Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  He interrupted himself with several coughs. “Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced you. This is my friend, Timothy Neuhaus. Captain. . .?”

  “Willis.”

  “Captain Willis. Timmy, would you please go outside and wait. I’m sure we won’t be very long. Five minutes, perhaps. I won’t be leaving just yet, you know.” The wasted features struggled unsuccessfully to produce a smile. “The doctors say I still have weeks, and you know how conservative they are. I shall most likely be around for months.”

  The captain noticed Timmy’s red eyes as he reluctantly left the room. Clint barely nodded his head. “It’s really a matter of hours, another day at the most, but dissimulation is sometimes necessary, you know. Speaking of which, I would suggest you tape record what I have to tell you. I may not be able to even sign a statement, though I will do my best.”

  Clint barely waited for the recording to start. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with the Malinowski case, but to put it very simply, I murdered him. I know. I know. The notes! I wrote all of them. Dozens, to about everyone in Joel’s address book. How many did you hear about? Two—three—a dozen?”

  Not wanting to interrupt the flow, the captain held up the fingers of one hand.

  This time Clint succeeded in producing a painful smile. “That’s not so bad. I was afraid I might have overdone it, but I couldn’t resist. Some of those people were really awful. That publisher! And that officious old hag of an agent. Both of them thought of Joel as a cash cow.

  “I made quite a world traveler out of Joel. It was really quite easy. I have philatelic acquaintances all over the world. A sealed letter, accompanied by a note and the cost of postage, I was sure would invariably produce the needed collaboration. My usual explanation was it was to a friend whom I wanted to impress with my world travels. I was quite sure they would cooperate, since we all regularly traded stamps.

  “I really became quite reckless after a while. I even had a letter sent from Bhutan just a few months ago. Poor Joel probably never even heard of the country, and most certainly would never have wanted to visit there.”

  Clint paused to take a breath. “It was important for me to make it look as though he were still alive. We had a joint bank account, and his royalties were automatically deposited in it. Had his body been found, I would have lost everything. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to live indefinitely in the house if his body was not discovered. Statute of limitations, you know. It is seven years, isn’t it Captain, before a missing person is presumed to be dead? Joel’s nasty notes gave me ten years beyond that. “

  A fit of coughing interrupted the narrative. The captain looked anxiously over at the oxygen bottles, but Clint gave a feeble headshake.

  “I suppose you’re curious about the fingerprints,” he said, after the coughing had subsided.

  The captain nodded.

  “It was really quite simple. Joel, especially in his last year or so, produced endless amounts of paper trash. That was back in early computer days, you know, and Joel wouldn’t have anything to do with them. He insisted on using an old mechanical typewriter even. Electric typewriters just weren’t for him. So, with the use of latex gloves, I carefully typed out all those notes on his discards I had saved, knowing you’d check them for fingerprints.”

  Clint gave a faint smile. “You know, I fully expected that gruff Sergeant McCaffrey to come back to take a typing sample from Joel’s ancient Remington. So I regularly visited garage sales to buy old wrecks. After typing the note on one of them, I’d drop the typewriter in the nearest dumpster. Rather clever of me, wasn’t it, though the cleverness was unnecessary, as it turned out.”

  Another prolonged fit of coughing interrupted the monologue. “I suppose you want to know how I killed him. It was really no problem at all, you know. He was drinking rather heavily that last year, and one day I encouraged him. Not that it took much encouraging. When he passed out, I put a pillow over his head.

  “Oh yes! There’s something else. I almost forgot. The body, of course. I held my breath when the sergeant went down into the cellar and scuffed around on the dirt floor. I’m sure he would have loved to have started digging right at that very moment. Well, he was right, you know. Joel’s down there. He was off to a writer’s convention shortly before I did away with him. He was away for a week, more than enough time to dig a nice large hole in the basement. I went down so far, I could hardly throw the dirt out.

