I am disappointed, but I understand. I am stuck living here, she isn’t. And whatever issues there are between her and her family, she’d at least be protected. And for all I know, she is right—it may be her and not me the killer is after.
I help Gretchen load the last of her things and see her off with a sad wave and a smile. She says she will not be at the run tomorrow but might return once Marlene’s killer is caught.
I linger on my porch for a while, touching the scarred wood left by the removal of the scissor blade. I hear the hollow echo of knuckles on wood nearby and look out to see two uniformed police officers—one on each side of the road—knocking on doors at the top of my street. I think of what Ruby said about all eyes being on me and suddenly feel very exposed.
I spend the next few hours behind closed curtains, cleaning what doesn’t need cleaned and reorganizing what is already in its place. Eventually, I allow myself entry into the spare room that for two nights served as Gretchen’s bedroom. I can still smell the fruity scent of her lotion. I decide I might as well wash the sheets and pillowcases and put them away. Goodness knows when I’ll need them again. As I strip the bed I tinker with the notion of inviting Stax to room with me temporarily. But why put her in danger? No, I just need to suck it up and ride it out. And learn to sleep with one eye open.
I crawl across the bed to pull out the far edge of the fitted sheet and feel something poke my knuckle. It’s a lime-green notebook folder stuffed with about a half-inch of papers. It isn’t mine, so it must have been left by Gretchen. I flip through it and find mostly unused paper, except the first couple of pages which are covered with numbers and random words. I set it aside with the intent of returning it to her later. Her nerves are too raw right now to warrant bothering her with such a trivial matter.
I don’t feel like eating anything, but Stax will be here in an hour to go to Ruby’s, so I warm up some tomato soup on the stove and make a cold ham and cheese sandwich. I am eating at the kitchen counter when my phone starts vibrating and dancing about.
It’s Detective Bentley. I drop my sandwich and nearly cause a tomato tornado in my rush for the phone.
“Hi Lacy, it’s Detective Bentley. Did I catch you at a good time?”
“That depends on what you have to tell me.”
“I’m at the station. Would you be able to leave now to come here?”
Am I about to be arrested? “Is it necessary?”
“I believe it is. Lacy, a woman’s been murdered.”
“Not by me!” My own response surprises me and I wish I could rewind and hit erase.
The detective laughs on the other end of the phone. “Is that what you think this is? You think I’m having you come down to arrest you?”
“You’re not?”
“No, Lacy. We make house calls for that sort of thing.”
Whew! “Okay, then, sure, I’m free to come down. What do you need me for?”
“I need your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yes. I have an image of the person I believe planted those scissors in your porch. I need you to tell me who it is.”
TWENTY
I call Stax to let her know I’ll meet her later at Ruby’s and make my way to the police station. I get the VIP treatment at the front desk as I am once again led to Detective Bentley’s office. He receives me warmly (are we becoming friends or am I hopelessly naïve?) and escorts me down the hall to a small audio/video room replete with TV monitors, a soundboard, and other equipment I don’t pretend to understand.
Bentley settles into a rolling chair in front of the command board. “A couple of your neighbors happened to see a figure strolling along the street last night at about 2am. One is a woman who let her dog out to do his business and the other a man with insomnia who stepped out for a smoke. Both describe the same figure—a tall woman in a black coat with either brown or red hair, walking in the direction of your house.”
A chill went through me. “Red hair? Are you thinking Gretchen?”
“I was, at first. But it didn’t make sense to me why Gretchen would be seen coming from the top of your street towards your house. It wouldn’t serve any purpose except to put her at risk of being seen. Then I got on idea.”
“You mentioned a photograph?”
“Not a photograph, per se. Something better. I got the idea that unless this person lived in your neighborhood, they would have to drive to get there. And yet they were seen walking. So, where did they park their car? I supposed they could have parked it anywhere on the street, but I took a shot and pulled surveillance footage from the businesses nearest the turning onto your street—a convenience store and a bank. I hit pay dirt with the store.”
Bruce’s Pit Stop is a regular stop of mine for gas, coffee, and conversation. They’re a great bunch of people and I’m sure the manager, Kevin (who graciously answers to the name of ‘Bruce’, though no Bruce has been associated with the business for decades) was more than happy to help the police.
“What did you find?” I ask.
“That’s what I called you down here to see.” His expression and voice betray a mounting excitement. “I already showed this footage to the two witnesses on your street and they positively identified this as the woman they saw walking. I need to know if you recognize her or the vehicle she’s driving. Give me a moment.”
He whirls around the room, turning out lights and cuing up the monitor in front of me. Frozen on the screen is the image of a dark minivan. I don’t know enough about cars to identify the make and model, but I know I don’t recognize the vehicle.
“All right, here we go,” announces the detective as he returns to his seat next to me and hits ‘Play’. Under other circumstances, what happened on screen would be commonplace and nondescript. But I am riveted as I watch a woman in a fashionable, black raincoat step from the driver’s side of a black vehicle, close the door, and walk away. Visible in the left corner of frame is the familiar air pump machine Kevin keeps free for anyone needing to air their tires. The direction in which the woman walked is not towards the store (which would have closed hours earlier) but towards my street.
