Death of an Ordinary Guy

by Jo A. Hiestand

  The pub’s main door had been braced open to allow for the myriad trips needed to start an investigation. I hesitated in the entrance, listening to a snatch of laughter from the public bar, unsure of where the lads were establishing the incident room. A SOCO nearly collided with me as he pushed open the door to the private bar. Blinking at me, he jerked his head and said, “In there. He’s in a lovely mood,” and hurried outside. Thanking him, I followed the sound of Graham’s voice and walked inside.

  Computers, boxes of paper and general office equipment sat on chairs, folding tables, stools and any available floor space. It looked more like a schoolroom at the end of term than it did a pub. I nearly tripped over a fax machine as I walked up to Graham.

  Evan Greene, publican of The Broken Loaf, threw a damp towel onto a convenient table and joined us. The sweat on Evan’s dark hair and beard told of his help in converting the room from bar to temporary police headquarters. He pushed up the sleeves of his black pullover and stood, hands on his hips, surveying the room.

  The bar smelled of fried food and coal fires. In not too many more hours, it would also stink of smoked cigarettes and perspiration—an unfortunate occupational hazard, for it was a nice room. A painting executed in somber oils by a heavy-handed artist consumed the wall above the fire’s hearth, while at its feet an accent of yellow and gold mums complimented a brass cauldron. A telly—its screen nearly the size of a car—sat diagonally in a far corner, the room’s one concession to Progress, while the traditional dart board hung below a large photo of a current Mid Eastern political leader. I was sure I could ascertain small holes in the picture, editorial comments on the state of the world. Even in the current clamor of carting in equipment, I could imagine the ‘thwack’ of the dart as its metal tip bit into the corkboard. The corner opposite the television sported a large sign proclaiming the meeting time of a local folksinging group. They would have to meet elsewhere tomorrow night. Not a bad room, but I felt like a fox in a hole. The dark curtains that smothered the pub’s windows would have to be opened, for I already yearned for sunlight in this somber environment.

  “Hard workers, your lads are,” Evan said, watching Fordyce place a paper shredder on the settle near the fireplace. I wondered how much more weight it could hold, for it seemed already to be groaning under the accumulating equipment. “Never seen a group work so quick in all my life. Or so much equipment, for that fact. Guess I’m still back in Sherlock Holmes days. If I’d thought about it, I’d probably know you use all this. But a person tends to think of detective work as looking about on the ground with a magnifying lens, doesn’t he? Must be a hard go keeping up with all this computer technology.”

  “It’s not all that hard,” Graham said, catching my eye. “We’re given a choice each year of enrolling in open university for three months or sitting alongside some grade schooler for a week.”

  “That so? Well, the things kids know these days…” He shook his head in amazement as Graham smiled at me.

  “I’d like to thank you for the use of your bar, Mr. Greene. It’s more help than you can imagine, having a large, secluded place in which to work. Would you mind a few questions as long as you’re here?” Graham gestured toward a table. “I know it’s a hell of an hour, and you’re probably dead-tired, but I’d like to get as much information as I can before we all collapse into our beds. Memories are so much fresher right after the event.” He smiled broadly, evoking a genuine vivacity for life and his job, and a personal charm that very few people could resist. I had heard the talk; he had developed this quality while a minister. Just because he had switched careers was no reason to abandon the talent. Graham motioned again to the table, let Evan precede him, and waited until I had joined them before asking about the evening’s schedule.

  “I didn’t have anything much to do with it,” Evan replied, wiping his palms on his jeans. “Least ways, it’s Arthur’s show.”

  “Oh? I wouldn’t have thought so. You supply the potatoes and the beer. Big enough contribution, I’d say—both in expense and time.”

  “I like doing it. And I can afford it, so it’s no hardship.”

  “There are a lot of people who can afford to do things,” Graham remarked, “yet choose not to. It’s nice you help out. The villagers must be very grateful to you.”

  Evan mumbled that he supposed they were, but that wasn’t why he did it. “I’m not out to prove anything, or to put myself above anyone. I like giving. Wouldn’t be a proper bonfire night if we didn’t have our potatoes and parkin, would it?”

