Will explains the process of going through the records, writing summaries, and creating a timeline of the crime and investigation. Then he leaves to work on a separate case.
I look around at my bleak surroundings, pull out my laptop, and get to it.
~~~~~
A day later, after I finish summarizing folders, binders, evidence bags, and boxes, I feel like I’ve developed a good overview of this case. I’ve looked through autopsy and incident reports, built the timeline of events, and viewed gruesome photographs of the scene.
It’s time to tackle the contents of two evidence boxes that grabbed my attention earlier. One contains a pair of bloody white go-go boots that Doreen wore when the killer attacked her. I had a pair just like them back then, and I try to imagine myself in hers. The thought sends a shiver through me.
I reach for a crime scene photograph and study it more closely. Doreen’s body is sprawled across the steps. She’s on her back, her arms stretched out to each side, her head turned slightly to the right.
She has on the boots and a paisley mini-dress with bell sleeves. Both are blood-splattered…I mean “spattered,” as I learned in class. A matching headband pulls her light hair back from her face.
I reach in my bag for a small dome-shaped magnifier and run it over the photograph. I spot a heavy-looking ring on one of Doreen’s hands, and what appears to be a charm bracelet on her other wrist.
I root around in the other box until I find clear bags containing the ring and bracelet. On one side of the bag is the form showing the chain of custody, and I see the names of both Detectives Brannigan and Paola.
I flip the sealed bags over and examine the ring first. It’s a 1966 class ring from Parklawn High. There’s dried blood on it, but is it Doreen’s blood from her knife wounds, or did she get a good slug at the killer before she went down? I make a note to check the reports to find out whose ring this was and follow up with Will. Whoever it belongs to, he’s never gotten it back. It has stayed locked in a dark evidence room for more than forty years.
I snap some pictures of it inside the evidence bag with my camera phone, wishing I could take the ring out for a better view, but I don’t dare.
Next I shift my attention to the bracelet. It’s silver, and so loaded with charms that they stick out in every direction rather than lay flat. I touch them through the evidence bag—there are probably a lot of memories tied up in these little objects.
I inspect a heart with two small birds in the middle. It looks like something a child would receive. I spot a silver St. Christopher’s medal on an oval baby-blue enamel background, perhaps a gift from a relative to protect her when traveling. A Victorian-era ring with tiny pearls and rubies attracts my attention. Was it maybe from a grandmother?
The bracelet has its share of creatures—an elephant, a turtle, and a West Highland terrier. Maybe she had a small Westie as a child? A silver gumball machine could have been a gift in junior high.
As I flip through the rest of the charms, I almost miss an empty loop that dangles between two other charms on one of the links. I hold the bag very close and see a slight gap between the two ends. That loop’s charm must have fallen off.
I check the paperwork on the contents of this evidence box. There’s no mention of the empty loop in the description of the bracelet. I take pictures of the bracelet and a few more of the ring.
The master list mentioned a journal that I find in a manila folder. After pulling on latex gloves, I reach in and remove a burgundy leather diary. I carefully flip through it and find its pages filled with beautiful handwriting. Doreen must have received an A+ in penmanship.
The journal is almost three-quarters full. The last date is September 20, 1972, the day before her murder.
Good day at school today. I shouldn’t have favorites, but I think mine may be my seniors’ creative writing class. The kids seem excited about the course. I love the class discussions, and their writing assignments show me they have a lot to offer. All except for one. There’s something troubling about B, and I’ll have to keep an eye on him.
Picked up my new dress from Serafina’s. It needed a few alterations, and now it’s perfect. I’ll wear it tomorrow when J takes me out to dinner. First date since K and I broke up…
I close the journal. Never in a million years could Doreen have imagined this would be her last entry. At only twenty-four, she had every expectation of a long life ahead.
I find a summary of the journal and go locate a copier, then spend the next half-hour Xeroxing both the summary and diary. This definitely warrants a thorough reading.
