“I’m sure all the nearby lots will go up in value once this place is knocked down. Mr. Ernest said as much.”
“Oh, him.” Pamela crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. “He could have never afforded his place if he hadn’t inherited it. Knocking down Marla Lever’s eyesore will enhance his home’s value. He’s done as much as he can to block the view of this place, adding expensive landscaping and shrubs.” She patted her hair. “Are you still single, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Steer clear of that one. Even though I’ve known him his whole life, he gives me the willies.”
I bid Pamela goodbye and walked back to my car. Detweiler was waiting in his Impala to follow me to Sheila’s house.
47
Hadcho was there at Sheila’s when Detweiler and I arrived separately. Robbie Holmes was exactly where I’d left him, but the kitchen was now clean. Linnea, my mother-in-law’s maid, bustled around making dinner. She moved to hug me, but I explained that I was too gross to touch.
“I’d like a raincheck for that hug. Can I have it after my shower?”
“You’ve got it, sugar,” said the black woman. “I’ll make you a little snack to hold you until dinner, darlin’. You’re probably plum worn out. Working in that heat. I never.”
The effect of the temps, the emotion of Anthony’s room, and the worry about Trudy piled up on me. While the men spread their paperwork on Sheila’s dining room table, I hauled myself upstairs. Sheila kept all her guest bathrooms filled with luxurious soaps, shampoos, and skin softeners. For a long while, I stood under the showerhead, enjoying the feeling of water sluicing over my skin and knowing it carried away the stink of the day. When I climbed out, I wrapped myself in the thick terry robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I planned to get dressed, but exhaustion overtook me. As soon as my backside touched the bed, I quit fighting the urge to take a nap. I couldn’t have been asleep very long when my phone rang. I recognized Mert’s number and answered with a groggy, “Hello?”
“Roger and his pal cleaned the poop off your walls,” said Mert, “but he thinks a new coat of paint is in order. You want them painted the same color? Roger can ask Mr. Haversham if he’s got extra paint stashed somewhere. You got your landlord’s cell phone number? Can you get in touch with him?”
“Actually, I’d like to change the color, and I know that Leighton won’t mind.”
“The walls will need to dry from all the scrubbing the boys did,” said Mert. “You’ve got time to think over what you’d like.”
“How did your meeting with Ali Timmons go?”
“All right, I guess. She wasn’t happy that we weren’t all the way done, but she knew we’d been working hard.”
“Are we working tomorrow?”
“Not until one. Ali’s planning to get a man from a local gallery to come look at those totem poles we found. She got all excited thinking they might be worth good money. Between you and me, I wouldn’t let one of them near my house with a ten-foot pole.”
Mert obviously wasn’t listening to herself or she would have caught the irony. To my credit, I didn’t remark on it. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and listened as she prattled on.
“I told Ali Timmons how full the Dumpster was, and asked her what she wanted me to do with a couple of rugs her mother’s cats had used as potty boxes. They looked to me like they might have been worth something once upon a time.”
I nodded as I listened, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I had a brainstorm. “Mert, where’s the poop? I haven’t seen any. How come Marla didn’t have any potty boxes? Did you toss them out? Because I didn’t.”
“You worry about the strangest things,” she said with a chuckle. A silence followed, as I listened to her breathing. “I didn’t find any potty boxes. Not even on Day One. Johnny found three or four big bags of litter in the garage.”
That wasn’t surprising. Those of us accustomed to Midwestern winters often loaded our cars down with bags of cat litter when the seasons changed. When sprinkled on ice, the bits of grit gave our tires a better purchase on slick surfaces, while the weight gave our tires more traction.
“Marla had cat litter for her pets, but where were the boxes? No food bags either. Why would someone take those? It’s remotely possible that Marla tossed her old cat litter trays to buy new ones because company was coming, but why would she dump her food bags, too? We know her son brought her litter, but there weren’t any signs of it. Why? How could she have run out of all the food and all the litter and all the boxes at once? Right before my visit? That doesn’t make sense.”
