Etched in Tears

by Cheryl Hollon

“Happy to do that. I’ll call her right now and set up a time. Can you text me her number?” Savannah pulled out her cell and texted him.

  Edward nodded when his phone pinged the message. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and left the room to call Officer Williams.

  Savannah cleared her throat. “Another thing we haven’t investigated yet is how Dennis’s past might be the motive for his murder.”

  Edward returned, “Appointment made.”

  Savannah nodded. “We found the name of the social worker that coordinated the apprentice program with Dad. His name is James Armstrong. I think we need to talk to him and see what isn’t in the reports.”

  “He could also still have current contact with Lansing,” said Edward. “I know I still send Christmas cards to my sixth form tutor.” He looked around the table and saw confusion. “Oh, right. Here in the States, that would be about the same as twelfth grade.”

  “That’s good. Let’s try to speak to him today. In fact, hang on, let me give him a call.” Savannah opened the folder and flipped through a few pages. “Let me get that number.” She punched it into her cell and put it on speaker. “Mr. James Armstrong?”

  “Yes, this is he.”

  “Hello Mr. Armstrong, my name is Savannah Webb. I’m John Webb’s daughter and I’m working with the police department to investigate the death of Dennis Lansing.”

  “Yes, I saw that on the news this week. In fact, I’m disappointed that my health won’t permit me to attend the candlelight ceremony at the Dali Museum tonight. His death is such a shame. Dennis overcame so many challenges.”

  “Is it possible to talk to you about the apprentice program and anything about Dennis’s past? I would be grateful.”

  “I don’t see why not. I’m pretty much housebound now and mostly spend the day reading and bird watching. My wife died two years ago, so a little company would be welcome.”

  “That’s very accommodating. I really appreciation your cooperation,” said Savannah. “What about this afternoon before the ceremony?”

  “No problem. One moment.” There was a bit of a pause while he coughed. “Don’t you need my address?”

  Savannah palmed her forehead. “Sorry, of course I do.”

  Mr. Armstrong rattled off an address in the Gulfport area and Savannah copied it down. “I’ve got that. I’ll see you then. Just so you know, I’m bringing our current apprentice.”

  “It will be a pleasure to see you both.” She heard the start of another coughing fit before he hung up.

  “Okay, that’s settled.” Savannah looked around the table. Amanda was looking up and away at the corner of the room. Jacob was looking down at the surface of the table. “Fine, but thinking about the timing, Jacob and I need to get the next kiln load ready before I have time to talk to Mr. Armstrong. I’m sorry, Jacob, you’ll have to go with me. I’m not sure if I’ll have time between everything. It will be simpler for me if you ride along.”

  Jacob paused for a long moment. “I’m good with that. I can use more customer interaction practice.”

  Savannah nodded her head and smiled. Jacob was growing into this job.

  Amanda leaned over to Savannah. “What’s up with you two? Did you have a fight? What gives?”

  “Not a fight really. We just have a different view of how fast things should progress. Later,” said Savannah, clipping the word short.

  Edward returned. “I’m all set up with Officer Williams for lunch at Ferg’s Sports Bar. I’ll need the folder.”

  Savannah handed the folder over to Edward.

  “Jacob, we’ll have to go to Frank Lattimer’s shop right after this and pick up the fused plates. He’ll be antsy until I’m out of his hair . . . well, if he had hair.”

  “So, I can load them?”

  She nodded. “You can load them in the Mini. Are you okay to do that?”

  Jacob turned to look at her and smiled. “I’m good.”

  Everyone stood to go. Savannah grabbed Edward’s arm and whispered, “Stay a second.”

  He turned to her with a calm but wary look.

  She reached for both his hands and pulled them up to her lips, kissed them both, and placed them around her back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I have been behaving like a petulant brat and you’ve been behaving like a perfect gentleman.”

