by Lee Harris
I smiled with sympathy. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Quite some time ago. Weeks. But the weather’s been nice.”
“Ma’am?”
The woman behind the counter was back. The pharmacists didn’t recognize the pictures, she said. I thanked her and turned back to my new informant. “May I take you somewhere?” I offered.
“Just home. If you don’t own a van or a pickup.” She laughed.
I assured her I drove a small car and that she could get in and out of it easily. Outside she told me the cane was more for reassurance than physical necessity. She had had a hip replacement and was doing very well.
We talked while I drove the short distance. “She told me her name and I told her mine, maybe the second or third time she picked me up. I’m Gladys French, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”
“Christine Bennett. Go on. I’d like to know everything you know about her. Was her husband ever in the car when she picked you up?”
“He was usually there, but she always drove. I think she dropped him off where he could get a ride or a train into the city. I got off first, so I don’t know.”
“What was he like?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Gladys French said. “He was a man. He sat in the back, which was funny, and read the paper. Sometimes he’d say, ‘IBM was up a point, hon.’ Or ‘That damn GE was down again, hon.’ He always called her hon.”
“Do you know where he worked?”
“Haven’t the faintest. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t work in the same place. That’s why she was driving, so she could drop him off and go on her way.”
“Did she ever tell you where she worked or what she did?”
“Not that I recall. Pull into the next driveway.”
The house was white with turquoise trim, a doll’s house with lush plantings and a charming dogwood tree in front. I drove up to the one-car garage and turned off the motor, expecting to help her to the front door, or at least ready to offer to do so.
“Come inside. We’ll have a cup of tea.”
I looked at my watch. I couldn’t leave Eddie forever and I had dinner to cook.
“Oh, don’t look at the time. Come in for fifteen minutes. We’ll sit and have a nice cup of tea and you’ll be on your way.”
“That sounds like fun.” I got out and opened the door for her.
She was steady on her feet, even without using the cane, which hung on her left arm. She opened her front door, and we went inside to a living room filled with fine old furniture and a beautiful Oriental rug.
“Come in the kitchen with me and we’ll talk while I boil the water.”
I followed her and took down the cups and saucers at her bidding. They were the kind of fine china my aunt always used.
“What’s your interest in Rosette?” she asked. “I’ve been answering a lot of questions but I don’t know what you’re after.”
“She died, Gladys,” I said.
“No.” She turned from the stove to look at me, shock on her face. “A young woman like that? She couldn’t have been more than fifty.” Then she said, “That’s why I haven’t seen her these last weeks, isn’t it?”
“She died about a month ago. There’s reason to believe she was murdered.”
Glady drew in her breath. “Murdered!”
“Her body was just found last week. But she was missing for a while.”
“Oh my goodness.” She pulled a chair away from the small table and plopped into it. “Excuse me. Just hearing that made me feel dizzy. It’s all right.” She raised her hand to keep me away. “I’m fine. Poor thing. And who are you then? Her daughter?”
“I’m a stranger who got involved in a complicated way. The police are looking into her death and I thought I’d try to find out what I could for myself. It was just luck I ran into you in the pharmacy.”
“Well, with my prescriptions, you could run into me there almost any day of the week. How did she die?”
“They don’t know yet. They’re checking for drugs and poisons and things like that.”
“She didn’t do drugs.”
“I’m sure she didn’t. But she may have been given something. We’ll find out when the lab work is done. Can you talk now?”
“Have I stopped talking?” She smiled and then jumped up as the teakettle began to whistle. “Go ahead, ask your questions. We’ll just let the tea steep a minute if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s fine.”
We sat at the table. Before each of us was a cup with an inverted saucer over it and a string and tag hanging over the side. After a couple of silent minutes, Gladys put her saucer under the cup, squeezed the tea bag by wrapping the string around it and a spoon, and then took a little sugar with a dry spoon. She pushed the sugar pot toward me, but I chose a slice of lemon instead.
“Did you ever notice Rosette’s license plate number?” I asked, doubting that she had.
“Well, you know, it’s not the sort of thing I ever look at, but hers had three Bs in a row, so when I heard a honk and turned around and saw the Bs, I knew it was Rosette.”
“That’s very helpful, Gladys. I think the police will be able to find the vehicle with that information.”
“Why don’t they just look up her name?”
I realized I’d gotten myself in a corner. “She may have used more than one name.”
“No. Why would she do that?”
“Nobody seems to know. Did she call her husband by name?”
“Let me think.” She sipped, then sipped again. “Not that I recall. And he only called her hon. I thought that was cute.”
“So do I. Tell me, did she ever say where she was going those mornings she picked you up? Work? A particular place?”
“She could’ve said White Plains. I think she did once. Oh yes, there was one other thing. On the seat where I sat or on the floor on the side where I sat there was always a very handsome briefcase. Black, good leather—you know? Usually it was facedown, but one morning I saw initials on it in gold. But they weren’t hers. I knew her name by then.”
“Do you remember what they were?”