Turning the pieces over in my mind, I half-dozed off. Garbage in, garbage out. But how and why? I thought about Martin. About feeding him and making him poop. The food went in, the food went out.
“Kiki?” Mert prompted me. “You still there?”
“Kiki?” Linnea’s voice drifted up to me from outside my door.
“Honey? You ready for something to eat?”
“Got to go,” I said to Mert. “Call you later.”
48
Detweiler had news for me when I joined the men at the dining room table. “That was Allen Lever’s cell phone number on the back of Fred Ernest’s card. You were right; Trudy Squires had added it to her phone directory.”
“Does he have an alibi for last night? What happens next?”
“Can’t answer that. Since Lever lives in Belleville we’ve got a problem,” said Robbie. “We don’t have jurisdiction in Illinois.”
Linnea toddled over to give me that hug. “Your hair’s still wet,” she said, clucking over me. “Let me get you one of those headwraps Miss Sheila likes so much.”
After she left the room, I asked, “Where is Sheila?”
“She should be back any time from picking up Anya. I’m here because they’re working on the Internet at the police station.”
“And because Linnea treats us like royalty,” said Hadcho, eying a plate of oatmeal cookies the maid set down at his elbow.
“Go on with you.” Linnea gave him a playful slap on the arm as she returned and handed me the turban. “Kiki, I made you a snack to hold you until your supper, honey. Freshly brewed iced tea, too.”
Her iced tea is the best in the world, partially because she always adds fruit juices or mint to the mix. After downing one tall glass, I asked, “More please?”
“Bless your heart, of course.” Linnea took my empty glass and set down a plate of turkey slices wrapped around string cheese.
“You look all beat up, honey.” “That’s it!” I slapped the table top. The three of the men stared at me.
“Did anyone outside of your department know that Mrs. Newcomber had been beaten with a baseball bat?”
“No,” Robbie said. “Except for you.”
“Day before yesterday, Fred Ernest wandered over to talk to us. He mentioned that Mrs. Newcomber had been beaten with a baseball bat. How would he know that? To top it off, Fred Ernest knew that Marla was having a scrapbook party at her house. I doubt that her kids did, seeing as how they were all mad at her. Maybe he’s the one who tripped the circuit on Marla’s A/C.”
“Right, but why?” Hadcho asked.
“To set Marla up as a murderer,” I said. “She couldn’t defend herself if she was in a coma. My visit was as good a time as any to make Marla look guilty. Johnny told me that guys in prison bragged about setting other people up to take the fall all the time.”
“That’s one explanation for what happened,” said Detweiler. “Following your logic, the perpetrator messes with the A/C, convinced that the heat would do Mrs. Lever in. Maybe he or she even meant to unplug the freezer but didn’t get the chance. Your early arrival interrupted someone’s plans.”
“We’re back to my original question, why?” asked Hadcho. “How does Fred Ernest benefit?”
“Her place was an eyesore and depressed the neighborhood property values. If he got rid of Marla, a new neighbor would move in.”
All three men glanced at each other, and I realized that a message had passed among them.
“But we still don’t know who killed Mrs. Newcomber or why,” said Hadcho. “Unless Mrs. Lever actually did the deed herself and stuffed the woman in her freezer.”
“What if the killer turned off Marla’s air, let her swelter, and crossed their fingers hoping that after she died, Mrs. Newcomber’s body would be discovered—and Marla would be blamed for her neighbor’s death. A slam-dunk.”
“A slam-dunk?” Robbie waggled an amused eyebrow at me.
“I don’t know much about baseball, but I love basketball,” I said. “If Clancy and I hadn’t arrived an hour early for that crop, Marla would have died.”
Robbie cleared his throat. “There is another explanation. Mrs. Lever had an unusual amount of Tofranil in her system. That probably caused her to have a stroke. Since she had a prescription for the drug, it’s possible she had decided to commit suicide. Maybe out of guilt for what she did to Mrs. Newcomber.”
