Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  A sharp beep from just outside the kitchen caught their attention and Dan emerged from the dimly lit living room holding the portable phone. He nodded to Jason. “Hey,” he said. To Simons: “Did he see the picture?”

  “What picture?” asked Jason, making it apparent to his father he had not.

  Detective Simons unclasped the large envelope and, with a tissue, tugged on the edge of the cast photo until only Jason’s and Bart’s heads were visible. Jason had to inch closer to the table for a better look; he felt weak in the stomach and knees upon seeing the markings.

  “I take it that’s not the new Trivial Matters tic-tac-toe board?” was Jason’s attempt at a joke, but his voice cracked and he washed the discomfort down with a long pull from his soda bottle.

  “I found that on the porch today,” Dan said grimly, “and the detective was nice enough to drop by after being paged.”

  Simons eased the photo back in the envelope. “It’s my job. Before you came here, Jason, I was telling your father that we’re going to dust the photo and envelope for prints and see if anything comes up in our database. Since your father obviously handled the package, we’ll have to get his prints from his file at the school board for reference to eliminate his.”

  “How can you get prints off of newspaper?” Jason challenged. “You’d be surprised what a forensics team can find these days. If we’re lucky, we might find some dead skin or an eyelash in the envelope that we can test. Plus, I don’t know if you noticed, but there is a visible, dirty thumb partial on one corner of the newsprint.”

  “Probably mine,” Dan sighed.

  Jason, however impressed he was with the latest advancements in forensic science, was not comforted by the prospect of catching a killer by the eyelash. “That’ll take what, a week? What if this nut strikes again before then? He knows were I live, apparently, so there’s no stopping him—”

  “Son,” Dan clasped Jason’s shoulder. “Nothing is going to happen to you, I won’t let it happen. Besides, the other victims didn’t get any warnings like this, so maybe this isn’t part of the killer’s MO.” He turned to the detective. “Do you even know that much? Did the others get photos, too?”

  Simons’ expression was stone. “Not at liberty to say, sorry.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. What could the police say? “Well, in the event the deaths are connected, you’ll be getting us protection, right? I mean, if this is a legit threat and not another prank, you’ll want to have some muscle nearby for when the guy knocks on our door.”

  “Jason,” Dan pleaded, not pleased with hearing “when,” like a third murder was a done deal.

  Simons touched his chin to his chest and took a deep breath. He clearly didn’t like being on the other end of an interrogation/complaint, and as father and son exchanged glances each could read the other’s mind. The detective’s answer was not going to be the one they wanted to hear.

  “Okay, I’ll give you this much: we have reason to believe the murders of Mister Scarsdale and Mister Petersen might have been committed by the same person or people,” he began coolly. “But,” his voice lowered a few degrees, “since it’s an ongoing investigation I’m not permitted to tell you anything more. I thought I made that clear this morning.”

  “Not even when the person you’re telling is a potential victim?” Jason begged. “Come on, man, I’m not gonna hit the phone and call all of my friends about this.”

  “I can’t risk anything. I could bungle a possible prosecution for the DA’s office if I did,” the detective countered. “A defense attorney will use every trick in the book to land an acquittal, and you have no idea how many technicalities have allowed criminals to walk. Goofy stuff at that!” Simons was clearly agitated, and though Jason could not empathize with the man, he sort of understood his frustration. He watched cop shows where the police busted their chops to cuff the criminal, only to see somebody in either the district or the DA’s office sneeze the wrong way and have the whole case explode in their faces.

  Still, this was not television. There was a serial killer out there who probably thought he was on television, but Jason seriously doubted sanity could regain control before the killer could try to cancel him.

  “What about protection, though?” Dan demanded. “Jason’s right. Something could happen before you get those results back. Are we supposed to just sit here?”

  Simons rose. Dan and Jason instinctively backed away. Even Ringo, who had easily charmed the stranger out of several potato chips, sensed the tension and curled near his water bowl.

  “Nothing could happen, either,” Simons pointed out, raising the envelope with the tissue and pointing it at Jason. “You yourself said you thought that phone call was one of your friends. How do you know this isn’t another adolescent joke?”

  “For one thing, if these were all pranks you wouldn’t be standing in our kitchen. For another, I can’t imagine any of my friends calling up a total stranger—”

  Dan frowned. “What stranger?” He glanced at Simons, whose eyes narrowed and shot daggers at his son. Growing nervous as Jason cowered suddenly under Simons’ silent spell, Dan tried to lodge himself between the two but the detective nudged him quietly away.

  “What stranger?” Dan asked again, more loudly. “Jason, what are you talking about?”

  “He’s talking about Adam Wasserman from the contest,” Simons answered. “He’s talking about how Adam Wasserman also received a threatening phone call. Thing is, how would he know about that?” His tone was patronizing, and he did not blink to break eye contact with Jason. “I suppose you also tried to contact Doris Leiber and ended up with her cousin in P-Town.”

