by J B Hawker
“Just talk to him and explain the very real dangers. I am confident he will not want to take a chance on losing you. When you’ve made a decision, call me and we can move forward from there,” Haleby said, standing and gesturing toward the door.
Still in a bit of a daze, Judy turned to go and knocked a plant off the desk with her large handbag fashioned from an antique wicker fishing creel.
“So sorry!” she said, bending to pick up the mess.
“Never mind. I’ll take care of that,” Haleby said, ushering her through the door.
As she walked through the reception area Judy heard the doctor call out, “Bitsy! Come here and bring a dustpan.”
*
“Well, that was discouraging,” Ransom grumbled to Sergeant Forester as they pulled out of the parking lot.
“When we saw the address was a care center in Tillamook, we knew it might be a washout,” Forester reminded him.
“I didn’t expect her to be quite so far gone, though.”
“Yeah,” Forester said. “Geez, did you smell that place? All those poor old things slumped in front of the TV in their wheelchairs gave me the creeps. I hope a bullet takes me out before I get that far gone.”
“If you are hoping to die in the line of duty, you’d better put in for a transfer. Bullets seldom fly around here, unless it’s hunting season. Besides, did you see how few men were there? The old X-Y chromosome gang tends to thin out after we hit three score and ten,” Ransom said.
“What do you mean? Is that from the Gettysburg Address?”
“No, that was four score and seven. A score is twenty years. Somewhere in the Bible it says man is given three score and ten, or seventy years. Didn’t you ever go to Sunday school?”
“Say, isn’t that the address we’re looking for?” Forester asked, pointing out the car window at a tidy cottage surrounded by a lush gnome-infested flower garden.
“Let’s see,” Ransom said, pulling out his phone and reviewing the street number of the second of the retired teachers they were interviewing.
“Yes, this is it,” he said.
“Maybe this one will still have all her marbles, since she’s not in long-term storage, like the other one,” Forester said.
“Let’s hope,” Ransom agreed.
The two officers stepped onto the small entry porch, ducking under a collection of wind chimes and sun catchers, and rang the doorbell. After several moments, a curtain covering the sidelight twitched and a face, not unlike one of the gnomes in the garden, peered out at them.
Ransom flashed his badge, the curtain dropped back into place, the men heard the chunk of deadbolts being unlocked and the door opened to reveal a small, white-haired dumpling of a woman with rosy, smiling cheeks and a twinkle in her faded blue eyes.
“Yes, officers? What can I do for you?” she said, looking up at the two men.
“Are you Matilda Thistlethwaite?” Ransom asked.
When she nodded, he introduced Forester and himself. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about a former student of yours,” he explained.
“Certainly. Come in, come in,” she replied, opening the door wider and gesturing the men inside.
Once inside, they stood in a small foyer with fresh flowers displayed on a side table and watercolors of birds arrayed on the walls.
“You are just in time to join me for a small snack, officers. Go on through to the parlor there and I’ll bring us a tray,” she said and bustled off down the hall.
Ransom and Forester followed her directions and found themselves in a bright, cozy room furnished with a small chintz-covered sofa and a pair of matching green and white striped wing chairs arranged around a highly polished oval mahogany coffee table. More fresh flowers sweetened the air in this room and water-color paintings added splashes of complementary colors, creating a welcoming ambiance.
“Nothing like our last stop, huh?” Forester said. “Seeing that crowded garden, I expected tons of knickknacks and doodads in here.”
Ransom read the signature, M. Thistlethwaite, on a well-executed painting of water lilies hanging over the fireplace mantle.
“Mrs. Thistlethwaite seems to have all her wits about her, anyway,” Ransom replied, as the woman herself entered rolling a teacart laden with a pot of coffee, cups, napkins and an assortment of baked treats.
“I should hope I do, officers. If one keeps one’s mental muscles exercised, they don’t need to go slack, you know,” she said, sitting down and beginning to fill small plates with cookies. “And please call me Mrs. T. That’s what the children always called me. Thistlethwaite is such a mouthful.”
