The Violet Crow

by Michael Sheldon

  An awkward pause ensued as Dr. Cronkite started to move away, his attention obviously fading. Then a thought struck him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Chief.” He seemed more substantial, suddenly, as he turned to face them. “Ginnie Doe, here, is practically a cold case already. Why the sudden interest?”

  Chief Black explained, “My associate, here, is a psychic. He wants to examine the girl for … evidence.”

  Dr. Cronkite shrugged. “You stay in this business long enough, you see everything.” He tossed Bruno a pair of latex gloves.

  Bruno put them aside. “I can’t use these. I have to make direct contact.”

  “It’s your life,” said Cronkite. And he left the room.

  Bruno turned away from Chief Black and placed his hands carefully above the dead girl’s heart. He shut his eyes. He breathed deeply with palpable emotion.

  “She didn’t see it coming,” he announced.

  “No? How do you know?” asked the Chief.

  “No fear. In fact, there’s not much of anything.”

  “What’re you telling me?” The Chief’s voice was rising in frustration.

  “This is unusual,” said Bruno, opening his eyes.

  “No kidding,” said the Chief. “Usually when there’s a dead kid, the parents are freaking out. Calling every 10 minutes. As if the next time they call maybe I’ll tell them it isn’t true. This time there’s nobody looking for her. No missing persons reports. We don’t know who she is. No one knows. No one cares.”

  Bruno looked carefully at the Chief during this outburst, but didn’t respond directly. “I need to take a lock of hair. Is that OK?”

  “OK with me,” said the Chief, feeling deflated. “But you have to check it out with the Doc.”

  The Chief led Bruno to the front office, where they found Doctor Cronkite sitting at his desk, his dark eyes fixed on the computer screen. The Chief gave Bruno a nudge to get his attention and then moved a couple steps closer to Dr. Cronkite. “Hey, Doc,” he shouted. “My friend here wants to take home a souvenir. OK with you?”

  Doctor Cronkite ignored the question.

  “You should see these numbers,” replied Cronkite. “St. Louis is catching up. And we can’t forget about Detroit. New Orleans. D.C. Don’t forget, Chief, I’m counting on your help.”

  “Let’s go,” the Chief said to Bruno. They returned to the lab, where they found a pair of surgical scissors on a tray of instruments. Bruno snipped a lock of hair and placed it carefully in a Ziploc bag. He lingered a few moments, studying the body until the Chief pulled him away.

  Out in the parking lot, Bruno seemed to revive. “Did you get what you needed in there?” the Chief asked.

  “I won’t know until I examine this at home.”

  “We could use a breakthrough. Soon. I mean, when’s the psychic stuff going to start happening?”

  “Hoo hah! Already you’re starting to kvetch? You want psychic stuff, you’ll get psychic stuff. I guarantee it. But maybe you should be a little bit careful what you wish for.”

  Chapter 7

  They were on their way back to the school when a metallic blue Volvo sedan pulled around the corner at a high rate of speed and squealed to a halt. Out popped a woman in her early 40s. She was dressed fashionably in an odd combination of battle garb and ultra-feminine frou-frou—a black tactical jacket, black stretch pants, black leather driving gloves with open knuckles, set off by an ivory-colored ruffled silk blouse. Wraparound sunglasses pushed up on her head and some sort of highly volatile lavender fragrance completed the package.

  Chief Black put on a phony smile as he approached her. “I could give you a ticket for speeding in a school zone.”

  The woman ignored his remark. “I heard you hired a psychic. Is that him?”

  “We decided to take your advice,” said the Chief. “P.C. Cromwell, crime reporter and editorial writer for the South Jersey Post, say hello to Bruno X.”

  “Bruno X?” echoed Cromwell. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I understand you have another name too,” Bruno interjected. “Peaches. Surely you understand why a nom de plume can be useful. So is a nom de guerre. Though I have to say, I think Peaches is a lovely name. Very heimishe—down-home and comfy.”

  Peaches looked startled for a second, then quickly shrugged it off. “How’s the investigation coming?”

