Killer Commute

by Marlys Millhiser

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Maggie looked at him, surprised.

  “If anybody knew Jeremy Fiedler, it would be the person who cleaned up after him,” Charlie agreed. Even if she’s a woman, you jerk.

  The second and last bedroom was given over to Jeremy’s office. Curiously, it was the largest of the two. Angled drawing board under the window, a computer/fax/phone/answering machine thing. Printer/copier/scanner.

  “Now I know what’s wrong here. What’s wrong here is this place has been searched in a homicide investigation and it’s not a mess. Either everything’s been put back together or it hasn’t been searched.”

  “Been searched, videotaped before and after, and carefully arranged as was,” J. S. announced triumphantly, back on familiar ground, “so that his neighbors, friends, acquaintances might comment on what they see. Ladies, what is it you see that is different?”

  “First time I’ve been up here,” Maggie Stutzman said.

  “I see a home office of a landscape architect that looks as if it’s never been used,” Charlie offered.

  “Did you ever meet any of his clients?”

  “He always went to their houses or offices—I thought, anyway,” Charlie said.

  “Which of you, would you say, knew him best?”

  “I did,” Maggie assured him. “If the mornings were nice, we’d often have our coffee together on his patio or mine before work. I’m going to miss that.”

  “I didn’t know you two ever met for morning coffee.” Charlie felt cheated, and she could hear that fact in her voice.

  “You always left for work long before we did. Jeremy worked at home and my commute’s only about twenty minutes.”

  “Did he talk about his clients? His designs? His little girls? What?”

  “Mostly about his workouts, his vacations to Mexico and Costa Rica, Mrs. Beesom’s nosiness, whatever.”

  “Did either of you ever see him carrying around armloads of rolled drawings? Did he ever discuss plant and tree types, ground covers?”

  Charlie and Maggie looked blankly at each other, embarrassed, then shook their heads.

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t and we just didn’t notice because it was so expected of him.” Charlie tried to save the day but knew that was a weak answer. How could she not have questioned these things before now?

  Because you’re a selfish shit all wrapped up in your own life and problems. And now Jeremy is dead and you never got to know him. You put the guy in the “no problem” folder and never took the time.

  “I guess mostly we talked about me and my job and problems.” Maggie Stutzman admitted what Charlie didn’t want to. “He always asked about you, listened to you, if he wasn’t in a grouchy mood or something. Seemed interested but not judgmental—”

  “Never offered advice unless asked,” Charlie chimed in. Wow, I’m going to miss him too. “Kind of strange for a guy, I guess.”

  “This health club he was so proud of—”

  “Judy & Gym’s Age Buster,” Charlie finished. “I know it exists because I’ve driven by it.”

  “Judy and Gym Malakevich and every one of their ten employees swear they have never heard of a Jeremy Fiedler and could not identify him from a photo of him dead. He carried no photo I.D., no driver’s license, and there’s no record of his registering his cars.”

  “But you can’t drive without a license or having your car registered,” Maggie said.

  “You can until you’re pulled over once,” Charlie pointed out. “Have you ever been pulled over? I haven’t—but I know it’s going to happen eventually, so—”

  “Exactly,” Amuller told them. “Illegal vehicles and drivers on the streets are everywhere.”

  “Maybe Jeremy knew a hacker who got everything erased from the computers,” Charlie said.

  “You can’t erase anything—there are even better hackers—most of them five years old—who can reconstitute crashed files, or whatever,” Maggie insisted.

  “The Pentagon didn’t believe those kids could access their secrets just for the fun of it, either. But they did. Police departments have so much information to enter, compare, and access, and limited budgets to do the entries and the accessing and keep their computer systems up to date. My vote is they lost Jeremy somehow. I mean, they can’t afford these new computer geniuses.” Charlie noted raindrops on Jeremy’s window-panes and Amuller threatening to implode.

  “Excuse me, I had no idea I was in the presence of such intellectual geniuses. Have I just been given all the answers to the meaning of life here or what?” He led them back downstairs and put on his raincoat, catching their exchange of smirks. “It is going to rain, you know.”

