by Randy Alcorn
“Why?”
“I won’t spoil it. Told him you’d probably call. Name’s Joey Netelesky. Ask him about Noel.”
“Don’t recall every tenant from ten years ago,” Netelesky told me ten minutes later, “but I’ll never forget that boy. One day he just pulls up stakes. Leaves a buncha stuff behind. No forwarding address. Didn’t say so much as ‘See ya later, alligator.’ ”
Without warning, he violently spit some chaw. I pushed away the apple fritter in front of me.
“But he wasn’t in trouble with the law. Didn’t make sense. And somethin’ else, by cracky. He left full payment for his rent. Cash money. Fact is, he left more than he owed.”
“That’s got to be unusual.”
“I’ve rented houses and apartments twenty years, partner, had lotsa skip-outs, but this youngster’s the only one ever paid more than he owed. Left the place so clean you could lick mashed banana off the floor. But he forgets some spendy stuff, like his stereo, which he listened to all the time, so why would he leave it? And he never even picks up his cleaning deposit! All told, cost hisself four hundred dollars, I reckon, plus the stuff he leaves behind. Why would a body do that?”
After hanging up, I considered it.
A body’d do that because he didn’t want a blemish on his record. He didn’t want police involved. He didn’t want someone trying to trace him. And he might not have known the rental amount, so he leaves more than enough. Refundable cleaning deposit? He didn’t know—or didn’t want to show his face. Leaving a place so clean you could lick mashed banana off it? Not just to make mashed-banana-lickers happy. Maybe to eliminate forensic evidence.
Four hundred dollars and somebody else’s stereo is a cheap price for a new identity, especially if you take possession of a guy’s parents’ assets. Then sell the house, with an easily forged signature, without ever showing your face where people might notice your face had changed.
A chill went over me. I sat there at Sarge’s desk, looking out the windows to Homicide, seeing the man I knew as Noel Barrows reading a golf magazine while munching on a sandwich.
All I could think about was one thing: What happened to the body of the real Noel Barrows?
57
“There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans.”
SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE
ONCE A PARADIGM SHIFT OCCURS, you see everything differently. In Palatine’s living room, Clarence had commented how brothers sometimes fight. Looking back, I could see in my mind’s eye how Noel had chuckled and nodded his head, like someone who’d experienced it. Yet he claimed to be an only child.
Was it really true that the Noel Barrows I knew was not the boy who grew up in Liberty Lake, Washington? And if he wasn’t, then who was he?
But no, I told myself. What about Linda Glissan’s testimony that Noel refused to cooperate with the murder? And what about his airtight alibi?
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 3:00 P.M.
I sat in Linda’s living room, me in Jack’s chair, her on the leather couch nearby. This time she offered coffee, and I took it. Nice and dark. Jack and I both liked it that way. Sometimes I add cream, but Jack always took it black, no compromise.
“I was looking through Melissa’s case file,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m digging. If Jack didn’t kill those other men, somebody did. Who had a motive? I interviewed Melissa’s old roommate, Cherianne Takalo.”
“Cherianne? I haven’t thought about her for years. Where is she?”
“Outside Detroit. She told me about the professor. And she claims Melissa had a boyfriend named Donald, who came and stayed with you and Jack. Then when she broke up with him, he came back to talk her out of it.”
“No,” Linda said. “He only came out once, when he stayed with us. Next time he came to Portland was for the funeral.”
“Where’d he live?”
“I don’t remember exactly. We didn’t have much of a chance to know him. I picked him up at the airport the night before the funeral.”
“What time did Noel arrive?”
“I don’t know. It’s been ten years. I just remember picking him up … Wait. You called him Noel.”
“Donald changed his name to Noel Barrows, didn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
“Why were you hiding it?”
She stood, wringing her hands, pivoted, then fell back on the couch. “Noel … Donald, was crushed by Melissa’s death. He’d stayed with us three weeks that summer. No one out here knew him. After the funeral, he didn’t want to go home. He had an abusive mother and some troubles. He needed a fresh start and wanted to change his name. He even asked if he could take our name, but that seemed a little … premature.” She smiled. “Jack helped him out. Noel got his name changed and entered the police academy.”
“He assumed the name of a dead kid from Liberty Lake, Washington.”
“He was about his age and didn’t have family. Donald wasn’t hurting anybody.”
“Look, Linda, I’ve read Melissa’s investigation files. There isn’t anything about a boyfriend named Donald. They interviewed you and Jack. Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Why? Noel had nothing to do with her being on drugs. Or the suicide. That was the professor’s fault. Melissa and Noel had broken up. We were sorry because we really liked him. They were good for each other. I think sometimes how Melissa could have stayed with Noel and married him. We’d probably have grandchildren now and.” She kept swallowing but appeared to be out of tears.
“You really thought Noel wasn’t in Portland until the funeral?”
“He wasn’t. He stayed with us three weeks that summer. That’s when we got to know him. Jack was on vacation two weeks. They played golf all the time. But like I said, he didn’t come back until just before the funeral, maybe four days after Melissa died. I’m the one who called Noel to tell him. He was in … well, he wasn’t in Portland.”