“There could’ve been an M, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”
Mitchell, I thought. Maybe they used Mitchell in the building where they lived and also where they worked, but not in any of the places they frequented nearby. Then no one they ran into could connect them to their apartment, send them a letter, or find them if they were being sought by someone potentially dangerous. I thought again that there must be a PO box somewhere where they picked up their mail, or perhaps they rented a box at one of those private places that have sprung up in the last ten years.
“Good tea,” I said.
“My daughter brought it from London for me. You ever been to London?”
“I’ve been out of the country only once and I was nowhere near London, but it’s on my long-term list.”
“You’ll love it when you get there. I used to go with my husband when we were both healthy. That’s a long time ago now.” She looked sad for a moment. “You have children?”
“A little boy in kindergarten.”
“Aren’t you lucky.” She smiled. “Anything else, dear? It was so nice of you to take me home. I hope you’ll call and tell me about Rosette when you know something.”
“I will.”
She wrote down her phone number and address in my notebook. “There. Don’t forget now.”
“You’ll hear from me.” I gave her my phone number in case she remembered anything else, but I assured her she had been more helpful than anyone else I’d talked to. “The Bs in the license plate will probably give us the name of the owner of the vehicle.”
“Big car,” Gladys said. “Dark red. Hate ’em but everybody needs one these days. You know what?”
“What?”
“The last time I saw Rosette, she didn’t have any polish on her nails. She must have been getting ready for a new manicure.”
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“I see.” That meant Gladys had seen Rosette close to the end of her life.
We shook hands and she walked to the front door with me, then stood at the living room window so she could wave as I backed out of the driveway and turned down the block.
6
“We should be able to find the registration with that,” Jack said. “Can’t be more than a thousand, can there? And they won’t all be SUVs.”
“I haven’t called Joe about it. Do you think I should?” I knew the answer to that. What I wanted was for Jack to find the registration, but I knew what my duty was. I had to turn my information over to the county police.
“You want a short answer or a long answer?”
“OK. I’ll do what’s right. But then I think I should give this investigation up. If I have to give Joe Fox everything I dig up, I may as well let his people dig it up for themselves.”
“If they can.”
“Well, Gladys French was a stroke of luck. There was nothing clever or original about my finding her. In a way she found me. She heard me talking to someone in the drugstore. And she recognized the picture.”
“However it happened, you came up with the best information they’ve gotten. I’m sure they’ll find the registration and the whole plate number from those Bs.”
“I’ll call Joe in the morning.”
“Now, how did you come up with that?” the good detective said when I gave him the Bs.
I told him briefly, along with the fact that the victim gave her name to Gladys French as Rosette Parker.
“Well, I’ll recommend you for a gold shield for that, Mrs. Brooks.” The gold shield is a detective’s badge. You can’t apply for it; you can’t take a test for it. They give it to you because you have earned it.
“I appreciate that, Joe. I’ll wear it around my neck when I go to complain about my phone bill.”
He laughed at that. “What’s next on your agenda?”
“I think it’s time for me to give up. You’re the professionals. Whatever I dig up, you can do yourselves, and I don’t want to get in your way. If I hear anything, which I don’t expect to, I’ll give you a call.”
“Likewise. By the way, we have results on the prints we lifted in the apartment. No police record on any prints.”
“I didn’t think this was done by a career criminal,” I said. “The killer had some kind of grudge or the Mitchells betrayed a trust. Maybe one stole from the other a long time ago, or some terrible accident occurred and the victim’s family never accepted it was an accident.”
“Those are good theories, Mrs. Brooks. Keep working on them.”
We chatted a bit more and then finished our conversation. I must admit I was at loose ends after I hung up. I had gotten myself into the spirit of the chase, and having bowed out, I felt let down. There were things I could do, of course. I volunteer my time at the local parish to do whatever is necessary, including cleaning up the classrooms, not a very appealing alternative to hunting down a killer. It was a while since I had done word processing for my friend Arnold Gold, the lawyer. It was also some time since we’d met in the city for lunch, and I had an open invitation that I could accept at any time he wasn’t in court or otherwise busy working for his clients. That was tempting. I looked at my calendar, which was largely empty, and was about to call Arnold when the phone rang.
“Chris, I’ve got something for you,” my husband said.
“What? Have you talked to Joe?”
“Not yet. I decided to run that partial plate number. Did you give it to him?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“Then I’m not stepping on toes. There’s a maroon van-type vehicle registered to a Charles Proctor with a box number address—at least it looks like one of those mailboxes at a private company. It’s the only maroon van with three Bs in the plate number in that zip code.”
“Charles Proctor,” I said. “Boy, they really have a lot of names.”
“I also looked for a driver’s license under both of his names and both of hers. Did you say she drove?”
“Yes. She was always driving when she picked up Gladys French. The husband sat in the backseat and read the paper.”
“Well, there’s no license for her under Mitchell or Parker, but there’s one for him under Proctor. So he registered the car and got his license under the same name as is on the mailbox. Maybe he did his taxes under that name, too.”
