Drowning Barbie

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “Nada. If there had been anyone in the church, they were long gone by the time the surly deputy and I arrived.”

  “Surly?”

  “I don’t know this one’s name, but I did get his badge number. I will talk to Ike about him next time I see him. Yes, he was rude and short. He obviously didn’t want to be out here and his whole demeanor was, like, ‘I’m doing you a favor.’ I don’t think I’ve ever run across that before, at least not in a cop. The guy at the Department of Motor Vehicles acted like that, but I think rude is in their job description.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “No, I suppose I don’t. Still…”

  “So nothing was disturbed.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said there was no one in the building. If I had to guess, someone had been in it earlier, maybe even as late as when we drove up, but they were gone.”

  “Then why—”

  “Little things seemed out of place like a closet door I’m sure I closed before I left, was ajar. The first aid kit, you know, has that complicated latch that springs open at a touch when you need to get into it but is nearly impossible to close later, had been fiddled with as well.”

  “Tonight?” Mary pulled the blankets tighter around her breasts.

  “Couldn’t say. Maybe not tonight. Anyway, there seemed to be, I don’t know, a disturbance in the ether.”

  “A disturbance in the what?”

  “Sorry. Things just seemed…you know how it is when you haven’t cleaned your glasses lately, or maybe pick up someone else’s prescription that is almost but not quite the same as yours? You can see things but the objects are slightly out of focus, or too big and…well, you see what I mean.”

  “Something was not quite right but you can’t say what or why.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why don’t I feel better?”

  “There is absolutely nothing to worry about. If, and I emphasize the if, someone was in the church this evening, they’re long gone. If an intruder came looking for something other than just stealing stuff from the church, you know, like he wanted to harm you or me, he would had broken in here, not over there.”

  “Blake, there is something I think I should tell you.”

  “In a minute. Finally, and I mean this kindly, Mary, but you can’t always assume that people are bad.”

  “I didn’t say anything about—”

  “You assumed that if there was a break-in, the person was up to no good. But the fact is that most church break-ins are made by desperate people.”

  “Desperate?”

  “They need a warm place to sleep, some food, or a toilet. Picketsville doesn’t offer much in the way of social welfare programs. The homeless usually spend the night in jail or in the park. Flora Blevins might give them a cup of coffee and a stale donut, but that’s pretty much it.”

  “Then you should do something about it. This church isn’t hurting for money, not really. I know you’d like to build a building for the Sunday school, but a food bank and maybe an eight-hour dormitory for the homeless would be better, especially in the winter. A Sunday school could use the building once a week, a shelter, seven nights, fifty-two weeks of the year.”

  “The vestry would never buy it. What were you going to tell me?”

  “It’ll keep. Goodnight.”

  ***

  Even though it was June and her hideaway only a thin wall and three feet away from the church boiler room and hot water heater, Darla sat shaking uncontrollably in the corner. She’d pulled a tattered blanket around her shoulders. It did not stop her teeth from chattering. She knew those voices. The preacher, he was okay, she guessed, though you can never tell. There was that guy…she pushed the memory from her mind. The other one, the cop. She remembered that one, alright. You didn’t forget voices. He had been one of them. And now he had been, like, ten feet away. She grabbed one of her buckets, pulled it close, and threw up.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Ike stared at the stack of reports on his desk. Darcie Billingsley’s dispatch log listed seventeen items. He scanned the column again. Darcie’s handwriting bordered on the illegible, but there could be no doubt about the number. There were seventeen entries. Most were minor problems that only required a drive-by to settle: noisy parties, barking dogs, suspicious behavior involving neighbors, strangers, or children, and nearly all the complaints from either annoyed neighbors or mildly inebriated adults with TVs on the fritz, who had nothing better to do but stare out the window. Except for one serious notation, a breaking-and-entering, it had been an easy night. The B and E had been assigned to Feldman. There should have been his write-up in the stack on the desk, but Feldman had not filed his report. Darcie’s log identified the initial call coming from Blake Fisher. The church had been broken into. Why hadn’t Feldman done his paperwork? Not the first time he’d skipped closing out or turned in paperwork late, but…but what? What with the search for the girl stalled while the threat to her life mounted and another body to be accounted for in the morgue, Ike really didn’t want to waste time disciplining one of his deputies. He picked up the phone and called the church. Ten minutes later, and only after being assured by Rita who had by now replaced Darcie, that no one else was immediately available to make the stop, Ike pulled up to the church and climbed the stairs to the offices.

  “Rev, you had a break-in last night?”

  “I don’t know if we did or didn’t. Mary thought she saw a flash of light in the basement and I thought ‘better to be safe than sorry,’ so I called. I have to say the deputy who responded could use some training in dealing with the public.”

  “How so?’

  “I would say he came very close to being rude. It seemed obvious that he did not want to be here, that he found the job of checking out the church onerous, and he wanted to be somewhere else. He kept looking at his watch as if he had better-paying options waiting for him at some other crime scene. I know you don’t, but you don’t, do you?”

  “I don’t what?”

