.

  “Can’t be too careful with our customers’ privacy, ya know?”

  Tall and lanky with metal glasses and gray creeping up the side of his dark hair, he wore his thirty-year pin above his name tag like a badge of honor. After another minute he seemed satisfied, leading us to the back side of the box in question.

  “Thar she is,” he stated matter-of-factly, stepping aside but watching us like a hawk to make sure we didn’t overstep our bounds.

  Betty pulled on the gloves before reaching in and grabbing the package, a small box, one inch deep by six inches long and four wide.

  “Should we open it here?” Betty asked while holding it as gently as one might a bird’s egg.

  “We should probably take it back to the lab, let Percy open it with us, make sure we don’t miss anything.”

  I got out an evidence bag and Betty gingerly placed the box inside. I then sealed it up, handing it to Betty for the trip back.

  On the drive to the lab, we all speculated as to the contents of the box, dismissing every guess shortly after it came out of our mouths. We finally gave up, deciding finally to wait until we arrived at Percy’s dark abode for the answer.

  We all stopped in our tracks when we entered the lab, forced to halt until our eyes adjusted to the darkness. When they did, we were stunned at what we saw before us.

  In one of the pools of light in the middle of the lab stood Percy, dressed in full surgery regalia. Scalpel in hand, he was lowering it to the table to make the initial cut on…a turkey.

  A beautifully baked turkey, juicy looking and browned to perfection.

  “Would you like to be alone?” Betty said with a smile, getting Percy’s attention, a confused look showing briefly on his face.

  “Well, hello!” he said with gusto, setting down the scalpel and pulling off his gloves and mask before coming around the table and shaking hands all around.

  “To what do I owe this honor?” he asked with an owl-like inquisitive look.

  “If you don’t mind my asking Percy,” I started, curiosity getting the best of me, “what exactly are you up to over there?”

  “Oh, my turkey,” he answered matter-of-factly as he glanced back at the bird. “I’m practicing carving it, carving it.”

  “My mom’s sister and her family are coming over for Easter. I’ve never made a turkey before, or carved one for that matter. I cooked that bird last night, brought it in for lunch, and practice.” />
  A thoughtful look suddenly crossed his face; “Forgot to bring a knife in though, probably easier to slice with a knife instead of the scalpel.”

  He maintained that thoughtful look until I again interrupted his reverie. “What about the doctor getup?”

  “Oh that,” he said with a smile, “that’s to keep my clothes clean, of course, keep my clothes clean. Wasn’t at all sure how messy it might get.”

  We all laughed at that, taking several more moments to get to the reason for our visit.

  “We have evidence that may pertain to the murders,” Betty said, holding up the bag. “We thought it might be good to have you open it so we didn’t miss anything.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said with excitement, indicating a table off to the side of the lab. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

  Betty set the evidence bag on the table while Percy donned new gloves before grabbing a clean scalpel, then carefully slitting the shipping tape holding the box closed.

  Once done with that, he carefully opened the package, revealing brown wrapping paper wrapped around an object within.

  Taking great care, he lifted the wrapped item out of the box and set it on the under-lit table for closer examination. Feeling around before finding an edge of the paper wrapping, he then carefully peeled away the paper around the object until he got to the final layer. Smoothing out the paper already removed to flatten it on the table; he then resumed his task, finally revealing the object within.

  We stood there staring at the exposed item, none of us knowing what to say save for Percy’s excited exclamation.

  “Well, what do you think of that?”

  Chapter 76

  March 26, 1997

  A postcard.

  An old postcard laid on the brown wrapping paper extracted from the box. I couldn’t imagine the significance of an old piece of mail to our Miss Jasmine. Taking up the card carefully, Percy examined it with the trained eye of a forensic investigator.

  “Addressed to a man in Park Ridge, Illinois…mailed in 1980.”

  Turning it over to examine the other side, he looked it over for several moments before speaking again.

  “Whoever sent this is threatening the one it was addressed to; nasty threats, nasty threats.”

  I saw a slip of paper laying where the card had been earlier, asking Percy to take a look at it. Gingerly setting down the card, he picked up the slip; revealing it to be a receipt.

  “A payment slip from a place called Crime-A-Bilia, ‘Original postcard threatening his lawyer in his own hand’.” Reading further, he looked up before saying, “It’s from John Wayne Gacy!”

  Why would someone buy a postcard written by a serial killer I wondered, the idea of someone seeking out something like this on purpose being a foreign one to me.

  “I know what this is,” Betty spoke up, “they call it ‘Murderabilia’…collecting memorabilia from famous murderers. These of things sometimes go for quite a bit of cash.”

  Percy glanced down again at the receipt, “$3,650…wow!”

  A woman who collected murderers’ trinkets, who also didn’t have a history beyond six months ago, and who we had theorized is actually the mastermind of a string of murders. It fit; it fit extremely well, if only we had some real proof!

  This woman was living amongst us, but it could be anybody.: The lady that ran the register at the truck stop, or the socialite living on the hill.

  It could even be somebody we knew, and she was hiding in plain sight. We needed to flush her out, we needed bait, and this box may be it.

  I thought about asking Allen to set up a stakeout on the post office, but was unsure how that would go over with the scant evidence we had on this lead. Add to that the fact that the lobby is open 24 hours a day, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t authorize that much overtime.

