1 A Small Case of Murder (3 page)

“This guy moved to Youngstown after he graduated from high school.”

Tad said that he was thinking of the same person. “This guy moved to Ohio to work for General Motors.”

“He was there,” Joshua muttered.

“If you want to know more about it, I’ll ask Jill for Rick’s number. You can call him but be discreet. Your kids have already lost a mother. You’re all they’ve got left.”

Chapter Two

“Think.”

“I’m tired of thinking,” Donny told his father. “I don’t know where it is.” In the same breath, he asked, “Are we going to McDonald’s for breakfast?”

Joshua observed the two customers in line ahead of them at Chester Drug Store before checking the time on his watch.

His family had wasted most of the morning searching for Donny’s asthma inhaler, which had been missing for twenty-four hours before he said anything about it. Their search turning up nothing, Joshua took Donny to the pharmacy to get the prescription Tad had called in.

On the corner of Carolina Avenue and Fifth Street in the heart of town, Chester Drug Store had been owned and operated by the Martin family since 1960 in spite of business ownership in the Ohio valley being in a state of constant turnover since the closing of the steel mills.

While waiting to pick up the medicine, Joshua acknowledged the pharmacist’s smile with a wave of his hand.

He had recognized her instantly. Her thick, strawberry-blond hair was lighter and shorter. Freckles were still splashed across her upturned nose. Along with her pretty feminine features, she still exuded enough sexuality to stir his hormones.

She was Beth Davis.

Joshua had almost married her twenty years earlier when he was Oak Glen High School’s star quarterback and she was a varsity cheerleader. They were “the couple” in high school until Joshua went out into the real world and left her behind.

Shuffling forward with the line, Joshua studied the changes he could see in Beth since the last time he had seen her. Tiny lines had formed around her mouth. There were dark circles under her eyes that he didn’t recall noticing in their youth. The pink glow in her cheeks seemed to have been extinguished.

The grin she shot in his direction didn’t reach her eyes.  Despite the air conditioning that caused goose bumps to form on his forearms, Joshua saw beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip.

With the air of a woman to be reckoned with, Bridgette Rawlings Poole blew into the store. She willed customers out of her way to fly to the front of the line.

In her late thirties, Bridgette Rawlings Pool didn’t hold her age well. Her crimson hair and huge silicone breasts attached to her malnourished body added to her outrageous appearance.

Her entrance interrupting thoughts of breakfast, Donny adjusted his glasses to watch the entertainment that commenced when Bridgette Poole slapped her hand onto the counter. “I want my prescription.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” was Beth’s response.

“I don’t have a minute,” the customer snapped.

Lured by the threat of a scene, Jan Martin came out of her office located in the back of the pharmacy. The store manager was a rail-thin woman with brown wire-framed glasses perched on her nose and long copper-colored hair tied back with an elastic band. She was dressed in a pair of khaki pants a size too big and a plain, white, button-down shirt.

Jan’s father had died of cancer before her birth. After Joshua’s parents’ deaths, the two children had shared much time together under Frieda Thornton’s care while Jan’s mother ran the Martin’s family business.

Beth’s smile resembled a sneer. “I’ll be right with you, Mrs. Poole, as soon as I’m finished with this customer.” Ignoring Bridgette’s eyes that were wide with outrage, the druggist returned her attention to her previous customer. “Now, that is erythromycin—”

“Ms. Davis! I never—”

Jan slapped a bag onto the counter and stated in a low, yet pleasant, tone, “Your prescription is right here, Mrs. Poole.”

Bridgette snatched up the bag and checked the pharmacy slip stapled on the front.

While giving her pharmacist a warning glance, Jan punched the buttons on the register before further enraging their customer by stating, “That will be forty-six, ninety-eight.”

Bridgette shouted, “What?”

Jan repeated the amount of the prescription in a calm tone.

“I have insurance.”

“I’m afraid your insurance doesn’t cover this prescription, m’am. I confirmed it myself, Mrs. Poole.” Jan offered her the phone. “If you would like to call the insurance company, you’re welcome to use our phone.”

