Swan Song

by Jo A. Hiestand

  McLaren rubbed his head, the mental images all too familiar, real and upsetting. A burglary at a pub in Tutbury. Three o’clock in the morning. His friend, the pub owner, arrested by Harvester for grievous bodily harm to the burglar. A ludicrous charge if it hadn’t been so serious. A charge leveled by Charlie Harvester, who had always had it in for McLaren, and who now appeared to be paying him back for the years McLaren had professionally bested Harvester. A charge against a 70-year-old man defending himself, his wife and his business as the burglar came at him with a broken beer bottle.

  That’s when McLaren had quit his job, the injustice of the event exploding in one long vocal blast and, days later, a concisely worded written resignation.

  He leaned back, shut his eyes and, as he massaged his forehead, could envision a snatch of the letter…

  I also wonder if everyone has been chastised as I was, if this is a matter of selective blindness or just selective discipline. In any case, fairness does not seem to be the reigning philosophy of personnel management here at Staffordshire Constabulary. On top of all of this I was accused of taking charge of the case and dismissing all personnel working at the scene that night so I could control the outcome. This is completely absurd and has NO basis in fact. In fact, no one could give a single example to support this opinion. I NEVER NEVER NEVER said a single thing or expressed in any way that I had this desire. I certainly never foresaw this expectation. But the fantasy emerged, and I and my future in the Force were tarnished, probably beyond any repair. Shame on you for concocting such a fantasy, and then blaming me for your illusion. Shame on you for sidestepping a proper investigation into this situation. Beware the Peter Principle. It may be lurking at Trent Valley.

  The letter vanished as he opened his eyes and sat up.

  He’d been aware of the stares and gossip and sympathy, a volatile mix of emotions from well-wishers and detractors alike. Some had tried to change his mind, while others merely uttered ”Good riddance” and hoped the door would hit him on his way out. But those who knew him ignored the slander and jokes; it was just one more nail in Charlie Harvester’s coffin.

  The anxious beeps of the phone seemed to slip into the bleat of Harvester’s incessant accusations. Shaking away the images and surreal echoes, McLaren cleared the phone and punched in the number of Cheryl Kerrigan, the Home Office forensic pathologist who worked on the Kent Harrison case.

  She answered his call on the second ring and McLaren found himself again swamped in a rush of memories and mental images from his police days. He could also imagine her—small and delicate, her dark eyes staring at you with a frankness and inquisitiveness that ate into your soul. Her long, dark hair would be swept into a bun to be out of her way as she worked, or maybe in a ponytail, revealing a pair of dangly earrings she loves to wear. She’d be wearing a white lab coat over gray or blue trousers, two of her favorite colors. Her smile when she saw you or spoke with you would consume her face. He swallowed before responding to the “Hello?” asked on the other end of the line, momentarily wondering if he were doing the right thing, then answered, “Hi, Cheryl. It’s Mike McLaren.”

  A slight intake of breath preceded her stammered “Mc-McLaren? Mike? God, of all people! How are you?”

  “Hi, Cheryl,” he repeated, suddenly embarrassed and reticent about renewing the colleague association after so much time had elapsed. His fingers toyed with the handful of ceramic and wooden beads strung on a leather thong around his neck. He seemed to always resort to this talisman-like action when he was anxious. The larger, center bead was grooved like the ridges of corduroy, and he rolled it beneath his index finger and thumb. “I’m fine. How about you? Still in the job?”

  She laughed, a river of silver coursing through McLaren’s veins. “Does the sun rise in the east? Does a leopard change its spots? Of course I’m still a pathologist.” The laugh bubbled over the line again. “Why? You need something?”

  McLaren heard the pause, sensed the unasked question in her voice. He answered it. “No, I’m not back on the Force. I’m building and repairing stone walls in Derbyshire.”

  “Derbyshire! Really? Why there?” Again, she didn’t state the obvious, that he had put miles between himself and the scene of his anger.

  “My childhood home in Somerley. The village I was reared in. I thought it was better than…well, safer to leave Staffordshire.”

