Fixed in Fear

by T. E. Woods

  Mort thought about the brutality of the sweat lodge murder scene. He didn’t make Bilbo “Keep It Mellow” Runyan as capable of organizing such carnage. And at nearly forty pounds lighter than a man of Bilbo’s height should be, Mort couldn’t see him overpowering five terrified people. “I don’t think there’s anything there.”

  Willers tapped her pen against her pad thoughtfully, then nodded. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to get a photo of him. Run it by Blue Dancer. See if she makes him for the other Andrews brother.”

  “I can’t bring him in here, see if he’s willing to sit for a couple of pictures. Like I said, I don’t see him as any part of this.”

  Willers made another note. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

  Mort’s clock read 7:48. He was on a roll.

  “Mort? Can I come in?” Rita Willers turned around at the sound of L. Jackson Clark’s voice coming from the doorway. Mort appreciated his friend’s arrival saving him from having to apologize yet again to the Enumclaw chief.

  “Join the party, Larry.” Mort watched Willers gather the photos and reports back into the folder and close the file. “You remember Chief Willers?”

  Larry stepped in and offered his hand to Rita. “I do. I was certain I’d be the first to darken Mort’s door this morning. How lovely you arrived before me to bring the light.”

  Mort could have sworn he saw Chief Willers blush.

  “Any news on the investigation?” Larry asked. “The hour is early. Dare I hope that means some sort of progress?”

  “We’re making headway,” Chief Willers answered carefully. “I understand you met with Bilbo Runyan yesterday.”

  “I wouldn’t say we met with Bilbo. Mort and I went there to take a cursory look into Carlton’s office.”

  “I understand you’ve been named executor,” Willers said. “Did that come as a surprise to you?”

  Mort’s spine stiffened. Was Willers thinking Larry was somehow involved with Carlton’s death?

  “A bit, I must say.” If Larry was offended by Willers’s question, he showed no sign. “But, then, perhaps his options were limited. Carlton spent little time in one place. His studies took him all around the globe. I would imagine he didn’t have time to cultivate many deep friendships.”

  “What did you find in Smydon’s office?” Willers asked.

  Larry blinked several times as though struggling to organize a response. Mort wondered how rarely the great scholar must have found himself at a loss for words.

  “I found the most cherished gem.” Larry’s voice was barely a whisper. “A treasure of unspeakable value. At least to me. I spent last night reading and rereading letters I’d never seen before. From my wife.” He turned toward Mort with moist eyes. “It was like Helen was there, in the room with me. Once again I heard her voice.”

  Mort noticed Chief Willers’s near-imperceptible shift of position. Was she uncomfortable with Larry’s emotions? Was she disappointed he hadn’t produced a clue that would crack the case wide-open?

  “You find anything that could help us here, buddy?” Mort asked.

  Larry’s gaze seemed so very far away, somewhere there and then. His smile, though, filled the here and now. “I’d forgotten the depth of the connection between Carlton and my Helen. It was more than close. And the playfulness! It’s right there on the page. Like the two of them are frozen in time. Helen in her early twenties. Carefree and brave.” He shook his head in memory. “How those two could have been related to Abraham Smydon remains a mystery of genetic logic. And she described her life with me. To Carlton. She talked about how happy she was. How much in love we were. She knew it, Mort. Helen knew how fortunate we were to have the love we shared.” He turned toward Willers with a shrug. “Of course, she complained about being as poor as church mice. I was just starting out. It’s understandable, I suppose. Abraham let her want for nothing. And I had nothing to give her but my heart.” He turned back toward Mort. “Apparently that was enough.”

  Rita Willers’s cellphone bleated before Mort could determine what that look on her face was about. She stood and stepped away from Mort and Larry, still carrying her pad and pen. She murmured yes and um-hum while she went to the sofa on the far wall. She sat and began writing notes.

  “Can you spell that for me, please?…His DOB?…Any aliases?…Priors?” Willers jotted for a while in response to that question. “Where?…And the dates?…Any known associates he might have had a pattern of teaming with?” Her eyes registered disappointment a heartbeat after she asked that question. “Thank you very much. You have my fax and email, right? Send me hard copies. I’ll let you know if I find out anything and trust you’ll do the same.” Rita Willers thanked the caller again and hung up.