  He smiled at her and folded her into a warm hug. “I’m trying to take into account just how much change you’ve endured over the past year. There are bound to be rough patches. I need to be a patient man. You’re worth waiting for.”

  He kissed her like he would wait forever and a day.

  Chapter 20

  Thursday noon

  Edward parked his motorcycle in front of Ferg’s Sports Bar right across the street from the St. Petersburg Police Department’s dated headquarters. Ferg’s was one of the first eateries that had opened in the district. The owner had quickly staked out his location when the whispers of a baseball stadium began floating around town. His gamble had been successful and he enjoyed the patronage of many loyal customers during the off-season months.

  Edward pulled off his helmet, fastened it to the Indian, and pulled the file folder from the left side leather bag. He spotted Officer Williams at one of the rustic wooden tables near the sidewalk. She had a large glass of iced tea in front of her and another one setting across the table.

  “Thanks.” Edward sat and drank deeply from the glass. “How did you know I liked this?”

  “Savannah, of course. She thinks it’s funny.”

  “Iced tea in Florida is bliss. Have you ordered?”

  “Not yet, although they already have me down for my regular burger.” She glanced up at the server who had magically appeared at her elbow.

  “Your usual, Officer Williams?”

  Joy smiled and nodded.

  “What will you have, sir?”

  Edward smirked. “I’ll have the same.”

  Officer Williams frowned. “Hey. You don’t know what it is. That’s dangerous.”

  “Since moving to St. Petersburg, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that without fail the typical fare here is tasty, served with a smile, and the portions are generous.”

  “Well, I hope you’re pleased with an old-fashioned medium rare hamburger with fries and coleslaw. That’s my usual. The trick is that I get mine wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun”

  “In that case, I’ll have her regular the regular way, with a real bun.”

  The server smiled and left.

  “Savannah said to tell you that Jacob was remarkably inventive in his choice of key codes. If he hadn’t tried a few typical guesses, it could have taken months. Anyway, it turns out that the key was her birthday.”

  Officer Williams had taken a sip of her iced tea and nearly choked. “Oh, that’s priceless. His daughter’s birthday. That’s so ridiculously typical that no one would have thought of it.”

  “Sometimes the easiest thing is best. Anyway, here’s the file.” He gave the dusty package to Officer Williams.

  Before she could open the file, the server plopped down two large hamburgers. The plates were heaping with hot French fries and a huge mound of coleslaw.

  Officer Williams waved at Edward to start eating while she immediately opened the folder and looked at the number of encrypted words in the documents. “I can’t read this! Are you sure this is the right file?”

  Edward put down his burger, wiped his mouth from the juicy bite he had just taken, and spoke indistinctly. “Jacob is translating everything for you.” He chewed and swallowed quickly. “It shouldn’t take too long now that the machine is set, but Savannah thought you could get a general idea of the contents. She wanted you to have as much as possible as early as possible. Right?”

  “Of course, she’s right.” Officer Williams carefully gathered up her juicy burger. “That’s what makes her irritating sometimes, don’t you think?”

  Edward nodded. “Oh, yes.”

  Chapter 21

 
; Thursday afternoon

  Detective Parker stood in front of the whiteboard with his hands folded across his chest. The newest picture on the board was of Lucas Brown. It had been placed there by Officer Williams.

  “Let me hear your reasoning for selecting him as a suspect,” said Detective Parker. “Merely being overly helpful is insufficient justification.”

  “Actually, I have a solid foundation for suspecting our helpful, so very helpful, security manager. Savannah called in to report that Jacob had detected a pattern of overnight vagrants sleeping in the museum garden. She doesn’t think that could be happening without the knowledge of the security manager.”

  Parker rolled his hand in a tell me more gesture.

  “Maybe Dennis somehow became aware of that and challenged Lucas with exposing him to the director. She would fire him on the spot.” Officer Williams chewed on the corner of her lip, caught herself, pressed her lips together, then smiled. “Do you want me to interview him down at the museum or should I bring him here?”

