Old Secrets Never Die

by Lois Blackburn

  Detective Horton recognized this striking redhead as Lucinda Litchman, whose photograph was on the desk in Hiram Lazarus’ office. He waited until Lucinda was seated on the sofa in the sun porch before telling her why they were at her home.

  “Oh, my…NO!” she wailed, folding herself into her lap, her arms covering her head as if she could hide from the terrible news. Jankowski and Horton exchanged glances and waited. Each had been there before, witnessing loved ones’ reactions to sudden, violent loss. They silently watched her pain and each wondered if it was genuine.

  Lucinda’s outburst stopped as suddenly as it had started. She looked from one officer to the other as she began, quietly sobbing between thoughts. “Shot? No…How could that be? He keeps the gun case locked and the key up high. Surely they’re not kept loaded in there…How can he be dead? I just left yesterday to go see Thomas–my son; everyone calls him Tom but me. Who would do such a thing? It can’t be true…Are you sure? I need to see what happened. Where is my Hiram?”

  Detective Horton stepped toward Lucinda as she tried to stand up. “You don’t need to see anything just now, Ma’am. The crime squad is doing its work in there. Trooper Jankowski here identified him because he met him recently in town.

  “It’ll be time enough for you to see him later. You should sit here for a few minutes because we need to talk with you, get your fingerprints, and learn who else’s fingerprints would logically be found in the office.

  “You need to call your son to get here quickly,” Horton continued. “Try to think as clearly as possible. Is there anyone else you should call? Trooper Jankowski will get you a drink of water or something else if you prefer. We understand this is a terrible shock, but we need you to try to calm yourself.

  “So, what would you like to drink? Should we call your doctor?” Horton asked.

  “No, no. I’ll just have some water; there should be some in the fridge. I’ll call Tom–and Chad, too. He’s my other son, in Boston. Oh, my, what else? Whatever am I going to do? I don’t know who to call. We don’t know any neighbors out here in the middle of nowhere. We should have located closer to town; maybe this wouldn’t have happened. You know some homes around here have been burglarized lately?” Lucinda massaged her temples as if she could contain her muddled thoughts. Then she rubbed her hands together.

  Trooper Jankowski wondered if she was feeling the cold of shock setting in, although beads of perspiration formed at her wispy hairline.

  “Were we robbed too?” Lucinda said, looked around and pointed. “The furniture here is out of place–but I don’t think anything is missing. I just drove up to Vermont yesterday afternoon and that little wicker table and floor lamp aren’t where they belong.”

  As Jankowski walked to the kitchen, he thought Lucinda Litchman was more lucid than most women he had seen in a similar crisis. It was always rough calculating when to give relatives time to calm down versus asking questions before they thought about what they were saying. He always tried to be sensitive to the situation. Detective Horton would take the lead, he knew, but he wanted to be present, if only to take notes.

  He found the chilled, bottled water quickly but went toward the office-library before returning to the porch. Flashes of light told him the crime scene photographer was still working. Jankowski was entranced by the operations of a crime scene squad. Like a group of skilled square dancers, they seemed to bob and weave forward and back without looking, yet they never crashed into each other.

  Jankowski didn’t recognize the team leader, who stood at the door overseeing the complex process of collecting pertinent physical evidence to establish connections to the crime and possible suspects.

  The man introduced himself as Roscoe and his burly body fit the name. At his feet near the doorway sat boxes of latex gloves and shoe covers. He subtly stepped sideways, blocking entry by anyone besides his team–including the trooper. There would be time for the search and investigative personnel to work together, but for now Roscoe’s team had to work independently.

  Procedures of crime scene preservation, evidence recognition, collection and documentation were key to maximizing the value of the latest scientific technology, which Jankowski knew frequently solved crimes. He saw the photographer, shadowed by his log assistant; slowly glide from one spot to another, capturing every view of strategically placed evidence markers, many with measurement devices nearby.