  “Already raining. I just never see raincoats much around here. I see those in Manhattan,” Charlie said.

  “You two have opinions on everything—medicine, menopause, computer systems, police investigations, the Pentagon, and the weather. I suppose I should ask such knowledgeable ladies for stock-market tips.”

  “I like financial institutions and pork bellies,” Maggie said. “But Merck and Oracle would be—”

  “Huh-uh. Automatic Data and Stryker are better bets, and stay away from pork—”

  “Now stop that.” The red patches crawling up Amuller’s face from his neck and spreading to his ears and into his hairline, deepening. “I hate sitcoms.”

  Maggie ignored him and started crying again. “I really am going to miss Jeremy. I feel terrible about not getting to know him better.”

  “Me too,” Charlie chimed in, but without the tears. “I just thought there was plenty of time. I didn’t know he was going to die. But Detective Amuller, could Jeremy have gotten lost in the Y2K computer thing?”

  “Maybe he could, if he wanted to.” He turned up his collar and motioned them out into the rain, past the yellow police tape and into the courtyard where Jeremy Fiedler’s blood was washing away. “Question is, why would he want to? Question is, what makes you imagine that I could believe you two have no answers to that question?”

  CHAPTER 7

  “HE KNOWS WHAT happened to Jeremy.” Charlie tipped her wineglass toward Libby’s cat. “He and Hairy Granger.”

  She and Maggie had the grill lit on Charlie’s patio, hamburger patties ready to go, and Libby was bringing barbecued beans home from the diner. Maggie had tossed a salad, and of course Mrs. Beesom was baking a pie.

  Well, they were all suspects in a murder. They had to keep busy.

  Besides, the air smelled so fresh after the rain and they were each so glad they hadn’t been the one murdered. She and Maggie kept looking at Tuxedo, who did not appear responsive, and over at the vacant parking space where Jeremy’s blood was no more than an outline in the shape of a huge amoeba and a rivulet stain running toward the drain in the middle of the courtyard. It was just a year ago February that Jeremy had somebody in to flush out that drain. He always took care of things like that. Who would do that now? Charlie wouldn’t even know who to call.

  “How do we know the murderer isn’t still around?” Maggie uncorked another bottle of red. She was getting tiddly, and Charlie was trying to. “I mean, why should he be done yet?”

  Charlie had been asking herself that question since the police left the compound last night. In her experience, which was growing considerable, one body tended to lead to another. “I suppose you are going to want to crawl in bed with me and Libby and the damned cat tonight.”

  “No, but I do think we should break the rules and sneak into Jeremy’s house and find out more about him. I mean, the police have such a caseload they’d do anything to pin this on someone in the compound and get on with their jobs and lives—hell, I would too, Charlie, as an attorney, I have learned that you cannot depend solely on an attorney to vet a contract for you. As an investor I have learned you can’t depend on a broker to ignore the latest ‘tip’ and really study the fundamentals of a company. As a shopper, I have learned you can’t depend on a retailer’s advertising to give you th
e real story about a product. Why should we expect the police to be any more concerned about our welfare when trying to do their job? Everybody has an agenda, you know? Especially cardiologists, gynecologists, and pharmaceutical companies.”

  “Whoa, back up there—stockbrokers? Mel?”

  “He’s a wonderful man, Charlie, but no great shakes as a financial planner.”

  And here Charlie thought she’d known her best friend so well. “But he’s your broker and has been for years.”

  “I just use him to do the transactions, not to tell me what to invest in.”

  “So you’re not advising all those geezers planning their estates to take his advice about turning over their 401Ks at retirement?”

  “No, we have several bankers and financial planners we recommend. How do you choose your investments?”

  “Mostly through my boss. He read The Beardstown Ladies. He’s into compounding and dripping and stuff.” Charlie had made some money in Las Vegas last fall and garnered pretty good commissions. Richard Morse had talked her into investing some of it. “You’re not really into pork bellies, are you?”

