by Ray Flynt
“Morning,” she mumbled, stifling a yawn.
“Well, you had a late night,” Brad said. “I thought I heard you get back around one-thirty.”
She poured coffee into her cup. “Yep.”
“What time did you drop Oliver off?”
She slid into the bench seat opposite him. “He’s here.”
A sleepover on the first date? A smirk crept on Brad’s face.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Sharon said, sounding miffed. “You’ve been watching too much porn lately.”
Brad held up his hands in surrender.
“I let him sleep on a sofa in your office,” Sharon explained. “It was late, and Antonio, that’s the limo driver, started talking about his pregnant wife at home. We figured rather than make Antonio drive all the way to West Chester, Oliver could stay here and I’ll drive him home later this morning.” Sharon glanced at her watch. “In fact, Oliver asked to be woken when I got up, so would you please go wake him.”
Brad dutifully traipsed through the breezeway toward the office and rapped on the door before entering.
“Good morning, Brad,” Oliver said as he entered.
Brad wondered how Oliver knew it was him and not Sharon. “Morning, Oliver. Sharon asked me to wake you.” In the early light of dawn, he could see Oliver lying on one of the leather sofas with his trousers still on and wearing a white T-shirt. Folded neatly on the nearby end table was a rust-colored sweater; his shoes were on the floor, and the red tipped cane lay propped against the arm of the sofa. Oliver sat up and tousled his red hair, which reminded Brad of an Irish Setter shaking itself.
“Straight ahead of you about ten feet is a spiral staircase that leads to the second floor where I have an exercise room,” Brad explained. “You seem fairly well adept at finding your way around. To your right at the top of the stairs there’s a shower, with a supply of towels next to it. I don’t have any extra toothbrushes, but in the cabinet below the towels are miniature bottles of mouthwash. I’ll ask Sharon to come back after a few minutes to guide you to the kitchen and we’ll get breakfast.”
“That sounds good,” Oliver said. “Thanks.”
Before Brad left the office, Oliver stood and, sweeping his cane in front of him, headed for the spiral stairs.
Twenty minutes later Brad rustled up breakfast, while Sharon and Oliver recounted their adventure of the previous evening.
“Detective Nelson was guarded with us at first. Well, not so much with Oliver,” Sharon elaborated, “since he knew Oliver was a probation officer. But he gave off this vibe that if he’d known Oliver was blind he never would have called him. And he wasn’t sure what to make of me.”
Oliver nodded. “Standing around a dead body isn’t the finest way to meet people, but after Sharon asked intelligent questions and made a few key observations about the condition of the body, Skip warmed up to us.”
“Skip?” Brad asked.
“Detective Nelson,” Oliver clarified. “He’s with the Pennsylvania State Police. His first name is Leslie, but he goes by Skip.”
If the State Police were involved, that meant the death had happened in an area without its own sworn police department. While sausages browned in a skillet, Brad whisked eggs, sliced green onions and shredded cheddar cheese in a stainless steel bowl.
Sharon pressed on. “Anyway, after we identified Tim, I asked the detective to pull back the sheet so I could see all his injuries. I noticed defensive wounds on the back of Tim’s hands, so he probably wasn’t armed since that was apparently the only way he could fend off his attacker. A deep slash along his right jaw made me suspect the assailant was right-handed.” Holding a butter knife, Sharon used her right hand to show how the cut would have been made. “There were four-inch long slashes across his chest—antemortem since they bled so much. The coroner will tell us for certain, but the fatal wound appeared to be directly below the sternum—an upward thrust.” Once again Sharon demonstrated, this time with the butter knife’s edge facing up. “Based on the size of the cut I’d say the killer used a knife with at least a one-inch wide blade.”
A deep thrust in that location, Brad knew, could sever the aorta and cause instant death.
“Not your normal kitchen knife,” Oliver said.
Brad fished the sausages out of the pan, placed them on a paper towel. He wiped excess grease from the pan and then poured the egg mixture into the skillet.
Sharon sipped her coffee. “There was also bruising on the palm of his right hand. We’re not sure how that happened. He might have stumbled during the attack and injured it that way.”
