by Tony Masero
“A whirlwind romance then?”
She looked down and snorted cynically into her glass.
“No, Paul. You could never say that about me. At least not then.” She looked up at him and he caught that strange flash of coldness again. “You´d better know this about me,” she said with a sudden trace of bitterness. “I have a history. Not a very nice one. It´s better you know it now rather than find out later.”
Stoeffel held up a hand to stop her, he shook his head.
“No, Jenny, no. There´s no need. We start now. Right here. Yesterday´s gone. And besides, hell, we all have history.”
Jenny inclined her head thankfully but secretly Stoeffel was glad she had confessed to him that she had a troubled past, as that look in her eye had troubled him.
“There is one thing that I really ought to tell you though....” Jenny stopped abruptly in mid-sentence as she searched for the right words; there was a brightness about her eyes now. Her fingers twisted the paper napkin between her fingers and the tip of her tongue licked nervously at her lips. The moment was broken though as Iris arrived with two steaming plates of pallid pasta.
It left Stoeffel wondering all over again.
Chapter Twelve
It was late when Stoeffel called in at the station after dropping Jenny off at her house. Overall it had been a pleasant enough dinner date despite the underlying concern caused by Jenny´s obscure confessions. The evening had not really picked up after that broken moment. He wanted to see her again and had told her so. She had said nothing in reply but only planted a chaste kiss on his cheek and thanked him for the evening. It left Stoeffel none the wiser as to where he stood with her.
George rose from behind the front desk as Stoeffel pushed open the glass panel door.
“Hey, Chief,” he said, rubbing his button nose and surreptitiously shoving the football magazine he had been reading under a pile of files.
“Everything okay?” asked Stoeffel.
“Yep, not much going on. Leroy is out checking on a suspect prowler. It’s that Mrs. McGaddy though.”
Stoeffel chuckled. The aging Mrs. McGaddy saw rapists in her bedroom on a regular basis. Wishful thinking was the collective opinion of the male section of the Lodrun police force.
“Say, Chief. Do you mind if I get going a mite early? I don´t want to miss Iris when she finishes her shift.”
“Sure,” obliged Stoeffel. “I´ll hold the fort until Leroy gets back.”
“Thanks, Chief. Oh, yeah. There´s a bunch of faxes come in for Legrand. I put them in his in-tray.”
“Okay, George. Go on, get your horny butt out of here.”
George gave Stoeffel a sly embarrassed look, wondering how the Chief could guess at his objective so easily. “Obliged, Chief.”
After he was gone, Stoeffel sat down in George´s place and looked vacantly at the empty operating system software on the computer screen before him. It was Ayleen´s province normally and although Stoeffel had taken the State police course in IT technology he preferred to leave the fiddling to Ayleen. He sat there a long while, in the silence of the station. Feeling the strangeness of being in a vacuum of quiet in station rooms that were normally alive with chatter during the day.
He was about to look in on Brian Links in the holding cell when the radio crackled.
“Hey, George. You there, buddy. You should see that Lucille down here on Arbor Street. Man, she´s at her window again, doing that thing. Brother, it´s soooo hot.”
“Yeah, I hear you, Leroy,” said Stoeffel flatly, depressing the mike button. “Are you checking out peeping toms over there or just getting an eyeful yourself?”
“Oh! Chief...” There was a long silence.
“I can´t hear you, Leroy. Come on back.”
“Sorry Chief. I thought George was on.”
“Well, he´s not here. It´s just me. What happened with Mrs. McGaddy?”
“I´m on my way there now, Chief.”
“Get to it, son. Protect and serve, remember. Leave that Lucille on Arbor Street ´til you´re off duty, okay?”
“Right, Chief,” Leroy fumbled. “I´ll get on over to the McGaddy place. Out.”
“You do that and out is right.” Stoeffel snapped, cutting off the respond button.
His hand moved without pause to the computer mouse. He called up the West Virginia State Police convictions list database and typed in Jenny´s name. He came up with a blank. He then linked to the Ontario R.M.P. database and hit zero again.