I sat there, stunned. “Why kill herself when she knew we were coming?”
“She wanted her body to be found, and so she chose her time frame carefully,” said Robbie. “It’s possible that Mrs. Lever miscalculated the number of pills she needed to take. Or that she forgot you were coming early. Sorry, Kiki, but I’ve been over all this with her family. They feel that the stress of having company pushed Marla Lever right over the edge.”
My stomach turned a flip. I got up and ran to the powder room.
49
After rinsing out my mouth and splashing cold water on my face, I went back to the dining room table. Linnea, that paragon of kindness, had removed the turkey and replaced it with a selection of dry crackers. My iced tea was gone. In its place was a steaming mug of hot tea. The sugar bowl was within easy reach.
“Look,” said Detweiler, spreading his big hands wide to appeal to me. “You can’t blame yourself. The Levers are all feeling guilty, and you’re an easy scapegoat.” I nodded.
“Those threats toward you? We get stuff like that all the time,” said Hadcho. “Accusations, too. But here’s the deal. What if you hadn’t called us? Someone else would have walked into that house, sometime or another. We would have been involved. It’s a matter of timing, that’s all.”
“I didn’t tell you about their accusations earlier because I didn’t want you to feel bad,” said Robbie. “I’m telling you now because you need to stay vigilant. There’s already been one round of vandalism at your house. Luckily you weren’t there. You need to stay here under Sheila’s roof until Leighton comes back. Then we’ll see what sort of security devices we might add to whatever it is that you’ve got.”
“Can you check out Fred Ernest?” I asked. “You have to admit, he’s pretty creepy. And he did share Allen Timmons’ number with Trudy. You could bring him in for questioning, because he lives on this side of the river.”
Again, the men glanced at each other. They waited for Robbie to decide how much to tell me.
“We’re doing our best,” he said. “Other than hearsay from you that he knew Mrs. Newcomber was bludgeoned to death, we have nothing to go on. Forensics is examining her body. It’s not like on TV where it’s done instantly. So far they haven’t found anything. Even if they do, we’d need a way to get DNA samples from Mr. Ernest for comparison. Right now we don’t have probable cause. It’s too early for me to ask the man to come down to the station and give us samples.”
“But he gave Allen Timmons’ phone number to Trudy and she’s missing.”
“He could have done that for all sorts of reasons. We can’t draw a straight line from him sharing the phone number to her disappearance.”
Sheila and Anya’s voices burst through the back entrance. My child came running into the dining room and threw her arms around my neck. “Hi, Mom. Guess what? Gran and I went shopping for Martin!”
Sheila struggled under the burden of several plastic bags. Hadcho was closest to her, so he rose and helped her with the parcels.
“Cat litter pan, litter, scoop, catnip, toys, a cat collar, food, and dishes.” Sheila looked pleased with herself.
“Isn’t Martin’s collar neat?” asked Anya, reaching into a bag and holding up a blue plaid strip of fabric. “Look, Linnea! It’s got this elastic piece so if he gets it caught, he won’t choke.”
“Sheila, this is too kind of you,” I said.
“Your hobby is scrapbooking, mine is shopping.” Sheila flicked a strand of silver-white hair off her forehead. “Anya? Please set up the litter pan, like I told you. We can introduce Martin to the cat litter once you get it set up.”
Hadcho carried the parcels up the stairs while Anya used a pair of scissors to cut open a big bag of Tidy Cat. Linnea cleaned a plastic butter tub for my daughter to use as a scoop. In short order, the litter pan was lined with newspaper and had a thick layer of clay particles inside. Anya surveyed her work with pride. After Hadcho returned, my daughter carried the pan upstairs, while Sheila carried Martin in his cat carrier.
My mother-in-law reappeared wearing a smile on her face.
“Everything is set up in Anya’s bathroom. That little rascal knew exactly what that litter was for. I showed Anya how to clean up after him. She’s giving him his bottle.”