  “And I knew he’d never find out about it. I can’t remember his ever going down into the cellar in all the years I’d lived there with him. I did all the cleaning, cooking, gardening, and everything else around the house, you know. The body is directly in front of the furnace, no more than five feet from it. I want you to find it, because Timmy will be able to use the insurance money. And, in case you should wonder, he had nothing to do with Joel’s demise. I didn’t meet Timmy until months after that.”

  A fit of coughing interrupted. Recovering, Clint added, “There, I guess that ties up all the ends. But, you know, there is something you could do for me, Captain.”

  “What’s that?” Willis asked, as he turned off the recorder.

  “When you leave, would you ask Isabella if I could have one puff on a cigarette? Just one?”

  THE FISHWATCHER

  Arthritis, a broken hip and just plain boredom with the boob tube drove me to wheel my chair up to the window overlooking Marshal Lake. I kept binoculars handy to watch for the wood ducks and the occasional Canada goose that came in for a smooth landing and to reminisce about all the days I’d spent out there plunking for those pesky whitefish. Even though it’s really off-season, once in a while there was a boat out there, and I never minded doing a bit of spying, not that there’s ever much to spy on.

  This time something was different, though. The sun had just gone down and it was one of those rare days when my old blood boiled, as I saw all the tell-tale blips on the surface announcing a sudden flight of night bugs bringing the whitefish to the surface. I knew it was one of those times when they’d be biting at anything and everything. I sure envied the one boat out there and watched, expecting he’d be pulling them in as fast as he could cast. It didn’t turn out that way.

  I couldn’t tell for sure what was going on, but the man out there with the rental boat was pushing something in a trash bag over the side, more than likely dumping garbage—too lazy and too cheap to take it to the transfer station. Made me mad, so I focused in on him. Then he had the nerve to pick up what looked like one of those heavy concrete building blocks, and darned if he didn’t drop it over the side too, only to suddenly go right in after it.

  Well, he didn’t look as though he was dressed for swimming, so I dialed 911, figuring if he didn’t need help, he sure as heck deserved to have the riot act read to him for dumping into the best fishing lake in the state.

  The police came by later and filled me in on what happened. The bundle was his wife, head bashed in and tied to a rope, with the other end wrapped around the cement block. Seems when he threw in the block his feet got tangled with the rope. Never did get loose, but the sheriff told me afterwards that there was a whitefish attached to one of his earlobes when they pulled him up. It just wouldn’t let loose.

  THE LANDLADY

  Brian Forbes is a good deputy. Strange ideas sometimes, but he’s a good checker player. That’s why I’ve kept him on the dayshift with me. It’s only a nickel a game, but it passes the time. After my having been in the department for forty years and sheriff for twenty-six of those years, I guess I deserve a few privileges. Having someone on duty with me who can almost beat me at checkers is one of those privileges.

  Some of the other deputies were kinda pushed out a shape though, especially Pete Ames. He’s been around almost as long as I have, and he wasn’t eager to go on night shift. Nobody wants night shift. But I explained how a new deputy needs to be broken in slow like, and has to be supervised pretty close. Besides, Pete’s about the worst checker player I’ve ever r
un into.

  Anyhow, Brian and I had just about finished one of our games that was ending like all the others—he’d made me sweat but he was folding under the pressure—when the FBI showed up.

  I’d been expecting them, but they were early, and they sure didn’t look much like the FBI of J. Edgar’s day. The lead agent was shorter than I figured the standard was, wore glasses, and was a Black besides. The other agent, who said practically nothing, was bigger, both around and up. Jarrell Darnton, that was the lead, introduced himself and his buddy and got right down to business, which he’d already told me about it some on the phone.

  The agency was looking for a serial killer. A landlady, no less. “She ran a boarding house in at least four different parts of New England,” Darnton told us. “Her gimmick is to advertise for old people wanting room and board. She takes them in and they get sicker and sicker under her care. It isn’t long before they aren’t leaving the house. Well, they get sick all right, sick enough to die without her notifying the authorities. She just keeps on cashing their social security checks and any retirement checks they might have been getting. It isn’t particularly tough to forge the names of people who are getting shakier and shakier.”