She handed a generously filled plate to each of the men and started pouring the coffee. “Sugar or cream?” she asked, lifting a cup in Ransom’s direction.
“Just black, ma’am,” he responded, taking the cup and setting his plate on the table before sitting down beside his hostess on the sofa.
After supplying Sergeant Forester with coffee, highly sweetened according to his tastes, she prepared her own cup before turning to Ransom.
“Now, which former student of mine has gotten into trouble with the police?” she asked.
Ransom finished eating a shortbread square before responding. “Do you remember Victoria Folsom, who was your student back in the sixties?”
“Oh, dear. She’s the one who went missing, isn’t she? Of course, I remember Victoria. She was a sweet little thing, not terribly bright and a bit shy and insecure, but well-behaved. I was surprised when I heard she had run away. I didn’t think she was the type and I’m usually a good judge of character. Have you people located her?”
Sergeant Forester quickly stuffed a date bar into his mouth, rendering him unable to speak, and looked at his superior beseechingly.
“Her remains were discovered in the hills above Bannoch last month. We are investigating it as a suspicious death,” Ransom said.
“How sad,” Mrs. Thistlethwaite said. “After all these years, could you tell what happened to her? I watch those forensic mystery shows on the television and they seem to be able to reconstruct whole crimes from a puff of smoke and a shadow.”
“We aren’t quite that good, Mrs. T, but we are trying our best to learn how she died. That’s why we are here. We hoped you might remember something to help us.”
“What sort of thing did you want to know?” she asked.
“We have Victoria’s diary and she mentioned an older man in it. Do you remember if there was a man, or even an older teen, who she was interested in or spent time with?” Ransom asked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t. As I said, Victoria was a shy child, not very social. She didn’t have a boyfriend that I know of. Of course, I might not have known. Teenage girls seldom confide in a teacher about boys. That’s the sort of thing they share with their B.F.F., as I believe is the current term.”
“Can you tell us who Victoria’s best friends were?” Forester asked, taking a huge bite from a fudge brownie and wiping his hands on a napkin before picking up his notepad and pen.
“You are asking me to remember back over thirty years, Sergeant. Fortunately for you, I do my mental calisthenics every day. As a matter of fact, I do remember. Victoria had only one real friend. She and Karoline Barrett were inseparable. When Vicky disappeared, Karoline was devastated. I’m afraid I’ve lost track of her. The last Christmas card she sent me was almost five years ago.”
“I don’t suppose you remember where it was sent from?” Ransom asked.
“I’m afraid not. But, if you don’t mind waiting, I can get it for you.”
“You still have the envelope after five years?”
“Of course not. Do I look like a hoarder? I always snip the return address off and tape it to the back before I file the card away. My file cabinet is on the utility porch. I’ll go retrieve Karoline’s last card for you. Please help yourselves to more coffee and cookies while you’re waiting.”
The two officers exchanged amused glances and did as she inst
ructed, topping up their cups and selecting a few more of the retired teacher’s delicious homemade treats.
Chapter 15
“Karoline Barrett has arrived. Shall I bring her in?” Sergeant Forester stepped into Detective Ransom’s office and asked.
Ransom nodded. “It was a lucky break Mrs. Thistlethwaite was so meticulous with her Christmas cards. She’s quite a character.”
“And a great baker, too. Don’t you think I should go back and interview her again? Those brownies were really something,” Forester said.
Grinning, Ransom shook his head and gestured with his thumb for the sergeant to get their visitor.
He agreed with Forester about Mrs. T’s cookies, but unfortunately, she had nothing else to add to the case. Still, it might be a courtesy to visit her again when the investigation wrapped up, just to fill her in on the details.
Before Ransom’s mouth started to water in anticipation of further baked delights, Sergeant Forester returned with Victoria’s high school friend, Karoline Barrett.