Grumbling, Bridgette dug her checkbook out of her purse and wrote a check. “Never mind. I’ll pay you. It’s obvious that you need the money more than I do.”

Jan retaliated, “It isn’t because we need the money, Mrs. Poole. It’s because your insurance doesn’t cover elective drugs. But I must say that this ointment has done a wonderful job in erasing your frown lines.”

Bridgette slapped the check onto the counter, grabbed the bag containing her prescription, turned to leave, and collided with Joshua.

Like the changing of a dead light bulb, Bridgette’s arrogance was replaced with congeniality. “Josh?”

Embarrassed to acknowledge knowing the unpleasant customer, Joshua murmured a greeting.

A smile came to her lips. “Visiting the old homestead, huh?”

“Moving back into the old homestead.”

While Bridgette stood her ground to keep his attention, Donny asked Beth if they had time to fill the order for his inhaler. Joshua saw the druggist’s hand tremble when she took the insurance card he held out to her. 

“I heard Jan call you Poole.” Joshua divided his attention between Bridgette and Beth, who was inputting his insurance information into her database. “I guess you married Hal.”

“Yeah, I married him,” Bridgette replied. “He handles the church’s public relations. I manage our finances.”

“I’m not surprised you two kids got married. I remember in school how Hal followed you around like a lost puppy.”

“He’s still devoted.” Her grin was like that of a predator as she admired Joshua’s firm body. “I heard you got married. Are you divorced?”

“She passed away. It’s me and the kids now.” Joshua gestured towards Donny, who had returned to his father’s side after having completed their business.

Bridgette’s smile contorted at the sight of the boy. “How sweet.” Seeming to recall why she was in such a hurry. “I have to go. I have a breakfast meeting at the club.” With a wave of her hand, Bridgette flew up the aisle and out the door.

“Some people never change,” Joshua muttered before turning his attention to his son. “Ready to go?”

“To McDonald’s,” Donny answered. “I’m hungry.”

Joshua squeezed his shoulder while ushering him towards the door. “I could go for a sandwich myself.”

Donny asked along the way. “Who was that witch, Dad?”

“Believe it or not, that was Reverend Rawlings’ daughter.”

“She didn’t look like any pastor’s kids I’ve ever known.”

Joshua had hoped to return home to find empty moving boxes piled up on the front porch. Instead, the boxes were slightly less filled and repositioned from one room to another.

The twins and their sisters were concealed behind stacks of law books that had yet to be shelved in the built-in bookcases in the study. Murphy manned his laptop.

“What are you doing?” Joshua demanded to know. “I gave you jobs to do and you’re playing computer games?”

“We’re taking a break,” Sarah explained. “We’ve been working ever since Donny woke us up with his crisis this morning.”

“We found Rick Pendleton,” J.J. said.

Joshua’s heart dropped into his stomach.

After Tad’s reminder of his status as a single parent, Joshua had dropped the issue of the letter. Lulu Jefferson had died of a drug overdose; the body in the letter wasn’t a matter of official record; and Reverend Rawlings wasn’t someone anyone wanted for an enemy.

“Why are you looking for Rick Pendleton?” Joshua asked.

Murphy replied, “Because he was there when Lulu and your folks found that dead body. He’s the only one still alive to tell us what happened.”

They told Joshua about J.J. checking the Internet for news articles about Lulu’s death. After discovering that the local paper’s web site had no articles dating back that far, he went to the library to check their newspaper archives.

J.J. plunged on, “They didn’t have anything on file about the dead body, but there was a lot of stuff on Lulu.” He showed him a folder with copies of newspaper articles.  

“She got a lot of press.” Joshua balanced the folder in his open palm like a human scale.

“Unfortunately, she got it all after she’d died,” J.J. said. “In a nutshell, her death had been ruled an accidental overdose of heroin or a suicide. Her sister, Karen Jefferson, swore it was murder.”

“Heroin?” Joshua raised an eyebrow.

“Lulu liked to party,” Sarah said. “Booze, pot, and rock and roll.”

