She rapped on the window and then lifted it a few inches.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, startling Tom in turn.
“Jeez! You scared me!” Tom said as his long-waisted torso, chest, shoulders, and head came into sight in that order.
“You startled me, too. It’s not billboard day,” Liz said, opening the coffee canister. Tom regularly changed the billboard advertisements beginning on the first Tuesday of the month, spending an average three days per billboard change. This was the third Tuesday of December.
“I know, but a car dealer wants to make end-of-the-year sales, so I’m putting up a new ad before the month ends. The dealer must have money to burn. I don’t think this ad will be up as long as two weeks. Don’t get me wrong,” Tom said, grinning at Liz’s bare legs. “I’m not complaining.”
Liz shut the blinds on his smile, pulled on some slacks, and then opened the blinds again.
“Tom Horton at your service!” he grinned.
“Cup of coffee?” she said.
“Sure thing!”
“It’ll have to be quick,” Liz said, giving up on taking a shower. “I’m on assignment this morning. I’ve gotta get out to Worcester.”
Tom cleaned his boots on the doormat with care before entering.
“I can really use that coffee,” he said. “It’s cold enough to . . .”
“. . . freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” they said in unison, laughing. Over the year that Liz had lived below the billboard, she and Tom had enjoyed quite a few cups of coffee. The first time, she’d invited him in out of pity. Hanging an ad in below-freezing temperatures, he had muttered that same line only to look down and see Liz gazing up at him.
“It sure is!” she had said. “Don’t be embarrassed,” she’d added, when she saw his sheepish expression. “The phrase doesn’t mean what you think it does, so I’m not offended. Come on in and have a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you where it comes from.”
He’d wiped his boots thoroughly then, too. And he’d said, “I can sure use this coffee.”
And when Liz told him the crude-sounding expression was actually a sailor’s turn of phrase, he said, “That doesn’t surprise me. Sailors can turn the air blue with their cussing.”
“No, no! It’s not what you think,” Liz had said. “Sailors didn’t say that to be foul. On old warships, the ‘monkey’ was the platform that held the stack of cannon balls. It was made of brass. When the temperature was low enough, the brass monkey contracted, allowing the cannonballs to roll off it.”
“Yeah, sure!”
“No, really. Look, I’ll show you,” she had insisted, opening a well-worn copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
“Well, I’ll be! Are you some kind of professor?”
“No, I’m a reporter for the Beantown Banner. And I’m a word nut. That’s why I have all these dictionaries.”
Now, as the reporter and the billboard hanger laughed over the expression again, Tom said, “I’m sorry to tell you that expression about the brass monkey is just an urban legend. Cannonballs were never stored on deck like that. I saw it on the Internet.”
“I always believe a published reference book over the Internet,” Liz said. “In my line of work, I have seen too much misleading material on the Web. By the way, whose ad are you hanging over my head this time?”
“Maksoud’s,” he said. “The car dealership over on Needham Street. I hear they’ve got such an overstock, they’re practically giving cars away. I guess old man Maksoud wants to drum up some business quick. Hey, look, you’d better get going. Didn’t you say you had to get over to Worcester this morning?”
“That’s right,” Liz said, tucking a fresh reporter’s notebook into her purse. “I’ll see you out.”
Chapter 4
Liz made the fifty-minute drive without incident and arrived at the Worcester Public Library with time to spare. That meant she could take a look at the Boston World. Passing through the etched-glass sliding doors that formed a pleasing entry to the large building, she went straight to the Periodicals Room. Fortunately, the library stocked several copies of both the Banner and the World. While every copy of the Banner had been snatched up by readers, three copies of the competing paper remained on the rack.
The World was a well-named publication, since it prided itself on its international coverage. Its lead story’s headline read, “No Room at the Inn for Bosnian Refugees.” Apparently, the World’s editors did not even think their lead story deserved full upper-case type. The article at the bottom of their front page bore an even more reserved headline, “Newton Police Mull Missing Mother Case.”
The Banner’s big, bold “COOKIE MONSTER” headline had done a better job of grabbing readers. Still, Mick Lichen had reported a fact that Liz and Manning had missed.
“Ellen was not the only thing missing from the Johansson household. Her newly purchased Honda Civic was also gone from the drive of the family home in this low-crime neighborhood,” Lichen had written.
“Hey, aren’t you the gal in this picture?” an elderly reader asked, looking at Liz over the edge of the Banner.
“That would be me,” Liz admitted.
“How come you’re way out here in Worcester?” the old man inquired. “Do you think you’ll find a body in the library?” he chuckled.
“Maybe not a body, but information about it,” Liz said, looking at the line-up of conference guests that was posted on the Periodical Room’s bulletin board. Apparently, mystery writers used more than their imaginations to turn out their thrillers. On the roster were Mary Higgins Clark, mystery writer; Dr. Cormac Kinnaird, M.D., forensic pathologist; Pamela Nesnarf, private investigator; and Maurice E. Bouvard, Boston World literary editor. Not for the first time, Liz wondered whether it was World muckety-mucks or Maurice himself who decided to term Bouvard “literary editor,” instead of endowing him with the more prosaic title “book review editor.”