  I trembled at the thought of the oatmeal and treacle gingerbread. You either liked it or—

  “Do you know when you delivered the potatoes to the fire area?” Graham asked.

  “I must’ve unloaded the potatoes at quarter past six. Near enough.”

  “You didn’t notice anything unusual about the fire area or the effigy, I take it.”

  “Not likely to, am I? I’m not a bloody mind reader. We weren’t expecting anything unusual, and I didn’t see anything like that. It’d just gone sunset an hour before, so it was good and black out there.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t have an electric torch with you.”

  “Couldn’t very well handle that plus the potatoes, could I?”

  I explained to Graham that Evan had left the truck lights on.

  “Parked near the circle since I came from the pub. So I was pointing away from it, toward the woods.”

  His words rolled over my thanks. “I always park like that, parallel to the fire circle. I’ve been livin’ here all my life, so I know the layout. Just need a hint of light so I don’t step on some little feller crawlin’ around!” He laughed, then said he hadn’t seen anything he oughtn’t to have seen.

  Graham’s low voice, smooth as silk, asked if anyone else had been at the green then.

  “Kris Halford,” Evan said, watching my pen skate across the notebook page. “She came over to watch the till here in the pub for a minute or two, and I trotted off with the potatoes.”

  “Came over from…”

  “Her house. She lives just a minute or so away. That was after evening tea. Too early to put them on the fire to bake. Needed to be coals, didn’t it? It’d just gone six, I think, when Kris got to the pub.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Few tourists. We get tourists all year long, but especially for the dole and bonfire nights. There are some in the village who count them more of a nuisance, but I like having them here. Not only for the money they bring in, but ’cause I like folks.”

  “I bet you’ve encountered some interesting persons,” Graham said. “Many unusual tales of where they’ve been, where they’re going to. I should think you’d find that fascinating.”

  Evan nodded. “Lots of folks tell me their hopes for the future, where they’d like to live, what they’d like to do. We aren’t so much different as the media tries to make us out to be. We all want a good job, nice nest egg to retire on… But I will be glad when this bloody dole is over with and the village can return to normal, if you understand me. We’ve enough to worry us with the bonfire and mischief nights. Though it was comfortin’ to see you, Sergeant, on duty, like. Ta.”

  I nodded while Graham replied that sometimes it did seem that the stars were at odds with human endeavors.

  “But, about this other, now,” Evan replied slowly, his anxiety vanishing as he warmed to his subject. He didn’t add anything new to my timetable, but it was nice to hear his opinion of his fellow villagers.

  “Right,” Graham said suddenly, standing up. “I don’t mean to keep you up till opening time tomorrow. I have the schedule now, thanks.”

  “Uh, Mr. Graham?” Evan strode up to Graham and inflated his chest as though he was trying to make himself taller. “Mr. Graham,” he repeated when Graham nodded. “You find this lunatic. If you need my help, I’ll gladly throw in with your lads. But you find him. Killing some bloke who only wanted to see his friends again, have a bit of fun on
his holiday… Gives the village a bad name, doesn’t it? You catch him, Mr. Graham.”

  Graham, looking rather like a surprised fox, quickly said we would, and moved toward the door. “You’re free to go to bed, if you wish, Mr. Greene. Only I’d be obliged if you’d leave the pub unlocked. I don’t know if my men have quite finished setting up yet.”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Graham. I’ll give you a key, and you can turn the latch when you’re all ready. How’s that?”

  Graham thanked the publican and followed him to his office, leaving me to close my notebook.

  * * * *

  It was in the dark of the night that it happened. Well, I don’t know what the clock hands had designated, exactly, but that’s how the mystery books phrase it. It was certainly dark, and it was certainly scary. Even now, long after it’s over.

  I had planned to rise at an early hour, full of determination to shine like the sun. On opening my eyes, I saw it.

