Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  The investigation then turned to family members. The older daughter, Darla, worked in a children’s clothing store and had been verifiably waiting on customers between 11:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M., while her kid sister was being bludgeoned to death. Elijah, secretive and known to have a mercurial temper, had no alibi. He had recently returned from overseas and was out looking for work, he said. He was distant from his younger daughter, having been out of the country most of the time she was growing up. Although he was looked at long and hard, there was nothing to pin him to the crime.

  Libby, who owned three day care centers, had been shopping for supplies for the centers with her son Jeremiah. She claimed she had dropped him at his apartment immediately before heading home and discovering the body. Mother and son were each other’s alibis for the time period of Eleanor’s death.

  Eleanor’s friends said that mother and daughter fought often over control issues, and that Eleanor had said that when her mother found out she was pregnant, she would kill her. From Libby’s own statements, it was clear she had found out about the pregnancy. None of the friends took the threats seriously at the time, but after the fact, it began to make Libby seem increasingly guilty. On the surface, it was a direct threat, although couched in a teenager’s sometimes exaggerated way of talking. Libby was brought in for questioning.

  A surprise confession by Jeremiah turned attention away from Libby. A baseball bat that he was known to possess was missing, and he claimed that it was the murder weapon. He had disposed of it by burning it. He displayed recent scratches on his shoulders, which he said he’d gotten when Eleanor was trying to defend herself. The scratches were so severe that he’d had to bandage them to keep from having blood leak through his clothing.

  The blood on the dead girl’s hands matched Jeremiah’s blood type. Not just a match on the typical ABO grouping, but using HLA typing, which tests for an entire range of proteins that ride along on white blood cells. First developed in the 1950s, it was accurate enough to be the early legal standard in paternity cases. It seemed pretty solid to PJ that Jeremiah was the killer. Except for that one physical piece of evidence, though, the rest of the case against him was circumstantial.

  While awaiting trial, Jeremiah suddenly recanted his confession and changed his plea to not guilty. At the trial, his mother pleaded for him, saying that he could not have committed the murder because he was with her. The jury evidently discounted her testimony as that of a distraught mother trying to salvage what was left of her family. They convicted Jeremiah of first-degree murder, premeditated because he brought the baseball bat from his apartment with the intent to use it on his sister.

  PJ wondered if DNA fingerprinting was accepted in the courtrooms of 1986, when Jeremiah’s trail was held. A few minutes of research told her that DNA fingerprinting was developed in 1985 and was used in trials in the US in 1987. During the late eighties, though, there was doubt about the quality of the testing performed, and some evidence was thrown out of court as a result. It was a period of settling in for the technique.

  The Ramsey trial was held right on the cusp of acceptance of DNA evidence in courts, yet there was nothing in the files to indicate it was even attempted. Evidently the HLA blood testing was considered sufficient. If Schultz was there, she would have demanded an answer: was he backward on the subject, or just overconfident?

  Even stranger was that none of the numerous appeals leading up to the actual execution involved DNA profiling. It seemed to her that the only reason Jeremiah hadn’t insisted on it was that he already knew what the results would show—that it was his blood on Eleanor’s hands.

  What if Jeremiah had been present at the time of the murder, and had tried to fend off the killer? He might have gotten the scratches not from Eleanor, but from the person who was attacking her. His blood might have gotten on Eleanor’s hands as he went to her assistance.

  Why was there no mention of that possibility being investigated in the case file? If PJ could come up with it in a few hours, then surely a trained detective could think of it over the course of weeks of investigation. Had Schultz just wanted a quick conviction to make himself look good? Hadn’t it mattered to him what the truth of the situation was? The thought shook her deeply. First she had learned that Schultz had killed an entire handful of people, something she hadn’t known about him. Could he have twisted the facts of the case to suit his purpose?

  PJ took a break and went out for dinner. It was early evening, but the heat and humidity hadn’t let up. She felt as though she were swimming through warm water. Shimmery waves of heat radiated from the sidewalk and streets. Inside her shoes, the soles of her feet warmed up and her toes felt clammy. Sunshine was pouring down through the buildings, adding heat to the witches’ brew of weather. She could see black, heavy clouds over the tops of the buildings to the west. A summer storm was moving in, but ahead of the storm the air was thick and still.

  Her head was spinning from all the facts and images of the case. One thing kept sprouting up in her mind like a dandelion: motive. What reason did Jeremiah have to brutally beat his kid sister to death?

  The reason put forth by the prosecution was that Eleanor had taken his car without permission the previous week and smashed it into a light standard in a parking lot, causing thousands of dollars of uninsured damage. Unable to afford to repair or replace it, Jeremiah had been getting around on a borrowed moped. The beating took place on the day the car payment fell due. Jeremiah either had to default on the loan or make payments for two more years on a car he couldn’t drive.

  That it would make him angry was easy to see. But would it break loose a homicidal rage? PJ knew that some people bottled up their anger for years and then exploded over a triggering event. Wall had said that both Darla and Libby were the type to keep things inside. Maybe it ran in the family. In women, unexpressed anger sometimes turned inward, toward self-destructive activities. Men didn’t usually turn their anger on themselves. They found targets. But there were usually signs. Did everyone in the family miss Jeremiah’s warning signals before the big blast?

