Blood Red

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Brianna Armbruster disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “No one’s seen her in a ­couple of days. She’s gone.”

  Gone . . . gone . . . gone . . .

  Stepping off the elevator again on the third floor of the Weehawken high-­rise, Detective Steve Lindgren pauses to take a deep hit off his asthma inhaler.

  The hallway is bustling with activity. At the far end, an officer is talking to a ­couple of neighbors who knew the victim. A crime scene investigator is removing equipment from a duffel bag as an officer stationed at the open door of apartment 3C talks into his cell phone.

  Steve tucks the inhaler back into his pocket alongside his Marlboro Lights. Ordinarily, he’d have stepped outside to smoke both before and after meeting with Kurt Walker, but he’s cutting back to a pack a day. Doctor’s orders.

  Well, actually, doctor’s orders were to quit altogether. “You have asthma and you’ve had one heart attack already. You have a death wish?”

  Steve doesn’t have a death wish, no.

  Apparently, Richard Walker did.

  Suicide is the immediate assumption when someone slits his wrists in a bathtub and is found with note—­in what is almost definitely his own handwriting—­that reads: I can’t do this anymore. You’ll be better off without me. I’m so sorry.

  Still, all unattended deaths are investigated as potential homicides when accidents and natural causes have been ruled out, and in this case, they have.

  There’s always a suicide spike at this time of year, and it’s not a stretch to think that this guy might have been depressed. Divorced and living alone, he’d been laid off back in October, which was news to his son. Plus, his ex-­wife killed herself almost exactly a year ago using the same means, according to her son. Maybe even the same razor. Kurt Walker seemed to think so.

  Losing one parent to suicide is bad enough, but two? And only a year apart? Steve feels for the guy, he really does.

  He offered to accompany the poor guy to notify his brother in Brooklyn, and also offered to send local law enforcement in Texas and California to notify the younger siblings.

  “No, thank you.” Kurt shook his head, eyes solemn behind his glasses. “I have to tell them myself. It’s my responsibility. My father taught me to do whatever has to be done, no matter how hard it is.”

  “He sounds like a wise man. I’m sure he’d be proud of you.”

  As they shook hands in the lobby, Steve promised to be in touch later today. “You let me know if you or your family need anything at all, okay?”

  Kurt nodded and walked out into the cold, head bent, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

  Thinking of what lies ahead for him and his siblings now, Steve sighs to himself as he reenters apartment 3C. The place is bustling with investigative activity, most of it centered around the body in the bathtub.

  “The ME will be here in about twenty minutes,” one of the officers, Jimmy Hogan, informs Steve. “I’m just confirming we’ve got an ID on the victim and it’s Richard Walker, the guy who lives here?”

  “Yeah, that’s him, according to his son. He’s the one who found him.”

  “That’s rough.”

  Steve shakes his head. “You don’t know how rough. The mother did the same thing, same way, last year at this time.”

  Jimmy’s response is a colorful curse—­followed by an even more colorful one as he steps back to let a police photographer pass by and knocks a water glass off a table in the process. It shatters on the parquet floor.

  “Cleanup on aisle six,” Steve announces through cupped hands.

  “Yeah, yeah, funny. See if there’s a broom in that closet behind you there.”

  Steve opens the door. The closet is jammed. He begins pulling things out, finds a broom, and hands it to Jimmy.

  “Got a dustpan?”

  “What do I look like, Molly Maid?” Steve continues rummaging in the closet.

  He doesn’t find a dustpan; he finds something that’s a hell of a lot more interesting.

  “What the hell . . . ?”

  He swiftly pushes his way into the bathroom to take another look at the body in the tub.

  “Hey, hey, careful, Lindgren,” the photographer protests. “I’m setting up a shot here.”

  “Sorry, hang on. I just gotta check something.” Steve checks, and nods. “Hey, fellas? I think this one’s a homicide after all.”

  From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives

  Community Notes

  June 14, 1916

  Young and old persons alike anticipate the arrival of summer for refreshing delights no other season can offer. Envision the perfect day: open-­air luncheon in a shady picnic grove, donning a bathing costume and splashing away a sultry afternoon at the water’s edge, indulging one’s sweet tooth with a bowl of rich, delicious ice cream or an effervescent root beer, and winding down the evening with the fox-­trot in an open-­air dance hall, a vaudeville performance, or a ragtime serenade beneath the stars.

  One can fulfill all of these desires and more at the new Valley Cove Electric Pleasure Park in Mundy’s Landing. Now open for the season and just in time for next month’s Sestercentennial Extravaganza, the riverfront park is accessible via streetcar to the end of the River West Line and is located adjacent to the 1665 settlement monument.

  Amusements include a carousel, a Ferris wheel, and a figure-­eight thrill-­coaster. Along the boardwalk are an arcade, a shooting gallery, and a food concession pier, including a root beer stand and confectioner’s stall. Strolling the well-­lit grounds, parkgoers will find modern bathhouses, picnic ­shelters, a roller-­skating rink, bandstand, theater, and dance pavilion. Plans for expansion include a baseball diamond, a grandstand, and a swimming pool.

