Ink, Red, Dead

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Guys? Could I say something? I have an idea.”

  They turned to me expectantly.

  “I don’t know about you, but I can’t see any pattern here. I’m pretty sure one exists. But after I read several reports, everything blends together in my head. Why not color code certain themes?” I explained how Anya’s teacher taught the kids to use a pink highlighter to code dates, a green highlighter for places, a blue highlighter for names, and so on. “Here are twenty different highlighter colors. I can get blank paper from Sheila’s study. You can assign different themes or traits a color. For example, if the woman exercised, then highlight that in blue. If she liked to bar-hop, maybe that could be red. If she had kids, that could be yellow, see?”

  They did. I left them happily coloring away, and I went upstairs to bed.

  Chapter 26

  “What did you learn?” I asked Robbie Holmes the next morning. Robbie always made me breakfast when I woke up early. On Saturdays and Sundays, he usually went all out.

  The first time I saw him puttering around the kitchen with an apron, I did a double-take, but as I’ve said before, that’s a real cool thing for men to do in my book, so I quickly got over my shock. Turns out, Robbie is a wizard pancake maker and an equally super-duper maker of omelets. This morning, he sautéed onions, mushrooms, red bell peppers, and a little diced ham for me, added it to Eggbeaters with a slice of 2% American cheese, and slid the finished product onto my plate. I spread Brummel & Brown spread on a piece of sourdough Melba toast and crunched my way into heaven. Sipping a mix of low-fat hot chocolate and coffee added to my delirium. I mean, is life good or what?

  “See for yourself,” he pushed the chart toward me.

  All of the women had three or four matching traits. The ones that occurred most frequently were kids, working or living in a ten-mile radius of downtown St. Louis, pet owners and thin. Very, very thin. All of them were downright skinny. I focused on their weight right away, but since I struggle with constantly being twenty pounds overweight, that probably said more about me than about the missing women.

  “I suppose none of those are surprising numbers. Given that 63% of all American households own a pet. More specifically 34% own cats and 60% own dogs,” said Robbie. “But I’m thinking we can go back to their friends and family and see if within those categories there are more similarities. Anything that might show a correlation, like if their kids all take gymnastics from the same place. Or whatever.”

  He sounded chipper, but like he was working hard at it.

  “I wonder how many of these women owned cats and how many owned dogs.” I picked up Martin and plugged his bottle into his mouth.

  “I’m not convinced that matters.” Robbie smiled at me, a gentle grin that caused his eyes to crinkle. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. Sooner or later, we’ll find a common thread. Or the killer will get sloppy. I mean, how many bodies can you hide? And for how long? Unless this creep spirited them out into the rolling farmland of Missouri, someone is bound to find a corpse somewhere.”

  “Like in a freezer?”

  “I know you don’t want to believe that Mrs. Lever killed her neighbor, but you’re familiar with Occam’s Razor, aren’t you? The law of parsimony?”

  “Given two competing theories, the simplest is most likely the correct one?”

  “That’s right.” He tugged off the apron and reached for his tie. Without the benefit of a mirror, he wrapped it around his collar and knotted it expertly. The whole action, smooth and habitual, reminded me that he’d been solving crimes for most of his adult life. As he moved past me, a whiff of lime-scented aftershave came my way. Robbie Holmes typified the term “avuncular.” Oh, in his work he could be a real son-of-a-gun, but toward me he’d never been anything but as kindly and good-humored as a favorite uncle.

  “I know, I know. But how did she get the woman into her freezer? It’s not like Marla Lever was a body-builder!”

  “She rolled the body onto a blanket. She pulled the blanket along the floor, and hoisted the body up to the freezer. Maybe she tied a rope around an overhead pipe and used leverage. How did the Egyptians build the pyramids?”

  “How did the neighbor die? Mrs. Newcomber?”

  “Battered to death with a baseball bat. Probably chloroformed first. We’re still waiting on the autopsy. We’re getting her credit card records and trying to piece together who saw her last. When that was. Unfortunately, it takes longer in real life than it does on TV.”

