by Deb Baker
“Of course, not,” Nina said.
Gretchen remembered Flora’s metal-head doll and her travel trunk. “One more thing,” she said. “I have a picture.” She found it in her purse and handed it to Nora. “Flora’s doll trunk fascinates me. Do you know how she got the travel stickers? Did she really visit all those wonderful places?”
Nora got up and took the picture over to her mother. “That’s Flora. The memories this picture brings back!” Bea said. “Mr. Swilling, Flora’s father, was an archeologist. He traveled to foreign locations to participate in digs and always returned with stickers.”
That explained the exotic locations represented by the doll trunk’s stickers. Cairo, Jericho, Rome. Cities with important archeological significance.
“Did you find John Swilling’s rock collection in the house?” Nora asked.
“No,” Caroline said. “But we found the doll Flora is holding in the picture.”
“If I were you,” Nora said. “I’d stay away from anything having to do with that family. The house and the family, if anyone’s left, are cursed.”
“Really?” Nina said, showing more interest than previously. “A curse?”
“She meant that figuratively, Nina,” Gretchen said. They didn’t need a ghost and a curse. She shot her aunt a warning glance and projected out. No ghost stories, please.
It didn’t matter whether or not Nina picked up the unspoken signal to refrain from telling her own ghost theory, because Nora stood up, signaling the end of their conversation.
“Go home now,” Bea whispered, appearing more shrunken than ever. “You’re pretty girls. You don’t want to be next.”
Chapter 34
Gretchen and Caroline worked side by side at one of the library’s computer workstation. Expanded search strings had failed to produce information on Richard Berringer.
Caroline typed in a search string. Insane asylum patient lists.
Thousands of pages of records came up for institutionalized patients throughout the country.
“This is going to take days,” Gretchen said, scanning page after page. “And we can’t be sure his records were ever computerized.”
“And once we find the records, they won’t give us information about the present. We still won’t know where he is.” Caroline rubbed her neck. “The best we can hope for is a better understanding of mental disorders, so we know what we’re dealing with. Here it says that The Insane Asylum of Arizona dates back to the 1800s. Thousands of patients were committed to it against their will. But then during the human rights movement, a bill was passed. It stated that a person had to be dangerous to themselves or others to be confined.”
“Before that, no one needed a reason to commit another person?” Gretchen was shocked at the facts regarding sanatoriums, at the absence of any kind of patients’ rights. She was developing a new appreciation for how much society had changed in regard to mental health laws.
Gretchen pulled up a lengthy list of patients and their diagnosis from an asylum that had been located on the East Coast. Insanity conditions, according to the charts, ranged from hallucinations to dementia, incoherency to delirium of grandeur.
“Delirium of grandeur?”
“Same as delusions of grandeur. In my day,” Caroline said, as though she was an ancient artifact. “Families could band together and institutionalize another family member. It was a convenient way to remove dangerous people from society, whether the threat was perceived or real. If your relatives thought you might harm yourselves or someone else, off you went. Of course, some people took advantage of the law and abused their power. Patients were sent away because they were afflicted with diseases or had certain disabilities their families couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with.”
“I can’t imagine our society allowing that to happen,” Gretchen said.
“But we did. The mentally ill could be placed in a facility and abandoned forever,” Caroline said. “The laws eventually changed, thank goodness, and people could no longer be institutionalized against their will. Over time, the insane asylums closed. Many are abandoned buildings to this day.”
“What happened to a released patient after the new laws were passed?” Gretchen asked.
“They rejoined society the best they could. Many were released in downtown Phoenix to fend for themselves. Social service agencies that could have rehabilitated patients for re-entry into society didn’t exist. Some of the released patients’ families would have taken over the responsibility of caring for them. Some must have become homeless.”
Gretchen leaned back and rubbed her weary eyes. “Mentally ill patients were abandoned on the streets without professional care. One of them could have been Richard Berringer.”
“That’s right. Or one might have been Rachel, based on what Nora and Bea told us.”
“But she’s dead. We need to find out what happened to him.” The task was monumental. If they had weeks maybe, but they didn’t.
After a few minutes of contemplating the Berringer family time lines, Gretchen opened the notebook she had carried while canvassing the Swilling neighborhood. She began drawing a simple sketch of a family tree, constructed branches and filling in dates of births, deaths, and disappearances. Information from the Swilling gravestones helped, but most of the doodles were Gretchen’s assumptions.
She drew a tiny question mark next to Flora’s name, then, remembering what Matt had told her, crossed it out and wrote the date when the woman had vanished: 1981. “We can assume for now that she was murdered close to or on the day she disappeared,” she said to Caroline, who had stopped searching to watch her daughter work.
“She disappeared in the early eighties,” Caroline said. “At a time of social change, when patients in the sanatorium were being released. We don’t know that Richard was still in an insane asylum when the laws changed.”
“But the dates fit.” Gretchen looked at her simplistic effort at charting a family’s history.
