Читать книгу Caught In The Act - Gayle Roper - Страница 10

Poor Arnie. He would never need all his lights on ever again.

I set my camera on the table, ran to Jolene and caught her by the shoulders.

“Jo, come on away from him,” I said softly. “The police won’t want us to touch him or move him.”

“Merry, we’ve got to help him!” Her brown eyes shimmered with tears and pain. “CPR! Do you know CPR?”

I knelt and hugged her. I could feel the sticky blood beneath my knees. “Jo, it won’t help. He’s dead.”

“No, he’s not!” She reached for him again. “He’s still warm.”

I pulled her hands back. “He’s dead,” I repeated softly. “Someone has killed him. We don’t want to move him or do anything that would cover up evidence.”

She stared at me. “Someone killed him?”

We turned together and looked at Arnie. He stared blindly at the ceiling, gravity pulling his eyelids back into his skull. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows and one pant leg was crumpled about his calf. There was a round hole in the left lower chest area of his tan button-down shirt, not far below his heart. Blood had soaked his shirt front, though it wasn’t flowing anymore. Arnie’s heart no longer pumped.

I didn’t want to think about the exit wound beneath him from which blood must have rushed in a torrent. It was hard to comprehend that the great pool of it covering the yellow tiles had recently flowed through his veins as surely as mine swept through my body.

“Come away, Jo.” I stood and pulled her up with me. “We need to call the police.”

I led her to the kitchen table and pushed her into a chair. I grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911.

“Jo,” I said as I hung up in spite of the fact that the 911 voice wanted me to stay on the line. “Is there someone else we should call?”

She looked at me blankly. “Like who?”

Many days I wondered about Jo’s mental acuity, but tonight I knew the slowness was shock. “Like Arnie’s parents. Brothers and sisters. Pastor. Your parents.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “He didn’t have a family. His mom’s dead and his dad disappeared when he was four. There are no brothers and sisters. And there’s certainly no pastor.”

She sighed in pain. “I have to tell my parents face-to-face. It’s not telephone news, you know? My dad will be so upset. He loved Arnie. He was the son he never had.” She shook her head. “Poor Dad.”

I looked at the man on the floor. Poor Arnie was more like it.

Since Jolene had no calls to make, I quickly dialed The News, connecting with Mac’s desk.

“Mac, I’m at Jolene and Arnie Meister’s house where we just found Arnie shot to death.”

He made a distressed sound. “Let me talk to her.”

I gave Jolene the phone and listened to her murmur into it. Suddenly she held it out. “He wants you.”

“You know what you’ve got to do, right?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, I know.” A story by deadline tomorrow. The News is an afternoon paper of twelve to sixteen pages, and our deadline for news is nine, editing ten, and it’s ready for delivery by noon.

I hung up and led Jo to the foyer, away from Arnie. “Come on. We’ll wait in the living room.”

She kept wiping her bloody hands down her coat again and again. I caught them and held them and felt them shaking.

She looked over my shoulder. “He has the tree up.” She took a step toward the living room.

“Give me your coat before you go in there.” There was no need to track blood through the house. I helped her slip out of it.

I took mine off, too, and we dropped them in a pile on the parquet floor. Then we sat awkwardly next to the beautiful Christmas tree on the sofa bigger than my apartment. But there was blood on our shoes and clothes as well as our hands, and we marred the pale yellow carpet and the huge sofa. Jolene never noticed.

She stood up almost as soon as we sat down. “I can’t leave him alone on the kitchen floor.” Tears wet her cheeks. She started unsteadily toward the kitchen.

I nodded and followed her. “We’ll sit at the table.”

“I want to hold his hand.”

I remembered Sergeant William Poole of the Amhearst police saying to me once, “The first rule of any investigation is never touch anything at a crime scene. Never, never, never! It contaminates the evidence and makes convictions hard, should we find the perpetrator.”

“I think we can’t touch him, Jo. I’m sorry.” I led her to a kitchen chair with a yellow plaid seat cushion.

She sat and laid her head on her arms on the table. I looked at her sadly, wishing I could ease her sorrow and knowing I couldn’t.

