by J. F. Margos
Tommy started to chuckle. “I love it, she kicked your rear again.” He laughed out loud now.
Mike sighed, shook his head and put his hand over his eyes.
“Well, I was his teacher, Tommy, and I do outrank him. Besides, he was doing really well at first. It took me a while to get a handle on him tonight.”
“Hey, man, don’t feel bad,” Tommy said to Mike. “My mom kicks my rear every time I go home and she’s not even into martial arts. She’s a little stick of dynamite.”
We all laughed now. I knew Mrs. Lucero, and I could just imagine her keeping Tommy right in line.
“So, Tommy, when are you going to come to the dojo and start taking lessons?” Mike said.
“Are you interested in aikido?” I asked.
“Well,” Tommy said, “I’ve seen Junior here get some suspects under control in real short order and without a lot of energy expense. So, I just thought it might be a good idea to at least explore the merits, you know, see what it’s like.”
“He’s chicken,” Mike said.
“Whoa, partner! I am not chicken. I just don’t want you to be my teacher, that’s all. I got to put up with you all day long, I don’t want to have to put up with you in the dojo, too.”
“We have a lot of great teachers, Tommy,” I said, “but you know you do have to show deference to all the black belts.”
“That’s okay. I understand that, but I would prefer to learn from you, Toni.”
I smiled. “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll be happy to teach you.”
The food was delivered to the table and there wasn’t a lot of chatter while the boys wolfed down their dinner as if they hadn’t eaten in three days. I thought with their mouths full, it would be a good time for me to update them on what I had learned recently, and the latest thoughts I had about the case. I filled them in and they listened without much comment.
“So, what I’d like to do now—with your blessing, of course—is go visit Mrs. Ferguson. I’d like to talk to her about Brian’s habits, but I’d also like to just visit with her a little. This whole case, and the way Brian was killed in particular, really gets to me, and as one mother to another, I’d like to visit with her.”
“Mom, I just don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean, you’ve been to see Jimmy, Dody and Lori, and you didn’t really find out anything new, so I don’t see the point.”
“We did find out something new. We found out Jimmy is withholding something.”
“Leo thinks,” Mike said.
“We also know that Jimmy wants us to believe that Addie and Doug were not involved with one another, but that Dody believes they definitely were. That could become important later.”
“Mom, we don’t need civilians poking around in all this. We can close the case on our own.”
“Excuse me, but I’d like to point out a few things here,” Tommy interjected. “First of all, don’t talk to your mom like that. It’s rude, and it bothers me—a lot.”
Mike sighed.
“Hey, this ain’t the dojo, man. I’m the senior guy here. You may not like it, Mike, but your mom is not a civilian. She’s in law enforcement—she’s a forensic artist and scientist. You don’t have to carry a badge and a gun to be in law enforcement. My sister is a toxicologist at the State Crime Lab. She’s in law enforcement, too.”
“Yeah, but your sister doesn’t go all over the place questioning people.”
“That’s only because she’s a science geek and that isn’t her thing. Your mother is good at this and people talk to her. She might have gotten something out of Dody, but as it is, she didn’t hurt anything by talking to him either—and it did help us to have Leo observe him, and Jimmy and Lori, and give us her assessment.”
“Thank you, Tommy,” I said.
“Toni put the faces back on both of these victims, Mike. Frankly, I don’t know how she does that without getting involved with them. I think it would mess me up. It doesn’t surprise me that she has to know.” Tommy turned to me now. “There’s no harm, Toni, in you talking to Mrs. Ferguson. I’ll give you her number. She’s not dangerous and she’s not a suspect. You’re both widows and mothers of a son. She may very well remember things in talking to you that she didn’t when she talked to me and Mike. Plus, she was really touched by what you did for her. Might be good for her to get to meet you. I feel sorry for her, too. She doesn’t have long to live, and she didn’t deserve for any of this horror to happen to her.”
His eyes misted up a little now. He was fiery sometimes, but Tommy Lucero had that sentimental heart. Sometimes it served him well, as in this case. Sometimes it burdened him with guilt, as with the death of Bobby Driskill.
“I never thought about it that way,” Mike said. “I’m sorry, Mom. I was wrong to jump all over you. I just didn’t think about all that stuff.”
“That’s because you got your ego wrapped so tight around your head, it’s like a tourniquet on your brain,” Tommy said.
I busted out laughing. Then Tommy started to laugh and Mike couldn’t help but join in.
When our laughter tapered off, Tommy said, “Okay, just one thing, Toni.”
“What’s that?”
“You share whatever you find down there.”
“That’s a given, Tomas. That’s always a given.”
I had called Mrs. Ferguson and told her I was the artist who had done the bust of her son. She was glad to speak with me and thanked me for what I had done for her. I told her I appreciated her comments, but that finding Brian’s remains was luck, and someone else’s “luck” at that—all I had done was my job. When I told her that I would like to come down and visit with her, she readily agreed.