By dint of searching marriage and driving licenses, Stoeffel discovered that Jenny´s maiden name had been Wiltshire. The same search with the Wiltshire name called up a different story. The city police in Windsor, Ontario listed convictions that made Stoeffel sit back in awed surprise.
There were three closed juvenile files he was unable to access but after Jenny had reached maturity the list lengthened. Five convictions for petty theft, followed by drug possession fines and charges on seventeen counts of prostitution. Stoeffel blew air. What kind of woman was he dating?
He noted the dates of the juvenile offenses and did a newspaper search. In a small town newspaper called the Oldmint Gazette he found the answer. The young Jennifer Wiltshire had been indicted for the manslaughter of a school contemporary, one Gale Masterson, aged thirteen. Jenny was only twelve years old at the time. Stoeffel continued the follow-up story with a grim face. (Tony: I’m not certain about Canadian provincial laws, but here in the States the name of any juvenile offender would not have been made public, so it would not have appeared in the newspapers, or on the television news. In fact, if any news outlet had revealed the name it would have been breaking the law and the outlet, editors, publisher, and reporter would have been subject to arrest and prosecution. You may have to make a major change here, and have Stoeffel discover her background some other way).
Psychiatric evidence had discovered that Jenny had suffered a series of sexual abuses by her step- father when she was younger and the shrinks had placed the cause of the manslaughter at this door, citing a spontaneous and incredibly violent rage brought on by the Masterson girl´s teasing about Jenny´s stepfather. Reading between the journalistic lines, Stoeffel thought the Masterson girl sounded a pretty nasty piece of work who was known to have run a gang of girls at the school that were into all kinds of trouble. Though all of it did not alter the one fact that made Stoeffel crumple inside.
The Masterson girl had been cut across the throat with a kitchen knife and subsequently bled to death before help arrived. Jenny was institutionalized under young offender legislation and received psychiatric help for some five years. The dates tied in. Within a year of her release the petty larceny offenses started. Stoeffel pieced it together in his mind. Out of institutional care, teenage Jenny Wiltshire, lost and probably full of guilt, had wandered into the city and without emotional or financial support had resorted to theft to survive. The inevitable had followed. The slide into drug abuse and then eventually prostitution to support the habit. Then presumably, while still on the call girl circuit, she had met Aaron Lowell and things had changed. He must have been a good man, Stoeffel felt, taking on a drug using hooker and giving her the kind of stability she had never had before.
He knew from experience that such lost souls, like stray dogs, would feel a never-ending duty of obligation to such a caring person. So they had married and moved to Lodrun, Jenny had borne Aaron two children and settled into a new life. Until Aaron had met his accidental end. Then the kids had left for college and now Jenny was suddenly alone again. Stoeffel wondered if in her loneliness the old demons had risen unbidden once again from the dark depths of Jenny Lowell´s psyche.
Whatever it was, it certainly explained the steel in her heart.
Chapter Thirteen
George missed Iris by ten minutes.
Cursing, he swung his car around and headed back up Main Street towards her apartment. He was surprised to see the Rose Moving and Storage warehouse all lit up at this late hour. He d
rove on past and then slowed, remembering Legrand´s faxes that had arrived earlier. The memory percolating dimly through his slow brain. Prison sheets. Grand theft auto. Robbery. He recalled the list vaguely but knew it related to Bubba Roses´ staff.
He took a side road and cruised around back of the warehouse, pulling up opposite the open loading bay doors. Light streamed through them into the darkened vehicle parking lot but there was no sign of any activity. Curious, George (reminds me of Curious George the monkey in kids’ lit, LOL) climbed from his car and moved into the shadows of the lot. He strolled directly between the parked moving vans without a second thought, straight towards the light of the bay door. He was after all an officer of the law; there was little he had to fear.
Inside, all was silence and George felt the coldness of the cement floor rising through his boots. He moved further inside.
