Time of Death

by Shirley Kennett

  “Okay, no using the computer, no phone calls to anyone except me or Schultz, and no going out, like to movies with your friends. When you get back home, it’ll be no TV, too. You can watch TV with Mick, as long as it isn’t anything R-rated.”

  “Mick doesn’t get to see that stuff either, so that won’t be a problem,” he said.

  She quizzed Thomas on what he thought about the dagger arriving at the academy. While PJ was still there, he’d been summoned to Mr. Archibald’s office and shown the dagger. He claimed no involvement with it, and she believed him. The principal did too, if she was correct in judging the man’s body language.

  “I’m getting creeped out about it, Mom,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  “What do we do if the police can’t find this jerk?”

  “Let’s let the law do its thing,” she said. “And I’ve got something in reserve, too.”

  “I’m really sorry about this.”

  She was tempted to reassure him by saying everything was all right. But it wasn’t all right, so she clamped her lips together on that. She’d already lectured him enough about it.

  “We’ll get through it, sweetie. We make a tough team, you know.”

  “Yeah. You and me and Schultz.”

  She hadn’t meant to include a third party, but hearing it from Thomas, it did sound reassuring.

  “I still have work to do, so I’ll let you get back to your movie. Love you.”

  “Love you, Mom.”

  After hanging up, PJ used her computer to order flowers sent to Lilly Kane. Mick’s mother was being extraordinarily helpful, and PJ didn’t know how she was going to repay her.

  She called Schultz, trying his desk first, and was surprised to actually reach him there. Explaining her insight about May being the killer, she left out Merlin’s role of talking it over with her. No one else knew about Merlin, and she preferred to keep it that way.

  “So there are two things we need to do,” she said.

  “You know, when you say that, you usually mean things I need to do.”

  She flushed slightly, even though he couldn’t see her. “You are the official cop portion of this team, as you so often remind me.”

  He sighed. “Let’s not get into that now. What is it we need to do?”

  She talked him quickly through her simulation. “This scenario would have a lot of credibility if we could find two things.”

  “One is the garden cart with Arlan’s blood in it,” he said. “The other?”

  “Rope fibers on the beam above the workbench in Old Hank’s barn. There is one teensy problem.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I saw the garden cart in use at May’s home after the murder. The gardener was calmly loading leaves into it. You’d think he would have noticed if it had been heavily bloodstained.”

  “It could have been scrubbed well enough that casual inspection wouldn’t reveal any blood,” Schultz said. “There could have been a tarp in it. Hey, maybe the cart was used to take the body to the dump site. You wouldn’t need one of those stretcher-body bags. Just drag the body out of the cart and roll it. The cart could have been pushed into the river afterward.”

  “How about you go check out the cart, Dave goes to the barn, and Anita gets a search going in the river?”

  “I can tell you right now that since this isn’t body retrieval, we’re not getting any divers until tomorrow, and that’s if we’re lucky.”

  “Okay, then, Anita gets a night off,” PJ said.

  Feeling that things were moving in the right direction, or at least a direction, PJ decided to follow through on the research she’d done about the parents of May and June and the mysterious third sister. It was time to put that theory aside or put some teeth into it. She got out her notes on the obituary with names of surviving relatives.

  John T. Winter, the sisters’ paternal uncle, lived in Denver. It was only a little after seven o’clock there, not too late to give the man a call. She looked up his phone number on the Internet, pleased to find it with minimal effort. She identified herself when he picked up, and asked if he was the brother of Henry Winter, the husband of Virginia Crane.

  “Yes, I am. Henry died in 1997, though, if you were looking to get in touch with him.”

  “No, I’m calling to talk to you. Were you aware that both of Henry’s son-in-laws have died within the past ten days?”

  “Oh, god, no. Nobody calls me anymore. After Henry died, I lost touch. Was it another accident? My brother died in a plane crash.”

  “I’m sorry to say it was homicide, in both cases.”

