A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (25 page)

“Because thanks to Mrs. Putnam’s lead,” John nodded to
Strutter
in acknowledgment, “we determined this afternoon that your poison pen pal was, in fact, one Reginald Dubois, a University of Connecticut employee assigned to guard duty in the botanical lab.

It was
Strutter’s
turn to groan. “I knew it! As soon as I figured out that was Reggie I was looking at on that Web cam … but he wasn’t there today. Did you find him? How do you know he wasn’t the one who attacked poor Kate outside the Law Barn?”

“
Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf
!” yapped Henry, dancing around John’s feet. For the first time, John looked at the little dog directly. He leaned forward slightly.

“No! Now sit,” he said firmly. Henry’s little butt hit the floor. Margo smiled to herself as the rest of us exchanged astonished looks, and John continued.

“As you know, we dispatched a team of detectives to
UConn
earlier today to determine Dubois’ whereabouts and take him in for questioning, if that seemed warranted. When they arrived at the lab where the so-called corpse flower is housed, they were informed that Dubois had called in sick, citing the overwhelming, uh, odor of the plant as the cause of his headache and nausea. They obtained his home address, which turned out to be a small apartment near campus, and knocked on his door.

Even from across the table, I could tell that
Strutter
was holding her breath.
“Then what,
Darlin
’?”
Margo murmured encouragingly. John shot her a
don’t-call-me-that-in-public
look
,
and she lowered her eyes with unaccustomed meekness.

“Dubois came to the door and let my detectives in without a problem. His alleged sickness seemed to be genuine, as he was lying on his couch with aspirin and antacid on the table next to him. When questioned about his former relationship with Ms. Putnam and the threatening letters being mailed to her workplace from Storrs, he confessed readily. Whatever the legal situation regarding their marriage, he said, he considered them married in the eyes of God. Therefore, she was an
adulteress
, and Dubois felt it was his duty to warn her, however oddly, of the repercussions of her behavior.” He looked up from his notes and peered at
Strutter
over the top of his new eyeglasses. “By that, we assume he meant her recent remarriage.”

John paused to allow the rest of us to digest his narrative. He looked down at Henry, who remained sitting and quiet at his feet. Casually, he patted the furry head. “Good dog,” he said.
Henry squirmed with delight and belly-flopped onto the floor.

Ada
and
Lavinia
looked at each other,
then
back at John. “That’s all there was to it?”
Ada
ventured. “Surely, there must have been more motivation than that to prompt a barrage of hateful letters such as that.” Margo and I nodded in agreement.

“Dubois was actually quite docile, according to my investigators. Poison pens often are, when they’re confronted. When my men reminded him that Charlene had every right to marry, since his marriage to her in Mexico had not been legal even by Mexican law, and that sending letters of that sort through the U.S. Mail constituted a felony, he backed right down.
Apologized, even.
My detectives gave him a severe warning and left him lying on his couch.”

Mixed with the relief on
Strutter’s
face was cold fury. She stared at John stonily. “And did he once ask after his son? Did he even remember Charlie’s name?”

John’s eyes and tone, when he answered her, were gentle. “According to the investigators’ report, the subject of your son was not raised. I’m sorry. But at least we now know where Dubois is and can keep an eye on him. It’s very unlikely that you will be bothered by him again.”

Strutter
hid her face in her teacup, and I hastened to fill the sudden silence by getting back to the subject of our meeting. “And at least we know that Dubois isn’t Van Man, since he couldn’t have been talking to John’s detectives in Storrs and been assaulting me in Wethersfield at the same time.”

John took off the new specs and pocketed them. “You might say that’s the good news. The bad news is, the guy in the van is still out there somewhere, and we don’t have a good description of him.” He threw me an apologetic glance, but it was true. I hadn’t gotten the license plate number, and I still couldn’t identify my assailant in a line-up. Except for when I turned to smash his left wrist with the pipe, he had been behind me, and after that, I had been intent only on getting into my car and fleeing the scene.

I bristled with what little energy I could summon. “But I know I did some serious damage to his left arm. It might even be broken. The pain would be awful. He would almost have to seek medical help, and that means someone, somewhere must have seen him. He might be sitting in an emergency room right now, for all we know.”

There was a general murmur of agreement, and John continued. “From your statement of how he reacted to
your
…”

“Self-defense,” I inserted coldly.

“Yes, of course, Sugar,” Margo soothed, and John grinned at me.

“Yeah, you defended yourself pretty good there,” he agreed, and my ire subsided as quickly as it had risen. “I think any of my officers would think twice before taking you by surprise. We have every major medical facility and walk-in center in the region on alert for a left-wrist injury, but there’s been no feedback yet. My guess is that no matter how much pain he’s in, our guy hasn’t gotten what he’s after yet, and he’s not going to stop until he gets it.”

Lavinia
, circling the table to refill cups, stopped in her tracks. “But what
is
he after, Lieutenant? Do we even know for certain?”

John met her imploring gaze directly. “Again, all we’ve got at this point is a working theory, but we think it’s a pretty good one, and we have all of you to thank for helping us put it together.”

Ada
spoke up. “Do stop fussing,
Lavinia
, and come and sit down. We all need to hear this.”
Lavinia
did as she asked.