  “Safer for you, or safer for Harvester? Never mind, don’t answer that! I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business, Mike. But knowing you, it’s safer for Harvester. God, what a sorry excuse for a human being he is. Anyway,” she said, the warmth coming back to her voice, “you didn’t call to chat about old times. As I said, do you need something?”

  “I’m not sure now that I should have rung you up.”

  “Am I that forbidding? I haven’t changed any, Mike.”

  “No, not forbidding. Just that, well…the favor I need involves an old case.”

  “That shouldn’t bother you. I assume it’s a postmortem report or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “Yeah. It’s from a cold case.”

  “You’re a private investigator now? I think I heard whisperings about that. Oh, sure!” She nodded as she recalled last month’s newspaper article. “You solved that case about Marta Hughes. That was super work, Mike. But I guess I was thrown for an instant because I’d heard from Jamie Kydd that you were happily ensconced with your dry stone walls.”

  “I was. Still am, when I get back to it. I took the Hughes case as a favor.”

  Her laugh slipped over the phone wire. “I didn’t think you could stay away from your first love. Nothing gets your blood up or prods you into action faster than an injustice. What’s the new case? I assume I worked on it or you’d be ringing up someone else.”

  “Kent Harrison. A year ago this month. No one was charged with his murder.”

  “Harrison. Yes, I remember. A popular teacher and a talented singer. His claim to fame was a song about a swan, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. I don’t mind admitting to you the green-eyed monster very nearly consumed me.”

  “But your group has your own claim to fame.”

  “‘Cold Haily Rainy Night’? Yeah, I guess so, but we’ve not had any air play, as Kent Harrison’s song did.” He puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. “Anyway…”

  “Right. Kent Harrison. He was found near Kirkfield, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Dumped in the wood.”

  “That one made me mad, too, Mike.”

  “If you’ve got a minute, I need to know something about that case. Jamie Kydd told me you’d done the postmortem.” He knew he was repeating himself, but talking to her was harder than he had imagined. Not only due to the length of time since he’d last seen her and worked with her, but also because the conversation sharpened his image of Charlie Harvester. He took a deep breath and rushed ahead. “I need to know the particulars surrounding his death. Approximate time, cause…”

  A pause greeted his request. He heard Cheryl clear her throat, then her measured response. “You know this is highly irregular, Mike.”

  He felt his cheeks flood with heat. “Yes.”

  “Giving information to any unauthorized person, former police detective or not, could seriously prejudice any later criminal proceedings—if the case comes to trial.”

  He nodded. “Highly unprofessional, too. I know. It’s just that…” How could he phrase it so she would understand his urgency? “If Kent Harrison’s killer is ever to be caught—”

  She put him out of his misery. “Just a minute.” A soft thud as she put down the phone’s receiver preceded a high-pitched squeak of a metal filing cabinet drawer being opened. Then came several bangs while she shifted the drawer farther out, a few scrapes while the metal ends of hanging file folder rasped across the support bar, a mumbled ‘Damn’ as heavy paper folders fell to the floor. Finally, moments later, she fumbled for the receiver and dropped the paper on her desktop. “Sorry. I dro
pped the damned thing.”

  “If this is a bad time—”

  “Not at all. Hold on while I find…yes, here it is.” There was another rustle of paper before she said, “Right. Now I recall it. Kent Harrison died of strangulation. Garroted. But the odd thing was the contents of his stomach. He had ingested a large quantity of hydrangea flower buds. All of the flower parts are poisonous, of course, but the buds more so.”

  McLaren made a sound between a whistle and a cough. Cheryl ignored it and went on. “Symptoms are vomiting and severe pain in the abdomen while the material is in the stomach. No traces of vomitus showed up on swabs I took from his mouth, nose and throat, however.”

  “So at that time he hadn’t yet consumed a large enough quantity of hydrangea buds.”

  “No.”

  “How long would it take for the vomiting and abdominal pain to appear?” He paused in his note taking.

