Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  It was nearly three in the afternoon. Tomorrow PJ would get an early start and drive to Jefferson City to look for the elusive Libby in person. She wanted to talk with her face-to-face anyway, and not over the phone.

  She phoned her son Thomas at Bill Lakeland’s house. Winston picked up on the second ring.

  “Hi, Winston. Could you put Thomas on, please?” There was a pause and a few clunks as the phone was put down hard and then picked up.

  “Hey, Mom!”

  “Hey, Cuddle Bunny, how ya doin’?”

  “Sheesh. Don’t call me that.”

  “Don’t complain. Could be worse. I could call you that in front of girls. Specifically, Amanda Franklin.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Let’s just say I probably wouldn’t, but I reserve the right.”

  “You coming home? We could have dinner together.”

  That sounded great to PJ, but she needed to get some work done before her trip to Jefferson City tomorrow. She missed her son, and hearing his voice on the phone made her want to see him even more.

  “Here’s the deal. I’d like to invite myself over to have breakfast with you guys tomorrow morning. Could you ask Winston and his dad if it would be all right?”

  “His dad won’t be home until five-thirty. Just come over, anyway. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

  PJ laughed. “You’re certainly making yourself at home over there. We’ll assume breakfast is on unless I hear otherwise from you. Call me at work if Bill says no.”

  “He won’t. He likes you, Mom.” Thomas’s voice had gotten low, practically a whisper. She guessed that Winston was nearby, and he didn’t want his friend to hear that last part.

  “Yes, I know, T-man. I like him, too.”

  “I mean he really likes you.”

  “Oh,” PJ said. After an initial resentment at the fact that his mom might actually be interested in other men after the divorce, Thomas seemed determined to fix her up with men he liked. He had tried it with Schultz, too. She was sure Thomas didn’t realize how obvious and endearing his actions were.

  “It’s complicated,” PJ said. “He’s still married, you know.”

  Bill Lakeland’s wife lived in a supervised halfway house, recovering from drug addiction. She wasn’t making a lot of progress, and had gone through several setbacks by walking away from the house and vanishing for three or four days at a time, indulging in drugs. Then she’d show up, contrite and ready to start over. Each time, it twisted Bill’s heart. He felt responsible for her, but PJ didn’t think he actually loved the woman anymore. He was torn—he wanted to stand by her, but he also wanted to make a life for himself and for his son Winston. From the first time they’d met, she sensed that Bill was attracted to her. From time to time, she thought about pursuing that attraction and seeing where it led, but for now it was on the back burner. She thought Bill should get his mind clear about his wife’s situation—not to mention get a divorce—before leaping into a romantic relationship.

  “Yeah, I know,” Thomas said. “But Winston says his dad is thinking about getting divorced.”

  “We’ll just have to see what happens,” PJ said, amazed at the serious turn the conversation had taken. “Bill needs time to sort things out for himself.”

  “You’re a psychologist, Mom. Can’t you help him?”

  “The best thing for both of us to do now is just be friends with him. Be supportive.”

  “Somehow I knew you’d say that.” She could hear the mischief coming back into his voice.

  “Tell me what’s for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “I’m voting for chocolate chip pancakes,” he said. Her little boy was back. It was remarkable how he could leap from serious grown-up to playful kid. At age thirteen, he had one foot in adulthood already, but the other foot was dragging behind. She hoped it would drag for a while longer.

  “Yum. I can hardly wait. Tell Bill I’ll bring the chocolate chips. I’m going to be there early, so you guys better be up and about by seven.”

  “Seven?” He sounded indignant. “This is summer vacation. We’re supposed to get to sleep late.”

  “Not tomorrow, oh lazy one. Seven it is.”

  “Well, okay. Just this once.”

  “See you tomorrow. Love you. Bye.”

  “Bye, Mom. I love you.”

  When she hung up the phone, she felt energized. It was as though talking to her son had replenished some part of her that had been running low.

  She threw herself into the task that was costing her an evening with her son: digging through the Ramsey case file in more depth.

