The Silver Anniversary Murder (6 page)

“Good tea,” I said.

“My daughter brought it from London for me. You ever been to London?”

“I’ve been out of the country only once and I was nowhere near London, but it’s on my long-term list.”

“You’ll love it when you get there. I used to go with my husband when we were both healthy. That’s a long time ago now.” She looked sad for a moment. “You have children?”

“A little boy in kindergarten.”

“Aren’t you lucky.” She smiled. “Anything else, dear? It was so nice of you to take me home. I hope you’ll call and tell me about Rosette when you know something.”

“I will.”

She wrote down her phone number and address in my notebook. “There. Don’t forget now.”

“You’ll hear from me.” I gave her my phone number in case she remembered anything else, but I assured her she had been more helpful than anyone else I’d talked to. “The Bs in the license plate will probably give us the name of the owner of the vehicle.”

“Big car,” Gladys said. “Dark red. Hate ’em but everybody needs one these days. You know what?”

“What?”

“The last time I saw Rosette, she didn’t have any polish on her nails. She must have been getting ready for a new manicure.”

“I see.” That meant Gladys had seen Rosette close to the end of her life.

We shook hands and she walked to the front door with me, then stood at the living room window so she could wave as I backed out of the driveway and turned down the block.

6

“We should be able to find the registration with that,” Jack said. “Can’t be more than a thousand, can there? And they won’t all be SUVs.”

“I haven’t called Joe about it. Do you think I should?” I knew the answer to that. What I wanted was for Jack to find the registration, but I knew what my duty was. I had to turn my information over to the county police.

“You want a short answer or a long answer?”

“OK. I’ll do what’s right. But then I think I should give this investigation up. If I have to give Joe Fox everything I dig up, I may as well let his people dig it up for themselves.”

“If they can.”

“Well, Gladys French was a stroke of luck. There was nothing clever or original about my finding her. In a way she found me. She heard me talking to someone in the drugstore. And she recognized the picture.”

“However it happened, you came up with the best information they’ve gotten. I’m sure they’ll find the registration and the whole plate number from those Bs.”

“I’ll call Joe in the morning.”

“Now, how did you come up with that?” the good detective said when I gave him the Bs.

I told him briefly, along with the fact that the victim gave her name to Gladys French as Rosette Parker.

“Well, I’ll recommend you for a gold shield for that, Mrs. Brooks.” The gold shield is a detective’s badge. You can’t apply for it; you can’t take a test for it. They give it to you because you have earned it.

“I appreciate that, Joe. I’ll wear it around my neck when I go to complain about my phone bill.”

He laughed at that. “What’s next on your agenda?”

“I think it’s time for me to give up. You’re the professionals. Whatever I dig up, you can do yourselves, and I don’t want to get in your way. If I hear anything, which I don’t expect to, I’ll give you a call.”

“Likewise. By the way, we have results on the prints we lifted in the apartment. No police record on any prints.”

“I didn’t think this was done by a career criminal,” I said. “The killer had some kind of grudge or the Mitchells betrayed a trust. Maybe one stole from the other a long time ago, or some terrible accident occurred and the victim’s family never accepted it was an accident.”

“Those are good theories, Mrs. Brooks. Keep working on them.”

We chatted a bit more and then finished our conversation. I must admit I was at loose ends after I hung up. I had gotten myself into the spirit of the chase, and having bowed out, I felt let down. There were things I could do, of course. I volunteer my time at the local parish to do whatever is necessary, including cleaning up the classrooms, not a very appealing alternative to hunting down a killer. It was a while since I had done word processing for my friend Arnold Gold, the lawyer. It was also some time since we’d met in the city for lunch, and I had an open invitation that I could accept at any time he wasn’t in court or otherwise busy working for his clients. That was tempting. I looked at my calendar, which was largely empty, and was about to call Arnold when the phone rang.

“Chris, I’ve got something for you,” my husband said.

“What? Have you talked to Joe?”

“Not yet. I decided to run that partial plate number. Did you give it to him?”

“About half an hour ago.”

“Then I’m not stepping on toes. There’s a maroon van-type vehicle registered to a Charles Proctor with a box number address—at least it looks like one of those mailboxes at a private company. It’s the only maroon van with three Bs in the plate number in that zip code.”

“Charles Proctor,” I said. “Boy, they really have a lot of names.”

