Larry brought a beer over and placed it in front of Jack. “You mean the day people start with you, and I have to end with you? How the hell do you pay your bills?”
Jack sat up straight, “I’m not here every morning!” Jack declared, “I had to get supplies for the job. Foreman’s going to be gone all afternoon. When the cat’s away….” He downed half a mug in one gulp, finished it off with the second. “Why don’t you hit me again, and this time don’t give me a mug with a whole in the bottom.” Jack thought he was pretty funny, sat smiling at his wit, as his attention was diverted to the TV.
The news anchor was standing next to some highway and talking about the FBI. Jack yelled down toward Larry, “Hey Dude, what do you think about these broads poppin’ up dead all over town? Cops say we got ourselves a g-e-n-u-i-n-e serial killer… rapes too!” Jack laughed, “Not easy gettin’ a piece of ass anymore.”
Larry set the second mug down in front of Jack, “You know, I told my wife she better be careful. She is so good lookin’. This guy is going’ for some gorgeous chicks!”
“Well,” Jack sat up straight, “That is precisely why I didn’t even bother to mention it to Joy. She has nothin’ to worry about!”
Larry shook his head, “Cold man, real cold.”
Around four o’clock Jack decided he should take the supplies to the job site and spread some dry wall mud on a wall before tomorrow. They wouldn’t let him throw darts anymore anyway, and the only thing on TV was all the damn murders.
At six o’clock he pulled into the driveway and saw Joy’s truck was home. Good. She would have his dinner ready. Flea Bag was barking by the front door. Kind of nice to have a buddy greet you when you get home. He fell, sat down on the ground, and played with Flea Bag a couple of minutes. He managed to pull himself up to go on in. He decided after dinner he’d better take a nap before going back to the Pub.
He had one arm almost out of his jacket when the first frying pan flew past him and hit the wall. “Whoa there!” He ducked too slowly, and the second one hit him on the side of the head. “What the Hell? What’s your problem?” He managed to slink behind the kitchen island and was bobbing along the floor trying to get to the living room.
Joy looked like she was possessed! “The FBI was here! You know that hot piece of shit Darla you’re always droolin’ over? They said she is one of them dead women! I know damn well you killed ‘em both! My poor ol’ auntie and Darla just cuz she wouldn’t give ya some!” Jack was peeking from the living room around the wall. Joy continued, “And if I can figure this out, it’s only a matter of time ‘fore them FBI guys are back here!”
Now she was holding another pan at her side, crying. “Tell me I’m wrong you son of a bitch!” Still crying she saw Jack stand up and start walking slowly toward her. He had a strange expression on his face, and he whispered as he leaned across the island.
“You- best- not- piss- me- off. Now shut up, and get my supper.” Then he turned his back to her and walked into the living room. He turned the news on, and laughed as loud as he could as the family members of victims told the news reporter how devastated they were.
Jack wasn’t about to take any shit from her. He smiled. Darla. Pretty, pretty Darla. FBI. Huh. The longer he sat in front of the TV, the heavier his eye lids got. As soon as he was passed out, Joy slipped out of the house and tore out of the driveway in her truck.
* * *
Ellen was getting information from Mary and Vicki about their visit to Boston when Agents Dance and Casey arrived. They parked on the shoulder of the highway, left their flashing lights on so traffic would slow, and were walking toward them. “Okay, here come our guys. Let’s see what’s new,” Ellen proclaimed as she produced a director’s chair to sit in. (Said Ellen on it.) We all joined her and watched as both Roger and Paul slowly walked around the taped off area, looking at the ground, feeling the grass and dirt, looking up and down the highway.
Finally Roger said, “This goes beyond arrogance.”
Paul was nodding, “No shit!”
Roger watched the traffic, “How do you dump a body along the side of a highway, busy highway, in the middle of the day and not be seen? Have you had any good updates from the tip line?”
“Not so far,” Paul said as he crouched down at the side of the road and looked back toward the pavement. “Wouldn’t there be some drag marks?”
Roger walked to view from the opposite direction. “There may have been. Remember there was a car accident along here, and I’m sure there was clean up by the county boys. Initially, our girl Ginger was presumed to have been part of the auto accident, until the Coroner notified us she had ligature marks, signs of rape and dehydration. Also, family members of the wreck victims said they didn’t know her.”
