Frieda was a second cousin of Meg Shiller’s mother, Helen Kraus Shiller, and so she was especially affected by Meg’s disappearance. Not that anyone was unaffected. Frieda was a solid-looking woman with short black hair brushed forward like Marlon Brando’s in the movie Julius Caesar. She wore glasses with great oversized lenses that magnified not only her eyes but her eyebrows and upper cheekbones.
As she walked the six blocks from her apartment to the office, Frieda thought how dull the day ahead would be. Since the paper had gone on sale the previous night, there would be little to keep her busy. Stores were still closed and few people were visible, though a couple of cars were parked in front of the Aurelius Grill across the street. As Frieda approached the front door of the Independent she saw a Miller’s beer case wrapped with silver duct tape hanging from the knob. Sometimes a local stringer would leave a late story about a night basketball game or even about a traffic fatality taped to the front door. But this was the first time there had been a box.
The tape was wrapped around the doorknob and Frieda used her Swiss Army knife to cut through it. Then she unlocked the door, went inside, and put the box on her desk. Before investigating its contents, she fed her cats. Then she opened the box. When she lifted the lid, the first thing she saw was a hand, palm upward, with bloody fingernails. She quickly stepped back, knocking over a chair. It took her a moment to realize the hand was false, a rubber Halloween hand to fit over one’s own. This hand, however, had been filled with plaster of Paris and was solid. It rested on a pile of folded clothes.
Frieda called Chuck Hawley at the police station and Franklin at home. Then, as she waited for the police, she took several photographs of the box with the hand, which appeared in the following Thursday’s newspaper. Frieda knew that the police were watching City Hall. It didn’t surprise her that the box had been left at the Independent.
Captain Percy was the first to arrive. He seemed angry, but more likely it was frustration.
“Why’d you open the box?” he asked Frieda.
“How was I to know what it was till I opened it?”
Franklin appeared several minutes later to find his office taken over by the police. Indeed, he had to use the back entrance while the front door was photographed and checked for fingerprints and the area around it searched.
When Franklin entered, he saw Percy take an envelope from the box and put it in his pocket. “What’s that?” he asked.
“None of your business. I don’t want you in here.”
“Are you going to kick me out of my own office?”
“Exactly right,” said Percy, and he did.
Apart from the hand, the box contained the clothes that Meg Shiller had worn on Halloween. They had been washed and folded. At first there was excitement because of the red stains on the white shirt, then it became clear they were paint stains and part of Meg’s costume. Her parents identified the clothes. There was something awful about thinking of Sharon and Meg naked someplace. At least that was how it seemed now that their clothes had been returned.
The police reports that came back from the lab in Ithaca that afternoon revealed that nothing inside or outside the box or around the front door of the Independent gave any sign who had left it there. And no one had seen anything. Roy Hanna had completed his patrols of Main Street about five that morning and said nothing had been attached to the door when he passed at four-thirty. Members of the Friends took it on themselves to ask people living downtown if they had seen anything suspicious. At times they appeared just as the police were leaving. And of course they asked the same questions that the police had asked.
Percy complained to Paul Leimbach about the presence of the Friends, though technically he should have complained to the cochairmen, Sandra Petoski and Rolf Porter.
“We want to make sure that everything that can be done is in fact being done,” said Leimbach, rather aggressively.
Ryan maintained that, even though Percy didn’t like Leimbach and saw him as a nuisance, he was grateful for the volunteers during the searches and had a sense of their power—political power. So he was careful not to offend Leimbach.
“I assure you everything’s being done,” said Percy.
“The girls are still missing,” said Leimbach.
“It doesn’t help to have your people in the way.”
“They want to make sure that nothing is overlooked.”
Percy had pink cheeks—not naturally pink but as if they had been scraped with rough sandpaper. In contrast, his forehead was quite pale.
“And you think something is?” asked Percy.
“Have the girls been found?”
Franklin, who witnessed this exchange, said that Percy’s voice sounded as brittle as dried sticks. He stood very straight, with his arms folded. Public confrontations between people who dislike each other but can’t show it can be very painful.
“What would you do that we’re not doing?” asked Percy.
“I’d search every house in town,” said Leimbach. “Every house in the county.”
“That would be against the law.”
“Aren’t the girls more important?”
—
When they were alone that morning Percy and Chief Schmidt opened the envelope that Percy had taken from the box. They were in Schmidt’s office.
Again there was a list of words made up of letters cut from a newspaper and pasted to a sheet of paper. Certain letters had been crossed out—almost ground away with a dark pencil—so that “SLUT” became “LUT” and “WHORE” became “WHRE.” Fingerprint analysis of the sheet of paper revealed nothing.