  It was possible, she decided. He wasn’t living at home. He certainly wasn’t under daily observation by trained professionals. Families tended to brush things under the rug anyway, even if they did detect something.

  It was only three blocks to the pizza place PJ was heading for, but she was sweaty by the time she was halfway there. The sidewalks were emptying as workers headed out of downtown. There was still a lot of car and bus traffic, but that would die down soon. She wondered if Artie’s Pizza stayed open after commuting hours, and quickened her step.

  The restaurant was open only until six-thirty. It was almost that time. She tried the door. It swung open and she entered, figuring Artie would have to kick her out personally if he wanted to close up. It was cool inside, and the seating area was dimly lit beyond the reaches of the sun coming through the window.

  A kid who didn’t look much older than Thomas stood behind the counter. She ordered two slices of mushroom pizza.

  “Don’t have mushroom,” he said. “Got three slices of Super Veggie left. You can have ’em all for half price. We’re getting ready to close.”

  “Do they have black olives?”

  “Nope. Not any more.”

  She wondered if that meant they had stopped putting black olives on the Super Veggie sometime in the past, or someone in the back was listening in to the conversation at the counter and quickly picking the black olives off.

  “It’s a deal,” she said, trying to be optimistic.

  PJ paid for her slices and a Diet Coke and carried her tray to one of the tables out of the sun. She put her thoughts on hold and dug in, realizing how hungry she was. Even though they were the last of the lot, PJ found her pizza slices hot and delicious.

  After a few minutes the edge was off her hunger. The guy who made the pizzas, who looked only a little older than the first one—the place is run by children—had come out from the back and was mopping the f
loor. She turned her thoughts loose on what Wall had told her earlier about Schultz.

  Leo has killed five people. Five. His life has been one long war.

  Munching her second slice of Super Veggie, PJ thought about Schultz’s circumstances during the Ramsey case. Could he have been guilty of planting drugs in the rock musician’s room, as the senator claimed? She shook her head. He wouldn’t have done it for political reasons, to embarrass the father. She just couldn’t see that. But suppose the musician was selling drugs—the bellhop, who could see the comings and goings to the room, suspected it—but he was smart enough not to get caught at it. Suppose Schultz knew about the situation and felt helpless and frustrated to do anything about it. Would Schultz plant evidence to bring an otherwise untouchable criminal to justice?

  That one was tougher.

  She thought she knew the man, but the past few days had raised a lot of doubts in her mind. If only he would call again. PJ wanted to ask him some hard questions, pin him down and not let him wiggle out of answering them.

  She also wanted to hear his voice and know he was all right.

  PJ finished her meal and felt loneliness settle on her. She missed her son, and she wasn’t looking forward to a night in her office, working by herself. She would have lingered and ordered another cool drink, but it was after closing and the kid was eyeing her, waiting for her to go. She tossed her napkin on the tray and left.

  On the walk to headquarters, she noticed that the dark clouds had wiped out the sunshine. Her mood was as low as the clouds. Cars were driving with their headlights on, and some of them had windshield wipers clacking back and forth, having come from an area where it was already raining. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, and there was a tension in the air, almost an electric charge, as the storm gathered itself. The first few heavy drops hit her on the back as she ducked into the building.

  Twenty

  WHEN THE GREYHOUND PULLED into Tucson on Friday morning, the weather was totally dry. The storm raging in Billings, Montana, had long been left behind. When Schultz stepped out of the station, he felt as though he had been dropped into a toaster. And it was only 11:00 A.M. No one on the street outside seemed to be sweating profusely except him. Of course, everyone else was wearing shorts and casual tops. Abbreviated tops and shorts, he noticed right away, were standard for young women. He thought that he might get to like Tucson on that score, but he’d never convert to wearing shorts. There was nothing about his legs he cared to show off.

  The bus driver, who had started congenially chatting with passengers when his destination got within a hundred miles, had suggested that those new to Tucson should buy sunblock before they left the station. Schultz had figured Tucson sun wasn’t any worse than St. Louis sun, so he skipped the sunblock. He shaded his eyes with his hand and watched the nicely rounded scenery bounce by, consciously resisting the effort to suck in his gut. To do so would be to admit he had one. If he stood there long enough, maybe someone would ask him to rub sunblock on her back. Or her front. Whichever.

  He took a cab to a motel near a shopping mall. After registering, he showered and put on a fresh change of clothes. Then he went looking for a meal. His work wouldn’t begin until after dark. He walked a leisurely mile to the mall, watching to see if he had a tail. As far as he could tell, he didn’t.

  Glen Mandoleras didn’t know that his home territory had been invaded. Schultz thought it was clever of the man to establish a base of operations so far from the killing fields. A little inconvenient, but what does inconvenience count for when revenge is at hand?

  Inside the mall it was bright and tolerably cool. He circled the food court a couple of times—the hunter stalking his prey, looking for the weak or wounded—and ended up with loaded pizza slices and a Coke. After eating, he would have liked to take a nap, but didn’t want to drop his vigilance.