Glancing at my watch, I see that I have just enough time to put everything back on the correct shelves. I gather my things and head out. As I leave, I can almost hear Doreen’s voice pleading for me to bring her killer to justice.
~~~~~
Holding a glass of cabernet, I step into my large porcelain tub in the center of the white tile floor. A tray sits across the tub with my glasses and the copy of Doreen’s journal propped up for easy reading. Rather than the usual soft candlelight that I prefer when relaxing, I have the lights on. This particular soak in the tub is going to be a work session.
I slip into the warm water and look up at the huge photograph on the wall. “Hey, maybe you can help me figure this out,” I say to the man in the frame as I lean back in the tub with my glass. “This murder happened in 1972.”
A classic photograph of Sean Connery as 007 in black tie and holding his gun looks down at me. His expression in this famous picture is definitely inscrutable. Whatever he may have been thinking at the time, his gaze and our one-sided conversations help me unwind.
I look at the official summary of the journal which lists the full names of different people mentioned inside. The list includes her date on the evening she was murdered, the troubled student in her creative writing class, and her ex-boyfriend.
“Okay, James, Doreen was beautiful enough to be a Bond girl, but as a high school teacher she probably wasn’t your type. And her life certainly doesn’t sound very intriguing from this summary.” I sip my wine. “So why would anyone want to kill her?”
I tackle the journal in month-long chunks and flip back to the entry for August 20, 1972. It’s literally a day at the beach—a Sunday afternoon at the Jersey shore with her boyfriend. So they hadn’t broken up yet, but he’d volunteered for the military and would be leaving shortly for basic training. They’d been together for three years, and she’d been wearing Kenny’s ring since the beginning. It’s got to be the ring I looked at earlier.
I get to the entries where Doreen prepares for the upcoming school year. At one point she loses Kenny’s ring, and she’s in a panic to find it. Later she locates it, much to her relief, because she’s been terrified to write him that it’s missing.
I wonder how much of a temper the boyfriend had. If she’s that scared to tell a man three thousand miles away that she can’t find his ring, that’s probably where I should focus.
I go back to January 1972 and read forward in the journal, looking for clues about Kenny’s anger or how he treated Doreen. He definitely comes across as a hothead. Was he ever physically abusive? I can’t tell from the journal. Why did Doreen stay with him for three years? I assume the police checked him out thoroughly, but I write a note to make sure.
I continue flipping through the pages and reading. If Doreen had any deep, dark secrets, other than a boyfriend with a nasty temper, she didn’t commit them to paper.
A week before her murder, Doreen’s brother—Steve Lyla’s father, I think, remembering the dying man we’re doing this for—gives her an early birthday present. Doreen writes about it in her beautiful script.
Timmy gave me the sweetest gift—he added another charm to my bracelet, a tiny pair of silver boots. He remembered how my friends and I used to play “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” for hours on end when it first came out. I love it! He really is the best brother a girl could have.
I don’t r
emember a boot charm on Doreen’s bracelet in that evidence bag. I glance back at the police summary where anything of note gets a bullet point. There’s no entry for 9/14/72 when she received the gift. Detective Vincent Delgado wrote the summary, and in 1972 there was a good chance that everyone involved in the investigation was a man. Most men wouldn’t fully appreciate how special charm bracelets were to a girl her age.
By the time I’ve finished reading 1972 and am considering going back to January 1971, my skin is shriveled from sitting in the tub for so long. I get out and dry off quickly. Warrior’s already curled up in his dog nest when I pull on a baggy tee-shirt and crawl under the covers. The last thing I remember hearing is his soft snore.
~~~~~
The next morning, Will and I go over everything I learned in the evidence room. I pull out my phone and show him pictures of the heavy gold ring and the silver charm bracelet.
“The fact that both were found on her body after her murder rules out robbery,” Will says. “I think the ’72 investigation confirmed that.”
“Yes, it did,” I agree. “Will, there’s something about this charm bracelet that’s got my attention—” I shrug. “Call it a woman’s intuition.”
