The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney

by Susan Van Kirk

  She parked and wandered down a hallway past several doors until she came to one with his name: Alexander P. Atkins, III, Coroner. Due to the uptick of recent murders in Endurance, TJ had met Atkins on a number of occasions. He wasn’t at all what she had expected. Only about five-foot-four, he was uncommonly short, but with enormously strong arms, wrists, and shoulders. The detective supposed his upper torso was developed from having to move heavy clients. She didn’t want to recall what he did with drills or rib-opening instruments. His hairline was fading, and TJ could already see traces of silver in the hair above his ears. One thing was for sure: he appeared to relish his work, often explaining procedures or findings as if she were sitting in a college class.

  She opened the door and found him behind his desk, eating the contents of a small cup of yogurt.

  “Detective Sweeney. Always a pleasure. Come on in and have a seat.” As she walked through the door, he added, “Would you like a yogurt? Awfully good for your intestinal track and full of calcium for your bones.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so, Doc. I remember the last time you opened your refrigerator, and it didn’t contain just yogurt.”

  Atkins chuckled and said, “That was Rusty’s silly mistake. We have rules and regs, you know. Can’t mix specimens with food. Rusty was new at the assistant’s job, and sometimes he got a little confused. He didn’t mean to put Mayor Pendry’s liver in the food refrigerator.” Atkins gestured to a chair in front of his desk, and TJ hung her jacket on a nearby coat tree and sat down.

  “So,” she began, “what can you tell me about the Jane Doe who Martinez and the anthropology folks brought in before the weekend?”

  Atkins finished the last spoonful of yogurt and dropped it into a wastebasket. Without saying another word, he opened a drawer and pulled out a pink file. TJ looked at it, one eyebrow raised, and he must have seen her expression because he said, “Oh, new file system. Pink is for females, blue is for males.”

  “How original,” said TJ, smiling. “She was a female.” The detective turned on her recorder and set it on Atkins’s desk.

  He beamed. “Absolutely. ‘She’ is a female, between the ages of twenty and thirty. You can tell the age to within five or ten years from the teeth and the skull. Oh, and also the maturity of bone growth and the condition of the joints. The long bones ossify—stop growing—in the mid-twenties, you see.”

  “Can you tell me anything about her size?”

  “Of course. The subject was about five-foot, six-inches in height. I used the femur and tibia to figure that out, and the femur also determined she was Caucasian.” The coroner turned and pushed a photograph across the desk to TJ. “See, the femur has a forward curve we generally find in Caucasian specimens.” He sat back as she checked it out.

  She nodded. “So far, so good. Can you tell how old the bones are, Doc?”

  “That is a calculated guess. From their condition, I’d say it is likely she has been dead maybe sixty, seventy years, as Dr. Arcero agreed before he returned to the city. I really liked him, by the way. Very thorough. He said the burial was on high ground, and that often means less decomposition than a body buried where water is more likely to seep in and stay a while, say, near a lake or at the bottom of a hill. The amount of amino acid in the bones helps to pinpoint a date: the longer in the ground, the less the amount.”

  “Those ideas seem to jibe with the artifacts we found with the body, especially a dance venue ticket from the forties.” She paused while she considered her next question. “Have you found a cause of death?”

  “Oh, definitely, well, as definitely as I’m able without the skeleton being intact. It appears a blow to the back of the head with, I would say, ah, a blunt object, not sharp.”

  TJ glanced down at the folder and nodded her head. “This would put her death somewhere in the forties, and whoever killed her—if we assume it was a murder—might possibly be dead by now.”

  Atkins nodded his head, turning it slightly toward the corner of the desk. He remained silent for a few moments, and then he added, “Oh, and something else, although I don’t know that it will make any difference if you try to identify her. The subject was never pregnant. If she had been, at any point in her life, her pelvis would have widened, and her pubic bone might have been scarred if she had delivered a child. Hers wasn’t.”