The detective wants to know if I recognize her. The problem is, I do not. He explains the spot where the woman parked is a good distance from the camera, which is mounted on the side of the store. He zooms in to make the scene more visible and in doing so pixelates the image to such an extent the woman’s features are obscured. But I can see her hair is something like a bob cut reaching past the ears but terminating above the shoulders. The color is obviously red, but a deeper, less natural shade than Gretchen’s.
“It’s too hard to tell. Can you show me the original footage, without the zoom-in?”
Bentley obliges and although the pixels are gone, the action is too far away to give me great detail about the woman’s face. But I can see she is tall and shapely. Whoever that is, she is definitely not Gretchen, and that gives me a sense of relief. But as I watch the image of the woman walk away from the vehicle, I have an epiphany.
“Rewind that, please. Let me see it again.” He does so without hesitation and what I see all but confirms my identification of the woman.
“I know who that is,” I blurt out.
“Are you sure?”
“I think so. I mean I feel sure.”
Distracted by the woman’s image, I don’t look at the detective, but I sense he is smiling.
“I don’t know what that means. I think ‘feeling sure’ falls a bit short of certainty. But at this point, I’ll take it. So, tell me, who is this woman?”
“It’s Carly,” I say with confidence.
“Carly? You got a last name?”
It never occurred to me before that I don’t know Carly’s surname. “No, I don’t. I’m not sure she even has one.”
“Everyone has a last name.”
“Not Madonna,” I retort, a little miffed at what I take to be condescension.
“Even Madonna, I’m afraid. I believe h
ers is Ciccone.”
Now I look at him. He is wearing a smug grin and I realize I find him more adorable than infuriating.
“Is that something everyone knows but me?”
He laughs. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure that every guy who grew up in the eighties with pre-teen sisters knows far more about Madonna than they want to.”
I am doing it again, falling into an easy rhythm with Luke. Then I remember he’s not ‘Luke’, he’s ‘Detective Bentley’, and I’m telling him who the vandal of my house is.
“Now, back to business,” I say, clearing my throat. “The woman in the video is Carly from the running group. You took her statement.”
“Yes, I knew who you were talking about, but it’s always good to confirm. Her name is Carlita Van Duson. I’ll be honest, Lacy, when I look at this video it doesn’t scream ‘Carly’ to me. As I remember, she has long, dark hair.”
“That’s true, so she must be wearing a wig here. But I’m telling you, that’s her. I can tell by her shape and the way she moves.”
“The way she moves?”
“You’ll remember the reason she gave you for letting me lead the run group the other night.”
“Because she hurt her leg at the trail run and needed to go slow?”
“She walked stiff on one leg that day. The woman in the video is walking the same way. When you had it blown up to show just her face, I couldn’t see that. But here in the long shot it’s visible.”
“Hmmm, you’re right, at least about this particular woman. I can’t speak as to Carly herself. But I will take what you’re telling me under advisement.”
“Under advisement? Aren’t you going to arrest her?”
“For what? Parking her car and taking a walk? And that’s supposing you’re correct in your identification.”
“I know I’m right!”
“A minute ago, you merely ‘felt’ sure. I can’t make an arrest based on a feeling.”
I am frustrated, but I can’t argue. He is right. What evidence do I actually have against Carly? I am certain it is her in the video, but I have no way to prove it. I opt not to press the point until I can get with the girls and see what else we can cook up.
“I see your point, detective.”
“Hey, don’t look so dejected. Believe it or not, I do trust you. If you say that’s Carly on there, I don’t disbelieve you. And if that is Carly, then she’s the one who put the scissors in your porch post.”
“And the one who killed Marlene?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t quite go that far just yet. But I am anxious to talk to her if a solid reason to do so should present itself.”
“Do you need a reason? Can’t you call her in like you did with me?”
“Yes, I could. But if she’s guilty and feels we’re onto her, she’ll lawyer up and shut me down. I’d rather have more to put in front of her when I do sit down with her.”
I leave the police station with my head spinning and call Stax to let her know I am on the way. I wish I could take them the video, but they’ll have to settle for the revelation that Carly is a scissor-wielding vandal, if not worse.
I arrive at Ruby’s house to find her enjoying tea with Stax in the parlor. We retire to the study, which has become our de facto war room. Flanked by ancient oil lamps casting their cozy orange glow, I give the news about Carly appearing in the surveillance video near my house. I’m not embarrassed to admit I relayed the story with exhilaration and an air of suspense. And why not? I felt I had helped solve the case.
Ruby’s response is not at all what I expected. “That is very interesting, Lacy. What else do you have for us?”
Is she kidding? “What do you mean ‘what else’? I think we’ve just solved the whole case. Don’t you?”
“Sure sounds like it to me,” offers Stax. And I am glad for it in light of Ruby’s seeming apathy towards my revelation.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Ruby says, standing from her chair as though addressing a boardroom. “I’m intrigued by this Carly business and fully intend to return to discussing its implications shortly. But we shouldn’t be too hasty on our trek down a single path lest we get lost in the weeds. Let’s put Carly out of our minds for the moment and discuss that last. Does anyone have anything new on our other suspects?”
