by O. J. Lovaz
A cool draft brought again that faint smell of smoke but only fleetingly.
“Ms. Goddard, I am Detective Andrew Wozniak. First and foremost, I am so very sorry about this terrible tragedy that has befallen you and your family. Please accept my sincerest condolences.”
“Thank you, Detective, for your kind words,” said Ms. Goddard dejectedly. “This really is a devastating tragedy for our family.” He couldn’t be sure, but perhaps sadness was not the only emotion he detected in her subdued voice. Could it be fear? She didn’t hold eye contact for very long. Her eyes were wide open, eyebrows flat and still—her whole face looked too still, like a mask. Her daughter, Anna, did seem quite distraught. The son, Frank, was a puzzle. His face looked hard, impenetrable.
“And these young folks, am I correct to assume they are your son, Frank, and your daughter, Anna?”
“Yes, they are,” said the widow, looking at their faces. Anna made a sad attempt at smiling; held her mother’s hand. Frank’s eyes seemed distant, clouded.
“All right. Again, I am very sorry for your loss. I just have a couple quick questions for you, Lydia. May I call you Lydia?”
“Yes, you may.” Lydia darted a fleeting glance at Wozniak—glassy green lanterns, like windows to a rain forest.
“I was told there’s a significant amount of money missing. Is that right?”
“Yes, twelve thousand dollars,” said Lydia, her gaze now fixed on her daughter’s hands.
“That’s a big chunk of petty cash, isn’t it?” Wozniak asked; at once both Anna and Frank looked up at him like he was getting fresh.
“Some of our tenants prefer to pay cash,” Lydia explained. “My husband kept that money in an envelope in the basement.”
“Hmm, I see. Sadly, Lydia, Blake County has seen an increase in break-ins in the last few years.” That was a lie. Crime in the area had remained steadily low for decades. One thing that he’d learned in this line of work was that the best way to catch criminals is to let them think they are beyond suspicion. When they loosen up, that’s when they start making mistakes, saying too much, and contradicting themselves.
“Oh, I didn’t know that. It’s always been so quiet here,” said Lydia. “It wouldn’t be the first time we forgot to lock the door. The possibility of being robbed, or attacked in our home, wasn’t something we ever thought about.”
She seemed too willing to accept the robber-turned-murderer assumption.
Wozniak took out his little notebook and pen; scribbled down the date, time and three names; wringing his face like he had just solved the case. “It’s really quite unfortunate that the burglar found your husband down there. These robbers usually just want to get in, get the loot, and get out quickly. Tragedies such as this happen when the criminal miscalculates and comes face to face with a family member. Once he’s seen, fear takes over and he attacks in a panic.”
“That must have been what happened,” Lydia said. Her voice did something there for a fraction of a second. Had that been a trace of relief? And Anna, did she just now steal a glance at her mother? She looks smart. Perhaps, she was trying to tell her to stop jumping at every get-out-of-jail-free card he was throwing at her.
Wozniak brought a hand to his chin, slanting his head. “Lydia, as far as you know, who else knew that Victor kept that much cash inside the house?”
“Um, I can’t think of anyone. Only family,” she said. That seemed to give Frank a jolt, his eyes suddenly more alert.
“Only family,” Wozniak repeated slowly while jotting it down on his tiny black notebook. Then, briskly, “I see that you had visitors earlier.”
“We had a family gathering earlier,” Anna said with aplomb. The daughter coming to the rescue, perhaps worried that her mother is starting to loosen up.
“Did they not like the food?”
“What do you mean?” The daughter again.
“It would appear most of the food is still there. Seems odd, that’s all.” Wozniak smiled.
“Oh, that,” Lydia cut in, “I guess I served too much food. There were only twelve people here, us included. I must have cooked for twenty-four.”
“Better too much food than too little, right? And, Anna, how late did you stay here?”
“It must have been about eight when I left.” She didn’t need to think much about it.
“How about you, Frank? Can I call you Frank?”