  The sketch artist stood in one corner, but Jankowski had seen this process before and knew she also would capture and meticulously label every angle of the scene onto her sketchpad before day’s end. The team got only one chance to view the scene in situ immediately after discovery.

  Nothing in the room had been moved since he first arrived except Hiram’s body was now covered. The medical examiner was probably already out by his van, making notes on his initial findings before the body would be removed, replaced by a chalk outline.

  Jankowski could still see the pistol on the bare hardwood next to Hiram’s covered body. The papers strewn near the desk would have to be packaged and sent to the lab for examination for latent prints with ninhydrin, or perhaps Crazy Glue fuming. He noticed the fingerprint specialist carefully removing lift-tape with a print from the gun cabinet door, which stood ajar on the far wall.

  He knew his own impressions would be valuable, but the crime scene squad’s trained observations and detailed records could be crucial in future court proceedings once a suspect was identified. However, nothing would be collected, described, bagged, labeled, and fully logged until the photographs and sketches were completed. Chain of custody of evidence could make or destroy a case.

  Roscoe’s squad would be in the house for hours, moving methodically to identify items out of place, which might point the investigators toward the cause or the criminal. The man’s demeanor was all business.

  Jankowski turned back toward where the cold bottle of spring water was needed, the sun porch. Handing the bottle to Lucinda Litchman, he pulled his notepad from his shirt pocket, ready to proceed. She held the phone to her ear, her eyes on Detective Horton standing in front of her.

  “Thank you,” Lucinda said, her voice barely audible. She drew a swallow of water and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. This is so unbelievable. I’ve barely been gone one day. Hiram was fine when I left. He finally had told me that he was working on arrangements to expand his store in Essex.

  “I’d been thinking he was having an affair, spending so much time down there. Why didn’t I just ask him, instead of sneaking around behind his back? I’d lost one man to that awful Vietnam War, you know, and I couldn’t bear to think about losing him to some shoreline sister. Oh, my, what a terrible thing to say now…I’m rambling, aren’t I?

  “Pick up, Tom–he hates me to call him Thomas,” she said, holding the phone against her shoulder. “I guess he’s not there, it’s going to voice mail. Beep–Yes…Tom, it’s me. I just got home…Um, the police are here. It’s really important!!! Call me back when you get this message. It’s really important! You have to come home immediately! I need you here!” Her voice grew louder with each sentence as if she could reach him by sheer volume. She sank back in the sofa and held the cold water bottle to her forehead.

  “Does Tom have a job that he goes to? Do you have another number for him?” Detective Horton asked.

  She shook her bowed head.” He has a cell phone, but I can’t think of that number right now.”

  “Okay.” Horton explained they needed to ask her some questions, Trooper Jankowski would be taking notes and they could take a break any time she needed one. Later, they would take a recorded statement, but he hoped she could answer some important questions now. Lucinda nodded, took another drink, a couple deep breaths and seemed to pull her body and mind into focus.

  “Just relax, Ma’am, and take as long as you need to answer. Please tell me where you have been, when did you leave, what did you do since then? Can someone verify your whereabouts?” Horton spoke slowly.

 
“Why did you suspect your husband–excuse me, Trooper Jankowski said you were not legally married but had been together a long time. Why did you think Hiram was having an affair? Did you plan to leave him if that were the case? Did you ever confront him about it?”

  “I’m sorry, you’re asking too many things at once. I can’t keep them all in my head,” Lucinda answered, wiping moisture from her forehead. “And, please, please, don’t call me Ma’am, that sounds old. I’m just plain Lucinda.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to confuse you,” Horton reached to touch her shoulder. “Do you need an aspirin or something? Do you need a break?”

  “No, I’m okay. Just please ask things one question at a time,” she said.

  “Okay, do you think Hiram would commit suicide or does he have any enemies?”