  PJ gave the man all the time he needed to absorb the information. She didn’t like being the one to bring him the news. “Mr. Winter, I’m sorry for your losses. This must be especially hard, hearing about both of these men at one time, and from someone who is not a member of your family.”

  “I’m all right, just stunned, I guess. Is there anything you can tell me about their deaths?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid. I can say that Frank Simmons was shot and Arlan Merrett was stabbed.”

  “Jesus. No one called me.” His voice trailed off. “Thank you for letting me know. I guess I’ll get in touch with my nieces, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “May I ask you some questions, Mr. Winter? It could be of help in the investigations.”

  “Sure, anything. I just need to sit down first,” he said.

  PJ heard some shuffling that sounded like a chair being dragged across the floor. “You said that you lost touch with the St. Louis families after your brother died. Were you in close contact before that?”

  “It depends on what you call close,” he said. “Henry came out to visit me two or three times a year, and at Christmas, I usually went to St. Louis for a week.”

  “Was that from the time he first got married to Virginia Crane?”

  “Yes, but Virginia and I didn’t get along too well. I think I was a little too much of a reminder of our family’s middle-class roots for her. I was a traveling salesman. Cash registers.”

  “Did Virginia ever talk about her little brother, the one who died when he was less than a year old?” PJ asked.

  “Strange you should ask about that. She never did mention that to me, but my brother did. The boy’s name was Ellis, I think. Died of the flu.”

  “There weren’t any rumors about Ellis being murdered?”

  “What? No, nothing I knew about. He got sick and died, that’s what I heard.”

  “Only one more subject, Mr. Winter. How many children did your brother and his wife have?”

  “Three.”

  PJ’s heart nearly stopped. The rumor was true, then. “So there’s May, June, and?”

  “And April. I didn’t know her very well. I was traveling a lot at the time. April was born only six months after my brother married Virginia. You know, like a shotgun wedding, only into a high-class family. Years later, when she was a teenager, Henry told me there were some problems with her, some behavioral problems, or problems at school. I don’t really remember, and he didn’t make a big deal of it. Doesn’t matter, though. She died when she was twenty. A horse riding accident. I went to her funeral. May was a young girl at that time, second or third grade, I think. Little June was a baby then.”

  Not an imaginary friend. A real sister. Why would May lie and say June was delusional? To make June look crazy, apparently.

  “Do you happen to have any pictures of April or of the entire family at that time?”

  “I’m not sure. I can look through the old photos. If you’re interested, Jasmine, that’s Virginia’s sister, would probably know a lot more about it. She and Virginia kept in very close touch. Listen, I’d really like to call my nieces now.”

  PJ checked her notes. “That would be Jasmine Singer, of Hannibal, Missouri?”

  “Yes. Talk with her. She knew April well, I think.”

  “Thank you. I’ll certainly do that. You’ve been very generous wi
th your time, Mr. Winter. Again, I’m sorry for your losses.”

  Tempering PJ’s excitement about confirming the existence of the third sister was the fact of that sister’s death. Why would May lie when she said she didn’t know of another child in the family? There could have been something traumatic about April’s death that caused May to block out the experience of even having a sister.

  Far-fetched. That would take some horrendous trauma.

  Too bad April was a dead end.

  Chapter 38

  SCHULTZ CALLED THE SIMMONS home. The maid answered.

  “How’s it going, Ms. Paulson?” Schultz said familiarly. Since their last conversation, he’d felt a bond with the woman who’d lost her child. The circumstances of her loss were different from his, but it gave them something in common.

  “Please call me Mary Beth.”

  “Leo here.”

  “If you’re wondering how things are going in the household now that Frank’s gone, it’s been very smooth. Almost like nothing’s different. One fewer place to set at the table for dinner is what it amounts to.”

  “Not much grieving in evidence, then?”

  “Oh, yes. But it’s from the children, the poor things. They had a closer relationship with their father than with their mother.”

  “Do what you can, Mary Beth. Those kids are going to need support.”