“I also looked for a driver’s license under both of his names and both of hers. Did you say she drove?”

“Yes. She was always driving when she picked up Gladys French. The husband sat in the backseat and read the paper.”

“Well, there’s no license for her under Mitchell or Parker, but there’s one for him under Proctor. So he registered the car and got his license under the same name as is on the mailbox. Maybe he did his taxes under that name, too.”

“Did you check for a driver’s license for a woman at that mailbox address?”

“I did and there isn’t any. Maybe she has her own box somewhere else.”

“I’d go nuts with all those identities,” I said.

“So would I. I think you’re right about them. They were hiding from someone and doing a damn good job of it. Finding Gladys French was fantastic luck.”

“Well, I told Joe I’m resigning from the case. He’ll find out what you just told me as soon as he runs the plate number, and he’ll have to take it from there. In all the other cases I’ve looked into, I wasn’t working parallel with the police. Sooner or later I’ll get underfoot and there’ll be a lot of resentment.”

“They’ll miss you when you’re gone, honey.”

I smiled. “You bet they will. I’m just going to sit back and wait for them to come begging.” I told him Joe promised me a gold shield.

That brought a laugh. “I worked my butt off for my gold shield. Joe must be turning to mush.”

Mush or not, I decided not to go to the place where the Proctor mailbox was. Instead, I wrote down the names I had for the husband and those for the wife and indicated under each one where it was used.

Mitchell was the at-home name for both of them and so far used nowhere else, unless the M Gladys had spotted on the briefcase meant that Mrs. Mitchell used that name at work. Rosette Parker was the name she used away from home—with the manicurist and Gladys French. I had no Parker name for the husband. But he used Charles Proctor for his license and registration. Was it possible the wife used Proctor for her license, too?

If there was a pattern, it needed to be filled in. I wondered whether the wife had her own mailbox, perhaps somewhere other than where her husband’s was.
What were
these people hiding from?

Eddie came home and we had lunch together. He asked to visit a friend who had a backyard swimming pool. I am very nervous about children and backyard pools, but I knew the mother and trusted her. The pool was enclosed by a high metal fence that was gated and locked. I made the phone call and agreed to drive Eddie over at two. We went upstairs and found the one pair of bathing trunks that still fit.

“We’ll have to buy you some more if you’re going to swim a lot this summer.”

“I want to swim. We can go to the Oakwood pool, can’t we?”

“Sure. I joined last week.”

“That’s a much bigger pool than Terry’s.”

“It’s for a lot of people. The whole town swims there.”

“Then why does Terry have his own pool?”

“I guess his parents like having it.”

“Can we get a pool in our backyard? We have a big backyard.”

“No, Eddie, we can’t. I enjoy swimming in a big pool so I can take lots of strokes before I have to turn around.”

That gave him something to think about. I drove him over to Terry’s, talked to Terry’s mother for a while, then returned home. I was seriously thinking of putting on my own bathing suit and taking a quick swim in the town pool when the phone rang.

“Mrs. Brooks, it’s Detective Palermo.”

“Yes, hello.”

“I just gave Detective Fox a call and thought I’d update you, too. There’s been a development.”

“In the Mitchell murder?”

He laughed. “You’ve asked me a question I can’t answer. I don’t know if it’s related to the Mitchell murder. It’s just a development till we get some more information. Another body has turned up.”

“Really!”

“This time it’s a man. Probably died around the time the woman did. There’s a lot of decomposition, as you’d expect, but there’s evidence of a gunshot wound.”

“A gunshot wound.” I was astounded. “Where was the body found?”

“Not in Oakwood, so it’s not in our jurisdiction. It was also along the creek, but farther west, in the next town. They called me because they knew we’d found the woman’s body and thought there might be a connection.”

As did I. “How soon will you have a sketch?”

“Not today. That’s for sure. I think Detective Fox will have to take care of that. I take it you’d like to see it?”

“I’d like to show it to someone.”

“I’ll ask Detective Fox to see to it that you get a copy.”

“Thank you very much. And Detective Palermo? I really appreciate your calling to tell me.”

“Well, you started things off. Have a nice day.”

As incongruous as his sign-off was, I took it in the spirit in which I was sure it had been delivered. Then I sat down to think.

They had killed Peter Mitchell, too. It took a minute or so before I realized I had thought “they” not “he.” There must be two of them, a man and a woman. The second, more distant voice on the phone had been a man’s. Perhaps the phone call to me had, as Joe suggested, been some kind of setup.

