Puzzled to Death (18 page)

Chief Harper grimaced. “Huge stretch. It was bad enough with your cockamamie theories that he killed his wife when all we were looking at was killing his wife. Now you wanna throw in a copycat killer who happens to kill the chief witness to the first murder. Only he’s not the first murderer, he’s just eliminating a witness who could have been real detrimental to Joey Vale, in the event one of your first stupid theories was true.”

“Hey, did you bring me along just to beat me up?”

“Not at all. I brought you along to see the crime scene.”

A car whizzed by them, going back the other way.

“Becky Baldwin,” Chief Harper noted.

“Yeah. Joyriding with some guy,” Cora observed. “She’s sure in a hurry for someone whose client’s just been cleared of murder. What’s the speed limit here?”

“Forty-five. If I didn’t have this murder, I’d nab her.”

“I wish you would. Some people have no respect for the law.” Cora punctuated her statement by nodding self-righteously just as Sherry and Aaron zoomed by, gaining on Becky Baldwin.

Chief Harper’s eyes twinkled. “You were saying?”

Cora stuck out her chin, maintained a dignified silence.

Chief Harper bumped the cruiser over the railroad track and curved around toward Mrs. Roth’s house. He
pulled up behind the Emergency Medical Service vehicle and he and Cora climbed out. The camera crew lined him instantly in their sights, but to his surprise and relief, no one thrust a microphone in his face.

Sam Brogan, patrolling the crime-scene ribbon, said, “You bringin’
her
in?” His tone betrayed just what he thought of that.

Chief Harper gave Sam a look. He and Cora Felton ducked under the ribbon, went up on Mrs. Roth’s porch. The front door was propped open with a bright orange traffic cone.

“Keep your hands at your sides, don’t touch a thing,” Harper warned Cora. “I’m gonna catch enough grief for letting you in here. And now those bozos got it on tape.”

There were three emergency medical technicians in the tiny foyer, one of them holding up a folded gurney. Apparently they had been there for some time—despite the fact it was a murder, all looked bored.

From the living room came the distinctive, prissy whine of Dr. Barney Nathan—“Are you
about
done?”—then the voice of young Dan Finley: “Just a few more shots.”

Chief Harper cautioned once again, “Don’t touch.”

Cora Felton tidily kept her hands glued to her sides, followed Chief Harper through the door.

And stepped into the living room where she had interviewed Mrs. Roth three days before. The fifties living room, with its vinyl couch and the rabbit ears on the TV.

Only now there was a dead woman on the floor.

Which made the whole thing rather surreal. It was as if a
Perry Mason
scene had gotten spliced into the middle of an episode of
Ozzie and Harriet
.

Officer Dan Finley bent over the corpse with his Polaroid, snapping another photo.

Barney Nathan stood nearby, arms folded, tapping his foot. His expression on seeing Chief Harper was priceless. It was
your-father’s-here-little-boy-now-you’re-really-going-to-get-whipped
.

“Dale,” Barney Nathan said. “Wanna speed this up for me? If you want an accurate time of death, I gotta get her to the lab.”

“You can’t do that here?”

“Not unless you wanna risk contaminating your crime scene. I take the body temperature from the liver, and that means blood.”

“You about finished, Dan?” Chief Harper asked his young officer patiently.

“Just one more shot.”

Cora Felton got the impression that one more shot had more to do with Dan Finley not letting the doctor push him around than with any practical need for more photographs of the victim and the scene of the crime.

Dan moved to the side to fire off another shot, and Cora got her first good look at the body. It was unsettling at best. Cora had seen other bodies before, but none of them had been strangled. Mrs. Roth’s eyes were bulged, and her tongue was bloated and lolling out of her mouth. Cora had to steel herself to keep from looking away.

She overcame her revulsion, said to Chief Harper, “This is exactly how she was found?”

“Yes, of course. Nothing’s been disturbed.”

“Well, it’s about to be,” Barney Nathan said, still tapping his foot. “Can I get her out of here now?”