  Jason smiled weakly. “She talk your ear off, too?”

  “This isn’t funny, son,” Simons said.

  Jason shrugged. “It’s not against the law to call somebody on the phone.”

  “It’s against the law to interfere in police business.”

  “What?” Dan cried. “Jason, what the hell were you thinking?”

  Jason ignored his father and focused on the detective. “How can I be interfering when I don’t even know what I’m interfering with?” he wailed, slamming the bottle down on the counter behind him. Soda fizzed and bubbled upward to the bottle’s neck but did not spill over the lip. “Maybe I want answers, too, you think?”

  “The only answers you need to worry about are on your test papers,” Simons said firmly. “My business is investigating murders, yours is going to school and keeping your father from worrying to death about you.”

  Dan grasped the refrigerator door handle for support. “This is unreal,” was all he could say.

  “Yeah.” Jason folded his arms. “Go to school and dodge the bullets. I’m not getting protection, am I?”

  Simons held up his hands. “My hands are tied on this one, son. We can’t do anything unless something is being done to you.”

  Jason shook his head and swiped the soda bottle. “Can’t do anything,” he muttered, elbowing his way out of the kitchen. “Can’t do anything until I’m lying in a body bag.”

  “Jason!” Dan called after him. “Get back here.” But Jason had taken the stairs two at a time and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

  * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Jason’s bedroom door creaked open and Dan peered inside; only a duffel bag by the bed was immediately visible. Crumpled pairs of underwear and jeans dripped over the edge of the bed. Ringo, a bit bolder than his other master, poked through the crevice and hopped upon the bed. Dan followed the beagle just as Jason, his head still deep inside his closet, ordered the dog away from the pile of clothes.

  “Going on a trip?” Dan asked, idly picking up a pair of briefs and folding it neatly. Jason turned to his father with a look that said, “Duh!”

  “Where will you go? I thought you didn’t want to go to Grandma’s.”

  Jason sighed and gently closed the bi-folding closet doors. The sleeve of an ash sweatshirt caught between the doors, b
ut Jason did not bother tucking it back inside. Instead he flopped backwards on his clean white laundry. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I had half a mind to hide out at Gooch’s, but then I figured that wouldn’t do me any good. How do we know I wouldn’t be followed?”

  He moved to his bedroom window, prying apart two slats at eye level. From his vantage point he could see very little past the billowing tree in their neighbor’s tiny front yard and the house itself. It was not yet dark, and Jason tilted his head for a better look at the sidewalk and quite possibly for a shady figure staring back up at him. Nothing.

  In his mind, however, came the clear figure of Adam Wasserman sitting across from him the coffee shop. I’m not going to stop living...if I do that, the killer has already won. Had Adam spent any time looking out his window for anomalies? Does my doing so give the killer an advantage, Jason thought. Is he winning?

  Dan moved to sit on the bed, and as he did so his shoe hit a rustling object. Looking down, he discovered he had stepped on one of those men’s fitness magazines. An oiled USDA grade specimen of body builder flexed his triceps and smiled a “come hither” look at him.

  “Er,” he became disoriented. The cover was hypnotic, and Dan toed it back under the bed. “So what do you want to do? If you don’t feel safe here, maybe we should take off until the cops catch the guy.”

  “They might never catch them, Dad. Are we gonna move? Completely alter our lives?”

  “If it keeps you alive, yes,” Dan was adamant.

  “Really? You’d have no problem uprooting? Leaving all our friends, leaving Miss Pratt?”

  Dan perched on the bed. “God, family, work. Those are my priorities in that order,” he stated plainly, “and I’ll tell you right now that the first two are more important than my job or anything else. I can get a job anywhere.”

  “And Miss Pratt?” Jason insisted. “Would she be willing to get a job anywhere?”

  “Well, er...” Dan faltered. What would Willie be willing to do? Moreover, was he willing to ask?

  “Dad, I—”

  “Or,” Dan interrupted, “if you like we’ll hire a bodyguard until you finish school, then maybe you can go off to Grandma’s or even Aunt Georgie’s for the summer.” Georgie, Dan’s maternal, widowed aunt, lived in West Palm Beach in a retirement villa with about a dozen cats. “I think the guy could be caught before you head off to college.”

  Dan paused, then sauntered over to his son’s desk and pretended to read the opened English textbook, thumbing a line from the Leaves of Grass excerpt. “Speaking of college,” he said, “did you ever get everything straightened out with William and Mary? Am I going to have to write them any more checks?”

  “No, I’m all set. Barring any snags in my schedule,” Jason said rather sarcastically, “I’ll have orientation in July and my dorm assignment in August.”

  Then his attention drifted elsewhere. Ringo bounced his way back onto the bed and rolled on his back, scratching at Jason until his master complied with a tummy rub. Dan turned away from the textbook and noticed a worried look on his son’s face.

