Mourning Express

by K. M. Waller

  I followed the private investigator path to a group of articles on becoming your own investigator. Establishing timelines was important. Alibis could only be corroborated if I had the time of death. Hmm… the coroner’s report Detective Jones had in his file would give me that information. How did I get that on my own?

  I scurried down the hall and knocked on Mateo’s door. An irritated grunt followed.

  “Do you know anyone at the coroner’s office?” I asked through the door. If ambulances delivered the deceased from accident scenes to the coroner’s office, then he might know someone who could help. “I think I need a time of death.”

  “If I say yes will you let me sleep?” He called back.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t answer back but I took his silence as a sign he’d check with anyone he knew.

  Back in the living room, I read a few more articles about investigating. One suggested gathering information from possible witnesses, and if a crime occurred at home to start within the neighborhood. Aha. Harold’s neighbors had truly hated him, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen or heard something the night he died. Pastor Tom had introduced me to both of Harold’s immediate neighbors to the left and right. Sadie Perkins and the Lees.

  The only question now was did I don another disguise or go as regular old me?

  ∞∞∞

  After a short internal debate and a long shower, I decided against any more disguises. There were only so many wigs in Gabe’s closet and I needed to save some for Ruthie’s professional mourning assignments the following week. A better idea was to invest in some inexpensive props. I hadn’t exactly made friends with either of Harold’s neighbors at the funeral and they’d have no reason to talk to me unless I could come up with good enough peace offerings. On my way to the fifty-five and over community, I stopped by the nearest Goodwill store and a local bakery.

  The decision on who to visit first was made for me as I parked adjacent to the retention pond and saw Sadie sitting on a wooden bench with her bag of bread crumbs. She wore a long, flowery dress and a wide-brimmed gardening hat. She cooed at the ducks who waddled over for the crumbs.

  Before I got out of my car, I took the Save the Bumblebees t-shirt from Goodwill and yanked it over my head. The selection hadn’t been great. It’d been this or one that suggested people eat other people instead of cows, chickens, and pigs.

  I stepped out onto the road and glanced up and down the street. Mateo’s pepper spray sat high in my jeans’ pocket where I’d stowed it after I’d practiced a spray against the dumpster in our apartment’s parking lot. Good actresses knew how to properly work all their props. Especially the ones that sprayed blinding chemicals into another person’s eyes.

  Free of charge, the bakery had given me a loaf of day old Cuban bread to use as duck feed. I joined Sadie at the edge of the pond. Three ducks with brown heads and black eye-masks waddled toward me and I tossed them a few crumbs. “I see the duck population is building back up.”

  She didn’t respond and tossed out a few more of her own crumbs to lure the ducks back to her side. I closed the top of my bag. I hadn’t meant to come across as her competition.

  “I’ve never known the names of these ducks,” I said, wandering closer to her. “Woodlands or something like that.”

  Sadie perked up. “They’re American Black Ducks. Their coloring resembles the woodlands but the plumage is darker.”

  Her voice held such affection for the quacking trio.

  I sat on the grass and waited. She glanced down at me and raised an eyebrow. “Save the bumblebees, huh?”

  “It’s a worthy cause.” They’d made a t-shirt, after all.

  “Maybe you could focus your energy on honeybees instead?” She emptied out the remainder of her bag of crumbs by tipping it over and shaking it.

  Ah, Sadie might be a little duck crazy, but I couldn’t label her as stupid. “I need to ask you some questions about Harold.”

  “Like what?”

  “If there’d been anything strange going on before he died. Had he said anything about fearing for his life?”

  “I told that investigator, I don’t know who kept playing all those pranks on him.”

  “You’d categorize them as pranks? Lou seemed to think they were incidents set up to harm Harold.” Lou hadn’t mentioned the word harm, but I added it in to see if it set off any bells with Sadie.

  She pulled her sweater tight around her midsection. “Pouring salt on his grass and putting dog poop in his yard hardly qualify as harmful incidents.”

  “Anything you can think of that would be considered harmful?”

  “Not really. Certainly no one handed him poisoned popcorn.”

  “I was in Harold’s house for the sale yesterday. He had a lot of duck-themed decorations.”

  She shrugged. “And I like watching cat videos in my spare time, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend my time cleaning out a litter box.”

  Good point. I thought back to the article on becoming a detective and witness information. “Do you feed the ducks every morning?”

  “Evening too. I never know when a different batch will come through, but ducks are creatures of habit. They know to gather at certain times of day for their crumbs.”

  I glanced over at Harold’s house. The drive had a few bushes blocking the view, but overall if it was a clear night, Sadie could’ve seen most of his front yard. “Did you notice anything strange the night Harold died? Anything could be helpful. Visitors. Deliveries.” Someone with murder in their eyes.

  Sadie shrugged, her thin shoulders lifting high near her ears. “There was a silver car parked in front of his house. I remember because we’re not supposed to have visitors parked on the street. I wrote it down to report him.”

