by GP Gardner
The parking space Jamie and Lee had used last Thursday was nearby, empty at the moment. I looked at it then beyond, up the bluff to the trees where the pier cam was mounted. I suspected Michelle, half of the co-dependent poster couple, had taken control of the camera Thursday night, zooming in to watch Lee and Jamie walk to their car after dinner. Maybe she wanted to see how Lee was reacting after learning about the rent scam, or maybe she just wanted to know when they’d get back to Harbor Village.
I wondered if Hunter could work some magic on the computer in the Assisted Living office and persuade it to reveal if it had been used for that purpose.
My phone buzzed. It was Stephanie, calling from the Houston airport, where she and Boyd and Barry had dropped her new stepsister. I told her where I was and how beautiful the bay looked.
“We can be there by midnight,” she said, “if you want company.”
“You know the answer to that.”
A few minutes before six, as I crossed the boulevard, heading for Nita’s and a rousing game of dominoes, a police car whipped to the curb and Chief Boozer stepped out.
“Got your lamp!” He had a big smile on his face.
I took a big step onto the sidewalk. “You’re kidding! Where was it?”
“Come on, let’s go in so I only have to tell it once.”
He took long strides to the Bergens’ door, and I hurried after him.
“We put an observer out at the landfill,” he was saying a few minutes later, a tall glass of iced tea in hand and an attentive audience circled around. “They keep records about where they dump on which day, so they knew where to look. And after a few hours of digging, they spotted something.”
“The lamp,” Jim said, nodding like it was exactly what he’d predicted.
Boozer nodded, too. “Wrapped in a ragged old quilt. The plug’s stretched out from being ripped out of the outlet, and the bulb’s broken off.”
“Does it have fingerprints?” Jim asked.
Dolly asked, “Was it the murder weapon?”
Riley had his own question. “Any DNA on the quilt? Can you identify it from the video?”
“The video was the key.” Boozer looked at me. “I want to hang onto that young man.”
“Yes. Hunter is a jewel. I wish we had a job for him.”
Boozer thought there was enough evidence to convict Cynthia. “But of what, I can’t say. Charges get reduced, you know.”
“What about the embezzlement,” I asked.
“Quarles and Barnes will be charged, for sure. And Michelle will definitely get obstruction of justice, for moving the body. She’s admitting it freely.”
“Anything to avoid a murder charge,” Jim said. “But Jamie had nothing to do with the murder, did she, Chief? I told you.”
“She didn’t harm her sister. I’ll give you that,” Boozer answered cautiously. “Phone records show Ms. Ferrell called Cynthia Quarles from here, right after dinner. We don’t know if she fired her, or threatened her with arrest, or maybe asked her to come over, but whatever was said, Ms. Quarles came here and attacked Lee, using a bronze lamp as a weapon.”
Riley had been listening attentively. “That doesn’t sound premeditated. Maybe it should be a lesser charge than murder.”
Boozer didn’t disagree. “Jamie and Michelle were out back in their building, with no idea Ms. Quarles was here. And Jamie persuaded Michelle to go talk to Lee, to smooth things over about the rent fraud. Michelle found her dead.”
Jim was nodding again.
Boozer took a drink of tea. “Michelle thought Jamie had killed Lee and sent her to cover it up. And she decided—spur of the moment, she says—to move the body to the pool and hope it would look like an accident.”
I looked at Dolly. “And Michelle put her phone down at the pool and forgot it.”
“And I found it.” Dolly seemed surprised.
“And called us.” Boozer lifted his hands, signaling the end of the story.
“I don’t think there was any love lost between those two sisters.” Nita sounded sad.
Jim agreed.
“There’s a lot of evidence,” the chief said. “Fingerprints and biologic traces, even a video of her putting the weapon in a dumpster down at the pier. This lady is responsible for finding that.” He nodded at me.
“Thanks to Hunter.”
“But you knew to ask for his help. And the video told us where to look for the weapon we recovered today. But Ms. Quarles has got a good defense attorney.”
Riley said, “I wonder if Michelle was in the habit of disguising deaths around here.”
Dolly frowned. “Maybe they were high on something. Weren’t some drugs stolen?”
Chief Boozer shrugged. “It’s possible. Might explain why they didn’t come forward right away.”
“And why Michelle wouldn’t take a drug test this week,” I realized.
Nita looked at Jim, a faint smile curving her lips. “Was it, by chance, your idea for Jamie to leave town?”