  “Never! Absolutely not! He loved life too much and things were going good for him. If he ever considered such a thing, it might have been when he first came home from the war and suffered so in the hospital. But he pushed through that terrible time. I don’t think he’d ever kill himself. He had some shady friends back then, too; people who used and sold drugs but he severed all ties with them long ago. Those guns in there are mostly antiques, some going back several wars ago.”

  “Enemies?” Horton repeated.

  “There are some highly competitive antique dealers in the Northeast who might be jealous of Hiram’s successful collection because they see him as a newcomer. But I can’t imagine any of them would kill someone to narrow the field.

  “All the customers I’ve met here at the house seemed to be well-heeled and friendly. No, I can’t think of anyone I’d call an enemy…Oh, he testified against someone in a drug-case in Pennsylvania, but that’s years ago and we haven’t had any contact with any of those people since we moved here…

  “You want to know why I thought he had a wandering eye, right?”

  Horton nodded.

  Lucinda explained her suspicions about Hiram’s extra traveling. His New England Antiques showroom in Essex that was managed by a woman, Caroline Mathis, when he wasn’t there. Caroline wasn’t a partner, she emphasized, but owned part of the inventory. Lucinda didn’t think he was involved with Caroline, but maybe there was someone who lived between Woodstock and Essex.

  She never confronted Hiram because she knew he would have a good excuse. “He could explain away everything, it made me mad–but I could never argue with him. That’s what he used to do when I was kind of his nursemaid after Vietnam and tried to keep him from relying on drugs to work through his problems. I always felt I couldn’t talk my way out of a paper bag because he could convince me that black was white, night was day, or a lie was the truth.

  “And, no, I never confronted him about this. It would ruin everything. I’ve not stood up for myself in so long, I don’t know how any more. What would I do if he got really angry and threw me out on the street? I’ve no place to go, few skills and fewer friends.”

  “Okay,” Horton jumped in, surprised at her angry outburst. Despite her flaming red hair and the shocking circumstances, up to now she had seemed reasonably low-key, controlled, almost timid. He paused long enough to place the small wicker table in front of the sofa so Lucinda could set her water down. “Can we get back to your suspicions about another woman?”

  Lucinda said she explained her fears to her friend Dottie Weeks, who went to Essex with her friend, Bashia Gordon–the decorator–and they decided that she was imagining things. She wasn’t sure she believed them but she took their advice and tried to get her mind on other things. That was partly why she went to see her son, Tom, in Putney, Vermont, she told the officers.

  Horton glanced at Jankowski with a sly smile, checking his reaction to the mention of Bashia’s name. Mark’s face remained passive.

  “You see,” Lucinda continued, “Hiram and Tom had a big fight here over whether Hiram would support Tom’s idea to open a furniture store. Tom begged Hiram for start-up money, antiques and to use Hiram’s name because he’s well known. Hiram turned him down flat. Just as I was coming home the day of that argument, my son stormed out the front door and drove off.

  “Hiram wouldn’t tell me about it until a few days later–then he got angry with me and said he was finished paying for Tom’s foolish ideas. If I wanted any more information, he said I’d have to ask Tom. So I decided to go visit him.

  “They never got along real well, except when the boys were very young and Hiram would play with them every chance he got. Once puberty set in, Thomas became kind of a wild kid and sometimes he still doesn’t get how the world works. But now and then, he kept trying to please Hiram–to be the strong, savvy businessman. Hiram says Tom doesn’t understand antiques, never did and never will so they don’t…er, didn’t have much in common.”

  “So what did Tom tell you about that argument?” Horton asked.

  “Well, we didn’t get much into that because he stood me up. I told him I’d be there in time to go out for dinner, but he wasn’t home when I arrived. I knew where he keeps a key so I went into his townhouse. I called his cell phone but he didn’t answer so I wound up microwaving a frozen dinner and fell asleep on the couch without even pulling it out to make a bed.

  “I didn’t hear him come in but he was there this morning and acted as if nothing was wrong. When I asked where he was last night and what his problem is with Hiram, we got into a shouting match and I left. He said it’s not my business, he doesn’t need Hiram’s help because he’s found the perfect space for a furniture store and a source to help finance it. The way he put it is, ‘a plentiful source’, whatever that means.”