  I stood. Bowman drove a green sedan, but that didn’t rule out him having more than one car. I hadn’t verified his alibi with Mr. Napoli, but he could’ve lied about what time he started the poker game. I needed more. “Do you remember the license plate or remember seeing the driver? Did you write down the time?”

  “I only wrote down Harold’s house number and that there was a car. I threw the paper away after we got news that Harold had died. I don’t remember seeing anyone, but I think there was some weird white sticker on the back.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “I can’t quite remember what the sticker was though. Maybe something to do with fishing.”

  Bowman didn’t have the right color car or any stickers that I could remember. “Anything else different about the car?”

  “I really can’t remember.” She started walking back to the sidewalk. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  I bit my lips together. I’d already told too many people my theory about Harold’s death, and with the threatening note, I didn’t want to put anyone in danger or have the gossip spread faster than I could come up with answers. However, Sadie had been truthful with me and lying didn’t seem right either.

  “Lou—the investigator—mentioned the pranks at the funeral and I wanted to get a better understanding of what happened.” Vagueness to the rescue. Not lies but not the full truth either. I handed Sadie my leftover bread.

  She twisted the top of the bread bag, seeming to accept my explanation. “If you really want to know more about the pranks, you should speak with the Lees.” Her face clouded with concern as if she wanted to take the words back. “Please don’t tell them I told you. I don’t want to start a new feud in this neighborhood. I really do like it here and we deserve the peace.”

  “I already planned to speak to them, so mum’s the word.” I made the gesture of twisting a key at my lips and throwing it over my shoulder. The file I’d sent back to Ruthie had numerous complaints from several owners. If I couldn’t get enough information from my next stop, I’d have to start going door to door one by one.

  The silver car felt like a great place to start. All I needed was someone else to confirm they saw the same car and perhaps had a better memory of
the white sticker. I took a deep breath and walked toward the Lees’. The articles I’d read said some investigations could take months to get one key piece of evidence but not to give up. Lucky for me, I had a lot of time on my hands and a smidge of tenacity.

  12

  Before I knocked on the Lees’ door, I stopped by my car to retrieve my second prop. I peeled off the Save the Bumblebees t-shirt covering my tank top and tossed it in the back seat. From the same bakery where I’d gotten the bread, I’d also bought a dozen fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. I also grabbed a small notebook and pen.

  Learning my lesson from Sadie about manipulating for information, when Mrs. Lee opened the door, I started with an apology. “Good morning. I feel like I offended you the other day at the funeral and I wanted to apologize with cookies.”

  Mr. Lee yelled from somewhere inside the house. “Who’s at the door?”

  “It’s that crazy actress from the funeral,” she called back to him. Mrs. Lee reached out for the box of cookies. “Apology accepted. Bye.” She closed the door in my face.

  Through the door, I could hear the Lees arguing in hushed tones. Multiple thumps like someone running up the stairs filtered through. I knocked again. This time Mr. Lee opened the door, his impatience clear with his jerky movements. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about Harold and your terrorizing pranks.”

  Mrs. Lee pushed past her husband with her finger extended toward my face and spoke in her native language. I didn’t understand any of it but when her husband gasped, I knew she’d used several curse words to make her point. He put his hand on her shoulder and she pressed her hand to her chest, taking a deep calming breath.

  “I just want to ask you both a few questions about Harold and the night he died. I know you did some things to his yard, but I don’t really care about that.”

  “She did bring cookies,” Mr. Lee said.

  “Fine. Come in.” Mrs. Lee backed into the house and waved me inside.

  Their home matched Harold’s in size and layout only. Bold red curtains lined the majority of the windows and the hardwood floors gleamed. The walls were littered with pictures of their grandkids I’d seen at the funeral plus other family members. The dining room had a photo in a large golden frame with younger versions of Mr. and Mrs. Lee in traditional clothing. Between them sat a young girl, presumably their daughter. Their clothes were a coordinating mix of pinks and royal blues. A smaller picture beside them was a detailed map of South Korea. A red dot had been placed near a town named Pyeongtaek.

  I gestured to the picture and the rest of their home. “You have a beautiful home. Is that your daughter in the picture with you?”

  “It is,” Mrs. Lee answered. “Her name is Sue. Sit there, please. Would you like some tea?”

  “I don’t want to trouble you,” I answered. Her sidelong glance let me know that I already had. “Of course, I’ll have some.”

  Mr. Lee didn’t join us in the dining room and instead went up the stairs. Mrs. Lee cast a worried glance in his direction.

  “If you’re concerned about me saying something about your grandchildren being here, I would never do that.”

  She placed a glass in front of me and poured the tea from a cold pitcher. I took a sip and marveled at the sweet and sugary taste. “Wow.”

  For the first time, Mrs. Lee smiled. “It’s Maesil-cha or plum tea.”

  “You should put up a stand outside and sell this by the glass.” I took another long sip as she sat down in the chair adjacent to me. I flipped my notebook open to an empty page. “Did the investigator talk to you about the strange things that happened with Harold? The grass sabotage and so forth?”

  “He did. Threatened to video our house if we didn’t confess.”

  “Did you confess to him?”