  “We have an ID,” Willers announced.

  “On whom?” Larry asked. Mort updated him on Blue Dancer’s spotting of one of the men she dropped off at the sweat lodge.

  “He must be one of the killers!” Larry gasped. “You’ve cracked the case.”

  “Hold on.” Mort didn’t want to build his friend’s hopes. “What we have is an ID on a man Blue Dancer says was one of the men. People look alike. She was scared. We’re a long way from an arrest. Besides, knowing a man’s name and having him in custody are two different things. Who is he?” he asked Rita Willers.

  Rita read off her notepad. “Jerry Costigan, aka Jerry Kaufmann, Jerry Cougar, and Johnny Costigan. Forty-two years old. Born in Vancouver. First arrested twenty-six years ago for stealing gas out of a neighbor’s car. Followed that up with a long list of arrests for everything from grand theft auto to strong-arm robbery to battery. Released four months ago after completing a seven-year stretch for assault with a deadly weapon. Stabbed a parking attendant nineteen times when he wouldn’t let him pull a lost ticket scam. The boy lived, but apparently it came awfully close to a murder charge.”

  “Knives,” Larry said, his eyes bright with excitement. “Just like the weapons used in the sweat lodge.”

  “Where’d he do his time?” Mort asked.

  Rita referred again to her notes. “Monroe Correctional Complex.”

  “My God! I know that place.” Larry turned to Mort. “Carlton, Abraham, and I go there to parole hearings. That’s the same prison where Kenny Kamm is held.” Larry spun to face Rita Willers. “The man who killed my wife is in that same prison.”

  Mort held Willers’s gaze, falling into a law enforcement communication that needed no words.

  “Could be,” Mort said. “Man’s been in prison a long time. Three people always testifying against him whenever he gets a chance to make parole.”

  Rita stood and crossed over to lay a hand on Larry’s shoulder. “If Kamm’s getting even, you and Abraham Smydon might be on his target list. Where could you go? Think of a place no one would expect you to be. A place where no one would know who you were.”

  Larry gave her a weary smile. “Rita, once you’ve been on Oprah, there’s no such thing as anonymity. Besides, I’m not hiding.” He looked toward Mort. “Abraham’s seventy-five. Hale as a horse yet, nonetheless, seventy-five. He should have some protection.”

  “Everybody take a deep breath. Lots of people run through the prison system. This could be nothing more than a coincidence. Rita, let’s you and I take a drive out to Monroe. I’ll ask Jimmy to call Abraham and, without going into too much detail, urge him to stay safe. We don’t need him going off half-cocked and spoiling the investigation.” He turned to his friend. “You take precautions, too, Larry.”

  L. Jackson Clark stood and held Mort in a no-nonsense gaze. “How’s this for a plan? For the next few hours I’m with you two. Kenny Kamm murdered my wife. If this son of a bitch has an issue with me, he can look into my eyes and tell me directly.”

  Mort glanced over to Rita, who nodded her understanding. He looked back at Larry, unsure of what pain might lie waiting for his friend if he sat across the table from his wife’s killer. What he saw in Larry’s eyes assured him that whatever came, it would
pale when compared to Helen’s murder.

  Reluctantly, he nodded. “Okay,” Mort said. “Let’s everyone do what they need to do to free up their morning. I’ll make some calls. Meet back here at nine o’clock.”

  He watched them both leave his office and felt an odd buzz deep inside him. It felt like a warning. Like maybe he was about to step on a trail leading to something a smarter man would let be.

  Chapter 16

  The bell rang and Mrs. Drennan called out to her first-grade class. “Seat time, everyone. Here we go.” The young teacher started to hum the theme from a well-known quiz show. That thirty-second stretch of music warning contestants they were in Final Jeopardy. Fourteen six-year-olds joined in on the singing and quickly made their way to small work tables scattered around the large Seattle Urban Day School classroom. They all knew the rule. Be at your assigned seat before Mrs. Drennan got to the final beat of the song. There was no “or else.” The talented teacher had made it enough of a game that the children found pleasure just in the doing. Sure enough, every child was in place by the last note. Even Nathan Briarley, and that kid took too long doing everything.