I turned to the room. Putting my hands behind me, I made a slow circle, looking at everything and anything. Who knew what would be important for my story? Or for the solution of the crime?

“Jolene,” I said hesitantly. “I’ve got to take pictures.” It seemed so intrusive to go flash, flash here and flash, flash there.

She raised her head. “For the paper?”

“Yes. But also to reconstruct the scene and look for possible clues.”

She gave me a watery, wavery smile. “You’ve got the detective bug.”

“Sort of,” I confessed, blushing at the actual verbalizing of that thought. How pretentious of me, though I had actually solved another murder. “But I won’t take any pictures if you don’t want me to.”

“The cops are going to photograph him, aren’t they?”

I nodded.

“Then you might as well, too. Just don’t put him in the paper like that.”

“I’ll tell Mac,” I promised.

I picked up my camera and began circling the room. As I walked, I talked, as much for myself as to keep Jo from falling prey to greater shock.

“How’d you meet Arnie?” I snapped the refrigerator and the couple of notes that were held to it by magnets shaped like fruit. One note from a scratch pad said: Jolene—5:30. The other, an 8x10 printout on a certificate template, read: $50,000.00!

Jolene looked at Arnie. “We met the first day of kindergarten. He was this shrimpy little kid with big glasses and a bigger mouth. He liked to boss everyone around. I hated him.”

I glanced at Arnie. “He’s no shrimp now.”

Jolene shook her head. “But he was all through high school. The littlest guy around. Mr. Brainiac. He and Airy were quite the pair. Two dweebs.”

I thought of the beautiful Airy Bennett. “Dweebs? Airy? Arnie?”

“Hard to believe, huh? I hung out with Airy because I felt sorry for her. And people were nice to Arnie because he’d tell you all the answers or write your paper for you or whatever—for a price. He loved that kind of stuff. But Airy wouldn’t even let you copy her homework. ‘It’s cheating, Jo.’” Jolene’s voice took on a hard edge. “She was the most self-righteous thing!”

I’d never let anyone copy my homework either, but I thought I wouldn’t tell Jolene that little piece of trivia.

In the sink I noticed two glasses with dark liquid dregs. I leaned over and sniffed. Iced tea. I looked for telltale lipstick on one of the glasses, hard to do since I couldn’t pick them up for fear of disturbing prints. If Jolene hadn’t been keeping Arnie company anymore, maybe someone else had.

I sighed. She, if there was a she, either wore that lipstick that never came off or she wore none. Or she’d wiped the glass clean of any evidence. Interesting thought, that.

I noticed a wastebasket tucked in the corner by a cabinet. I walked over and peered in. I saw crumpled paper towels with blue hearts and flowers on them, a clear plastic wrapper from some package, an empty half-gallon Tropicana orange-tangerine juice container and the box and plastic tray from a Lean Cuisine dinner, chicken marsala. No clues as far as I could see, but I took a picture anyway.

“If Arnie was such a brainiac dweeb,” I said as I took a picture of the bullet lodged in the cabinet directly behind where he must have been standing when he was shot, “how did you two ever get together?” I glanced again at the man lying on the floor. “And how did he get to be such a handsome guy?”

“After high school he went away to college,” Jolene said. “He’d earned all these scholarships and stuff. I didn’t see him for about almost four years. Then I went to a New Year’s Eve party, and there he was. I couldn’t believe it! He’d gotten so tall, and he’d started wearing contact lenses. And he pumped iron all the time. There’s all kinds of weight equipment in the room down the hall.”

She looked at me vaguely “He was gorgeous, wasn’t he? I fell for him big-time.”

“And he fell for you?” I prompted as I took a seat beside her. I pushed her purse, gloves and scarf away from the table’s edge.

“Remember, he’d gone with Airy for years. It took me a couple of months to convince him to drop her.”

I looked at Jolene. “Arnie had been going with Airy?”

“Since seventh grade.”

“And you cut her out?”

“Yeah.” Jolene unconsciously sat straighter. “It was easy.”

I nodded as the ladies’ room animosity suddenly made more sense.

“Would you say Airy was a late bloomer, too?” I asked.

