Front Page Teaser lhm-1

by Rosemary Herbert

  “Tell her about the weird calls,” Becca urged.

  “Some woman called sounding like she thought she was some kind of hero. ‘I’ll find you, Ellen,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you home.’ Go figure!”

  Liz used her napkin to hide a sheepish expression.

  “Tell her about the other call,” Becca put in.

  “Some guy with an accent called saying she forgot to pick up some book. Mrs. Johansson’s a librarian, you know. Imagine a library patron calling someone’s home at a time like this! And some foreign woman called in saying, “Ellen, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault, but I will make it up to you.”

  “I’m surprised the husband wasn’t instructed to keep callers on the phone so the calls could be traced,” Liz said.

  “I think he was supposed to do that if the call seemed suspicious. The idea was to screen the calls, I think, and pick up ASAP when one seemed significant.”

  “It sounds like he didn’t see these calls as significant.”

  “I think he might have tried to pick up that foreign woman’s call but she hung up too quick. At least, I heard him curse when, I guess, the call ended. I wasn’t in the room with him, so it’s hard to be sure. I know he picked up real quick on the call after that one and talked to someone. That seemed odd because you could hardly tell who it was before he picked up.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “It was hard to hear. Remember, I was putting lights on the tree and trying to talk to Veronica so she wouldn’t get upset hearing her mom’s voice again and again. I did think it was strange when one caller on the answering machine started humming, though. Weird time to be singing, huh?”

  A loud scraping noise sounded from outdoors.

  “Must be the plow,” Sue volunteered. “If you’re parked on the street, your car’ll be buried.”

  “Fortunately, I’m in the driveway, but I’ll still need to borrow a shovel to get out. I’d better get digging,” she said, looking at the clock. It was 6:50.

  “I’ll help you,” Sue said. “I’ve got to get over to the hospital.”

  Liz offered Sue a ride, thanked the young women for sharing their dinner, got assurances from Laura that she’d check on Mrs. Swenson’s address, and hurried to the door. In her haste, she dropped the envelope of René’s photos from her purse. Sue picked them up.

  “Omigod!” Sue cried. “How awful! Is that the Johanssons’ kitchen? We knew from news reports the kitchen was bloody, but it’s a different matter to see it.” Sue paused. “You know, an expert can tell a lot from blood like that.”

  “Like what, Sue?”

  “Well, there are genetic tests, of course, to prove whose blood it is. But you can also tell if the person was anemic, for instance.”

  “I’m on my way to meet a forensics man now.”

  “Cool!”

  With Sue’s help, Liz cleared boulder-like hunks of snow that had been pushed and compacted by the plow and then she backed the Tracer onto Summit Street. With Sue in the passenger seat, she rode the brake down the hill and turned toward Brighton Center. Now the snow was coming down so hard that the lights of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital seemed veiled. Sue pointed out a parking lot and urged Liz to let her out there to avoid struggling along the sloping hospital driveway. Located next to a police station, the parking lot across the street from the Green Briar seemed to have priority on plowing. It was cleared of snow for the moment at least. Liz parked there and crossed the street to the bar, full of doubt that Kinnaird would show up.

  The Green Briar’s unremarkable exterior offered little hint of the atmosphere within. And the latter arose less from the décor than from the sound of some thirty musicians who filled the place with traditional Irish music. Liz passed through a barroom to a brick-walled room hung here and there with photos of Irish scenes. Under a weathered pub sign from Dublin, the players were clustered around a large table. It was difficult at first for Liz to tell whether it was the fiddler or the pennywhistle player who served as leader here, but it was clear that the rest of the musicians were taking their cues from one or both of them. It was immediately obvious that the more confident players were seated closest to this pair while those who sat farther from this inner circle included some who seemed to lean in toward their instruments while playing lightly on them, as if they were trying to learn the music by ear.