I looked at my watch. I really did want to swim. It was hot out today and I had my membership card. I didn’t need to pick up Eddie for a couple of hours and I hadn’t been in the pool since the end of last summer. Suddenly, I could almost taste the water, sparkling blue where the afternoon sun hit it.

I pulled on one of last year’s suits, looked at myself with slight misgivings in the bathroom mirror, grabbed a cover-up and a towel, and drove off. The parking lot was only half full and I was able to park in relative shade. A new high school face greeted me at the entrance and OK’d my card.

A number of people from the area where we lived, from the church, and from the school waved and said hello as I passed. I stopped only briefly, the shimmering water as inviting as I had ever seen it. I picked a lounge, left my towel, bag, and sandals, and made my way to the water. It was quite cool, but this was early in the season. I went in by degrees, finally dipping my body up to my shoulders. And then I was off.

I am not a strong swimmer but I am an enthusiastic one. I had one of the reserved lap lanes to myself, and I glided back and forth, regaining my dormant skills. Finally, I let my mind travel back to thoughts of the Mitchells.

The essential question was still unanswered: What had the Mitchells done to enrage the man and woman, according to my logic, who had hunted them down and killed them? Maybe the Mitchells had bilked them out of money. Maybe the Mitchells were con artists who had gone too far with a mark.

I came to the end of the lane once again and decided I’d had enough for a first dip in the pool. As I usually did, I lay on my lounge under a huge shade tree and let myself dry. I had a book with me, but I was too consumed with the Mitchell homicides to concentrate on reading. One thing I knew for sure: This was not a crime of the moment. This crime had been planned for years and executed accordingly. What puzzled me was how I fit into it. The woman had known my full name and who I was in the community. I believed I had been talking to a killer, not a victim. She must have known that by alerting me I would stir the pot, so why did she call me that day in May?

“They’re all interesting questions,” Jack said in the evening. “And I can’t answer them any more than you can. But I agree this wasn’t a crime of opportunity. These people were marked for death, hunted for the kill. By the way, we don’t yet know that the dead man is the husband of Holly Mitchell.”

“True, but it’s a good bet.”

“Joe promised to fax me the sketches as soon as they’re drawn. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.”

“I hope the artist has enough to work with.”

“They have special guys that do that sort of thing. Remember when you got someone to make a head sculpture for you a few years ago and then he changed the age?”

I did remember. It had been fascinating to see. “OK. I’ll just wait for the sketch. I want to show it to Gladys.”

“I’m sure the cops’ll show it to the building manager and the neighbors. Someone there’ll ID him.”

“What I need is someone from the past, one person who can place that couple in a city where they were known before they started running. It’s as though they built a concrete wall around themselves and someone has to crack it open. If we could get those sketches on TV, maybe someone would come forward.”

“You’re not getting it on national TV,” my husband the realist said. “And if they come from the Midwest or the West, no one in New York City is likely to have known them.”

I found out the next day that the driver’s license for Charles Proctor had a photo on it. That would give something to compare a sketch to, when it was done. The medical examiner was able to lift fingerprints from the body in spite of the decomposition. What they did, Jack told me, was inflate the fingers with a gas, press the fingertips on an inked board as though they were living fingers, and then roll them on special paper. In this case, as in the case of Holly, the prints were clear enough to be usable.

The man’s death had indeed been caused by a gunshot, one to be exact. The shooter had stood in front of him and aimed at his heart. The bullet was found inside him, a .38 caliber lead slug fired from close range, leaving tattooing on the clothes and some on the skin. The bullet had carried cloth threads into the entry wound. The lab report stated that the muzzle of the gun was approximately two inches away when the weapon was fired.

Joe Fox assured me there would have been plenty of blood. The ME’s office would analyze the blood in the body for DNA and compare it to the stains found in the apartment bedroom. Perhaps now there would be a match.

The man had been wearing a business suit but there was no wallet or other means of identification on him. An indentation on his left ring finger indicated he had worn a wedding ring for a long time. His shirt was a common brand available in many stores, and the suit, while moderately expensive, could be bought in any number of outlets. Neither victim had worn shoes and none of their clothing had a store label.

The man, however, had a scar from an appendectomy done many years ago. I didn’t think that would be of much help, though, as appendectomies are common.

The police still didn’t know what had killed the woman.