  “You think Marla Lever was strong enough to beat someone to death with a baseball bat?”

  Robbie smiled at me. “You really don’t know much about baseball, do you?”

  Chapter 27

  “I’ve almost got that full.” With a jerk of my head, I indicated to Mert that we’d need a second recycling container for newspapers. Ten o’clock on a Saturday morning and the muscles in my back had already seized up. Did I know how to have a good time or what?

  I grabbed a bottle of cold water and chased down two Advils. Planting my knuckles in my lower back, I did the best I could to give myself relief.

  “Johnny?” Mert called to her brother. “You check out the garage and see if there’s anything in there we can use temporarily.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He wandered off. In a few minutes he was back. “Nothing there. How about if I call Roger and ask him to bring the recycling bins from your house and mine? That’ll hold us for a while.”

  Roger is Mert’s college age son. A real sweetie, if there ever was one. But before Mert could compliment her brother Johnny on his smart idea, he added, “Why would she need a woodchipper?”

  “A what?” Mert repeated.

  “Woodchipper.” Johnny scanned the lot. “Remember? I told you I found one. I just cain’t figure out what Mrs. Lever would be doing with one. I only see that one big tree. No stumps. No shrubs. Why would she need a woodchipper? And it’s been oiled lately. I knew something was hulking back there in the garage, but I had to clear out those boxes afore I could see it proper.”

  “This I’ve got to see.” I set down my water and headed for the garage. Laurel followed on my heels, and Mert sighed with disgust and trooped after us.

  “For heaven’s sake, we’re talking about a big piece of equipment. Who cares what Marla bought? What difference does it make?” Mert said as we walked. “All right, you want to spend your break in a hot garage, who am I to stop you?”

  But she kept up with us.

  There it sat. A NorthStar Brush Chipper. At least that’s what the lettering on the side of the big red and black machine said. Flattened pieces of cardboard leaned against the box-like body of the chipper with its long giraffe-like curved neck and gaping big maw.

  “Reminds me of a dinosaur,” Laurel said. “A brachiosaurus. You know, with that long neck and little head and big body?”

  “You’re right! It ate leaves, too.” We both giggled.

  “I guess when you’re a trash picker, you bring home all sorts of stuff.” Mert put her hands on her hips and stared at the big piece of equipment. Piled next to it were boxes of ziplock bags. “But that thang sure looks new to me. I bet it cost a lot of money.”

  “You don’t suppose this was part of the woodworking tool set that Allen Lever wanted, do you? Did his sister call you?” I asked my friend.

  “No. She didn’t call and I didn’t pursue it. I figger, no news is good news.”

  “He said he was looking for his granddad’s tools. This here’s modern,” said Johnny.

  We wandered out of the garage, plopped down on the lawn chairs and chugged our water. Mert’s phone rang. She walked over by her truck to take the call with a bit of privacy. I wondered if she’d spoken too quickly about “no news is good news.”

  “That was Roger. He scraped the poop off your walls, but he thinks a new coat of paint is in order. You want them painted the same color? Roger can ask Mr. Haversham if he’s got extra paint stashed somewhere. You got your landlord’s cell phone numbe
r?”

  Roger would do a good job of re-painting my walls. My landlord Leighton wouldn’t mind me changing the color; he liked me and wanted me to be happy. I decided I wanted to think about it a while, to mull over what I wanted, and told her so. She nodded and told Roger that I planned to get back with him.

  Mert toured the house while Laurel, Johnny and I drank our water. She was a great boss, a hard worker and a thoughtful one, too. I hoped that Ali Timmons appreciated my friend.

  “You think Allen Lever or Devon Timmons did it?” Laurel asked me. “Vandalized your house?”

  “It’s possible,” I said. “I don’t know. I’m mainly relieved that my pets weren’t hurt. The poop on the walls, well, that’s minor.”

  Then it hit me. “Poop. That’s it! Where’s the poop? I haven’t seen any!”

  Chapter 28

  “Excuse me?” Laurel raised an eyebrow. “You expected Roger to save what he took off of your walls? Don’t tell me you were planning to scrapbook it?”