  “Oh, we do. All the staff.”

  “Speaking of staff, what’s the gardener’s name?”

  “You mean Jimmy Drummond? He’s not on staff here. The landscaping work is contracted out to Green Vista.”

  Schultz’s eyebrows rose. “You mean the company Arlan ran?”

  “Uh huh. They have to maintain the grounds around their developments, and were constantly having to hire short-term help, so they decided to make the best of it and start a landscaping firm. Green Vista Groundworks, I think it’s called. They have GVGW on their vans. There’s a manager, so Arlan didn’t have to mess with the daily work. It was just a convenience for them.”

  How are these families tied together? Let me count the ways.

  “So, Jimmy Drummond is assigned to May’s account. Where might I find him when he’s off duty?”

  Mary Beth giggled. “I have no idea. I have a crush on him, would you believe? But I only admire him when he’s on the premises. I don’t follow him home.”

  “Okay, I’m sure I can find out where he lives.”

  “Maybe I should. Follow him home, that is.”

  Schultz said nothing. She wasn’t going to get any advice to the lovelorn out of him.

  “Do you know if the Simmonses own a garden vehicle?” he asked, thinking that it was likely the cart PJ had seen belonged to Green Vista Groundworks.

  “I think so. I don’t have much to do with that, you know. But Jimmy walks to the storage building at the back of the property, in some trees. He comes out riding a wagon with rakes and stuff in the back.”

  “And he puts it away when he’s done.”

  “Yup. Then he leaves in the van.”

  “Thanks, Mary Beth. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Schultz tracked down Judge Hector Martinez in the Central West End. The guy approved almost all of the search warrants Schultz took to him, which may have been because Schultz helped get the man’s crack-addicted daughter into a treatment program and dropped in to check on her after that, making sure she stayed straight and continued her schooling. The young woman was in law school now.

  Judge Martinez was in the downstairs dining room at Balaban’s having white wine and what looked like grilled salmon. He also had a lady companion who was not Mrs. Martinez.

  Judge Martinez seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of Schultz for some reason. He listened to the explanation for the warrant, interrupted saying, “Yes, yes,” and signed it right there on the white tablecloth.

  Schultz took a couple of officers and an ETU over to May’s home. Mary Beth answered the door, and in a few minutes had produced a sleepy May in silk pajamas and robe down at the front door to acknowledge the serving of the warrant.

  “You want to look at what? My storage building?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Specifically at your garden cart.”

  “I don’t understand, but Detective, you didn’t need a warrant. You could have just asked me. And you didn’t have to wake me up for it. That shed isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Just keeping everything legal, Mrs. Simmons. You know those lawyers.”

  She shrugged. “I’m going back to bed. If you have any questions, Mary Beth can come and get me. Again.”

  Schultz considered her demeanor. She showed no concern for anyone looking around in the shed. Either she wasn’t the killer, or she was a brilliant actress, or a complete nut case.

  There was a padlock on the door of the storage building that was removed by one of the officers with a massive bolt cutter, and bagged to be tested for fingerprints. The double doors opened, and Schultz swept his flashlight quickly around the interior. He didn’t have any reason to think a bad guy was hiding in there, but it was procedure. The place was filled with rakes, shovels, and wicked-looking, long-handled pruning shears. And the cart.

  It was about seven feet long. The carrying bin in the back took up about five feet, leaving a couple of feet for a driver’s seat and steering wheel. Shining his flashlight over the rails into the bin, he could see a little leaf debris but nothing else. No obvious bloodstains and certainly nothing to swab and test.

  “Bring that spray stuff in here,” he said to one of the crime scene technicians, who was getting set up in and around the shed. A photographer was at Schultz’s elbow, already snapping pictures with a flash.

  A tech named Vic Besle, according to his tag, came up carrying a bottle of Luminol. “We don’t just squirt this everywhere. The chemical reaction can damage other evidence.”

  “Just use a little of it in one corner,” Schultz said.