Richard Berringer, Flora’s son, could be the killer. But would he have murdered his own mother? And what about Allison Thomasia? Did he kill her because she came too close to the truth behind his missing mother?
She could imagine the scenario.
The Berringer family’s son Richard was mentally ill. He might have had many issues, an established pattern of violence. The family had to deal with his problems once and for all. Prison or an asylum? Which would be worse? They made a choice. He remained in a sanitarium for years. Then changes to the mental health laws put him out on the street without follow-up treatment for his condition and without a place to live.
After that, his mother disappeared.
Did he return for revenge and kill her, leaving her decaying body in the armoire?
If an enthusiastic family genealogist showed up asking questions, delving into his past, he might have arranged to meet her at the cemetery. He might have murdered her.
Everything made sense.
If Allison found Richard and told him of her plan to search through the family’s past, that meant he was near, close enough to lure Allison into the cemetery to silence her forever.
Richard might be living under an assumed name. Or he could be one of the homeless Gretchen had seen at the rescue mission or at the soup kitchen.
Richard Berringer could be anyone.
Caroline’s phone rang, interrupting Gretchen’s thoughts of murder. Her mother, immersed in reading an item on the Internet, handed it to Gretchen without looking at the caller ID.
“We went to pick up the dogs from your house,” Nina said. “A cop stopped us outside. Then your honey showed up.”
Gretchen heard April whooping in the background. “What a man!” came through loud and clear.
“Quiet down, April,” Nina said. Her aunt sounded tense. “I can’t hear myself think.”
“You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?” Several library patrons glanced toward her. She rose from her chair and walked out into the entryway for privacy.
“No, I didn’t tell him,” Nina said. “But only because I promised you I wouldn’t. Isn’t he on the same side as we are? I don’t get it.”
“Someone tried to kill my mother,” Gretchen said, keeping the threatening note and concerns about her own safety out of the conversation. “Matt doesn’t want to give us the chance to help her. He wants to place us under lock and key. If he had his way, we’d be behind bars while he machos around.
“He’s so protective, not to mention smart,” her aunt said. “Let him take care of both of you. Your last reading was a bad one. You need all the help you can get and he’s one explosive package to have on your side.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I have to be my own woman.” Nina wouldn’t understand her inner turmoil. She needed to say it out loud, to listen to herself, determine if she was acting like a kook.
“You’re still reacting to the split from that control freak,” Nina said. “Matt isn’t Steve.”
Gretchen had allowed herself to be marginalized in the past, and it would never, ever happen again. She could and would protect herself and her mother from whatever life threw at them, which was why they were in the library at the moment.
Whether or not it made sense to others didn’t matter. It was what she had to do, and her independent mother felt the same way. Together, nothing could stop them. She hoped.
“Did you get the pets?” she asked.
“Matt let us take them, but Wobbles took one look at the crate I was going to put him in, and he did a disappearing act. After I looked and looked without finding him, Matt said he’d stop by frequently and take care of him.”
“How is he going to get inside?” Gretchen said. “The only people with keys are you, me, and Mom. Oh, no. You didn’t? You gave him your key.”
“He thought someone had been inside the house.”
“What!”
“Matt’s keeping an eye on things.”
“Is anything missing?”
“Matt asked me to look around. I didn’t find anything missing.”
“Are you sure nothing’s missing?”
“How can I be sure? Your workshop is filled with stuff. The television is still here, though.”
Great.
“Matt’s taking care of us.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“He wants you to call him.”
“Yes,” Gretchen said. “I’m sure he does.”
Chapter 35
Andy Thomasia sat up from a crouched position in the backseat of Gretchen’s car. She didn’t see him until it was too late. Instinctively a scream of terror rose into her throat. She swallowed it down, tasting bile.
You deserve this, she thought.
She was outside the library, alone, her car parked in an isolated back corner of the lot. Her mother was inside, unaware that her daughter had even left the building. Gretchen hadn’t checked the backseat. She hadn’t seen him until it was too late. She was already inside the car, checking her cell phone’s car charger to see if the phone had full power. Gretchen couldn’t possibly have been this careless.
But she had.
Andy wore the same dark sunglasses and Cardinals ball cap he’d had on yesterday, but his clothes were different. They were dirty, torn, and too large for his body. Nacho had done a thorough job of turning him into a homeless person.
“I locked my car,” she said. “How did you get in?” Did her voice give her away? Could he hear the fear?
Andy held up a long, narrow strip of metal. “I got in with this,” he said. The tool was a lock-picking device like those cops used to open locked cars. Andy’s voice was neutral, not threatening or overly aggressive. Not friendly either.
The inside of the car was stifling hot, having sat in the sun for hours. She felt a slick layer of sweat against her skin.
“Why did you break into my car?” Gretchen spoke quietly and calmly. She had more than a few questions for the murdered woman’s husband. “I told you that we’d contact you.”