“She’s still waiting to bloom,” Jolene said with more than a trace of the nastiness I’d seen earlier. I also recognized a case of wishful thinking. Airy had definitely blossomed.

The doorbell rang, causing us both to jump.

“I’ll get it.” I stuffed my camera in my purse and went to let the police in. I led the two uniforms to the kitchen where they took one look and phoned home. In a few more minutes, my friend Sergeant Poole of the Amhearst police arrived. A crime scene team from the state police followed quickly, as did the coroner. Even a fire truck showed up as part of the first-response team, even though I’d told the 911 operator we didn’t need AFD personnel.

In no time Jolene and I found ourselves back on the huge couch again, our scarves and gloves tumbled in the pile of coats on the floor in the hall.

“What will I do about the blood on my coat?” Jolene asked, staring across the room at the collection of garments, fixing on a problem that had comprehensible ramifications. The busyness of the men in the kitchen and their purpose bewildered and overwhelmed. “I love that coat. Arnie got it for me before our troubles.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I patted her hand. “I’ll take it to the cleaners for you when I take mine.”

She nodded and slumped back on the sofa. We sat silently in the brightly lit room and waited as we had been asked by Sergeant Poole.

Finally we were interviewed, though I didn’t have much to say. I sat stiffly in one of the cherry dining room chairs, hoping I didn’t appear guilty of anything because I wasn’t. I just get a guilty complex around extreme authority. It probably went back to the time when I was a little kid and lied to my mother about where I got the candy bar I’d stolen. As I sat straight and still, stoically waiting my grilling, I studied the porcelain in the china cabinet on the far wall. One shelf was Royal Doulton figurines, their colorful images a contrast to the shelf of sleek, sophisticated Lladro porcelains. The top shelf was full of collectors’ pieces of blue Wedgwood with rings of white flowers encircling them.

Where had the money and the good taste for those things come from?

Sergeant Poole sat across the table from me.

“How can I help, William?”

“How did Mrs. Meister get the blood on her hands and her coat?” he asked.

“She knelt beside Arnie when she first found him. She tried to pick him up and hold him. She didn’t realize he was dead.”

“Um,” he said and waited. I waited, too, because I didn’t have anything else to say. He knew me well enough to realize that if I had been trying to protect Jolene or if I had anything further to say, I would have blurted it when he waited. That authority reaction thing again.

Finally he asked, “What do you know about the victim?”

“Very little. I never met him. In fact, I never even saw him before tonight.”

“Not a great way to make an acquaintance.” And he smiled sympathetically.

I smiled back and relaxed a bit.

“Why did you come here today?” he asked.

“Jolene—Mrs. Meister—was supposed to meet her husband here.”

“Meet him here? Doesn’t she live here?”

“No. They were divorcing, and she lives in her own condominium.”

His eyebrow rose. “Acrimonious divorce?”

“I don’t think so.” I knew exactly what he was looking for. The spouse is always the first suspect.

“Are you and Mrs. Meister good friends? Would she tell you if things were nasty between them?”

“Work friends, that’s all.”

He nodded. I could see my influence as a character witness shrinking faster than a blown-up balloon without a knot in the end.

“Why were they meeting?” he asked.

“I have no idea. She didn’t tell me. She just asked for a lift.”

“She doesn’t have a car?”

“Her father drove her in to work today.”

“She lives with her parents?”

I shook my head. “I told you. She owns a condo. Maybe she’d spent the night with them or something. Or maybe her father drove out to her place to get her and then drove her to work. Or maybe her car’s in the shop.”

“Was Mrs. Meister surprised when she found her husband?”

“Very,” I said, picturing her reaction. “I think she was devastated.” I paused, then asked a question I wanted answered. “How long do you think he’s been dead?”

He raised his eyebrows, then said politely, “I’m not giving half-baked opinions to the press, Merry. We’ll wait for the coroner’s report.”

“Don’t get so testy, William. This isn’t for publication,” I hastened to assure him. “This is for me. I want to know how close you think we came to walking in on a murderer. I mean, nothing appears to have been touched or stolen. Is that because we arrived and scared someone off? Is there a very mad person out there who might not like Jo and me anymore?”

