I find Ruby surrounded by her fellow walkers, nodding and smiling and enduring talk I know she considers baseless nonsense. But our job tonight is to keep our ears open and our mouths closed and that’s what we’re both doing. Stax has not shown up yet but it is typical of her to arrive at the last minute if a customer keeps her through her 6pm closing time.
Ruby spots me milling about and pulls me aside for a private chat. “I see you’ve been mixing. As much mixing as one can do with a crowd this small.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. I wonder where everybody is?”
“It’s controversy, dear. It either repels or attracts. When something happens that’s not supposed to, you can expect fewer people to want to be around it. But those who come always get there early.”
The little bell above the north door jingles and in comes Stax. It is obvious she changed her clothes in a hurry as she’s holding her GPS watch in her hand and her water bottles are upside down in their belt slots. She impatiently smiles her greetings in passing to the others and makes her way directly to us.
“Hey there, cat burglars. So, what’s the scoop?”
“Keep your voice down,” I say. “Everyone’s in gossip mode right now and I’d like to keep my name out of it.”
“Gossip, ey? So, what’s the word on the street?”
“That Marlene ran off with some mysterious lover. Nothing useful.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s useless,” offers Ruby. “Gossip is a lot like folk lore. It’s embellished and not to be taken at face value, but there’s usually a kernel of truth in it.”
I can’t think of Marlene and her ‘secret lover’ without thinking of Chase. I glance over to the counter where he stands with Marti, looking out solemnly on their dwindling group. The store depends on the support they get from their running group, as these runners are their most active customers.
“Are you saying you think there’s something to it?” I ask.
“No, not at all. As I’ve said, Marlene has not run off. But that’s not to say there isn’t a lover mixed up in this somewhere. After all, where there’s a murder, there must be a motive. And unrequited love is as good as any.”
An older gentleman I recognize as belonging to Ruby’s walking group taps her on the shoulder and whispers they are about to head out. Ruby thanks him and turns back to us. “I’ll catch up with you two after the run. Or, in my case, walk. If only I were twenty or thirty years younger you’d be eating my dust. But one does what one can.”
The smirk as she turns away and the little gleam in her eye gives me a warm sense of comfort. She is much more in her element with all this mystery and intrigue than I am. Stax, too, seems to be thriving. I am glad I’m not alone in this.
“I suppose Carly’s in charge tonight,” says Stax. “Are you ready to run like a hamster on a wheel?”
I roll my eyes. It is true. As vain as Marlene is, always running us past her billboards and advertisements, she would at least put effort into blocking out new and different routes for us to take. As deputy run leader, Carly is occasionally in charge and her route is always the same—a boring trip in a square around the block we would repeat ad nauseam until we completed the prescribed number of miles. It is all sidewalk except for a detour down an old graveled back alley I’m convinced exists solely to torture my blisters. Fortunately, tonight is only a three-mile run, which means I only have to suffer that blasted alley three times.
Carly’s monotone voice rises above the lull. I can’t hear what she’s saying but other members of our group are collecting in front of her, so she must be summoning the troops. Stax and I move to the back of the group. Carly stands apart and stares out at us with her usual blank expression. She steps a few paces away to grab her water bottle and I notice she is being careful not to put too much pressure on her right leg.
Carly is taller than all the women present and many of the men. It is always obvious when she is about to speak because she arches her arms and grabs her hips in a classic Amazonian pose. “Okay, Marlene is not here. I know you all know that because it’s all you seem to be discussing. We’re here to run and I don’t think it’s helpful to spread gossip and rumors, but whatever. I’ll be taking over as run leader and so I’ll need a new deputy for the time being. Lacy, I’m going with you.”
Me? There isn’t another Lacy in the group, is there?
“Um, okay, sure.”
Carly acknowledges my assent with a blink. “I’ve got a blister in the most terrible place and a shin splint from hell, so I’ll be running caboose. You don’t mind taking the front, do you?”
“I guess not, but—”
“Great, well, let’s head out then, shall we? We’re late as it is. You take off and we’ll follow.”
I don’t want to lead the run group, but I’m not comfortable participating in yet another confrontation in Marti’s store, so I say ‘okay’. I exit the store and when the others follow I start off in a trot down the sidewalk, following Carly’s usual route. I’m not looking forward to the gravel. It is a short alley, but not short enough when your blisters are still healing. I can feel my blood boil and this makes me run faster. It didn’t occur to Carly to ask if I felt up to leading the group. She saw me at Chicken Hill. She knows I ran the same trail as herself. Some people!
And why me? It should be Gretchen, but she’s not here. Or Stax, who has been with the group longer and is a faster runner than myself. Perhaps Carly is extending an olive branch. Nah, not Carly. Gretchen hangs out with them because Marlene’s her boss and she feels a sense of obligation. But with Carly it is birds of a feather. She and Marlene are two sides of the same bad penny.
As I turn into the alley I find myself trying to remember the last time Gretchen missed a run. I can’t say whether it was out of genuine concern or residual guilt for having pilfered through her desk, but I committed myself to checking in on her this evening before I went home. It is the least I could do.