Paul and Roger both saw it at the same time. A small piece of duct tape stuck to a branch of a small bush. When the sun was just right, it reflected like a mirror. They walked over, and Roger pulled a small bag out of his pocket while Paul put rubber gloves on and got a pair of tweezers out of his pocket. Paul carefully snapped the small branch, put the whole thing in the bag, and sealed the top. Roger scanned the area and said, “How did that get all the way over here? We are at least thirty feet from the highway now. This probably isn’t part of our scene.”
Paul answered, “Crime tech told me they had a lot of debris they collected. Let’s have them run trace on it anyway.”
They were slowly walking in circles around the place where Ginger’s body had been found when Paul said, “So tell me about the connection between Darla Phillips and Nettie Wilson.”
Roger cleared his throat, “Visited Nettie’s house. I don’t think our guy even went past the foyer. Goal was just to kill Nettie, for whatever reason. Neighbor lady said Darla was like a caregiver to Nettie. She would take her to the doctor’s office, grocery store, clean her house. Now here is something too. Neighbor said Darla didn’t have a car and would take a cab to Nettie’s, use Nettie’s car for errands they did together, and then take a cab home. According to Darla’s neighbors she hasn’t been seen since the day of Nettie’s funeral. Nettie’s lawyer gave Darla a ride to the cemetery service, and that’s the last time she saw her.”
Paul made a quick push motion with his chin, “Do we know where Darla went after the cemetery? We need to talk to that attorney and see where he dropped her off.”
Just then Roger’s phone rang, “Agent Dance.” He listened for a couple of minutes and then said, “Good work Sal. Finish up there, and get back as soon as possible.” He snapped his phone shut and looked at Paul. “That was Sal Jones. She and Ed are at the home of Valerie McDonald in Boston, our Number five. Found a greeting card there from Karen Smith, our Number two. Thinks they were sorority sisters. Card is postmarked the day before Karen Smith died and has a note saying, ‘I hope you found a way to have Thanksgiving with me,’ Signed Sis.”
Paul couldn’t contain his excitement, “This is it…. we are linking!” Roger started walking back toward their cars with Paul at his heals.
We could hear Roger say, “Let’s get this son of a bitch.”
Ellen told us to go to the conference room at the station and compare our thoughts on what we had seen so far. She would meet us later.
* * *
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Linda, Teresa, and Mary were sniffing their wrists. “What are you having?” I asked them.
Mary answered, “I’m doing breakfast. Orange juice, French toast, bacon…. ummmmm”
Linda said, “I went for a cheeseburger.”
Teresa said, “I think donuts! We’re at a police station!” She smiled as she sniffed. I wasn’t hungry yet. Maybe Betty was right. Half the time I ate as a mortal I probably wasn’t hungry. Why didn’t I figure this out as a mortal? We decided to go ahead and sit at the conference table since no mortals were in there.
Teresa shook her head and said, “You wouldn’t believe what Ellen did to me at that nursing home!”
Linda
started laughing, “If you could have seen Teresa’s face!”
Then Mary piped up, “Vicki stole this guy’s mail!” Snitch.
It was my turn, “Mary learned how to move objects!”
Linda and Teresa both said at the same time, “Teach Me!”
I looked at Mary, and she said, “I’ll teach you. After all, I am the teacher of the group.”
“Second grade,” I whispered.
Mary frowned at me, “You are just lucky I wasn’t your teacher. I can do this!”
She saw a coffee cup on the desk in the far corner and started frowning at it. All of a sudden it raced from where it had been to the air space right in front of her and stopped. Then it dropped on the table and the handle broke off. “Wow!” Teresa said, “How did you do that?”
Mary answered, “I have to remember to catch things, but you just focus on what you want it to do.” Teresa and Linda both looked at the remaining cups on the desk and started frowning at them with their hands out like baseball catchers. I was laughing until both cups flew at us and crashed onto the table top. Two more broken handles. This is dangerous!
