by Lee Harris
It was in that wonderful family room that we sipped coffee after Eddie went off to bed and talked about our day, our work, our problems, and all the other things that were part of our lives together.
“Let me get this straight,” Jack said after I had retold my unnerving afternoon experience. “A woman called and you think she was shot while she was on the phone with you.”
“Or she shot someone. Or someone nearby shot someone else. Yes, that’s what I think.”
“And this guy Palermo went over there with you.”
“What do you think of him, Jack?”
“He’s a guy waiting to collect a pension. Took some courses in fingerprinting and some other stuff and made detective. That’ll give him a bigger pension. He’s not full-time in Oakwood.”
“I wondered.”
“He’s here, he’s in the neighboring towns. He’s no genius.”
“Any chance Joe Fox can get involved in this?”
“I can call him and see if he’s heard anything about it.”
“I doubt he has. Palermo didn’t seem very enthusiastic about investigating this.”
“I’m not surprised. You didn’t recognize the voice on the phone?”
“Not at all. But I’ve talked to so many people in the last few years, I could hardly remember all their voices. It was what she said when I answered the phone that was so strange. She knew my full name and that I had solved that murder on April first last year as well as other homicides, and she wanted me to know about this body that would be discovered later today.”
“Lots of people know what you’ve done. It was in the papers.” Most recently our local paper had written up my work on the homicide that occurred on April Fools’ Day more than a year ago.
“It was as if she’d chosen me to look into . . . whatever was going on in that apartment. And I certainly have never been there before. I’ve never been to that group of buildings.”
“You said Palermo thought there was blood in a bedroom.”
“The master bedroom. I noticed some marks on the carpet as I was leaving, and he said they looked like blood to him.”
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen next. Palermo doesn’t have much to go on besides that bloodstain, if that’s what it is, but that would give his request for a crime scene technician to work up the apartment some weight. They’ll do an in-apartment test first. Chemicals and black light will show the stain is blood, if it is. Then they’ll remove the carpet, bag and tag it, and take it to the lab. If tests reveal that the stain is human blood, and if enough is recovered to do DNA testing, they’ll match it if either a victim or a suspect turns up. They’ll also vacuum the rug, look for hair in the bathrooms, and dust likely surfaces for prints, like tile, marble, glass . . . you get the picture.”
“That should turn up a lot of useful information,” I said.
“Did he seal the apartment when you left?”
“He said he would come back later with crime scene tape. I hope he did.”
“Well, there’s now a file on this, so Joe will have something to look at. He hasn’t been over for a while, has he?”
“Quite some while.”
“And he likes your coffee. Let’s see what I can cook up.”
The following day, Wednesday, I taught my morning class on mysteries by female American writers at a local college, stayed on campus through lunch, and came home to a free afternoon. My mother’s dearest friend, Elsie Rivers, takes charge of Eddie on the day each week that I teach, an arrangement that suits all three of us. Eddie is in kindergarten this year, making lots of new friends and becoming very social. He goes to many more parties than Jack and I do and knows more about pop culture than I ever learned.
When I got home after lunch, carefully carrying a still-warm blueberry pie made by the food service department at the college, there was a message to call Jack.
“I talked to Joe Fox,” Jack said, not wasting time on idle conversation.
“He know anything about what happened?”
“Nothing, but he’s looking forward to coffee at our place tonight.”
“Glad I picked up a blueberry pie.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do I really want to share it?”
“You really do. Remember the waistline.”
“It’s hard to forget. Like my wedding ring, it’s always with me.”
“Maybe I’ll give him some to take home.”
“Maybe you’ll ask your husband first.”
“See you later, honey.”
I was glad Eddie came home with chocolate chip cookies from Elsie’s. The cookies would satisfy all Eddie’s sweet desires, and I wouldn’t have to serve a pie that evening with a wedge taken out.
Det. Joe Fox showed up with a small bouquet of spring flowers, including a couple of pale pink tulips that made me smile with pleasure. He and Jack gabbed while I made the coffee and put the flowers in water. Joe was interested in Jack’s work now that he had been a lieutenant for about a year. I listened to their conversation, thinking that cops talked a lot about their work, even when they weren’t working.
“Mrs. Brooks,” Joe said—he never calls me Chris—“it looks like you stayed up last night baking me a wonderful pie.”
I explained about the great desserts the college sold in their dining hall. “And I’m prepared to add a dollop of vanilla ice cream,” I offered.
“How can I resist?”
While we were sipping and eating, I told him of the events of yesterday.
“I called the Oakwood station and asked about it after Jack telephoned this morning,” Joe said. “There isn’t much paper on it, but they had the crime scene unit out this morning, and they confirmed the stain you noticed was blood.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“And I have the names of the people who rented the apartment—they haven’t officially moved, you know— and we’ll try to track them down. The building manager says their lease doesn’t expire till fall, and they didn’t notify him they were leaving.”
“I wonder how they got their furniture out without anyone noticing. Or why they left.”