  “Off the record?” asked the Chief, who was used to playing this game with the reporter.

  “Whatever.”

  Chief Black nodded to Bruno, giving him the go-ahead to talk. The Chief knew it didn’t really make any difference. If Peaches wanted to print something, she’d find an excuse. In any case, the Mayor would be pleased to see he was following orders.

  “I just started on the case today. We visited the site where the body was found and the morgue. Now we’re on our way to talk to Master Quentin.”

  “Any leads? Insights?”

  “As a matter of fact I have. But first I need to ask, did you ever used to go to any of those nice places in the Catskills? Grossinger’s? The Concord? Even Nevele? I mean with your parents when you was a little feygele like Shirley Temple?”

  Peaches shook her head. “No?” Bruno continued. “I could swear I saw you there. Did you ever hear Shecky Green tell his famous story about how he got kicked off the Sullivan show? No, huh? So where did your parents take you on vacation? The Poconos? Vegas?”

  “Atlantic City. But I don’t see what this has to do with the investigation.”

  “Atlantic City! The Jersey Shore! That’s just fabulous. What great parents! What a lucky kid! Salt water taffy. The Steel Pier high-diving horse. Jitneys. And … what a shmo I am … of course the beach. You must have had a fabulous tan …”

  —“Mr. X … Bruno …” Peaches interjected.

  “That’s right. That’s right. Just call me Bruno. Bruno’s fine.”

  —“OK, Bruno,” said Peaches in a commanding tone. “There are a couple of things I need to know about you. Just on background. To start with, what kind of psychic are you? Do you do astral projection, distant reading, ESP?”

  “Well, Peaches, those things are all good in their way,” said Bruno. “But mainly I use Kabbalah.”

  “Kabbalah?” Obviously impressed. “You mean like …”

  “Yeah. Movie stars, rock stars. Right now Kabbalah’s hot.”

  “Can you tell me some of the basics? How you use it?”

  “Funny you should ask that. Do you do any yoga?”

  “Yes,” responded Peaches, her interest growing by the moment.

  “I thought as much. Do a headstand and I’ll explain it to you.”

  “What?” she sputtered.

  “There’s a famous story,” said Bruno, trying to unruffle her feathers a bit, “about Rabbi Hillel. To insult him, a non-Jew asked him to teach him the Torah while he stood on one foot. Instead of dismissing him as an impudent shlepper, as he had a right to do, Rabbi Hillel agreed to teach him. Do you know what he said to him?”

  Peaches didn’t.

  “I don’t remember either,” Bruno deadpanned. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to tell you that the Kabbalah is very complicated. All you really need to know is it works good when you’re trying to catch bad guys. And that’s all I’ve got to say today, off the record, on background. Hope it helps.”

  Chapter 8

  Master Quentin’s office was plain. He had no computer, but he did have a phone. And a pencil.

  He seemed agitated. He was a black man in his late 50s. A thinner, shorter version of Duke Ellington with heavy circles under his eyes and graying, thinning hair combed straight back. He was also dressed immaculately in a plain sort of way. “I was afraid you might bring that reporter in with you,” he sighed.

  “Peaches is a piece of work,” the Chief agreed.

  “This Quaker Killer label she’s come up with is offensive. She seems convinced that our pacifism is just a veneer covering sordid emotions and criminal behav
ior.”

  —“She called me a dim bulb,” said the Chief. “I didn’t appreciate that either.”

  “I don’t think she’s Jewish,” added Bruno.

  Master Quentin burst out laughing. “You two are funny. Quite a pair.” Then he fell silent. The Chief started to ask another question, but Master Quentin gestured for him to wait. A full minute passed before he spoke. “Did you feel that?” he asked in a low voice.

  Bruno and the Chief looked at each other and shook their heads. They hadn’t felt anything.

  Master Quentin looked slightly disappointed. “That’s all right. You helped restore my composure. Anytime I can add a minute of quiet to my day … I’m sorry if it disconcerted you.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought; glad you’re feeling better,” said Bruno. “Let’s get down to business. So you don’t know anything about the faceless girl?”

