A Killer Past

by Maris Soule

‘Yeah, right.’

  Jack stood, ready to grab his overcoat and head for the County Jail in Paw Paw. Wally stopped him. ‘Oh, also, Allison took a call just a while ago. Some woman over on the west side of town wants to start a Neighborhood Watch. Seems those two assaults last week have her all riled up. What do you think? Should I have Carlson cover that?’

  Since Rivershore didn’t have a police officer specifically assigned as a community resource officer, or CRO, the chief usually rotated the assignments. Phil Carlson had lived in Rivershore for almost twenty years and knew many of the citizens personally, either because of multiple arrests or because their children had attended school with his. ‘Yeah, he’ll do a good job. The woman who called in… . Did she give her name?’

  The chief glanced down at the phone message in his hand. ‘Ella Williams. She lives on Maple.’ He looked back up at Jack. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’ Especially considering this woman lived on the same street as Mary Harrington. He thought about it for a moment, then decided. ‘Tell Phil when he meets with them. I’d like to tag along.’

  The chief nodded and sighed. ‘Jack, what is it with all these gangs? We’ve never had problems like this before.’

  ‘We’ve had problems, Wally, just never this serious. Our kids – your boy and my two – were in gangs. It’s something kids do, especially teenagers. They form packs. It gives them identity. They’re breaking away from parental control and forming their own families.’

  ‘Yeah, but our boys weren’t out beating up people or shooting at other kids.’

  ‘Because we kept track of them, took action when we saw them getting into trouble. Most of the punks I’ve come in contact with lately either have parents who are too busy trying to eke out a living or too strung out on drugs to care.’

  ‘You think this Neighborhood Watch will help?’

  ‘Can’t hurt.’

  ‘So why isn’t someone on the east side of town starting one?’

  Jack didn’t have an answer for that, and he said nothing as Wally walked away, grumbling under his breath.

  It took Jack a moment before he remembered what he needed to do. Again he reached for his coat, and again he was stopped … this time by the ring of his telephone. For a second he considered letting it ring – the caller could leave a message – then he changed his mind and picked up. ‘Sergeant Rossini here.’

  ‘Dad, what’s going on?’

  Jack sank back onto his chair. John rarely called him, much less at work. ‘What do you mean, “What’s going on?”’

  ‘That woman you asked me to check on. I had a few moments this morning and thought I’d look into it.’

  Jack heard his son take in a deep breath. That he’d paused bothered Jack. ‘And?’

  ‘And her file’s restricted. In fact, ten minutes after I tried to access it, I was called into the SEO’s office and questioned as to why I was looking into the name.’

  Bingo. It had to be Witness Protection. ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘I had no choice. I told him you were investigating her and had run into a dead end.’

  ‘And what did your SEO say?’

  ‘He asked me why you were investigating her. I told him I wasn’t sure. Then he asked me what police department you worked for. Dad, I’d be prepared for a call.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for the heads-up. Hope I didn’t get you in trouble.’

  ‘No, but the way the assistant director acted was really strange. I don’t know who called him, but it made him nervous. He kept telling me to forget this Mary Smith, forget I’d ever heard about her.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MARY SNAPPED ON the light, and then held onto the handrail as she walked down the stairs to her basement. From the day the realtor first took them through the house, the basement had made Mary nervous. She blamed it on her training. One thing the agency had stressed was never put yourself in a position where you couldn’t escape.

  Both the realtor and Harry had pointed out the egress window, assuring her that she could get out through it if ever that became a necessity. And back then she could have escaped with ease. Today, after spending two hours at the gym, she wasn’t sure she could haul herself up on the bookcase under the window, much less crawl through the window. The bruises on her wrist and ankle were still tender and her legs felt rubbery, making her wonder if she should even chance climbing on top of the stepstool they kept down in the basement.

  Well, she needed to if she wanted to reach the box she’d squirreled away on top of the metal shelving units that lined one wall. Even when she’d been younger, getting that box up there had been a task, one she’d accomplished on her own while Harry was at work.

  The day she left her apartment in Washington D.C. and became Mary Smith, she’d taken a bare minimum of clothing and personal items. She’d doubted she’d have any need for slinky, skin-revealing evening dresses or designer shoes while living in Rivershore. And she certainly wasn’t going to use the cosmetics that had turned her looks from attractive to stunning, not if she wanted to blend in and become invisible. Her suitcases had been filled with quality clothes, in keeping with the story she’d be telling about having had rich parents, but nothing that would stand out and cause her to be noticed.

  During the thirteen years she worked as an agent, she often used her looks and natural endowments to her advantage. When a man’s eyes were locked on her bustline and his thoughts revolved around ways to get her into bed, he didn’t consider his vulnerability. She still remembered her first decoy assignment. She’d used her sex appeal that night by pleading with the guard on duty at the gate for help with her car. How could he turn down a stranded female wearing four-inch heels and a dress so tight it was obvious she didn’t have anything on under it?

  She didn’t have to hurt him, and she was glad. He’d seemed like a nice old man, a grandfatherly type. Not once did he hit on her. He simply walked with her back to her car, poked around under the hood, and reattached a loose wire. She’d actually been afraid he would return to the gate before her partner was out, but once she mentioned grandchildren, the guard was hers. He had seven and showed her pictures of each.