Ransom stood to greet her. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. Barrett. We’ll try not to take up too much of your time. Please have a seat.”
Ms. Barrett, a small woman in her sixties, with short cropped magenta-colored hair, was wearing a hot pink fitted blazer over an only partially buttoned white silk shirt and black pencil skirt. She sat down, crossing her legs to reveal an expanse of thigh and improbably high-heeled shoes. Leaning forward to shake Ransom’s hand, she displayed her aged décolleté straining out of a black lace bra and said, “Please, call me Karoline.”
Ransom pulled his eyes away from this unnerving spectacle and reviewed his notes before speaking.
“As I told you on the phone, we are trying to learn what happened to Victoria Folsom after she disappeared. We’re hoping you might remember something useful because you were her best friend.”
“Best friend! Ha! I was Vicky’s only friend. Well, her only friend in school, anyway,” she said.
“Oh?” Ransom said. “Did she have friends besides her classmates? Perhaps someone already out of school?”
“Just that Richie Rich cousin of hers. She was gaga about him. She’d got it into her head he was going to marry her someday. She was always going on about how she wasn’t always going to be a poor relation. She thought she would move into that big old mansion on the hill and join high society, or something. Vicky wasn’t the crispiest chip in the bag. I mean, she was okay, but she lived in some kind of fantasy world, you know what I mean? I don’t suppose you could blame her. Her folks were already miserable old farts when she was just a kid, and they were always fighting. Sometimes I slept over at Vicky’s, when I didn’t have a date or anything better to do, and the screaming and yelling kept us awake all night.”
“Do you know what the parents fought about?” Ransom prodded when she stopped for a breath.
“Money, mostly, I think. Anyway, Vicky hated it. She was always reading about famous rich people and dreaming of the day she would be one of them. Poor kid. Until I heard that her remains had been found, I always figured she’d run off to Hollywood to be a movie star and ended up on the streets, like so many do. Do you have any idea how she wound up in the woods?”
“Not yet. It’s an on-going investigation, but we will keep digging until we get to the bottom of it. That’s why we need to know as much about Victoria’s life as possible.”
“Well, like I said, there wasn’t very much to her life, except boring school, her fantasies and her creepy cousin,” Karoline said.
“You thought he was a creep? Why is that? Did you know him?” Ransom asked.
“Sure. Well, not to talk to, much, or anything. I mean, he’d graduated before we got to high school, but I saw him around town. Everybody knew the high and mighty Haleby family.”
“So, what made you think he was creepy?” Ransom asked.
“He was always driving around in that flashy sports car, trying to pick up girls. Even when we were in middle school and he was in high school, he’d offer to give us rides. Vicky always jumped at the chance, of course,” Karoline said.
“What about you? Did you ever go for a ride with him?”
“Once, but I didn’t like it. I got carsick and he wouldn’t let me out. Then, when he finally did, I had to walk home all alone for almost a mile.”
“Vicky didn’t get out, too?”
“Of course not. He was her dreamboat, even then.”
“Did these rides continue when you both got to high school?”
“Cash the Creep...that’s what I called him, and it made Vicky so mad...anyway, he went away to college, so he wasn’t around so much, after that. Vicky still talked about him, but I didn’t ever see them together, not after he went off to school.”
Detective Ransom thanked Ms. Barrett and walked with her to the exit. After untangling his arm from her clinging hands, he returned to his office and called Forester in to go over what they had discovered.
Ms. Barrett’s information put a new slant on the investigation; one requiring sensitive handling.
*
“Drat!” Judy cried as the large steak slid through the tongs and splashed into the marinade bowl. She removed her oven mitt, tore a paper towel off the roll and began cleaning the spill. It was awkward manipulating the slippery meat with tongs, especially while wearing an oven mitt, but Judy’s aversion to handling raw flesh was extreme. She wanted to prepare a special dinner for Ken, though, and Ken’s idea of a special dinner always included grilled steak.