  Staring down at the recorder, TJ thought out loud. “So, Doc, we have an unidentified woman, age twenty to thirty, who died perhaps in the 1940s from a blow to the back of her head. She was a white woman, about five-six, and had never borne a child.” The detective looked up. “Seem to about cover it?”

  “Well, yes, if you simply want to know those facts.”

  “Identification. I was hoping you could tell me something about that.”

  He scratched his chin for a moment and looked at TJ. “I’m already ahead of you. I drilled into the middle of her femur for mitochondrial DNA. That’s the lineage from the mother’s side of the family. She didn’t have enough pulp left in her teeth to use.”

  TJ’s eyes narrowed. “And it’s different from plain DNA because—?”

  “Oh, my lands, yes,” he said, making a steeple of his fingertips. TJ could feel a lecture coming on. “Very different. Consider yourself, Detective Sweeney. Your mitochondrial DNA is directly inherited from your mother and is exceptionally hardy. She passed her exact DNA to you. You see, at fertilization, the egg supplies both the cell and half the DNA, while the sperm cell breaks down and disappears after kindly depositing the genetic material into the nucleus of the egg cell. The mother has now supplied both the cell and all of its material, including mitochondria, to the developing zygote. Then the cell divides and multiplies, and, presto! The mitochondria are passed on from generation to generation. Every cell in your body contains the exact same mitochondrial DNA as your mother’s. Those of us in ‘the biz’ call it mtDNA.”

  “Some of this I knew, but I’ve not dealt with old bones before. Usually, I’m talking about recent people, not skeletons. And remind me, mitochondria is important because?” She squinted, a question in her eyes.

  “Because, my friend, this means your mtDNA is exactly the same as your mother’s, your grandmother’s, your great-great-great-grandmother’s, and on and on. This means we can trace your lineage back a thousand years with total accuracy on the maternal side of your family because the DNA is an exact match. It also matters because we can extract this from very old teeth and bones.”

  TJ sat in silence for a moment. “This is all well and good, Doc, but now I have the problem of finding the woman whose DNA we might use for comparison.”

  “Well, yes,” he said, closing the folder. “I’m afraid that is a ‘you problem.’ I sent a DNA sample off to the lab quickly, and I have a friend there”—he winked—“who will speed the results along. It shouldn’t take as long as it often does, but your problem will be less about when we get it back and more about whether a specimen so old would even be in a database somewhere. DNA is a relatively new science.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean.” She paused, thoughtfully. “NamUs won’t help either. It’s too new.”

  “Ah, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. I’ve read about it, but I haven’t had to deal with it. I doubt its records go back this far, but I guess it depends on whether or not you get lucky and someone turned in this disappearance in the 1940s.”

  “I’ll check that, Doc. It’s an open database anyone can use.” She rose from her chair and leaned over the desk to shake his hand. “Thanks for your help. Hope you get some information for me soon. I’m beginning to feel like I know this woman, and, in my mind, it’s becoming a crusade to find out what happened to her. She was awfully young. It’s usually the husband or the boyfriend, you know?” She shook her head. “He probably promised to love her and then this.”

  Atkins watched her face a few seconds, and then his eyes narrowed. “Why so cynical, Sweeney?”

  She paused a minute, weighing her response. �
��Oh, Doc. Just having a tough week, that’s all.” TJ reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card, while she simultaneously turned off her small recorder and dropped it into her pants pocket. “Give me a call, if you would, when you hear anything, and thanks, Doc. You’ve piqued my curiosity and provided answers to part of the puzzle.”

  Driving back to Endurance, TJ considered how she could find a match for the DNA. Maybe Charlie Sims would call her with the name of someone who remembered the disappearance. After that, it would be a matter of figuring out if anyone related to the missing woman was still alive. The detective frowned when she thought about the cold case files they still had in the basement of the police station. The earliest files were still jumbled up, and TJ knew stacks of those files held cases from before her birth. She’d assigned one of the younger officers to search. It was a dirty, dusty job, but at least now he’d have a specific decade to consider.