  Fifteen-year-old Eleanor Ramsey, daughter of Elijah and Libby, was beaten to death in her bedroom on an unseasonably hot May afternoon thirteen years ago. Her skull was crushed, she had multiple lacerations, and there was internal bleeding due to abdominal trauma. Blood spatter analysis led to the conclusion that the bedroom was the site of the beating. Eleanor didn’t die rapidly or painlessly. The killing blow hadn’t been the first one delivered. Nor the last. Rage definitely fueled the murder.

  The body was discovered on the floor of the girl’s bedroom at 3:00 P.M., when Libby returned from a shopping trip. Eleanor had been seen alive by neighbors before lunch, when she went out to get the mail at the curb, so the time of death was between 11:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. Libby reported that the front door was unlocked but not ajar when she got home. She was suspicious because she was certain she had locked the door when she left. She entered the house calling her daughter’s name with increasing anxiety until she discovered the body. Libby called for an ambulance rather than the police because she wasn’t sure, or more likely couldn’t believe, that her daughter was dead.

  The only fingerprints found in the bedroom were from a couple of Eleanor’s girlfriends plus the immediate family: parents Libby and Elijah, her sister Darla, age thirty-three, and her brother Jeremiah, age thirty-one at the time. Darla and Jeremiah each had their own apartments, but visited the parents’ home frequently. Eleanor had been the baby of the family, born long after her older brother and sister. The girlfriends were away on a camping trip, and were eliminated as suspects as soon as they returned that night.

  The postmortem exam revealed defensive wounds on Eleanor’s hands and forearms, and traces of blood on her fingers. She had been beaten with a blunt object the size and shape of a baseball bat.

  Eleanor was eight weeks pregnant at the time of her death.

  When PJ got to that revelation, she put down the papers and photos she’d been going through. She squeezed her eyes, trying to keep back the tears that had suddenly sprung from them. Homicides involving young people were especially hard for PJ to deal with in the first place, and the added loss of life because of the pregnancy seemed especially poignant.

  Her mind took a detour down a path she had been determined not to travel again. She had wanted more children from her marriage. She loved Thomas with all her heart, but always felt that there was a missing face at the table, another little hand that should be clutching hers. She had wanted a second child, but her husband, Stephen, resisted. After the divorce, he married Carla the Home-Breaker, who was half his age and wanted a family. It was like salt in the wound of divorce that they had a child within a year. The baby Stephen refused to have with her was cuddled in Carla’s arms.

  She gave up on holding back the tears and, glad that the office door was closed, let them course down her cheeks. She was reaching for a tissue to tidy up when there was a quick knock at her door. It swung open without waiting for her to say anything.

  Lieutenant Wall took in the scene, including the photos on PJ’s desk, and reached an assumption that was only partially true.

  “Be back in a couple of minutes,” he said. “Left something in my office.”

  It was clear he was giving her time to shape up. The man was an enigma to her: harsh, then sensitive, manipulative, then concerned. She never seemed to know which way the wind was blowing with him. The one thing she could
count on was fairness, even if it came in tough wrappings.

  When the knock came again, she had straightened her desk and started a pot of coffee.

  “Coffee?” she offered, as though nothing had happened a few minutes ago.

  “Sure. Black. You’re not one of those women who thinks it’s degrading to serve coffee, are you?”

  “Not if you’re in my office.”

  “Well, good. Never did see the point of those women who complain about that,” he went on cheerfully, having missed or ignored the qualification. “Any luck with the Ramseys so far?”

  She gave him his coffee in a flimsy paper cup. To her disappointment, it didn’t spill in his lap right away. But at least it gave her something to anticipate as she talked with him.

  She summarized her efforts to reach the Ramsey family, or what was left of it after the murder and execution.

  “Good work,” he said. “I’ll call the Jeff City police as a courtesy. But I think your plan to go in person is a good one. Ow! This coffee’s burning my fingers right through the cup. Don’t you have any mugs?”

  “I did,” she said pleasantly, sipping from her own favorite mug, “but they seem to sprout feet and walk away.”