The weather the next morning was grim. It was gray and cloudy and it drizzled all morning. It didn’t improve any as I got closer to Houston. I followed Mrs. Ferguson’s directions and arrived at her home about 10:30 a.m. I had dressed in my nicest black slacks, a dark green cotton shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves and my “citified” short, black zip-up boots. I pulled up to the curb in my black Pony and shut the power plant off to hear the soft pattering of rainfall on the roof and windshield. I grabbed a slicker from the back seat, threw it on over my clothes and exited the car.
Down the street about three houses away, I could have sworn that I saw Lori Webster. It was gray and rainy and difficult to see. I went toward the person, but she turned and hurried away from me. I wasn’t going to chase her in the rain. It certainly looked like her, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. If it was her, I wondered why on earth she would come here to Mrs. Ferguson’s.
As I got to the front door, Mrs. Ferguson opened it. She must have heard the rumble of the Mustang pulling up out front. She was thin and her hand quivered slightly as she extended it to me. I could see the blue veins through her delicate skin, but the brightness was there in her eyes. I could see her spirit had not dimmed in spite of all the tragedy she had endured.
“Toni?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come in. I have coffee for us.”
She had a nice little house in a middle-class suburb in Houston. The house was a light-colored brick, single-story home with off-white trim and shutters. It was about two thousand square feet and as neat and tidy inside as any home I’d ever seen. We sat in her sunroom and had our coffee and just chatted for a few minutes.
“Well, Toni, it’s so nice to meet you after what you’ve done for me, but I know you didn’t come here just to socialize. You have something to discuss with me about Brian, I’m sure.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ferguson, I do. My son is one of the homicide detectives on the case…”
“I wondered if the name Sullivan for both of you was a coincidence or not.”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t.”
“He was such a nice boy. Actually, both of the detectives were kind to me. Your son seems like such a nice man, though.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ferguson.”
“Oh, you must
call me Nadine. I’m sorry, Toni, you were trying to tell me something about the case?”
“Yes, Nadine. I was saying that I’m working with the police to try to put some things together about this case. We have one investigator working with us who has helped us develop some behavioral theories. In connection with that, and trying to gather more evidence to help bring it all together, I was hoping you could give me some idea of where Brian liked to go to do his hiking and bird watching, and maybe tell me something about his friends in Hempstead.”
“Oh. Oh, dear. Well, he mentioned several places. I’m not sure if I can remember the names, though. Let me see…. Oh, it’s been so long.”
“Well, if you can’t remember the places, maybe you remember some of the people who knew him in Hempstead. People that might know where he did his bird watching.”
“You know, I know I can do that. He had two very good friends at that time, both of whom even occasionally went with him. They would know where he went.”
“Good.”
“Let’s see, the one he had his eye on was a girl named Julie Paine, and her friend was a girl named Frances Miller.”
“Do you know if they both still live in Hempstead?”
“Yes, they do. They were both at Brian’s funeral. Frances is married and has two children now. Poor little Julie never married, and appears to be quite grief-stricken over Brian even still. They were all very good friends then.”
“This is very helpful, Nadine. They may be able to give us the kind of information we need.”
“Yes, they would know better than me really.”
We sat quietly for a few seconds.
“You know,” Nadine said, “the man Brian worked for in Hempstead might be able to help you also. He still runs that same clothing store. It’s called Wolfram’s and it’s in the town square. He knew Brian really well.”
“Oh, that could be helpful, too.”
“Toni, why don’t we go look at some of Brian’s sketches. You’re an artist, and I’m very proud of his work. I’d like you to see them.”
“I would love that.”
We got up and went down the hall to a little room with windows all across one wall. It looked like a study, and with all the windows, it was light even on a gloomy day like that one. The study had become a gallery to Brian’s work. She showed me framed drawings of birds in the wild from all sorts of places. Apparently, Brian would travel to other locations from time to time to study and sketch the birds. The bookshelves were filled with books on ornithology. Suddenly, I noticed one book on the shelf that had the name Ferguson on the spine.
“Oh, what is this?”
“That was Brian’s book. He had a doctorate in ornithology.”
“I had no idea. That explains the bird watching.”
“Yes, but as you can see, he was a really good artist.”
“Yes, he really was. His work is very nice.”
“He just wanted to focus on his art and the birds without the pressure of a high-stress job. It was what he loved.”
Nadine and I talked for a while longer. As a mother, I couldn’t imagine what she had been through and was still going through now. Her husband had died two years ago and we discussed things that only a widow could understand. I thought about this brave woman, carrying on with what was left of her life. She told me that she only had about four months left, according to her doctors. She was enjoying what she had as much as possible, but she was ready, she said, to go to the other side. She said her life was richer now in understanding how precious each moment was. She had a close network of friends and she was maximizing her time with them. I felt better in hearing that, but sad still that this sweet woman was not someone I would have time to know better.
We brought our conversation to a close, I thanked Nadine for the coffee and made up my mind to go to Hempstead on my way back to Austin. Hempstead was only about an hour out of Houston and not really far off the beaten path back to my city. I didn’t know how wild Mike would be about the idea, but I wasn’t some little school-girl, and I thought Tommy wouldn’t object. I was going to do it anyway, because I needed the answers myself. Besides, I was saving them some footwork and they had other cases to work on. That one sounded really good in my head when I came up with it anyway.