“Ah, the lovely Liz Higgins,” Bouvard said as she entered the reception room where the Friends of the Worcester Public Library were serving coffee and homemade cookies to conference participants. “I see the Banner’s bookworm Rose Morgan is not here to dazzle us with her literary insights. Such a pity.”
“Alas!” Liz said, playing along. “Our book review editor is not among the speakers. But I have no doubt you will wow the crowd, Maurice.”
“Too bad your editors will eschew using any reports you might wish to make upon my words of wisdom.”
“Verily, they may. But surely the World will quote you at generous length.”
“Ah, there’s the rub. They’ve got everyone working on that breaking news in Newton. The missing mom, you know.”
“May I have your attention!” library director Vickie Nichols said. After some words of welcome, she led a bevy of bookworms, aspiring authors, and mystery writers into the assembly hall. There a well-dressed smiling Mary Higgins Clark recounted the story of her many rejections when she began to try her hand at writing short stories to her incredible multi-million dollar contract for her most recent books. The author’s caution to beginning writers was to never give up, and her freely given advice about how to write variations of the woman-in-jeopardy situation won a standing ovation.
“Always, always look for the overlooked domestic detail,” Clark advised, before adding, “I’d love to stay and hang out with you for the rest of the day, but I’m scheduled for a reading in Hingham at noon. Great to be with you. Cheers and may the cash registers jingle for all of you one of these days.”
Liz followed the author out of the assembly hall. “Ms. Clark,” she said. “Have you read about the missing persons case in Newton?”
“Yes, I have. It’s very sad.”
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Liz Higgins, reporting on the case for the Beantown Banner.”
“I read your report, and I thought a number of things in it were suggestive.”
“Yes?”
“I do have to g
et on to my next reading. But why don’t you walk me to my car?”
The two put on coats and left the library.
“What is your read on the mystery, Ms. Clark?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Mary,”
“All right. If you’ll call me Liz.”
“I’d take a long look at that front-page photo, Liz,” Clark said as she got into her car. “Good luck to you.”
Liz returned to the library, hung up her coat, and returned to the Periodicals Room. Fortunately, a copy of the Banner had been left on a table there. Scrutinizing DeZona’s Page-One photo of Ellen Johansson’s kitchen, she saw again the blood-splattered baking ingredients lined up on the countertop. Above the counter was a blackboard. On it, written in chalk, was a list. The first three items were spelled out neatly. They were also crossed out.
MMs
Choc. chips
Coconut
The fourth item was written in a hastier hand. And it was not yet lined out.
“FORGET ME NOT,” it read.
Back in the assembly hall, Dr. Kinnaird was sending shivers through the mostly female audience with a slide show of horrors—and perhaps with his good looks, too. The adjective “distinguished” seemed made for him. When Liz re-entered the overheated room, he was removing a suit jacket that had to have been hand-tailored, revealing a shirt ornamented with cuff links. Draping the jacket over a chair and turning back to the assembly in one smooth motion, he enlightened the crowd: “Bite marks, like fingerprints, are very individual markers that help us identify, with a fine degree of certainty, the animal or person who made the marks.” He went on to display slides of distinctive teeth-filled jaws and some grisly bite marks that had been made by those teeth.
The library director turned in her chair and surveyed the room with concern. Probably, she had expected the good doctor to focus on assault with blunt instruments and other less blood-curdling acts of bodily harm. She needn’t have worried. Only two ladies left the room in apparent distress. The others hung in for the whole horrific presentation, paying rapt attention. Dr. Kinnaird only succeeded in drawing a collective groan from them when he spoke of the likelihood that a victim might urinate under stress or in the throes of dying.
It was difficult to get Kinnaird’s attention after his talk, since his audience looked ready to make his book, Signs of Struggle, into a bestseller. They lined up eagerly to buy pre-signed copies of Mary Higgins Clark’s memoir and personally inscribed copies of Kinnaird’s book. Liz shook her head as she heard a woman ask Kinnaird to inscribe a book, “Happy Birthday, Matt. May this bring you many hours of enjoyment.” Neither amused nor nonplussed, Kinnaird carried out the request and signed his name with a flourish.
The forensics man only became free when it was Pamela Nesnarf’s turn to speak. The blowsy blonde looked more like a hooker than a private eye. And that, Liz heard her say, was the secret of her success.
“You’ve heard of the equal playing field. Well, that’s how I like my turf,” she said. “I figure, the cheating husband is gonna be pretty good at hiding who he really is—a suburban spouse with kids. So when I track him down with his lady friend in a bar or wherever, I don’t want to look like what I am, either. If he looks at me, he might think I’m a working girl,” Nesnarf said with a wink, “but I’m not the kind of working girl he imagines.”
In the library’s lobby, Liz turned her attention from Nesnarf’s talk, which could be easily heard, thanks to loudspeakers in the assembly room, and focused her attention on Dr. Kinnaird.
“I wonder if you could help me?” she said. “I’ve been covering the missing persons case in Newton. Have you read about it?”
“Indeed, I have. I commend your editors on having you consult me.”
Liz smiled. “We always seek the top experts,” she said.
