“The ambulance is here.” Archer said to her. She appeared to be trying to stand. “You don’t have to do anything. Just relax the best you can. They’ll take care of you.”
“Get this off. You have to get this off.” She started grabbing at the tape over her eyes and yanking it.
Archer took her hands and held them. “They’ll get the rest of the tape off at the hospital, probably easier than I did.”
“I could barely breathe.” She sputtered, Archer gave her a dry paper towel and continued to hold the other hand. “I’ve had a bit of a cold starting and I almost couldn’t breathe through my nose. I thought I was going to suffocate.” Her cries came in jagged rasps of breath and saliva. Her hand was shaking as she lifted the towel to her nose to wipe it, the cut ends of the duct tape fluttered from her wrists. “I told him I had a stuffy nose, I told him, but he did it anyway.”
The room was suddenly full of people, noise, equipment, a stretcher. Archer patted Eleanor’s arm and said quietly, near her ear, “I’m going to get out of the way now and let the paramedics take care of you. I’ll come to see you when you have had a chance to rest.”
She reached out to touch his arm, but missed. He took her hand, squeezed it once, and released it. The paramedics moved around him and he went back up the stairway to the kitchen.
Frank was looking out the back window. He said, “How long is it going to take to get that stuff out of her hair?”
“I have no idea. We need to talk to her and find out if she knows who did this, and why. I’ll ask the hospital to keep us informed so we know when we can talk to her. But for now, let’s go through the house, see if there is anything at all that will help us, although I don’t know what it would be. I’ll take the bed and bath, you take the kitchen and living room.”
“Gotcha.” Frank replied as Archer left the room.
***
It was evening by the time Archer received the call from an RN on Eleanor’s unit. She had been placed in a twenty-four-hour observation room. She was tired but was able to talk to the police if they needed to interview her. He left immediately for the hospital.
Once he had found Eleanor’s room, he knocked on the door jamb. Her bed was raised to a 45-degree angle, her surprisingly long hair was damp but free of the tape and spread out over her pillow. Her eyes were closed, hands resting across her abdomen. At his knock, she opened her eyes and raised her head. “Come on in. I’m not asleep.”
“Sorry to disturb you. I know you need to rest. I promise I won’t take a lot of your time.”
“I don’t mind.” Her voice betrayed her extreme weariness. “I want to feel like I’m doing something to help.” Eleanor looked away from Archer, her gaze extending past the wall of the room, out and beyond what he could see.
“I appreciate it.” Archer pulled the visitor chair from the wall over to the bedside. It was upholstered in a matte finish of the sandy textured, unpleasant blue vinyl that seems universal for hospital and doctor’s waiting rooms. In the few seconds it took to move the chair and be seated, Archer thought about how the chair was like most found in a medical setting: the back was too short, the plain wooden arms too narrow, and the seat too long for comfort after a few minutes of sitting in them.
“I can’t even express how sorry I am for what happened to Russell yesterday as well as to you today.” She gave him a tired smile. “I intend to get to the bottom of what is going on here and find who killed your husband. I want you to know that. I know you and Russell were new to the sutler business, and I know you probably have no idea why this happened, but you may know more than you think you do.”
“I’ll answer any question you ask me the best I can.” Eleanor shifted in the bed and searched out the bed control. She raised the bed until she was closer to a sitting position. She still sounded tired, but there was resolve in her voice. “Let’s get started.”
Archer nodded. “Tell me what happened today.”
“Ok. I woke up at seven o’clock. As I’d told you, I planned to come out to the event to have a look at the people there and see if I could spot the man who kept asking to see more knives. I didn’t get up right away when I woke. At first, it was a normal day but then I realized it wasn’t a normal day. Russell is dead. I just lay there for a while. It was probably closer to 7:30 by the time I got up and went to the kitchen for my coffee. I had put the coffee in my cup and had just plugged in the kettle when this man just busted in through the back door. Scared the waddin’ out of me.”
“Did you see the man’s face?”
“Oh yes! You bet I did. Same man that was asking about the knives. I guess I didn’t have to come to the event to find him, but I still can’t tell you who he is.”
“What happened next?”
I didn’t have time to do anything because he just kept on coming, straight at me. All I had was a towel in my hand and I guess I thought I was going to do something with it to defend myself, I don’t know what, but he grabbed it and threw it down. He shoved me against the cabinets and demanded to know where the knife was.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
“Not that I saw. He just kept asking me over and over ‘Where is it? Where’s the knife?’ I kept saying I didn’t know what knife he meant. I said we have lots of knives, which one did he mean? But he never said, he just kept repeating it. He said I knew which knife he meant, where was it?”
Archer listened without commenting.
Eleanor sighed and continued, “He said he knew I had it and was hiding it from him. I told him that I didn’t give a rat’s ass if he took the knife, or all of them, but I didn’t know which one he meant. I said he would be welcome to go through all the knives himself if he wanted but that the police had taken all the inventory away, that I didn’t have any of them anymore.”
“How did he react to that?” Archer asked.