  “You’re speaking of the poor creature who was found in our meeting house?”

  “Correct.”

  “As I’ve told Chief Black, she is not one of our students. I don’t know her. None of our teachers know who she is.”

  “How do you think she ended up in the meeting house?”

  “I have no idea. I’m sorry about what happened to her. And I’m sorry our meeting is involved. None of this is very pleasant.”

  “The Chief tells me the meeting house dates from colonial times,” said Bruno, switching tacks.

  “He did?” Quentin feigned surprise. “Maybe he is a bit ‘dim’ as our friend says. The original Friends Meeting in Gardenfield was built in the late 1680s, but on a different site. It was located where the Acme market is today—the brick one, which actually looks like a Quaker meeting house. Ever notice that? This was well after the Burlington Meeting, which was the first meeting house in the state. And New Jersey was earlier than Pennsylvania. A lot of people don’t know that. But the original meeting house burned down, unfortunately. The building you see here today was built to replace it, just prior to the Civil War.”

  “It seems very solidly built. How could anybody get in without leaving signs of a break-in?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not my area of expertise. Don’t criminals know how to pick locks?”

  “Yeah, but it leaves marks,” said the Chief. “Bruno, we’ve already been through this with Master Quentin.”

  “As I told the Chief, none of my staff are likely suspects. They are all gentle, non-violent people.”

  “Quakers may be pacifists,” Bruno agreed, “but like Jews, they have the reputation of doing well in business. Competition can breed conflict. Any problems in your congregation?”

  “We call it a meeting,” said Master Quentin. “We’re all equals. No one is in charge.”

  “OK. Sorry. Any conflicts amongst the Friends?”

  “Not that I know of.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I should mention that Dr. Fischer offered to provide security guards from his company … to help watch the school. Keep the children safe. I turned down his offer.” He seemed to grow agitated again at the thought.

  “What kind of company does this Dr. Fischer run?”

  “It’s a biotech. They do genetic engineering, I think. Located just north of Gardenfield in Maplewood.”

  “What kind of security issues do they have?”

  “I never discussed it with him. It’s not a very Friendly enterprise, tampering with the work of God. Because they grow genetically engineered crops, I would guess they have to control a perimeter to keep them isolated … and the protesters away. You’ll have to ask him for details.”

  “That’s it exactly,” said the Chief. “We’ve helped them deal with political protests from time to time. More of a nuisance than anything else. But it’s very important that you let me know if you decide to accept their offer. If I’m going to have a professional security team running around in my backyard, I want to know about it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Quentin looked nervously at his watch. “I will be needing to return to my duties. Do you have any more questions?”

  “Just one more thing,” said the Chief. “How’s the little girl doing? The one who found the body?”

  “As you know,” said Quentin with increasing agitation, “her family is determined to protect her privacy. They gave me instructions not to discuss her with anyone.”

  “Take it easy. I’m not asking as part of the investigation. Just as a concerned friend and neighbor.”

  Master Quentin maintained his silence.

  This time the Chief didn’t let it linger. “Quentin, please. Just two words: ‘She’s OK,’ or ‘Not OK …’”

  Master Quentin bowed his head. “I am sick of all this. Sick at heart about the poor girl who was murdered. And sick of answering questions. Why don’t you just ask her father?”

  “Two reasons,” said the Chief. “Kids can be very different when they’re away from home. And Bill McRae, as you might guess, is not exactly objective.”

  Bruno blanched. “It was his daughter Mimi? Mimi Cohen-McRae?”

  Master Quentin didn’t respond.

  On the way back to the car, the Chief was in good spirits. “I liked the way you handled that. A lot of people would have backed off a guy like Quentin because of his religion. But you used that Jewish angle and it got him to talk about those security guards.”

  Then he noticed that Bruno looked less than enthusiastic. “No, I mean it. That’s useful information.”

  “Glad to be of help,” Bruno said. “But I’m very upset to hear that the daughter of Bill McRae is involved in this.”