“Cherianne Takalo says he was here before Melissa died.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why would she lie?”
“Ask Noel. He’ll tell you he just came for the funeral.”
“How about you call him and invite him over right now?”
Forty minutes later Noel showed up at Linda’s. They hugged. She offered him a pop. Not a soda. Not a Coke.
“What are you doing here?” Noel asked me.
“When you came for Melissa’s funeral, you flew to Portland straight from Pennsylvania, right?”
“Pennsylvania?” Noel looked at Linda.
“He’s fishing,” Linda said. “I wouldn’t tell him where you’re from.”
“I’m from Liberty Lake, Washington,” Noel said.
“No, you’re not, but we’ll get back to that,” I said. “Melissa’s funeral was Saturday, November 26, two days after Thanksgiving. When did you fly in?”
He looked at Linda. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on, Noel,” I said, “is that your real name is Donald.”
“That’s a lie.” His sideglance at Linda showed he thought she’d betrayed him.
“He already knew,” Linda said to him, putting her hand on his arm. “He called you Donald.”
Noel paused. “It’s not illegal to change your name.”
“It’s illegal to assume an identity.”
“I had my reasons.”
“Yeah, your previous girlfriend had died too.” It was a shot in the dark. I watched both their faces.
“It was an accident,” he said, making my bluff pay off.
“One girlfriend dies in an accident, next girlfriend commits suicide. What a coincidence.”
Linda gave Noel a vacant, eerie stare.
“But you called me … back home,” Noel said to her. “To tell me Melissa had died.”
“That’s right,” Linda said, her voice lift
ing.
“Think back,” I said. “I’ll bet you got his answering machine, didn’t you?”
“It’s been ten years. I can’t remember some things ten days ago. But it’s like that terrible time is engraved in my brain. I do remember—when I left the message, I decided I couldn’t say she’d died. But,” she looked at Noel, “you called me back just a few hours later. I broke the news to you. You were devastated.”
“I returned your call as soon as I got home from work.”
“You called from Portland and checked your messages back home,” I said. “It isn’t hard.” Okay, it was hard for me, but I figured it wasn’t for him.
“No way.”
“How could you know where he called from?” I asked Linda. “You didn’t have caller ID back then, did you?”
She shook her head. She turned to Noel. “You told me you’d fly in for the funeral. You called me back and gave me details. I picked you up at the airport.”
“Not where you could see him coming from the gate,” I said.
“Outside baggage claim,” she said to Noel. “Curbside. That’s where you asked me to come.”
“Right,” he said. “I was there with my bags. You remember.”
“Probably took a taxi to the airport,” I said. “Just stood curbside with your bags, as if you’d just flown in. Piece of cake.”
“You stayed with us, at our place,” Linda said. “But … you were already in Portland?”
He coughed, from his waist. “I flew in Friday night, like I said. Just before you picked me up.”
“Well, Donald, I have a sworn statement from Melissa’s roommate that you were in Portland a few days before she died.”
“My name’s Noel.” He looked at Linda. I saw his wheels turning, wondering if now was the time to give up part of the lie. He sighed. “Okay, I flew in early to talk with Melissa. It was private, so we didn’t announce it to you and Jack. I’m sorry.”
Linda’s eyes sank. She didn’t move, but she’d been leaning toward Noel and now leaned away.
“If your point was to visit Melissa,” I said, “why wouldn’t you want her parents to know? Why wouldn’t you stay here like you did before, have a good time, play some golf?”
“Melissa was upset. She told me about the professor. I tried to talk her out of suicide.”
“She told you she was suicidal?” Linda jumped off the couch.
“Palatine had messed up her mind.”
“No one told me she was suicidal. I’m her mother. I might have been able to stop her.”
“Linda …” He reached out to her, and she backed away. “Jack knew I was here. He just thought it might look awkward if …”
“Jack knew you were here? I don’t believe you. You’re lying. And awkward? Melissa died that night. You acted shocked when I told you on the phone. You were in Portland? You knew she was dead?”
“I heard it on the news that morning. I was shocked.”
“You pretended you were hearing it from me.”
“I thought you should be the one to tell me. I owed you that.”
“You owed me that? You owed me the truth!” She slapped him. “Get out of my house!”
He looked at her sadly, apologetically. As he walked to the door, his gaze fell on me. What I saw took my breath away.
It wasn’t irritation. It was murder.
58
“Improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still.”
SHERLOCK HOLMES, SILVER BLAZE
AFTER NOEL, OR DONALD, WALKED OUT, I stood in Linda Glissan’s living room, in air too thick to breathe.
“Why didn’t he contact Jack and me?” Linda asked, hands on her face. “Why didn’t he stay with us? Why did he pretend?”
I walked around the living room, stepped into the kitchen and back out.
“What are you doing?”
“Walk me through it, Linda. That night you overheard Jack and Noel, when Jack was talking about killing the professor. You came to the kitchen to make tea?”