He looked surprised but not totally innocent. “I hated to see her go, but it might’ve helped.” He wasn’t admitting anything.
I thought about Jamie’s promotion. “Do you still think Lee died about eight o’clock? The message transferring Jamie to Charleston was sent after ten. And Travis says the terminology wasn’t what Lee would’ve used.”
Chief Boozer already knew all that. “So which one of them do you think wrote the message? Jamie or Michelle?”
I shrugged. “Lee’s phone was in Jamie’s car.”
“But Michelle did most of their driving.”
“Too bad she couldn’t transfer some of her devotion to more deserving people,” Nita said. “But I wonder, Chief Boozer, how that phone got into Jamie’s car. Lee was using it after dinner, you said.”
Boozer turned from Nita to me. “Any ideas?”
“Well, let’s think it through.” I shifted into my one cell at a time mode. “Michelle moves Lee’s body to the pool, where she puts down her own phone and forgets it.” I traced the movements with my hand, from big house to pool. “She has to return the wheelchair to the storage room and, after that, she goes back through the lobby. Lee’s purse is there, on the couch or the floor, and Michelle takes it with her so it won’t draw attention to the lobby and whatever evidence is there.”
Riley spoke up. “I think that’s exactly what happened. And when she got out to the parking lot, the two SUVs were parked with the driver’s doors together. She had to walk between them to get into Jamie’s car, but she was carrying the key fob for Lee’s car, too. That explains why the lights flashed on both cars.”
He gave a slight bow to me, and I nodded, finally understanding.
“I like it, Riley.” Jim slapped the leather arm of his recliner.
Boozer liked it, too. “That’s the first explanation that’s made sense of the lights flashing.”
Maybe he thought I had made it up? I resumed my analysis. “So she put Lee’s purse into Jamie’s car and drove around to assisted living. She must have told Jamie what she’d done—at least that she’d taken care of the problem—and when she realized Jamie hadn’t killed Lee, didn’t even know she was dead, she knew they needed to get away from here.”
“Probably intended to throw the purse off a bridge,” Jim mused.
I agreed. “But she went through it first and found Lee’s phone. She must’ve known about the job opening in Charleston. Maybe they’d talked about it.”
“Poor ol’ Jamie. Believed her sister finally appreciated her.” Jim shook his head gravely. “How much cash was in Ms. Ferrell’s purse?”
Boozer smiled. “None when we got it.”
“Yep,” Jim said, “that’s Michelle.”
Riley spoke up again. “When we drove past the lobby about eight, the lights were on. Somebody turned them off in
the next couple of minutes. Who was it?”
Boozer answered right away, revealing he’d already worked through this point. “The parrot lamp was always used as a night light, but the Quarles woman took it with her when she left. So when Michelle arrived, the lobby was dark.”
We nodded, and he continued. “She might’ve thought Ms. Ferrell had left, but she flipped the switch for the chandelier and saw Ms. Ferrell was dead. Maybe she saw you drive past and turned the light off while she figured out what to do. And that’s the moment when you walked around the building.”
Jim finished the scenario. “While Michelle was coming up with the idea of a drowning.”
Our little group fell silent again. Finally, Chief Boozer sighed and got to his feet. “Well, I need to move along. Thank you for the tea.”
“So sad.” Nita got up and took his hand.
We all thanked him for the personal report and for the opportunity to understand the drama that had played out around us. Then Nita and Jim walked the chief to the door and saw him off.
It was almost time for the sandwiches to arrive. Four of us, still subdued, moved to the table and began to set up our game of Mexican Trains. Jim stopped at the doorway, gave us all a silent salute and disappeared into the back of the apartment.
Riley flipped the last of the dominoes face down and moved the score pad into position at his side, and we each drew out our seven dominoes.
We played one quick round and were setting up for the next one when Riley asked, “Did anybody see Nelson Fisher out riding a lawn mower this afternoon? I thought that man died a year ago but there he was, back on the job, as good as ever.”
When the doorbell rang, Jim was on the scene in a flash. And just as quickly, he was back.
“Look who’s here.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Travis McKenzie staring at me. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“Oh, you’re not interrupting,” Jim assured him. “I wish you’d been a little earlier.”
“Chief Boozer was here,” Dolly said. “He explained everything. Somebody else can tell you.”
“Come on back to my office.” Jim steered Travis to the back room. “Nita, get out another plate when the sandwiches get here.”
I noticed that Riley was grinning at me. I raised my eyebrows. “What? What is it?”
“It’s your turn.”
He smiled, and I smiled back.