  “No,” I shook my head emphatically. “But don’t you see? We’ve been working on this house for days, and what’s missing? Litter boxes. Marla had all these kitties and no litter boxes.”

  Laurel stared at me. “So what? They used her whole house as a litter box. We’ve picked up layers of soiled newspapers in every room.”

  “Right. But no cat boxes. How can you have cats and no litter boxes? Johnny, were there any bags of litter in the garage?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. Let me go check the trunk of her car,” he said, “if I can open it.”

  Of course, most Midwesterners keep bags of cat litter in their trunks during the winter. The litter adds weight that keeps tires from slipping on snow and ice. If you get stuck, you can tear open a bag, spread the litter, and get traction.

  But this wasn’t winter. Given Marla’s propensity for squirreling stuff away, it was remotely possible she stored her kitty litter in her trunk. Johnny came back and sank into a lawn chair. “Nothing there. The trunk was full. Stacks of boxes, old clothes, and a bag of broken pieces of appliances.”

  “No kitty litter? That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Besides, remember what Allen told us? He said he brought her cat food and kitty litter. Where are the food bowls? And the litter boxes?”

  “I can see the wheels turning under those curls of yours.” Johnny gave me a half-grin. “What are you thinking?”

  I hopped to my feet, pacing back and forth in the grass under the maple tree. “Let’s review the facts. What would be the first thing you’d do if you were having guests and you had a lot of cats? Change the litter boxes, right?”

  “Makes sense to you and me, but we’re dealing with a seriously disturbed woman here,” said Laurel. “Maybe she didn’t believe in litter boxes.”

  I shook my head. “Whether she believed in them or not, she would have had them. I mean, there’s controversy about de-clawing your cat but I’ve never heard any controversy about litter boxes, have you?”

  Laurel squinted a minute. “You know, there’s that big area behind her kitchen. Probably used to be a sun porch? That would have been a perfect spot for litter boxes.”

  She hopped up, ran over to the house and stuck her head inside the back door. In a few ticks, she was back. “Yes, ma’am. There’s a tiny bit of litter on the floor. You can see it along the baseboards.”

  “Marla didn’t call off our meeting,” I kept talking, bolstered by Laurel’s confirmation that Marla must have had litter boxes. “So Marla was in denial about the rest of the mess.”

  “That’s common for hoarders,” Laurel said. “They don’t see their homes like outsiders do. I’ve been reading about them on Google at night. I mean, this whole situation has me curious.”

  “And she didn’t cancel the crop because she wasn’t terribly stressed out, right?”

  Laurel steepled her fingers so that the tips of her French manicure rested against her lips. “Okay. So what? Why does it matter that she wasn’t stressed to the max?”

  “Kiki’ll get to it,” Johnny pointed to me and laughed. “She’s on a roll! I need to record this on my phone’s video camera and put it up on YouTube. A new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Kiki Lowenstein as the great sleuth.”

  “Hold that thought about not being stressed. Let me finish,” I waved them silent. “When we arrived, the front door was unlocked. Few if any women living alone leave their doors unlocked. But Marla—or someone else—did. Marla’s car was in the garage. The A/C had quit. Probably earlier that morning or late the night before. If it had quit during business hours the day before, Marla could have cancelled the event when we called her that afternoon. Or even called a repairman. If she didn’t want us, she had the perfect excuse! Instead, we found Marla passed out on her bed after having a stroke.”

  “Laurel,” I said, “can you look up what causes a stroke? I mean, are there any surefire ways to bring one on? It’s a pretty convenient coincidence that Marla would have one right when she expected company.”

  Laurel pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and tapped on the screen. “Says here that an MAO inhibitor can cause strokes, if the patient eats foods with tyramine. That would be certain cheeses, chocolate, miso soup, and so on. Any food that undergoes fermentation has tyramine.”

  “What made you look up MAO inhibitors?” Johnny asked.