The girls were attending a pizza party with the Presbyterian Youth that night, so Judy would be alone with her husband when she told him her exciting news. She was dressed in her plain slacks and her simplest white peasant blouse, the one with flowers and vines embroidered across the yoke. Her hair was held back with a ribbon and she’d brightened her face with seldom-used eye makeup and blusher, hoping to achieve the glow attributed to expectant mothers.
The salad was tossed, a couscous and brown rice casserole was in the oven, a lemon chiffon pie was in the fridge and the meat was ready to pop onto the grill when Ken came in through the back door.
He gave Judy a brief kiss, and then lowered himself onto a kitchen chair with an air of weariness.
“How was your day?” he asked, opening the evening newspaper and scanning the headlines.
“It was good, how about you?” Judy responded, barely holding back her surprise.
She’d planned how this evening would go and wanted to share her exciting news over dessert.
“That’s nice,” Ken muttered without looking up.
“I said, how was your day?” Judy said, a bit louder.
“Oh, oh yeah,” Ken said, folding the paper and setting it aside. “Come here and sit with me.”
Judy sat beside him and Ken took her hands in his.
“I’m not sure how you are going to feel about this, but I’ve made a decision today; a decision about our future,” he said.
“What is it, Ken? You’re making me nervous.”
“I’ve lost my spark and I need to make a change. I can’t go on like this,” he said.
“Are you leaving me?” Judy cried.
“What? No, of course not,” Ken replied. “I’ve decided to retire from the ministry as soon as possible. Are you terribly disappointed in me?”
Judy felt a surge of nausea, closed her eyes and lowered her head to rest on her arms on the table.
“Judy!” Ken cried. “Don’t be upset, Darling. It’s okay, I don’t have to retire right away. We can talk about it. Judy?”
“I’m not upset, honey. Just a little woozy,” Judy said, raising her head, but keeping her eyes tightly shut against the spinning room.
“Look at me, please. I’m so sorry,” Ken said.
Judy breathed deeply and her eyes fluttered open. Once assured the vertigo had passed, she smiled at her husband and said, “I wasn’t upset, honestly. I just had a tiny dizzy spell, but it’s passed.”
�
��That’s right! I’d forgotten. You saw the doctor today. What did he say?” Ken asked. “Is the change of life causing your troubles?”
“No, that isn’t the cause,” Judy said, smiling inwardly. “But I was planning to give you the diagnosis after dinner. In fact, I still think we should enjoy our meal, first.”
She got up and plopped the marinated meat onto the hot grill, filling the room with the aroma of sizzling beef.
“Judy! Please tell me, now,” Ken pleaded. “If it’s bad news, we can deal with it together.”
“Go wash up and sit down at the dining table. I’ll bring in the food and join you.”
Ken opened his mouth to argue, but seeing Judy’s shoulders set with resolution, he gave up and followed her directions.
Judy almost giggled as she cherished her news and imagined her husband’s joy and relief when she told him about the pregnancy. His decision to retire now was perfect timing, too, because he would be able to stay home and help with the babies. Judy knew she would need more help caring for twins this time around. She wasn’t as old as the doctor seemed to think, but she no longer had the same energy she’d had in her twenties.
Once seated at the table, Judy led the prayer, including Ken’s future retirement in her thanks and asking blessings upon their family in the days ahead.
“So, you really don’t mind that I want to retire?” Ken asked after saying, “Amen.”
“Of course not. I’m pleased. You’ve earned a change and I will enjoy having more time with you.”
“You won’t mind having me underfoot?” Ken asked. “Or will you need me to care for you? Is that why you’re pleased? Do you have something seriously wrong?”
“I will tell you all about it when we’ve finished enjoying our dinner. Be sure to save room for dessert. I’ve made your favorite, lemon chiffon pie.”
Frustrated by her refusal to explain, Ken dug into his dinner. It was delicious, but he was too worried to savor it.
“I don’t want dessert. We can have pie later. Please tell me what’s going on,” he urged.