“Yeah, take her,” Chief Harper told him. “And get going on the time of death. It’s gonna be important.”

“I thought it would be,” the doctor rejoined, shooting daggers at Dan Finley. He waved in the EMTs, who opened the gurney and lifted Mrs. Roth onto it. The EMTs, still looking bored, wheeled her out the door within minutes.

“Okay, Dan,” Chief Harper said. “Start dusting for fingerprints.”

“I’ll get the kit,” Dan Finley said, and went out the door after the medical team.

Cora Felton looked around the room. She walked over to the window. She rummaged in her purse, fished out a pen, used it to nudge aside the curtain.

“What are you doing?” Chief Harper asked.

“This is where she sat and watched. This is probably why she’s dead. She was a busybody who spied on all her neighbors. From everything she told me and Aaron Grant, for all her spying she didn’t really know a damn thing. Obviously that wasn’t true.” Cora indicated the chalk outline Dan Finley had drawn on the floor.

“Obviously,” Chief Harper said humorlessly. “It would appear she tried to blackmail Judy’s killer.”

Cora Felton shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Chief Harper frowned.

“I don’t think money meant that much to her,” Cora said.

“Then what did?”

Cora sighed. “I think she just wanted to be important. I can’t imagine her blackmailing anyone. But I can see her bragging about what she knew. Gloating, almost. I think gloating’s what got her killed.”

“That’s a theory,” Chief Harper pointed out sourly, “based on your superficial impression of the woman. Not on any physical evidence. Against my better judgment, I
let you in to see the crime scene. So what does it tell you?”

Cora Felton looked around the room in which Mrs. Roth had lived the final moments of her life. She shook her head.

“Not a damn thing.”

B
ILLY
P
ICKENS LIVED IN A TWO-STORY PALE YELLOW
frame house on a pleasant tree-lined street of similar structures three miles out of town. Chief Harper pulled into the driveway and parked behind a Ford station wagon. Cora and the chief got out, detoured around a pair of girls’ bicycles—one with training wheels—went up on the front porch, and rang the bell.

The door was opened by the small woman Cora had seen the night before with Billy Pickens. The woman was clearly not prepared for visitors. She wore a baggy sweatshirt and old blue jeans, and her hair was tied up with a red kerchief. She looked exasperated.

“Mrs. Pickens?” Chief Harper said.

“I’m Sara Pickens. What do you want?”

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am. It’s a police matter. If I could talk to you and your husband …”

“We’re sort of busy. What’s this about?”

“It’s rather urgent. If you wouldn’t mind getting your husband.”

“Billy’s cleaning out the basement. I’m painting a bookshelf for the girls.”

When she said it, Cora noticed the flecks of pink on her cheek and could smell turpentine. “We’re sorry to interrupt you,” Cora said. “We’ll try to be brief.”

Sara Pickens frowned. “You’re the puzzle woman.”

“Yes, I am. I saw you at Fun Night.”

“Fun for crossword-puzzle people, maybe. No offense, but frankly, it’s not our thing.”

“But you went.”

“Yes, we did. And some of the desserts were quite nice. But once you pay the baby-sitter—”

“I understand,” Chief Harper interposed. “If you wouldn’t mind getting your husband …”

“What’s this all about?”

“Someone got killed.”

Mrs. Pickens clapped her hand to her mouth. A trace of pink paint adhered to her lip. She murmured, “Oh,” then said, “Come in.”

Sara Pickens led them into her kitchen, waved them in the general direction of the table, opened a door behind the refrigerator, and hollered down the stairs, “Billy, come up here!”

There came an indistinct rumble from the depths below. Sara tried one more
Billy!
, then gave up and clomped on down the stairs. She was back moments later, leading her husband, similarly dressed in sweatshirt and jeans. But while his wife sported paint, Billy Pickens was decked out in spiderwebs and grime. He was also sweating profusely. His face was flushed, and his dark hair was matted. Nonetheless, he looked young and handsome. Cora put his age at somewhere around thirty. But she was more intrigued by the fact that Billy Pickens appeared hostile. More hostile than the situation would seem to
warrant. This young man definitely had a chip on his shoulder. He looked defiantly at Chief Harper and demanded, “What’s this about a murder?”