  Hayden Grant took her seat at the table of four she’d been assigned to two weeks earlier on the first day of school. This was her spot, closest to the window and not five steps from the big whiteboard where Mrs. Drennan illustrated the daily lessons. Hayden shared her worktable with Bella Wasserman, whom she was absolutely, 100 percent certain would become her best friend. The two of them loved to run at recess until their legs burned, and Hayden was sure it was just a matter of time before Bella invited her to her house and showed her that new puppy she was always bragging about. Cindy Meadows was a tablemate, too. Cindy was nice enough, but Hayden thought she spent way too much time looking at herself in that little mirror she kept tucked inside her reading workbook. Cindy didn’t think Mrs. Drennan knew about the mirror, but Hayden had seen the look on their teacher’s face a couple of times. She knew. Cindy’s parents were in for an earful at the next conference day.

  There was a boy at Hayden’s table: Ben Reggles. Everybody called him Bingo. He was always helping the teacher hand out papers and collecting crayons when art time was over. Bingo didn’t want to be sitting with the girls any more than the girls wanted him to be sitting with them. But Mrs. Drennan said everybody had to mix it up. She said it was so they’d know they’re all alike. But as much as Hayden thought Bingo was okay, she knew that the paste-eating, leg-bouncing boy was nothing like her.

  Hayden looked back over her shoulder to the three-person worktable by the classroom door. She saw Hadley straightening the strap of the uniform of the girl sitting beside her. Penny O’Malley was taller than everybody else in the first-grade room. Except for Mrs. Drennan, of course, and Penny almost came up to her shoulder. Penny walked stooped over all the time. Hayden figured she was trying to make herself shorter. But it didn’t work. All it did was mess with her uniform straps. After Hadley fixed her up, Hayden saw her reach over to hold hands with Maya Hawkins. They played finger games and giggled until Mrs. Drennan announced it was time for News of the Day. Hadley let go of Maya’s hands and glanced toward her twin. Hayden gave her a wink and turned to face the front of the room. The school day had officially begun.

  Mrs. Drennan announced that the day was Thursday. She gave the date and told them two very interesting things that happened on that day long, long ago. Hayden liked this part of the morning ritual. It set her mind spinning to think of things happening before she was even alive. She wondered, as Mrs. Drennan talked about kings and inventions and great discoveries, if there were six-year-old girls around during those times. Had they known what was going on and did they grow up to do great things themselves? Then Mrs. Drennan told them the day’s schedule. First they’d do math, Hayden’s favorite subject. They were doing amounts and she couldn’t look at anything these days without wondering how many quarts or cents or inches something was. Then would come reading. Hadley was better at reading than she was, but Hayden loved it when Mrs. Drennan pulled a book from that big shelf behind her desk and read to them. After reading would come art and recess and history and lunch and quiet time and science and then more math. They’d end the day with a visitor coming in to tell them how Seattle got its name.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” Mrs. Drennan said. “It has to do with a great Native American tribal chief…and how nobody could pronounce his name!” Hayden giggled along with the rest of the first graders. A lot of times she had trouble saying words. Hadley made fun of her every now and then about it. Today they’d learn about other people with the same kind of trouble.

  “Bingo?” Mrs. Drennan asked. “Can you and Jilly come up here to pass out this morning’s math sheets, please?”

  The classroom door opened just as Bingo and Jilly scraped their chairs back and stood. The room erupted in squeals of delight as two fairy princesses waltzed into the room. Each one carried a low and wide box.

  “What is this?” Mrs. Drennan asked in that way grown-ups do when they’re acting like they don’t know what’s going on but really they probably planned it in the first place. The princesses weaved their way through the worktables. One had blond hair, like Hayden. She was dressed in a shimmering blue gown that reminded Hayden of Cinderella. She waved her magic wand above the children’s heads as she made her way to the front of the room. The other princess had black curly hair, like her friend Bella Wasserman’s. She wore a silver dress that glistened in the light like it was made of ice. She had a magic wand, too. And she waved it just like the blue princess. Hayden looked back to see her sister waving her hands in the air as if she had a wand all her own.

