Twisted Reason (2 page)

Turning the corner onto Jefferson, Lucinda was pleased she saw no evidence of media presence yet. She knew they would be there soon and appreciated that sawhorses erected halfway down the block, would keep them at bay. She pulled in front of the barricade, rolled down her window and displayed her shield in her outstretched hand.

A patrolman jerked one of the sawhorses out of her way and she pulled through, stopping at the curb behind the ambulance. Tipping down her visor, she gave her appearance a once over and sighed at the scars still evident on one side of her face. The damage from a shoot-out during a domestic call had been inflicted in an instant and yet it was taking years and multiple surgeries to try to get both sides of her face to match as closely as possible. It looked better now but she knew no one would think she was normal.

She emerged from her vehicle and took urgent strides across the road to the house, as if she were eager to distance herself from the mirror. She’d never met Jumbo Butler but she was certain of his identity when she spotted a man with carrot-colored hair who couldn’t have been more than 5243 and probably would qualify in the ring as a flyweight. The ironic nickname probably stuck to him in grade school and, not being able to shake it loose, he embraced it instead.

She walked straight to him and stuck out her hand. “Butler?”

He smiled and gave her hand a hardy shake. “Hey, Lieutenant Pierce. Man, thanks for getting here so quickly. I sure do appreciate it. Most the times when I have a missing person case that ends up with a dead body, the signs of foul play were evident from day one. But this guy was different. He had Alzheimer’s or something like that and everybody thought he’d just wandered off and got lost. At least, I did. And now this.”

“And the body hasn’t been moved?” she asked as she walked up the steps to the front door.

“Nope. His clothing’s been messed up some by his son and the emergency medical technicians, but otherwise, this is how he was found.”

“What was the son doing?”

“CPR. When I got here, he was having a bit of a stand-off with the EMTs. Apparently when they decided it was too late to do anything, the son went off. He was fighting them to get back to his dad and continue the CPR. I had to get a couple of officers to take him into the house. Then he started hyperventilating. The EMTs are with him now trying to settle him down.”

“Is he fit to answer questions?” Lucinda asked.

“You can try but I doubt if anything he says right now will make much sense. You’d do better talking to his wife. She’s pretty upset but not hysterical like he is.”

“How have they been throughout the time he was missing?”

“Pretty typical. Called a lot. Yelled at me a bit. Cried a lot. They seem to genuinely want to find him.”

“Let’s hope it was genuine. Did you check his financials?”

“Yeah. No activity. Not by him. None on his behalf by the son’s family. Not a single account or credit card was used. But he did have plenty of money for a motive as well as a decent life insurance policy that named the son as beneficiary.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Make sure no one else touches the body until the coroner’s office clears it. And if a death investigator isn’t here soon, let me know and I’ll call Doc Sam at home.”

Walking inside, Lucinda passed the paramedics huddled around Eric Humphries and followed the sounds coming from the back of the house. She walked into the kitchen where she found Vicki pacing the length of the room. “Mrs. Humphries?”

Vicki stopped in mid-stride. “Yes. Yes? Are you . . .?”

Lucinda flashed her badge. “Lieutenant Pierce, Homicide.”

“You think someone murdered my father-in-law?” Vicki gasped.

“We don’t know, ma’am. But it sure doesn’t look like he just walked up on your porch, laid down and passed away in his sleep.”

Vicki bent her head and moved it side to side. “No. I suppose it doesn’t. I really hadn’t thought about it.”

“Because we don’t know how he got there, we need to investigate his death as a homicide to make sure nothing is overlooked. When was the last time you saw the deceased?” Lucinda gritted her teeth, knowing she’d picked the wrong word before she finished saying it.

As she expected, Vicki winced. “Please. His name was Edgar. Edgar Humphries. I called him Dad. You can call him that or Edgar or anything but . . . that . . .”

“When was the last time you saw Edgar?”

Vicki tapped on her forehead with three fingers. “I know this. I know this. I just can’t. . .”

“Relax, Mrs. Humphries. Take your time. C’mon,” Lucinda said, wrapping a hand around the woman’s elbow and steering her towards the kitchen table. “Let’s sit down, okay?”

Vicki allowed herself to be guided across the room and slumped into the age-darkened wood of a Windsor chair. Lucinda sat across from her waiting.

Vicki sighed. “I can’t seem to recall the exact date, whatever it was, but it was just before Thanksgiving. Ten days before. Exactly ten days, on a Monday. Eric and I kept assuring each other that he’d be home for Thanksgiving. He loved turkey. We knew he wouldn’t miss it. But he did. The turkey sat on the table growing cold. The surface of the cranberry sauce got all crusty. And still no Dad. We figured he’d be okay without his meds till Thanksgiving. But after that, we were fearful that it could be fatal. All that hoping and praying and nothing.” Vicki brushed the corners of her eyes. “We need to know what happened.”

“Tell me about the Monday when you last saw him.”

“It was ordinary. I fixed breakfast for all of us. He ate as he usually did. A couple of bites, then he’d stare off into space and one of us would have to remind him to eat. He always beamed when we did that as if we’d given him a surprising and extraordinary gift. Then we both left for work. Dad was sitting on the back porch having a second cup of coffee. I kissed him on the top of the head and patted his arm. He didn’t seem to notice.”

“Did you leave him alone every day?”

“For a few hours. We had a woman coming in at midday to fix his lunch and make sure he ate it. Some days she was the only one at the house. Three times a week, we had a nurse’s aide who came in to shave him and help him shower. And a nurse who came in once a week to check on his meds and look for any other problems. She was the one who told us in October that we weren’t going to be able to leave him home alone much longer.”

“Did you take that seriously?”

