“Illegal immigrants?”
Walter gave Susan an incredulous look. “Aliens in UFOs.” The phrase “stupid woman” hung in the air, implied and unsaid.
Susan blinked, her television smile turning brittle.
“What makes you say it was aliens?”
“I managed a Radio Shack back in the eighties. Andy bought a lot of special order components designed for the most powerful ham radios. One day I joked and asked him what planet he was trying to reach.”
“And what did he say?”
Walter ducked his head conspiratorially. “He said, ‘Not a planet, Walter. Alpha Centauri.’ Disappeared a week after he told me that.”
“That’s an amazing story, Walter. How do you suppose he ended up buried on Mill Creek?”
“Simple to beam his body underground from their ship. How do you think he wound up under a fully grown tree?”
“Why do you suppose they wanted to kill him?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He intercepted transmissions about their invasion plans. They had to kill him.”
“But it’s been thirty years. There has been no invasion.”
“Do you know how long it takes to assemble a fleet of a million alien warcraft and transport it 1.3 parsecs? Longer than thirty years. But you can bet they’re coming.”
“Walter, if Earth is in danger, why didn’t you come forward back then?”
“You know how it is. People would have thought I was crazy.”
___________
Lia tapped the screen, pausing the video with Susan’s mouth mid-gape. She took a sip of chai, thinking it might be fun to leave Susan like that for a while, or even forever. Across the kitchen table, Peter fed the end of his Pop-Tart to Viola.
“Walter come to you with his theory?” Lia asked.
“Sorry to say he hasn’t.”
Lia eyed Peter’s bland face. “No, you’re not. Suppose he ever met Andrew Heenan?”
“No mention of a ham radio at Heenan’s house back then. The aliens must have beamed it up with him.”
“Will you follow up?”
“With him or with Susan? They pulled Heenan’s credit card records during the original investigation. He made purchases from a mail-order magic emporium. Nothing from Radio Shack. Unless Heenan used his magic wand to call up Alpha Centauri, there’s nothing to it.” Peter stood and carried his plate to the sink.
“What if it’s something else?”
“Like what?”
“A disinformation campaign. A distraction.”
“Then investigating Walter would play into their evil plans.” He rubbed Lia’s shoulders. “Relax. Walter is a bored senior citizen seeking internet fame. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
Peter’s eyes skimmed past a forward-facing, smirking Elvis as he made his way to his desk, landing on Brent’s monitor. Dots peppered a map of Northside. An overlay of colored shapes divided the area, with a key associating each color with a list of dates. He moved behind Brent to review the diagram.
“What’ve you got?”
“Surveilling Jamal’s crib didn’t work. He dumps his stolen booty and heads out for the evening instead of coming home with it. So now I’m being smart.”
“And the map?”
“Each dot represents a package theft, culled from police reports and rants on the NextDoor bulletin board. I have overlays of Amazon and UPS delivery routes along with typical time frames, but that made the whole thing too busy. Most porch pirates follow the trucks. Per Stacy, Jamal’s band of barely pubescent thieves lay in wait at different points along the route on different days. I’m looking for a pattern so I can predict his moves.”
A strategy Peter hadn’t considered. “You intend to pick him up after a handoff?”
“One Amazon shipment does not a felony make. We need quantity. I want his stash house .” Brent kept his face in his monitor. “Your ex called last night. She said she was in a quandary. I agreed to meet her for a drink.”
Peter flicked Elvis' bony chin, making the skull jitter. Now battery-less, Elvis remained blessedly silent and unable to comment.
“Do I want to know what Susan has on her mind?”
Brent swiveled his chair to face Peter. “As an old friend concerned only with your happiness, she was distressed to discover your woman murdered a friend and was never arrested. I told her it was a shame how the media twisted events to suit their purposes and she apparently didn’t get the memo that Lia was defending herself against a serial killer. She got a little gleam in her eye and said, ‘I can’t imagine what kind of woman gets mixed up in such things.’ That’s verbatim.”
Peter heard it in his head, that troubled tone of concern used by Southern ladies as they moved in for the kill. “Did you have to dump gasoline on my fire?”
“Pre-emptive damage control, brother. I was anxious on her behalf, that others would misconstrue her good intentions if she followed her current line of inquiry. I understood it might not bother her if our brothers in blue refused to talk to her after she made a spectacle out of a nice woman you cared about, but it would be a godawful shame if Lia’s big-deal, socialite clients took a dislike to her just when she was trying to get her show off the ground. I shook my head and said it wasn’t fair, but rubbing certain people the wrong way could be a career killer in a town like Cincinnati.”
“I bet she loved that.”
“She went all huffy about the public’s right to know. I said, ‘Find out what war you’re in before you pick your battles. Check out the article about Renée Solomon on the Cincinnati Magazine website. While you look at the pretty photos of Renée’s home, ask yourself who created her garden sculpture and painted the gorgeous collie hanging over the fireplace.’ Then I left.”