  “I didn’t. I went to Google and plugged in treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder plus stroke. That’s one of the theories sociologists have about animal hoarding. That it’s a form of OCD,” she explained. “Her son Allen told us Marla decided to get help. Maybe she was taking the medication. Says here that it takes a while to build up in your system. Maybe it hadn’t fully clicked in yet. But it could have made her feel a little better. Enough that she was reaching out and trying new things. Like scrapbooking. Having guests.”

  I nodded. “Right. Maybe that’s how she could even entertain the idea of, well, entertaining. She’s in denial about her house, but she told me she wanted her lawn mowed. That means she must have told someone that we’re coming. So that someone plants a body on the premises. Or maybe the corpse was planted a while back—”

  “—And the real murderer figures your visit is as good a time as any to set Marla up as the killer,” Johnny said. “Could work. Guys in prison bragged about setting people up to take the fall. Of course, most of that was nothing but talk. Still, old Marla can’t defend herself when she’s in a coma, can she?”

  Chapter 29

  “For kicks and grins, I’m going to Google ‘woodchipper’ and see what it brings up.” Laurel waved her iPhone over her head. “I love this phone! It’s the best toy ever!”

  “You do that.” I didn’t expect much from her search, but she was clearly fascinated by her new capabilities.

  “First, I’ll put in the name of the manufacturer.” Laurel’s fingers tap-tap-tapped away. “Wow. That’s one expensive piece of equipment. We’re talking $16,000 for a new one!”

  “Holy smokes,” said Johnny. “It’s a cinch she didn’t find that in a junk pile! Or at a yard sale!”

  Mert sauntered back, checking her watch. “Break’s about over. What are all of you looking so excited about?”

  Laurel showed her the price of the woodchipper. Mert gave a low whistle. Laurel added, “I’m going to put the word ‘woodchipper’ in Google and see what it…” She stopped.

  Laurel’s eyes about bugged out of her head. “Did you ever see Fargo? That famous woodchipper scene?”

  “Ugh. The one that spewed blood and guts all over the snow? It looked like an explosion of red ink!” I shuddered.

  “Trust you to come up with a scrapbooking comparison,” Johnny said.

  “Oh, crud on a crutch.” Mert sighed. “You don’t suppose? I mean, there was a body in the freezer. Why would someone need a woodchipper? ‘Specially if they just wanna store dead folks in the freezer?”

  “Hang on.” I ran into the garage. Johnny had cleared a path to the woodchipper,
but not a wide one. Next to the big machine were two cardboard boxes filled with gallon-sized zipper baggies. I pushed aside several stacks of flattened cardboard. The NorthStar sat on sturdy wheels. Clearly, it was meant to be hooked to a hitch, but you could drag it around for a short distance because the wheels were substantial.

  I examined the baggies one more time. A chill ran up my spine. I carried the box of baggies out to where my friends sat under the maple tree, watching the famous woodchipper scene from Fargo play out on Laurel’s i-Phone.

  “Mert?” my voice cracked. “Are these the same brand of baggies that the hamburger was in? That ground meat we found in the refrigerator?”

  She nodded.

  “Has anyone else noticed that Marla’s lawn is a particularly vivid shade of green? I mean, when I was driving in this morning, I was thinking that her neighbors’ grass seemed a bit yellow. See, I remember from Anya’s biology class that the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. Slow release and fast release nitrogen is what makes your grass green. Isn’t that right, Johnny?” I knew he worked for a landscaping company when he wasn’t helping his sister. I also knew he’d taken classes in botany at one of the junior colleges.

  “And phosperous is the second most important element for lawn growth.” Johnny stood up and scanned Marla’s lot. “Now that you mention it, considering how she’s let the house run down, she’s sure got one heck of a yard. If you look past the weeds, this grass is gorgeous. Fertilizing a lot this size would be expensive. See where her lot line ends over yonder? Her grass is definitely much greener and healthier than her neighbors.”

  We all strained to see where he was pointing. He was right; there was a huge difference in color between her grass and everyone else’s. If you were looking for it, it was obvious.

  Mert raised a trembling hand to her forehead. “Dab-nabbit. Maybe she didn’t fertilize it. Maybe it’s just a by-product. That’s what you’re thinking, aren’t you, Kiki?”