  “Varies by person. We all digest food at different rates. But a while. As it passes on to the small bowel, the symptoms of cyanide poisoning occur between within one half hour to two hours.”

  “Dizziness, blushing, slowed breathing.”

  “Seizures, weakness, and coma. Death would be from respiratory—and heart—failure. But of course Mr. Harrison didn’t die of cyanogenic glycoside. He died of strangulation. Though he was rendered semi conscious first by a blow to the head. Probably so he wouldn’t struggle. A slight indentation to the skull, on the right side just above and behind the ear, suggests a rock as the weapon.”

  “But not hit hard enough to kill him.”

  “Not at all. More like he saw stars.”

  McLaren made a note to ask Jamie if any vomitus was found either in the wood, Dave Morley’s car or Kent’s house. That would at least give him an idea how long Kent had been eating the flower buds. Tapping the top of his pen on the notepad, he said, “Thanks, Cheryl. I owe you one. Maybe a drink some evening?” He hesitated, wondering if he should offer something more expensive, like dinner out.

  Another rustle of paper and a few sharp taps told him that Cheryl was returning the report to the file folder and straightening up her desk. “That would be nice, Mike. Then we could really catch up. And, uh, Mike…”

  “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor, would you?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t mention where you got this information. If my name comes out…well, it could be—”

  The end of your career, he thought as Charlie Harvester’s grinning face flashed across his mind’s eye. He said quite reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Cheryl. No one will ever hear your name from me.”

  “Thanks, Mike. I’m glad I could help.” She rang off, leaving McLaren silently vowing her name would never come up.

  While he’d been talking to Cheryl the photos of the crime scene came through on his email. He clicked on each attachment, studying the photos in turn and trying to relate the information he had to the images on his computer screen.

  The first photo showed the general crime scene—the boulder, the body lying beside it, the end of the trail as it blended into the soil of the forest. More photos detailing specific areas followed the broad view: small soil depressions that might or might not be made by shoes, a bare spot in the leaf litter, a few discarded beer cans and cigarette ends, a fresh vertical scrape that had removed lichen along one section of the boulder, a broken dog collar. Pictures of the body revealed Kent Harrison lying face down on the forest floor, his head near the base of the boulder. McLaren wondered briefly if Kent had struck his head on the boulder when he fell, accounting for the head injury Cheryl discovered during the post-mortem, but discarded the thought just as quickly. Kent’s face or head would have shown signs of scraping along the stone and there would be lichen in his hair, most likely. And Kent’s skin cells on the stone. Kent’s arms, straight and angled from his torso, implied he had not tried to brace his fall. His fingernails held no remnants of another person’s skin or clothing fibers, forest soil, or fragments of plant material. They were not broken, either, so none of that suggested Kent had struggled with his assailant.

  The neck held the classic V shape that resulted in strangulation, when the garrote is fairly low on the throat and pulled up higher at the back of the neck. No blood matted his hair, which seemed to underscore the minor quality of the head wound that Cheryl had mentioned.

  If it had been during the winter his clothing would have indicated a day or night assault, but due to the summer heat Kent hadn’t worn a jacket. Even at night. He was clothed in jeans, a cotton shirt, and trainers. No rips, holes or blood on his clothes suggested he’d been involved in a fight. The soil embedded in the soles of his shoes was consistent with that of the forest. All in all, a nice collection of photographs that didn’t tell him anything astonishing.

  He printed them out on his computer, studied them again, but could see nothing that might aid his investigation. Still, he put them into his slowly growing file folder.

  He emailed Jamie back, asking about the vomitus. Jamie replied that there had been none—neither in the wood leading up to the stone, in the vicinity of the stone, in Kent’s car or house, or on the earthen track leading to the wood. Or in Dave Morley’s car. And the lab technicians would have surely found traces when they searched Dave’s car for Kent’s DNA. Which told McLaren that the quantity of hydrangea in Kent’s stomach hadn’t been enough to induce sickness. Maybe whoever had been poisoning Kent had just begun. Or, he mentally added as he grabbed his keys from the kitchen worktop, perhaps Kent had been on the verge of being sick but had been strangled before the hydrangea poisoning killed him.