  Maggie’s eyes danced. “I couldn’t help baiting Detective Amuller.”

  “Baiting him is one thing, breaking into Jeremy’s is another.”

  “Oh, come on, Greene. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “The answer is absolutely not. That’s the wine talking.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait until after coffee.”

  Charlie was feeling the wine, too. She poured herself another glass and sat down in front of the cat. He perched on a flower-box ledge so he could look down at her with disdain. “So what happened to Jeremy last night? And how did Hairy get in the Trailblazer with him? I know you were trying to tell me something.”

  He didn’t even blink. Nothing can look as evil as a cat when it decides to. But he lost interest in tormenting her when Libby’s Wrangler roared into the drive and stopped in front of the obelisk.

  * * *

  “Jeremy was one of the original occupants of the compound, wasn’t he?” Charlie asked Betty Beesom over probably the best hamburger she’d ever eaten—complete with lettuce, tomato, pickle, sweet red onion, ketchup, and mustard. She could hardly get her mouth around it. This was not the first time she’d noticed how good life tasted after the trauma of someone else’s death.

  Betty’s watery eyes teared even more but she took a mouthful of the diner’s barbecued beans, a sinful delight and favorite carry-out for miles around. “I moved in first, and him second. Our doors fronted on the alley then. Wasn’t long before we both saw the mistake in that, I’m here to tell you.” She reached into the elastic waistband of her polyester slacks for a tissue. “But Jeremy, he isn’t.”

  Doug Esterhazie put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. He’d come home with Libby, probably when he heard about the beans and the murder—and in that order. He would eat here and very likely again at home later. The kid was pushing 6' 3'' and not done yet if he was to grow into his feet. He was all bones and braces.

  Gawky, in love with Libby since he first laid eyes on her, he’d settled into the best friend role rather than nothing. Charlie hoped he’d hang in there until Libby’s good sense caught up to her hormones, because when his body caught up to him he’d be a worthy foil for her shallowness. His father was also Esterhazie Concrete, which meant Libby might at least have a chance to survive her stupid career choices and settle into a life that had possibilities past the age of twenty-two.

  What? You’re talking husband material for your daughter, right? Hypocrite, her inner self reminded her. “Just like your mother did for you, and see what happened.”

  “What happened?” Libby leaned around Betty Beesom. “Who’s mother did what for who?”

  Betty and Maggie and Tuxedo stared at her, too.

  “Get that damned cat off the table.” Charlie tried to rescue her credibility.

  “I thought we were talking about Mr. Fiedler, the murder victim,” Doug Concrete said, ketchup dripping down his chin as he bit into his third burger. Charlie hoped Betty’s pie was filling because they were out of beef and beans. And what was left of Maggie’s salad wouldn’t hold him till his second dinner tonight.

  * * *

  If it hadn’t been for the wine, Charlie would never have let them break into Jeremy’s house. She and Maggie had pretty much decimated three bottles, and even the heavy meal hadn’t doused the effects.

  She had bought enough to have a glass before dinner each night while on vacation—not planning to finish it off the second night.

  It wasn’t like they had to break in. Mrs. Beesom had the spare key to his house and he’d had hers, just as Maggie and Charlie had exchanged house keys. If you lost yours you could go to your neighbor, or if you left town someone had a key to check out your house for burglars.

  Sounded good, neighborly—the sense-of-community thing. And after living with her growing daughter in a bed/sitter in Manhattan behind a six-inch-thick metal door it had seemed sort of free and pioneerish or something. But the fact was, if Charlie thought there was a burglar in Maggie’s house, no way would she go in there, key or not. She’d call the cops. No—she would have called Jeremy, and then the cops.