The doctor’s ice-blue eyes flashed. “Of course, I’m handcuffed, so to speak, by not having visited the scene of the crime. All I have seen is your paper’s front-page photo. That’s very little, indeed, to work with.”
“Does it tell you anything at all?”
“It tells me the missing woman was trying her darnedest to outdo Martha Stewart. A custard dish for every sprinkle and flake of coconut. She hardly seems like the kind of person to leave such a bloody mess.”
“What about the blood? Does it give you any hints as to what must have happened?”
“Blood stains always have much to tell a knowledgeable forensics man. But when they’re only seen in a photo, let’s just say their communication would be rather more like a timid whisper than a definite shout. I would need considerably more to go on before I could hope to make any useful comment.”
“If I were able to supply you with more photos of the scene, do you think it’s possible you could draw any further conclusions?”
“It’s hard to say if there would be anything I’d be willing to state for the record. But I’d be willing to take a look at your pictures, on the condition that you don’t quote me unless I okay it.”
“Agreed! I’ll be going back to the newsroom this afternoon. I should be able to get copies of the photos then. What’s your schedule like? Could I show them to you by around 4:00 p.m.?”
“I’m afraid that won’t work for me. I’m scheduled to testify in Cambridge this afternoon.” Although his accent was American without any regional edge, Kinnaird pronounced “scheduled” in the British manner—“sheduled”—adding to the pompous impression his choice of words had already given. “It’s impossible to predict how late that will run,” he went on, and then surprised Liz by adding, “and I’m playing at the Green Briar after that.”
Liz knew the Green Briar was an Irish pub in Brighton, a working-class Boston neighborhood located on the Newton line. But it seemed strange for a distinguished forensics expert to admit he “played” there at night.
Reading the expression on her face he said, “The banjo. I play the Irish tenor banjo.”
“I didn’t know such a thing existed. What makes it different than the ‘Oh, Susannah!’ kind? Are you in a band?”
“So many questions! I don’t have time to explain it now. Look, if you’re interested, why don’t you meet me at the Green Briar at around seven tonight? You can bring the photos and I’ll take a look at them.”
Liz thought quickly. If she couldn’t get information from Kinnaird before the six o’clock deadline for first edition, she might still have a chance of getting something into a later printing.
“You’re on!” she said. “See you at seven.”
Taking a seat on a bench in the lobby, Liz gave some attention to the last half of Nesnarf’s talk. It seemed to be based on the private eye’s specialty, rounding up straying spouses. The sobering statistics she delivered about unfaithful mates seemed to upset this mostly female audience more than did Kinnaird’s bite marks presentation. Despite this, Nesnarf managed to make the mystery mavens laugh, as she enlivened her talk with anecdotes about men whose foolish infidelity to clever wives landed them in hilarious fixes.
“Sometimes I wonder why these wives hire me,” Nesnarf said. “Forget the old evidence of lipstick on the collar. I had a case in which an errant husband came home from a rendezvous with custard on his cravat. Yes, a cravat! That’s how uncool this dude was. The problem was, he was one of those extreme vegans who won’t eat any animal products. And his wife was a food sciences professor at the culinary institute. A quick analysis in her lab proved this guy truly had egg on his cravat, if not his face.”
The mention of cooking ingredients made Liz recall the bloody scene in Ellen’s kitchen, captured in DeZona’s photo. She found a pay phone and called the Banner’s photo department.
“Photo. DeZona here.”
“René! I’m glad you answered. It’s Liz. How long are you on tonight?”
“Another few hours unless they send me out on assignment.”
“Listen, could you do me a favor?”
“Depends on what it is and on what T
he Powers That Be need me to do.”
“Could you print the rest of your pictures from the Johansson kitchen?”
“I only took two shots before the police kicked me out, but I have some I took outside and in the living room with you and the kid, too.”
“Print as many as you can, please. I need them to show to a forensics guy tonight. And could you enlarge any sections that show blood or other forensic evidence?”
“Yeah, sure. You know Dick has already been interviewing the medical examiner. What’s his name? Barney Williams. I know because I took a head-shot for the paper.”
“Were you with Dick all day?”
“Part of the time. Look, where are you calling from?”
“Worcester.”
“Well, why don’t you let me get on with this? We can talk when you get to the newsroom.”
“Okay. One more thing, René.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve got a film Ellen Johansson took when she was out of town, I think. Could you print it on the sly for me?”
“I’ll try,” DeZona said, hanging up.
Liz made her way to the reference desk.
“I have a Boston Public Library card,” she said. “Would I be able to use that card to take out books here?”
“I’m afraid not,” the librarian said. “We’re in a different network. And you’d have to be a resident of greater Worcester in order to apply for a library card here. You can certainly use our books within the building, however.”
“That won’t work for me. I really need to look at some books for an article I’m writing for the Beantown Banner. I’m working under a tight deadline and need to take the books home with me to examine later.”
“There is something I can do to save you time at the Boston Public Library,” the librarian offered. “I can look online to see which branches of the BPL hold the books you need. I can even tell you if they are listed as checked out.”
“That’s much better than nothing. Thank you.”
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