  “Yeah, Schultz is always stealing coffee mugs.”

  That reminded her that the man in front of her had a considerably longer personal history with Schultz than she did.

  “Tell me,” she said, “What do you think of the Ramsey case? I haven’t gotten far into it yet. Was it an open-and-shut thing? Did Schultz work on it alone?”

  “Nobody’s really alone on these things. There’s the patrol officer who’s first on the scene, the medical examiner’s office, evidence technicians, the prosecuting attorney s office…. It’s a team effort all the way.”

  She gave him a look that said save the propaganda for the reporters.

  He sighed. “It was his case. Normally he’d have a partner and an assistant or two, the way you guys work together. Even back then we had a team approach. But it so happens Schultz was on probation at the time and working pretty much alone.”

  “Probation? He never told me anything about that.”

  “You wouldn’t expect him to, would you? It wasn’t one of his prouder moments.”

  “Have there been many?”

  “What? Oh, proud moments. Yeah, quite a few. He’s solid in the thinking department. Good hunches, too.”

  She let the silence grow. Wall squirmed a little in one of her folding metal chairs.

  Serves him right if it collapses under him. Maybe then I’ll get my requisition approved for some real chairs.

  “He’s considered a little quick to use his weapon,” Wall finally said.

  She wondered how many shooting incidents Schultz had been involved in. The way Wall was talking, it sounded as if Schultz were a one-man execution squad. She knew of two incidents herself when he’d used his weapon with fatal results.

  “Is two a lot for a man with his years of experience?” she said.

  “Zero is always best,” Wall said. “Two isn’t enough to raise most eyebrows around here, given that Schultz has been here longer than most of the furniture, and that’s saying quite a bit. But five is. He’s no stranger to those investigations for use of deadly force.”

  PJ’s eyes widened. “I guess I don’t know as much about him as I thought.”

  “At the time of the Ramsey case he was on probation, but it had nothing to do with using his weapon. Not his gun, anyway.”

  PJ kept her face neutral. She wondered if she was about to hear something about Schultz’s sex life she didn’t want to hear.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” Wall said, picking up on her sudden stone-faced appearance. “I meant his fist. He arrested a rock musician who was in town giving a concert. The guy was selling drugs out of his hotel room to groupies and others. The bellhop reported it. Schultz had a brief—thank God—stint in narcotics. The musician took a swing at him and Schultz decked the guy. Broke his nose and jaw, and knocked out four teeth.”

  “And that was police brutality or something?”

  Wall waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, wouldn’t have stirred up anything ordinarily. Self-defense, and several people saw it. But this guy was semi-famous, and the jerk’s father—get this—was a US Senator. Together they cooked up a line where the whole thing was politically motivated, and said Schultz planted the drugs.”

  “He didn’t, did he?”

  “What, you don’t trust your own team member?”

  PJ was a little flustered. She hadn’t meant to ask that question aloud. “It’s just that I didn’t know he killed five people, either.”

  Wall narrowed his eyes. “Don’t worry about that. The killing thing. I’ll tell you once, and then we won’t talk about it anymore. He did what he had to do. There are tough choices to be made, and Schultz, whatever else I think of him, doesn’t shy away from the difficult path.”

  “So what happened? With the jerk?”

  “Schultz got reamed by Internal Affairs for suspected evidence tampering. They flipped him up, down, and sideways. He must have a file about this thick”—Wall held his palms about a foot apart—“by now. Couldn’t get anything to stick on him, so they gave him a few months’ probation anyway because of the mean look on his face, and the mayor apologized to the senator.”

  “And the drug charges?”

  “Dropped.”

  “That’s unfair!”

  Wall grunted. “Welcome to the real world, Pollyanna,” he said. “Getting back to the Ramsey case, Schultz was on probation but still on active duty. That meant he could work cases but had IA sniffing his ass all day, waiting for him to make a mistake they could terminate him for. Needless to say, nobody was anxious to work with him, so yeah, in a way he was on the case alone in spite of what I said about that teamwork stuff. Schultz needed something to make himself look good, something redeeming. He wanted a fast arrest and a conviction, and he got it.”