  The players were remarkably mixed. Septuagenarians and teens, working men and yuppies, ruddy-faced Irish-Americans, and a twenty-something Asian Indian all lost themselves in the music that went on and on, gaining momentum and spirit along the way. Liz marveled to think this world existed a few miles from Gravesend Street without her having enjoyed it until now.

  She scanned the group more than once before picking out Dr. Kinnaird. He was sitting behind a man who was playing an instrument Liz had never seen before, which required squeezing a bagpipe-type inflated bag repeatedly with his elbow. There was no doubt the unusual instrument was enough to distract Liz’s attention. But there were other reasons she did not recognize Kinnaird at first. He was dressed far more casually than he’d been during his bite-marks presentation. Along with his suit, tie, and cuff links, he’d left behind his know-it-all demeanor. The expression on his face as he bent over his banjo was positively boyish.

  Liz noticed he was seated far from the leader. Here, he was not the top of the heap. And he didn’t seem to care.

  The tune went on and on. To Liz’s untutored ear, it was repetitious, but highly pleasing. While the musicians played on, she took off her coat, and removed from its pocket the crumpled front page she had taken from the Banner newsroom. The “PINCH OF BLOOD” headline played on Dick Manning’s report of his conversation with Medical Examiner Barney Williams: “‘The distribution of the blood over the countertop and baking ingredients, but not on the floor or elsewhere, suggests the scene was manipulated,’ Williams said. ‘One has to wonder if the blood was sprinkled there intentionally, rather than spilled as the result of an injury.’”

  As Liz read, the Irish tune came to an end and Kinnaird noticed Liz. He set his banjo down on his chair and joined her.

  “So you braved the storm?” he said.

  “I’m so glad I did. This is terrific.”

  “You brought the photos, I suppose,” Kinnaird said, looking longingly at his banjo as the music started up again. “I know this tune.”

  “Do you want to join in? I can wait,” Liz said, hoping he would not take her up on the offer. “Or you can let me buy you a beer. You’re my research assistant after all.”

  “I wouldn’t hear of it. I’ll take care of it,” he said and ordered a lager for Liz and a tall glass of water for himself. “I usually don’t take alcohol until much later in the evening if I’m playing,” he explained.

  No table was particularly well lit, so they chose one for privacy rather than illumination. Kinnaird’s lighthearted expression vanished as he looked over the prints. His eyes lingered over them for a long time.

  “Most interesting,” he said. “Of course, without being privy to accurate measurements of the spaces between the blood droplets, the precise shape of them, and the chemistry of them, I can’t draw any detailed conclusions. But I can tell you what someone with that information should be able to glean from this scene.”

  “Please do.”

  “First, look at the big picture. There’s blood on the countertop and ingredients but apparently not on the floor.”

  “Does that suggest the blood may have been intentionally sprinkled there?”

  “Possibly. It would be odd for blood flowing from an injury sustained in a violent attack to confine itself to one surface area. That’s why it would be important to study the shape of the drops. If they fell straight down from a wound, they would be fairly circular with a spreading pattern around the perimeter of each. That doesn’t look to be the case from these photos. If they were strewn there, say, with someone’s fingers, they would likely lay out in an arched pattern like a sunris
e, with no blood underneath a kind of horizon line,” Kinnaird said. He demonstrated by bringing his fingertips together, dipping them into his water, and opening his fingers quickly to fling water on the table.

  “The problem at the Johanssons’ house is most of the blood drops have fallen into the sprinkles and shredded coconut. That seriously undercuts any conclusions about how the blood fell there.”

  “If the blood did come from a wound, what kind of injury might account for it?”

  “Impossible to say. Could be a facial wound. They flow freely and, given that the blood is confined to a rather high surface area, it would make sense for it to come from the upper body. The wound might have been stanched before the injured person crossed the floor. That would account for the lack of blood anywhere else. But I wouldn’t bet my life on that. The droplets here don’t scream ‘head wound’ to me. They’re small. The few I can make out on the countertop appear teardrop-shaped and too evenly distributed to suggest that.”