“Well, at first he just stared at me, then he got mad. He said he didn’t believe me. He grabbed my arm and walked through the house, looking for them I guess. Then he pushed me to the basement door and told me to go down there first. He went down behind me and held on to my arm again while he looked through the basement for boxes, but there weren’t any. You have them all, like I told him.” She reached for her water from the bedside table, Archer handed it to her, and she took several sips then handed it back to him.
“He was fidgety, all nervous. I just knew he was going to kill me too. He kept looking around him like he didn’t know what to do. There was a roll of duct tape sitting on the water heater.” She paused and gave Archer a wan smile. “Russell had just used it to reinforce one of the joins in the ductwork. He never would put anything away, always left stuff sitting where ever he was when he got finished with it.” She lapsed into her memories for a moment, then continued. “Then he grabs the roll of tape and tells me to stand by the pole. Maybe I should have run, or screamed, I don’t know, but you don’t always know what you’re doing when you’re scared, do you? And he’s much younger than me, I wouldn’t have gotten away. I didn’t see a gun, but he could have had one. I stood by the pole and he started going around and around with that tape. I was wishing the roll hadn’t been a new one. I think he used up the whole thing. I really got scared though when he taped over my mouth. Like I told you, I have a cold starting and I told him so. It was hard to breathe all that time through my nose. I guess I should be glad he didn’t cover my nose.” She paused and looked down at her hands. Tears welled up and spilled over.
“I’m so sorry, I hate having to ask you to go through this right now.”
“It’s ok, it doesn’t make it better to not talk about it.”
“Did he say anything else at all?”
“No. Once he went over my eyes I couldn’t see what he did, but it sounded like he just left as soon as he was done. He ran up the stairs and I heard the storm door bang shut. Then I just stood there and waited.” She gave a derisive laugh, “Couldn’t do much else, could I?”
“No, you couldn’t.
Did you notice anything about him at all that stood out to you; any distinguishing marks, physical characteristics, clothing?”
“He looked pretty normal, you know? Regular clothes, jeans and a shirt. He was taller than me by a few inches, so probably around six feet tall. His hair was light brown, not real short but not long either. He looked like he is probably somewhere in his thirties. His eyes were blue, that kind of washed-out blue, like the irises had been rinsed with bleach water and lost some of their color.”
Archer didn’t speak, he let her concentrate. “I didn’t notice any scars. I mostly looked at his face because it was right close to mine most of the time. I did notice that he had an accent though. A southern accent, not like a Virginia accent, like from further down south.”
“Ok, that’s good information. Most people committing a crime don’t think about their voice or accent, or can’t cover it up very well anyway. This could help quite a bit. I’ll leave so you can rest after just a couple more questions. Do you know anything at all about any knife or knives that were different from the main stock? He seems to have been after a specific knife that he was sure you had. Was there one or more knives that were in a different type of box from the others, such as with more packing material, packed in a case by itself?”
“No, not that I remember. When Felix died we had to get over there and clean out his apartment within five days. The landlords wanted the apartment emptied so they could rent it out again. I had to make funeral arrangements and buy a plot for Felix, and that took up some of my time during those days. We went in and pretty much loaded everything up in a rental truck as fast as we could. Because we were in such a hurry, we took the stuff out of any box that was less than half full and put it in other boxes because we didn’t want to have to make more trips than necessary to get everything. I have to admit, because he rushed us, we just left the empty boxes there. We took the furniture to the charity store. I still have his clothes in boxes in the basement. Anyway, by the time we were going through the inventory, sorting it out for selling it, there was no way to tell what came in what box. Sorry.”
“Not a problem, not at all, don’t worry about that. Do you have somewhere else to stay once you are released? I don’t think it is a great idea to stay at your house right now. I can have someone go with you to collect some belongings if you like.”
“Thank you, Detective Vaughn. I think I will do that. Should I call you after I’m out of here?”
“I’d like that, if you don’t mind. I would like to know you’re ok.” Archer stood and replaced the chair against the far wall. “I mean it, Eleanor, we will find him.”
As he was about to walk through the door and into the darkened hallway, Eleanor called him back. “One thing I meant to mention and I forgot about.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I had told you this before, but since you are trying to go through all Felix’s inventory and stuff about his business, I thought you might want his computer too.”
Archer came back to her bedside, pulse quickening just a bit. “Felix had a computer that you still have?”
“Yes. When we got there, it was sitting on his kitchen table. Oh, the kitchen was a mess. He wasn’t raised to live in that kind of filth. But yes, it is a laptop and it looked like he had been working on it. It was open and he had some notes scratched on a napkin from the Chinese food place down the street.”
“Have you looked at anything on the laptop? Did you keep the notes?”
“The battery was completely dead by the time we got there, but the charger was in the kitchen drawer. We do have it, but we never charged it up. Honestly, I forgot all about it, but now that I think about it, there might have been some information on there that would have helped us with the business. I guess I just haven’t been thinking straight.”
Archer’s mouth was a little dry. “And the notes? On the napkin?”