  “Doesn’t anyone ever get suspicious?” I asked.

  “As soon as they do, she disappears. Moves on to another town, puts an ad in the paper and starts all over again. So far, we’ve found six bodies, and we’re still looking. The postmortems all show cyanide. And we’re pretty sure there are up to a dozen more boarders unaccounted for.”

  “And you figure she’s operating here in Chelsea County?”

  “Right. We can’t be positive, of course, but an ad was placed recently in a local paper that matches the m.o. Someone looking for boarders, quiet country home, low rates, food, lodging and some nursing offered. The place is run by. . .” He pulled out a notebook, “Mrs. Emma Thorndike.”

  I turned to Brian. “Ever hear of her?” He shook his head. There was a time when I knew just about everyone in the county, but we aren’t rural anymore. Mostly we’ve become a sprawling suburb, and people are always moving in and out.

  “Got any description of the landlady you’re looking for?”

  Darnton shook his head. “Not much. She was never very neighborly. Middle-age. Seems she changed her hair color when she moved around. Wore glasses sometimes. Lost and gained weight. We’re not even sure of her eye color.”

  So it turned out there wasn’t really much to go on, and the upshot of it was that all four of us set out to pay a visit on Mrs. Thorndike.

  She didn’t seem particularly upset at us dropping by, and she accepted without a question Darnton’s explanation that the government was looking into nursing home facilities. In fact, she insisted on producing coffee and cookies, sat us down, and told us more about her business than I, for one, really cared to know.

  “Yes, I moved here now, about four years ago. This was my aunt’s house, and when she passed away I inherited it. I really didn’t intend to live here. After spending the last forty years in Masoki, it isn’t easy to pull up roots. And, my goodness, I couldn’t see myself living alone here with six bedrooms. Can you imagine that?

  “The money is nice, of course, but at my age this isn’t the easiest work in the world. I’ve been thinking lately of moving to the Northwest. My daughter lives there, and she says that rents are real cheap. Maybe it’s time for me to retire. Of course, real estate is down, and there isn’t much demand for homes with six bedrooms these days, but I’ve had an offer to lease this place and I may just accept it.”

  She went on to tell us about her former husband, who’d passed on a dozen years ago, and rattled off a long list of relatives living all over the country. Finally, when she offered to give us a guided tour of the place, I saw Darnton signal to his assistant who then went off, presumably to check on Mrs. Thorndike’s story.

  In the meantime, the running commentary continued. Currently, she had three boarders. In one room, an old man was sitting in a chair staring out the window. “Alzheimer’s,” she explained, not much bothered by the fact that the object of her explanation was right there in the room with us.

  Two doors down, an older woman was sitting wearing a heavy shawl, in what I thought was an overheated room, knitting away on something that could have been just about anything. At least she was communicating, and said hello, even though the landlady didn’t bother with introductions.

  The last of the boarders was up and around, using a walker. About all he was concerned about was lunch, that he insisted was overdue. That was when the other agent returned, and shook his head when Darnton looked at him. Later, as we stood outside next to our cars, he explained that Mrs. Thorndike’s story checked out. She had, in fact, lived in Masoki for most of her life, was actually a pillar of the Baptist Church there, and was clearly who she represented herself to be.

  Darnton shrugged, “You win some and you lose some.” He shook hands all around, and I broke out the checker board as soon as he left.

  Brian must have had his mind on something else because I beat him real easy, three games in a row. I was beginning to think I might as well put Pete Ames back on day shift, when we were interrupted by the squawk box reporting a traffic accident on Highway 67. It turned out to be only a fender bender, but it was then that Brian came up with the notion to go back to Mrs. Thorndike’s. He said he had a question to ask her and, since it wasn’t much out of our way, I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to humor him. It seemed pretty silly, though, since we knew for sure she couldn’t be the killer landlady. But he didn’t seem to be much in the mood for any more checker games that day. Besides, I figured, it would be experience for him in interrogating.

