The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  When Charley saw him, she rushed to his side and said, “Daddy, Daddy, what’s wrong?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Evan did not know what to say. He fell to his knees and sobbed.

  “Daddy,” Charley said laying her soft small hand on the side of his face. “Do you need me to call Lucy?”

  At first, Evan could not understand. Did she follow me inside the house and see what I saw in that Godforsaken bathroom? Then, he realized, Lieutenant Pierce had saved her life. For a long time, Charley’s solution to every problem would be to call her friend, Lucy. Can’t blame her for that. I wasn’t there when she needed me. In fact, I haven’t really been there for her since her mother died, have I? He pushed down his bitter anger at himself and said, “I don’t have her number, Charley.”

  “I do.” Charley dug into her pocket and pulled out Lucinda’s card. As she did, her folded photo of her mother fell into the grass.

  “What’s this?” Evan asked picking it up.

  “Oh, Daddy, please let me have it. Please don’t take it. Please, Daddy, please,” Charley pleaded with tears in her eyes.

  Evan unfolded the paper, saw the creased face of Kathleen and his throat constricted. “Your mom,” he said.

  “Yes, Daddy. Please let me keep it.”

  He folded the photo back up, pressed it into Charley’s hand and wrapped his arms around his daughter. “I’m so sorry, Charley.”

  “That’s okay, Daddy,” she said hugging him tight. “I love you.”

  Evan swallowed hard to keep from crying. “I love you, too, Charley. I need to call Lucy.”

  “Okay, Daddy. I’ll watch Ruby. Don’t worry.”

  Evan stepped inside the garage and picked a vantage point where he could still keep an eye on the girls without being overheard by them. Lucinda’s cellphone rang once. The welcome sound of “Pierce” entered his ear and flooded him with relief. “Lieutenant, I’m at my mother’s house in Lynchburg.”

  Seventy

  Lucinda spent the morning searching through the files and notes of the investigation looking for any clue that might point to a murder prior to the one in Waverley. Ted queried databases searching for leads there. Both of them ran down alleys and into brick walls without finding a thing.

  Every time, Lucinda heard a sound out in the hallway, she figured it was someone coming to deliver her suspension papers but hours passed without their arrival. She wondered why no one had come until she realized the days had blended together and she’d lost track of time. Internal Affairs took their time, it would take them a while to get into gear. She’d bought a couple of days but she knew she wouldn’t escape their scrutiny or her inevitable banishment.

  Her cellphone chirped. Evan Spencer was on the other end of the line. She listened as he detailed his discovery at his mother’s house.

  “Where are the girls?” she asked.

  “They’re playing in the backyard right now. I don’t really want them to be here but I’ll have to call 9-1-1 and wait until the police arrive. You guys don’t have much tolerance for someone leaving the scene.”

  “Do you know a nearby place where the girls could stay?”

  “Yes. I know a number of my mother’s friends on her street. I’m sure one of them would be glad to watch the girls.”

  “Then go. Get them settled and come back to the house. I’ll call the Lynchburg Police and let them know what’s going on and I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  She pressed the disconnect button and said, “C’mon Ted. Lily Spencer’s dead. We’re going to Lynchburg. You’re driving.”

  “You want me to drive?” he asked as he followed her down the hall.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of it. I need to make some calls.” She pushed open the door to the stairway and pounded down the steps to the parking lot.

  “You really mean it? I get to drive?” Ted said egging her on.

  “Don’t get any ideas. This does not establish a precedent.”

  Ted opened the door on the driver’s side of his car. “I can’t believe it. You’re letting a man drive.”

  “Yeah and let your testosterone flow. I want to make it there in record time.”

  “Wow!” he said with mock gravity.

  “Just drive, Ted.”

  Ted backed out of the parking space before Lucinda finished slamming the passenger door. She shook her head and thought, Don’t blame him. You asked for it. She called the dispatcher on duty and explained where they were going and got the phone number for Lynchburg Homicide.