  She doubted the guard ever realized what really transpired behind the wrought-iron fencing of that exclusive estate while he was helping her. The news reports she heard, along with the articles she read in the newspapers, all claimed the owner of the shipping company died in his sleep, a case of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a defective portable propane heater. He was found the next day by his wife, who thankfully, the reporters said, had been away for the weekend with their children.

  There never was a mention of the papers missing from the man’s wall safe, or of the money that disappeared from an offshore account, but for a short time the shipment of arms to North Korea was disrupted.

  Mary stood at the base of the stairway and looked around. The basement looked and smelled pretty good now, much better than when Harry was alive. Her husband had been a hoarder. Not the terrible kind who filled every inch of his house and car with things he couldn’t throw away, but bad enough, in her opinion. He’d confined his collections to the basement and garage, which was one reason why she’d rarely gone down into the basement and why the Chevy had spent most of its life parked in front of the garage, not in it. She used to call the garage ‘Harry’s above-ground landfill.’

  After his father’s death, Robby had offered to help her get rid of the junk. He knew she didn’t like going down in the basement, and she almost took him up on his offer … until she remembered the box she’d placed on the top shelf so many years before. ‘I can take care of the basement,’ she’d told him. ‘After all, most of the boxes down there are full of books from my old bookstore. How would you know what I’d want kept and what I’d want tossed? You deal with the garage, OK?’

  Which he did, taking the few tools he wanted, giving what was usable to the Salvation Army, and hauling the rest of Harry’s ‘treasures’ to the dump. The garage now
actually had room for the Chevy, and as soon as Robby fixed the garage door, she’d start parking her car in there.

  As soon as.

  Mary grinned. How long had it been now? Her son was great with numbers and figuring out what stocks to buy or sell, but he sucked at anything mechanical. If she wanted that garage door fixed, she was obviously going to have to call someone.

  Or do it herself.

  For the last two years, she’d been doing a lot of things on her own: paying bills, mowing the lawn, fixing leaky faucets. Every fall she had a furnace man come and check the furnace; it now rumbled with a pleasant familiarity, keeping the basement and upstairs rooms a comfortable temperature. It used to be she didn’t mind the cold. When Robby was young, she used to go outside with him and play in the snow. Now she dreaded the idea of going out when the temperature dropped below thirty, and she wasn’t comfortable unless she kept the thermostat set at seventy-two.

  Mary stepped away from the staircase and over to the wall near the furnace. A folded-up stepstool hung on a hook, next to the few tools she’d decided to keep down here – a hammer, a crowbar, and a small handsaw. She eased the stepstool off the hook and carried it over to the metal shelving that lined the opposite wall.

  Only half of the area under the house was what she would call actual basement. That area had a concrete floor and poured concrete walls. The other half was simply a dirt-based crawl space accessed through a removable wooden board. She’d never gone in there and didn’t intend to. As far as she knew, that wooden board was the only way in or out.

  A hot-water heater and a water softener, that had stopped working years ago, were near the furnace. The egress window and the small bookcase below it were on the wall in front of the staircase, and an eight-foot-high metal shelving unit lined the wall to the right of the stairway. Boxes of Christmas decorations, old photo albums, and several crates of books filled almost every inch of shelving. She focused her gaze on the top metal shelf where a heavily taped box resided between two cartons of books. For over thirty years, the box had sat there, undisturbed. Its placement implied it contained more books or memorabilia from the bookstore. Only she knew its true contents.

  Mary opened the stepstool to its locked position, and using its arched metal handle to help keep her balance, she carefully started up. Only when she stood on the stool’s top step was she able to reach for the box. Her wrist bumped against the metal edge of the top shelf, and she flinched but ignored the pain. Holding her breath, she grasped the narrow end of the box and carefully pulled it toward her.

  If Harry had ever tried to move the box, he might have questioned its weight, and he might have wondered what was inside that could clink when the box was tilted to the side. The sound made Mary realize she should have used more stuffing.

  Back on level ground, she blew the accumulated dust off the top of the box, and looked around. Although there was little chance anyone might walk past the back of her house and look into her basement through the egress window, Mary didn’t want to take that chance. She didn’t want anyone to see what she had and start asking questions. With the box firmly held close to her body, she climbed back upstairs.

  She paused at the doorway at the top of the stairs, listening to make sure no one had entered the house while she’d been in the basement. It had been years since she’d been this edgy, and she was surprised by how fast her heart was beating. Slowly she stepped into the living room and looked around. Only when she was sure she was alone did she hurry into the kitchen.

  The box went on her kitchen table, and she pulled the blinds closed before reaching for a knife. The tape had melded into the box over the years, but a sharp blade along the seams released the tape’s hold. Within seconds she put the knife down and lifted the lid to view the few treasures she’d retained from her years with ADEC.