  Well, the return visit produced quite a surprise. Seems as though it was one of Mrs. Thorndike’s boarders who had offered to lease the place. “Yes. Mrs. Samuelson, Frieda Samuelson was her name, thought she might be able to make a go of it. But right after you people left, she suddenly decided to move out. I don’t know why she changed her mind. But she said that she’d decided to move in with her son in Chicago, so she rushed to pack so she could catch the Framingham bus. That was a couple of hours ago.”

  As you might imagine, I called the Framingham police department immediately with a description and a request to hold her until we could get there. It would be a feather in our caps if she turned out to be the one the Feds were looking for, and Brian insisted that she was. That was when he asked me to use the cell phone to alert the Chippiquada police. I said sure, though that was pretty silly, considering that Chippiquada is in exactly the opposite direction from Framingham, and sure as heck wasn’t on the way to Chicago. But Brian explained that she might just possibly catch the wrong bus by mistake. That sounded even sillier.

  So we went back to the office and had time for one more game before the call came through. Brian just hit it lucky. The old gal did take the Chippiquada bus. He wasn’t that lucky at checkers, though. I thought sure he had me cornered, me with two pieces and him with four, but he made a dumb move and I picked up all four of his men with one move.

  That’s the biggest problem with Brian, I decided, as he pushed his nickel across the board. He just doesn’t think ahead.

  THE LINEUP

  Being an African-American in the 63rd wasn’t all that bad. Promotions were slow, but then they were slow for everyone. A couple of the sergeants were blacks, and so was one of the lieutenants. I was young, enjoyed police work, had four years of college behind me, and didn’t see any signs of being held down. All I needed was a break somewhere along the line while doing a lot of hard work in the meantime. It would be nice to see the name of Sergeant Melvin Williams on the roster, better yet would be Lieutenant Melvin Williams.

  The possible break came early one morning. The discussion at an unprecedented meeting of precinct captains with the Chief had filtered down to the ranks. “Any officer who is instrumental in apprehending the Central District Strangler will automatically move up one g
rade.”

  The hundred thousand-dollar reward would have been nicer, but law enforcement officers aren’t eligible for rewards. Anyway, I was willing to settle for the promotion. All I needed to do was to find the weird character who had already strangled eight women. As it was, the papers were up in arms about the police’s failure to come even close to a solution to the crime. The ACLU was already claiming the police were dragging their feet, since the victims were all prostitutes. The mayor, whose election had depended heavily on the voters in the poorer sections of the city, agreed and was turning the screw. Maybe it wouldn’t be just a promotion for Melvin Williams if he brought in the Strangler, but it could also mean a picture on the front page of the newspaper. That would impress Jalina, who so far didn’t consider a city patrolman to be an ideal soul mate.

  Sergeant Clancy’s booming voice cut into my fantasies. “Hey, Williams, take over the lineup. It’s that hit and run on DeRoche. We’ve got a witness and a suspect. Round up five look-a-likes for the line?”

  Lineup duty could be a pain. It wasn’t always easy to find volunteers. This one looked simple enough, though. “You won’t have to knock yourself out. The witness says he was dark haired, and that’s about all. He just leaned out the car window and the lighting was bad. So we don’t know height, weight or much of anything else.”

  I looked around the duty room. Two female police officers, two blonde male police officers, and Roger Lipscombe, who had the requisite dark hair. I gave him the good news, but since he wasn’t enamored of the paper work he was doing, he didn’t particularly mind. Two of the prisoners we were holding in the tank would do. I was about to go out and comb the street when a Transpac messenger came in who looked promising. Since this was his last delivery, he volunteered to join in, probably because it never hurts to do the police a favor. And that’s when I decided that Sergeant Clancy had enough dark hair left to round out the required six. He didn’t care for the idea, but I convinced him it was his civic duty.