by Elaine Viets
I wanted to escape to my home, but my work cell phone chimed. The ID said CHOUTEAU COUNTY PD.
Now what?
‘Angela, it’s Sergeant Bob Baker. I’m working the desk. You left your iPad when you were here earlier.’
Bob was one of the good guys at the Forest PD. ‘Thanks. I’ll be right there.’
I was only a few minutes away. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten my iPad – it was like an extension of my arm. I must have been really rattled over Mario’s arrest. For a minute, I wondered if Stu had made it disappear, but dismissed that thought. It was my fault. I was distracted and left it behind. At least I’d filed my DI report.
Sgt Baker was behind the desk. He was a big, white-haired cop with high color and a nice smile. He smiled when he saw me and handed me my iPad in the black case. Then he looked around the lobby, checking to make sure it was empty, and lowered his voice. I leaned in to hear. ‘Angela, a word to the wise. I know Mario Garcia is a friend of yours, but don’t get caught helping him, or Greiman will have you up on charges of interfering with an investigation. He already thinks you let the staff at Killer Cuts know he had a search warrant.’
‘He executed the warrant?’
‘And didn’t find so much as an aspirin.’
Raquel must have flushed those, too, I thought. She was taking no chances.
‘Let me guess – he hit on Raquel and she turned him down.’
Bob smirked. ‘That’s what the uniform told me. Greiman is hopping mad and looking for trouble, Angela. Watch your back.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’ I slipped my iPad into my bag and was out the door, where I found the two remaining members of Jessica’s entourage. Tawnee and Will were smoking real cigarettes, puffing like a couple of coal-fired chimneys. Both looked like they’d had a rough day. Tawnee looked worn and wrinkled, her blond hair flat. Will’s hair seemed coated with 40-weight motor oil. He had an unfashionable five o’clock shadow.
Tawnee waved at me like I was a long-lost friend. ‘Angela!’
‘Are you going home to California?’ I asked.
‘No, Stu says we have to stay here.’ She sounded angry. ‘He’s changed his mind. Now he says we can’t go home until her body is released.’
‘Her body.’ Not Jessica.
‘You looked surprised when Stu said he and Jessica were married,’ I asked. ‘Didn’t you suspect something?’
‘Hell, no. She ordered him around like a servant. You saw that. He couldn’t smoke, just like the rest of us. I wonder if she ordered him to do the deed. Can you imagine Stu pumping away on that pile of bones?’
‘Please,’ Will said, covering his eyes. ‘I can’t unsee that.’
What was wrong with these people? The woman they’d worked with and traveled with was dead. Didn’t they care? They’d witnessed her death – no, her murder – less than eight hours ago. And now they were joking about her sex life. I was too disgusted to say anything.
‘Maybe he did it for the money,’ Tawnee said. ‘Married her, I mean.’
‘What money?’ Will said. ‘She spent it all touring.’
‘That can’t be true. Every seat at her show was filled,’ I said. ‘She had to be selling out the theater.’
Will’s laugh was nasty. ‘And when the seats didn’t sell, she papered the house. I heard about half of the St Louis shows were free tickets. Don’t forget those free samples of her product. You should have seen how many of those were left behind in the theater. That last night, the leftovers could have filled a dumpster.’
‘Don’t people like her products?’ The Forest dwellers sure snapped up her freebies at the party.
‘Are you kidding? That health drink was kale, for gawd’s sake. Nobody likes that stuff. You can get a kale smoothie for six bucks. She was charging sixty.’
‘Stu kept the books,’ Tawnee said. ‘He would know if she had money, Will. You’re just upset because she refused to back your new make-up line.’
‘Am not,’ Will said, sounding about six years old. ‘I can get private financing. I plan to meet with my backers as soon as I’m in LA again.’
‘What about you, Tawnee?’ I asked. ‘What will you be doing?’
‘It’s scary,’ Tawnee said. ‘But for the first time in years, I’m finally free.’ She blew smoke like a happy dragon. ‘Too bad I’m stuck in bumfuck nowhere.’
I tried to ignore this insult to my town.