Linda looked at me, “Okay what are we doing wrong?” I didn’t know, so I shrugged. I looked at the stack of remaining cups, lifted the top one from the pile, had it gently float to me and land safely in my hand. Then I sent it back and put it gently on top again.
I looked at the rest of the girls and said, “What I was concentrating on was the WHOLE thing. Each step, in my head I was saying, ‘Carefully lift the cup. Come to my hand slowly,’ I don’t know, try that.” They were all moving cups back and forth like pros in about ten minutes.
Linda said, “This is so cool. Boy, the power of the mind.”
What we didn’t know was that across the grassy area, outside the bank of windows, were the holding cells for nonviolent offenders (usually drunks). Simon Passmore had been watching coffee cups moving all around the conference room across the way. He had his new buddy and cell mate Marcus look too. Simon screamed loud enough that a guard promised him he would go over and prove to him everything was fine. When the guard entered the conference room, there were three coffee mugs with the handles broken off lying on the table. Everything else looked normal.
The guard went back to Simon and said, “Okay now, describe who you saw in there when this happened?”
Simon was wiping his bangs back from his forehead. They were standing up straight. “I’m telling you man. They were movin’ by themselves! There’s no people to describe. Just them cups flying all over the room crashin’ into each other!”
The guard looked at Simon again, “That’s the story you want to stick with, huh? Fine. I think you need a couple more hours in the tank.” With that he left.
Simon looked at his cell mate Marcus, “Why didn’t you say nothin’ man?”
Marcus rolled over on his cot, “I see crap like that all the time, dude.”
Ellen joined us in the conference room where we were sitting near the ceiling watching a young patrol officer clean up the broken coffee mugs. Mary spoke first, “We were going to clean it up, but he came in and….”
Ellen interrupted, “It is better to leave it for the mortals. You may have been seen cleaning it up, too.” She smiled and said, “I’m surprised Betty didn’t need a break sooner.”
Agent Dance and Agent Casey came in the room carrying stacks of folders and each with a donut in their mouth. It must be true what they say about cops and donuts. I always thought that was just a dumb joke. Roger finished his donut and asked, “Who all can join us?”
Paul answered, “Just about everybody except Sal and Ed. They are on their way back from Boston, and Detective Taylor had one last interview. Let’s see…Vic Number three, Darla Phillip’s employer…shouldn’t take that long and then he is coming back here.”
Roger was busy comparing a notepad to the one big white board. Then he started erasing everything from that board. “Okay let’s tie this up so far. We have Nettie Wilson our number one, eighty yrs. old (he put a big red circle around her), then on the other side we have vic number three, Darla Philips, 32 (he put a big red circle around her), then we have the link. (drew a long red line between the circles and wrote cleaning gal).
A little lower on the board he started drawing, while he continued to speak, “Then we have Karen Smith, 42 vic number two, (he had her name under Nettie with a big red circle) and also Valerie McDonald, 33 vic number five, (he drew a big red circle around her name across from Karen Smith) and the link (Big red line connecting) sorority sis.” Roger said, “Let’s finish this…we have Burna George, 80, our number four, (big red circle, and on the far side he wrote Ginger Hall 34, vic #6, big red circle) We have no link here, yet.”
Paul said, “Lets’ put in dates,” and he took a blue marker and wrote TOD 3-6p.m./ 11-6 under Nettie’s name, under Darla’s’ TOD noon – 3p.m./ 12-6
Roger said, “Put in body found and dates last seen.” Under Nettie, Paul wrote: found/niece 11-7, and under Darla he wrote: Last seen 11-11/the date of Nettie’s funeral. Under Karen Smith he wrote TOD 9-11 a.m. /11-23 found: 11-25 co-workers, and under Valerie McDonald he wrote TOD noon-6p.m. / 12-21; last seen unknown.
They stood back and looked at the board. “The rape victims are being lifted and held somewhere.” Roger said.
Paul moved in with the blue marker again. “We have TOD of 10a.m. to 5p.m. / 12-12 on Burna; found, 12-17 water softener guy, and we only know that Ginger’s body was found on 12-23…Yesterday” He sat down and stared at the board with Roger.
“Do you have the coroner’s reports for Nettie and Karen?” Roger asked Paul.