“It’s our job to look at every possible angle, but I’d focus on the ring and the boyfriend,” Will says. “It sounds like the guy’s got a temper. Even though he checked out, he deserves a revisit.”
We go over the list of prospective interviews I’ve organized. It’s still long, but Will narrows it down to a more manageable size. I’m ecstatic that he wants me to conduct the interviews because he’s still swamped with that other case of his.
“Remember, schedule them in public places or take me along,” he says. “Absolutely no night-time interviews without me. Are we clear?”
“Got it.”
“And when you talk to these people, ask them if they remember anyone strange who might have been stalking Doreen or behaving oddly in any other way, anyone who could have had a connection to her. No matter how obscure, it could be important.”
“Ten-seventy,” I say, making a feeble attempt at police-talk.
He looks at me funny. “Uh, I don’t think you mean ‘fire,’ which is a ten-seventy. I think you mean ten-sixty-nine, ‘message received?’”
“Yeah. Ten-sixty-nine, whatever.” My face feels flushed.
A slow grin appears on his very handsome face. “You’ve got to stop watching all those bad cop shows.” He stares at me with penetrating eyes and that look of his that never fails to make my knees go weak.
~~~~~
I spend the rest of the day calling people on the list and setting up times to meet. Several of them give me an earful about the old boyfriend and what a nasty piece of work he was. They’d all said good riddance when he left for basic training.
There’s also mention of a couple of other oddball admirers. One was a guy named Sam who taught woodshop at the same school where Doreen taught English. He was drafted and may have died in Vietnam. The other was a classmate of Doreen’s, a pothead named Freddy who ended up working at the local video store.
The biggest surprise? The discovery of a spiteful best friend who turned on Doreen. When Cheri thought her boyfriend was showing too much interest in Doreen, she lost it at a diner where they were hanging out. Cheri made violent threats against her best friend and finished it off by dumping a glass of water over Doreen’s head.
The crime scene photos before the body was moved did show a multitude of stab wounds, so it’s clear that someone had passionate anger issues toward Doreen. It hadn’t dawned on me to consider a woman as a suspect in Doreen’s murder, but why not?
I flip through the police files and find several references to Cheri, but the investigators appear to have dropped her quickly from the suspect list. I add her to my short list with the two admirers and that writing student Brian from Doreen’s journal.
Doreen’s old boyfriend, Kenny O’Donnell, answers my call with a smoker’s hack. I introduce myself, tell him why I’m calling, and we agree to try to meet at the end of the week after his chiropractor appointment. Between bursts of coughing, he says he went on disability and retired from the county roads department a couple of years ago due to a bad back.
We chat a bit, but from his tone I’m glad we’re not in the same room. Kenny reveals he’s on marriage number three. His gravelly voice has a mean edge as he talks about having a couple of kids who don’t speak to him much and not seeing his grandkids very often. It sounds like he has more problems than a bad back.
“When I found out somebody knocked her off, I wasn’t surprised.” Kenny spits out the words as if they have a bitter taste. “Things would’ve turned out different, better, if Doreen wouldn’t have split with me.”
“I thought you broke up with her after you left for basic training,” I say. “So why was she still wearing your high school ring?”
“She lost hers, and I didn’t want to take it with me to ’Nam, just in case something happened…anyway, I told her to keep it. I just made it look like I broke up with her. She was really mad at me because of something I—” He pauses, catching himself. “So I broke up with her before she could do it first.”
“Why was she angry with you—”
“I don’t wanna talk about that.”
“Okaaay,” I say, hedging for a moment and waiting for him to explain. He doesn’t. “Well, help me out a little bit. Can you think of anybody else I should talk to?”
“Hey, there’s a guy you should meet.” I can hear from Kenny’s voice that he’s relieved to change the subject. “He knew everything about everybody back then.”
“Who is he, and where do I find him?”
“Richie Cavanaugh. He owns a bar called Cavanaugh’s. He’s had it for more than forty years. It’s where everybody in town goes.” He laughs and starts coughing. “It’s the only place in town—” Kenny’s cough takes over and he can barely breathe. He begins to wheeze.