Will was the only one of the entourage who hadn’t given his opinion of the Forest, but Tawnee wasn’t shy about sharing her feelings. ‘I told Stu a week is my limit, and then I’m going home. And he’s paying us double to stay, or I’m hopping on the first plane out of here.’
‘Good luck prying money out of him,’ Will said.
‘I have a text confirming the terms,’ Tawnee said. ‘And he’s paying for the Chouteau Forest Inn. He put our rooms on his credit card. I watched him.’
A black SUV pulled up and Tawnee checked her phone. ‘That’s our Uber to the inn,’ she said. ‘See you.’
I hoped not. I never wanted to encounter this heartless bunch again.
FOURTEEN
I fled to my car, anxious to get away from Jessica’s nasty crew. I was still on call, but I could wait for my next assignment at home. Death investigators usually worked out of an office, but the ME, Evarts Evans, took my office space so he could have a fancy shower in his office. Fine with me. I liked my freedom.
Today, I didn’t make it out of the parking lot when my work cell phone chimed, and I checked the ID – Butch Chetkin – a Chouteau Forest detective. Another good one.
‘Angela,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a body on Shirley Circle. You know where that is?’
‘Right off the interstate,’ I said. ‘Which house?’
‘No house,’ he said. ‘It’s in the vacant lot in the circle. He’s a homeless man.’
Homeless? I hesitated, then said, ‘We don’t have homeless people in the Forest.’
‘We have this one,’ Butch said. ‘Four days ago, the PD got reports that he was panhandling on the interstate exit, but when a car drove out there to check it out, he was gone. We thought he’d moved on. Turns out he was dead.’
‘Exposure?’ I asked.
‘It doesn’t look like natural causes,’ Butch said. ‘We need you here.’
‘I’m at the cop shop. I’m on my way.’ I hung up.
Shirley Circle was the closest Chouteau County had to a slum. It was in Toonerville, the Old Guard’s sneery nickname for the blue-collar section of town. The circle was five rundown fifties shoeboxes next to a vacant lot bisected by a creek.
I parked on the circle behind three cop cars, and trundled my DI case over to the lot. An ambulance was parked at the edge, and a work-worn woman of about forty was inside, wrapped in blankets and sipping hot coffee. She was talking to Butch while two huge paramedics hovered protectively nearby. I paused and listened to her tell her story. She’d obviously recited it before.
‘I got off at my usual bus stop on Gravois,’ she said. ‘I was walking home, checking out the specials at the supermarket when the wind pulled the flyer right out of my hand. Took all my coupons. I ran after it, and that’s when I found that poor old man, dead in the weeds.’ Her voice was shaking and filled with tears.
‘I dropped my purse, ran into the street, and flagged down my neighbor’s car. She called you, and then I got the palpitations and passed out. But I’m fine now.’
I doubted that. She was shivering uncontrollably and her face was white as paper.
‘Did you touch the deceased, Mrs Gordon?’ Butch asked, his voice gentle.
‘No. I was afraid to. He looked like he’d been real sick. He had blood everywhere. And other things, too. There was a package nearby. Something in foil. I didn’t touch that, either.’
Butch patted her arm and said, ‘You stay here and recover a bit, Mrs Gordon. I’ll take your statement later.’
I met the detective on the street, out of earshot from t
he ambulance. ‘I heard her talking, Butch. She must be really upset after finding that body.’
‘Poor woman’s in shock and has a dicey heart, but refuses to go to the hospital. Said she can’t afford it. Works two jobs.’ Butch shook his head.
The detective, a big, barrel-chested man, wore a dark police windbreaker, dark pants, and heavy boots. I eyed the weedy lot and wished I hadn’t taken my boots out of the car to clean them. I needed them at this investigation.
‘Can I carry your case?’ he asked.
I brushed him off, then hoped I didn’t sound too abrupt. I appreciated his offer, but I didn’t want to seem like a helpless female. I dragged the case across the hard, cold ground, sticker plants pulling at my DI pantsuit.
‘He’s over there, by those maples,’ Butch said. He pointed to a stand of winter-dead trees.
