by Lawton Paul
“Easy now,” says Bo, both of them bouncing up and down over bumps and potholes.
“I’m sorry, Bo. I didn’t mean to leave you back there,” she says.
“You didn’t. Besides, I’m a Chickasaw girl. We age well.”
“He knew Mrs. Kaufman. He knows something.”
“That dude’s as full of shit as a Christmas turkey,” says Bo.
Delecroix
Bail hearings are in B wing, room 12, of the Duval County Courthouse: cheap wood paneling, fake Boston ferns covered in dust, and surly, vacant stares from guards and other uniformed workers. Each defendant appears on an old 90s CRT monitor in the corner of the stuffy room. There’s a camera aimed at the young judge and she goes through the spiel with each defendant in a high pitched whine, most of the time she’s looking down at paperwork, the two lawyers waiting for a pause so they can jump in.
The whole thing moves with machine-like efficiency. The judge rips through each case like a fast-talking legal disclaimer at the end of a car commercial. “Daniel Timmons. Mr Timmons you are charged with one count of petty theft, and five counts of capeas and then something Angela doesn’t get. As to the petty theft… I do find probable cause for petty theft because the cigarettes were found in your possession within the premises. Any argument for the bond?
Lawyer: Would your Honor consider RORing Mr Timmons as he has lived in Chickasaw his whole life and is employed? He takes care of his mother who’s sick. Slow-talking, big, sweaty, bald guy in a suit. Keeps wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
Judge: Bond is set at $100. No. Back to high speed.
Defendant: Your honor? Small voice.
Judge: Thank you, sir. We’re done.
Defendant: Ma’am?
Judge: We’re done. Next!
And this continues for what seems days when finally Johnny’s face pops onto the screen. He’s wearing the same orange pajamas as the others. His hair is messy and his face pale, dark purple streaks under his eyes. Almost looks like he’s got two black eyes but Angela knows that’s just how he looks when he doesn’t get any sleep. She wanted to see him in person, to let him know she was there. She wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be fine but instead she got a video monitor and the speed talking judge.
“Mr. Rosencranz you are charged with grand larceny in the second degree. I see you have two priors and Judge Pendergrass was kind to you. I do find probable cause.” Then to the sweaty lawyer, “Any arguments?” He’s shuffling papers and doesn’t respond. Angela wants to yell something, but stays quiet. “Bond is set at $100,000. Thank you, sir. We’re done. Next!”
An older man’s face appears on the screen. “Mr. Hickson, you are charged with…” and Johnny is gone. It’s over too fast. And suddenly her throat gets real tight and her breathing is jumpy and everyone here is a stranger and she realizes they aren’t here to help. $100,000? For a kid! Nobody can help. I just want to go to the cottage. Just want to sit there at the cottage. This can’t be happening.
And then it’s like she’s drowning and can’t get enough air and her hands are shaking and she’s hot all over. I’m too young to have a heart attack. And then her whole body shudders and she leans over thinking maybe now she’s going to puke but nothing comes. Everyone is probably watching me. Am I dying? She reaches out like a drowning person for something to stop her from sinking any further. Her right hand finds a handhold and she takes a deep breath. “She’s going to be fine. She’s just a little tired, give her some air…” says a voice.
Angela looks up, still hot and gasping, but more aware, and there is a familiar face looking down at her but at first she doesn’t know who he is. “Yeah, she’s fine,” he says. And Angela looks up and the judge and the two lawyers and everyone in the courtroom are looking at her. The judge puts her hand over the mic, “She okay?”
Again the familiar person, “She’s fine, your Honor, I’m a doctor.” Suddenly someone’s brought a wheelchair with brown vinyl seats and several strong arms have got her and she’s in the chair and rolling but one of her pumps gets caught under the footrest and then she’s outside under a big oak tree with her shoe in her lap.
“What happened?” says Angela.
“Well, I’m certain you didn’t die,” says the doctor. He smiles at her and then she remembers. It’s the ME’s assistant.
“Something just hit me back there. Felt like a heart attack.”