“That reminds me of another anomaly,” I said to the cops. “Remember how Sherlock Holmes once solved a mystery because a dog didn’t bark? Something is missing here. Several things in fact. Specifically, there are no cat food containers and kitty litter pans.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Marla marked on her calendar that someone with the first initial ‘A’ was bringing over food for her cats.” Detweiler tapped a finger to a page in his notebook.
“That’s right,” I said. “No name, just an initial. But that doesn’t make sense either because when we got there, we didn’t find one empty bag. Not one. Nor any cans of cat food. Or any litter pans.”
“Maybe she gave up on putting out litter pans. It sure smelled like she had.” Hadcho chuckled.
“Come on. Despite all the crud we cleaned up, there must have been litter pans at one point. Marla mentioned it in her journal, and her son, Allen, told us that on occasion, he brought bags of it to his mother. Otherwise, there would have been even more of a mess on the floors. Allen also said he brought food, but I didn’t see any bags or cans of it. Mert came up with a crazy idea that the bags of meat we found in the freezer were venison. Even so, that would have taken a lot of dead deer.”
“Who supplied the meat?” mused Robbie. “Maybe there’s another person involved in this. Someone else who had access to the house. A regular visitor.”
“But someone who’d be so tidy as to toss out the cat litter pans? And the food bags?” wondered Hadcho. “Right before Marla Lever was due to have company? Did you find any signs of either in the trash bins, Kiki?”
I thought about his question. I clicked open my cell phone and called Mert. I relayed the question to her and put her on speaker phone.
She took a minute to respond. “No. Huh-uh. And we brought all the trash bins with us. Every bin that’s there is one that I brought. No garbage bags either. Why?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just curious. Talk to you later.”
“Okay,” Robbie said. “So this mysterious person turns off Marla’s A/C unit, stuffs a corpse in her freezer, and takes out the trash. Including all signs of cat food and the litter pans. Why?”
“Don’t forget, our mystery guest also dosed Marla with extra Tofranil,” I said. “I’m still not convinced that she tried to kill herself. I talked to her the day before to remind her that we were coming, and she was excited. She definitely did not sound suicidal. I told her that Clancy and I would help her get ready. At that point, she could have told me to cancel. She was intimidated by Rebekkah but not by me.”
“There’s only one reason to get rid of the trash, the food, and the litter pans,” said Detweiler. “There was something incriminating about them. But w
hat?”
50
“Is it possible that someone is poaching deer?” I asked. “We found a meat hook in the back of the garage. There were dried up deer hooves there and blood stains. Since season doesn’t start until September, maybe one of the Lever-Timmons crew jumped the gun? If that’s the case, the hunter could have been supplying Marla with deer meat all along.”
“You’re suggesting that this person panicked?” Hadcho asked.
“I’m thinking that he or she, but most likely he, supplied Marla with ground deer meat all year long—even out of season, which is illegal. Given the number of deer in the metro-St. Louis area, no one would have noticed them missing.”
“But it would have still been against the law,” said Robbie.
“We might have interrupted the person when he was cleaning out Marla’s refrigerator freezer.”
Detweiler frowned. “You think that this person gathered up all the food dishes and litter pans so there wouldn’t be any forensic evidence of what the cats were being fed, short of examining the animals themselves.”
“That would explain why Mrs. Newcomber was the victim. Maybe she figured out what they were doing. Remember, she did eventually get her cat back. What if she realized he’d been eating deer meat?”
“How would she know that?” Hadcho asked.
“If her cat had parasites, and her vet noticed them…” I got up and went into the next room where Sheila’s laptop was running.
“Yup. Look here,” I said as the guys came over to join me. “See? There are a variety of internal parasites that are deer specific.”
A few more clicks took me to a zoological site that listed bacteria, viruses, and worms that could be transmitted from wild animals to domestic ones. For some there was no proof of transmission, just a high probability.
Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books! Page 63