“Yes, but we hadn’t decided what to do. We’d been visiting homes with Alzheimer’s units and also looking into home care. We weren’t sure what was best for Dad. We were even considering that one of us should take early retirement and stay home with him. There just didn’t seem to be any perfect decision. We put him on a couple of waiting lists to make sure he’d be in line for placement if we decided to take that route – there was one in particular that Dad really seemed to like and we had our fingers crossed. But it bothered us, sitting around hoping for a room to open up – it meant, really, that we were waiting for someone to die. The whole thing was so depressing and we were just floundering. We feel so guilty about that. We have for months. If only we’d made a decision and kept him safe.” Vicki’s lower lip quivered and moisture filled her eyes.

“Was he home when the woman came to prepare his lunch?”

“No. That was the first we knew of a problem. She called us. But it wasn’t the first time, so we didn’t panic.”

“He’d run off before?”

“Not exactly. We’d always find him within two blocks of the house. Sometimes, he’d be raking leaves in someone else’s yard. Other times, he’d be picking up sticks that had fallen from trees. Often, we’d find him in his stocking feet. But he never hurt himself and he never wandered far. The woman – Miss Jenkins – checked out his usual places but he wasn’t there. My husband and I both hurried home from work and looked again. Then we called the police.”

“And you’ve not heard from him since that day?”

“No. Not a word.” A tear broke away from one eye and trailed down her cheek to her chin. “Where has he been?”

“That’s what we’re going to have to find out, Mrs. Humphries. How was he with people – with strangers?”

Vicki laughed. “He was a lover of the world. If you showed the least inclination to listen to his World War Two stories, you were his new best friend. He got so animated recalling his old memories, it was hard to look at him then and remember that he wasn’t the same vital man we’d always known.” Vicki sobbed. “But he wasn’t. He’d lost so much. It was so unfair.” She bent forward, collapsing her head on top of her folded arms on the table.

Lucinda stood and placed a hand on Vicki’s back. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Humphries. I would like to take his medications with me before I leave if that’s okay.”

Vicki lifted her head a few inches. “Yes. They’re all in the little tray next to the toaster. We never moved them.” She dropped her head back down, her shoulders heaving with a fresh round of sobs.

“If you think of anything that might help, give me a call. I’ll leave my card here on the table. Anything, ma’am. Anything or anyone that seemed the least bit off, or just unusual.”

Vicki nodded without lifting her head. Lucinda patted her back and walked back to the living room. The paramedics were gone and Mr. Humphries was standing with a man helping to hold him up. The two took a few steps toward the stairway.

“Excuse me,” Lucinda said. “I want to ask Mr. Humphries a few questions.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. But the doctor told me to get him upstairs and put him to bed. He said he’d be over soon to determine if medication was in order.”

“And you are?”

“Pastor Wrigley. From the Grace Street United Methodist Church. The family is part of my congregation. Can I take him up now?”

Lucinda looked into Eric’s eyes and saw no sign that he was at all aware of her.
Was he really distraught or was he simply a good actor?
She stepped aside. “Okay. But make sure the doctor knows I need to speak with him before he leaves. And, Reverend, I would like to talk to you, too.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” a woman shouted from the front porch.

Lucinda stepped through the door and saw the source of the outcry, Carole Livingston, a death investigator from the coroner’s office. “Whatcha got, Livingston?”

“I don’t see any definitive signs of foul play, Lieutenant, but I did find something odd.”

Lucinda tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.

Carole held out a blue-gloved hand and opened her fingers. “Acorns. Dozens of them in his jacket pockets. Have any idea what they are doing there?”

Four

“Forensic geeks reporting for duty, Lieutenant.”

Lucinda smiled at the sight of Marguerite Spellman leading a Tyvec-suited crew into the front yard. “Always a pleasure to see you, Spellman.”

“We’ll start with photographic and videographic documentation here on the porch. Anyplace else we need to do?”

“It’s been five months since he disappeared so I doubt we’ll find anything useful in the house, but we might as well shoot his room just in case.”

“We’ll video all the way there while we’re at it. What else do you need?”

“Until we know the cause of death, we won’t know whether or not we need to look for a murder suspect. But we do know this: someone violated the law when they dumped his body on the porch. See if you can find anything out in front of the house that might lead to an identification of the person who did that.”

Marguerite spun around and looked at the gaggle of patrolmen on the sidewalk and the police vehicles parked at the curb in front of the house. She turned back to Lucinda, eyebrows raised. “Really?”

“I know. I know. Do the best you can. Run more evidence tape, shoo out the officers and get those vehicles moved. We’ve got to try even though the area couldn’t get much more compromised if we planned it. And when you have a tech to spare, I’d like someone to come to the kitchen with me and retrieve the prescription meds. We need a tox screen on his body for all of them. He could have had an alternative source while he was away or not having them might have contributed to his death.”

“Give me a minute to talk to the crew and I’ll go with you.”

“Lieutenant?” Butler said approaching the porch. He stopped two steps below Lucinda and handed her a plump file. From that vantage point he looked even more diminutive. His head bent back so far, Lucinda thought it looked ready to snap off of his neck. “I had a copy made of the missing person’s case file for the dead guy. It’s got contact info for everyone we interviewed including the three people who cared for him during the day.”

“Thick file, Butler,” she said hefting it in one hand.

“Hey, I’ll tell ya, I was really worried about the guy. I wanted to find him before he got run down in the middle of the road or rolled by some lowlife. I can add that to my list of failures,” he said with a sigh.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Butler. Appreciate the file – I don’t often get one without requesting it first. Could you help the techs clear out the yard and street in front of the house?”

“Guess I screwed up there,” Jumbo said, a light red flushing his cheeks under Lucinda’s gaze.