  “Is there anything we can put in the box to track it?” I asked Percy. “Place the package back in the PO Box, see if it moves?”

  A smile creeped across his face, “I actually have something like that as a matter of fact…yes I do!”

  He moved off to a room in the back of the lab, returning in a minute with a white, nondescript box about a foot square which he set on the table. Opening the box, he pulled out an instrument of some type that filled his hand.

  “That’s a little big to hide in that small box,” I said as I took in the electronic gadget.

  Percy laughed loudly as he reached back in the box, pulling out a crystal-clear plastic case about the size of a quarter. Handing that to me, I looked inside to find a small black speck lying in a relative sea of blue sponge-like material.

  “We can easily embed that in the cardboard of the box, but it only has a range of five hundred yards, and the battery only lasts a week. You think you can live within those constraints?”

  “I think it’s definitely worth a try,” I answered, hoping my optimism translated into actual results. Turning to Betty, I asked if she thought her buddy at the post office would be willing to give us a heads up if this Jasmine reappears or if the package was gone.

  “I think Ben would be more than willing,” she answered, her smile indicating she liked the way my thought process was heading.

  “Since we don’t know when she may pickup the package, and given our workload now, I don’t think Allen would authorize a stakeout. If we know she has picked it up, and assuming she lives in the city, we should be able to pick her up with Percy’s gizmo.”

  Everyone agreed that the plan seemed plausible. Percy implanted the bug into the box, re-sealing the package as good as new. Frank offered to drive Betty back to the post office to replace the box, while I stayed on to learn how to run the electronics.

  The plan was for naught if she didn’t show up within the week, or if she left the city before we got a bead on her location.

  I gave some thought to Frank and me covering some of the night shift on our own if she happened to show up then, but I was unsure where we could place the car that we wouldn’t stand out in the middle of the night. The plan of depending solely on the tracking bug seemed like a gamble, but one with a good chance of success, if everything came together just right.

  Shrugging inwardly, I resigned myself to the thought that sometimes you just needed to keep trying things until you found one that worked. Frustrating as hell, but reality sucked sometimes.

  “Ok, Master Percy,” I said as I faced the small genius.

  “Explain to me how to run this new magic wand of yours. Let’s see if we can’t get this show on the road.”

  Chapter 77

  March 27, 1997

  Sheriff Lean McHenry’s life was looking bleak once more, his career going down the drain, and his life going to hell in a hand basket.

  Pulling the ever-present cigarette out from behind his ear and flipping it into his mouth, he leaned back in his chair and dug out the now constant Zippo. Lighting the cig quickly, he inhaled longingly on the paper tube.

  Holding the smoke in his lungs longer the usual, he let it out slowly in quickly repeating staccato puffs caused by the nervous tension now wracking his body.

  He had spent several hours with various county officials yesterday, trying vainly to explain why his evidence kept showing up at the murder scenes.

  County Council demanded an immediate audit to make sure he was not overspending his budget, the potential loss of their money overriding the threat of a continuing murder spree at that moment.

  Then the County Commissioners wanted their time with him, the all-powerful elected body that was in charge of everything else besides money. Sitting in on this meeting was Prosecutor Allen Vanguard, as well as Doc Elliot, the coroner. It was not lost on the sheriff the reason for the two men to be sitting in on the meeting.

  The prosecutor would be the final authority to determine if any laws had been broken. Doc Elliot was there because of Indiana’s antiquated law that stated that the Coroner was the only person that could arrest a sheriff.

  That wa
s definitely one of the lowest points in his life.

  He had been in law enforcement of some kind his whole career, serving with distinction in every capacity he had ever attempted. The thought of possibly being arrested was beyond anything his mind could rationalize, and he was pretty sure he would end it all before he would let anything like that happen.

  It hadn’t come to that, thankfully. Allen, for his part, had stood his ground by stating that there was no evidence at all to indicate that the sheriff had done anything criminal. But the consensus of the Commissioners was that at the very least, someone in his department had to be involved. This fact alone seemed to show a general lack of effective and professional leadership.

  What, of course, went unsaid was that they needed someone to blame so that it wasn’t laid on their doorstep. Mission accomplished.

  Now he was basically waiting for their final decision, a wait that they had assured him would be no later than noon today. It was currently 11:05 and the tension was building inside of him, increasing exponentially with every minute that ticked by.

  He didn’t have long to wait evidently as a knock on his door was immediately followed by Jane entering the room, her face indicating something was up.

  “Allen Vanguard is here, wants to speak with you.”

  Sheriff McHenry exhaled the lungful of smoke he had sucked in upon hearing the knock, stamping out his butt on the gold star of his department imprinted on the bottom of the glass ashtray on his desk. His mind locked on the image created by the smashed butt that obliterated part of the star he wore with so much pride. He was unable to look away as the symbolic implications suddenly struck him, a life built on truth and honor, obliterated in a second. His heart sank further.

  “Dad… you ok?” Jane asked in a smaller voice, standing by the door waiting for his order. Lean looked up, a sadness showing in his eyes.

  Leaning back in his chair and nodding imperceptibly, he motioned with his hand to let the prosecutor in. Jane pulled the door open, allowing the prosecutor into the room. Starting through the door to leave, she heard, “JJ, please stay.”