The Silver Anniversary Murder (3 page)

3

I had almost given up expecting such a call. The woman had said a body would be found that afternoon, and that afternoon was two weeks ago. It took me a moment to orient myself. “You think it’s connected to the call I got from the Mitchell apartment?”

“We don’t get a lot of bodies in this area, Mrs. Brooks.”

“When was it found?”

“Yesterday. It’s pretty deteriorated, as you can imagine.”

“Then the person died some time ago.”

“Looks like it. It’s a female, by the way. Hard to tell from the body itself, but there’s women’s clothing on it and the size would fit a female. The autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon.”

“I appreciate your call, Detective Palermo. Will you be working the case?” I was hoping for a negative answer.

“Probably not. I’m tied up with a lot of local stuff. I think the county’ll take over. They have some good homicide detectives.”

I smiled. “I’m sure they do.”

“Someone’ll let you know what’s going on when we have more information.”

I thanked him and hung up. The woman who had called me had been killed. I was sure of that. Having spoken to her at such a crucial moment, the last one of her life, I felt a sense of sadness that I had been unable to save her.

I called Jack and told him the news. Joe Fox had not called him, so it was possible Palermo had not told him of the find. When I got off the phone, I called Joe myself.

“Mrs. Brooks, I have just heard some interesting news.”

“So have I, Joe.” I told him mine.

“About what I heard. It’s a female, and from the condition of the body, she may well have died around the time you got your strange call. I doubt they’ll be able to pinpoint the time of death, but they’ll give us a range.”

“Detective Palermo says he’s tied up with local things. Does that mean you’ll catch the case?”

“I’ve already talked to my lieutenant about this one. I think it’ll be me.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Will you keep me informed?”

“Of course. I’m sure there’ll be news tomorrow.”

He was prompt with his information. I was eating my tuna fish salad the next day and reading my
New York
Times
when he called.

“It’s a woman, as we guessed,” he began. “Forty to fifty, maybe a bit more, about five-four, a hundred twenty to a hundred twenty-five pounds, dark brown hair starting to gray, good teeth and good dental work, no broken bones. She had her nails done shortly before she died.”

I looked down at my own unmanicured hand as he said that. “You haven’t told me how she died.”

“Well, that’s the neat part. There isn’t a mark on her body. They’ll do a tox screen, but that takes time. But it’s a cinch she wasn’t shot.”

That was quite a punch line. I had fully expected him to report on a gunshot wound, bullet, gun caliber, and all that went with it. Instead, I had a puzzle.

I finished my lunch, drank the last of the tomato juice, and sat myself down in the family room with the
Times
and my quandary. Perhaps this woman had no connection to the woman who called me. True, Palermo had said the area didn’t have many homicides, for which we were all grateful, but it was always possible that the phone call had indeed been a prank and that this body was an unhappy coincidence.

The facts that I knew were so confusing and pointed in so many directions that I could hardly use them as a starting point. It seemed to me someone had to canvass the building the Mitchells lived in. At least one of them must have held a job and owned some furniture, not to mention a car. The thought of a car made me perk up. Jack could easily check licenses and registrations. I went back to the phone, thinking I had just forfeited a dollar. He would laugh and tease me, but I wasn’t going to stop thinking because I’d lost a wager.

“Lieutenant Brooks.”

His title still gives me a bit of a thrill. “Jack, I just talked to Joe Fox.”

“He faxed me his report a little while ago. I only glanced at it, but it looks like a doozy. Nothing matches anything we know—or thought we knew.”

“The Mitchells must have owned a car.”

“I’m sure that’s occurred to Joe, but I’ll get on it. Who were they again? Peter and—”

“Holly.”

“I’ll have it with me when I come home. I don’t want to step on his toes, Chris.”

“I understand.”

“And I hate to see you lose a buck.”

“Life is full of disappointments.”

