The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “Who?”

  “Shannon’s on lane four and Holly’s on lane seven.” Robin’s eyes sparkled. “They got stuck going too!”

  Ah, so that made it all right. Mothers all over town were dragging their daughters out for a good time. It was working so well Robin had forgotten to be resentful.

  “Maybe we can, you know, get pizza with them afterward,” Robin said hopefully. “They’re all going. I mean, it’s like part of the whole tournament gig. They’ll think I’m a geek if we don’t.”

  “Oh, well God forbid,” said Claudia. She smiled. “Sure. Pizza sounds fine.”

  Robin swooped off to tell her friends. Claudia waited, foregoing the practice rolls, and then the serious business of bowling began.

  Tournament rules called for mothers to bowl first. Claudia hefted the ball experimentally. She eyeballed the pins, crooked teeth sixty feet down the lane. To accommodate her long strides she positioned her feet as far from the release line as possible, judged distance, and pushed forward.

  The ball left her hand early, slithered to the right and clipped four pins. Overcompensating on the second throw, she hooked the ball too far to the left. Three pins fell.

  Oh yeah. This was bowling, all right.

  With a wobbly approach, Robin threw a gutter ball. She giggled self-consciously, then followed with a second ball that took two end pins out.

  “We have to do this how many times?” she asked Claudia. “Maybe we should just jam now before anyone sees how awful we are.”

  “Speak for yourself, kiddo,” Claudia retorted. She retrieved her ball from the return, calculated speed and distance—and threw a seven-ten split. Her second ball chipped the seven pin by a breath.

  Robin laughed delightedly, then threw two more gutter balls. But they both got better. Claudia finished with a 148; Robin with a 91.

  By the third frame of the second game they’d made friends with the mother-daughter team on the adjoining lane. Banter fell as easily as a spring shower. Once, Robin even permitted Claudia to demonstrate technique. No sour face. No sarcastic bite. Just Claudia’s long arms against Robin’s, her hands braced against her daughter’s.

  After the second game, Claudia gave Robin a fistful of dollar bills and sent her for sodas. Then she sat at the scoring table to double-check the figures—computer scoring had not yet made it to Indian Run.

  Not bad. A 173 for Claudia. A 118 for Robin.

  Someone whistled appreciatively behind Claudia. She turned to see Dennis Heath’s smiling down.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, a slow grin rising.

  Dennis lightly worked his hand beneath her hair. His touch was warm on her neck. “Just slumming,” he said. “Actually, I’m into action. This looks like the right place for that.” He leaned over Claudia’s shoulder and squinted at the score sheet. “Is this to be believed? Four strikes in a row?”

  “Nothing to it and it only cost me one fingernail. Of course, there was nothing to the three open frames either.”

  “I think I’ll stick to fishing,” said Dennis.

  “Oh, no. Don’t tell me Indian Run’s in your blood already.”

  “Must be. Worse yet, my money’s in Indian Run.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I just bought a bass boat.”

  Claudia groaned. “Tell me you aren’t serious.”

  “When in Rome . . .”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “The truth is stranger than fiction.” Dennis uncrinkled a brochure and dropped it on the scoring table in front of Claudia. “It’s a beauty. Picked it up at a dealership bright and early this morning and put it in the lake forty minutes ago. You—and your daughter, if you’ll come—are my first guests. The fish are my first victims, I hope.”

  The brochure showed an eighteen-foot tiller craft with a sharp nose and an outboard engine that looked like it meant business.

  “I’ve had one experience out on the lake and it wasn’t something I care to remember,” said Claudia. She handed the brochure back.

  “Then you obviously weren’t out with a skilled fisherman,” said Dennis. “Besides, I’ll pout if you don’t come with me,” he persisted, affecting a hangdog expression. “That would be bad. Pouting makes hair fall out faster.” He tugged at a lock. “You won’t want me bald.”

  “The real question is whether I want you with fish,” Claudia murmured.

  A cheer rose from two lanes over. Someone whooped with laughter.