The old man had died hard. He was on a bed of brown leaves, curled up in the fetal position. Dried blood was in his nose and open mouth. He’d thrashed around in bloody feces and vomit. Near his right hand was a foil-wrapped package.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
Butch was wearing latex gloves, but he didn’t touch the foil. ‘Nitpicker is working the scene. I’ll get her. She’s working his campsite near the creek.’
‘Why wasn’t he at his campsite when he died?’ I asked.
‘My guess is when he started getting real sick, he didn’t want to mess it up.’ Butch left to find Nitpicker. Sarah ‘Nitpicker’ Byrne, the Forest’s best CSI tech, was a sturdy woman of about thirty, and her hair color was her one flight of fancy. Today it was lime green. I’d gotten lucky with this case – a good detective and a good CSI tech.
Nitpicker handled the foil package as if it contained a bomb. She carefully opened it and we saw the remains of a sausage sandwich in a thick red sauce. ‘I’ll have the foil printed and the sandwich analyzed,’ she said.
‘Think he was poisoned?’ I asked.
‘That’s my guess,’ Butch said. ‘But you’d have to have a heart of stone to kill an old man that way.’
I fired up my iPad, and was opening the ‘Unidentified Persons’ form, when Nitpicker came running up with a worn brown leather wallet. ‘I found some ID,’ she said. ‘He hid it under his sleeping bag.’
We went through the wallet’s contents – a used bus ticket from Chicago to St Louis, a McDonald’s receipt for a 99-cent burger, and two wrinkled one-dollar bills. An expired Illinois driver’s license had a name – Harold Galloway – a Chicago address, and a birth date, February 12, 1947, which made him seventy-two years old. He also had a VA card. ‘He’s a Vietnam vet, if this is his information,’ Butch said. ‘The driver’s license photo looks like him.’
We both knew that wasn’t enough for a formal ID. ‘If Mr Galloway is really a veteran, he was fingerprinted when he enlisted,’ Butch said. ‘He’ll be in the system.’
Fortunately, the body’s hands could still be printed. They’d been preserved by the cold weather.
‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’ I asked.
‘One day,’ Butch said. ‘Two at the most.’
I switched to the ‘Death Due to the Ingestion of Alcohol and/or Medications and/or Poisons’ form, along with my usual ‘Death Scene Investigation’ form. After unzipping my DI case and putting on several pairs of latex gloves, I went to work. I noted the time – 2:17 p.m. – and the body’s location, the northeast corner of the lot, 15 feet from the curb. The day was overcast and the ambient temperature was a chilly 22 degrees. I took the temperature on the ground by the body and it was one degree cooler. I was grateful for the cold weather – it kept the stink down.
I didn’t find any poisons or prescription bottles on or near the body, and no alcoholic beverages. There were no corrosive substances nearby, such as antifreeze, pesticides, cleaning agents or other potential poisons.
I snapped my photos next. Mr Galloway had been tall and lean – six feet two inches. I estimated the decedent’s weight at 180 pounds. His thin white hair was pulled into a greasy ponytail. His gray-white beard reached almost to his collarbone and was speckled with vomit, blood, and what looked like red sauce. He had a two-inch bruise (contusion) on his right cheek. He was missing three teeth – one front tooth (#8) and two in the upper right quadrant (#3 and #4). The remaining teeth were crooked and yellow. His face was red and roughened. He was not wearing a wedding ring or any jewelry.
He wore a stained and ragged green Army jacket. Brown wool gloves with holes in three fingers were jammed in his jacket pocket. He wore no belt. I turned down his waistband and found bruises in the waist area, possibly from contact with his pants. I wondered if he’d had some kind of Coumadin overdose. Blood thinners sometimes left bruises from contact with waistbands, watches, rings, even bra straps.
His hands were liver-spotted and callused. He had a three-inch bruise on his right hand and a half-inch cut-like defect near the thumb. I didn’t see any signs of a struggle or skin under his fingernails, but I bagged his hands anyway. His scuffed black lace-up shoes were worn at the heels. The sole of the right shoe had come loose and was duct-taped to the upper. I lifted his pants legs and noticed a deep and very old twelve-inch scar on his right calf. I wondered if he’d walked with a limp.