  “Ha. The big-bellied bully was just as full of bluster as Harold. We told him to video all he wanted.”

  “But you were the ones sabotaging his grass. And putting dog feces in his yard. Right?”

  “A few other things too. I’m not proud of what we did, but we did it for the community.”

  “The community? How’s that?”

  “We thought if we could make him miserable enough to move, it would make everyone in the community happy.” She glanced at the picture on the wall.

  I followed her gaze. “So, it wasn’t about revenge for him reporting your grandchildren for visiting past the allotted time?”

  “Maybe partly for that reason too. We’re usually rule-followers, but our daughter has been in some trouble and needed us to keep the children for a while. When we first moved in, it wasn’t an issue. The kids would visit for a couple of weeks and go home. Then their good for nothing father left and things got hard for Sue. We don’t have anyone else in the country and we won’t let them go to a foster home.”

  “Did you ever do anything to the inside of his home?” Like add something to the shower to help his slip.

  “No way. We hated Harold, but we didn’t want to do anything that he could put us in jail for. Annoying him gave us enough satisfaction.”

  “The night he died, another neighbor said she saw a silver car with a white sticker on the back parked beside the road. Do you remember that?”

  “No, but we did hear an argument later that night when we tossed carrot seeds over the back fence and onto his lawn.”

  “Did you hear a man or a woman’s voice?”

  “Just men’s voices, I think. Harold liked to yell and argue with everyone, so we didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Do you remember the time?”

  “About nine o’clock, I’d guess. We put the kids to bed before we plan our attacks.”

  A loud thump and giggling came from the second floor. Mrs. Lee glanced up and shook her head.

  I glanced back over my notes. “Wait, did you say carrot seeds?”

  “Makes plants in the grass that weed killer won’t get rid of. Super annoying. We Googled it.”

  She picked up my glass and took it to the kitchen. “We’re not bad people. We only started messing with him after he started messing with us.”

  “I know you’re not, Mrs. Lee. Thank you for your time.” I gathered my notebook, satisfied with the information I’d gathered from the Lees and Sadie Perkins. A man driving a silver car with a white sticker on the back had argued with Harold the night he died.

  Not any closer to figuring out a motive, I did have the opportunity part narrowed down to around nine p.m. Mateo had advised me to trust my instincts.

  At the moment, they told me if I found the owner of the car, I’d have all the rest of my questions answered.

  ∞∞∞

  My cell phone rang and Mateo’s name popped up on the display screen. “Hey,” I answered.

  “Are you being safe?” he asked.

  A blue car passed by slowly and I sunk down in my seat. “I have my pepper spray on my hip and I’m keeping an eye out for anyone wearing a black ski mask.”

  “Funny. Are you sure you aren’t a comedian? How’s the investigation going?”

  I tapped the side of my cell phone. “How do you know I’m out investigating?”

  “You left all your search tabs active on my laptop.”

  Oops. Some sneak I was. “I’m making slow progress and managing my expectations.”

  “Wow. That doesn’t sound like a diva at all.” The soft chuckle that followed made me smile. “I have a call in to a friend at the coroner’s office. I’ll let you know if I can get your information.”

  “Thanks. I feel like I’m at a dead end though. The needle in the haystack search is for a silver car with a white sticker that may or may not be fishing related, driven by a man who may or may not have argued with Harold on the night he died.”

  “In the medical community when we need to assess a patient, we do a thing called triage. Start with the bigger issues and move to the smaller ones. Your biggest detail is that you’re looking for a man who drives a silver c
ar who knew Harold.”

  I flipped my visor up and down. “How would I find all the men who knew Harold? It’s not like I can get ahold of his phone or even know if he had an address book.” Like Mrs. Lee, I didn’t want to rack up breaking and entering charges. All the people who hated Harold had attended his funeral.

  “Ah ha!” I shouted and sat up straight.

  “Epiphany?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you. Gotta go.”

  “Be safe. And…” After a brief pause, he said, “See you tonight?”

  “Sure. And I’ll grab us dinner. Something cheap though.”

  “It’s a date,” he said, and the phone disconnected.

  I held out the phone and gave my reflection a wink. “You got a date, saucy girl. But first, back to the funeral home.”

  I guided my car out of the community and across town to Downer & Downer. I didn’t call ahead to Mrs. Downer for fear she’d refuse to see me. Every silver car I passed on the way became a possible suspect. And there were so many car stickers I now noticed that I’d never paid attention to before. Stickers for kids, pets, politics, something called Salt Life, the beach, marathons, coexisting, legging companies, and supplements littered the backs of cars and trucks alike.

  The weight of the task I’d taken on pushed against my chest, but I fought it back with determination. Several articles I’d read had mentioned ordinary heroes solving violent crimes in their spare time. Patience and persistence would be my crime-solving companions.

  Ugh. I almost sounded like a commercial spot for a made-for-television movie plug. Those characters often put themselves in direct danger and I needed to be smarter than that. I made a mental list of how to stay safe. One—only gather evidence during the day. Two—park up front and in well-lit areas. Three—keep Mateo’s number pulled up and ready for a one-push phone call.