  A straw dummy—smaller but similar to the one Ramona had made for the bonfire—was hanging from the room’s ceiling light fixture. My first thought was that I had effigies on the brain, that even in this short time I was overworked. But the sensation lasted a mere second as, fascinated and repulsed, I watched the revolving form. Morning sunlight, barely tinted yellow and above the eastern horizon, threw one side of the straw figure into relief while the opposite side hid in darkness. It rotated from a scrap of rope tied to the light fixture, the other end looped around the Guy’s neck. The knot seemed drawn tighter than need be, for the fabric denoting its neck and face were gathered firmly, producing folds that hid the painted smile. Stray strands of straw littered my comforter and marked a trail to the door. As the mind sometimes does when presented with sudden shock or horror or grief, I wondered if I could discover the culprit by following the straw wisps down the hall.

  But what pushed it past absurdity was the fact that my jacket was draped over the Guy’s shoulders and my police badge was pinned to its shirt. Which also meant that someone had riffled my purse. I looked around the room for other signs of indignities. All was as I had left it on retiring to bed. After sitting there in fright for some time, my blanket pulled up under my chin, my eyes fixed on the slowly revolving dummy, I eased out of bed.

  Normally I would have worn my jacket as a robe, but as it was on the Guy, I had no desire to touch it. Call it fright, call it instinct at preserving evidence, call it repugnance. I donned my shirt over my nightgown as I ran up the stairs.

  “It’s not so much the effigy, Margo,” I said, my teeth still chattering as I sat cross-legged on her bed. “It’s the idea that someone—” I couldn’t say it.

  “I know,” Margo said, finishing my sentence and idea. “Someone got into your room. Also not so comforting to know he wanted you to understand he wished it was you hanging there.”

  “He could have killed me,” I whispered, staring at the ceiling. It seemed barren without a Guy suspended there.

  “Sure. But he didn’t. He wanted to scare you. To warn you.”

  “Warn me about what? What’ve I done?”

  “Nothing. Everything. You’re a cop. Part of the investigation team that’s poking around in everyone’s lives. You might have heard something, seen something. Something supposedly insignificant, but immensely important. The Guy proves that. Anyway, this jerk means business, that’s for dead cert. If it were just some kid out for a lark, he might just have put a goldfish in your bathroom glass. But hanging the Guy, now…” Margo forced me to take another sip of tea before asking, “Who’ve you been talking to? That might get us somewhere.”

  “Not many people so far. Evan—”

  “He’s got duplicate keys. He could let himself in and out easily enough. Who else?”

  “Talbot.”

  “Old crazy brain? He’s nutty enough to, but how would he get in?”

  “Graham asked Evan to leave the pub unlocked last night so our chaps could finish setting up. Talbot could have sneaked in, I guess.”

  “Kind of thought that warms you all over and makes you glad you’re part of the human race,” Margo said, pushing the teacup up to my lips. “Ok. We’ve got a maniac hiding in the closet till you’re all tucked in. Next.”

  “Graham and I talked to Arthur at the hall.”

  “The refined ones fool you. You think they’ve got too much class or breeding to kill, and they’re the ones who turn out to be Jack the Ripper.”

  “He knew where we were staying,” I confessed, hating to think a gentleman would resort to such a base act.

  “That’s in his favor.”

  “His favor?”

  “As a suspect. I’m learning, too, you know. This will help my career immensely if I can solve this. Now. Anyone else you talk to?”

  “Almost everyone before the murder—at the bonfire. Uncle Gilbert—oh! He wandered into the room as Graham and I were talking to Arthur. But he was awfully drunk.”

  “He’s gotta sober up sometime. Could it be an act?”

  “Talked to Derek, too. You don’t suppose whoever this is got me confused with someone else, do you?”

  “Who? You don’t exactly look like Graham.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Graham,” I said slowly, concentrating on her hair.

  “Well, our hair’s not the same color, if that’s your suggestion. You’re auburn; I’m brunette, or haven’t you noticed.”

  “Perhaps my intruder didn’t. It was dark.”

  “Well,” Margo said, taking my empty cup from me, “it’s unnerving but at least you’re alive. Remember that. You going to tell Graham?”

  “No.”

  “Wouldn’t he consider that withholding evidence or something equally rank-busting? After all, this could be a clue to—”

  “Pedersen?”