“Yes, just Frank is fine, Detective.” He seemed on edge, little wrinkles showing between his eyebrows. “I left a bit later; around eight thirty, I think.”
Wozniak jotted it down. “And were you the last to leave?”
“No, our grandmother and our aunt, Mom’s sister, were still here when I left.”
“Lydia’s sister, what’s her name?” asked Wozniak.
“Marlene,” said Lydia.
Wozniak scribbled down her name. “And she was with your mother, yes?”
Lydia nodded, “Rose Wilde is her name.”
“Thank you for all that. Now, I’m sorry to ask this question, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. Was anyone at the family gathering that you could suspect of being involved in this crime somehow, even indirectly? Perhaps, someone in a dire need for money; someone with an addiction, or a gambling debt, anything like that?”
“God, no! Of course not!” exclaimed Lydia Goddard.
“I’m sorry, but I had to ask. I will need, of course, the full list of guests who came to the family gathering, and their phone numbers. With this family gathering happening here only hours before your husband’s murder, it is important that I speak to each of them. Perhaps, one of them knows or saw something that could lead us to the capture of the killer.”
“Yes, of course,” said Lydia.
“All right, here’s a piece of paper and a pen. Could you please write them down for me? Name, phone number, and relationship to you, your husband, son, or daughter. Don’t leave out anyone, and please include your names as well.”
The rookie officer came over and addressed Wozniak. “Detective,” he started, but Wozniak motioned him to walk with him. They stopped right at the front door. “Detective, I conducted a full search around the house and found nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Are you sure? No evidence of a burn site, no ashes, or a patch of freshly loosened soil; nothing like that?”
“No, sir. It’s very dark out there, but I utilized a thorough search pattern. I’m convinced there’s nothing of that sort around the house. No smell of smoke either.”
“That’s disappointing. We’ll need to conduct a search with a wider ratio when the sun comes up.”
Lydia had written down the names when Wozniak returned. “I’ll be in contact with you shortly,” he said. “Again, I just want to reiterate how sorry I am that this happened to you.”
Mitchell followed Wozniak to the front yard, away from the Goddard’s. The night was getting cooler.
“So, Mitchell, what did you observe?”
“I think the wife could be hiding something. Her grief seemed a little contrived to me. And her son might know something too—he was awfully quiet. And I spotted some odd glances between Anna and her mother. There was a strange vibe. What do you think?”
“Yeah, something was off. There’re two things we need to do in the next twelve hours. First, we’ll talk to each person on this list and find out if anything out of the ordinary happened during this family gathering.”
Mitchell followed Wozniak as he stepped closer to the picnic table. “Take some pictures. Look at this—two full beers side by side, and over there, a perfect square of lasagna, untouched. The way all this food was left on the table out here is suspect. You’d think someone showed up with a chainsaw. I also find it odd that the whole thing was wrapped up by eight thirty.”
“Yeah, that’s odd, tomorrow being a holiday and all,” Mitchell said as he snapped a picture of a tray overflowing with meatballs.
“It’s just too much of a coincidence that the man was mur
dered on this particular day, don’t you think?”
“I sure do.” Mitchell turned around to look at the swaying tree tops behind him; they seemed to murmur in the wind. “On the other hand, a burglar could have taken advantage of their family dinner to break into the house unnoticed.”
“That’s true, but then, why wait until everyone was gone? The advantage was lost.”
“Maybe someone came back, or never really left the premises. The wife could have left the door unlocked on purpose.”
“To steal the money?” asked Wozniak.
“Or to kill her husband.”
“It’s possible, but we’ll need to establish a motive before we go any further. Otherwise, we are just making wild guesses. No offense to you.”
“None taken,” said Mitchell. “What’s the other thing we need to do in the next twelve hours?”
“I’ll order an expanded search for the murder weapon, most likely a wood baseball bat. We’ll start with a two-mile radius.”
“It could have been an aluminum baseball bat too.”