“You’re a rare friend.”
“You telling Lia?”
“Only if I have to. She doesn’t need this after yesterday’s break-in.” His desk phone rang. He grabbed the receiver, his voice sharper than he meant it to be. “Dourson.”
The voice on the phone was tentative. “Detective Dourson? My name is Jenny Olson. I knew Andrew Heenan.”
Peter leaned back in his chair. It couldn’t be this easy, but it was best to treat everyone as if you believed them.
“You’re a hard lady to find.”
Silence. Then, “You were looking for me?”
“A woman whose grandparents lived next door to Andrew gave us your name. She thought you might be able to help us.”
“Oh.”
“She remembers you fondly.”
“Donna was a cute kid. I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”
The woman knew about Merrill, a good sign. “Probably more than you think. But you called me. What can I do for you?”
“Can we meet?”
Peter looked at his watch. 9:20 a.m. “Where are you calling from, Ms. Olson?”
She paused before answering, “I’m in town.”
Something was off with Jenny’s sudden appearance, and under her even tone, that fraction of a second hesitation said she was skittish.
“Do you know where District Five is? We’ve moved since you lived here.”
Another hesitation. “I don’t want to put you out, but can you come to my hotel?”
Jenny Olson answered Peter’s knock at Quality Inn room 321 dressed in functional navy slacks and a white oxford shirt, her blonde hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. She had a healthy, medium build and was slightly shorter than average.
Peter saw both strength and compassion in a broad face that leaned toward heart-shaped and had few lines for a woman nearing fifty. Jenny Olson appeared to be an attractive, practical woman, free of vanity.
“Detective Dourson? Thank you for coming.” She nodded at a long couch, the only seating in a bare-bones room designed for business travelers. “Can I get you something from the honor bar?”
“A glass of tap water would be fine.” Peter seated himself as she disappeared into the bathroom, raising his voice
so she could hear him. “You’ve been gone a long time. What brought you back?”
Jenny emerged with two glasses of water, handing one to him as she sat at the other end of the couch. “I’m a home hospice nurse. One of my patients reads the National Enquirer.”
“I’m sure that was a shock. Before we get started, can I see some ID?” He didn’t need it. He could see the girl she’d been in the shape of her features, but it never hurt to cross your t’s.
Jenny reached for her purse. “I guess you have no way to know who I am, do you?” She rooted in her purse, producing an Arizona driver license for Jennifer C. Olson, residing in Phoenix.
“You’re a long way from home.”
“Andrew meant a lot to us.”
“Us?”
“My gran and me.”
“You never talked to the police.”
Jenny stared into her glass, her thumb scraping the rim. “I didn’t know anything that would help.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“I was ten when my parents died in a car crash. It was just me and gran and she was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. It upset her enough that Andrew was missing. I couldn’t bring the stress of an investigation into the house. I asked Peggy to make the report and keep me out of it.”
“You’re here now.”
Jenny turned her head to look out the window. There was nothing to see but a blank, blue square of sky.
“You get older, you feel a responsibility to close the gaps if you can. Andrew was good to me. I’ve always felt like I ran out on him, even if I didn’t have a choice.”
The woman needed to tell her story, a sign she felt guilty about something. He could help by easing her into it.
“How did you meet Mr. Heenan?”
“You can call him Andrew. That’s how I remember him.”
“You liked him.”
“I did. Gran’s medical bills were enormous. The money I made working for him allowed me to finish high school. He was always sending stuff home with me. He’d have me buy pounds of peaches when I did his shopping. Then he’d say he couldn’t eat them all and send most of them home with me. Gran loved peaches.”
“How did you come to work for him?”
“He performed at our church festivals. Someone told Gran he needed help. By then Gran was sick. We knew we would be struggling, so I called him. I was young and had no experience, but I guess he liked me.”
“Your gran didn’t worry about you spending so much time with him?”
Jenny turned wide eyes on Peter. “He was sixty-eight. Should she have?”
Her astonished expression suggested the thought had never occurred to her.
“What did you do for Andrew?”
“Housekeeping, laundry, shopping. I stopped by after school three times a week. He didn’t need me that often. I think he enjoyed the company.”
“Tell me about him.”
Jenny smiled at some memory. “He wanted things a certain way, but he was nice about it. He was kind. I don’t think many people understood that about him.”
“Were you aware of any friends or associates?”
“As the English say, he kept himself to himself. He liked to attend events at the museum and the library, but he went alone.”
“He ever perform magic for you, outside of church?”
“Sure. He tried to teach me card tricks, but everything I did turned into fifty-two card pick up. He had a coin he was always pulling out of the air. Did you find it?”
“A coin? What kind of coin?”
“Irish, with a harp on the face.” Jenny’s face softened. “He made puzzle boxes. I still have the one he gave me.”
Time to move into delicate territory.
“The original investigation concluded Andrew met with foul play after he left Cincinnati. Now we believe he never made it to the airport. What do you remember about that time? Anything unusual about the trip, or the way he was acting?”