  The cops, of course, had not used Jeremy’s key and lock. But when the two back houses in the complex had their front doors on the alley boarded up and stuccoed and plastered over, the city had pointed out that the fire code demanded two doors of egress for each home, so Jeremy and Betty had been forced to add a door inside the compound—but it had to be a certain distance from the other door. Since two sides of their houses were essentially fortress walls and the once-back-doors opened off the kitchens, they were forced to add a door abutting the side wall. Mrs. Beesom’s was operable, but all but hidden behind a trellis of some cloying flowers gracing a vine and the sentry palm, and it was never used. Jeremy’s was completely hidden by a torrey pine he’d planted after the inspectors left, and on the inside it was disguised by a media center on rollers that you could move if threatened by murderous burglars or a house fire.

  Charlie had heard about this arrangement but forgotten it, as she did most things not of continuous threat or worry. Hers was a busy world, after all. And she was surprised when Betty brushed between the branches of the torrey pine and the stucco with her key. The tree allowed her to open the door far enough to permit Doug to slide in and push the media center inward over a new layer of carpeting.

  All five of them gained entrance without disturbing the crime scene protection on the outside. They had two flashlights among them. Three of them wore pairs of Mrs. Beesom’s gardening gloves. Libby wore a pair of gloves she’d used as a prissy librarian in a school play—convincing she was not. Doug wore rags wrapped around his hands, again compliments of Betty Beesom. Charlie had explained that fingerprints were not the only source of identity you could leave behind. You left skin flakes or follicles or something wherever you walked.

  Maggie quickly brushed that aside. “They’ve already tested for all that. Besides we’ve already been inside and they have no reason to do those tests again. They are very busy people. And as long as it takes to test all the evidence anyway, Jeremy’s murderer will probably be known by then.”

  Half of Charlie was afraid Maggie was right. The other half hoped the lights would suddenly come on and Detective Amuller, in the company of a gofer or two, would swish his raincoat and announce, “Aha, we knew you would try this—and now explain yourselves.”

  Well, that’s how she’d write the script.

  Charlie, babe, this is not a script.

  “I know, but—”

  “You know what?” Libby squeaked, stopping in front of Charlie so abruptly they both stumbled into one of the triangular coffee tables which upended and dumped its arty but empty vase, luckily on carpet so it didn’t break. “Whoa, you can’t even breathe in this place.”

  “I feel like Nancy Drew,” Doug Esterhazie said without enthusiasm.


  “You look like her, too,” Libby came back.

  They all started when the refrigerator shut off. Even that slight white noise had been loud compared to the emptiness that replaced it. The house smelled empty, too. No lingering scent of soap or cooking or aftershave on the still air. It felt more than just forsaken, it felt void of Jeremy.

  Mrs. Beesom opened the refrigerator and they all gathered around like ghouls, the light flattening and whitening their faces. Yogurt, bread, oranges, raisins, milk, vodka, vermouth, and gin—and a vegetable bin stuffed with plastic bags they didn’t open.

  The freezer side had ice cream, frozen pasta dinners. At least he ate here.

  Charlie rolled back the top of a modern version of a rolltop desk (it was white, for one thing) in the dining room which, like in all the houses, was on a ledge level with the kitchen, two steps up from the living room.

  A blank notepad, some pens, stamps, blank envelopes. No business cards, check blanks, credit-card receipts, bank statements. “How did he pay his bills? How did he pay Kate Gonzales?”

  “He could have paid Kate in cash and other service and repair people,” Maggie said. “You can pay a lot of bills by direct debit of a checking account. I don’t know about all of them. I wonder if he paid taxes.”

  “He paid in full for this house, I know. So he wouldn’t have a mortgage payment,” Mrs Beesom said, lowering herself to a stair with a grunt. “But he’d still have taxes. I just figured he sold another bigger house and put the money into this one.”

  “Must have had a lot to hide,” Doug said, “to go to all that trouble.”

  “By now Detective Amuller and crew have to have contacted, say, the phone company or Edison to find out how he was billed and how he paid. If it was a debit to a checking account, that account had to have been in somebody’s name who had ID—Social Security at the least.”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. If you had your money in a trust fund, you could have all your bills sent there and the fund managers would pay them,” Maggie said. “Of course, your trust fund would know who you were.”