Past Due

by Richard Stockford

  When Clipper got to Ed Bass’ office, the councilman and Colin Murch were already deep in discussion over a large scale plat map of the section of town that included Cleo’s Diner. Bass summed up their progress. “Amy Young has agreed to close the diner for the day, for a small remuneration,” he chuckled, “and we’ve got a whole slew of antique cars and drivers from the Downeast Antique Car Association. The Maine Theater group is furnishing period clothes for the main characters, and Andrew’s Reprographics is making a bunch of big posters out of the old pictures.”

  Clipper said, “Colin and I wondered about a speaking program. Maybe the Mayor and the Chief, sort of setting the stage, with you as M.C.”

  Bass nodded. “I’ve already started outlining some speaking parts.”

  It was five o’clock by the time they finished, and Murch invited Clipper and Bass to join him at a nearby tavern for a bite to eat. Bass begged off, his wife expecting him for dinner, so Clipper and Murch walked across the street and grabbed a table. With draft beers in front of them and hamburgers ordered from a tired-looking waitress, the two men relaxed.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to fill me in on the shooting,” said Murch hopefully.

  Clipper laughed. “You know better than that,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah, just joking, but, when you stop and think about it, it was just like a miniature version of the Edgewink massacre... er, shootout. The main difference is that you kept the body count down and recovered the loot this time.”

  Clipper considered. “You really think the Edgewink gang loot is hidden around here somewhere, don’t you?” he asked.

  Murch got serious. “I’m positive it is,” he said, “and I’m going to be the one to find it.” He suddenly grinned. “Then I’ll have a Pulitzer and I’ll be rich! And, speaking of Pulitzer, have you figured out the murders yet? I still can’t believe Owens was killed with a trench knife.”

  Clipper thought. “Here’s something you can write,” he said, voice lowered. “But you didn’t get it from me. Owens and his partner were probably killed with the same knife, at least the same type of knife. We still don’t want it out there that it was a trench knife, though.”

  Murch looked up. “Same killer?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” Maybe more than one.” Clipper shrugged. “Maybe aliens, for all I know right now.”

  Murch laughed. “Hey,” he asked, changing the subject. “Can we get blanks for the reenactment shootout?” They discussed ways to stage a realistic replay of the shootout over several rounds of beer, and by the time Clipper left, two hours later, he had enough of a buzz to feel guilty about driving.”

  When he got home, Clipper grabbed a Sam Adams Summer Ale out of the refrigerator and settled in the den to inspect his new Kimber. Seated in his recliner under a high intensity reading lamp, he worked a little light oil into the stiff action, racking the slide a hundred times, and then disassembled the weapon feeling for burrs and looking for wear marks on the aluminum frame-rails. He reassembled it and tested its fit in his favorite Bianchi clip-on holster, and then tested a half dozen magazines for clean ejection. Finally satisfied that the weapon was functional, he loaded it and set it aside, leaning back and closing his eyes as his thoughts drifted back to the homicides.

  Clipper woke abruptly with the taste of stale beer in his mouth and the absolute certainty that he was not alone in the room. He sat in a concise pool of light in an otherwise dark house that felt like witching-hour in a storybook and, blinking his vision clear, he could see the dim figure of a woman standing in the shadows just inside the door to the deck. His skin prickled, his thoughts spinning, seeking traction as sleep loosened its hold. “Ann… no, what day… she’s gone home… who…” Clipper’s hand was sliding to the Kimber in his lap when Janice Owens stepped out of the shadows.

  Chapter 2.13

  Janice Owens raised her hands as Clipper’s Kimber came to bear, eyes large in a pale face, a deer in the headlight look. “Please,” she said, her voice catching, “I just want to talk.”

  Clipper lowered his gun slightly. “Step forward and let me see your hands,” he commanded, gesturing with his left hand.

  Janice walked hesitantly to the center of the room, but then straightened and seemed to find her strength. “I need to talk to you,” she said determinedly.

  Clipper pointed to a chair. “You’ve got a lawyer. He needs to be here, if we’re going to talk,” he said carefully.