  “What about the chemistry you mentioned? What might be learned from that?”

  “The amount of drying would suggest how long the blood had been there. Analysis of the blood would reveal blood group, whether or not the person was anemic or suffered from certain diseases, and, of course, DNA analysis would pretty much nail the bleeder’s identity. If you had a sample to match it to.”

  “Those are all things that show up in mystery novels these days, aren’t they?”

  “I suppose so. Less often mentioned in mystery novels is luminol, a chemical that would be sprayed around such a scene to reveal traces of blood that someone tried to clean up. If and when the police release what they learn from that, the reporter whom they inform first will have a huge advantage.”

  Across the room, the musicians had started up another tune.

  “That’s a hornpipe. Do you hear the syncopation in it?” Kinnaird said, brightening measurably and looking longingly at his banjo. “If you’d like to stay on, you can pull up a chair over there. The musicians tend to sit as close together as they can, near the leader.”

  “Maybe another time. It’s been a long day. But thank you for sharing your expertise.”

  “Bring me a drop of blood from the scene, and I’ll tell you more.”

  Chapter 6

  “Yeah, sure,” Liz thought but did not say aloud. Instead, she thanked Kinnaird warmly and headed into the still-falling snow. Thanks to its proximity to the police station, the parking lot had been plowed again. The Tracer’s tires made it through the small mound the plow had pushed against them. It was a greater challenge to drive through the light industry and warehouse area that stood between Brighton and Gravesend Street in Allston, where no municipal snowplow had passed through since the storm’s start. Fortunately, Sal Mione of Mione’s Towing and Plow Services had cleared not just the driveway at Liz’s place, but—as he often did when the city plow neglected the area—a single lane of Gravesend Street to her place.

  He’d never accept a monetary tip, but Liz made a mental note to give him the box of PG Tips tea and chocolate digestive biscuits she’d bought for him a few days previously. She knew they were comfort foods reminiscent of his boyhood. Although he bore an Italian name, he spoke in an appealing Cockney accent, having grown up near the Angel Tube Station in London. Corny as it was, she meant it when she told him he was an angel. Without him, she’d probably lose her job waiting for plows that cleared school, retail, and residential areas in order of priority.

  Prudence seemed bound to trip Liz as the reporter entered the little house under the huge billboard. Her dish was half-filled with dry food, but the cat loved her evening treat of gravy-laden canned meat. Liz fed the cat and poured herself a glass of Chardonnay. Then she sat down in her green chair facing the flaming gas fireplace, put her feet up on her hassock, pulled the purple and white afghan over her knees, and spread open The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories she’d acquired in Worcester. Turning on a CD of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies, she read Susan Glaspell’s story “A Jury of Her Peers” from start to finish.

  The story was as melancholy as Satie’s first Gymnopédie. A woman has murdered her husband. But while the police blunder around looking at big, obvious clues, such as the rope he has been strangled with, the farmers’ wives see the significance of unfinished work in their friend’s kitchen. They recognize that an open sugar bag beside a dish means the woman was interrupted in her work. And they find heartrending evidence that their friend was driven to kill her husband. The men see the women’s concerns as “trifles,” but these trifles turn out to be the keys to the mystery.

  Liz turned off the third Gymnopédie—a dissonant, jarring piece—and leaned back in her chair, pondering what she’d read. The Glaspell story was a favorite of Ellen Johansson. Had it come to mind for her during the incident in her kitchen?

  Liz didn’t like to entertain the notion, but suppose Ellen had perpetrated a crime, as Millie Wright in Glaspell’s story had done? How would the insights from the story help her to hide it? Would she slash her own face and fling blood from it onto the countertop? This would go far toward suggesting she was a victim of someone else. And what if Ellen had been attacked by an assailant? How would the Glaspell story help her in that case? She might try to shed her attacker’s blood to leave evidence for those who sought to help her. Much rested on the analysis of the blood, information that had not yet been released. But perhaps the scene of the crime would hold additional clues.

