by Jean Flowers
The final vote came in the form of the freezing temperature and biting wind that I knew awaited me as soon as I stepped outside. I bundled up and left Mary Draper, heading away from the central campus buildings to where my car was parked. I told myself that Sunni’s text invitation was a good sign—she was eager to share progress in finding Dennis Somerville’s killer. Or not.
* * *
I passed Greta’s desk at the front of the police building. An intern, a lunchtime sub I’d met briefly, greeted me and waved me on to the chief’s office. I smelled Sunni’s special brew of coffee, a good sign: She wasn’t going to punish me by forcing me to drink the caffeinated beverage in the lobby.
Our custom was that when we ate in my office, Sunni brought lunch, and vice versa. I’d stopped at the market and picked up her favorite mixed cold-cuts sandwich and a few sides. I also picked up a gift card for Ben, to a sporting goods store, a card our post office did not carry. I didn’t have time to look, but I hoped the shop sold fishing supplies.
With her usual lack of ceremony, and before I could remove my gloves, Sunni handed me three sheets of paper, stapled together. The heading read RAP SHEET.
“That’s an official name? A rap sheet?” I asked.
Sunni shrugged. “Some people think RAP is an acronym for Record of Arrests and Prosecutions, but while you can find this in police manuals and forms, it’s really a ‘backronym’ and not the origin of the term.” She motioned for me to read it. I got it: no more questions.
The sheets contained more numbers than letters—dates, case numbers, police codes. I identified several standard abbreviations, like DOB, HGT, WHT. Many lines contained information, such as DISPO: CONVT, which I took to mean that the person was convicted, since that line was followed by the notation 12 MONTHS PROB, 3 DAYS JAIL, all for the CRM of OCCUPY PROP W/O CONSENT.
I mumbled past many more acronyms and abbreviations and another DISPO: CONVT with regard to BKG/ENT THEFT OF PROP. Not until I noticed the list of names, buried under more identifying alphanumerics, did I understand why Sunni had given it to me. Five names appeared at the top of the sheet, MORGAN HAMMOND being the first and, I guessed, most current. Other names listed were variations, all with the same initials. MARIAN HARRISON, MORGAN HOOPER, and more. I supposed that meant she didn’t have to change her monograms every time she took on a new name.
“Get it?” Sunni asked.
“She’s the girl in the ring of three?”
“No, that girl has been in custody. We’re not sure of Morgan’s full story yet, but it appears she acts alone. We did a quick check while Norah was here, and found a warrant for her in New Hampshire. I’m sure she’s worked in other states as well.”
“I knew she was a transfer student, but . . .”
“A lot of transfers, apparently,” Sunni said.
“She makes a career of this?”
Sunni nodded. “It’s not that uncommon. Recently they caught a guy in New York, posing as a student, stealing identities as well as property. And there was another couple in Florida, did the same thing. I think they were even prom king and queen, and they were packed to move on the day after, except they were caught.”
“Talk about an exciting life. But is it worth it? I mean, I don’t think of students as wealthy targets.”
“Doesn’t matter, if you have access to everything they own, including their identities and all their portable devices. And it’s a great cover. Anyway, it’s the FBI’s problem when they take their business across state lines. We’re working on getting them to hold off on taking Morgan, plus that ring of three, as you call them, to see if there’s any connection that we’re missing with the Somerville murder.”
Was this a good time to tell Sunni about my own ring of three, the shadowy figures that had been following me? I wasn’t sure of the timing. I’d seen them outside Dyson’s house on Tuesday night. Sunni had said she had a lead on the three burglars on Tuesday afternoon; Greta said they’d been taken in yesterday morning. The timing could be right. The threat, if there ever was one, might be over. There was enough to deal with now, with Morgan’s status.
Less than five minutes in Sunni’s presence, and there were no answers, just more questions and more confusion in an already complicated case. I took a seat at the small table she’d cleared for lunch and wrapped my hands around my mug, trying to keep from embarrassing myself by shivering. “Is Morgan even a student at the college?” I asked.
“She is enrolled. A cover.”
“Math is a tough major for a cover.”
“No one is saying she’s dumb. And I have you to thank for pursuing that line. Norah came in and eventually gave us her name. She did try to hold out for a few seconds.”
Poor Norah, in a face-off with the NAPD chief. “Did Norah know that Morgan is—a little more experienced than the average math major?”
“She seemed genuinely surprised when I put it to her. I don’t think she’s involved more than she’s admitting. She was just the hired hand, so to speak.”
Once I recalled how Morgan tried to convince Norah not to sign the card on my tablet, that made sense. Morgan didn’t want Norah’s handwriting on record any more than she wanted her own.
Sunni unwrapped her sandwich and uttered an approving sound as a garlicky aroma was released from the cold cuts. “Tell me about your presentation.” This was Sunni, keeping me on my toes, making an abrupt switch to friend mode. I could only imagine what her tricks were when she was with a suspect, constantly knocking her off-kilter.
I took the cue and unwrapped my own sandwich. “The presentation went pretty well. I was amazed that they actually asked questions and listened to my answers.”