Joe put a sheet of paper down in front of me with names on it: Peter and Holly Mitchell. I shook my head. Mitchell hadn’t rung a bell yesterday; Peter and Holly didn’t help.
“I’ve asked myself the same questions,” Joe said. “They cleaned the place out real good.”
“Except for the phone in the kitchen. Maybe she left it there so she could call me.”
“Or they could’ve had another phone in another room and took that with them after they made the call,” Jack suggested, something I had considered myself.
“I’m not sure there was a ‘they’ after she hung up,” I said.
“There’s a good chance the call to you was set up in advance,” Joe Fox said. “They could have moved out days ago and called from that apartment, knowing they couldn’t be traced.”
“But the bloodstain.”
“Bloodstains don’t necessarily mean foul play. I’ll bet your little boy comes in with scraped knees and bloody knuckles.”
I nodded.
“And all that’s perfectly innocent.” Joe took a chunk of pie and followed it up with ice cream, a dreamy look on his face.
“There was something else,” I said. “I’ve been trying to remember. Something I noticed and forgot.”
“The crime scene people will find whatever it was.”
“It wasn’t something I saw.” I closed my eyes, trying to conjure up whatever had been tickling my brain all day.
“A sound?” Joe said. “Someone in another apartment? Crying, screaming, music? Maybe a smell.”
“Yes! That’s it, Joe. I smelled something. I forgot to mention it to Detective Palermo, and he may not have noticed it. It was cleaning fluid, a bleachy smell.”
“Now, that’s interesting,” Joe said. “They were cleaning up. What room was that again?”
&n
bsp; “The master bedroom. You don’t use bleach in a bedroom. You use it in the kitchen and bathrooms. There was blood in that bedroom and someone tried to clean it up.”
“You may have something. And by the time the crime scene folks arrived today, the smell may have dissipated.”
“Yes,” I said with satisfaction. “That’s what happened. There was blood and they used bleach to get rid of it.”
“They had to work pretty fast,” Jack said. “Whoever was left alive in that room must have known you or the police would be on your way. Pressing star sixty-nine is commonly known, and people realize the police can find addresses when they have phone numbers to work with. The killer had to clean up and remove a body in broad daylight with maybe twenty, thirty minutes to do it.”
“Unless it was staged.” Joe looked thoughtful.
“Palermo said the stain was fresh,” I said.
“We’ll find out.”
“Honestly, Jack, this one is too tough for me. The names Peter and Holly Mitchell mean nothing, the address means nothing. The fact that this woman knows I’ve worked on homicide investigations doesn’t lead anywhere. I think I’ll leave this to Joe and his squad.”
Jack grinned. “Want to make a friendly little bet on whether you’ll leave it to Joe?”
“Sure. How ’bout a dollar?”
Jack laughed. “My wife, the big spender. OK. I’ll go for it.” He pulled out his wallet and found a dollar bill.
I went to the kitchen and took a dollar out of my purse. Joe Fox was laughing. I handed my dollar to him. “You can hold on to the cash, Joe. We both trust you.”
He pocketed the bills, shaking his head. “Well, now I’m in a tough position. I won’t be able to call on you for help, Mrs. Brooks.”
“I don’t know what you need help for. There’s no body, no evidence of a crime, and no suspects. Your crime scene people will find a trace of blood, maybe some bleach, a little Windex on the windows. They’ll analyze the DNA and find the person has no police record. And that will be that.”
“That will be that,” he repeated. “Until a body turns up. Then everything changes.”
He was right about that. He promised to keep us informed, if there was anything to inform us about, and went on his way. I checked every phone book and file in the house for some reference to Peter or Holly Mitchell, with no luck. I called my friend Melanie Gross the next day and asked her if she recognized the names or if she knew any child in the school where she teaches named Mitchell. She checked the school files and turned up three Mitchells, but none lived in the garden apartments where Peter and Holly lived, and none had parents with those names.
Joe Fox called on Friday to say he had received the crime scene report. The stain was blood, and they would check the DNA and see if they could find a match in police files. I didn’t expect them to. But I did want to know if the blood belonged to a man or a woman. I wanted to learn whether I had spoken to a killer or a victim.
Eventually, Joe called and said the DNA was from a male. As I expected, it didn’t match with any DNA in police files that he could access. He reminded me that even though the person who lost the blood was male, it didn’t mean the victim was male. The killer could have cut himself in the act of murder or in moving the body. It went without saying, however, that if the killer was female and of ordinary strength, she would have required assistance in moving the body. If there had been a body. If there had been a murder.
I went about the business of being a wife, mother, part-time teacher, and sometime word processor for my lawyer friend Arnold Gold. A week passed. I told the whole story to Mel as we walked the streets near our houses to get in shape for summer swimming and the bathing suits we would wear. Mel had made some calls to people in nearby towns, but no one had heard of the Mitchells. Even though I had said I wouldn’t touch this case, I called the local churches to see if either of the Mitchells was a member or was known. Neither one was.