  “Important crime scenes don’t involve the deputy receiving hazard pay or extra duty bonuses, do they?”

  “Of course not. Is that what he said?”

  “No, it’s how he acted. Anyway, that was then. What can I do for you?”

  “I apologize for Deputy Feldman. He was not one I recruited. He came with the rest of the furniture and is only slightly more useful. As long as I’m here, do you want to walk me through the church? It’s been a while since I last visited this place and then I was more concerned with a body in the sanctuary than the rest of the building.”

  “Sure. The crew is here doing the Friday cleanup and since you and Ruth will be here Monday, Dorothy has called in what she calls her A team.”

  “I’m flattered. The A team you say? Who would that be?”

  “I don’t remember. Actually, I think it is more a description of an attitude than an actual roster. Let’s go downstairs and see.”

  As Blake promised, when they arrived at the basement, Dorothy Sutherlin and a crew of four women were wiping down counters and mopping floors.

  “Well, look who’s here. Are you slumming, Sheriff, or scouting? By the way, I heard from your future mother-in-law. She’s in a dither.”

  “I’m not surprised, Dorothy. Eden Saint Clare is anything but party-planner organized. Dither is her specialty at times like that.”

  “Well, we got her all settled. So then, what brings you into foreign territory?”

  “Just doing a follow-up visit to the scene of the crime—past and future. How are you holding up with a house full of out-of-town guests and Essie and Billy moved back in?”

  “It’s a circus and it’s sure enough got its share of clowns, but it’s all fun so far. I do wish Karl would cheer up a little. He expects some test or other is going to send
him into unemployment or something. I told him a bright young man like he is don’t have to worry about a job, but he didn’t want to hear it.”

  “It’s a problem. FBI is the one thing he’s wanted all his life and he’s afraid it might be snatched away from him.”

  “Well, shoot, then he could come and work for you, right?”

  “It’s hardly the same thing. Anyway, the Rev called in a possible break-in last night. You haven’t noticed anything missing or out of place?”

  “Ike, there must be forty-teen keys to this church in circulation by now. Folks are in and out of here all the time, day and night. Things disappear and then reappear all the time. Sometimes folks’ll ‘borrow’ a loaf of bread or a can of beans and then put it back a week or month later. Don’t ask me why, save a trip to the store, I reckon. And then a mom will get a whiff of the cassock their boy is wearing to acolyte in on a Sunday and they’ll take it home to wash and press it. It may not show up until the kid is scheduled to serve again which could be a month or two…you see?”

  “I do. So, you are telling me that except for a full-scale robbery of, say, the safe, you can’t tell if the church has been broken into or not.”

  “Nope.”

  “Things could be missing and gone for good, or not, and you wouldn’t know.”

  “Yep.”

  “Funny way to run a business.”

  “It ain’t a business, it’s a church. Taking stuff if you need it and maybe putting it back with extra is how we do it here.”

  “You net out more than you put in?”

  “Mostly, yep.”

  “So, I can report that nothing is missing?”

  “No, you can report that whatever is missing is probably coming back or being put to good use.”

  “I see. Blake, there’s not much sense in ever calling in a break-in, is there?”

  “Well. Dorothy has omitted we have had our safe cracked a few times. Those instances, I would say, justify a call.”

  “Right. And today? What’s missing? I don’t care if it’s eventually coming back. I want to know anyway.”

  “There’s a chunk of cheese and maybe a loaf of bread gone,” Faith Chimes, an A team member, said.

  “Faith, you’re not doing hair today?’

  “No, Friday is my day to help out here. Oh, and Sheriff, we keep candle stubs in a box? Well, I can’t be sure, but I think a bunch of them are missing, too.”

  “Candle stubs?”

  “Well, we burn a bunch of candles here, you know, it being a church and all, and when they burn down too low, we put in new ones.”

  “And you save the stubs? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Why do we, Reverend Fisher?”

  “The answer to that comes under the general heading of, ‘We Always Have.’ I think the Sunday school uses them for projects or something. Maybe that’s where they went.”

  “Okay, so candle stubs and cheese. Not hearing grand theft larceny here. Mind if I look around?”

  “Jump right in, only step carefully in the kitchen. The floor has just been mopped. I must say, whoever installed that new oven sure did mess up the floor. We just can’t seem to get the scrape marks off the tile.’ Dorothy said. “It’s like somebody keeps sliding it around.”

  “Probably needs leveling,” Ike said. “Would you like me to have a look?”

  “Sure, if you’ve a mind to.”

  Ike peered at the stove unit. It seemed in order and level. He peered around it to see if there might be something on the wall that interfered with the stove’s proper seating.

  “What’s behind this thing?”

  “Old storeroom. Been locked up for years. Why?”

  “Just curious. Locked, you say?”

  “Yep. We cleaned it out when we bought the stove. Never really used the room because of how it backs up to the boiler room and was too hot to use as a pantry or practically anything else and, besides, there was no other place to put the new oven unit, so, there you go.”

  “Okay, thanks. I will let you get back to your cleaning and planning.”