  While there have been concerns among the upstanding citizenship of our fair village—­particularly those of a gentle female persuasion—­that the park might draw vagrants and unsavory characters from far afield, management offers utmost assurance that this is a family-­friendly endeavor. Undesirables shall be refused admittance. All others are invited to visit at ten cents for the day.

  Chapter 16

  Ordinarily, Noreen doesn’t leave the office at lunchtime, opting to stay at her desk and eat Greek yogurt or a protein bar, if anything at all. Today, however, she heads home at noon to grab a brief she’d left behind in her haste to clear away the breakfast things and get out the door with the kids.

  Luz helps when she’s here, but she’s off on Wednesdays. Kevin wasn’t working, but had reserved an indoor court at the club and was already gone when she got up at six-­thirty.

  She was hoping he wouldn’t be home now, but sees his Lexus parked in the garage when she raises the electronic door. Terrific. It’s already been a lousy day after a sleepless night on the guest room mattress, and she’s dreading this afternoon’s meeting with one of her more difficult clients.

  Having come to terms not just with the separation, but with the likelihood of a divorce, she wishes he’d just get out of her house and her life. But of course he can’t. Unfortunately, neither can she, not even just overnight. She doesn’t have the luxury of an escape chute to the hospital, a rented condo, or wherever the hell it is that he sleeps when he’s not here.

  Walking into the kitchen, she finds a mess. An array of chopped fruit sits on a cutting board, rinds and peels litter the sink, and the juicer is filled with a pumpkin-­colored sludge that’s spattered on the counter and backsplash.

  Goliath’s muddy paw prints are tracked over the floor, and the dog himself apparently toppled his bowl of dry food and is undoubtedly cowering someplace in shame.

  She fights the urge to grab a sponge and start cleaning, instead striding through the house to the foot of the stairs.

  “Kevin!” she calls.

  No answer.

  She stomps up the f
light and sees that the master bedroom door is closed.

  What if he’s in there with someone?

  That gives her pause.

  Then, realizing her heart wouldn’t be broken and it would be ammunition for the divorce settlement, she embraces the scenario and strides toward the room.

  Opening the door, she braces herself to see her husband in the arms of another woman.

  Instead, she finds him sound asleep—­wearing his shoes—­on top of the white silk comforter.

  The scream that’s been building inside her for months bubbles dangerously close to the surface.

  “Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? You’re sleeping? In the middle of the day? After making a disgusting mess and leaving it there for someone else to clean up?”

  He blinks, sitting up. “What are you doing home?”

  “I live here! Remember? I live here!” She wishes he’d yell back, wishes he’d do something other than sit there and stare at her. “My God. Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. ‘I’m sorry’ would be a good start.”

  “For what?”

  “For destroying the kitchen!” And our lives.

  He has the nerve to dismiss that with a wave of his ringless left hand. “You’re a lunatic when it comes to stuff like that. You make us all crazy with your nitpicky neat-­nicky—­”

  “Us all? Who all?”

  “Me. The girls. Sean, when he’s here. Even Luz.”

  “That is not true! Don’t you dare tell me how my children feel about me unless you want to hear how they feel about you!”

  “Go ahead. Tell me. How do they feel?”

  Oh no. No way. She’s not going to drag the kids into this ugliness.

  She shakes her head and leaves the room. As she descends the stairs, her throat aches fiercely with the effort of swallowing the scream.

  Her eye falls on the wedding portrait in the Baccarat frame, angled a little too close to the table’s edge.

  She reaches out to straighten it and gazes for a moment at herself as a young bride, eyes filled with confidence. Not tears, not hope, not misgiving, just confidence. She was so certain on that day about what their future would hold.

  So wrong.

  She can no longer hold back the scream. It erupts from her throat and she picks the crystal frame and hurtles it with all her might against the wall.

  It explodes into glittering shards that seem to hang in the air for one long moment before raining onto the floor.

  As the scream dies away, punctuated by Goliath’s alarmed barking, her cell phone rings in her pocket.

  After chain-­smoking three or four cigarettes in the falling snow while making twice that many phone calls, Steve Lindgren rides the elevator back up to the third floor.

  “What’d you find, Jimmy?” he asks Hogan, who has an array of papers spread out on the kitchen counter. They contain various examples of Rick Walker’s handwriting: on a grocery list, medical insurance forms, and plenty of unemployment paperwork. Visible through a transparent evidence bag, the suicide note found next to the bathtub is laid out alongside the papers.

  “I’m no handwriting expert, and I know you’re going to run this by one,” Jimmy says, “but this thing looks like a match to me. What do you think?”

  Steve leans in closer to study it. Jimmy’s right.

  “I think that’s Rick Walker’s handwriting. That’s what I think. But that doesn’t make this a suicide,” he adds, heading back into the hall. There, he spots the telltale blond ponytail of Mary Ellen Kramer from the medical examiner’s office. She’s standing in the bathroom doorway talking to one of the patrol officers.

  They’ve worked together on a number of cases over the past ­couple of years. He’s come to appreciate her professional opinion almost as much as the other guys on the force appreciate her good looks.