Oliver nodded. “Sharon impressed the detective when she commented on post-mortem lividity.”
Sharon shrugged. “Not a big deal. Tim had been dead for several hours before his body was found. Blood had pooled a purple-crimson in the area between his right shoulder and hips—meaning he’d been found on his right side.”
“I think that’s when he knew you were for real,” Oliver said, adding, “Something smells good.”
“Breakfast will be ready shortly. Did you learn where and when the body was found?” Brad asked.
“Nockamixon State Park, but Skip was vague when we asked about the exact location,” Oliver began, “describing it only as the north side of the lake.”
Brad wasn’t familiar with the park.
“Nockamixon Lake is about ten miles long with twenty-six miles of shore line,” Sharon said, as she brought dishes and silverware to the table. “Our family rented a cabin at Nockamixon for a summer vacation back when I was twelve or thirteen.”
“According to Skip, a fisherman found him around 2 p.m.,” Oliver continued, “and called 9-1-1, but the police questioned his story. He reported the man as injured but when the paramedics arrived it was clear that Tim had already been dead for at least four hours, since the onset of rigor was well underway.”
“Either the fisherman never got that close, or someone who knew about the murder phoned anonymously. I’d be curious to hear the 9-1-1 tapes,” Brad said as he carried a plate of sausages to the table, along with a bowl of scrambled eggs. He slid onto the bench across from Sharon and Oliver, and noticed a day’s worth of red stubble on Oliver’s face. “Dig in while it’s still hot.”
“Another curious item the detective shared with us,” Sharon said between bites, “was that Tim wasn’t wearing a shirt when he was found. A green T-shirt with the words ‘Park Ranger’ was found hanging on a tree limb nearby.”
“Did the detective say what kind of pants Tim was wearing?”
Sharon squinted and pursed her lips. Then Oliver blurted out, “Cargo pants.”
“That’s right,” Sharon said.
Even though he’d been aware of their date, Brad looked at Sharon and Oliver for the first time as a couple. For all the anxiety Sharon had expressed twenty-four hours earlier, she seemed comfortable sitting next to Oliver and didn’t telegraph any concerns over his disability. Seeing Oliver’s mop of red hair next to Sharon’s auburn curls caused Brad to envision anew cute red-headed children in their future. He smiled. Nature would take its own course, and on its own time schedule.
“What are you thinking?” Sharon asked.
“A few things,” Brad said, truthfully. “I suspect there were several people at the lake filming porn yesterday morning.”
Sharon narrowed her eyes. She was warming to his theory.
“Each of Enriqué’s masterpieces,” Brad said with a hint of sarcasm, “begins with an attempt at establishing a scenario, like the one with Jeremy showing up at a mansion.” He refilled Sharon’s juice glass. “Remember that skinny guy in the denim coveralls and straw hat posed in front of a barn? But it seems to me that all the sex scenes take place in the same plain bedroom, with the only variation being the color of the sheets.”
Sharon nodded. “So Enriqué cast Tim as a park ranger. Come to think of it, I never knew Tim to wear anything other than denims.”
“Then the cargo pants
were part of a costume,” Oliver said, “and maybe Jeremy’s name was found in the pants pocket because Jeremy had used them at another filming session. Which would explain why there was no ID found on Tim’s body; the killer took his real clothes.”
Sharon’s voice had an excited edge. “Maybe his clothes are still out there in the woods, or maybe the producers were working out of a cabin.”
“I doubt they rented a cabin. They would have had to provide ID,” Brad said. “The critical question is what happened during the filming that got Tim killed?” He thought of a more diabolical scenario. “Or was Tim lured to that location on the pretext of a filming so that he could be killed?”
Silence fell over the table. Sharon rose to clear the plates. “We need to find out exactly where Tim was killed. I’d like to visit the scene.”
“How much did you tell Detective Nelson about our missing person case and finding Jeremy’s image on XRatedSugarX.com?”
“Considering that Skip held back vital details from us, I thought we were fairly forthcoming,” Sharon said.