“Naw, more like a panic attack,” he says. “Are you on any medications?”
“You’re not my doctor.”
“Well, I’m all you got right now, sister. Unless you want me to call the rescue.”
“Yes, I’m taking something.”
“Lemme guess, an SSRI?” She knods. “And you didn’t take any today?” She knods again.
“Well, I’m better at diagnosing dead people, but I’ll give it a shot. My medical opinion is that you should take your medications.”
“Are you stalking me?” She says, her mind starting to clear.
“No, I saw your truck in the parking lot. I come here for cases all the time. I noticed you brought the dog.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna drive me home.”
“How about we go get some fluids in your body and some food. Not that I think under normal circumstances would you need any extra food intake. But just seeing as how you had a bit of a spell back there… And then I’ll drive you and the dog home. Not that the dog couldn’t have done it. I just like driving. My ex-wife’s pretty much convinced I’m a total ass so to get back at her I treat everyone else really nice. And I’d like to ask you a few questions about Mrs. Kaufman.”
“You talk a lot.”
“Yeah, she said that, too.”
So Greg, the ME’s assistant, drives Angela and the dog back to Chickasaw, the truck waiting in the Medical Examiner’s office in the assistant’s covered spot, the right window rolled half-way up. The dog sniffs around in the back of his BMW and starts whining.
“Settle down, Dog,” says Angela. She pets him and he lays his head on the leather seats. “You mentioned something about Mrs. Kaufman,” she says to Greg.
“Yeah, she caused quite a stir yesterday. The sheriff’s office ordered a full autopsy once the investigation was opened. Did you know?”
“No. The sheriff and I aren’t on the best of terms. So what’d you find?”
“That’s just it. We didn’t find anything?”
“Okay. So that’s bad why?”
“Well, usually if the decedent is past middle age the body has begun to break down. If we popped the hood on your old truck we’d find cracked rubber gaskets, missing parts, hoses that were about to break, maybe a crack in the head or block. I mean, the engine still runs, but you could find something to fix. Same with a person. A typical American shows all sorts of degenerative disease. The usual stuff like hardening of the arteries, muscle loss, tumors, etc.”
“So she was bad, huh?”
“That’s just it. She wasn’t bad. She was amazingly fine. She didn’t show any signs of degenerative disease.”
“None.”
“None. It’s like she had the body of a thirty-five year old. A very fit thirty-five year old. You know I could talk about it to the media. Scream about it from the rooftops, but people will just say, so what? She had a disease-free body. Get over it, you fracking scientist. But it just doesn’t add up.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“Well, I wanted to see you again. I’ll be honest there. But I also wanted to ask you about her. What did she eat? What did she drink? Did you see her up close? Her skin was not as loose as it should have been.”
“You know. I never did see her up close. She always wore long dresses and those old-lady shawls.”
“I just can’t believe she was 64. And even though this probably can’t be used to help your case, I believe it does give more weight to your theory that she didn’t die from a fall. If she’s near 80, okay, fall in the tub and drown. I can see th
at. But let’s say she was our age. I don’t know. It could happen, but a healthy mid-thirties body is gonna fight more, is not gonna go down as fast. The paperwork says she’s 64. She’s been there for years and years so I’m assuming it’s actually her, but something just doesn’t add up and the scientist in me can’t let it go.”
Back at the big house in Chickasaw, Greg, Angela and Bo sit down outside at one of the picnic tables in the lawn with a cup of coffee, the dog right next to Angela chewing on a short, thick piece of rope from Carl’s boat. The sun is nearly gone, purple and orange streaks reaching up into the sky. It’s a Thursday and a fresh group of guests won’t be there until tomorrow. Angela tells Bo about seeing Johnny on a TV monitor and feeling terrible, but she leaves out the panic attack part.
“Then where the hell’s the truck?” says Bo straight to the point as always.
“Uhhh, well…,” says Angela. Should have planned for the Bo inquisition.
“The truck had a flat so I offered to drive Angela,” Greg says. “Great coffee by the way. Press or drip?”