“Nothing at all. I saw that story on the Channel 7 website. They said Andrew was hiding mob money. That’s impossible. Andrew was a nice man who never hurt a fly.”
Peter wasn’t so sure. “Andrew was wearing his magician costume when he died. Would he be likely to go somewhere in his costume after a performance?”
“He didn’t go out in costume. He said it diluted the effect when he was performing. Something about keeping his different selves separate. He would have come straight home from that party.”
Kidnapped on the way home, or killed soon after he arrived. “You watch the house while he traveled?”
“I brought in the paper and the mail. He never discontinued the paper when he left town. I told him he could pay for another vacation every year if he’d cancel the paper while he was gone, but he’d just smile and tell me not to worry about it.”
“Notice anything out of place while he was away? Say, when you brought in the mail?”
Jenny’s brow crinkled. “We didn’t know anything was wrong, so I wasn’t paying attention. It could have been nothing.”
“What could have been nothing?”
“Just an odd feeling, maybe the stack of mail didn’t look right, or a chair was an inch further from the table than the day before, like that.”
“Only in the kitchen?”
“I can’t say. I could have imagined it.”
“When did you realize Andrew was missing?”
“I stopped by the day after he was due back—there was always laundry from his trips. There was no sign he’d returned. I waited a week. When he didn’t call, I asked Peggy to file the missing person report.”
“What did you think when he didn’t return?”
“I thought what everyone did, that something happened overseas. When they found his car at the airport, we knew that’s what happened.”
“You left Cincinnati not long after that. Isn’t it unusual to disrupt medical care for someone as ill as your grandmother?”
“Gran worried about money, and she was determined to give me an education. When Andrew disappeared, we lost that income and she worried even more. We moved to Texas because instate tuition to the University of Texas was dirt cheap compared to other schools back then. She figured if we were lucky, she’d leave behind enough so I could manage an education if I got a part-time job and saved my pennies.”
“And did you?”
“After she died. I refused to start school while she needed me.”
“And you studied nursing.”
She traced the rim of her glass with a finger. “Being so helpless while I watched Gran die had a big impact on me.”
“It must not have been easy for you to come here on short notice.”
She blinked, hard, then cleared her throat. “All these stories, people making fun of him, and there was no one here who cared about him.”
Peter leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. He held her eyes. “You came here to tell me something. So far nothing you’ve said is worth a cross-country trip.”
Jenny stood and turned to the window, taking a drink as she stared down at the traffic on I-75. “Not much of a view. I had a choice of the highway or the cemetery. This part of Cincinnati, everywhere you go you trip over a cemetery. Andrew didn’t have any family. It would mean a lot to me if I could see to his remains.”
Peter gentled his voice and hoped the rapport they’d built would be enough. “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll give you the number for the coroner’s office so you can get the ball rolling. But that’s not the only reason you came back.”
Peter watched Jenny’s back and waited.
“This may not be anything, you understand.”
“Okay.”
“Andrew wasn’t hiding a million dollars.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
She turned, searching his face. “As soon as the media got hold of the story of a one-legged magician, that crime expert thought Andrew was a mob magician. What if someone heard about his leg back then a
nd thought the same thing?”
“Wasn’t his leg common knowledge? It was in the missing person report.”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t believe anyone knew. I told Peggy for the report. I thought it might be important.”
“It was. That’s how we identified him. How did you know about his leg?”
She leaned against the sill. Her finger returned to the rim of her glass. “It was his socks.”
Not what he expected. “Socks?”
“He always limped a little. He was getting old so I thought nothing of it. But I did his laundry and you know how socks get, they smell a bit and they’re limp. He’d have pairs of dirty socks and one wouldn’t have any smell to it. One afternoon he was napping on the sofa and I touched his leg, through his slacks. It was hard and cold, no give to it like skin would have.”
“When did you figure this out?”
Jenny’s eyes went to the ceiling as she pursed her lips. “It wasn’t snowing anymore. It had to be after February. Not by much, because he disappeared in May.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
“No. He’d kept it private. I didn’t want to upset him.”
“Who did you tell?”
Jenny blushed. “Some friends at school. I had no business doing that and I felt terrible about it later. What if one of my friends said something to someone who’d heard the old stories, and I’m the reason they killed him?”
“That’s a long shot, but we’ll check it out. Who were they?”
“They were my drama club friends.”
“You did drama club on top of school, a job, and a sick grandmother? That’s quite a load.”
Jenny must have seen something in Peter’s face, because she rushed to explain. “Gran insisted. She said it made her feel better to know I was involved in something fun, and she liked seeing the plays. I’ve been racking my brains, but I can’t remember any names.”
“Your drama club have a photo in the yearbook?”
“I’m sure it did.”
“Maybe we can find your friends.”
A Bovine Encounter
Saturday, March 9, 1940
Swamp Monster Page 22