  “But?” he prodded.

  Jason looked up from the dog. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Looks like you have something to say. You certainly don’t look excited about going to college as you did a few months ago.”

  “A few months ago I wasn’t afraid for my life.”

  “No.” Dan sat next to Jason on the bed; the mattress sagged slightly from the weight of both of them, a gentle reminder that it needed to be turned, or perhaps discarded. “You’ve been moping long before this business started. Has it something to do with going away to school, because we can always cancel the dorm room and you can commute if you want. I figured with tunnel traffic as bad as it is, you’d want to stay on campus. Be closer to the action.”

  Dan pictured Jason carousing at a Greek mixer, splashing contraband liquor and dancing in a grinding motion in a sea of drunken co-eds. Then all drunken men. Then Dan squeezed his eyes shut to expel the thought. God, help me, he prayed.

  “It’s not that, going away, I mean.” Jason stroked Ringo’s muzzle. “Mitch’s going to W&M too, so we signed up to be roommates. It’s just...”

  Abruptly he stood, and Ringo rolled away from him and nearly fell off the bed himself. “I’ve just been thinking lately,” Jason continued, “wondering if William and Mary is the right place for me.”

  “Right place?” Dan scoffed. “It’s only one of the best schools in the state, if not the East Coast.” That Jason managed to earn a scholarship from the prestigious, and picky, institution said quite a bit about his academic skill. The 1510 score on his SATs did not hurt either. “I can’t think of a better place to go, regardless of your major.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. It’s not so much what I want to study,” Jason said. “It’s where, and I’m beginning to think I should have weighed my other options before picking the school I applied to.”

  “Well, it’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?” Dan frowned. What did he mean, where? Where was this going? He wanted to ask, but he could see Jason’s frustration, like the words were in his mind and he was trying to mentally sort them in proper order. He remained silent and let the boy finish.

  It seemed like several minutes had passed instead of only three seconds. Jason took a seat at his desk, straddling the chair and hugging the back. “I’ve been having these feelings, Dad,” he began slowly.

  Dan unconsciously gripped a handful of bed sheet, his palms starting to sweat. Here it comes, he thought. My son is about to open the closet door, and tell me perhaps he’d be more comfortable going to school in San Francisco. Or Key West. Or wherever.

  “I really don’t know how to put this...” Jason began to chuckle nervously. “It’s weird, me getting ready to say this in light of what’s happening.”

  “Just come out and say it. Simple as that.” Dan nodded and smiled. I will be supportive, I will not blow up in my son’s face. I love my son no matter what. Mother Mary, pray for me!

  “I’ve been talking to Father Winslow a lot about this. He’s the only one who knows...”

  “I see.” Of course you have. Dan gritted his teeth, then closed his mouth in a straight line so as not to appear too pained. Of course you have. Thinking of starting up a chapter of Courage on campus, no doubt. That’s my boy, ever the leader.

  “...and he’s helped me put things in perspective.”

  “Good.” Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...

  Jason took a deep breath. No sense holding back any further. “Dad, I think I’m being called to the priesthood.”

  Silence.

  Dan’s grip on the bed sheet tightened, so much that the top left corner popped out of place, exposing the mattress.

  “What?”

  Jason looked at his father nervously. “Uh, I said I’ve been thinking about being a priest.”

  “You mean you’re not gay?”

  “What? No!” Jason drew back. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “What about that magazine in your backpack? Don’t think I haven’t seen you trying to hide it from me.”

  “That?” Jason crossed to his backpack and retrieved the magazine in question. “This is a course catalog for Holy Angels Seminary, where Father Ben went to school. He thought I should check it out.”

  “Well, then what about these other magazines I’ve been finding in your room?” Dan hiked a glossy color cover from underneath a discarded binder on the floor. “Hardly required reading in a seminary, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What about them?” Jason shrugged. “They’re Gooch’s.”

  Dan’s eyes widened. “Gooch is gay?”

  “Dad!” Jason lunged forward and swiped the magazine, refolding it properly. “Nobody is gay, alright? Nobody I know, anyway. There were some articles about mountain biking Gooch thought I’d want to read. What, did you think I was reading those things under my bed covers and gawking
at the half-naked men?”

  “No,” Dan lied meekly, but Jason did not buy it. Quietly Dan released the bed sheet. “Okay,” he said resignedly. “I believe you. Lord forgive me for ever coming to that conclusion without talking it out with you first.”

  Jason snickered. “Don’t tell me you’d rather have seen me in here holding a Playboy in one hand...”

  “No, no.” Dan held up a hand. One disturbing image per night was enough for him. “And don’t talk like that. I was just concerned that perhaps you didn’t...you know, like girls.”

  “I like girls fine, Dad. That’s part of the problem, or so I thought.” Jason returned to his chair. “That’s why I’ve been talking to Father Winslow, to see how he’s handled it all these years.”