  1940. Young, perhaps pretty, and maybe out on the town at a special place. Who killed you, RL? Was it a soldier? A husband? A jealous lover? And which was JL? That was next on her list—check out the locket with a jeweler.

  Chapter Three

  TJ sat across from Pete Thompson at a small table in Thompson’s Jewelers. Pete had cleaned the locket and its chain with some jeweler’s concoction, and he was now peering at it through an eye loupe with an LED light. Occasionally, he’d make a noise with his mouth, purse his lips, and look more closely. She examined his thirty-something head bent over the locket, musing that people still thought of Pete and his wife as newcomers after seven or eight years. “Newcomer” meant he didn’t trace his lineage back three generations in Endurance.

  He set the loupe down, made clear eye contact with TJ, and said in a steady voice, “No doubt about it—Atwell’s work. I’d know his engraving anywhere.”

  “Atwell.” TJ absentmindedly pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “Atwell, the jeweler who was here quite a while back?”

  “Yes. This locket is vintage early 1940s, and they used to call these rose gold flower lockets.” He pointed to a small area on the face. “See here the flowers and leaves etched on the cover? They’re made of green-gold. See these fronds and leaves going up on either side of the oval?” He traced the objects with his finger on the cover of the locket as he spoke. “The flower in the middle and greenery are definitely forties. Back then, this would have been an expensive gift for a discriminating lady. Today, this necklace is worth maybe sixty or seventy dollars.”

  “And the engraving on the inside—”

  Thompson gave a crisp nod and said, “Atwell. Jonathan Atwell. I’ve seen his work many times over the years. He owned a store across the street starting in the thirties. Closed down before I came to town—in fact, maybe the sixties—years ago, but his relatives are still in the area. I know his store was practically an institution for graduation and wedding presents, and that’s why I’ve seen so many examples of his work.”

  TJ stood up, picked up the locket, placed it back in the evidence bag, and shook Thompson’s hand. “Thanks, Pete. You’ve affirmed that I’m on the right track. Now if I can just figure out who this ‘RL’ and ‘JL’ are.”

  Sitting in her truck in front of the store, TJ put in a call to Sam Oliver, the head of the history department at Endurance College. Sam explained that several elderly Atwell children were still alive, but the one who would know anything about the store was the oldest son, Hiram. Oliver looked up the phone number and gave it to the detective. TJ no sooner had hit the “end” button than an incoming call clicked in, and Charlie Sims was on the other end of the line.

  “Charlie. Come up with a name?”

  “Hi, Detective Sweeney. I know you called and asked me something about the Roof Garden.”

  “Yes, someone to talk to about it.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” He paused. “Well, I spoke to Roberta Higgins, and she remembered three people, but, you know, after talking for quite a while, we realized they had all died.”

  TJ shook her head and drummed her fingers on the dashboard. “Live people, Charlie. I need you to narrow it down to people who still breathe.”

  She heard a long sigh and silence on the other end of the line. Then, “Oh, yeah. Live people. Uh, Alice Winters mentioned Evelyn Ward and Evelyn’s alive, but her thoughts wander and so does she—away from the nursing home. Found her on the train tracks in her nightgown a couple of weeks ago.”

  TJ pinched her lips together. “Roof Garden, Charlie—1940s—live person to interview.”

  “Let me see, TJ. I did get a name, but it comes and goes.”

  “Concentrate, Charlie.” She threw one hand up in the air and then ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Yes. Well, let me think. ‘Gilson?’ No, that isn’t right. Uh—” and he paused again while TJ silently counted to ten and rolled her eyes. “Gibson. That’s it. Gibson.”

  “Oh, good, Charlie. Now, which Gibson?”

  “Which?”

  “Yes,” TJ said, holding her breath.

  “Marjorie. That’s it,” he said, clear and strong. “She’s at least eighty-seven but real sharp. Lives on her own still in a farmhouse outside of town, oh, about seven miles out, on the road to Skyler.”