“I have copies here somewhere.” Paul was shuffling through his papers. “Here they are. Nettie was dead 12 to 24 hours when found, and Darla’s estimated TOD was 6-12 hours from when found. Karen had been dead 36-40 hours when found, and Valerie estimated dead 12-18 hours when found. He’s keeping them, you’re right. He’s keeping them from two to three weeks.”
Roger asked Paul if he would call the coroner and find out if he has an estimated time of death for Ginger. Roger then opened his phone, dialed, and waited, “John, you guys at the lab have anything for me yet?” He was listening and said, “That was from which scene? Okay, might not mean anything. You know what kind yet? Okay keep me posted.” He clicked his phone shut and looked at Paul, who was still on hold with the Coroner. “Our lab has one blonde dog hair from Nettie’s foyer.” Nettie didn’t have a dog. Roger took the blue marker and wrote dog hair under Nettie’s name. He thought of Flea Bag.
Paul was talking to the medical examiner, “Hey Sam, any chance you have a time of death for us on this last victim, Ginger Hall?” Paul was listening intently and touched Roger’s sleeve, “Sam, say that again, but let me put you on speaker.”
The voice on the phone said, “Like I said, I was just getting ready to call you guys. Your girl Ginger had only been dead about an hour when I got her. In fact, she had come in with the car crash victims and because of the ligature marks, etc. etc. I knew she was yours. Here’s the thing. Remember I told you there was extensive trauma to the body on this one? I know we all thought your guy did it. Now that I have had a chance to look at this closer, I think she was hit by the car. There are no strangulation marks, and the only cause of death I can find are consistent with getting hit by a car. Your last vic was alive and standing in the road when she got hit.”
Paul and Roger looked at each other. Roger asked, “You’re sure?”
Sam answered, “Stake my rep on it.”
Paul said “Thanks” into the phone, clicked it shut, and asked Roger, “Do we have the accident report here? We need the time of that accident.”
“Yes,” Roger thumbed through his pile of reports. “White SUV, four women passengers, all dead. Family stated they were on their way to the airport to leave for Hawaii. Swerved and hit a semi head on. Semi driver dead, SUV owner, Teresa Duncan. Accident was about four in the afternoon.”
That
was us……………….
I think we all died, again.
Ellen stood and made a circular motion in the air with her arm that wrapped a heavy gold colored curtain around us. It was instantly warmer and silent. It was like a cocoon. Then she spoke, “Feel like you’ve been kicked in the gut, huh?” She looked very serious and didn’t wait for our answer. She continued, “Granny and Betty called me to a meeting a bit ago which is why I was late getting here. For a while at least, you will all be experiencing some mortal emotions, like now. We can only observe you in this process, we cannot interfere. I am authorized to a much higher level of protocol than Betty, which is why she asked for my help. Granny has the highest level. I believe she told you at orientation you could call on her if needed. Trust me. that should be a last resort.”
Teresa raised her hand, “I killed Ginger?” She looked like she was going to cry.
Ellen spoke up, “Ginger died in a car accident. That is why they call them accidents. Technically, Ginger killed all of you. She made you swerve your car into the oncoming semi.”
Mary raised her hand, “Granny said we wouldn’t feel grief anymore, but I am feeling something that isn’t pleasant.”
Ellen paused for a moment and then said, “We thought this might happen, and I have been authorized to teach you how to visit your loved ones, at will, for your comfort. In mortal time you have been gone only one day. The grief angels have been with your loved ones since the actual moments your mortal lives ended. Your visits now will leave your loved ones feeling close to you and feeling like you are still there, even though they will not be able to see or hear you. You will be sensitive to their needs, and you will be able to lend them a small piece of your spirit mind. This will be the way you will know when they need your comfort the most.”
I raised my hand, “How long can we lend them this?”
Ellen smiled big, “We don’t do little gifts around here. They can keep them their entire mortal lifetime!” Ellen stood and showed us a button on the side of our watches, “When you pull that button out you can think yourselves to the location of your loved ones, any one you choose. When you are ready to come back, or are needed to come back, little button here, see? You just push your visitation button back in, and you can join the group again.”
Alcohol Was Not Involved : A Shallow End Gals Trilogy Page 5