And that’s where it stayed for about two weeks. My college course came to an end, and I took some books out of the library for summer reading to help me decide which to include in the fall course. Eddie’s kindergarten went by bus to the Bronx Zoo in New York and I was one of the accompanying mothers. Joe Fox maintained his silence.
And then one late afternoon in June I got a phone call.
“Mrs. Brooks?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Palermo, Oakwood PD. We met a couple of weeks ago.”
“Yes, of course. I remember. Has something happened?”
“You might say so. We’ve found a body.”
3
I had almost given up expecting such a call. The woman had said a body would be found that afternoon, and that afternoon was two weeks ago. It took me a moment to orient myself. “You think it’s connected to the call I got from the Mitchell apartment?”
“We don’t get a lot of bodies in this area, Mrs. Brooks.”
“When was it found?”
“Yesterday. It’s pretty deteriorated, as you can imagine.”
“Then the person died some time ago.”
“Looks like it. It’s a female, by the way. Hard to tell from the body itself, but there’s women’s clothing on it and the size would fit a female. The autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon.”
“I appreciate your call, Detective Palermo. Will you be working the case?” I was hoping for a negative answer.
“Probably not. I’m tied up with a lot of local stuff. I think the county’ll take over. They have some good homicide detectives.”
I smiled. “I’m sure they do.”
“Someone’ll let you know what’s going on when we have more information.”
I thanked him and hung up. The woman who had called me had been killed. I was sure of that. Having spoken to her at such a crucial moment, the last one of her life, I felt a sense of sadness that I had been unable to save her.
I called Jack and told him the news. Joe Fox had not called him, so it was possible Palermo had not told him of the find. When I got off the phone, I called Joe myself.
“Mrs. Brooks, I have just heard some interesting news.”
“So have I, Joe.” I told him mine.
“About what I heard. It’s a female, and from the condition of the body, she may well have died around the time you got your strange call. I doubt they’ll be able to pinpoint the time of death, but they’ll give us a range.”
“Detective Palermo says he’s tied up with local things. Does that mean you’ll catch the case?”
“I’ve already talked to my lieutenant about this one. I think it’ll be me.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Will you keep me informed?”
“Of course. I’m sure there’ll be news tomorrow.”
He was prompt with his information. I was eating my tuna fish salad the next day and reading my New York Times when he called.
“It’s a woman, as we guessed,” he began. “Forty to fifty, maybe a bit more, about five-four, a hundred twenty to a hundred twenty-five pounds, dark brown hair starting to gray, good teeth and good dental work, no broken bones. She had her nails done shortly before she died.”
I looked down at my own unmanicured hand as he said that. “You haven’t told me how she died.”
“Well, that’s the neat part. There isn’t a mark on her body. They’ll do a tox screen, but that takes time. But it’s a cinch she wasn’t shot.”
That was quite a punch line. I had fully expected him to report on a gunshot wound, bullet, gun caliber, and all that went with it. Instead, I had a puzzle.
I finished my lunch, drank the last of the tomato juice, and sat myself down in the family room with the Times and my quandary. Perhaps this woman had no connection to the woman who called me. True, Palermo had said the area didn’t have many homicides, for which we were all grateful, but it was always possible that the phone call had indeed been a prank and that this body was an unhappy coincidence.
The facts that I knew were so confusin
g and pointed in so many directions that I could hardly use them as a starting point. It seemed to me someone had to canvass the building the Mitchells lived in. At least one of them must have held a job and owned some furniture, not to mention a car. The thought of a car made me perk up. Jack could easily check licenses and registrations. I went back to the phone, thinking I had just forfeited a dollar. He would laugh and tease me, but I wasn’t going to stop thinking because I’d lost a wager.
“Lieutenant Brooks.”
His title still gives me a bit of a thrill. “Jack, I just talked to Joe Fox.”
“He faxed me his report a little while ago. I only glanced at it, but it looks like a doozy. Nothing matches anything we know—or thought we knew.”
“The Mitchells must have owned a car.”
“I’m sure that’s occurred to Joe, but I’ll get on it. Who were they again? Peter and—”
“Holly.”
“I’ll have it with me when I come home. I don’t want to step on his toes, Chris.”
“I understand.”
“And I hate to see you lose a buck.”
“Life is full of disappointments.”
The way it worked out, after several phone calls, was that Joe Fox would do the good job he was trained to do and I would do the intuitive work that had helped catch a number of killers over the last half dozen years. Joe had already ordered a canvass and that would start tomorrow. Jack would find out what car the Mitchells drove, and Joe Fox would probably put out an alarm for it. By now, two weeks after the homicide, it could have been sold or driven out of state, but something might turn up. Mel and I had already tried the schools with no luck; I would have to mention that to Joe.
My hopes lay in the canvass. The Mitchells, or Mrs. Mitchell at least, must have had a neighbor that she was friendly with. And the building manager should know where one or both of them worked. They would surely have a bank account locally, and the police would find that. Those bits of information would provide something tangible to work with.