“Are you alright?”
He answers only with more coughing and wheezing.
“Well, thanks for talking to me—”
He clicks off.
~~~~~
It’s dark by the time I pull up to the tavern and park. On the outside the building has an ordinary brick facade. There’s maybe an office or a couple of low-rent apartments upstairs. The name Cavanaugh’s is painted in red on a large, lighted sign hanging between the two floors.
I step inside a classic dive bar, the kind of place you stop for a cheap beer. I look around. Two guys are playing pool on one side of the room. The dimmed lights reflecting off the wood-paneled walls and red vinyl booths create a welcoming ambience.
For a weekday evening, there’s a decent crowd. I figure little has changed at Cavanaugh’s since the place opened in the early seventies, and that’s probably why people like coming here.
I walk towards an empty stool and notice the bartender playing dice with a customer. The barrel-chested barman looks over and nods. I nod back. “No hurry. Finish your game.”
I take a handful of peanuts from a wooden bowl and swivel on my stool so I can take a better look at the place. There’s a stage on the other side of the room where a tall, skinny guy sets up a karaoke machine.
Behind me, a deep voice asks, “What’ll you have?”
“A Coors Light, please,” I answer as I swivel back to the bar. “You must be Richie Cavanaugh?” He smiles from beneath a bushy gray moustache, and I stick my hand out to shake. “I’m Ronnie Lake. We spoke on the phone earlier.”
“Nice to meet you.” Cavanaugh shakes my hand and then reaches in the fridge under the bar for my beer. “That’s too bad about Doreen’s brother being so sick and all.” He pours the Coors into a glass and places it in front of me.
“Doreen’s old boyfriend Kenny doesn’t sound too well either,” I say.
“Yeah. First his back, and now he’s on oxygen because of the emphysema. Too many years with the smokes.”
“It�
�s a tough habit to kick.”
“Kenny was lighting up even back in high school. He played football, and he was huge. Not anymore.”
“The three of you go back that far?”
“Sure. But Kenny and Doreen didn’t get together until the end of college. I guess they’d been together two or three years when she was murdered.”
“Hey, Richie,” the karaoke guy calls from the other side of the room. An unlit cigarette hangs from his lips. His mouse-brown greasy hair, combed over to hide baldness, crowns a sunken, unshaven, leathery face.
“We’re good to go, it’s time,” he says to Cavanaugh, looking at his watch. He pushes up the sleeves of an old Yankees sweatshirt, and the glint of a gold chain around his neck catches the light. “Stop flirting, we got a few people asking to sing.”
“Yeah, you can start,” Richie answers. The guy goes back to the system and starts the first song. The lyrics pop up on the screen, and a woman climbs on stage to the opening bars of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”
Turning back, I ask, “Who’s that guy?”
Richie laughs. “You mean Ted? He was in school with us, too.” He scans the place. “A lot of my regulars went to school with us. Ted ran the AV club in high school.”
Richie gets a twinkle in his eye. “He had a crush on Doreen back when we were in school. Then again, I had a crush on her, too. Geez, all the guys did. Anyway, Ted ended up running the AV department at the same school where Doreen was a teacher before he went off to Vietnam.”
“Was he drafted? Or a volunteer?” I take another handful of nuts.
“Who knows? We never knew what became of him until one day he showed up here,” Richie says. “I gotta believe he saw some really bad shit over there, because he’s never been right since. I felt bad for the guy, so I hooked him up with this job. He comes every evening and handles the karaoke.”
All of a sudden, the woman howls one of the stanzas from “I Will Survive,” completely off-key, and Richie and I grimace.
“Hey, it keeps the customers happy. You hungry?” he asks.
“How about a burger, medium rare. No fries.”
Delilah: A Ronnie Lake Cold Case (An Accidental Lady Detective, A Private Investigator Crime Series Short Story Book 2) Page 2