  Vic seemed reluctant. Schultz made a grab for the bottle, which the tech quickly moved out of reach. “Hey!” Vic said.

  “Gimme that!” Schultz said, getting impatient.

  “Okay, okay, just one corner.”

  Vic reached over the wood slats, stretched a little to position the bottle, and misted Luminol into one corner.

  Schultz flicked off his flashlight. In about five seconds, a ghostly, greenish-blue glow lined the slats and flared in the corner. The glow was the result of a chemical reaction between the iron in hemoglobin and the Luminol, a reaction that produced light.

  “Looks good, but not presumptive,” Vic said. “We’ll need more testing. Luminol reacts with other things, like bleach or plant materials, which would seem to be an issue here.”

  “Since when did you guys start talking like that? Presumptive this and that.”

  “I’m a chemist,” Vic said. “I’m moonlighting.”

  “Well, Mr. Moonlighter, I’d bet my balls that’s blood. Photographer, get a picture of this.”

  Vic sighed and moved away.

  Schultz’s cellphone rang. It was Dave, from the barn on Hank’s property.

  “We had the St. Ann PD get in touch with Hank,” he said. “The tough part was finding a ladder to get up to that beam. St. Ann brought in the fire department. They were happy to help out.”

  “Cut to it, Dave. Rope fibers or no fibers?”

  “Rope fibers, Boss. Hank says he’s never had a rope over that beam.”

  “Damn, we’re making some progress here. Now if we only knew whodunit.”

  Was May the killer? The inner sense that Schultz relied upon wasn’t jangling in the least.

  Chapter 39

  DURING HIGH SCHOOL, I don’t have many dates. That doesn’t bother me much, except that my parents are always wondering aloud why their precious baby isn’t popular anymore. In seventh and eighth grade, I was the one setting the pace, getting asked out every Friday and Saturday night, having any boy I wanted, breaking hearts right and left.

  Did
I have to put out? Not seriously. The junior cocks never emerged from behind the prison of their zippers, although they certainly flung themselves against the bars. All the boys knew they weren’t going to get past tit fondling with me. I did teach more than my share of boys how to unfasten a bra. Enjoy what you get, boys, then go home and jack off. It should have gotten me labeled a cock tease, but my womanly tits were such hot property that no boy wanted to ruin his chances for a quick squeeze and suck by saying bad things about me.

  Girls that age today do oral sex on command, like trained dogs. Trained bitches. They’re afraid if they don’t, their guys will go find a better-trained bitch, and they’ll be sitting home alone on the weekends, a fate worse than zits.

  In my first couple of years of high school, I start to lose interest in all that groping. It’s too much trouble to put on girl-clothes and shave my underarms and legs when sloppy T-shirts and jeans are so much easier and cover stubble. I have to wash my hair, too, and I put that off for days, until I have grungy hair. A boy kisses me and complains that I have bad breath. I guess I have grungy breath, too, because I haven’t brushed my teeth for a week. Or is it two? My mother starts to notice that my shampoo and toothpaste aren’t going away fast enough. I solve that by dumping a capful down the sink and squeezing the toothpaste tube down the sink, too.

  So what happened to Miss Popularity? She faded away, a puddle drying up in the sun. A puddle with greasy hair.

  Trying to prove to my parents that I can get a date for the senior prom, I take the initiative and ask Gregory Royalview, a boy who doesn’t seem to have any other prospects. Then I join the other girls, talking about gowns, hairdos, and of course, shoes dyed to match, with clip-on bows.

  On the night of the dance, Greg calls me and says he is going with someone else. I hadn’t realized that it was me who was the last resort. I thought that honor was his. I keep up pretenses in front of my parents. I secretly call a cab, give a vague excuse why my date isn’t picking me up, and spend the night watching movies, excuse me, films, at a late-night artsy-fartsy theater across town. When I get home, my parents are asleep, and as far as they know, I’ve been to the prom. I hang up my gown in a plastic storage bag, but I never forget dear old Greg.