“Anyone here?” he called. But his voice echoed emptily in the vast area. George thought it strange the place was wide open and yet there was no sign of life. A few wooden crates lay stacked by the rest room door, their lids loose and packing nodules of polystyrene lying like snowy beans on the floor around about.
Idly, George moved over. Kicking polystyrene aside he lifted the lid of one of the crates and looked inside.
The black button eyes of a flock of fluffy sheep stared straight back at him.
“Holy shit!” he mumbled.
Then he heard the scrape of boot leather on the cement behind him. He turned. There was a sudden flash of silver that appeared like a rippling stream of mercury under the strip lighting above. George gagged as the blade sunk deep in his throat, lodged below his Adam´s apple and just above the clavicular notch. His hands went to his neck and he stared in shock at the dark figure facing him, his adversary only a black silhouette under the harsh light.
A hand was placed heavily on his chest, forcing him back as the knife was pulled out with an unpleasant sucking sound. Open mouthed, George struggled for air but only a hissing splatter of thick blood filled his mouth. He gurgled, strangely hearing the sound objectively, as if it were someone else making it.
George sunk to his knees, his lungs struggling for air. A boot thumped into his chest and callously he was pushed over to lie writhing on the floor as a pool of blood expanded around him. Life passed from George in a trembling rush of synaptic sparks starved of oxygen. Inexplicably, the one thought that filled his last moment was of Stoeffel. The Chief would be really mad he had not called this in.
Chapter Fourteen
At that moment, Summersby lay in his room, the bed sheets tangled beneath him. He could not sleep. He knew he was near his goal. It had been so long. The trail leading him here and there across the country for such a long time. But this was the source. For the first time in all the years of looking he felt certain of it. In the darkness he watched the glow of a passing car headlight arc across the ceiling. Saw the fall of light flicker through the half open blinds in a cascade of rushing bars. He remembered Bo. His brother, Bo Summersby. And tears filled his eyes. With a sudden rush of rage, Summersby leapt from the bed and threw on his trousers. He went barefoot into Stoeffel´s living room and headed for the bar. Spinning the top from a bottle of rye, he poured himself a large shot.
The front door opened as Stoeffel came in.
“Drinking in the dark, buddy. What’s wrong?”
Summersby downed the glass in a single mouthful.
“Bad dreams, Chief. Just bad dreams.” He slumped down heavily into the settee.
Stoeffel was not in the mood for more confessions. He was tired and Leroy had taken his time get- ting back from Mrs. McGaddy. She had offered him hot tea and cakes, so Leroy had said by way of excuse. But Stoeffel guessed it was a delay made more from spite at being caught out at his nocturnal meanderings than anything else.
“Any more on the Links thing?” Summersby asked.
“Not directly but there is another possible suspect. A woman with the right kind of record.” Stoeffel was not sure he should go into this but in a way Summersby was the perfect listener. He was a stranger and only here for the duration. He knew no one here and soon he would move on again. Summersby looked up from his glass, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.
“So. Who is it?”
Stoeffel strode across the room and snapped on a side lamp, then picking up the bottle poured himself a shot.
“I was with her tonight.”
Summersby waited, sensing Stoeffel´s discomfort.
“It was my dinner date. Jenny Lowell. Something came up in conversation and I ran a check on her.”
“Wow!” Summersby snorted. “You ran a check on her. Remind me not to go out on a dinner date with you.”
Stoeffel took a swallow, ignoring the snipe.
“So what was the brief?” Summersby pressed.
“A young girl killed. Throat cut. Manslaughter was the ticket.”
“She killed a kid with a knife?” Summersby asked slowly.
“Uhuh. It was juvenile offense. She was seventeen at the time.”
Summersby twisted a disgusted lip. “And you think she´s a repeat offender now, come on Chief. Get real, what is she, forty, fifty years old. I don´t think so.”
“No, neither do I,” Stoeffel shook his head tiredly, the bitterness rising in him. “It´s just the job. You have to look.”