  She stabbed in the numbers and told the investigator who took the call the details of the homicide in his city and the possible relationship to the serial cases in her area. She asked that the crime scene not be disturbed until she got there.

  “We won’t move a thing, Lieutenant. See you soon.”

  She disconnected and wondered if she should have described the damage to her face and gotten that out of the way. I’ll have to deal with it when I get there. Again. She sighed.

  She called a 9-1-1 operator who lived in her apartment building and asked that she give Chester fresh food and water that afternoon. “I’m not sure when I’ll get back to town.” Lucinda paused for a moment listening. “No, do not take Chester down to your place. Your little Yorkie would never recover from the trauma of a day with my cat.” After another pause, she said, “I know, I know, you’re doing it for Chester and not for me.” After ending the call, Lucinda muttered “witch” under her breath.

  “Lucinda, is that any way to talk about Chester’s foster mother?” Ted teased.

  Lucinda rolled her eye. “So what’s happening on your home front, Ted?”

  “You expect me to drive like a maniac and discuss my personal problems at the same time? You’ll get us both killed.”

  “Lame, Ted. That’s a lame, shitty excuse to avoid the subject and you know it. What’s going on?”

  “Ellen called. She offered to go to marriage counseling and even do some individual grief counseling.”

  “That’s great news. She’s been resisting that for a while, hasn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, when are you going?”

  “Lucinda, I told you before I’m not dealing with that problem until this case is closed.”

  “It’s closed, Ted. The perp’s dead.”

  “Then why are we breaking through the sound barrier to get to Lynchburg, Lucinda? Tell me that.”

  “Ted, stop avoiding the question.”

  “Not now, Lucinda.”

  “You are such a jerk.”

  “So sue me.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  At Lily’s house, Lieutenant Robert Johns, a lanky, immaculately dressed, black detective greeted Lucinda and Ted. His tailored suit, crisp white shirt and vibrant red, white and blue tie put their attire to shame. Still wearing the clothes they’d thrown on in the middle of the night, Ted and Lucinda felt like slobs.

  On top of that, Johns could not– or would not– stop staring at Lucinda’s face. Exasperated, Lucinda pointed to it and said, “Domestic violence call.”

  Johns winced and shifted his eyes away. “Sorry, Lieutenant.” He walked the two out-of-town investigators through the crime scene. Lucinda pointed out the consistencies with her string of homicides: the mangled face and the ligature marks on the neck. Then she gasped. The pin on Lily’s chest. A galloping horse. My galloping horse. “Omigod.”

  “What, Lieutenant,” Johns and Ted said in unison.

  “That is my pin. That is what he took from my house. That little horse pin is mine. My mother gave it to me for my birthday the year that she died.” Tears welled in her eye. “Damn him. Damn him to hell.”

  Ted wrapped his arm around Lucinda’s shoulder and whispered, “That’s a done deed. He’s burning in hell right now.”

  A small, rueful grin crossed Lucinda’s face. She blinked away the moisture in her eye and turned to Detective
Johns. “I suspect the link will be confirmed by DNA from the spoon by the ice-cream carton.”

  “You want my guys to pull a swab for you to take back to your lab?” Johns asked.

  “That would be great. If the department balks at spending the money to test it, I’ll pay for it myself. Then I’ll submit an expense voucher. With a little luck, it’ll slip right past the bean counters on the fifth floor.”

  Johns laughed at the universal vagaries of getting what you wanted when you worked for a bureaucratic governmental agency.

  Lucinda jerked her head in the direction of Evan Spencer who looked lost as he sat on a chair in the living room beside the baby grand. “Do you still need him?”

  “Nah,” Johns said. “We’ve got his contact information. I imagine his daughters need him a lot more now than we do.”