“I’m sorry, I tossed that in the garbage. It had been wet or greasy or something.”
“Ok, that’s alright, Eleanor. Do you mind if we get the computer? We’ll want to have a look at that. It might help us with the investigation into Russell’s death. Someone wanted that knife and seemed to think he was entitled to it. That person’s information may be on the computer.”
“I hope so. You are welcome to it, Detective. Neither of us are into computers. Well, I’m not into them.”
“We’ll plan on picking it up when you are released. The officer who takes you by your house to get your things will take it.”
She smiled, but didn’t say anything more. She reclined the bed all the way down and closed her eyes.
Chapter 15
“Where are we going first?” Nina asked as she settled her mocha frappuccino with extra ice in the cup holder on the passenger side of the Explorer. She snapped her seatbelt and turned to Perri. “Oh, and thanks for doing the driving today. I’m going to be glad to look around and see Richmond.”
Monday morning was bright, sunny, and warm. They had just dropped Tom off at the police station for a day of sifting through the Calders’ inventory and were headed back to downtown Richmond.
They had left the hotel in Midlothian and moved to a room at Ivy House in Richmond. Tom had wanted to stay in the hotel which was made up of the remaining eight historic Greek Revival row houses. There were originally ten: five built in 1847 and five more in 1853, two of which had been razed in 1922. The surviving eight houses were now on the National Register of Historic Places. It was expensive, but by sharing the expense for a five-night package for a Main House room, it worked out to be no more than a chain hotel would have cost them. It was downtown, close to most of the things they wanted to see while they stayed in Richmond.
“No problem.” Perri shifted into reverse and began backing out of the parking spot. Before leaving the lot, she reached into her purse and pulled out a map she had printed of downtown Richmond. “I want to go the Library of Virginia. They have a lot of special collections.”
“Collections?” Nina asked.
“Collections of books, records, paperwork. Sometimes a Collection may be the accumulated photos and letters saved by someone that have historical significance. The one I most want to see today is the Colonial Service Collection.”
“Colonial Service, as in during the war?”
“Yes, the Revolutionary War. There is a record in it called the Virginia Colonial Militia 1651-1776. I want to see if the ancestor I’m researching is noted in it. Supposedly, he was in a militia when the Revolutionary War began. If I can prove that, it will be the documentation I need for that line.”
Nina sipped her coffee, “Is this for your Daughters of the American Revolution documentation? I thought you already had enough for that.”
“I do, for my paternal line, but there is another ancestor on my maternal side through whom I think I can also file.”
“Do you need to file on another one?”
“No, but you can apply for authentication for as many lines as you like. I’m going to go ahead and file the one I have already documented, but I can work on this one and file it later. I figure, why not?” Perri pointed at the map, “See what you think, but I bet it would be best to park back at the hotel and walk to the library. It isn’t that far and if the parking garage under the library is full, we might have to drive around looking for somewhere to park it. To be honest, I don’t want to try to park this in the downtown area.”
“You’re used to parking that little tinker toy you drive.”
“Hey, I love my Mini.” Perri grinned. “And, I think a walk through the historic district sounds pretty good right now, don’t you?”
“Let’s do it.” Nina sipped her frappuccino. “Tom is really excited about staying in the hotel. He said that during the Civil War, two of the houses were in use as The Southern Female Institute and one of the students saw President Jefferson Davis from the window. He was out riding his horse in the morning.”
“No wonder he was eager to sell me on
the idea of staying there. But don’t get me wrong, I love it. I thoroughly expect to see a ghost at some point, and I’m going to be disappointed if I don’t.” Perri laughed.
“You would.”
Back at the hotel, Perri turned over the keys to the valet for parking. Nina deposited her cup in a trash barrel and they started for the library. Perri was carrying her ever-present satchel with her research material.
“When we get there, I’ll put in a request for the first packet I want to see. Once the material comes up, I’ll have to go in the Research Room alone.” Perri looked at Nina.
“Oh yeah, you said something about that before we got to Virginia. Why is that?”
“Caution. It’s to protect the records from any mishandling, loss, theft, etc. I can put my purse and satchel in a locker there because I can only take in pencils, index cards, loose notes and unbound paper. Everything else has to stay in my bag.”
“Wow, really? Well, I can see that. People will try anything, won’t they? What about your computer? You can’t take that?” Nina asked.
“Yes, I can take my laptop. I’m glad for the restrictions though. Those records are invaluable and I want them to be around for as long as possible. I don’t know if I’ll end up getting to see original documents, but I do have a Library of Virginia membership card, which you also have to have to do research there.”
“How did you get that, and when? You didn’t have much time before we left home.” Nina asked, surprised.
“I went ahead and filled out an application online for one almost a year ago, before we even went on that trip to Kentucky. I had gone to their website to see if there were any documents I could use for the research I was doing then, and I saw the link to the application. I figured ‘why not’. Even if I hadn’t, I could have gotten one today. It doesn’t take that long, just like at our library at home.”
“Did you find anything listed on the website that you could use? I mean a year ago when you checked?”
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