  “No! I don’t care about that. Please, just listen.”

  Clipper thought for a moment. He desperately needed information. “Ok. Sit down and talk to me.”

  Janice sighed and sank to the chair. “I didn’t… Bill was in some sort of trouble,” she said, the words tumbling out. “There was a secret in his family about some old stolen jewels, and someone found out about it. Supposedly the jewels are hidden somewhere in Bangor, and this person, a man, forced Bill to agree to a…a partnership, and they argued, the man thought Bill had found the jewels, and…”

  Clipper felt a chill on his arms. “Jewels?” he interrupted. “Are you talking about the Edgewink gang jewels?”

  Janice nodded. “Yes. Bill told me his grandfather was a part of that gang, and he either hid the jewels, or lost them, or…or something… anyway, the family’s been secretly trying to find them for years. Apparently the secret has been passed from generation to generation in Bill’s family, and had something to do with the State Hospital. Bill had a bunch of old pictures and newspaper reports about it, but he said they were lost, stolen from his son Albert when he was in college. I didn’t know anything about it until Albert died and Bill started acting really strange. I kept asking him what was wrong and he finally told me the story. He was obsessed, kept saying it all ended with him.” Janice slumped in the chair.

  “Where are the jewels now?” Clipper asked.

  Janice shook her head mutely. “I don’t know. Bill didn’t have them, but I think the man killed him because he thought he did.”

  “Did you ever see the jewels?

  “No. Bill said his grandfather left a diary and wrote about a canvass satchel full of jewels and money, but nobody’s ever found it.”

  “How was Rupert Jones involved?”

  “The man was blackmailing Bill, something about Bill’s grandfather killing someone, and Bill asked Rupe for help. I think they planned… I heard Bill and Rupe talking, something about not needing another partner, like they were trying to figure out how to get rid of the man and find the jewels themselves and then, a couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call from someone who said he would hurt Bill if I didn’t get him to cooperate. It was a man, but I didn’t recognize the voice.”

  “Did you tell Bill?

  “Yes, he was furious. He said the guy was trying to steal what was rightfully his. He must be the one that killed them. Nothing else makes any sense.”

  Clipper thought for a moment. “Who were you with in your house the other night? Why were you there?”

  “I went there alone. I was… I was looking for the jewels, to make sure Bill hadn’t found them and hid them somewhere in the house, but there was someone else in the house, a man. He grabbed me, and I ran. He chased me, but I got out the back door and hid. I don’t know who it was.”

  Clipper got out of his chair and paced. “What did he look like?”

  “Maybe a little taller than me and, I think not old, he moved pretty fast, but it was dark and he was mostly behind me. I’m sorry.”

  “Where have you been staying?” Clipper asked, changing tack in an unconscious interrogation habit.

  “With friends,” she said, getting to her feet. “I don’t want them involved.”

  Clipper thought. “Have you ever seen a knife with a triangular shaped blade, ‘bout this long?” he asked, holding his hands a foot apart.

  Janice paled, shaking her head mutely.

  Clipper sighed. “Alright,” he said, nodding. “Look, let’s call your attorney. I want you to tell him all of thi
s, and have him bring you in to make a statement. We need…”

  Janice shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to anyone else,” she said, edging towards the door. “I… I just wanted you to know.”

  With that, Janice turned and ran through the door and across the deck. Clipper jumped to the door, but the moonless night had swallowed the woman in her flight.

  Clipper paced while the phone rang in his ear.

  “Um, lo?”

  “John, its Clip. Wake up.” John Peters was not one to waken willingly.

  “Jesus,” he mumbled, “do you know what time it is, man?”

  “Clipper grinned into the phone. “Yeah, its summertime, and you shouldn’t be hibernating.”

  “Ok, ok, what?” unamused.

  Clipper gave Peters a summary of Janice’s visit, stressing the need to re-search the house and office for any kind of bag or satchel.

  When they hung up, Clipper noticed the time on his cell phone, 2:40 am, and grinned as he turned out the light and went up to his own bed.