  The princesses stood on either side of Mrs. Drennan. They held a finger over their lips, telling the children to quiet down.

  “Why are you visiting us today?” Mrs. Drennan asked. Hayden figured she knew exactly why they were there. And she figured it had something to do with those boxes.

  “We bring a very special gift for the class.” The Blue Princess set her magic wand on the teacher’s desk. “Because it’s a very special day.”

  “What day is it?” Mrs. Drennan asked. Hayden wished she’d knock it off and just show what was in the boxes.

  The kids starting shouting out, all at once and all over one another. “It’s someone’s birthday!” “There’s no school today!” “We’re having another field day!” “Somebody’s mom had a baby!”

  “Tut, tut!” The Silver Princess waved her wand. “When you’re quiet we’ll tell you. And we’ll show you what’s in these boxes.”

  The room fell instantly silent.

  The Blue Princess pulled a bundled scroll out of a pocket in her billowing skirt. She made a big deal of unrolling it and holding it in front of her. Hayden knew this meant it was a proclamation. She’d seen people in movies about a time her dad called The Olden Days hold papers like that. That’s always how you do it when you’re about to read something very important.

  “A special treat for a special day,” the Blue Princess read. “A special family day. A day when an aunt, who loves her nieces very much…” The Blue Princess took her time drawing out the word very. It was like how people talk to babies, Hayden thought. And there were no babies in that classroom.

  “Wants them to know how dear they are to her and how very sweet she thinks they are.”

  The Silver Princess opened her box and the room got noisy again. The most beautiful cupcakes Hayden had ever seen were inside it. Each was iced with a different pale shade. Hayden knew that twelve made a dozen, and it looked like there were more than a dozen in that box. She wondered what the word for the next measurement up was. She’d ask Mrs. Drennan when math class finally started. The frosting was piled high and decorated with sprinkles and sparkles. The Silver Princess walked around the room, offering each student a cupcake. Every student took one, and no one had to be reminded to say “Thank you.”

  Then the Blue Princess opened her box. Small milk boxes with attached
straws were handed out as she walked through the room. Hayden popped her straw into her box and took a long swig. She’d chosen a pale green cupcake with sparkles of white and the palest blue. It looked like a mermaid should jump out of it. Hayden looked back and saw Hadley had chosen a pink cupcake. That was just like her. Hadley liked everything and anything pink. Sometimes Hayden thought you could paint dog poop pink and Hadley would think it was the cutest thing ever.

  The students gobbled their cupcakes. Nothing like this had ever happened in school before. She remembered they’d all had to have their parents sign a note saying it was okay to have treats and what were okay, but they’d never actually had one before. Hayden was just glad everybody’s parents gave the okay to have a cupcake and milk.

  “Finish up, class.” Mrs. Drennan ate her own cupcake. Its frosting was the color of sunshine. “Let’s say goodbye and thank you to the lovely princesses.”

  A chorus of appreciation rang out. The two princesses curtsied in response. The Silver Princess held her finger to her lips one last time and pulled out another scroll.

  Not another proclamation, Hayden thought. It’s time for math.

  “There’s no mystery who to thank for these treats.” The Silver Princess sounded like she was saying something very important. “Look no further than to the sweetest girls in the room. These cupcakes honor Hadley and Hayden Grant. Given with much love by Aunt Allie.”

  Hayden’s jaw dropped. Bella, Cindy, and Bingo all reached across the worktable to pat her on the back. Hayden looked back to where her twin sat. Hadley’s eyes were wide, and her smile was even wider.

  Hayden looked around the classroom. Everyone was smiling and waving. Even Mrs. Drennan gave her a pat on the head as she escorted the princesses out of the room. Hayden thought of her papa and when they’d met Aunt Allie the day before. Papa told them to run back to Mom. He said it was ten-zero.