  Lucinda walked across the room to explain the strong suspicions of Kirk’s involvement in his mother’s murder and to let him know he was free to go. Before she reached him, a framed photograph on the mantelpiece grabbed her attention. A picture of a woman and a young boy. A daisy pin bloomed on the woman’s dress and a pair of daisies graced her ear lobes.

  Lucinda plucked the frame off the fireplace and showed it to Evan. “Dr Spencer, is this your mother?”

  “Yes. And that’s me beside her. I must have been seven or eight years old.”

  “This pin, these earrings . . .”

  Evan smile radiated a poignant sadness. “Daisies were my mother’s favorite flowers. She loved that pin and earring set. For a while she wore it almost all the time.”

  “Would she still have them?”

  “I’m sure she would. They were a gift from Dad.” He cocked his head. “Why is this important, Lieutenant?”

  “We believe a woman wearing a pin just like this one might have been your brother’s first victim but we didn’t know who owned it.”

  The connection clicked for Evan instantly. “Let’s go see.”

  Lucinda followed him upstairs and into Lily’s walk-in closet. Built in between two columns of shelves were a series of long, narrow drawers. Evan pulled out the top one. Arranged on the felt-lined interior were several jewelry sets, matching pieces side by side. They scanned the contents and moved down to the next drawer.

  In the third drawer down, Evan spotted the earrings and pointed to them. “The pin should be right here beside them. She always kept her jewelry organized.”

  “Let’s check the rest of the drawers to be sure.”

  The daisy pin was nowhere to be found. “Ohmigod,” Lucinda said. “Full circle.”

  “What do you mean?” Evan asked.

  “Did you see the galloping horse your mom was wearing when you found her?”

  Evan twitched as he recalled the memory of his mother’s body in the small bathroom. “Yes,” he said. “I noticed that.”

  “Your brother took it from my jewelry box. He creeped my apartment the other day and left a dead woman’s ring in my cat’s dish. And now we find your mother murdered in her own home wearing my pin. I’m certain that when we get a DNA profile from the daisy pin recovered in Waverly, it will be a perfect match with your mother’s. That connection will explain it all.”

  Evan’s eyes scanned Lucinda’s face with no sign of comprehension.

  “What I am saying, Doctor, is that all the murders of strangers were dress rehearsals. Kirk was practicing and building his confidence to make the attacks on every woman in your life. He wanted to take them away from you just as his mother had been taken from him.”

  Evan sighed. “Before you leave, would you have time to talk to Charley? I know she wants to see you.”

  Lucinda nodded her agreement and followed him down the street to the neighbor’s house. She found Charley sitting on a wrought-iron bench in the garden, staring into a fountain. She slipped on the seat beside her and grasped her little hand and held it tight.

  “The bad man killed my grandma, too, didn’t he?” Charley asked.

  “Yes, Charley. I’m so sorry,” Lucinda said giving Charley’s hand a soft squeeze.

  “The same bad man that killed my mom and tried to hurt me and Ruby?”

  “Yes, Charley.”

  “I don’t have a mom. I don’t have a gramma.”

  “No, Charley, you don’t. But you have your dad. And you have Ruby.”

  “I know. But my daddy doesn’t have a mom. And worse, Ruby doesn’t have a mom. She’ll never learn. There’s nobody to teach her.” Her tear-filled eyes looked at Lucinda with despair.

  “Teach her what, honey?”

  “Teach her how to be a mommy. I know how. I remember. But Ruby is too little. She’ll never know.”

  Lucinda wanted to break down and sob. Memories of her motherless brother and sister stirred up a well of pain she thought she’d capped long ago. The reality of the hurting child in front of her doubled the agony. She wrapped her arms around Lucy and hugged her tight. Releasing her she said, “You’ll teach her, Charley.”

  “Me? I’m not a mom.”

  “No you’re not. But you love Ruby, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Lots.”

  “I watched over my sister and brother while they grew up and you’re going to care for Ruby, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “I’ll do my best.”

  Lucinda smiled. “I know you will, Charley. Ruby will learn about loving and caring from you. And your dad will help, too.”