“I use single serve drippers with #2 cone filters and organic arabica.” Everyone takes a sip in sync. The sun is gone and there’s a hint of dry cool in the air. Come on, Bo, let it go.
But she doesn’t, “So why didn’t you change the damn tire?” Bo says to Angela.
“Because…” says Angela.
“Because, quite honestly I’ve been wanting a chance to talk with Angela after we met at the ME’s office and so I offered to drive her home so we could discuss the case.”
“So are you on the team?” Bo says to Greg.
“The team?” he says.
“Are you gonna help us find out what happened to Mrs. Kaufman?” says Angela. Both women are staring at the assistant to the ME and he shakes his head yes.
“Yeah, I’m in. I’d like to help. Especially since you think the boy is innocent. And the unusual findings so far.” He tells Bo about the autopsy.
“Well, you ain’t gonna find perfection when I croak, that’s for sure. But I got news, too.” It starts to get dark so they head for the big house. Under the lights of the kitchen table Bo lays out the latest edition of the Chickasaw Regal. “Delecroix’s at it again.” The headline reads, “Stealing from the Dead in Chickasaw.”
“Oh, that bitch is gonna railroad Johnny,” says Angela, her hand over her mouth.
Greg starts reading: “Local man, Jonthan Rozencranz, recently arrested by Sheriff Andrew Jackson for stealing over $20,000 from the recently deceased Marlina Kaufman, a citizen of Chickasaw for thirty years… …father in jail in Raiford for armed robbery, vehicular manslaughter and aggravated assault… …mother currently in a mental institution in North Georgia.”
“She makes it sound worse than the sheriff,” says Bo.
“Unfortunately it ain’t gettin’ better,” says Greg. “It’s only a matter of time before the authorities make the clear and unaffable connection between Rozencrantz and his dark past: a father in prison, an insane mother, prior brushes with the law, grand larceny; and the recent death of one of Chickasaw’s oldest residents, Marlina Kaufman. Is Jonathan Rosencranz simply an incompetent thief, or is he, like his father, a murderer?”
“It was a deal with the devil to get this investigation going and all its done is blow up in our faces,” says Angela. “Poor Johnny never woulda gotten caught up in this if it weren’t for me.”
“No, he’d ‘a just gotten caught up in something else. Let’s hope he’ll learn a lesson here and gets on the straight and narrow,” says Bo.
“There never would have been an autopsy on Mrs. Kaufman if it weren’t for the investigation. I know we don’t know how or why, but it’s important,” says Greg. “We’ll figure this thing out together. Okay?”
Jesus, Part 2
Later that night after Greg leaves, Angela pours a second cup of Chardonnay and studies the Kaufman video from the night of the murder. The dog watches her take a sip, then eyes the cup on the hardwood floor. “You’re not gonna tell Bo are you?” Sitting on the floor she’s about head high with the dog and he gets in her face and stares at her. She pets him on the head and he closes his eyes, his right hind leg kicking in mid air. Then she gives him a hug and he licks her face. “Oh my, I just hugged a dog,” she says to the dog. “We’re moving kinda fast, don’t you think?”
She turns back to the computer. She’s got 1 minute and 48 seconds of the Kaufman house on video. There’s got to be something here. Johnny’s in jail and I got nothing. She pauses the video at the kitchen. There’s some bell peppers and an onion on the cutting board. No knife. Fridge door open. She was just starting to make something. There’s no coffee or tea out so this was going to be maybe lunch or dinner? The bed was made so maybe it was between around 11 and 5. She pauses the video at the fridge. There isn’t much there, just pickles, some bottled water, and wilted lettuce.
She presses the space bar on the keyboard and the video starts again. Now the living room. Two recliners, bookshelf, a few pictures on the wall, one in the center that’s black and white with several people but she can’t make out any details in the video. A mantle with some old-lady style knickknacks: painted china plates on stands at either end and a few footed bowls. But no clue. Finally, she gets to the bathroom. She takes another sip of wine. Presses play.