“Did you check for a driver’s license for a woman at that mailbox address?”
“I did and there isn’t any. Maybe she has her own box somewhere else.”
“I’d go nuts with all those identities,” I said.
“So would I. I think you’re right about them. They were hiding from someone and doing a damn good job of it. Finding Gladys French was fantastic luck.”
“Well, I told Joe I’m resigning from the case. He’ll find out what you just told me as soon as he runs the plate number, and he’ll have to take it from there. In all the other cases I’ve looked into, I wasn’t working parallel with the police. Sooner or later I’ll get underfoot and there’ll be a lot of resentment.”
“They’ll miss you when you’re gone, honey.”
I smiled. “You bet they will. I’m just going to sit back and wait for them to come begging.” I told him Joe promised me a gold shield.
That brought a laugh. “I worked my butt off for my gold shield. Joe must be turning to mush.”
Mush or not, I decided not to go to the place where the Proctor mailbox was. Instead, I wrote down the names I had for the husband and those for the wife and indicated under each one where it was used.
Mitchell was the at-home name for both of them and so far used nowhere else, unless the M Gladys had spotted on the briefcase meant that Mrs. Mitchell used that name at work. Rosette Parker was the name she used away from home—with the manicurist and Gladys French. I had no Parker name for the husband. But he used Charles Proctor for his license and registration. Was it possible the wife used Proctor for her license, too?
If there was a pattern, it needed to be filled in. I wondered whether the wife had her own mailbox, perhaps somewhere other than where her husband’s was. What were these people hiding from?
Eddie came home and we had lunch together. He asked to visit a friend who had a backyard swimming pool. I am very nervous about children and backyard pools, but I knew the mother and trusted her. The pool was enclosed by a high metal fence that was gated and locked. I made the phone call and agreed to drive Eddie over at two. We went upstairs and found the one pair of bathing trunks that still fit.
“We’ll have to buy you some more if you’re going to swim a lot this summer.”
“I want to swim. We can go to the Oakwood pool, can’t we?”
“Sure. I joined last week.”
“That’s a much bigger pool than Terry’s.”
“It’s for a lot of people. The whole town swims there.”
“Then why does Terry have his own pool?”
“I guess his parents like having it.”
“Can we get a pool in our backyard? We have a big backyard.”
“No, Eddie, we can’t. I enjoy swimming in a big pool so I can take lots of strokes before I have to turn around.”
That gave him something to think about. I drove him over to Terry’s, talked to Terry’s mother for a while, then returned home. I was seriously thinking of putting on my own bathing suit and taking a quick swim in the town pool when the phone rang.
“Mrs. Brooks, it’s Detective Palermo.”
“Yes, hello.”
“I just gave Detective Fox a call and thought I’d update you, too. There’s been a development.”
“In the Mitchell murder?”
He laughed. “You’ve asked me a question I can’t answer. I don’t know if it’s related to the Mitchell murder. It’s just a development till we get some more information. Another body has turned up.”
“Really!”
“This t
ime it’s a man. Probably died around the time the woman did. There’s a lot of decomposition, as you’d expect, but there’s evidence of a gunshot wound.”
“A gunshot wound.” I was astounded. “Where was the body found?”
“Not in Oakwood, so it’s not in our jurisdiction. It was also along the creek, but farther west, in the next town. They called me because they knew we’d found the woman’s body and thought there might be a connection.”
As did I. “How soon will you have a sketch?”
“Not today. That’s for sure. I think Detective Fox will have to take care of that. I take it you’d like to see it?”
“I’d like to show it to someone.”
“I’ll ask Detective Fox to see to it that you get a copy.”
“Thank you very much. And Detective Palermo? I really appreciate your calling to tell me.”
“Well, you started things off. Have a nice day.”
As incongruous as his sign-off was, I took it in the spirit in which I was sure it had been delivered. Then I sat down to think.
They had killed Peter Mitchell, too. It took a minute or so before I realized I had thought “they” not “he.” There must be two of them, a man and a woman. The second, more distant voice on the phone had been a man’s. Perhaps the phone call to me had, as Joe suggested, been some kind of setup.
I looked at my watch. I really did want to swim. It was hot out today and I had my membership card. I didn’t need to pick up Eddie for a couple of hours and I hadn’t been in the pool since the end of last summer. Suddenly, I could almost taste the water, sparkling blue where the afternoon sun hit it.
I pulled on one of last year’s suits, looked at myself with slight misgivings in the bathroom mirror, grabbed a cover-up and a towel, and drove off. The parking lot was only half full and I was able to park in relative shade. A new high school face greeted me at the entrance and OK’d my card.
A number of people from the area where we lived, from the church, and from the school waved and said hello as I passed. I stopped only briefly, the shimmering water as inviting as I had ever seen it. I picked a lounge, left my towel, bag, and sandals, and made my way to the water. It was quite cool, but this was early in the season. I went in by degrees, finally dipping my body up to my shoulders. And then I was off.