  “Perfect, Charlie. Thanks so much.”

  Then TJ called Hiram Atwell, and after a much briefer conversation, she found out he was clear-headed, unlike Charlie. More than that, however, he had some astounding news for her.

  “Well, I’ll be. Unbelievable. Thanks, Mr. Atwell,” she said.

  TJ clicked off her phone and stared across the street where Atwell’s business had been. The present owners had turned it into Binkle’s Shoe Store. Atwell’s son just told her when Jonathan died several years after his wife, the children were all so busy they simply cleared out all of his papers and put them in storage—in storage right here in Endurance. Then they forgot about them.

  “And,” she said out loud, “the files undoubtedly include receipts from the 1940s. Hallelujah. Thank goodness for ‘too busy’ children.”

  Chapter Four

  TJ steered her car down a narrow lane that led to the farmhouse of Marjorie Gibson. It was an old rambling house, sided and painted white, with two sleeping golden retrievers lying on the front porch and a dirt tire track. Beyond the garage was a wooden barn; the roof needed a bit of work, but the rest appeared to be in good shape. As the detective pulled into the drive, she saw a young man out beyond the garage chopping wood. TJ watched the retrievers wake up and run out from the porch, barking as soon as they saw her come to a stop. A thin, wiry woman with white hair came to the front door and shouted at the dogs. At her command, they turned back and wandered to a spot by the corner of the porch, heads down and barking silenced. Grabbing her recorder, TJ locked the car, and ambled up to the porch.

  “You must be Detective Sweeney. Come in, please. Hope you like coffee.” The pint-sized woman was about five inches shorter than the detective’s five-foot, eight-inch height, and she put out her hand, shaking TJ’s with a strong grip. “My eyesight ain’t what it used to be, but I can get around and still see some. That’s my great-grandson, Cody, out chopping wood for me. Comes around occasionally to see what I need. Then there’s my daughter. Calls me every day to make sure I’m still breathing.” She laughed gently and held the door open while TJ walked into her kitchen, a large room that was as neat as a pin and warmly inviting. At first she wasn’t sure what the fragrance was in the kitchen; then she decided it was the buttery smell of shortbread. Spacious cabinets held open shelves displaying Fiestaware in various colors, plates with bird pictures adorned every square inch of the walls, and the cupboards, table, and chairs were a gorgeous shade of oak.

  Marjorie saw TJ admire the table. “My husband, Frank, was a farmer, but he also made furniture during the winters. He used to say it soothed his soul. Made all of the oak you see in this kitchen. Had a shop just off the barn.” She gestured to a chair and offered TJ coffee. Then she set a p
late of shortbread cookies in front of her.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Gibson, for agreeing to talk to me. Is it all right with you if I record you?”

  “No problem by me. Nobody ever asked me before to talk about such long-ago days.” She paused, and chuckled. “I’ll bet you had some trouble finding a person who was not cuckoo and could talk about the 1940s.”

  “You got me there, Mrs. Gibson.”

  “Oh, call me Marjorie. Charlie Sims said you wanted to hear about the Roof Garden.” She sat down and made herself comfortable, and for a moment TJ thought the older woman might be seeing an imaginary film in her head. Marjorie was smiling. “My, it’s been ages since I thought about those dances.” She took a sip of the strong coffee. “Met my husband there, you see—1942. He was a sailor, the handsomest man I’d ever met, and he was visiting a cousin who lived here. Frank was from Chicago—the big city—and I always was a sucker for a man in uniform. Yes. Met him at the Roof Garden, and it was what they call ‘love at first sight.’ ”

  TJ sat very still, reluctant to buy Marjorie’s sentimental description. But she kept her face impassive, looked around at the bright, window-filled kitchen, and settled in, interested in what this plucky woman had to say. As Marjorie set her cup back down on the table, TJ examined her face. It was a patchwork of wrinkles that went in every direction, but the eyes in that face twinkled, and the smile was warm and genuine.

  “Could I ask your age, Marjorie?”