  “Let’s see what he has to say first before we bring him in here. Make your own assessment, but keep me up to date.”

  Joy felt a little flutter in her chest. Detective Parker was beginning to use her more and more in the course of casework. The feeling lasted for about two seconds until she realized that added opportunity also meant added responsibility. The familiar thoughts about distrusting her own success began to rise. She took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts down deep.

  She drove to the Dali Museum, parked her cruiser at the visitor drop off lane, and had barely walked fifteen steps toward the entrance to the museum before the doors opened and Lucas rushed out to meet her. He wheezed from the effort and a sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  “Good afternoon, Officer Williams. What brings you back here? Do you have more questions?” He wiped his face with a handkerchief and waited for her to speak. His eyes shined with excitement.

  “Yes, there are a few details to verify. Is there somewhere we can talk? Hopefully in the air-conditioning inside. Maybe a conference or community room?”

  “Of course. The community room is vacant. I’ve got the key.”

  Lucas walked her into the museum and gave a dismissive wave to the cashier as they walked through the gift shop, passed the café, and stood before two white doors with gold lettering overhead indicating that the community room was sponsored by a local bank. He unlocked the door and held it while Officer Williams entered.

  The room was large and felt open and airy due to the floor-to-ceiling windows along the entire wall facing the garden. There was a speaker’s podium in front of the central window and white garden style chairs arranged in a semicircle around the podium. Lucas led her to the first row of chairs. “Is this good?”

  “This is fine. It’s at least cool.” Joy sat down and pulled out her officer’s notebook and a pen. She looked at Lucas who was sitting precariously on the edge of his seat. Sweat was again glistening on his forehead. “We have evidence that there have been some late-night visitors to the garden who are actually spending their nights there. When did you start allowing the homeless to use the garden as a haven?”

  Lucas leaned back so quickly he nearly turned over the chair. “Who says that?”

  “So you’re not denying it. Merely curious as to who figured it out?”

  “No. That’s not what I mean.” He swiped his forehead in a smooth automatic movement. “I mean, yes, I’m not denying it.”

  “Why did you lie to Detective Parker?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucas took out his handkerchief and held it with both hands twisting it into tortured knots. “There’s no harm in letting those guys bed down in the maze. I make sure that only the quiet ones get a place.”

  “So, you only allow certain ones?”

  “Yes, I look for the ones that are getting bullied and end up walking the streets all night to stay out of the way.” He looked down at his handkerchief, shook it out, wiped his face, then returned it to his back pocket. “Look, no one is being harmed or inconvenienced in anyway at all. It’s just that . . . well you’ve met the director. She doesn’t understand or even care what happens to those guys. I would probably get fired and then I can’t help them. Are you going to tell the director?”

  Officer Williams said nothing. Then she continued to say nothing. She was learning that some people can’t stand a silence.

  Lucas dropped his voice to a raspy whisper. “Please, please don’t tell her. I’ll help you anyway I can. Please.”

  “Then you must tell me the absolute, bald-faced truth. If you don’t, I’ll charge right up there to her office and tell her myself.” She pointed in the direction of the second floor.

  Lucas released a long-held breath. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I promise.”

  “Tell me about the normal routine each evening,” Joy said with a pen poised above her notebook. “I need every detail.”

  “It started about two years ago when I got here early to open up the building for one of our landscapers. He needed to adjust the water pressure or something on the sprinkling system and needed access to the utility room. Anyway, as he checked out a broken sprinkler head, he came upon a homeless veteran.” Lucas leaned back in the chair and chuckled. “I don’t know who was more startled, but I ran out and calmed both. The vet wouldn’t tell me his real name. He said he was known as Pappy. He had been in the Navy during the Korean War.”

  Joy looked up from her scribbling. “He was pretty old then.”