He studied me for a minute. “Okay, off the record. I don’t think you scared anyone away. I think he’s been dead for maybe three hours.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You sure you want to know?”

I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t regret this.

“The white, waxy condition of his skin, the flatness of the eyes indicating loss of fluid and the lividity.”

I’d noticed the purple-blue on the back of his arms and on the underside of the exposed calf where the blood left in his body had gathered in response to the pull of gravity.

“And,” he finished, “rigor appears to have begun in the smaller muscles.”

“But he’s still warm to the touch.”

“The body cools slowly, a degree or two an hour.”

“Dust to dust doesn’t take long, does it?”

Sergeant Poole grunted noncommittally. “Where were you all afternoon, Merry?”

“Me?” I think my voice squeaked.

He nodded.

“At work. Lots of people saw me. Lots.” And a cannibalistic plant. “You don’t think I had anything to do with Arnie’s death, do you?”

William Poole smiled slightly. He had an interesting lopsided smile which sat pleasantly on his furrowed face. “Not really, but I have to ask. It’s what I get paid for. Now what about Mrs. Meister? Where was she all afternoon?”

“At work, too.”

“Do me a favor,” he asked congenially. “Write down the times you had any conversation or contact with Mrs. Meister during the afternoon. One of my men will stop by for the list tomorrow.”

“I’ll have it ready.” I’d be more than happy to provide Jolene’s alibi.

“Do you know you have blood on your hands, Merry?”

I looked at them and shivered. The blood was dried around my nails. “I got it when I pulled Jolene away from the body. I know I have some on my shoes and on my coat from when I knelt beside her. Even my knees.”

Shortly after that, I was dismissed. Both Jolene and I were in the living room waiting for permission to leave when an officer came to us.

“We’re going to remove the body now,” he said. “I wanted to warn you because I don’t know if you want to see him carried out in a body bag. I’d like to give you the opportunity to leave the room.”

I glanced at Jolene who looked horrified.

“A body bag,” she whispered. “Oh, no!”

I heard the wheels of the gurney roll across the parquet. I grabbed Jolene, turned her from the door, and held her as they wheeled Arnie from his brightly lit home for the final time. I felt my eyes fill with tears, and I didn’t even know the man. I couldn’t imagine how Jo felt. Her shoulders were shaking.

When she and I were finally given permission to leave, I glanced at my watch. It was 8:30. We’d been at the house for about three hours. I was already a half hour late for the photos of the AAC-FOP committee, and I had to take Jolene home yet. I shrugged. Hopefully the committee had lots of last-minute plans to make and would still be there by the time I managed to make it.

We drove back to Amhearst in silence. I kept thinking that one second you’re alive, and the next you can be dead. One minute your brain is zipping electrical impulses all over your body, the next it’s flat line. One minute your blood is racing through your veins, and the next it’s a pool all over the yellow tile floor.

A mystery, if ever there was one. What did you think about this phenomenon called death if you didn’t believe that absent from the body was present with the Lord?

We drove through downtown Amhearst, past the cluster of brightly decorated stores open until nine in a mostly vain attempt to attract the Christmas business back from the malls. Shortly we pulled up before half of a double on Houston Street in the older, less prosperous part of town.

The light by the front door showed a porch covered with bright green indoor/outdoor carpeting and lined with black wrought-iron railings. In spite of it being December, two white molded plastic chairs sat on either side of a small white plastic table in the center of the porch. On the table was an arrangement of plastic greens and an angel whose head turned from side to side. A wreath of plastic greens with a mashed plaid bow hung between the storm door and the inside door.

I couldn’t imagine anything more unlike the mansion we’d just left.

Jolene grabbed my arm. “Come in with me, Merry. I can’t face my parents alone. They loved Arnie. They really did.”

The last thing I wanted to do was help break the news of the tragedy, but I opened my car door and climbed out. We started up the steps as the door of the other half of the double opened. A man in a camel topcoat came rushing out only to stop short when he saw us.

“Jolene,” he said and sort of reached for her.

“Reilly.” Jolene nodded at the man but kept walking up the stairs, making it obvious that she wasn’t stopping for conversation.

Reilly watched her with a hungry expression, but when Jolene kept moving, he went down the steps to a car at the curb.