“Hate to bother you,” Chief Harper said, “but the fact is there’s been another murder.”

That instantly took the wind out of Billy’s sails. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut. “Another murder?”

“Yes. I need to ask you and your wife a few questions. Relating to last night. At the Fun Night. This is Miss Cora Felton, who was in charge of the event. Perhaps if she could talk to your wife, you and I could talk together, and we could clear this up quickly.”

Sara Pickens asserted herself. Though small of stature, she was not one to be pushed around. She thrust out her chin, pointed a paint-smeared finger at Chief Harper. “Now, just a minute. If you’re asking questions about last night, I was there, and I want to hear. No offense, but I don’t want to go off in the other room with her and talk about something else.”

“I didn’t say something else. I meant we could divide the task.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Sara Pickens shot her cuff, looked at her watch. “Billy’s taking the girls to the movies, that’s at two o’clock. We’ve got plenty of time, even with picking up Lucy on the way. Isn’t that right, Billy? No way you’re leaving before one-fifteen. Even with time to take a shower and change, we’ve got time for this. So park yourself at the kitchen table, Chief, or stand up if you prefer, and fire away. Now, who got killed and what’s the score?”

Before Chief Harper could answer, the door flew open and two little girls exploded into the room. The younger wore pigtails, the older, bright red barrettes.

“Daddy, Daddy,” cried the younger. “Wendy stole my doll!”

“Did not,” Wendy said. “Ellie’s telling tales.”

Ellie, cute as a button, folded her arms and stuck out her chin, looking uncannily like her mother as she did so. “Then where’s my doll?”

Wendy played innocent. “How should I know?”

“Wendy, give Ellie back her doll,” Sara Pickens said.

Wendy, who couldn’t have been more than five, looked utterly betrayed. “How come you always take
her
side?” she wailed.

“How come you always take her doll?” Billy Pickens said.

Wendy gave him a
harrumph
look but couldn’t help smiling as she stalked off. Ellie trailed along triumphantly, saying, “See? I
told
you.”

Sara Pickens closed the door behind her daughters. Then she turned and said, “Now then. You were saying?”

Chief Harper weighed the possibilities of prying Billy Pickens away from his wife, didn’t figure them as good. “Okay,” he conceded. “The woman who got killed is a widow named Mrs. Roth.”

“Mrs.?” Sara Pickens said. “No first name?”

“Actually, the murdered woman’s name was Felicity Roth, though I can’t find anyone who ever used it.”

“That’s sad,” Sara said, though whether she referred to Mrs. Roth’s demise or the fact that no one called her Felicity was unclear. “What’s it got to do with us?”

“Probably nothing. It’s probably connected to the other murder. See, Mrs. Roth happened to live across the street from Judy Vale.”

Chief Harper was looking at Billy Pickens when he said this. So was Cora Felton. It seemed to her the young man winced.

If Sara Pickens noticed her husband’s reaction, she
didn’t let on. “What’s that got to do with us?” she demanded.

“Probably nothing,” Chief Harper repeated. “The fact is, Mrs. Roth was at Fun Night. And you and your husband were at Fun Night.”

“Half of Bakerhaven was at Fun Night.”

“Yes, they were. Mrs. Pickens, may I ask you if you noticed Mrs. Roth?”

“I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

“An elderly woman at the event alone. You didn’t notice anyone of that type?”

“No. I did not.”

“How about you, Mr. Pickens? You notice anyone like that?”

Billy Pickens looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“Neither do I,” Chief Harper agreed amiably. “But the woman is dead, so we have to trace her movements. Did anyone of that description talk to you?”

“When you say
that description …
”

“I’m talking loosely,” Chief Harper said. “But let there be no mistake. Did any woman identify herself to you, either by that name, or by describing herself as Judy Vale’s neighbor?”