  Not that Steve doesn’t appreciate a beautiful woman, but he’s been happily married longer than Mary Ellen’s even been alive.

  “What’s the word?” he asks her.

  “We’re past rigor mortis. This happened over thirty-­six hours ago, but probably no more than forty-­eight.”

  “So . . . sometime late day Monday, Monday night?”

  “That’s my guess. And the wounds are suspicious, just as you thought. Keep in mind that this is just my initial impression.”

  Well aware that nothing is conclusive at this stage, Steve nods. “Tell me what you see.”

  “There are no hesitation wounds. The cuts on his wrists appear to be of equal depth and were made with equal pressure appear to have severed the tendons.”

  “Meaning it would be impossible to use the hand on whichever side was done first to do the other side with that much precision. Meaning he definitely didn’t do it himself.”

  “ ‘Impossible’ and ‘definitely’ are strong words, Steve, but you’re probably on the right track. Pretty impressive that you were suspicious about the wounds just at a glance.”

  “He’s holding the knife in his left hand, and he’s left-­handed.”

  “And you know this because . . . ?”

  “Because there’s a set of left-­handed golf clubs in the hall closet.”

  “Maybe someone else is storing them here,” Mary Ellen points out.

  “His name is on the tag on the bag. Anyway, he’d instinctively make the first cut with the dominant hand—­the left—­and then switch to the other hand, the right. That’s where the knife should be.”

  “Whoever killed him must not have known him very well, then.”

  “Or knew him—­and was so caught up in the emotion that went along with killing him—­that he slipped up. Even the most meticulous killers make mistakes. And there are a few other things that don’t add up to suicide.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like we didn’t find a cell phone here and we searched every inch of the place.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have one. Maybe—­”

  “There’s no landline, and there’s a cell phone charger plugged into that outlet on the kitchen counter.”

  Again, Mary Ellen plays devil’s advocate. “Maybe he lost his phone.”

  “Or maybe there was something on it that someone didn’t want anyone to see.”

  “Wait, so you’re just leaving?” Kevin asks, as Noreen tosses toiletries into an overnight bag in the master bathroom.

  “I’m going to see my sister, like I said. For one night.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “What about them?” She strides back into the bedroom and opens a bureau drawer to find something warm to sleep in. Rowan’s house was cold and drafty the one time she visited—­much too cold for the silk nightgown she was wearing.

  “What am I supposed to tell them?”

  “Tell them the truth: that Aunt Rowan needed me to come help her with something and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “What, exactly, are you helping her with?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head, already having informed him—­twice—­that she can’t tell him that and it’s none of his business.

  “Are you sleeping with someone?” Kevin demands.

  If the mighty scream were still lurking in her gut, that question, under these circumstances, might have set it free.

  She merely laughs and shakes her head. “No. I’m not sleeping with anyone.”

  Not tonight. Not in a while, actually.

  Her last dalliance was with a horse trainer at the barn where Sabrina rides, and that was last August. Even if she’d had the energy or the heart to fool around since Kevin told her he wanted to separate, she’s much too smart for that.

  Bag packed, she heads for the hall. He follows her down the stairs.

  “Wh
at the hell is that?” he asks, catching sight of the shattered picture frame.

  “Leave it. I wouldn’t want to drive you crazy with my neat-­nicky nitpicking.”

  She slams the door behind her, climbs into the car, rests her forehead against the steering wheel, and exhales. Perhaps for the first time in months.

  Then, as she pulls out of the driveway, she starts making phone calls. She has to cancel her meeting, clear her calendar, let the carpool moms know that Kevin will be driving tonight instead . . .

  She starts with her partner, telling Jennifer that something came up—­family emergency—­and she has to leave town.

  “Oh no. Are the kids okay?”

  “They’re fine. It’s not the kids, it’s—­a long story. I’ll explain later.”

  She hangs up and lets out a deep breath, oddly calm now that the scream is gone.

  Her sister didn’t ask her to drive up there. She seized the opportunity like a parachute in the midst of a harrowing freefall.

  “Are you serious? You’ll really come? I can’t believe I don’t have to deal with this alone. I know how busy you are and can’t believe you’d do that for me.”

  I wouldn’t, Noreen thinks, as she pulls out onto the main road, ready to begin the long trip back to Mundy’s Landing. I’m doing it for me.

  Standing by his open locker, Mick reaches for his jacket, then thinks better of it. He still can’t find his good down coat, but this building is too overheated to consider putting on even the lightweight windbreaker he wore this morning. He fights back another wave of nausea, thinking that he can’t get sick now. He has to find Brianna, has to—­

  “Going somewhere, Mr. Mundy?” a voice asks as he puts one arm into his sleeve.

  He turns to see Mr. Goodall, the principal.

  He isn’t alone.

  “We’d like to have a word with you, please.” The uniformed police officer with him is familiar. He’s the same cop who offered Mick a ride home from Dunkin’ Donuts last Saturday night. The Eagle Scout who once knew Braden.

  He isn’t smiling today.

  “Is it about Brianna?” Mick asks, heart pounding.