  Claudia looked at Dennis skeptically. “Don’t expect me to bait my own hook and don’t hold your breath for me to clean anything that winds up on the end of it. And don’t even imagine that my first excursion will be today. I’ve got work to do when this thing is over.”

  While they haggled over details, Robin surfaced at Claudia’s elbow. “Drinks are on the table behind us,” she said, her eyes making a critical sweep over Dennis’ face.

  “You must be Robin,” Dennis said, smiling.

  “And you must be the boyfriend.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Dennis asked.

  “Guess that’s up to my mother.” Robin scowled at Claudia. “We bowling or what?”

  “Lighten up, Robin,” Claudia warned.

  Some of the reserve slipped back into Robin’s posture. “Nice to meet you,” she said to Dennis. She didn’t look at him. Then she turned away and busied herself wiping down her ball with a rag.

  “The kid’s crazy about me,” Dennis said. He winked at Claudia. “Must be my eyes.”

  “I’m sorry, Dennis. She’s just a little difficult these days.”

  “She’s a teenager. That’s her job. Besides, if she doesn’t fall in love with me, I’ll make her fall in love with my boat. I bet I can entice her if I let her invite a boy sometime.”

  “Oh, God. I don’t think I’m ready for that.” Claudia smiled wanly. “Motherhood’s a trial as is.”

  They talked of meeting for drinks later, and Dennis left.

  Claudia watched her daughter polish the ball with a rag. “You know, it wouldn’t have killed you to be nice,” she said a moment later.

  “What do you mean? That was my nice.”

  Claudia’s brow furrowed. Robin exhaled dramatically. “Oh, all right. He just took me by surprise, is all. He seems okay.”

  “He is okay and you were downright rude.” Claudia picked up her ball and moved to position. The third game was getting under way.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

  Claudia lowered the ball and turned toward her daughter.

  “Really,” Robin said softly. She twisted a lock of hair into a cable. “Sometimes my mouth just motors faster than my brain.”

  “Can I be hearing right? Is this something like an apology?” said Claudia.

  Slumping in her seat, Robin rolled her eyes. “Can we, like, not make a big deal out of it? I mean, we’re holding up the game.”

  “Right,” said Claudia. “The game.”

  She turned away to hide a grin. Then she let the ball go. It curved slightly right, came in crisply on the Brooklyn side and scattered all ten.

  There was joy in Mudville after all.

  * * *

  Their balls could do no wrong. By the end of the seventh frame it looked as if Claudia and Robin actually might come out of the tournament with cash prizes. Claudia hadn’t left an open yet. Robin hadn’t thrown a gutter.

  So what if Marty Eckelstrom had shown up in the fifth to cheer them on, out of breath and apologizing for being late? So what that Robin had quietly extended the invitation and “forgotten” to mention it to Claudia? Hell. Kids her age sometimes got smitten with adults who they perceived as having all the qualities their own parents lacked. Everyone knew that.

  Claudia’s response was to bowl her brains out. She headed into the eighth with a 181 and a spare to back it up. But the self-satisfied smile she bought with a strike slid away when she turned around. Mitch Moody stood rigidly behind the bowler’s circle, his expr
ession solemn.

  “Lieutenant, we got another body, one street over from Overton’s. This one’s a medium, too.”

  Chapter 14

  Death had been swift and expert. Irene Avery, modestly attired in a granny gown and clutching a blood-soaked pillow, lay supine on a twin bed. Her face was gone.

  On the twin bed four feet away lay her dead dog, a small thing concocted of wiry fur and a spatula tail. Between the beds on the floor was the baseball bat that had killed them both.

  A neighbor concerned when Avery failed to retrieve her morning paper made the grisly find.

  Claudia grimly took it all in. She remembered from one of the interview reports that the dog’s name was Ginger, though everyone knew Irene called it Honeybunch. The dog had received all of the love Irene could no longer affix to her husband, who had died of a heart attack two years earlier.

  Probably, the dog’s ticket to death came first, perhaps when it perceived a threat to Irene. And the killer hadn’t messed with it long. Except for one crushed eye and the tongue that lolled from its mouth, the dog’s face was plenty recognizable.