  “Two Guys, two…uh, victims…”

  She refrained from calling us ‘corpses,’ at least. I dug my fingers into the back of my stiff neck. Only one day into the case and it was already getting complicated. “You’re probably right, Margo. But we can’t spare the manpower for this. We’re thin on the ground already.” I wanted to add that that was the reason I’d been assigned Guy Fawkes duty, but thought discretion the better part of friendship. “Besides, it’s pretty trivial when compared with Pedersen’s murder.”

  Margo stared at me. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: it wouldn’t be so trivial if I ended up like Pedersen.

  Her voice picked up speed and raised in pitch as she said, “But if it’s linked to Pedersen’s case and it happens to contain the one lead element we need and you don’t inform Graham and he finds out about it later and learns you’re the culprit that had the clue—”

  I wrinkled up my nose. Of course Margo was right, and I could have been busted back to constable. Or suspended, I guess. But this was personal. Two years ago during a case I’d asked for help with a personal matter. All that it had gained me was the scorn of my A.C. and the enmity of my colleagues. While outright name-calling had not been their forte, those who cared enough smirked or dropped hints as to my courage—personal as well as professional. Some even dropped want ads. No, Margo. Once burnt… I had learned, painful as it had been, not to air personal difficulties. Anyway, I was also reluctant to admit to a certain Male Presence that I ran with my tail between my legs at the first sign of trouble. So let Graham demote me, I thought, exhaling loudly. At least I’ll go out fighting. Instead, I said, “No, Margo. And none of the lads’ help, either.”

  “Too bad,” she said, sighing heavily. “Here we’ve got a fingerprint chap who could dust for latents, a video team, a team of specialists who could set up a cunning little trap, and we can’t use any of them. What a waste.”

  I nodded. “I guess Tolliver would notice if his camera went missing.”

  “From what you know about rigging up a trip wire and camera, with your luck you’d be broadcasting your nightly disrobing instead of filming the loony.”

  “Wouldn’t be so bad if I looked like y
ou,” I said. In spite of the situation, we both laughed.

  Margo got up and hugged me. “Please, Bren, don’t worry. There are two of us, and we’re gonna keep our eyes open. We’re both trained, intelligent cops.”

  “Should strike terror in any perpetrator’s heart.”

  “I can stand watch tonight, if you’d like.”

  I shook my head, thanking her, and mustered up a smile. “Feminine wiles have worked wonders before, haven’t they?”

  “Don’t worry, Bren, we’ll catch him.”

  I ran back to my bedroom, not at all sure I had Margo’s confidence.

  EIGHT

  Despite the shaky start to my day, I dressed and forced the incident to the back of my mind. Margo was right—with two of us thinking about this, we could capture the joker without Graham’s help.

  The sun hinted at a clear day. A point in my favor, as Margo would say. After tangling with the Guy in my room, I didn’t relish atmospheric fog as aid to the prankster. Taking a deep breath of cold air, I stepped outside.

  A few wrens were chirping, searching out their breakfast on the stone patio of the pub. I threw them my crumbled granola bar and watched from the doorway. One wren, larger than many in his group, grabbed a raisin and flew off quickly with his prize. I zipped up my down jacket, shoved my hands into my trousers pockets, and wandered down the road, curious to see the village. The chill of the previous night still hung in the air.

  I had been walking for several minutes down a road of sleepy houses half surrounded by the deepness of woods and lingering darkness. Aromas of fried eggs and sausages, brewing coffee and hot toast drifted into the day. I was thinking of returning to the pub for my own breakfast when I heard voices. Pausing at the front drive of an ivy-smothered house, I noticed the residential name plate. Ivy Dell. Could also be named Buried Verdant, I thought, noting that the exterior needed a good hair cut. Or In the Thicket Things. I nearly laughed out loud, wishing Graham could hear my joke. Whatever its name, I knew it belonged to Ramona VanDyke. Another early bird, I thought, wandering down the driveway to the back yard where the voices came from. May as well ask her about her part in last evening’s fun, since we’re both here…