“Yes.”
“Was that unusual?”
“I do it every night. I turn off the TV at ten and make my chamomile tea to help me sleep. I take it to the bedroom.”
“So Jack would know you’d be coming to the kitchen a little after ten.”
“I suppose.”
“Boil water on the stove?”
“Microwave.” She pointed to it at the end of the kitchen, close to the living room.
“Do me a favor and make your tea like always, okay?”
“I don’t want tea.”
“I’ll drink it. Humor me.”
She went to the cupboard, took out a mug, opened the fridge and poured water from a Brita pitcher, then put the mug in the microwave. She pressed three buttons, making three loud beeps. While the microwave heated the water, she opened the cupboard and grabbed a tea bag. I hoped chamomile wasn’t like Earl Grey.
“Come here,” I said, turning the corner from the kitchen to the living room.
I pointed to the recliner ten feet away, couch on one side, glider on the other. “That’s Jack’s favorite chair, the recliner?”
She nodded.
“Wouldn’t they have to be raising their voices for you to hear them in the kitchen? I mean, knowing you were in the house, wouldn’t it be strange to discuss murder in anything above a whisper?”
“They weren’t raising their voices,” Linda said. “They were sitting right here.” She pointed to the floral patterned love seat just around the corner from the kitchen, ten feet closer than the recliner.
I sat on the love seat. The microwave sounded. I followed her the five feet into the kitchen where she put in the tea bag, dipped it and stirred, and handed me the cup. I took one sip and decided that all those years I’d gone without chamomile tea were well spent. Just give me coffee, then at bedtime knock me over the head with a mallet.
I stepped back to the living room and put the tea down on the coffee table in front of the love seat.
“These two men, cops, were sitting together here in this flowered love seat instead of over there on Jack’s favorite recliner and that comfortable couch?”
“What’s your point?”
“That they sat over here for one reason—so you’d overhear them.”
“But. why?”
“Maybe Jack wanted to test you, to see how you’d feel about his plan to kill the professor.”
“But … why involve Noel?”
“What if they scripted their conversation so if it came to it, you’d testify that Noel had nothing to do with the murder?”
“You think Jack would deceive me like that?”
“When a man’s planning murder, is one more deception that big? He wanted to protect you and Noel both. When we were conducting interviews as partners, Jack would sometimes pretend he was angry, confused, or distracted. We’d rehearse which of us would say what and exactly when. I used to tell him he’d be a great con artist.”
“He wouldn’t con me.”
“Unless he thought it wouldn’t hurt you, maybe even help you. He knew when you came to the kitchen. He heard the beeps when you set the microwave. He knew you’d be standing there five feet from a love seat where two self-respecting men would never sit. It was rehearsed. If you stepped in and said what you did, fine. If you said nothing, fine. To Jack, your silence would be permission. If you opposed the plan, Jack could change his mind if he wanted to. No downside.”
“You really think …?”
“I need to know Donald’s last name.”
“I can’t tell you. I promised Jack I never would.”
“Police academy runs a background check.”
“He had a perfect background. He assumed the identity of that kid who died years ago.”
“That’s what he told you? Here’s the truth—he assumed the identity of a guy who’d disappeared a few weeks before, and his body’s never been found.”
“How could he do that? People would
know.”
“Donald did his homework. He found someone who looked like him, whose parents had died, who wasn’t close to relatives, had moved where no one knew him. No friends or neighbors or relatives to say, ‘That’s not him.’ Who’d know it wasn’t the real Noel Barrows? He could probably show up at a class reunion today and fake his way through it.”
She shook her head.
“Linda, at least tell me where he came from.”
“He shouldn’t have lied to me, but Noel’s a decent person, lovable and kind. I keep my promises. Lots of Donalds around. Good luck finding his last name.”
Linda ushered me out the door, and I drove home to Mulch. My dog beside me, looking up at the computer screen, I spent the evening searching the web. After testing the number of Donalds in America and randomly reading a hundred last names to Cherianne Takalo over the phone, none of which were familiar to her, I saw this was going nowhere.
On a whim I Googled the words soda, pop, and Coke. My first hit was www.popvssoda.com. Within ten minutes, I was grateful to Al Gore for inventing the Internet, and for the geeks who waste their lives stocking it with generally useless—but in this case invaluable—information.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 9:20 A.M.
I called Clarence and Ray to my house and, trying to appear casual, sat them on both sides of me in front of my computer.
I went to the website and clicked to the county breakdowns at www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html.
“Okay, green and yellow are where people say soda. If you ask for a soda, you’re from California, Arizona, or the Northeast—New York, Jersey, or New England. Or maybe, Missouri or Nebraska. Pop’s what you call your dad.”
“What’s all the blue?” Clarence asked.
“That’s where people call soft drinks pop. Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, most of the Midwest says pop. Everybody in Oregon and Washington calls it pop, except two small Oregon counties on the California border. But there’s not a county in Washington that favors soda over pop. Soda’s a cake ingredient. You grow up in Liberty Lake, you just say pop. Period.”