  “Yeah. Ancient. He must have been at least eighty. He looked clean though. And he only had a small bag with him, so I asked him where he was staying. He didn’t want to tell me, but I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. He told me that he was in a halfway house and appreciated that, but sometimes he needed to be out, and spending a night in the garden now and then helped him cope with such crowded conditions.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I didn’t see any harm in giving the old man a little peace and quiet now and then.”

  “But it’s more than that now?”

  “Yeah,” said Lucas. He pulled out his handkerchief for an automatic face wipe. “There are currently about twenty vets who use the garden at night.”

  Joy’s eyes widened. “Twenty? That’s so many. And only veterans?”

  “He insisted on only vets. Oh, not all twenty at once. They sort themselves out and only let three or four stay each night. The thing about staying the night in the garden is that it helps them cope with their problems better. They stay on their meds. They don’t run away from their residence. I know I’m doing some good.”

  Joy put down her pen. “But you know this can’t last. Someone in management is going to hit the roof and you’ll be out of a job. You can’t help anyone then.”

  “I know, I know, I know.” He covered his face with both hands. “I’ve been working on a better solution, but it isn’t quite ready yet. Soon, though.”

  Officer Williams picked up her pen. “First things first. Who was here that night?”

  “It was a typical night. Only three vets were bunked in the maze and one guy had the privilege of camping out on the green bench. That was the prized site. Everyone wanted to sleep there.”

  “Who was it?”

  “He’s called Ol’ Cap. He lives in the Lighthouse group home. He’s the informal leader of the vets that stay here.”

  Joy finished writing in her notebook, then stood. “I’m going to check this out. The problem with lying to the police is that now we don’t trust anything you say. So, I’m going to have to confirm everything .”

  Lucas stood and looked down at his feet. “I didn’t want to make things worse for those guys.”

  Officer Williams nodded. “Try not to worry.” She smiled. “I don’t want to make things harder for those guys, either. I’ll get back to you. I’m sure we’ll have more questions.” She walked out to the car and looked back at Lucas standing in front of the entra
nce watching her.

  Could one of them have killed Dennis to keep him from ending the sleeping arrangements? Would that be a motive to a desperate vet?

  Chapter 22

  Thursday afternoon

  Savannah drove downtown to Frank Lattimer’s glass shop with a sour feeling of indigestion in her stomach. Although he had been cooperative in the use of his kiln for her emergency firing, his moods were unpredictable. She looked in her rearview mirror at Jacob calmly petting Suzy in the backseat. He had better not upset Jacob.

  The parking slots were all taken when she drove by, but they managed to find a two-hour time limited spot a block away.

  They went into the shop and Frank waved them over from the doorway to the fusing room. “You’re early. I thought I said not to come by until six. Class will be over by then and you can unload.”

  He hadn’t said anything about after six.

  Savannah pressed her lips together. “Oh, I misunderstood. That’s why there’s no parking, then.”

  “Of course. Come back then. After six.” He looked at her as if she were a simpleton.

  Savannah, Jacob, and Suzy returned to the car. “I’m going to go talk to Mr. James Armstrong. Are you good with coming along? Do we need to make a pit stop for Suzy? Or yourself?”

  Jacob looked down at Suzy and then at his shoes. “There’s the comfort station downtown. That would be good for both of us.”

  Savannah smiled. Jacob was getting more and more independent over time. A couple months ago, he would have suffered in silence and then possibly had an anxiety attack, rather than simply say that he needed a restroom.

  The comfort station at the corner of Bayshore Drive and Second Avenue NE was one of the first public restroom buildings in St. Petersburg and it still served beautifully. Built in 1927, it featured an octagonal shape capped with a red tile roof and a copper cupola and finial.

  It was a pleasant fifteen-minute drive to the waterfront community of Gulfport. Savannah loved the quirkiness of the community. The City of Gulfport sponsored a First Friday and Third Saturday Art Walk all year. The slogan was “Keep Gulfport Weird,” accompanied by a stylized lizard. That pretty much covered it.