“I guess everyone thinks their particular place of employment is not as interesting as someone else’s.”
“Except for yours,” I said.
She smiled. “It’s the opposite with mine. Everyone thinks it’s glamorous, but it isn’t. They think there are exciting adventures every day, triumphant music when the bad guy is brought in.”
“The perp walk,” I said.
“Exactly. If they only knew how much time was spent on phone calls and using the Yellow Pages—now the Internet, but it’s the same grunt work. And the paperwork itself—before, during, and after a case—is overwhelming. Writing reports in triplicate, making sure they’re filed properly. It’s endless.”
“Not what you expected when you signed up?”
“Oh no. I was thinking more like kicking down doors and pushing bad guys against a wall.”
“Well, thank you for your service,” I said, glad she didn’t demonstrate any moves on me.
“Smart aleck. By the way, here’s a little cross talk between your job and mine. Apparently, there was an attack on a mail carrier in Springfield the other day.”
“Wow. Was he hurt?” I asked.
“The article said the mailman is okay, and that all the attacker made off with were the keys to the mail truck.”
I nodded. “That happens a lot, especially close to tax season.”
“That’s what I didn’t get. What good does it do to have the keys to the mail truck? It’s not like the guy can drive it very far before being picked up.”
“He probably didn’t drive it at all. He was really after the arrow key.”
“Let me guess.” Sunni nodded as if a light dawned. “The arrow key is like a master key for all the mailboxes that have locks.”
“You got it in one. But what the bad guys don’t know is that the carriers don’t usually put the arrow keys on the ring with the truck keys. They’re carefully guarded at the post office and the carrier has to sign it out of a vault or a safe. Every carrier has a different way of keeping it protected. And as it gets close to the first of the month, there are checks in jeopardy, or in tax season, even worse, and the carriers are on high alert.”
“Except f
or this one in Springfield.”
“Except for him. But I’ll bet the arrow key was still safe somewhere. Sometimes we’re smarter than they are.”
Sunni’s desk phone beeped. She pressed a button and answered. When the call was over, she announced, “She’s ready to talk.”
“Morgan? Or whatever her name is?”
Sunni nodded and handed me my gloves, which I’d placed on her desk. A not-so-subtle clue.
“Do you think I could have a word with—”
“Maybe later,” she said, handing me my half-finished sandwich.
It was time for me to leave, with no clue as to how much later it would be before I’d be welcomed back.
* * *
I was at loose ends. My talk was over, and all the tension from anticipating it was gone. A new tension, or an expanded older one, took its place: Dennis’s killer was still at large and there was nothing I could do without more information. If I had my way, there’d be a rule that citizens could interview suspects in murder investigations. After all, we were expected to serve on juries. Didn’t we deserve to be part of the whole process?
I wished I could talk to all of my TMHJ crowd. T and M—all four of them—were beyond my reach, in Sunni’s care; H, who had been a pest immediately after Dennis’s murder, had disappeared after being ousted from the Ashcots’ rehearsal. Had that confrontation with Quinn been only this morning? I couldn’t remember whether I’d seen Joyce after the rehearsal, either.
Other than drum up an excuse to find and talk to Joyce or Hank, I was stuck. I couldn’t very well offer to give a math class for Joyce or establish a new group of musicians that would accept Hank.
There was one other possible source of information. I called Dyson Somerville’s cell. He answered immediately. I figured he was at loose ends, also, for a different reason.
“Have you had lunch yet?” I asked him.
His “No” seemed enthusiastic, for company if not for food.
“Would you like me to bring you a sandwich?”
“Sweet.”
I made another stop at the deli, for a sandwich fit for a college boy, like the hefty one I’d brought Sunni.
* * *
I was touched that Dyson had set the kitchen table with plates and silverware. Did that make it more or less reprehensible that I was here for information? The fact that Sunni didn’t give me details of her talk with him didn’t mean that they were state secrets.
“This is great,” Dyson said, adding serving spoons to the slaw and array of salads I’d picked up.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and dipped into the salads. I paid attention to all the small talk Dyson brought up. He chattered on about his classes (He loved chromatic harmony but was having trouble with his counterpoint professor), a female friend of his who would be coming for the service (Did I have any idea when he might be able to make those arrangements? I didn’t), the changes around town (He hadn’t heard that the library had moved to a bigger location), repairs around the house (His dad had been asking for help fixing the heater and he finally went out and bought a new filter for it this morning).
I felt so sorry for Dyson, guessing at what must have been in his mind as he made a trip to the hardware store three days after his father was murdered. Why hadn’t he done the chore when his father would have appreciated it? Why hadn’t I stayed longer at the dinner table every night that my parents were alive? Why? Why?
Dyson managed to do most of the talking around school topics especially, and still put away a large roast beef sandwich, a few Kalamata olives with feta cheese crumbles, and a scoop of pasta salad.
I wished I could find an opening to ask what Sunni had shared with him, but finally decided to make the move myself. I walked back to the entryway, where I’d left my briefcase. “I have something to give you,” I said.