  Jankowski looked up from his note-taking, wondering how significant this comment might be in the future. Lucinda’s face didn’t reflect that she intended to emphasize it.

  “I hate it that they can’t work together. It’s a little better with Chad, but not a lot. He mostly stays in Boston making a good living and loving that area. He only comes home a couple times a year, but sometimes I drive up there to shop and visit him. Hiram goes to Boston on business. He has several customers there, but he never contacts Chad. I wish the three of them had become good friends, but…it never happened for some reason. I love them all…” her voice trailed off to a sigh.

  Lucinda covered her face with both hands, bent forward to her lap and began to quietly cry anew.

  “Thank you, Lucinda. I think it’s time for a break,” said Horton, looking over at Jankowski, standing against the wall, his pen still poised over his notepad. “I need to see how the crime squad is doing in the other room. You rest for a few minutes and Trooper Jankowski can go make a pot of coffee for us, if you’d like. We’re going to be here a while.”

  “It’s in the blue canister and there’s creamer and artificial sweetener someplace, too,” Lucinda lifted her head and spoke softly. Her swollen eyes were tightly closed.

  At the door, Horton told Jankowski to stay with Lucinda until he sent someone else. Jankowski thought Constable Dupre might be back from Bashia’s and available if he wasn’t standing log duty.

  “Are you comfortable, Lucinda?” Jankowski asked, just as Dupre came through the door. The afternoon sun cast long shadows through the windows, but there wasn’t much heat in it this early in the year.

  “It feels a little cool in here,” she said, reaching for the throw Bashia used earlier. “I have a sweater in my suitcase, but I’ll just pull this around me. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Jankowski knew she was in shock, far from fine. With a “You’re in charge” nod to Dupre, he headed for the kitchen, grateful for a chance to relax his hand from writing.

  Soon after Jankowski filled mugs for Lucinda and himself, Horton returned. He poured himself a cup, pulled up the wing chair so he could reach the little table and told Dupre to report back to Roscoe for assignment.

  Horton asked Lucinda for a few more details about her drive to Vermont and back. Did she stop anyplace or talk to anyone?

  She said her gas tank w
as full when she left so she didn’t need to stop. She preferred a station in Woodstock, where she had her car serviced. She left home around two, got to Tom’s three hours later, washed some dishes in his sink and freshened her makeup while waiting for him.

  She impatiently called Tom at 6:30, left a message, then watched the evening news. She fixed a turkey-and-dressing TV dinner after that, flipped through some greenware catalogs she had with her and fell asleep on Tom’s oversized, plush sofa-bed. “It has that suede-like covering that retains your body heat and throws it back at you to make you drowsy,” she added.

  “So you didn’t see or talk to anyone after you left here around two until you saw Tom this morning? What time was that?” asked Horton.

  “Right. I was lying there awake, thinking how angry I was when I smelled a bagel toasting and coffee brewing. It was nearly eight; I was surprised I’d slept so long. Then when he smiled and asked how I was, my attitude started the day off badly. But it was his fault because he was so inconsiderate. He said he was just out drinking and time got away from him. Oh, yeah! Sometimes he doesn’t think of anyone besides himself–men!”

  Jankowski and Horton looked at each other, controlling any trace of a smile. Lucinda seemed to be feeling more comfortable with their questions.

  “Lucinda, I want you to think where you could stay with for a few days. It’s going to take a while to fully process your house. We’ll want you here, but not staying here. And I need two things from you.

  “First, is there an inventory of the gun case in the office? Also, we need a list of people whose fingerprints would logically be found inside. Anyone who is here regularly or that you know has been here, say, in the past month. Do you have a cleaning woman? Were any customers here lately? Both your sons would be included, plus you, and we’ll get Bashia Gordon. She was here this morning.”