“As of this afternoon, we have been able to separate the perpetrator of the poison pen letters from the circumstances surrounding the discovery of female remains,
circa
nineteen-forty-five, in the basement of this house. What we know so far about that is that at some point during or following the construction of a brick-and-mortar compartment next to the boiler, the body of a young-
ish
white woman was concealed there. On June twentieth of this year, Miss
Ada
and Miss
Lavinia
were visited by a middle-aged man purporting to be a plumber, who had been hired to repair a leak in the pipe running between the boiler and the brick enclosure. During the process of partially dismantling the enclosure to gain access to the pipe, he discovered the skeletal remains. From the way he fled the premises, that was not what he had been expecting to find.”

John flipped back a few pages and squinted at his notebook. No one suggested that he put on his glasses. “From that point on,
it’s
pure conjecture, but this is what we believe may have happened. While the
Henstocks
were occupied in the front parlor with Ms. Putnam, the plumber returned through the side door, slipped back into the basement, and removed the remains, probably in a sack of some kind.

“He left the same way and transported the remains, probably in his van, to the Spring Street Pond. How he ever managed to do it in broad daylight beats hell out of me, but somehow he dumped the body into the pond without being noticed and made his escape. Since there wasn’t any meat left on the bones … sorry, Ma’am,” he apologized after catching
Lavinia’s
audible gulp, “he probably assumed the skeleton would just sink into the muddy bottom. But there must have been an air pocket in the remaining fabric of the clothes, or it got stuck in the reeds, because Kate’s camera caught an image of it when she stopped to take a photo of the swans. We retrieved the body the next morning, and subsequent testing established the approximate age of the victim and time of her death.”

He looked up from his notes. “A few nights ago, we believe the same intruder entered the house again from the side door, either before or during Kate’s visit with Miss
Lavinia
, to search for something related to that victim. He made friends with the dog by giving him a treat of some sort, which later allowed him to exit the house without causing a ruckus. Apparently, he still didn’t find what he was looking for, because he assaulted Kate this afternoon.”

Suddenly, fatigue overcame me, and I was eager to be done with this rehash. A quick glance around the table confirmed that we all shared that feeling.
“So now what?”
I asked dully.

John lifted the leather pouch from the floor to the table. “Now, I think we may have our first real clue somewhere in these documents.” He looked at the sisters, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I understand that you ladies found this in a locked drawer of your father’s desk in the study after, uh, forcing it
open
.”

“Why, yes,”
Ada
responded promptly. Papa left everything in this house to
Lavinia
and me, so we had every right to examine the contents of his desk. When I remembered that the desk had been locked all these years, we tried to think where the key might have got to, but it was no use. So we forced the lock.”

“With a crowbar,”
Lavinia
added, for good measure. John beamed at her and shook his head in amazement. His approval of their pro-active approach was apparent.
Lavinia
blushed to the roots of her white hair, and even
Ada
grew a bit rosy.

“Well, let’s hope your initiative puts us on the right track to resolve this situation. I’ll bring these documents back to the station and put the night-shift detectives right on it. Perhaps they’ll have some information for us in the morning.” He pushed back his chair, and Henry leaped to his feet, panting adoringly. It was clear that John had made more than one conquest tonight. “In the meantime, everybody remember that Kate’s assailant is still out there somewhere, and he’s something of a chameleon. Stay alert, and keep everything locked up tight. If anything at all worries you, dial 911 immediately.”

He rose to see us all safely to our respective vehicles and gave Henry an approving pat. “How did you get that dog to mind, John?” I couldn’t help but ask as
Strutter
helped the sisters clear the table. Margo had excused herself and gone in search of the powder room.

John looked surprised. “Henry’s not a bad little guy. Dogs need to know what’s expected of them. Obviously, he was trained by someone before he wound up at the shelter. He just needs to be reminded of his manners, don’t you,
Fella
?” He tugged the dog’s ear gently, and Henry wriggled with joy.

“And I know just the one for the job,” Margo said, joining us at the door. She and John exchanged knowing looks, and I felt sure that a play date with Rhett Butler was in Henry’s future. We all said our goodnights, and
Strutter
followed us slowly out the side door of the old house. The number of cars in the driveway, as well as the lights blazing uncharacteristically throughout the first floor of the house, must have the neighbors thinking the old girls were throwing one heck of a party.
If they only knew.

“I’ll call you in the
mornin
’, Sugar,” Margo whispered, following John down the porch stairs. “I have the beginnings of an idea about what to do with this fabulous house, but right now,” she glanced anxiously at our friend, “I think
Strutter
needs a hug.”

Fourteen

In keeping with my newfound determination not to withhold information from Armando, I filled him in on the events of the day when he got home from work. From the force of long habit, I consciously minimized the drama. I even attempted to make light of the attack by pumping my fist in the air in triumph after relating how I had turned the tables and thwarted my assailant.

I was disappointed, even dismayed, to see the color drain from Armando’s face during my recitation. He put his mug of tea on the coffee table and leaned his head on one hand. A small tic appeared at the corner of his left eye. “So this thug, this
matón
, has been following you all over town for many days now. He disguised his vehicle to fool you, and today, he waited for you to be alone and assaulted you in the parking lot. Is this accurate?”