He fingered the rim of his glass, sliding the forefinger in circles.
“I know how it seems to outsiders. I understand. Like you are some kind of ogre poking around in dark places just looking for trouble. But this is a woman convicted of a killing, she has a record for all kinds of other stuff one of which just happens to be drug misuse.”
Summersby could see the Chief was hurting inside. Whether from disappointment or shame, he could not tell.
“Don´t let it eat you up, Paul. Okay, the lady has a past. That doesn´t mean she´s going out on a side road with a long knife to cut up little black girls.”
“Shit! Do you think I don´t know that? I even like the woman. It always gets to be this way, where I´m torn between the job and my life. Maybe you don´t see it from where you are, the continual watching. Never knowing where any relationship will lead. Anybody could be a wrong `un. That guy who offers you a drink in a bar. What´s he after, is it a favor or just a kind gesture? It gets so you where you lose sight of humanity and that’s the first step to becoming inhuman.”
Summersby got up and refilled both their glasses.
“Wait a while, Paul. Sit on it and see where it leads. It’s pretty doubtful that it’s connected with what we have here.”
Stoeffel nodded, wishing it was Leonora he was talking to and not this young man, but then, there was no way he could have talked about this to Leonora anyway.
“Just gets to me now and then.”
“Get some sleep, buddy. You´re tired out.”
Stoeffel drew himself up slowly. “Yeah. I think I will hit the sack. Good night, and keep this to yourself for the time being, will you?”
“Sure.” Summersby watched Stoeffel move slowly to his room and suddenly realized that for a moment there he had forgotten all about his brother Bo.
Stoeffel lay on his bed still fully clothed. His mind was still running over the evening and although he felt physically tired his mind was racing and awake as it ever could be. Admissions poured into his brain.
From the moment he felt pity for the little dead black girl to his sense of caring for Jenny. Something was happening inside him that he did not quite understand. It unsettled him. He tried to clear the thoughts and shut down the intrusive waves of emotion. But it did not work. Jenny was there with all her past behind her like a shadow. He realized though it was not what she had been but what she was now that counted. And so far he had seen nothing that set her apart as anything other than a hardworking mother and an upright woman.
The dead came to visit him then, in the darkness of the unlit room. Units of them. Dog-dirty soldiers in camouflage green and dusty dwa
rfs in black flitted in and out of the shadows. The men he had served with and the ones he had killed. They hung there accusingly in the shadows and seemed to be asking him just who the hell did he think he was to be judging anyone anyway. The blood on his hand was just as red as that on Jenny´s. But was it as red as that on little Epsie? Where did you draw the line? It came to him that some things in this life were just not right and that they demanded protective retribution and yet there were others that could be forgiven. The problem was eternal and there was no statutory law that could fulfill this equation, it took something more human than that. He guessed you could call it just plain common sense.
Stoeffel got up and changed into his uniform. He left the house quietly and got into his car. It took him half an hour to reach the Jobin place. There was no moon tonight and the house was in darkness. Stoeffel had planned to just drop off the groceries on the porch and leave. But as he mounted the wooden steps, holding the armful of boxes, a voice creaked from the shadows.
“Why, Chief Stoofel. What on earth are you doin´ out here at this time of night?”
Mother Jobin was standing there like a statue in the darkness, hands crossed on a crooked hardwood walking stick.
Stoeffel froze on the top step, then relaxed when he recognized the old woman.
“I could ask you the same thing, ma’am.”
“Ah, well,” she said. “At my advanced years you don´ need so much sleep. When it ain´t too cold I come out here and listen to the night. Watch the stars. It´s peace-afying.”
Stoeffel set down the cartons.
“I had these here supplies for you in my trunk all day, reckoned I should leave them here tonight before I forget them again tomorrow.”
“You lead a busy life, Chief Stoofel.”
Damn it, thought Stoeffel, will she never get my name right.
“Like most city folk,” the old lady went on critically. “Too busy to set and think a while.”