“Plausible but unlikely. It wouldn’t have looked as good with the baseball signed by Barry Bonds. Think about it. The man was a few years older than me. Look at his house—a big farmhouse out here, not a modern home in town. Look at that black Mercedes. It’s maybe twelve years old—the previous chief of police had one of those. Very nice, but this guy could have bought himself a brand-new Mercedes anytime he wanted. Instead, he kept this one, a more classic design. So, what baseball bat would a man like that hang on the wall below his treasured baseball signed by Barry Bonds?”
“A classic wooden one, of course, probably MLB-grade handcrafted maple.”
“Very impressive, Mitchell.”
“There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know, but baseball, I know very well. I played two seasons in high school, and I wasn’t all that bad either. I got injured at the start of my third season, though. That was the end of my short baseball career.”
“That’s too bad, but maybe you were needed more as a police officer.” Wozniak walked away from the table. He’d seen enough leftovers.
Mitchell caught up with him. “You know, with all the money and properties that Victor Goddard had, maybe that’s the motive right there. With him dead, his wife gets everything.”
“Perhaps, but that motive would have more likely led to a cold, calculated murder. Instead, this looks messy, like a crime of passion.”
The rookie officer came up to them. “Detective,” he said, “I found a shed in the backyard. It wasn’t locked. There’s plenty of gardening tools, a ride-on lawn mower, and a bunch of other stuff, but nothing unusual.”
“Excellent, officer. Please show us there.” Wozniak turned to Mitchell. “As you’ve seen already, sometimes, it’s not about what’s there, but rather about what’s missing.”
The rookie officer led them to a dark corner of the lot where there was a red barn-style storage shed. He opened it and turned on the light. Right in the middle, there was a large green ride-on lawnmower, and to either side there were a myriad of gardening tools hanging from hooks on the walls. In the back there were pails of paint and bags of gravel, garden stones, and red mulch. There was also a red charcoal grill stuck in a corner.
Wozniak inspected the tools hanging from the walls, but nothing struck him as abnormal. Then he noticed something.
“This is interesting,” he said. “See these two shovels over here? This one is tiny, for gardening, and this other one is enormous. Neither one is what you would buy as your everyday shovel—that intermediate size seems to be missing here. And what do we see smack in the middle of the two shovels?”
“An empty hook,” said Mitchell, nodding in agreement.
“Exactly. It’s quite possible that a shovel is missing. It might have been taken from here and used to dig up a hole and bury the murder weapon somewhere. So, we are now looking not only for a baseball bat, but also for a shovel. Perhaps, we should also be looking for a can of kerosene, lighter fluid, or gasoline, and matches. See, if I had just murdered someone with a wood baseball bat, I would want to burn it, which might explain the faint smell of smoke I keep sensing every now and then. There might be a burn site not too far away from here. They may have covered it with dirt, but the smell carries anyway. If we make haste, we could find it. But first things first—let’s go open some car trunks. The murderer might have been stupid enough to drive back here with the shovel, fuel, and matches, everything in their car.”
“That would be a hell of a jackpot,” said Mitchell.
“It wouldn’t be the first time. One time, back when I was a patrol officer in Philadelphia, I caught a notorious gang member drugged out of his mind, in his driveway, with blood stains on his shirt. He’d just slaughtered a rival gang member with a machete. Truly gruesome stuff. That man is now in prison, doing twenty-five to life.”
Wozniak dismissed the rookie officer. He was no longer of more use there than patrolling the streets—he might yet save some lives tonight by pulling over some drunk idiot now getting behind the wheel.
Wozniak and Mitchell walked back to the front porch, where the immediate family of the diseased were congregated. The crime scene had not been released yet, proof that the medical examiner and the technician were doing a thorough job down there. The Goddards had been talking as Wozniak approached them, but their discussion was abruptly halted the instant Anna saw him coming.
“Detective,” Anna acknowledged him with an elegant, formal demeanor.