The way it worked out, after several phone calls, was that Joe Fox would do the good job he was trained to do and I would do the intuitive work that had helped catch a number of killers over the last half dozen years. Joe had already ordered a canvass and that would start tomorrow. Jack would find out what car the Mitchells drove, and Joe Fox would probably put out an alarm for it. By now, two weeks after the homicide, it could have been sold or driven out of state, but something might turn up. Mel and I had already tried the schools with no luck; I would have to mention that to Joe.

My hopes lay in the canvass. The Mitchells, or Mrs. Mitchell at least, must have had a neighbor that she was friendly with. And the building manager should know where one or both of them worked. They would surely have a bank account locally, and the police would find that. Those bits of information would provide something tangible to work with.

Later in the afternoon, Eddie and I walked down the block and across the street to the Grosses, and while Eddie played upstairs, Mel and I sat on her shaded patio and drank iced tea.

“The body turned up yesterday,” I told her.

“Mrs. Mitchell?”

“A woman. Probably Mrs. Mitchell. The age is right for a woman celebrating twenty-five years of marriage.”

“Too old to have kids in the schools.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but it was a place to look. And they might have gone there a few years ago.”

“It’s very strange, Chris. Nobody I talked to had ever heard of them. I think that if you asked five people in Oakwood if they knew me, one or two would recognize my name.”

“If she worked, she may not have had the kind of social life we have. She’d be too tired at night to go to council meetings and scream about injustice.”

“Excuses, excuses,” my friend said. “Something’s fishy. Where did they find her body, by the way?”

“Mm. I forgot to ask and he didn’t mention it. I’d call now but I don’t want to be a bother. Joe Fox faxed his report, so maybe it’s in that. Jack’ll bring it home tonight.”

“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”

I explained about the friendly wager Jack and I had made.

Mel laughed. “Did you really think you would stay out of this?”

“What I really thought was that nothing would happen. The apartment was empty, the people had disappeared, the neighbor hadn’t seen them. I thought we would find a body right away. When we didn’t, I decided it was over. You know me well enough to know that I don’t bet a dollar lightly.”

“I know,” Mel said. “But I’m glad you didn’t stand on your principles and refuse to look into this. It’s not just a homicide. There’s other stuff going on.”

“Mommy?” a young voice called.

“That sounds like mine.” I got up and went inside.

“I wanna go home,” Eddie said, looking unhappy.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like Noah anymore.”

“Did something happen?”

“He won’t let me play with his new game.”

“Maybe he’s afraid it’ll get broken, honey. Remember when you wouldn’t let him play with a puzzle of yours?”

Eddie pouted. “I don’t care. I wanna go home.”

“Problem?” Mel said behind me.

“A very small one in the great scheme of things.”

“Eddie, we have really good cookies out on the table. Want one?”

“Yes!” His eyes lit up, the slight fading in importance.

At that moment, a soft voice behind me said, “He can play with my new game, OK?”

“Sari, that’s very nice of you.” We worked out a settlement quickly, and Mel and I returned to the shady outdoors and our tea. “Whatever made me think bringing up a child would be easy?”

“Your innate trust in humankind, dear friend. And it won’t be easy, but believe me, you’ll be successful.”

It’s nice to have a friend who says the right thing at the right time.

Jack handed me the fax when he came home. I glanced at it but was too busy with dinner to look carefully. Later, I read it with a pencil in my hand. The body had been found near Oakwood Creek, a trickle of fresh water that meanders through town and attracts teenagers at night in the warm months and bird-watchers and hikers all year round. I’m not sure of its source but I suspect it empties into the Long Island Sound, which forms one of Oakwood’s natural boundaries. The body had not been buried; instead, it had been covered with leaves and branches. A solitary hiker had literally stumbled on it and called the police on his cell phone.

“I’ve saved the best for last,” Jack said, watching me make a few notes in my book.

I looked up. “There’s more?”

“No car registered to either Holly or Peter Mitchell at that address.”

That sounded impossible. While some people who live in Oakwood don’t own cars, most of those are older people who have given up driving and rely on neighbors to do their shopping unless they live near one of the supermarkets. Occasionally I see an elderly woman with a wheeled wire cart filled with bags of groceries, walking cautiously along the side of a road. It always makes me nervous. “Mel’s right; something’s fishy.”