“The newspaper editor agreed with Lulu’s sister about it being murder.” Murphy yanked an article out of the stack Joshua held in his hand. “You were right, Dad. Look at her publicity picture.”

Joshua studied the clipping that included a picture of Lulu, an attractive woman with blond hair sitting cross-legged with

a guitar perched across her lap. It was a left-handed guitar. His deduction when he saw her handwriting had been correct.

“The heroin tracks were in her left arm,” Murphy pointed to the section in the article that reported details from the autopsy report, “which means she would have had to inject it with her right hand.”

Joshua read on. “The sheriff theorized that she had a friend do the injection and after she OD’d the guy split.”

Tracy argued, “Yeah, but if she had been serious about her career, she wouldn’t have put tracks in her arms. She would have had the injections where the tracks wouldn’t have shown, like between her toes or under her arms.”

Even though he agreed, Joshua shrugged. The point about the tracks being in the left arm wasn’t grounds enough for an investigation. “There have been a lot of performers, back then and even today, who let their addictions override common sense. Janis Joplin, for one; Jimi Hendrix, for another.” He fingered through the collection of articles. “I guess this sister got nowhere?”

J.J. reminded him that the sheriff was Chuck Delaney, the same one mentioned in Lulu’s letter. “He said no one had a reason to kill her.”

It became clear to Joshua from the clippings that Lulu had been murdered before she had a chance to tell anyone about seeing the picture in Reverend Rawlings’ office.

No one knew about the letter.

“The whole case was dropped after Karen Jefferson got killed in a car accident,” J.J. said. “Her car went off the road eleven months after Lulu died. The newspaper editor died in a fire when his house burnt down six weeks after she got killed.”

Joshua didn’t think it was possible for his heart to sink any lower into the pit of his stomach. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Yeah.” Murphy’s face was flushed with excitement. “Lulu was killed because she saw that guy’s picture in Reverend Rawlings’ office.”

Sarah added, “And we need to bring him to justice.”

“We?” Joshua objected, “There’s no ‘we’ here. I’m not saying I disagree with you. This evidence means that we’re dealing with a very dangerous man here. I don’t want you kids asking questions or stirring up trouble.” He made his point by dropping the folder onto the top of his desk and slapping the laptop shut.

“Ah, come on, Dad,” J.J. said. “You’ve investigated conspiracies and brought down serial killers. This is nothing compared to that.” He held up his forefinger and thumb to symbolize a miniscule quantity. “For you, this is a small case of murder.”

Sleeping alone in the bed he used to share with his wife in what used to be his grandmother’s bedroom, Joshua Thornton wished that he had never opened that envelope and read the contents of Lulu’s letter. He realized with dread that he had passed the gene of obsession onto his children. He recognized the spark in their eyes while they argued that it was too much of a coincidence that Lulu Jefferson died the same day she had seen that picture in Reverend Orville Rawlings’ office.

One could argue that coincidences, unbelievable ones, do happen. Lulu had died on the same day her best friend and her husband got killed by a truck driver who had fallen asleep behind the wheel of his rig while driving across an Oklahoma interstate.

Claire and Johnny Thornton hadn’t been murdered. As a curious teenager, Joshua had requested a copy of the accident report from the Oklahoma state police and called the witnesses to question them. Their deaths had been nothing more than a tragic accident.

Why couldn’t Lulu’s death by a heroin overdose be a horrible accident like that of so many other talented artists?

In that case, her death would be a coincidence, along with the deaths of both her sister and the newspaper editor who had claimed it wasn’t an accident.

Their deaths crossed the line of coincidence into that of suspicious.

Joshua climbed out of his bed. When he swung his feet to the floor, Admiral awoke with a yelp.

“Sorry,” he muttered while wondering why Admiral, with all the children sleeping in their rooms down the hall, chose to sleep next to his bed. He was the one who had objected to his addition to the family.

Admiral gazed up at his master and laid his head on his leg.

With a grudging sigh, Joshua stroked the top of Admiral’s head and scratched his ears while debating with his obsession.

It was a short debate. 

“Come on,” he ended up telling the dog. “We’re going for a walk.”