“I hate to inconvenience you at a moment like this, I really do, but it’s necessary to perform a cursory visual inspection of the vehicles within the property. It is, of course, a mere formality.” He’d been careful not to state that he had the authority to search the vehicles. He didn’t. This was the moment when one of them could ask if he had a search warrant for the vehicles. But that, of course, would be extremely suspicious and, in itself, clear justification for a warrant. He would simply leave Mitchell stationed at the house while he went to get the search warrant from the judge. “You don’t all have to go over there with me. Just one of you will do.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Anna after a brief silence.
“Great, thank you Anna. May I call you Anna?”
“Yes, of course,” she said and proceeded to collect keys from her brother.
“The keys to the Mercedes are inside,” said Lydia.
“Not in the basement, I hope,” said Wozniak.
“They’re in the kitchen.”
“I’ll fetch them,” said Anna.
“Officer Mitchell will escort you, as the crime scene has not yet been released.”
They went in and out of the house rather quickly. Now in possession of the keys to the three vehicles, her own included, Anna followed Wozniak to the spot where the three cars were lined up next to each other. Anna unlocked the black Mercedes first. “Go ahead,” she said.
They conducted a search that was much more than just a cursory one. Anna didn’t protest it, though her face showed some edginess. The only thing of interest they found inside the car was a cool five hundred dollars in cash, haphazardly tossed inside the center console. It served perhaps only to establish a pattern; that the victim was in the habit of stashing considerable sums of cash in various places. Wozniak asked Anna to pop open the trunk. She didn’t hesitate to do it. No baseball bat there, and no shovel either, nor matches or fuel of any kind. In fact, it was completely empty.
Inspecting Frank’s car was a dull affair. There was absolutely nothing there that could be of interest. Hers was the last car left to inspect. It was a nice Volvo sedan. Wozniak’s ex-wife used to drive one.
He thought Anna flinched when he asked her to open the trunk. Could he have imagined it the same way he was now imagining that he was about to see in there a freshly muddied, fire-blackened shovel, a red can of kerosene and a box of long matches?
But, no, there would be no shortcuts tonight. No bloody baseball bat with the mu
rderer’s fingerprints all over it. No shovel. Nothing there but old psychology magazines and a crumpled-up grocery-store receipt.
“Thank you, Anna. You’ve been very helpful. That will be all for now,” said Wozniak, and at that moment a cool breeze swept through them, ruffling Anna’s golden hair and bringing him, once more, that subtle scent of smoke. He had to ask.
“Say, Anna, have you been anywhere near a fire tonight?”
CHAPTER XVII
How stupid! Anna berated herself. It was 5:36 a.m., and she was back home, sitting on her couch, staring at a TV screen that wasn’t on, staring at herself.
Her father’s body had been released to the morgue at 4:30 a.m. Such a surreal sight, him being carried out in that body bag. They’d been allowed back inside the house a few minutes later. The place felt different, intimidating, like a mausoleum that ought to be sealed, never to be opened again. The air felt heavy, the silence deafening.
Frank stayed there, partly to demonstrate to the cops that their mother was afraid to stay in the house alone, as would be expected of a woman whose husband had just been murdered by an intruder; but also because it really wasn’t right to leave her alone in there. Anna felt relieved that she could leave though; she couldn’t stand being there another second.
“My father was smoking next to me earlier,” the angry blonde on the dark TV screen mocked her. That was the only response she could come up with under pressure. Oh, that was a stupid answer! Everybody knows that cigarette smoke smells very different from the smoke produced by an actual fire, or more precisely, the burning of wood. That detective would surely know the difference, and now, he probably knew that she’d lied.
He terrified her, that man, Detective Wozniak. His eyes possessed an intensity which made her feel like he could read her thoughts, especially the ones she was desperately trying to hide. Every movement of his, every gaze, conveyed to her the inescapability of detection, capture and punishment. He was like a hawk stalking and toying with his prey. Every gracious uttering and every seemingly naive question of his was a trap he was laying, and they would inevitably start stepping on some of those, like clumsy critters driven by treacherous instincts.