  Lying on top of the packing material were two kubotans, one the agency had given her and one she’d made herself. Both were the length of a dollar bill and approximately an inch in diameter. First she lifted the kubotan the agency had given her out of the box – the black metal cool to the touch – and then she removed the one she’d fashioned out of wood. The smooth, metal kubotan had a flat striking surface and rounded ends, but she’d given the one she made grooves, making it easier to hold. She’d also chiseled the end to a point. ‘All the better to inflict pain,’ she’d told her instructor the day she brought it to class.

  Thursday night she’d used her cellphone pressed against one boy’s ear and the other’s nose to inflict pain, but either one of these kubotans would have been more effective, and most people wouldn’t recognize them as fighting weapons. All she needed to do was drill a hole in the broad end of the one she’d made, attach it to her keychain, and tell people it made it easier for her to find her keys.

  She put the metal kubotan back into the box, but left the wooden one out. If she remembered correctly, Robby had left the electric drill in the garage for when he fixed the garage door. It shouldn’t take her long to drill a hole.

  Mary pushed the packing material in the box aside to reveal her nunchuck. Simply looking at the two wooden rods and the short chain that connected them brought back memories, both exhilarating and painful. It had taken long hours of working with a foam model before she learned to control the Okinawan weapon, but once she proved she could handle the nunchuck without breaking her own arm or neck, she was given a wooden one. She used that one for six years, continuing to practice and improve her skills, and it had served her well. But the day she visited the martial arts weapons store and saw the one now lying in the box, its wooden handles ornately carved with two matching dragons, she knew she had to buy it.

  Carl had been proud of her skill with the nunchuck, and whenever a new recruit was brought into the agency, he would ask her to demonstrate the weapon’s potential. Thinking back to those days, Mary marveled at the trust he’d had in her. At the end of each demonstration, he would hold a board in his hand, away from his body, and she would break it in two with a downward strike. She certainly wouldn’t want to try that today. A few inches off and the nunchuck could as easily shatter a hand or arm as break a board.

  Mary lifted the nunchuck out of the box, letting the tips of her fingers slide over the dragon carvings. It was still as beautiful as she remembered. She released one handle, letting gravity pull it and the chain connecting the two handles down toward the floor. Grasping the remaining handle with her thumb and forefinger at the upper area near the chain, she stepped back from the table and held her arm away from her body.

  Slowly she began to rotate her wrist, then faster and faster until the chain and second handle twirled like a helicopter blade. She smiled, remembered sensations running up her arm. A change in her grip and the two sticks appeared to be one long stick. She tried a diagonal stroke, then a horizontal strike. A forehand. A backhand.

  Mary recognized her movements weren’t as smooth as they’d been years before, and she knew she wasn’t good enough to enter a freestyle contest, but she was pleased that she hadn’t forgotten everything she’d been taught.

  That was, until she attempted to catch the second handle in her hand.

  The moving staff hit her thigh with a sharp blow, and she yelped in pain. Her hand reflexively opened, and the two wooden rods with their attached chain fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Sucking in a breath and blinking back tears, Mary pressed her hands against the point of impact. She would now have one more bruise to add to the collection.

  She picked up the fallen nunchuck, and put it on the table. As far as she knew, nunchucks weren’t illegal in Michigan, but if she wanted to use it, she was going to have to practice and hope she didn’t break any bones in the process.

  Digging through the packing material in the box, she found six metal throwing stars and two fighting fans, one made of bamboo and one of aluminum. She’d kept the fans for their beauty and the throwing stars because they easily fit in the box, but she didn’t think it was wo
rth unpacking them. She couldn’t imagine using the fans this time of the year. With the temperature barely reaching fifty during the day – if that high – and the sun rarely making an appearance, people would really think she was crazy if she walked around with a fan. As for the throwing stars?

  Her doorbell rang just as Mary reached for one of the metal stars, and for a moment she didn’t move.

  Had someone seen her with the nunchuck? Heard her yell?

  The doorbell rang again.

  Quickly Mary grabbed the nunchuck, dropped it back into the box, and closed the lid.

  Again the doorbell.

  Whoever was at the door was persistent. Mary opened the cupboard under her coffee maker, and shoved the box in on top of a pile of placemats. Quickly she closed the cupboard door, and started for the door … then stopped.

  She couldn’t leave the wooden kubotan on her kitchen table.

  The doorbell rang again.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she yelled and grabbed the wooden stick, dropping it into her sweater pocket.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JACK COULD UNDERSTAND why Wally had turned Pedro Rodriguez’s case over to the Van Buren Sheriff’s Department. One of the many things Rivershore’s police department didn’t have was a well-equipped crime scene investigation lab. For forensic evidence they depended on the county or state labs. Yet it bothered him that they – the Rivershore Police Department – had made a big bust and another agency would get the credit for a conviction.

  However, during the twenty-minute drive from Rivershore to Paw Paw, it wasn’t the Rodriguez case that held his attention but his son’s phone call. Mary Smith Harrington, or whatever her real name was, had to be someone important if simply researching her name resulted in such a quick and strongly negative response. He hoped his request hadn’t gotten his son in serious trouble. Evidently his own recent searches hadn’t triggered any alarms, but Jack could understand that. How far could a lowly sergeant from a small midwestern town take an investigation? Clearly not as far as an FBI agent.