  “Friend of yours?” asked the Chief.

  “No. Mishpokhe—a relative, and a close one. Mimi Cohen-McRae is my niece.”

  Chapter 9

  Icky and Alison liked to say that they were doing more than their fair share to keep Gardenfield’s historical traditions alive and well. When Alison came back on the train from the University of Pennsylvania, she’d walk up Old King’s Road to the Lenape King Tavern where Icky worked the night shift. The place had a revolutionary pedigree. Built in 1750, the tavern still looked the way it did when the Assembly met there, in ’77, to declare that New Jersey would no longer be a British colony. British and Continental soldiers used the building in turn as they skirmished throughout the area, while the original Quaker meeting house, just two blocks distant, served as a hospital.

  Yet today Gardenfield was a dry town and its former leading tavern was a boring museum. Alison and Icky were restoring some of the place’s faded glory by shooting up speed in the basement. At least Icky did. Alison stuck to hash, mostly.

  Supposedly, Dolley Madison had spent the night there when she was a teenager. She had the reputation of a hot number, before she married James. So Alison and Icky had tried to make it on her bed one night. It was up on the second floor, cordoned off with velvet ropes. It wasn’t hard getting past those. The fancy bed frame and canopy made the spot look enticing, but Dolley’s mattress was really a sack filled with straw. Lumpy, scratchy, and distracting. The horsehair-filled cover was not much better.

  Now Alison and Icky confined their sexual activities to the basement. This, too, was a heroic act or a revolutionary statement, in their view, because the basement’s traditions were also sadly neglected. Longstanding rumors held that the basement of the Lenape King had been a way station in the Underground Railroad. This was a system operated in large part by anti-slavery Quakers in the decades before the Civil War to help smuggle runaways out of the South and into the free states in the North. For years, historians had tried to debunk those rumors. They claimed that the underground labyrinth of brick-lined rooms and passageways was just storage space for kegs of beer. Now the entire basement was off-limits. Apparently, the mortar holding the bricks together was crumbling to powder at a rate that the state’s building inspectors deemed to be unsafe. No one, not even the chief caretaker, was supposed to go down there. So the mystery persisted.

  Alison and Icky had fou
nd some interesting nooks and crannies, and they’d set up one as their private quarters for the times when they needed a romantic escape. It was fitted out with a double mattress, bedding, Icky’s works, Alison’s bong—and little else.

  That evening, Icky and Alison were entwined on the mattress, trying to have sex. Unfortunately, Icky’s speed habit was undermining his performance. Alison had already had quite a bit of experience with this phenomenon.

  “It’s like trying to pry open a padlock with a wet noodle,” she told him.

  —“Or trying to put a condom on a rotten banana.” That one was inspired by high school sex ed.

  —“It’s like trying to shoot pool with a lariat …” She’d heard that one in a cowboy bar.

  And finally, “Icky, is that your … daffodil?”

  Alison rolled over and pushed him back. She was bored and hungry. Icky was too high to care. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  “We’ll have to wait until break-time,” Icky whined. “And besides I’m not really hungry.” The speed was destroying his appetite, too. “We’ll have to be careful. I know the cops are watching me.”

  “Why do you say that?” Alison asked.

  “I see them practically everywhere I go, for one thing. And now they’re bringing in a psychic. I read about it in the paper.”

  “That could make things interesting.”

  “Interesting for you maybe. But I still live here. All this is too close to home for me. You told me it would all be over with by now.”

  “That’s what I thought. Apparently I made the mistake of overestimating the intelligence of the police force. I guess I’ve been watching too much TV. Don’t worry. You’ll be OK. Psychics are fakes. You say something, and they expand on it. Hey, maybe we can hire him to work on your little thingie …”

  Icky pretended to pout, so Alison would give him a hug. She did, but she couldn’t resist teasing at the same time. “Just be yourself. If he tries to read your mind, it’ll drive him crazy.”

  “I love you too,” said Icky glumly, breaking free. “What are we going to do?”