She had a firm grip on the door handle in case she had to make a run for it. No one was around to help her.
Andy leaned forward. She didn’t move. Gretchen had been wary of Andy before. Now she was down right terrified.
“I’m here because I have new information,” Andy said. “I need to get it to Caroline. I hadn’t expected you to come out alone.”
Gretchen couldn’t read him, not his voice or his expression.
“I didn’t expect you either,” she said, turning her body so her back was against the steering wheel, as far from him as possible. “My mother’s inside the library. I’ll relay the message to her.”
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“Of course, I do,” Gretchen lied. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to help you.”
“I didn’t kill Allison. I loved her. Even if we weren’t able to work out our problems, I would have continued to support her dreams. Allison’s fantasy doll line was taking off,” he said. “She was starting to make money, finally breaking in. I wanted her to succeed.”
“I’m sure you did.” Was her tone patronizing? She hoped not. “Did Allison make an earlier trip to Arizona?”
“Yes. She was here in March, doing initial research. I wish she’d never come back here. If only I’d known.”
“What did you want to tell my mother?”
Still no one passing by the car.
“Nacho made the rounds this morning looking for a guy,” he said. “Apparently someone was in the cemetery the night Allison was killed, who wasn’t part of the normal homeless community. But he didn’t tell the cops that.”
“The street people don’t like cops much,” Gretchen said.
Andy nodded. “For good reason, I’m finding out.”
“And this guy?”
“He’s a common crook type who runs some action on the street. Nacho found him. He told Nacho he was hired to rob me.”
“By whom?”
“He never met his contact.”
“Convenient.”
Andy nodded. “This thug was paid to pick my pocket, steal my wallet, remove the driver’s license, and replace the wallet. And it had to happen on a certain day.”
“What day?”
Andy looked pained. “The day Allison was murdered,” he said. “The person who hired him made it very clear that I wasn’t to suspect anything was missing. And it worked. The guy was smooth. I didn’t notice a thing.”
Gretchen watched Andy’s face. Was he making this up?
“The guy would get paid double for the next part of the deal.”
“Which was what?”
“He was supposed to drop my driver’s license in the cemetery at a specific time. The guy ran late getting there though, so instead he threw it in a bush by the entrance when he saw the cops pull up. After that he was trapped and taken in along with all the others rounded up for questioning.”
“So your driver’s license is in the cemetery.”
Andy shook his head. “The cops have it by now.”
What an unbelievable story! Gretchen had to get out of the car immediately, get away from Anthony Thomasia, and run for the safety of the building.
He grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t you see?” he said. “Someone planned the whole thing ahead of time. Allison’s death was premeditated, not some random act of violence. And I was supposed to be arrested for her murder.”
Gretchen pulled away from his grip, carefully arranging her face to convey compassion and understanding. “Then go to the guy who robbed you and make him cooperate. Turn yourself in and have him substantiate your story.”
“Nacho said the guy wouldn’t help me, and Nacho wouldn’t give me his name. And why should the guy help me? He’d be incriminating himself.”
“Andy,” Gretchen had to make her move to escape before it was too late, “how did you find us so easily?” she asked. Would she have time to grab her phone from the charger? Not likely. She’d have to leave it behind.
Andy leaned back in the seat, which was what Gretchen was waiting for. “It was the strangest thing,” he said. “I told Nacho that I wanted to find Caroline. Not long afterwards, he gave me your location. It’s like they have some kind of communication system, but I don’t know how it—”
Gretchen slammed her body against the driver’s door at the same time that she released the handle. The door flew open and she was out. If Andy had a weapon besides the lock pick, she hadn’t seen it yet.
She broke into a run, aiming straight for the library, relieved when she didn’t hear him chasing her. Every muscle in her body was taut, and she was very aware of her exposed back.
She gained the steps leading into the library. Several other patrons were also entering.
The only sound Gretchen could hear was her own ragged, frightened breath.
Chapter 36
A librarian tapped Gretchen on the shoulder. “We’re closing in five minutes,” she said.
Late Saturday afternoon and the Birch women had nowhere to go.
Caroline had previously down-played her old friend’s actions. She’d wanted to believe in Andy’s innocence; she’d known him for so long as a friend, and as more. But she reluctantly sided with Gretchen after hearing about the incident in the car.
Caroline’s defense of Andy ended when she learned his driver’s license had been dropped at the murder scene. Had it happened the way he told it or had Andy lost it after killing his wife? Anything was possible. They would no longer take chances, even when dealing with old flames.
Andy now had the backing of the homeless community thanks to their foolhardy confidence in him. They would have to find Nacho or Daisy and rectify that. Otherwise the homeless people could continue to help Andy locate them.
“Saturday night,” Gretchen said. “We’ll never find them.”
“Let it go,” Caroline said. “We don’t have any proof that Andy is a murderer. Besides, we promised to give him two days. If we don’t discover anything useful by then, we’ll turn the entire problem over to the police along with the information we have so far.”