The psychologists provided by the FBI made much of the fact that Meg’s clothes had turned up more quickly than Sharon’s had. They also spoke of the difficulties of leaving the clothes at the newspaper and how shrewd the person had been. On the other hand, leaving the clothes was a public statement. The psychologists claimed that, even though the person responsible was trying to protect himself, part of that person wanted to be caught. At some level, the person was horrified by what he was doing. As a result, he would begin to take greater risks and act with greater frequency—not out of bravado but out of a wish to be stopped.
Ryan Tavich was present at these meetings.
“What you will see,” said a psychologist from the city, “will be increased brutality and daring on the part of the criminal, which one could almost interpret as a cry for help.” He was a small black-bearded man in a tweed jacket. Ryan said that he looked like a sleek rodent.
“You mean there’ll be more disappearances?” asked Schmidt.
“Most certainly,” said the psychologist. “At least there will be attempts. All this is consistent with classic acceleration patterns.”
Ryan objected to these professionals, feeling they were taking advantage of our troubles to charge a fat fee. “All I know,” he said later, “is we got a town packed with assholes.”
Another incident should be mentioned at this point. Madame Respighi, the psychic investigator, was still at the Aurelius Motel, engaged in her arcane inquiries. Two days after the box of clothes was found at the office of the Independent, she was given the white shirt with red paint stains to investigate or sniff or think about, however she did her work. The police were not in favor of this, but Meg’s parents asked that it be done and the Friends of Sharon Malloy asked as well. In fact, they insisted. Although Captain Percy thought it was absurd to give the shirt to a psychic, he felt he couldn’t refuse.
Madame Respighi received the shirt and retired to the privacy of her room while members of the Friends waited outside. Donald Malloy was there and perhaps six others, including Sandra Petoski. Sandra was one of those people who need to be involved with everything and talk about it endlessly. One wonders how much her classes suffered during this period.
After ten minutes Madame Respighi summoned the group
. As I have said, she was a rather conventional-looking woman who favored gray suits and horn-rimmed glasses. Indeed, gray suits were her trademark. Though she lived in northern California, she was originally from Brooklyn and had a faint Brooklyn accent.
“Several images have manifested themselves,” she told them. She sat on a chair by the table and the others stood. It was a motel room like any other, a mixture of the cozy and the impersonal. She held the white shirt with the red paint stains in her hands—her fists really. “I see a basement with a dirt floor,” she said.
I won’t lead you through this, which was quite protracted. Of course the Friends hung on her every word. She described a house in need of paint, a white house perhaps a hundred and fifty years old. She described a front porch. A long, narrow three-story house with a one-car garage in back. She described a bow window and black shutters. She described maple trees in the front. She described a man living alone. The house could have been one of many in Aurelius, but the more she described it, the more particular it became.
“Can you give us the name of a street?” asked Donald Malloy.
“A famous explorer,” said Madame Respighi. “A ship.”
“Hudson Street,” said Sandra Petoski.
I should say that we also have streets named after De Soto, Cook, and Francis Drake.
More questions were asked, a street map was produced, and it was decided that Madame Respighi was talking about Irving Powell, who lived on Hudson Street and who had been the one to discover Chihani’s body. By this time it was late Saturday morning.
“Do you see a dog?” asked Sandra Petoski, thinking of Powell’s chocolate Lab, Sidney.
“No, I don’t see a dog,” said Madame Respighi.
Donald Malloy wanted to go directly to Powell’s house. But Sandra decided it would be better to call the police. She called and spoke to Ryan Tavich.
After she explained to Ryan what Madame Respighi had said, Ryan told her, “We can’t search Powell’s house without a search warrant and we can’t get a warrant on the word of some crazy psychic. Come on, Sandra, use your head.”
Ryan was later criticized for his lack of tact. “From now on,” Captain Percy told him, “I talk to these people.”
Sandra told Malloy and the others how Ryan had responded.
“Then we’ll go over there ourselves,” said Donald.
Irving Powell had worked in the city clerk’s office for thirty years, and the elected clerk, Martha Schroeder, claimed that he ran the place. A widower with grown children, he lived by himself with his dog. He was a mild-mannered fellow in late middle age. He belonged to the Readers’ Club at the library, a garden group, and also a chess club. As far as I know, he wasn’t gay, which was a blessing.
Around noon Malloy, Sandra Petoski, and several others went to Powell’s house and explained their business. Powell kept them out on the porch. In any case, the dog was barking inside. It took him about ten minutes to realize what they were talking about. He was a bony man with a slight stoop who favored cardigan sweaters and always leaned forward to listen.
He said, “You certainly may not search my house.”
Malloy and the others retreated to the sidewalk. If Powell was guilty, they felt he might destroy the evidence. Sandra said they needed more people, and Tom Simpson drove to the Friends’ office for help. By twelve-thirty, fifty volunteers were milling around the house. When Powell looked out the window, he called the police, claiming that his house was under attack. Four police cars arrived within a few minutes and Captain Percy arrived shortly after that. He was not happy to see the Friends.
“Why didn’t you call us?” asked Percy.