It wasn’t long before Joshua was knocking on Tad MacMillan’s door.

Through the kitchen door, Joshua saw his cousin peer in from the living room to see who was knocking. Instead of letting him in, Tad rushed back to the rear of the apartment.

Joshua checked the driveway at the bottom of the steps. Maggie’s car was gone. She had left to continue her journey to Penn State. It wasn’t her whom he heard yelling from inside the apartment before Tad returned to crack open the door.

“What’s wrong?”

Joshua said, “I have a couple more questions about Lulu.”

“Now?” Tad looked back over his shoulder into the apartment. “I thought you dropped this stuff about Lulu.” The dismay in his voice was unmistakable.

“You know how I am.” Joshua saw a woman’s white macramé purse on the kitchen table. “I didn’t realize—”

“It is Saturday night.”

Apologizing, Joshua took a step down the stairs.

“If it’s only a couple of questions, go ahead and ask.” After ushering Joshua inside, Tad guarded the living room doorway to prevent further trespass. “What do you want to know?”

“Did Lulu Jefferson shoot heroin?”

Tad’s answer was quick and to the point. “No, she drank a lot of booze and smoked pot, but she didn’t do anything that involved needles. She fainted at the sight of them.”

“She had a track in her—”

Tad glanced into the living room. Whatever he saw prompted him to halt the interview.

Grabbing Joshua by the arm, Tad escorted him out. “Can we finish this later?”

The latching of the door in his face signaled the end of their conversation.

It was close to midnight and Joshua still couldn’t sleep.

Taking the long way home, he and Admiral strolled up Sixth Street past Oak Glen Middle School. Donny and Sarah were going to go to the same school Joshua had attended over twenty years earlier.

A street lamp lit up the boulevard’s dead end.

Joshua recalled when Rock Springs Boulevard’s dead end had been the entrance to a park bearing its name. A wooden roller coaster once took up most of the hillside behind the school. The park’s carousel that he used to ride every weekend was now at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. All evidence of the park had been destroyed during the construction of Route 30’s three mile path through West Virginia between Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Hearing his name called out when he and Admiral turned the corner onto Rock Springs Boulevard; Joshua stopped and peered through the darkness.

“Josh?” Jan Martin was waving to him from her front porch. “Is that you?” Her home had been built onto the hill-side on the corner. She was cooling off with a glass of iced tea. “Couldn’t sleep either, huh? I guess it’s time for some air conditioning in that old house.”

“I’m still getting used to sleeping alone.” Joshua led his dog up the steep steps to her porch.

Judging by her wet hair, and the short cotton bathrobe that appeared to be the only thing she was wearing, he guessed that she had just stepped out of her shower or bath.

Jan held up her glass. The movement caused ice inside to make a harmonious clinking noise. “Have you tried herbal iced tea? I have a blend made for relaxation. I’ll pour you a glass.” She slipped off the railing and went inside.

After leaving Admiral on the porch, Joshua followed her into the cottage. The mementos inside reminded him that Jan had lived with her mother in the two-bedroom home her whole life.

“How’s your mother doing?” Joshua called into the kitchen where his hostess was pouring the tea from a pitcher. In the living room, he fingered a couple of porcelain thimbles in a glass case on the wall next to a corner curio cabinet filled with seemingly every piece of Fenton’s rose-colored blown glass works collection.

“She’s on a bus tour in Branson, Missouri. She’s been traveling a lot lately.” Jan came out of the kitchen and handed him a frosted mug filled with a red-colored drink.

He peered down into the concoction. Its faint, flowery scent reminded him of the hot tea Valerie sometimes drank after dinner in the evening. “What’s in it?”

“Chamomile and hibiscus flowers, peppermint, spearmint, and a bunch of other spices. Try it. You’ll like it.” She pushed the mug towards him.

He took a sip and waited to feel relaxed. It didn’t happen, but he couldn’t complain about the taste. “Not bad.”

“How do your kids like Chester?” She led him back out onto the porch to enjoy the night air on the swing.