Oliver laughed. “I provided most of the information; Sharon only kicked me a couple of times when she thought I was sharing too much.”
Sharon looked sheepish. Brad thought they were perfect for each other, and that Oliver, after one date and a night at the morgue, seemed to grasp Sharon’s personality.
“Well,” said Sharon, with an air of authority, “I was the one who got us invited to go along to Wanda Shaw’s place for the death notification.”
Brad looked at Sharon, waiting for her to elaborate.
“After I identified the body, I explained how I knew Tim. That he’d been a juvenile probationer of mine a few years ago, and that I’d recently seen Tim at his mother’s place. The detective asked me for the address, which I didn’t know. I told him that Wanda lived in a trailer park five miles north of Doylestown, and I knew how to find it.”
“She basically left Skip with no choice,” Oliver said. Sharon shot him a peeved glance.
He has her number. Brad pictured a caravan of the limo following a State Police car late at night, drawing stares as people suspected the trooper of providing a VIP escort to a politician.
“Skip asked us to ride with him. We found out the trooper lived in Doylestown, and explained the situation to Antonio—who got more than he bargained for driving us on our date—but he said that he’d meet us in front of the courthouse in Doylestown. So we rode in the back seat of Skip’s car,” Sharon explained, “and that’s when Oliver updated him on the probation history of Jeremy Young, and how he’d recently absconded from Maple Grove and about the porn connection.
“Skip asked if somebody at Maple Grove was involved in producing porn. I told him we weren’t sure. He said the institution was located within Troop L’s jurisdiction, headquartered in Reading, and he could give us a contact name if we were ready to report them.”
Brad wasn’t anxious to involve the police just yet, but asking for the contact name might be a pretext for finding out information about the crime, including the exact location. If the scene had been processed, they’d be able to visit. “Did the detective have any idea when the autopsy would take place?”
“First thing Monday morning,” Sharon said. “We had a few surprises when we got to Wanda’s trailer. I had no trouble finding it but was startled to see the yellow jeep parked in her driveway. I mentioned it was Tim’s, and while Skip copied the license number, I scribbled it in my notebook.” Sharon rummaged in her purse, pulled out the notebook, and tore off the page with the license number then handed it to Brad.
“Nick can help us with this.” Brad pulled out his smartphone and texted Tim’s license plate number to Nick, asking him to run the registration. Nick was notorious for not checking his phone that often, particularly if he wasn’t on duty, and Brad figured it might be Monday before he’d get a response.
“Oliver volunteered to stay in the car,” Sharon continued, “but I wanted him to have a chance to watch me in action.” They both chuckled.
“She didn’t disappoint,” Oliver said. “Wait till you hear.”
“The detective led the way to Wanda’s front door,” Sharon began, “but I told him that I’d handle the introductions, since she knew me. It was eleven-thirty when we arrived, but lights were on in the trailer, so we figured Wanda was awake. Skip knocked on the screen door, and there was no response. After a minute he glanced at me and said, ‘She must be out.’ I explained that Wanda didn’t own a car and told him to try again. I held open the screen door while he rapped on the door, this time using an ornate gold ring that must have been from his college days.”
“It was loud enough that a dog barked in the trailer next door,” Oliver said.
“Wanda finally opened the door. Looking past her I could see a man sitting on the sofa, scrambling to button his pants and pull up his zipper. Wanda wore a tight tank top with her cleavage pouring out of it, and short-shorts appropriate for a twenty-year old. She freaked when she recognized me. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I’m entitled to my privacy …,’ et cetera. Her speech slurred, and I figured she was drunk. Then Wanda turned and stared at the trooper, who was wearing plainclothes, and she screamed, ‘You must be Mr. Frame. Leave me alone, and tell that bitch to stay out of my life.’ It was quite a scene, and the neighbor across the street opened his door and called out, ‘Is everything okay?’ but she ignored him. I heard Skip exhale, and figured he’d about had it with her, so I plowed ahead and said, ‘Wanda, this is Detective Nelson from the Pennsylvania State Police. We’d like to talk with you’.