Ouch! These jagged old rocks are wrecking my shoes and my feet along with them. And what’s that up ahead?
Oh great, somebody’s laundry fell off the back of their truck, and now we must either jump over it or run through it. I get a little closer and decide it isn’t so bad, just a small pile spread out across the narrow alley.
Then I see a hand.
As I said before, I’m not a superstitious person. I don’t believe in premonitions. Marlene had to turn up sometime and she (or whoever) chose today and this alley to make her reappearance. And, of course, I had to be the one to find her.
Her face is turned away from me but she is wearing the same clothes I’d seen her in at the start of the Chicken Hill run. I won’t go into detail about her injuries, but the right side of her head did not look as it had the last time I’d seen her.
I am grateful I was not alone when I found her. Grateful, that is, until a few of the ladies who caught up with me decide to start screaming their heads off. This creates a general panic and residents of the houses on either side of the alley pop their heads out to see what the matter is. I wouldn’t be surprised if 911 received at least a dozen calls all at once.
The neighbors aren’t the only people in the area attracted by the screams. Ruby’s walking group was passing along the road on the opposite side of the alley and turned our direction. Ruby pushes her way to the front and there we stood, facing each other, with Marlene’s corpse between us.
Ruby points out the scissors and more screams follow. They are lodged by a single shear blade into a pitted old utility pole directly above the head of the corpse. I watch Ruby lean in close to get a good look at the blades. I motion to her to chill out with the sleuthiness as it might be misinterpreted by some of the frantic souls circling around us. But I can’t help noticing the scissors are quite large, a good two sizes up from the pair I’d seen sticking out of Marlene’s tire. Ruby ignores my signals and kneels down to get a closer look at the body.
A few minutes later the police are on the scene with a
n ambulance and everything moves fast from that point forward. Officer Diebold is first on the scene and blushes red when he sees faces familiar to him from Chicken Hill. We tell him the corpse belongs to the missing lady from two days earlier (who, he assured us, was just fine) and for a moment I worry I might have to call for a second ambulance.
Diebold gathers himself and, with the aid of two fellow officers, pushes us out of the alley and ‘clears the scene’ pending the arrival of a superior. Said superior turns out to be a tall, slender man with tired shoulders under a nice suit worn out at the elbows. I can hear Diebold, who ran to him like a dog finding his master, call him ‘Detective’.
The body is taken away and the detective, who tells us his name is Luke Bentley, asks us to congregate back at Run For It and wait until our statements can be taken.
The store looks small with all the people crammed into it. It makes one think of a hospital waiting room after a tragedy, with stressed people pacing back and forth past women crying their eyes out, surrounded by a group of consolers patting shoulders and saying ‘There, there’. Some of those crying the loudest and wettest are the ones who, an hour earlier, were condemning Marlene for her sin and debauchery. A few of the men stand, arms crossed, outside the front door, as though to protect the people inside from some invisible entity.
Stax, Ruby, and I hang by ourselves. It occurs to me Stax hasn’t spoken a word since we started the run. I am sure this is the longest she’s gone in her life without speaking. I couldn’t say firsthand, but I’d bet she even talks in her sleep.
“Hey, you all right down there?” I say, trying to ease the tension in the room with a little height humor.
“No, not really,” is the deadpan answer.
“What’s wrong?”
There is a long pause, and then: “I’ve never seen a dead body before.”
I put my arm around her shoulder. “Never been to a funeral?”
She looked up at me. “Well, yeah, but that’s different. It’s old people all dressed up and laid out like they’re sleeping. Not…”
“Not laying out abandoned in an alley? No, you’re right. But Marlene will be pretty and laid out like she’s sleeping in a few days. We just saw her too early.”
I didn’t know if what I said was true, but I saw Stax’s shoulders loosen and drop, so it had its desired effect. That is the moment Detective Bentley joined us in the store.
Diebold is back to his puffy-chested best and loiters with two other uniforms behind Bentley as the detective attracts everyone’s attention. He informs us we will be split into groups so our statements can be collected as quickly and efficiently as possible. After which, he says, we’ll be released. The news is welcome as I pictured us camping down in rows of bodies as the police plodded about their work. Bentley said he is separating us into four groups, from which I gather the three uniformed men would each take a group aside while Bentley handles the fourth.
I end up in the detective’s group. And not by accident.
SIXTEEN
Detective Bentley asks Marti, Chase, Jessica, and Billy—the employees on duty at Run For It—to meet with him individually. The other two names he calls are Carly’s and my own. This didn’t hold any particular significance to me until I realized the three much larger groups were to remain in the main lobby, while my own little hand-picked collective is escorted to the same back rooms I couldn’t get out of fast enough the day before.
We are placed together in one of the bigger rooms with frosted windows and a flimsy door. Bentley asks Chase to remain in the hall with him and directs us to remain seated and not to discuss Marlene or the murder. He will talk with us one at a time after which, he assures us, we can leave the store if we choose. I am all for leaving and hope I’ll be interrogated after Chase so I can make good my escape. Naturally, I am to be the last one sitting.