“We did,” said Donald. “We talked to Ryan Tavich. He wasn’t interested.”
By now quite a crowd had gathered. Irving Powell stood on his front porch holding Sidney by the collar. It was unclear who was protecting whom. Franklin had arrived and was interviewing Sandra Petoski. “We felt we had no choice but to act,” she kept saying. Someone shouted at Powell, calling him “pervert.” At first this seemed a joke, but such was the tension in the crowd that it only took a moment to realize how serious people were. There was the hope that something would be found and Powell would be arrested, just to bring matters to a close. Consequently, a certain amount of gossip was circulated. Some suggested that Chihani had been alive when Powell found him and that Powell had finished him off. Many people were willing to think ill of Powell even though he had led, as far as I know, a blameless existence. But the fact that Powell seemed blameless meant nothing. Who knew what he did in the dark of the night when he was by himself?
Captain Percy went up on the porch to talk to Powell. “The best thing,” he said, “would be to invite two or three of them into your house and I’ll come along with Chief Schmidt. Or you can just call your lawyer.”
“But this is absurd,” said Powell.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” said Percy.
“If I let them in, will the rest get out of my yard?”
“If they’re satisfied.”
“I hate this,” said Powell.
Captain Percy tried to look patient but he only grimaced. Chuck Hawley said that Powell was on the verge of hysterics, though I don’t know if that was true. Think of living your whole life in a town, being a respected member of the community, and suddenly you are suspected of perversion, of murder, and over a hundred people surround your house. Even in his worst nightmares, Powell could never have anticipated this.
“Come in by all means.”
Donald Malloy, Sandra Petoski, and Dave Bauer of the YMCA represented the Friends. Percy, Chief Schmidt, and Chuck Hawley represented the police. Powell led them through his house.
“Dave Bauer crawled into the backs of closets,” said Chuck. “The basement didn’t have a dirt floor. It was solid concrete.”
After a lifetime in the same house, Powell had acquired a lot of belongings. And he had his dead wife’s things. And his three grown-up children had things in the house. Shortly a TV truck pulled up outside. The fact that Madame Respighi had seemingly pointed a finger at Irving Powell was significant news.
The police and the Friends spent an hour in the house. Nothing was found.
“Of course, something could still be hidden,” said Malloy.
“Get your laboratory people,” said Powell almost in a panic. “Spend as much time as you want. You’re welcome to do whatever.”
“I don’t think we need a lab crew,” said Sandra Petoski.
“Then how’ll we be sure?” asked Malloy. They were on the front porch. There were TV cameras and freelance photographers.
“Please,” said Powell, “if it means a lab crew, call them.”
So Captain Percy called the lab crew. But why draw this out? Nothing was found. But once Powell was suspected it was hard to get him unsuspected. Several of the Friends, including Donald Malloy, suggested that the lab crew could have looked harder. And that Saturday evening someone threw a rock through Irving Powell’s front window. As a result, a policeman was stationed outside his house twenty-four hours a day for the next five days. Powell himself volunteered to help the Friends in any way he could. He had been frightened and it was pathetic to see him.
Madame Respighi never apologized, but then again, it wasn’t necessarily his house she saw in her “images.” I blamed the whole thing on Suspicion with a capital S. It was like a revolving searchlight. Sometimes it illuminated one person, sometimes another. For a short time Irving Powell lived in a state close to terror. Then attention turned elsewhere.
—
Among the people gathered outside Powell’s house were Barry Sanders and Jaime Rose. They had been walking past. Make Waves closed at noon on Saturdays. Barry was on his way to the college from his mother’s house and Jaime was accompanying him more out of idleness than anything else. It was a mild fall
day and many people were getting their yards ready for winter. Barry, as was usual during the day, wore a hat—a golfing cap, actually—and dark glasses. Jaime was fond of leather and wore leather pants and a black leather jacket over a sweatshirt. Both looked rather out of place in Aurelius.
I had mentioned to Franklin my talk with Jaime some days before. And I may have exaggerated a little to make my story more interesting. Franklin decided that he wanted to speak with Jaime himself. So he strolled over through the crowd. He and Jaime knew each other, though not well.
“Oooh,” said Jaime, “a newshound.”
After they had traded greetings, Franklin said, “I’d like to hear more of your thoughts about people in Aurelius.”
“I have to get over to school,” said Barry, and he walked away rather quickly. Perhaps this was from shyness, but anyone watching might have suspected something else. And that was the trouble, people watching: there were over a hundred people who might have noticed the three of them together.
“I have many thoughts,” said Jaime.
“Someone told me you weren’t surprised about what had been happening here,” said Franklin, misquoting me a little.
“The rascal,” said Jaime. Campy behavior was a total act with Jaime, who mostly behaved like anyone else. Of course, he was aware of having an audience. “I hate how people talk,” he added.
The Church of Dead Girls Page 31