“Wanda stood back and admitted us. When I took a few steps into the living room, I could see at least a dozen opened beer cans on the coffee table, and the guy on the sofa looked buzzed or maybe just dazed—I’m sure he was seeing a different side of Wanda. She hadn’t noticed Oliver before then, and when he entered, couldn’t figure out what to make of him, and I said, ‘This is Oliver Reynolds. He’s a juvenile probation officer’.”
Oliver smiled. “That’s when I knew I should have stayed in the car.”
“Wanda’s rockets launched again,” Sharon said. “‘I’m a good mother. You had no right reporting me to child welfare. I take good care of Sammy. He’s sleeping.’ ‘Well, he won’t be for long if you keep yelling.’ I told her. That quieted her long enough for me to say, ‘Detective Nelson has sad news to tell you.’ Then Skip gave her the news about Tim—as compassionately as he could under the circumstances—and the color drained from her face. I guided her to a nearby chair, and the guy on the sofa jumped up and blurted, ‘I better go.’ However friendly they’d been in the hours before we got there, he was no friend. Skip stopped him at the door, asked to see his ID and get a telephone number where he could be reached, just in case.”
“Did you get his name?” Brad asked.
Sharon shook her head. “He hadn’t driven there, since there were no other cars near her trailer. Probably lived nearby and looking for a convenient bang on a Friday night. I was glad that he left, ‘cause Wanda stopped putting on a show for his benefit, or else the news of Tim’s death sobered her up fast; she was fairly subdued.”
Oliver chimed in, “Her trailer smelled so bad I had difficulty isolating the various odors. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and beer, and I think her son had a recent diaper change. And that visitor,” Oliver wrinkled his nose, “when he passed by me the BO was so bad I don‘t know how she could have enjoyed his company.”
“I noticed that too,” Sharon agreed. “Skip asked when she’d seen her son last, and Wanda reported that he’d stayed the night before. But when she got up that morning at eight-thirty he’d already left.”
“He’d gotten a ride,” Brad speculated. “How far is Wanda’s place from Nockamixon State Park?”
“Less than ten miles.”
“Her reaction to the news left her in a daze?” Brad asked, wondering whether Wanda may have had anything to do with Tim’s death.
&nbs
p; Sharon glanced at Oliver before saying, “Initially. She seemed genuinely shocked by the news, if that’s what you’re wondering. But after two minutes she began wailing.”
“It could have wakened the dead,” Oliver added.
“It was like Wanda was doing what she thought we expected from her. The baby started crying, and I went back to his bedroom, picked him up, and brought Sammy to the living room while Skip tried to ask a few more questions, including whether Wanda had seen the people that might have picked up her son.”
Brad’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out and looked at the screen. “It’s from Nick. The jeep is registered to Timothy Stephen Shaw, on Park Avenue East, Doylestown, PA.”
“Crap,” Sharon said, “That doesn’t help much. That’s Wanda’s address. I noticed the street sign when we arrived last night.”
Chapter Fifteen
Monday morning Brad’s windshield wipers worked overtime as he drove Beth through the pouring rain to 30th Street Station for her 9:20 Acela to New York. When he arrived back at the office he found a note from Sharon that she’d heard news from Natalie and had headed to the Bucks County Juvenile Probation office for a face-to-face meeting with one of their staff.
There was also a cryptic phone message from Derek Young, time stamped 11:03 a.m. on Saturday morning. Brad hadn’t checked the office line after Sharon drove Oliver back to West Chester, and spent Sunday with Beth, so this was the first he’d heard it. He replayed Derek’s message, spoken in a halting style with a whispered voice.
Mr. Frame… I need the DVD back. Manford… my co-worker… the guy who loaned it to me wants it back. He’s kinda desperate… something about his brother… Please call me as soon as you get this message.
Derek left his phone number, but repeated it twice, and as Brad copied the numbers he saw there were two different ones. He also heard a woman’s voice in the background saying, “Who are you talk—,” before the call disconnected.
Brad picked up the receiver and dialed the first number. A woman answered, and he said, “Could I speak with Derek Young please.”