I resist the urge to look at my phone once I am alone. I could use the distraction, but I don’t want to appear too relaxed when Detective Bentley comes for me. I also don’t want to appear too nervous, so I monitor the palms of my hands for sweat, wiping them periodically on my shirt for good measure. This leads to incessant lint-picking and I am mid-pick at some mysterious something or other (probably a Meatball hair) over my breast when the door swings open and Detective Bentley sticks his head in.
“Ms. Purdy, I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long. If you’ll follow me I’ll have you out of here in a few minutes.”
I remember to smile when he meets my eye. I think he smiled back, but he may have already been smiling. I was too busy poking at my boob to notice. Now I am blushing, but too late to do anything about that.
I follow him further down the cramped hall to an office that looks like the one I just left, except this one has a small desk crammed sideways into a corner. I assume this is why the detective chose this office. Sitting behind a desk makes him look more officious and lends him an air of authority. As if the badge and title aren’t enough for the likes of us.
I take a seat in the chair provided and wait while the detective flips some pages in his notebook and hurriedly scribbles some notes. What could he possibly be writing? I haven’t even opened my mouth yet.
“Your name is Lacy Purdy, is that correct?”
“It is.”
“And your middle name?”
“Annette. Should I spell it?”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
I spell it out as he dutifully takes note. I am surprised we aren’t all ushered ‘downtown’ and put into a small room with cameras recording our every word and motion. I don’t mention it for fear of giving him ideas.
Something about the detective tells me he is no small-town gumshoe. It is the easy way he carries himself in spite of the fact he is circling a murder, and yet when he speaks, he sounds genuine. I feel like a child called to the principal’s office, but I also feel comforted and assured in his presence. It is an almost immediate sensation, before we even really begin to talk, and I imagine such a gift is invaluable to a man in his profession.
“Lacy, I promise not to keep you too long today. At this point I just have some perfunctory questions. I assume you understand this is a homicide investigation, correct?”
“Yes, of course,” is my answer. It is an obvious if not stupid question, but perhaps in his line of work he has suffered his share of stupid witnesses.
“During the course of the investigation, I may need to return to you with further questions. Is that all right with you? This is something I let everyone I speak with know.”
“Sure, if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.”
“And you promise to be frank and honest with me?”
He tilts his face up from where it hovered over the paper. His eyes match his blue shirt.
“Of course; why wouldn’t I be?” I say with more protest than necessary. This because I’m not entirely sure I will be completely frank and honest with him. After all, unbeknownst to the good detective, I am immersed in my own independent investigation. If I attempted to explain this I would also have to explain my reason is because I make one helluva good prime suspect. I don’t think that would fly.
“I can’t think of any reason,” he says, waving away any suggestion of impropriety on my part. I’m not sold by this and wonder what the previous interviewees might have told him about me. In particular, Carly. But true to his word, after collecting my contact information and taking a brief statement outlining my discovery of the body, I am set loose.
When I reenter the store area I find Stax and Ruby still held hostage by their uniformed interrogator, so I slip out the side door. The store is now a crime scene, at least by proxy, and there is no way I am going to hang out here and wait for my friends. Besides, there is something I need to do. Something that has been niggling at me since I arrived for the run.
Where is Gretchen? She never missed a run and, with all that has happened recently, I am more than a little concerned about her. I call her cell pho
ne on the way to my car and feel a wave of relief the moment I hear her answer. But my relief doesn’t last long.
“Hello, who is this?” she demands. She sounds frightened. It’s not lost on me that she had not saved my number into her phone as I had hers. Or she deleted it along the way. I tell her who I am. “Oh, Lacy, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize the number and wasn’t sure if I should answer, you know, with all that’s going on. But at the same time, I was afraid not to.”
I think I know what she’s talking about, but I’m not sure. “So, you’ve heard about Marlene?”
“Oh, did she turn up?”
So, maybe I don’t know what she’s rambling on about.
I don’t want to give her bad news over the phone, and certainly not when she’s so obviously wound up, so I ask if I can come by. To my surprise, she says yes and gives me her address.
Gretchen lives on the old side of town in a small garage apartment above a mid-century mechanic’s garage converted into private storage, probably for her father’s company. She hears me coming up the rickety wooden stairs and is waiting for me at the open door.
“Excuse the mess,” she says over her shoulder as she turns her back to me to head further into the room. “I’m trying to get out of here and can’t seem to find anything I’m looking for.”
She is moving around frantically and with her back to me. She tries to hide her face, but I don’t need to see her eyes to know she’s been crying. I can hear it in her voice. Also, there is a pile of used tissues on the coffee table. Two half-filled suitcases sit open on the couch.
“You’re moving?” is the best I can muster. A more appropriate word, based on the scene in front of me, would be ‘fleeing’.
“More like running home to daddy. It took everything I had to break away from him. I wanted to prove I’m a grown up and can stand on my own two feet. Now look at me, crawling back on my hands and knees.”
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