  While Moody silently watched, Claudia examined the woman’s body, first from one side of the bed, then from the other. She’d been in and out of the room three times. The crime scene team and medical examiner had come and gone. Two attendants from the morgue stood impatiently in the wings; they hadn’t eaten lunch yet.

  “What do you think?” asked Moody. “We dealing with a copycat killer, some nutcase who read about Overton in the paper and wants in on the action?”

  “No.” Claudia straightened. “I think we’re dealing with someone who wants us to think that.” She gestured for the attendants to take the body.

  “But other than the fact that she was beaten to death, nothing’s the same.” Moody followed Claudia outside the house. “We’ve got forced entry through the jalousie windows. Mrs. Avery was killed in her sleep. The guy left a bat. Everything’s wiped clean of fingerprints. And looks like her wallet was cleaned out; not a folding bill in it. The whole thing just doesn’t feel the same.”

  “Yeah, it does,” said Claudia. “The guy who killed Overton was in a rage, out of control. This time, he was thinking.”

  Moody and Claudia walked toward their cars. “So maybe the killer figured Mrs. Avery knew something about Overton that he thought she would be telling us, something worth shutting her up about?” Moody said.

  Claudia didn’t answer at first. She wrenched the door to the Cavalier open, and got in. “Whether that’s it or not, Overton’s still the key. He was messy with her, real messy. But he was also lucky and he knew it. That’s why he didn’t take chances on Avery. That’s why everything’s so clean. What we have to do is pick apart this guy’s luck by going back to square one. Either we’re missing something altogether or we have it and just don’t recognize it yet.”

  * * *

  The mood in the tiny police station was somber. The story of Irene Avery’s death was on the radio within two hours; it would be on the TV news at six and detailed in all the morning papers. One dead medium was news. Two dead mediums was sensational. No one would be able to put a finger in this dike.

  Chief Suggs sat heavily in the chair beside Claudia’s desk. No one cracked a smile when the seat farted.

  “You want the good news first, or the bad news?” Suggs asked. He propped his right ankle over his left knee and briefly inspected his boot.

  “Does it matter?” Claudia asked.

  “Probably not.”

  “Then just spill it.”

  “All right. The lab looked for a match on prints at Overton’s house and what Moody got off the pens at Matheson’s house. Neat parlor trick, but that’s about it.”

  “I think I know what’s coming next.”

  The chief nodded. “Yup. I bet you do. Eleanor Matheson’s prints are there, which we expected. But Richard Matheson’s ain’t. If her no-good, rich husband ever paid a personal visit to Donna Overton, he didn’t leave any evidence. That’s the good news.”

  “That’s good news?” said Claudia.

  “Yup. It’s good news because the bad news is that our friend Tom Markos seems to have disappeared. The guys out at the fish camp say he was due in about noon, but never showed. So in my mind, we’ve pretty much eliminated one suspect and made a heavy case on the other.”

  “Anyone check Markos’ trailer yet?”

  “Come on, Claudia. You know we ain’t got no probable cause to enter.” Suggs patted his pockets, found the Tums. “On the other hand, we just happened to find ourselves a, uh, concerned neighbor who wasn’t as mindful of legal do’s and don’ts.”

  Claudia smiled tiredly.

  “This neighbor says the coffee pot was still on and a half-eaten sandwich was parked on the kitchen table,” Suggs continued. “Baloney and cheese, I think he said. Also, buncha clothes seem to be missing from the closet.”

  “A hasty departure,” Claudia mused.

  “Uh-huh. That’s how the concerned neighbor saw it.”

  “We got an all-points out?”

  Peering at his wristwatch Suggs said, “As of about fifteen minutes ago. My guess is when we pick this piece of horse shit up, we’re gonna find the scent of blood on him. Is that your read, too?”

  On the surface, it was a tidy fit. Markos was a cartoon thug. He knew the police were looking at him, hard. And if he killed Overton to shut her up about something, it made sense that he might kill Avery too, worried that she knew the same something.

  But what was the something? Where was the motive?

  “Well? Hershey? You got an opinion on this or not?”