As you drive up the coastal plain from Houston toward Hempstead, you move into the beautiful, lush green forests and hidden piney woods of Texas. They make ice cream in a town just up the road where they claim the cows think they’re in heaven. I know why they say that. It is truly one of the loveliest parts of our state, even in the rain.
Once in Hempstead, I found Wolfram’s and stopped in there to see Mr. Wolfram. A salesperson told me he was at lunch and gave me directions to the restaurant. It wasn’t hard to find. Hempstead wasn’t exactly a huge place.
I found him at a nice little diner called Goodman’s. He was seated at a table with two other women and a small child. He was a nice man of about fifty-five, portly with a bald head and a funny gray handlebar mustache.
“Mr. Wolfram?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Toni Sullivan. Nadine Ferguson gave me your name and said you might me able to help me. I’m the forensic sculptor who reconstructed Brian’s image.”
“Oh my! How nice to meet you.”
He stood up and we shook hands.
“Call me Bud, Toni.”
“Nice to meet you, Bud.”
“You’ll be interested in meeting my friends here. These are two good friends of Brian’s. Julie Paine and Frances Holman, she used to be Frances Miller.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. Julie Paine still looked like the young girl she must have been when Brian Ferguson was alive. She was a plain woman with fair skin, a small upturned nose, large, blue eyes with a sad appearance in them and a sweet, but tentative, smile. Her fine blond hair was tied in a ponytail with a green ribbon that matched the shirt she wore. Frances Holman Miller was a large-boned woman with tanned skin and she appeared to be fit. She had short black hair, a long slender nose and deep brown eyes, with an air of confidence Julie seemed to lack.
I shook both their hands, and Bud asked me to join them. It suited me just fine, I was starving for lunch myself. I sat down and ordered something to eat.
“The police asked us if we recognized that other woman who was killed,” Julie said.
“We didn’t,” Frances continued.
“We knew everyone Brian knew,” Mr. Wolfram offered. “He was just a really high-quality person. He really only wanted a simple life here. With his credentials he could have been teaching somewhere, but he wanted to live simply and study birds.”
“Yes, his mother told me. She told me he traveled from time to time to other places to study.”
“Yes. That was how he spent his vacation time. I was very lenient with his time off because he was just such a great guy—such a great friend.”
He looked down at the table. I noticed that Julie looked very sad and upset. Before I could think of anything wonderful to say, a man in police uniform came up to the table. He greeted everyone there.
“Who’s your friend here?” he said, referring to me.
“I’m so sorry,” Bud said. “Toni Sullivan, this is Chief Grant. He’s the head of our police department.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Chief.”
“Toni Sullivan? You’re the artist, the one who did Brian’s sculpture.”
“Yes,” I said, surprised that he could remember my name.
“I met your son, so to speak. He and his partner and I spent some time talking about the case over the phone.”
“Oh, I see.”
“So, what brings you down here?”
“Chief, pull up a chair and join us,” Bud said.
He pulled up a chair, and began asking me questions.
“Your son and his partner asked me questions about Brian and some woman name Addie Waldrep. They faxed me her photo, but she didn’t look familiar to me, and I don’t know a
ny folks around here named Waldrep. They didn’t tell me a whole lot about what was going on, though. Who was this Addie Waldrep, and what does she have to do with Brian?”
Julie looked more upset now. I wasn’t sure if Tommy and Mike would approve of me telling them this, but I wasn’t going to sit there and watch this young woman unravel on me.
“Actually, at this point, we don’t know that she had anything to do with Brian. Her bones were found in a similar manner in Austin, so the police are trying to get any information they can on how and why the killer did these things.”
“I see. Then who was she?”
“She was actually a woman who went missing from a small town not far from Austin. She’s been missing for sixteen years. Another man from her town went missing about the same time.”
“Huh. So, there must have been some similarity in the way they were killed or something that made y’all think they were linked.”
“Yes. Their remains were in a similar condition and left in similar circumstances. We don’t think Austin is their original burial place.”
“So, the woman’s remains were found in a similar manner to Brian’s?” he mused out loud.
“Yes, her bones were found dumped in a fresh grave along the riverbank on what we call Red Bud Isle. If they hadn’t been found by a passing kayaker that morning, they probably would have gone undiscovered until they were carried away by the spring rains.”
“Interesting,” he said, leaning back precariously in the diner chair. “Then where were Brian’s remains found in relation to hers?”
“His were actually quite a ways downstream near a running trail that crosses a creek that feeds into the river. His remains really weren’t close to the water at all. They were actually surprisingly close to this running trail.”
“Uh-huh. So, y’all think because they were both reburied like that and the bones all jumbled up like, that’s why the two deaths are related?”
“Well, and also because the soil samples on both point to an original burial in this area.”
“Hmm. I’ll be.” He landed the chair back on the floor and shook his head in amazement.
“That’s really what brings me down here.”