  Liz got up from her chair, picked up her envelope of photos, turned on the bright light over her own kitchen counter, and spread out DeZona’s prints there. For Glaspell, it was an open bag of sugar beside a partly filled sugar bowl that started the wheels turning toward an understanding of the crime. But in Ellen’s kitchen everything looked so well organized that the only thing out of place was the blood splattered over the ingredients.

  The blackboard in the photo caught Liz’s eye again. “FORGET ME NOT,” Ellen had written in apparent haste. But the hastiness of the writing could have been feigned. It was hard to imagine an assailant standing by while she wrote a note to her loved ones, even a three-word message. Did those words suggest Ellen intended to leave? Could they indicate she was contemplating taking her own life?

  Liz matched the ingredients listed on the blackboard with those in the dishes. There were the chocolate chips and the coconut and other, unlisted ingredients, too. Only the M&Ms were not poured out into a custard dish. But then, Liz thought, no one would decorate delicate spritz cookies with M&Ms. No doubt the M&Ms were stored away for another baking project or to serve in a candy dish at the holidays.

  What else was in the photographs? Three poinsettia plants, dolled up with big bows and labeled with tags, stood to one side on the counter. Whose names were on them? Liz took a magnifying glass out of her desk to examine the photos more closely. One tag was out of sight. Another read “Margaret.” And the last read “Ms. Winters.” Laura.

  Liz picked up the phone and dialed. Laura answered.

  “Yes, Veronica gave me the plant before I left. She would have given it to me at the aftercare holiday party, but she was being taken to her grandmother’s early.”

  “Could you set the plant aside where no one will handle it? And if you have the tag that was on it, please save that, too. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t have the tag, Liz. I guess it got lost in the shuffle. With everything that was going on, I was surprised Veronica thought to give me a gift at all.”

  “Never mind. The plant is the main thing.”

  Liz looked up the Green Briar in the telephone book and called the bar. She could hear Irish music still being played there. The bartender told her to hold on while he fetched Cormac.

  “Kinnaird here. May I help you?”

  “It’s Liz Higgins again. I may have something useful—a poinsettia plant that was on the counter at the crime scene. It was given as a gift to the babysitter who took it home to Brighton. Not very f
ar from the Green Briar.”

  “It’s strange that it was not sprayed with luminol. You’re in luck. I’ve got my car. If she’s willing, I could stop by and collect it.”

  Liz provided Kinnaird with the address, phoned Laura to have her wait up for him, and decided it was time for her to get some rest. She changed into a long T-shirt and snuggled under the covers, recalling, as she dozed off, the Worcester book dealer’s words: “This woman flies from home but knows any loose ends she leaves will be seen as significant—if a woman gets the chance to look things over.”

  The sound of snowplows scraping along the Massachusetts Turnpike awoke Liz more than once in the night. Each time, she turned over and returned to sleep until one pre-dawn noisemaker was just too much for Prudence, who dashed around the small abode in a frenzy, making Liz laugh herself awake. In her mad movements, the cat had skittered across DeZona’s photos, causing one to drop to the floor. Flipping her fireplace switch to fill the room with flickering light, Liz crossed the room to pick up the photo. Turning on her kitchen counter light and the stove burner under her kettle, she measured some coffee into a filter and took another look at the photo.

  This one was a shot of the Johanssons’ living room. In it could be seen part of the book bearing an Arabic title. The kitchen crime scene had naturally become the focus of investigators’ and reporters’ attention. Had anyone taken a hard look at the living room, too?

  The kettle whistled in concert with a scraping sound in her driveway. Sal Mione had arrived to plow away the last of the snowfall. Pulling on jeans and a sweater, Liz rushed to her front door.

  Opening the door, she called out, “Got a minute?” to the plow driver.

  “For you, of course!” he replied.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Liz said. “Hold on, I’ll bring it out to you.”