  Claudia steepled her fingers. “Chief, my opinion is so half-baked it’s not even out of the oven yet. Markos? I don’t know. It’s too easy, too—”

  “Oh, come on! Markos has to be sweatin’ things big time, or why else would he take off?”

  “Because he heard Avery was killed and he’s running scared,” Claudia said promptly. She paused while a group of patrolmen passed her desk. “Sounds like Markos left his lunch on the table, maybe right after the first radio report,” she continued. “He knows we’d look at him first, so off he goes. He might have other things to hide. Ex-cons do it all the time, whether they’re guilty or not. When things heat up, they run. Period.”

  Suggs pulled a rumpled handkerchief from his pocket and vigorously blew his nose. “Damn it all, Hershey, you’re turnin’ out to be a disappointment all over again.” He peered at her over the top of the handkerchief. “The trouble with you is you can’t see the forest for the damned trees. You want to make like this is some big deal, some Cleveland Mafia thing. You was hopin’ Matheson was our pigeon because it’d make big headlines and—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Claudia said stiffly.

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not so sure, Hershey.” Suggs glowered at Claudia. “All I am sure of is that Markos is scum. My money’s on him all the way. I’m puttin’ a warrant out for his arrest and I’m gonna leak his name to the press vultures.”

  “I really think that’s premature,” said Claudia.

  “Of course you think it’s premature, Hershey.” Suggs jammed the handkerchief back in his pocket and stood heavily. “You wanna think the case can’t go down without you bein’ the moving force behind it. But it can, and it will. With or without your approval, goddamn it, we’re gonna nail Markos, prove he done it, and see that he fries.”

  * * *

  The police radio crackled in the background, wheezing routine calls as if the day were just any other. An old lady caught shoplifting at Philby’s. A jimmied padlock on the boarded-up country-western bar across town. An officer going 10-7 for a coffee break. A motorist needing assistance on Arrowhead Road.

  With a practiced ear half-tuned to the indistinct chatter, Claudia leafed through reports, taking another look at Overton’s life and death, watching for a connection to Avery’s last day. She warned the dispatcher not to interrupt for anything not related to the
case.

  Once, exasperated, she left and bought a pack of cigarettes. Screw it. The nicotine would give her brain locomotion. Later, she called Robin to say she’d be late, late, late. The kid murmured sympathy, then told her they’d won T-shirts from the bowling tourney. Would’ve been a cash prize if Claudia had been able to finish out the last two frames.

  Oh, and Marty Eckelstrom? Boy, a righteous lady all the way! Did Claudia know that Marty used to play drums in high school? And wow, wasn’t it cool, what she was studying now?

  Yeah, cool, Claudia thought dully. Marty stands in on the pizza bit after bowling, and drives the kid home. All of a sudden, the sun rises and sets around her. The drummer gets pizza and Robin’s adoration. The oboe player gets a dead body and the chief’s contempt.

  Claudia hung up and blew a smoke ring. Well, good. Let’s see Marty top that. Then she started in on the reports again.

  The hours floated by. Carella, Peters, and Moody were scattered through the psychic block, talking to neighbors, hoping someone had heard something. Uniforms were scaling the streets, looking for witnesses. But a bat makes little noise. And a woman bashed in her sleep doesn’t yell out.

  At nine-thirty, Claudia gave it up. She slid reports into her briefcase and stopped by the dispatcher’s desk for messages. She knew there would be a lot, and there were.

  The night dispatcher, a stoic middle-aged woman named Sally, presented a cluster of pink telephone message forms. She watched silently as Claudia scanned the sheets. Four calls from Channel 3, two from a Miami Herald reporter, one from The Tampa Tribune, one from the Orlando Sentinel, two from the Associated Press (oh God), one from the weekly. They were lapping up the Markos angle, quoting “a reliable source.”

  “Give these to Suggs,” Claudia told Sally.

  “I did, and he gave them back. Said for me to tell you to ‘handle ’em.’”

  “Great.”

  Claudia sifted through the others. Tom Orben wanted his video back. Yeah, when hell froze over, thought Claudia. She told Sally to put him off; the video was potential evidence.