I pulled up his sleeves to check for track marks or the tell-tale craters from skin popping. I found no signs of drug abuse on his arms, but he did have a faded tattoo on his right bicep: an angry eagle clutching a flag. Underneath it was this banner: Vietnam Vet 1968-1970.
‘Butch,’ I called. ‘Come see this.’
I showed him further proof that decedent had been a veteran. ‘What a country,’ Butch said. ‘This is how we treat the people who fight for us.’ We sadly contemplated the old soldier, who’d spent his youth fighting an unpopular war in an unknown land. I felt a stab of pity – useless pity. The only way to help Harold Galloway now was to work this case and find his killer.
‘I have a couple of leads,’ Butch said. ‘Four days ago, starting at 9:12 in the morning, there were six nine-one-one calls complaining about a panhandler at this highway exit. Three of them were made by Evelyn DuMont.’
‘She’s the head of the Forest Beautification Committee,’ I said. An angry, imperious woman used to getting her way. ‘She must have been in a real lather.’
‘She was furious. She made the calls every ten minutes. Finally, the nine-one-one operator warned her to quit calling or she’d be arrested. Then we got calls from Liz Du Pres, Sloan Masters, and Deborah Smythe-Harris.’
‘I know them,’ I said. ‘They’re the other members of the committee. Known as the Flower Nazis. Hardly a corner of the county escapes their attention. They like to report homeowners who leave their garage doors open during the day.’
‘Who cares?’ Butch said.
‘That’s illegal in the Forest. So is parking a boat in your driveway. And leaving your trash containers in front of your house overnight. The committee makes sure these rules are rigidly enforced.’
‘What a waste of the uniforms’ time,’ Butch said.
‘Their latest crusade is demanding that the Forest “do something” about Shirley Circle.’
‘Do what?’ Butch looked puzzled.
‘Get the homeowners to take better care of their lawns. Cite them for uncut grass and other violations. Better yet, have the city condemn the circle, deport the residents to St Louis, and raze the houses.’
‘Those ladies have too much time on their hands,’ Butch said, and laughed.
‘It’s not funny,’ I said. ‘They’re fanatics. Did you find anything else?’
‘A footprint in the mud by the creek. Looks like a thick-soled woman’s shoe, possibly a nurse’s shoe. We’ll have to check it out. Also, the remains of a picnic lunch and a half-empty bottle of water at the campsite.
‘A witness who lives on Shirley said she saw a Brenda Crandle in the lot four days ago,’ he said.
‘Miss Brenda? She’s Evelyn DuMont’s housekeeper,’ I said.
‘What was she doing here?’
‘She was seen talking to the decedent,’ Butch said. ‘She gave him a brown paper shopping bag. How do you know her?’
‘She was a friend of Mom’s. Brenda used to make me chocolate swirl cupcakes when I was a kid. She must be close to eighty now. Brenda is a sweet old lady. She would never …’
As soon as I got halfway through the sentence, I realized I sounded like a typical Forest dweller, assuming my friends would never do anything wrong.
‘I’m pretty sure this man died of poison,’ Butch said. ‘Sweet old ladies can poison someone just as easily as nasty young ones. I’ll tell you what, since you know her, you can go with me when I talk to her. She may talk more around someone she knows.’
I finished the body inspection and the conveyance arrived to take the decedent to the morgue. When I signed off on the paperwork, it was almost five o’clock, and growing dark by the time I followed Butch to Brenda Crandle’s apartment.
Brenda lived in a solid 1950s redbrick building. She answered the door wearing a flowered apron over her white housekeeper’s uniform. She was a round, rosy-cheeked woman with blue eyes and crisply curled white hair.
She smiled when she saw me. ‘Angela, dear, I haven’t seen you in way too long. What brings you here?’
Butch identified himself, and Brenda said, ‘I’ve never met a real detective before. I’m icing cupcakes in the kitchen for the church bake sale.’ She showed no sign of fear or guilt. If I wanted to stop by her home with a detective, that was fine with Brenda.
‘There’s enough for both of you,’ she said. ‘Come join me.’ We followed the path along the plastic runners that protected the pale green living room carpet into Brenda’s kitchen, which smelled pleasantly of warm chocolate.