  * * * *

  McLaren hit the lull in Monday afternoon traffic that occurs between the lunch crowd gathering and the end-of-workday homeward rush. Jamie had given him the ex-wife’s name, and McLaren had found her address in the phone book. It was no secret that Sheri Harrison and Kent had been married—their names had been linked frequently in all the media reports at the time—so McLaren was not betraying Jamie’s confidence. Besides, the staff at Tutbury Castle knew both parties, Sheri still being employed there. McLaren allowed himself to whistle as he turned his red Peugeot 207 onto the A515 out of Buxton, heading toward the castle. He had phoned ahead; she was working until five o’clock.

  He lowered his car windows. He rarely used the car’s air conditioning system, enjoying the fresh air fanning his face. When he had been in the job he had lived in that mechanically created coolness and had thought nothing of it. But his year outdoors, working under too hot, too cold, frosty and rainy conditions, had reminded him how much he loved the natural world. Now he kept his windows open most of the year and relished the changes of all the seasons. The sun beat down on his right arm lying along the window opening and he sang along, full throated and joyful, with his folk group’s rendition of ‘The Carman’s Whistle.’

  Traffic thinned out in the stretch south of Buxton and he had a chance to glance at the countryside. It was flatter, more open land here in the White Peak area than that which comprised the Dark Peak District on the northern side of Buxton. The Dark Peak. Bog moss, peat and tough grasses coated the millstone grit at the heart of this wild, dark land—a windswept, cloud-draped panorama. Rolling hills covered in farmed fields and sheep replaced the Dark Peak’s rocky crags, steep slopes and forests. Gentle and leisurely, that was the feel McLaren associated with the White Peak and the southern dales. Out for a stroll as compared to serious, gear-wearing climbs in the Dark wilderness.

  Two songs later he passed Ashbourne and soon turned onto the A515. Traffic was heavier here, closer to Derby and Uttoxeter. Directional signs pointed toward Sudbury Prison and Sudbury Hall. McLaren thought, not for the first time, how incongruous that lookedone a prison for Category D male prisoners, and the other the epitome of seventeenth century elegance. He snorted heavily as he drove past the sign announcing the prison. What a laugh. Six hundred sixty-five inmates escaping from the prison in the past ten years. They get bored with t
he facility’s education and evening classes? Training in bricklaying, farming and gardening he could see as useful. But Enhanced Thinking Skills and Cognitive Skills Booster classes were beyond a joke. Fancy, meaningless names for a therapy whereby the inmates reflect upon their displeasing behavior and consider possible future actions. In other words, mimicking psychology and probationary terms to pull the wool over the cops’ eyes. Throw in a listener scheme for prisoners at risk from suicide or self-harm, and an anti-bullying committee… McLaren shook his head, wondering what had happened to non-coddling police work.

  The road angled eastward. The River Dove, the boundary marking Derbyshire and Staffordshire, looped and rambled along his right side, out of sight yet constant. Several miles on, he hit Staffordshire and turned off at the first major road. Tutbury’s famous castle, picturesque in its ruins, topped the hill one hundred feet above the town.

  The car park was not full as it would be after work tonight, or during the weekend; still, in the midst of the summer long holiday, school-aged children, parents and tourists made a good showing. McLaren found a spot near the embankment and glanced up at the castle as he parked. The south tower, tan and glowing now in the afternoon sun, claimed that portion of sky. But it was the north tower, a lone fragment of stone that was long associated with Mary, Queen of Scots’ imprisonment. Her apartments had been in a black-and-white building, no longer extant, stretching between the tower and the South Range. How many hundred yards was that, he wondered as he bought a ticket from the seller at the little shack. Hardly the prison he had envisioned in primary school. Some jail! Shaking his head, he walked up the slightly sloping path to the entrance, his boots crunching on the hard-packed gravel.