  Chapter Forty

  Karl knocked and then let himself in to Ike’s office. He did not look happy. He sat down and focused his gaze on a crack in the vinyl tiles at his feet.

  Ike rolled back and slouched a little more in his chair. “Let me guess. The DNA test came in and it is not good.”

  “Yeah. The body you dug up is our boy Anthony Barbarini. Which means someone in the Bureau will have some serious explaining to do. That someone is not going to be happy since he or she made it very clear to me through an intermediary that I shouldn’t find that connection. Now what do I do?”

  “You have only two options, Karl. You can tell the folks in the Hoover building the thing they do not want to hear, or you can lie. The only flexibility you have is when you tell them whichever it is you decide.”

  “Advice?”

  “Well, that is a tough one. I will not tell you to lie. I wouldn’t lie and I don’t think, in the end, you will either. On the other hand, keeping them in the dark a few more days will not materially alter the eventual outcome. It has been ten years since your goombah was planted in our backyard. It can’t matter much if you hold off until next week and stick around for my impending quasi-nuptials and the party to follow.”

  “What’s quasi about your…you did say nuptials?”

  “It’s a long story and one for another day. The real question here is not what you will say to your section chief, but what will you do after you’ve said it? Are you prepared to pursue a career in the Bureau when it might mean a series of bad, dead-end assignments and pushing paper?”

  “I don’t know. I am just really angry that the incompetence of some agents a decade ago ends by screwing up my life.”

  “Ah, a word from someone older and, if not wiser, more experienced in the art of governmental screw-ups. Bureaucrats for the most part are driven by ambition and fueled by political rhetoric. Consequently they never learn history’s lessons. We all thought Vietnam taught us something about poking our nose in where it didn’t belong and where are we now? Engaged in wars we cannot win, to establish systems that can’t be sustained, for people who hate us. It is the nature of the society we have molded in this bright new century to plow headlong into adventures that even a tiny measure of caution would have forestalled and from which we can’t seem to extricate ourselves.”

  “Thank you, Bertrand Russell. I appreciate the worldview. I really do, but what about this poor slob sitting here right now? What do I do in the face of this inevitable landslide of bureaucratic backlash?”

  “Stick around for my party. The two of us will get slightly soused and then decide.”

  “I guess that is the best I can do. I haven’t told Sam yet. I guess that can wait until after the party, too. So, you’re off the hook on this one.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “No? How not?”

  “Well the body in the woods begs a question beyond the obvious one: who is he? Or, more properly, who was he?”

  “And what question is that?”

  “How did the body of Anthony Barbarini, also known to his compatriots as Barbie, find its way down from New York City to Picketsville, Virginia, and thence into our park? Furthermore, since it did, does that imply we have people down here who are connected to people up there in less than legal ways?”

  “Oh.”

  “Indeed. Perhaps you should consider staying on awhile. Your bosses might come to see an investigation into that possibility, assuming it has a positive outcome, as sufficiently redeeming to erase the negatives caused by the unfortunate DNA test and the effects it has on some of the Bureau’s more senior members.”

  “And those ‘senior members,’ will they be happy by the results of the investigation and let it go?”

  “Wel
l, there are two thoughts on that and which one will prevail depends on the options we exercise now.”

  “Options? We? What options? Ike I—”

  “Patience. Okay, number one, let us suppose the sheriff of Picketsville, in the spirit of cooperation, of course, asks for help from the FBI. ‘You see,’ he, that is I, will say, ‘I have a body tentatively identified by the dental wonks in your system as Tony Barbarini.’ And suppose further that same sheriff requests files from the original arresting officers. At that point they are officially ‘outed,’ not by you, but by me. Now, if anything falls back on you, it will have to be very public and embarrassing to them, you see?”

  “They wouldn’t dare do anything?”

  “To you? How can they? I’d be the guy who ratted them out. Assuming a subsequent investigation into the stiff in the woods is launched? They’ll be told to get over it.”

  “You think?”

  “Pretty sure. It’s what I’d do if I were their boss…and yours.”

  “Okay, that could work. What’s option number two?”

  “I’ll let you work on that one. See you tomorrow?”

  “Probably, sure.”

  ***

  Ike caught TAK before he left for the day.

  “Okay, it’s time for your next lesson in policing. This is basic detective work.”

  “Sir?”

  “I have a job for you, son. Make that two.” Ike produced the evidence bag containing the dollar bill with the phone number scrawled on it. “This bill was found in the dead man’s pocket. You know who I am talking about?”

  “Dellinger?”

  “No, the stiff who was buried in the woods a decade ago. It has a phone number written on it but no area code. I want you to search the history of this number in metro New York—all the area codes, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey. Go back twelve years.”

  “Yes, sir, twelve years. Can I ask why?”

  “Certainly. Police work is mostly about digging and asking questions. Forensics can get you just so far, then the grunt work begins. The bill was in a murdered man’s pocket. We want to know who killed him. The number might just lead us to his killer or not. Either way, it is a loose end. We do not like loose ends.”