  Schultz took in a movie and waited for the persistent sun to go down.

  When he came out of the movie theater, he noticed that the heat that seemed to surround him wasn’t just the outdoors. He was carrying it around with him. His arms, face, the back of his neck, and the bald spot on top of his head were warm. In the men’s room mirror he saw that he was red—sunburned. He must have gotten it during the slow, meandering walk to the mall, when he was checking for someone following him. The top of his head was the worst. He dampened a paper towel and dabbed at the red spot. The towel felt wonderfully cool and soothing.

  Shit. I hope I don’t get blisters.

  Schultz debated going to a drugstore and buying some cream to ease the discomfort. Then he decided to tough it out. It was the image of him confronting his adversary with some greasy white stuff coating every inch of his exposed skin that deterred him. In the morning, if he was still in Tucson, he’d pick up something.

  He took a cab back to his motel, which annoyed the driver, who’d been hoping for a longer fare. Schultz slipped on the holster with the Glock. He slid his arms carefully into a sports jacket, hoping he wouldn’t look too out of place wearing long sleeves. The pressure of the fabric on his reddened arms was irritating. He tried to put it out of mind. A set of lock picks went into his front pants pocket, which was covered by the jacket. When he stepped out of doors, he found that the evening promised to be quite a bit cooler than the afternoon. His jacket wouldn’t be obvious. There would be other men on the street wearing jackets, going out to dinner and to the theater.

  Summoning another cab, he was gratified that he didn’t get the same driver from his earlier trip. He got out of the cab a few blocks away from the address Anita had given him, surprised to find that he wasn’t in a residential area. With the sun well below the horizon, he didn’t mind walking. The arthritis in his legs seemed to have benefited from the earlier baking, and he was walking easier on a minimal dose of Voltaren than he had in months. Suddenly he understood why so many cops moved to warm places when they retired. Not only were the T&A prospects good, but maybe the heat eased the aches and pains of decades of legwork.

  Eased the pains of the body, maybe, but not of the heart.

  The address he had for Mandoleras was in sight. It turned out to be a small hotel in a business district that had seen better days—both the hotel and the district. Anita hadn’t mentioned that Mandoleras lived in a hotel. Schultz double-checked the address. He had assumed Mandoleras lived in a house or apartment.

  The Oasis Hotel was a three-story building, and he was sure that if the lighting was better he’d see that a couple of the windows were cracked and there was tuck pointing needed. The building was functional, with no effort put into architectural details that might please the eye. It squatted on the street corner like an ugly toad.

  He hesitated on the street. It definitely threw a kink in his plans. He had been planning to break into Mandoleras’s home unseen, and wait for him to arrive. He didn’t know what outcome to expect from the meeting. One possible outcome was that he would kill Mandoleras. In that case, he didn’t want anyone to see him going in and out.

  Schultz glanced down the street to his right and then left. There was no pay phone available. If there was, he could call the hotel, wangle the room number out of the clerk, and then walk casually through the lobby as if he belonged there. Once at Mandoleras’s room, he could pick the lock.

  He sighed. It didn’t look like the kind of place to have a crowded lobby where a man like him could go unnoticed anyway. He was big and solid and not likely to be missed by any clerk one step above dead. It was also possible all the keys were kept at the desk, and the clerk would remember a person who came in and went upstairs but didn’t ask for his key.

  He’d have to scrap his whole approach for the night, or go in boldly. If he went in, he’d better not do any killing unless he had a damn good self-defense scenario worked out. And with his record, a self-defense claim probably wouldn’t pan out unless he had God himself testifying on his behalf.

  He pushed through the revolving door. Against his expectations, th
e lobby was clean and neat, and cool. Along one wall was a small shop that sold newspapers, Tums, and snacks. There was a grouping of chairs and couches in the center, worn but comfortable-looking. There were no windows, but several lamps provided enough light for conversation. A man whom Schultz judged to be about eighty years old sat in one of the chairs reading a newspaper. He had tilted the nearest lampshade to cast more light on his paper, and didn’t look up as Schultz entered.

  There was no one behind the front desk.

  He decided to go for it, and walked in the direction of the hallway which almost certainly held the elevator or stairs.

  By the time he had crossed the lobby halfway, a man had appeared from a back office and taken his place behind the desk. He was in his mid-fifties, and his face held a reserved smile. Schultz had clearly been spotted. He casually veered toward the registration desk, knowing it was time for the direct approach.

  “Evening,” the man said, agreeably enough. “Looks like you got yourself a little sun.”

  Schultz’s hand automatically went to the tender spot on top of his head. Annoyed, he yanked it back down and scowled at the man.

  “I’m new in town,” Schultz said.

  “I never would’ve guessed,” the man replied. “What can I do for you? Room for the night?”

  “No, I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Schultz said. “His name is Glen Mandoleras. Is he in?”

  “Might be. If he was, would he want to see you?”

  Schultz cracked a smile. The guy was not unfamiliar with the routine. That made things easier.