  “Why do you remember this so well? It was thirteen years ago.”

  “I was his sergeant. When he got chewed out, so did I.”

  “Then you were involved in the Ramsey case. I thought you said earlier that you weren’t close to it.”

  “I wasn’t front line. I didn’t testify at the trial. As far as the killer is concerned, I’m just another guy in a police uniform. He can’t wipe us all out, can he?”

  PJ left his question unanswered. “I need to know all the background I can find on this case. What do you think of the Ramseys themselves as suspects?”

  “The older girl, Darla—I remember her as being very remote. Tried to cut herself off from the whole thing, close off her emotions.”

  “That’s understandable,” PJ said. “She had a life of her own stretched out in front of her—she probably just wanted out as fast as possible.”

  “Libby’s a tough one to call. She refused to believe her son was guilty. Then she seemed to cave in and accept things when it became clear he was going to be convicted.”

  “Or maybe she just made it look like she accepted it. How did she feel about her daughter’s death?”

  “She’s not a demonstrative woman. You’ll see that when you talk to her, no doubt. She probably mourned her daughter’s death deeply, but it was all on the inside.”

  PJ nodded. “Women of her generation didn’t feel as comfortable reaching out for help as we do today.”

  “Stoic.”

  “Exactly. What about the father?”

  Wall shook his head. “One weird guy. Served in Vietnam, never got the military bug out of his system. Went around the world looking for action.”

  “You mean he was a mercenary?”

  “As far as we could tell,” Wall said. “He’s very secretive. Couldn’t get much from the military but the basic facts of his service. You know, years, rank, that kind of stuff.”

  “Holy cow. I’d better watch my back. He sounds like Rambo.”

  “Rambo wasn’t
a mercenary, I don’t think. Anyway, you should be fine over in Jeff City.”

  That made PJ think that Wall was only agreeable to sending her out of town so that the real police officers could catch the killer while she was out of the way. It stung for a moment that she was going off to interview a woman, while the action might be going on behind her back. Anita didn’t get sent out of town. She was out on the streets. Then PJ dismissed that thought as inappropriate. If Wall was unhappy with her work, she had no doubt he’d tell her. Tact hadn’t gotten in his way before.

  When he was gone, she returned to the case file. Libby Ramsey told the police that Eleanor had been dating an older man, twenty-two-year-old Clarence Richman, and that her daughter had confessed to her that Clarence was the father of her unborn child. Eleanor also, according to Libby, told her mother that Clarence was upset about the pregnancy and had strongly urged her to have an abortion. At the time, Clarence had recently enlisted in the army, and was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. The pregnancy dated from when he completed boot camp and had a three-day leave before his assignment.

  Libby accused Clarence of murdering her daughter because the girl was pressuring him to get married and make the child legitimate. But he wasn’t ready to be locked into such a marriage. Because Eleanor was underage and Clarence was over twenty-one, he feared that if he made any fuss he would be prosecuted for statutory rape. Libby argued that fear was his motive. The fact that the front door was unlocked meant that Eleanor had known her attacker and let him in the house.

  Adamant as Libby was, Clarence was found to have an ironclad alibi for the time of the murder. He was participating in a special training assignment given at the Pentagon, and his presence was vouched for by his instructor and eighteen fellow attendees. PJ tapped her pencil on the table rapidly, her thoughts moving along as fast. What if he hired it done? He could purposely have set it up for a time when he’d be out of town, so that suspicion wouldn’t stick to him.

  She flipped the pages, found her question dealt with and dismissed. There just wasn’t any evidence of a conspiracy. Interviews with Clarence and those who knew him portrayed him as genuinely grief-stricken. He had loved Eleanor, despite their age difference, and had intended to marry her, as he told several friends. In fact, he had already purchased an engagement ring and requested a day’s leave after the completion of the training course to deliver it to Eleanor. That didn’t sound like the actions of a man who was planning a murder.