  The next morning, Clipper called Caleb Mather and told him about his late night talk with Janice, mentioning only that she was apparently safe and that she had given him information which might turn into further leads in the homicides.

  “Dammit, Clip,” fumed Mather, “you know better than that…”

  “Hey,” Clipper interjected, “I tried, but she didn’t want you here and, anyway, she didn’t incriminate herself. I told her to tell you what she told me, but she said she didn’t want to talk to anyone else.” Although Clipper had urged Janice to tell her story to the attorney, upon further reflection, he was just as happy to have some time to check it out before it went public.

  After finishing with Mather, Clipper called the Bangor News and asked for Colin Murch. When he was told the Murch was out, he hung up and got the reporter on his cell phone.

  “Hey, Colin. I need to pick your brain a little more on the Edgewink gang. Can we get together today?”

  “I’m working this morning, but I can get away after lunch.”

  They agreed to meet at Cleo’s, and Clipper hung up with a feeling that something was about to break. He clipped the Kimber to his hip, grabbed the case book to return and headed to the station for some range time.”

  Clipper took a sip of lemonade and pointed a catchup-tipped French fry at Murch. They were at Cleo’s, at the same corner table Clipper and Peters had occupied on Sunday. “I need you to forget you’re a reporter for a while,” he said flatly. “I need your help, and I think you’ll get the story of a lifetime in the end, but it has to be off the record for now. Can you do that?”

  Murch took a long time to answer. “I can keep it confidential,” he said finally, “as long as no one else gets it. I’m going to write whatever you tell me, and at the first hint that someone else is about to go with it, I pull the trigger.”

  Clipper stood up and threw a twenty dollar bill on the table. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  Leading Murch to his truck, Clipper drove to hospital hill and onto the State Hospital grounds, parking under some maple trees at the back of a side lot.

  “This sounds crazy,” he said, “but it looks like my homicides are linked to the Edgewink gang and the missing jewels.”

  Murch did a double take. “I don’t understand. How…?”

  “What would you say if I told you that a descendant of Lester Edgewink still lives, well lived, in Bangor?”

  “No, can’t be. Lester never had any kids. His brother was the only family he had, they were orphans, and no one ever found the brother after Lester died.”

  “Janice Owens told me her husband’s Grandfather was part of that gang, and the family had a secret that had something to do with the jewels and the hospital.”

  Murch sat up suddenly, eyes wide. “My god!” he breathed. “Owens! I didn’t see it. He stared at Clipper. Lester Edgewink’s brother was named Abel, and there was a staff member at the hospital named Abel when Lester was here. Abel Owens! I knew about Abel, he searched for the jewels for years after Lester died. I figured he was Lester’s brother, but I never connected the name with your Owens.”

  Clipper’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he reached for it with the uneasy feeling that he was missing something.

  “Clip,” John Peter’s voice was somber, “we found Peeps.”

  “Great! Tell me he saw something.”

  “Well, if he did, he took it with him. Looks like he’s been dead for a couple of days.”

  Chapter 2.14

  Death was no kinder to Peeps Pelky than life had been. His gangly body was lying face up in a ditch on outer Hammond Street, green tinged and starting to bloat in the summer heat, eyes bulged open even more than usual. His arms were pulled up over his head, the wrists taped together with gray duct tape, and one filthy sneaker lay a couple feet from its sockless foot. A scrawny kid stood off the road behind the police cruisers distractedly toeing a battered skateboard, and blinking nervously in time with the cruiser’s blue strobes.

  Clipper pulled in ahead of the last cruiser and walked back to where Peters and Ed Angelo stood upwind of the ditch.

  “How?” said Clipper, looking down at Peeps.

  Peters grimaced. “Hard to tell, but it looks like there’s blood on his chest. We’re waiting for the ID guys before we get in there. They’re tied at a couple of burglaries downtown. Should be here in a half hour or so.”

  “Witnesses?”

  Peters nodded at the kid with the skateboard. “He spotted the body. Didn’t see anything.”