“I’d check with the building manager, see if they paid by check or cash. Bet it’s cash or a money order.”

I had the same feeling. I looked at my watch. It was still early evening. “Let me call Marjorie Walsh and see if they’re on the voting list.”

“Want to make another bet?”

“I’m through betting for the rest of my life.” I dialed Marjorie and spent a few minutes in the requisite chatter. Then I asked my question and waited while she went for the list.

“No Peter Mitchell,” she said. “No Holly. If they’re new in town, they may not have registered yet.”

“They’ve lived here for some time, Marge. Well, not everyone votes.”

“Right, although we get a good percentage in Oakwood. Better than a lot of the towns around us.”

I didn’t want to explain further so I thanked her and got off the phone.

“Not registered?” Jack said.

“Afraid not.”

“Well, that’s not unusual. I know a lot of guys on the job who stay away from the polls. Not that they don’t care, they just don’t want a record of affiliation. Let’s see what happens in the canvass.”

“And Joe will check if they forwarded their mail.”

“And how they paid their bills. We’ll turn them up.” He sounded confident.

But I was starting to wonder.

The next morning, after Eddie went off to school, I drove to the creek, parked off the road, and walked down the mild slope to where crime scene tape had been spread over a sizable area, stretching from tree to tree and stake to stake where there were no trees. A lone local cop sat in his radio car, ostensibly guarding the scene. He was eating a bagel and drinking coffee from a thermos when I got there. I waved to him.

“Morning, Mrs. Brooks.”

I didn’t recognize him but I guess I’m better known than I think—always a surprise to a person who keeps to herself. “How long will you be here?” I asked.

He had opened the window. “Probably another day. They took a thousand pictures when the body was found, but we don’t want the scene disturbed till we’re sure we don’t need any more.”

“Where was she found?”

He put his bagel down on the seat, screwed on the top to the thermos, and got out of the car. I followed him to the yellow tape, which he lifted for me to go under. “About there.” He pointed. “It’s kind of sheltered with those bushes growing there. I can’t let you walk any closer than where we’re standing.”

We were about ten feet from the area he had indicated, a leafy nest with bush branches bending over it. The killer must have raised them somewhat to get the body in snugly. “Do you know where her head was?”

“Left, I think, toward the water.”

“Did you see her face at all?”

“Just for a second.” He looked unhappy.

“Was she recognizable?”

“Not to me.”

It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I didn’t want to press him. There was no evidence I could see that a body had lain on that sheltered bit of ground. There were just leaves and brush, new green growth on the bushes. “Were there tire tracks?” I asked finally.

“You’d have to ask the crime scene detectives, ma’am. If she was dumped when she died a couple of weeks ago, it’s unlikely they’d find tracks that were useful.”

“Thanks, Officer Jennings.” He had his name on a pin on the front of his uniform.

We walked back under the tape and I returned to my car, leaving him to his bagel and coffee.

Late in the afternoon, Joe called. “This is a real mystery, Mrs. Brooks,” he began, “the kind that should delight you and drive me up the wall.”

“What you’re saying is nothing makes sense.”

“Exactly. We canvassed the apartment building and came up with nothing. The Mitchells, if that’s what their name was, kept to themselves and didn’t get along with the woman across the hall, so no one can tell us anything useful.”

“Did anyone see them move out?”

“One man thought he saw people loading an SUV with furniture two or three weeks ago. It’s hard to pinpoint the time at this late date. But as you’ve heard, they didn’t own a motor vehicle under either of their names.”

“How did they pay their rent?”

“Cash. Does that surprise you?”

“Not at this point.”

“But on time every month. And we’ve talked to a number of banks. There are no accounts in their names.”

“So they weren’t Peter and Holly Mitchell,” I said. “They had other names, which they kept secret for their own reasons. Once a month they withdrew enough cash to pay their rent. They could have had credit cards in their real names, but no one in that complex would know what that is.”