I can’t believe what I am hearing. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but I feel like the first real evidence we’ve had is being dismissed.”
Ruby stretches her arm over and pats my knee. “Don’t sound so dejected, dear. I’ve got my own set of leads I’m following and they may not lead in the same direction as yours.”
“You sound like Luke.”
Stax perked up. “Luke?”
“I mean Detective Bentley.”
“Awww, look who’s getting comfy with the first names. How sweet! By the time this case is solved you’ll be calling him Lukey-poo!”
“Gross! Anyway, I saw the video. I know what I saw. That was Carly parked in my neighborhood, wearing all black, right before someone jabbed a sharp pair of scissors into the front of my house. If you have a better set of leads to follow, I’d love to see them.”
“Whoa,” Stax says. “Passive-aggressive much?”
“Nobody’s taking anything away from you, Lacy,” Ruby says in a placating fashion. “I have every faith that what you say is true. I’m just not sure how to interpret it yet.”
“Interpret?” I am less combative now. My curiosity is genuine.
“Yes. I’m reminded of a time when I visited this quaint little New England village, to learn what I could of how the wheels of justice turn in such an environment. I had just finished a late breakfast in a diner off the main square and was headed back to my nearby lodgings when I saw a young man sitting on a bench, crying uncontrollably. Because of some loud road construction, I could not hear what he was saying, but I noticed he was holding a newspaper. The scene was quite unbearable and I imagined him coming across an unexpected obituary, perhaps a former lover. My heart went out to the man, so much so that before I knew it I found myself moving towards him, longing to offer some kind of comfort.
“I approached his bench and opened my mouth to mutter some half-formed condolence when he held the newspaper up to me and said ‘Lady, you’ve got to read this Blondie strip. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen’. He wasn’t crying at all. He was laughing at the funnies. I’ll admit I felt foolish for a moment, but only a moment. And in reflection I should not have felt foolish at all.”
“Why not? I’d have felt like an idiot,” remarks Stax.
“And quite right, too,” replies Ruby with impressive alacrity before continuing, “but I realized I’d reached the conclusion I had—that what I was witnessing was a man in the throes of emotional agony—because of insufficient data. The eyes don’t lie, but the way we interpret the data we receive can be misleading if we’re denied a key piece of information. In my case, it was an audio deficiency. I’m quite certain that had I been able to hear the sounds emanating from the man I would have been aware he was laughing. But because of the road crew, I had only what I saw to work from. Now, why I would suppose tears over laughter perhaps speaks to some underlying darkness in my own conscience and is of little use to our enquiry, but the moral of the story most certainly applies.”
She has me perplexed. “The moral?”
“Yes, we remain aware that until our theory is proved, the next discovery may cause it to blow up in our face, to point us in a completely different direction. We should be prepared for such an eventuality to the extent that we welcome it.”
“We should welcome being proved wrong?” asks Stax. “Seems self-defeating.”
“Quite the opposite. It teaches us humility, and humility keeps us honest, at least to ourselves. If we want to find the truth, we must be the truth.”
Stax grips her forearms as though overtaken by a chill. “Whoa, that’s deep. Okay, I’m sold. Sorry, Lacy, but she’s a lot better at this than either of us. I say we
roll with it.”
My gut reaction is to fight it and yell ‘Nonsense! Of course, Carly is the killer. She has to be!’ But I can’t deny what Ruby said is true. I don’t have proof enough to accuse Carly or anyone else of murder. I also can’t deny the suspicious behavior of other individuals.
“There is something I saw yesterday I can’t make sense of,” I say, both in the spirit of what Ruby is trying to achieve and because I want their insight. “I was driving past the Petrick Travel Agency and who do I see coming out but Chase Reynolds.”
I tell them about the angry exchange between the two men and this leads to a discussion of what it all might mean.
Both Anderson and Chase are on our suspect list but have never been known to associate with each other. If Chase was having an affair with Marlene, what is he doing talking with her widower? And if either Chase or Anderson is the murderer, why would one be conferring with the other so soon after the deed? Ruby and Stax have no real insight to offer, other than the intangible feeling we share that there is something we’re missing lying just out of reach.
“I have some interesting developments of my own to discuss,” Ruby says, looking quite pleased with herself. Stax and I lean in close. “Do you recall the material Marti found in the woods on the day of Marlene’s disappearance? The police were not interested in it, but I was, and I sent it off to be analyzed. It’s a substance called jute. Are you familiar?” Neither of us is. “Well, it’s not exactly a household word, is it? But it’s not altogether uncommon. What I found most interesting is the odd pattern in which the jute thread is woven. It sparked an idea and I sent off for some materials I expect to receive in the morning. I believe it could lead to something.”
“But you’re prepared for the eventuality that it won’t?” I wink at Ruby to let her know I am being facetious.
“Me? Not so much, dear. I say all that mostly for your benefit. I suspect an arrest will be eminent once I have the final pieces to present to police.”
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