  As it turned out, the investigation would show that Peeps Pelky had been in the ditch for some time, and had died of a single stab wound to the chest, a wound the autopsy would later prove to be triangular in nature.

  Forcing himself to remember that he was on suspension, Clipper sat quietly while John Peters conducted the briefing.

  Referring to a large whiteboard, Peters summarized. “Ok. We have Bill Owens stabbed on Tuesday night with Peeps a possible witness and Janice Owens on the scene. Sometime Friday night, Rupert Jones is killed, apparently with the same weapon, and Saturday night two people break into the Owens house. Peeps vanishes until today when he turns up dead with what looks to be the same kind of stab wound to the chest. We had Janice Owens in last Thursday and she cops a lawyer and then disappears until she shows up at Clip’s Wednesday night with a fairytale about the Edgewink gang, hidden jewels and a mysterious stranger.

  It was 8:00 o’clock Friday morning and all of the investigators except Dave Adams, who was at the State Crime Lab for Peeps Pelkey’s autopsy were gathered in the conference room.

  “We’ve got no other witnesses,” Peters continued, “and damn little physical evidence beyond the wounds themselves. There’s no trace evidence, no fingerprints, no tool marks, and nobody’s talking on the street. From all we can tell, J. & O. Associates is a legitimate and prosperous business, and there are no irregularities in either victim’s personal finances. The one difference between the killings of Owens and Jones is that, when Jones was killed, the building was searched, and in Owens’ case, nothing was disturbed.”

  “Although,” interjected Clipper, the Owens house was re-visited, and searched at least once, by Janice Owens or someone else, after Jones was killed. If we believe her, and I do, then someone’s still out there, hunting for those jewels. I’m already tangled in this Edgewink historical reenactment thing, so I’ll come at it from that side.”

  Peters nodded. “And the rest of us will go back to square one. Re-interview everyone, and hit your street contacts again, and everyone’s looking for Janice Owens. Until we know better, she’s the best we got.”

  When the meeting broke up, Clipper grabbed an updated case book and drove to Mrs. Thompson’s house. Janice’s mother opened the door and stepped back without comment but she had lost the look of desperation she had the last time Clipper saw her. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said firmly
.

  Clipper held up his hands. “Ok,” he said, “then let me tell you.” He slid onto the edge of a chair and gestured her toward the couch. “I talked to Janice Wednesday night, got her side of the story, and I believe her when she says she didn’t kill anyone. “But,” clipper held up a cautionary finger as Mrs. Thompson started to smile in relief, “someone has killed three people, and she knows more than she’s told us. Somehow, these murders are tied into Bill’s family, and she may be holding back out of family loyalty, or because she doesn’t think it’s important, or maybe it’s something she doesn’t even know she knows. Whatever it is, I need to talk to her.” He hesitated. “Unless you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Mrs. Thompson shook her head. “I don’t know what her secret is, and I can’t force her to talk to you. She’s doing what she feels is right, and I have to respect that.”

  Clipper sighed. “Well,” he said, “look at it this way. Three people have been stabbed to death because some psychopath is looking for something, and Janice is the last person who might know where it’s hidden. How safe do you think she is?”

  Mrs. Thompson looked down in thought. “It’s hard,” she said, “raising a girl by yourself. Janice was only two when her father died, and her god-father Hal Dennison has been the only older man in her life.” She looked up. “But, I think, between the two of us, we did ok. She’ll make the right decision.” She gave Clipper a sad smile, and when he rose to leave, she murmured, “Please, keep my girl safe.”

  Clipper called Colin Murch as soon as he got into his truck. “I need to get into the News’s morgue,” he said, “can you help.”

  “Sure,” replied Murch. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

  When Clipper parked in front of the Bangor News building ten minutes later, he found Murch waiting at the front entrance, and followed him down to the basement archives. Clipper explained what he needed, and Murch turned to an old micro-fiche viewer. “That stuff wouldn’t be digitized yet,” he said, “so we’ll have to use this. What’s her date of birth?”