At first she tries not to look at the lady in the bathtub, instead focuses on the sink, the counter, the one toothbrush, the clean soap dish. But then as the video comes around again there’s the leg hanging off the edge, the foot, the calf muscle, thigh. And she notices something. Ladies in their 60s have loose flesh under the arms, under the neck, but Mrs. Kaufman’s skin was tighter and the muscle tone was pretty good. The muscle in her calf didn’t hang low.
Angela lays on her back, pulls off her socks and puts her foot on the couch so her calf muscle is relaxed. It hangs down a little and she frowns, pushes it a little to one side and it bounces back. The dog comes in for a closer look. “Don’t tell Bo about this, either,” she says. She checks the video again and decides the old lady has better legs than she does.
She sits up again and presses play and notices the shiny thing in her hand: the pendant. She hadn’t thought of it since that day. She pulls it out of her jewelry box and holds it in her hands. It’s heavier than she remembered. It catches the light from the computer and shimmers. Its conical, but undulating and organic.
Just then the dog tilts his head and his ears perk up. Still listening, he starts to growl, low and deep. He runs to the window facing the vacant lot where the guests park, and just beyond that the small brick house. “What is it, boy?”
He starts whimpering, his eyes never leaving the darkness across the lot. She can just make out the side of Mrs. Kaufman’s house. The red brick is lost in shadow, but she can see the white window shutters, now just a hint of gray. Her eyes focus on the lighter colored rectangles and then suddenly something black passes in front and the gray patch blinks off and back on again. Someone’s in Mrs. Kaufman’s yard.
See grabs the gun from under the couch, pulls the lever back. Safer this way, if I have to use the rifle I can load the round in a half second. The dog looks like he’s going to jump through the window. “Hey, boy,” she says. But he ignores her. “You wanna go?” He comes to her instantly. “Okay, but we gotta be quiet.” So they sneak out of the cottage into the cool night air.
Under a full moon she can make out the oaks and pines, see the edge of the Salheimer’s house two down, the reflection off the river. But tonight the moon is just a thin sliver and even though the sky is clear everything is a dark blur. Perfect for hiding her and the dog, she thinks. Then when she strains to see even the shape of the Kaufman house she realizes its perfect for hiding someone else, too, and holds onto the rifle a little tighter, happy the dog is with her.
She heads toward the alleyway and he pads along quietly a few feet ahead guiding her straight to the front of the house. The shadow was headed for the back yard, so her
plan is to sneak along the side of the house and then try to spot whatever it was she saw from the cottage. She used to go hunting with her father and he always said the best way to see an animal in the woods is to sit motionless and wait for movement. Its a dead giveaway. She squats down at the corner of the house next to Mrs. Kaufman’s holly bushes, the sharp pointed leaves poking at her—the dog right beside her.
Angela stares out into the pitch black of the back yard trying to make out a shape, something, moving. Even though she’s thirty yards from the river, she can’t even see the dock. Far off on the other side of the water there’s a light, the reflection pointing straight back to her in a line fading away the closer it gets, but hiding in the bushes at the edge of the house she could see nothing.
Then she looks down at the dog. She’d been staring off blindly into the darkness down towards the river, but the dog was focused more to the right. She touches him, his whole body tense, muscles wound up like a spring. Usually he responds when she pets him but this time he doesn’t move, just keeps staring directly into the black. Dog can see him! Angela puts her arm around him, pulls him closer. I know you can see it! Then she whispers to him, “Go get him!”
The dog bolts off into the darkness like a shot. His speed takes her by surprise and she jumps up and runs after him, nothing but a gray shadow, afraid he’s going to get swallowed up in the blackness. He’s barking low and deep like an animal with blood on his mind. Just then he turns towards the fence and then she sees a man running full out across the yard with the dog homing in. Shit! He’s going for the Salheimer’s fence!
Bill Salheimer’s high, wood privacy fence was standing testament to his dislike of the stern, quiet woman who’d lived next door to him for thirty years. She’d probably said as many words in all that time. It’s about six feet high, each vertical slat pointed at the top. Angela knows she’ll never get over it. She can break for the front but he’ll be long gone by then. Her best bet is to get to him before he gets over.