I returned to the table with a package in bubble wrap. I’d packed it for Mercedes, who’d decided in the end that I should present it to Dyson. Now was as good a time as any.
Dyson took the package and seemed to know what it was. His eyes teared and I felt worse than ever. What kind of friend, surrogate mother, anything, was I? He gave me a questioning look and I hoped he wouldn’t demand to know how I’d come by a piece from his dad’s collection.
“A lighthouse,” he said, before unwrapping. He removed the bubble wrap and took a deep breath. He turned it over in his hands, bringing about a flurry of snow. He ran his fingers over the surface and said only “Annisquam.”
“I understand you visited there often.”
He nodded. “As a kid.” He smiled, the way we do at a happy memory, and I took a relieved breath. “His collection goes way back. Lighthouses in snow globes, from all over the world, from places we’d never been. Even one someone brought him back from China. When I was really little, we’d play this game. He’d hold one up for me to look at, and then shake it and make me laugh. At one point I started to pretend to be surprised, just so he’d think he’d fooled me.”
“What a wonderful memory.”
“Would you like to see the collection? It’s in his office, upstairs.”
I gulped, tried to act natural. Dyson was inviting me to the crime scene, and it had been all his idea. “Sure,” I said, not too excited, just enthusiastic enough so he wouldn’t withdraw the invitation.
I followed Dyson up the carpeted steps to the second floor, taking in and trying to memorize the surroundings. Only a few days ago, a killer had climbed these steps. As I put each foot down, I heard no squeaking, no noise at all. The carpet extended smoothly along the hallway that we trod to the first door on the right.
Dennis would have had no warning that an intruder was on his way. Either that or the killer was someone he knew and led up the stairs himself. Another possibility was that three people, all thieves, had climbed these stairs when the house was empty. They might have broken in, run up the staircase, and then been caught by Dennis later, midrobbery. So many possible scenarios. And more that I couldn’t even imagine.
“I straightened it up,” Dyson said when we reached the office. “I kept hearing my dad, all upset that things were out of place.” He set Annisquam down, giving it one last shake, completing a long line of globes on a shelf.
I knew there was no chance that I could look through Dennis’s files without appearing rude and uncaring. I doubted the police would have left behind anything vaguely interesting to the investigation anyway.
My gaze went to the line of lighthouse globes on the bookcases, placed much the same way as the Annisquam model had adorned Dennis’s campus office bookcase. Some replicas were large enough to include houses on the property; other lighthouses sat at the ends of piers; still others were completely isolated and inaccessible except by air or sea. A realistic assembly of lighthouse venues.
I looked at each globe in turn, with Dyson behind me, listing a few of the names. Cana Island in Wisconsin, Saint Augustine in Florida, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. He picked up a medium-size globe from the Oregon coast and turned it upside down. Not only did he create a “snowfall,” but a compartment was revealed.
“My dad would try to take the bases apart and make little hiding places. Then he’d tell me to go visit the Barnegat on the Jersey Shore, say, and see what I found. And there would be a small toy or a special marble or, like, a tiny action figure or some coins, depending on the size. He was always trying to turn me into an investigator, like a scientist.”
I barely heard Dyson’s last words. The idea of a secret compartment had captured my mind. What if one of those snow globes held a clue to Dennis’s murder? I laughed at the idea as soon as it was formed, especially as I pictured a miniature gun as the weapon. Was I that desperate?
But when Dyson’s phone rang and he excused himself to take the call, I couldn’t resist. I looked for the largest globe, not big enough for a gun, but perhaps for a letter (
occupational hazard) or a photo or an incriminating document.
I lifted the heavy globe with a replica of the Boston Harbor Lighthouse and saw no sign of a compartment. Neither did Oswego, New York, nor San Pedro Harbor, California, yield results. Maybe Dyson made up the endearing story as he journeyed back to his childhood, when he had two parents.
In the hallway, Dyson was still talking. I made one last try. I picked up the Yerba Buena Island globe and read the label. San Francisco, where Quinn was from. Maybe this would be the lucky one. I slid my finger along the base and pushed open a tiny trapdoor. A shiver ran up my spine. I froze, listening for Dyson’s voice, and swallowed hard when I heard him, in the hallway, his voice somber but not choking. Did I dare risk getting caught messing with his father’s prized collection and lose all the connection I’d built with him? Apparently so. The greater good, I told myself. How satisfying it would be, especially to Dyson, if a killer were exposed.
I continued my probing and was able to insert two fingers into the cranny at the base of the globe. I extracted a piece of paper, probably eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, folded five or six times, forming a thick cube. I stuffed the treasure (or so I hoped) in my pocket and placed Yerba Buena back on the shelf in front of a biography of Albert Einstein. Just in time for Dyson’s return.
“That was my, like, girlfriend, I guess. She wanted to know everything. I’m sorry I left you by yourself.”
“No problem,” I said. “No problem at all.”
19
I was amazed that my key still worked in the side door to the post office. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ben had changed the lock and withdrawn his resignation, pending the hiring of a more responsible postmaster.