“Donny and Sarah are having the roughest time,” he said. “They’ve lived in San Francisco most of their lives and they aren’t used to moving every few years like the other kids. Lately, it seems like they’re always at each other’s throats. The other day, they tore up the attic during one of their fist fights.”

“They’ve just lost their mother.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s been rough on all of us.”

Jan said, “I heard she had a heart condition.”

“No one knew about it. The weird thing is she worked out four times a week. There was no—” Joshua stopped to battle the emotions that welled up inside. “They call it the silent killer for a reason.”

They sat in silence until he continued: “We had a date that night. We went out to dinner and a show.” He swallowed his tears. “The kids were in bed when we got home, and Val and I went in to take a shower together.”

Even though it was dark, he turned his face away so she couldn’t see his pain.

“One minute everything was perfect,” he said. “I felt Val’s breath on my neck. The next thing she was limp in my arms. The water was coming down on us, and she was slipping away from me. I got her out of the shower, carried her into the bed-room, and laid her on the bed.”

Lost in the memory, Joshua took a deep gulp of the cold tea. The sweat from the mug dripped across his fingers and down his wrist.

“The doctors said it happened so fast that she didn’t even know what happened. I went ahead and told the kids that. She didn’t suffer. She was just suddenly gone.” He shook his head. “But that isn’t true. She was talking to me.”

Jan whispered her question. “What did she say?”

“That she’d always love me. Those were her last words.” Joshua took another gulp of the tea.

“Ain’t life ironic?” He chuckled in spite of his pain. “Val was the one who wanted a house full of kids. I didn’t care one way or the other. I mean, I love them with all my heart, but she was the one and I wanted was to make her happy. So, we had all these kids and I feel totally clueless about raising them.”

“Joshua Thornton clueless?” she said in a breathless tone. “I never would have thought it possible.”

“Do you have the confidence to raise five kids?”

“Don’t you think I should get a husband first before I consider having children?” she asked with a smile.

“When you do get that guy, if you have kids, if you have a heart, you won’t die until after they’re raised.

The two old friends laughed as if no time had passed since their youth when they used to kill time on lazy summer nights on the same porch swing on which they now swung.

“I went to see Tad but he seemed to have a date tonight,” he told her.

Jan said, “I’m not surprised. Tad does have a reputation for that. Of course, in this town, once you get a rep it sticks to you like glue.”

“I have to admit, I’m not completely innocent there. I still think of him as the cigarette-smoking, beer-guzzling, motor-cycle-riding hound.”

“Well, he still has the motorcycle,” she said. “As for the ladies, you still hear things about him.”

“What? What do you hear?” Joshua asked.

“I’m not a gossip.” 

Recalling that Jan was a part-time reporter for The Review in East Liverpool, he said, “You’re a journalist. That makes you the same thing in my book.”

“I never made it as a journalist. I’m a drug store manager who writes little articles on occasion for the lifestyle section.” She drained her glass. “Who was Tad with tonight?”

“I never saw her.”

“Was she Maggie’s mother?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he replied. “What have you heard?”

“I hear things all the time about Tad and his women.”

“I mean about Maggie’s mother.”

“I was hoping you’d tell me,” she said. “I would have thought Tad would have told you of all people.”

“He doesn’t tell me everything.”

Jan said, “He told you it was none of your business.”

“I half suspect he’s keeping it a secret to make me crazy,” Joshua said, “It happened so suddenly. Here I am in Annapolis, planning to marry Val the day after graduation, and Tad announces that he’s a father. Boom! No nine months to prepare for that, especially from a wild man like him.”

“Maybe she was married.”

Joshua disagreed. “Even Tad, at his wildest, had principles. But there is one thing I do know. After he sobered up, he became a good father. Maggie has turned out great.”

“Yes, she did. She’s gorgeous. A boy knocked over a display while watching her when she was in buying sunscreen the other day.”

“I think this helped.” He drained the mug and set it on the porch rail. “Thanks for the tea and conversation, Jan.”

“Anytime.”

Joshua took up the dog’s leash. “Come on, Admiral. Let’s go to bed.”

Unaware of her longing gaze, Joshua led Admiral off the porch, down the walk, and on home.