  “Did your dad help you?”

  “No, honey, he didn’t.”

  “Did the bad man kill him, too?”

  The thought of her father’s suicide scratched across the scar of that old memory but she brushed it away and spoke the only truth she wanted this child to know. “Yes, Charley. Yes, he did.”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy,” Charley said, patting the back of Lucinda’s hand.

  “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” But never, never that far away. “Don’t forget, Charley. I’m your friend. Any time you are scared, lonely or confused, you can call me. I will always be there for you.”

  Charley’s solemn little face turned up to meet Lucinda’s. “I’m always here for you, too.”

  Lucinda planted a kiss on top of the little girl’s head. “C’mon, girlfriend, let’s go up to the house and see your dad and Ruby. Then I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Seventy-One

  When Ted hit the highway for their ride back home, he accelerated over the speed limit in minutes.

  “Hey, Ted,” Lucinda said, “suppress those testosteronic urges. We’re not in a hurry now – drive like a normal person.”

  Ted grinned. “You mean, drive like a woman?”

  “Yeah. Normal and woman are synonymous. Man and normal are not.”

  “Are you telling me you think you are normal?”

  “As a driver, yes. Anything else is debatable.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  “Oh yes, you could.” It was a line meant to be delivered with a grin but Lucinda just wasn’t up to anything coming close to a smile.

  “You won’t catch me stepping into that minefield, Lucinda. Why the long face?”

  “All those lost lives. All the pain and grief in their wake.”

  “But it’s over now.”

  “Yeah, but did it have to end that way?”

  “You mean the shooting?”

  “Why didn’t he drop Charley when I had the gun on him? Why did he force me to shoot him?”

  “Maybe he was ready to die, Lucinda. Maybe he’d accomplished all he needed to do. His refusal to follow your orders with a gun barrel in his face is one of the earmarks of suicide by cop.”

  “I should have rushed him.”

  “And if you did, he could have easily snapped Charley’s neck and ended her life before you could cross the room. Saving her life was more important than sparing his.”

  Lucinda sighed.

  “And right now, we don’t have to worry about some defense attorney convinc
ing a jury that his guilt isn’t as obvious as we know it is.”

  “There is that.”

  “And with his history of living in a mental institution, the defense would have an easier time than usual convincing the jury to find his client insane. He could have been sent back to the hospital. I know that wouldn’t help me sleep easy at night. Stop second-guessing yourself, Lucinda. You did the right thing.”

  “I keep hoping that somehow, Kirk’s death won’t get in the papers. I know that’s foolish and unrealistic. It will probably scream out from the front page tomorrow morning.”

  “Of course, it will, Lucinda. And when it does you’ll be the new town hero.”

  “Yeah right, Ted. I can see the headline now: ‘Trigger Happy Cop Strikes Again.’” Lucinda sighed and turned to stare out of the side window. She was aware Ted was still talking but she was not listening to a word.

  On the ride down, she hadn’t paid a bit of attention to the passing scenery. Now she was surprised to see that all of the deciduous trees had lost their leaves. Their naked, gray branches stretched into a steel gray sky. She couldn’t remember this year’s glorious burst of color when the leaves turned red and gold. Now they were gone. Discarded, desiccated and brown. A lot like I feel, she thought.

  She knew she should feel exhilarated from closing these cases yet she felt bereft – robbed of any sense of celebration by the dark shadow of that brief moment when she pulled the trigger and of the knowledge that deep in the primal recesses of her mind, she was glad she did it. In fact, she’d enjoyed it too much. It was a truth she hated to acknowledge.

  Lucinda turned back to Ted just as he said, “So what do you think?”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About you and me.”

  “You and I?”

  “Yes. Us. What do you think about us?”

  “Us?”

  “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? I’ve been pouring my heart out here.”

  “I’m sorry, Ted. I was lost in my own thoughts. Could you run it all past me again?”