“Who’s he?” I asked as we reached the porch.

“Reilly Samson. He works with Arnie. His grandmother lives next door.”

“Her?” I indicated the gap between the curtains next door where an eye stared at us. I smiled and nodded. The curtain promptly fell back in place.

“Old Mrs. Samson, the world’s nosiest neighbor,” Jolene muttered. Her face twisted. “Wait until she hears about Arnie! She’ll probably celebrate.”

“What?” I was shocked.

“She hated him.”

“Why?”

“Who knows. She’s just a bitter old lady who hates everyone.”

“Even Reilly?”

“Sometimes I think so.”

“Even you?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“Especially me,” Jolene said.

“Really? Why?”

“Because I got rich.” With that, she opened the front door.

The house was a typical Amhearst double with two stories plus basement and attic. The rooms ran in a front-to-back pattern of living room, dining room, kitchen, and back porch on the first level with a large staircase in the front hall running to the second floor where a hall opened into three large bedrooms and a bath. The third-floor attic where the roof pulled the walls in would be a single huge room. A postage stamp of a backyard finished the property.

As soon as we came through the front door, an older man and woman rushed into the hall, swooping down on us and burying us in solicitude and questions about Jolene’s tardiness. I was surprised because I hadn’t realized that Jolene’s grandparents lived here, too.

“Come in, come in,” the man kept saying to me, beaming as he tried to take my coat. A slight Southern accent colored his voice. “I’m so glad Jolene brought a friend home with her!”

“Are you all right, Jolene Marie?” The woman scanned Jo’s face and hugged her shoulders. “You don’t look well, dear. Maybe we need to make it warmer for you? We can turn up the thermostat, can’t we, Alvin? Or maybe you just want to come into the kitchen. I saved your dinner. There’s plenty for your friend, too. Are you certain you’re all right?” And she pulled Jolene to her bosom again.

Jolene pulled away from the smothering arms and said, “Mom, that’s enough! Dad, make her stop.”

Mom? Dad? Not Grandmom and Grandpop?

“Easy, Eloise,” Jo’s dad said, patting the woman on the shoulder. “We need to meet Jolene’s friend.”

Suddenly I was being stared at by two curious elderly gnomes, one with vague blue eyes, one with sharp brown ones.

“This is Merry Kramer, Merry as in Christmas. We work together.” Jo made it sound as if I were a fellow escapee from a chain gang.

“Merry.” Jolene’s mother smiled sweetly at me. “What a lovely name, especially this time of year. Were you born in December, dear? I just bet you were.”

“June,” I said.

“Oh.” She looked confused. “I thought Jolene Marie said Merry.”

I must have looked equally confused because Jolene’s father said, “The month of June, Eloise. Not the name.”

The woman smiled sweetly. “Oh, of course. Silly me.”

She looked older than my Grandmom Kramer by several years, though I knew she couldn’t be. Grandmom Kramer was seventy-nine, and there’s no way she could have a daughter as young as Jolene. Of course the appearance of age could have been caused by this woman’s determinedly gray hair and the too-tight permanent, the unbecoming glasses and the lined face.

As I smiled my sweetest at Jolene’s mother and father, I searched my mind for Jolene’s maiden name. Carlsbad. Mammoth. Jewel. It had something to do with caves or caverns. Ah! Luray!

“Mr. and Mrs. Luray, how nice to meet you.” I shook their hands prettily. My mother would have been proud.

“Right this way, girls,” Mrs. Luray said. “The food’s waiting.”

Mr. Luray was wrestling me for my coat while my stomach growled at the wondrous aromas that filled the air. No wonder Jolene came home for dinner every night. “I can’t stay.” AAC-FOP was waiting. “I’m sorry.”

“I wish you would.” Mr. Luray’s fingers wrapped around my coat collar as he tried to drag it off my shoulders. He was bald, homely, wore thick glasses and had muscles on muscles. It was obvious he and Arnie had bonded over weights. “Jolene doesn’t bring friends home much.”

“Dad,” Jolene said sharply. “Let Merry alone, for heaven’s sake!”

Mr. Luray nodded pleasantly. “Okay.” His hands fell from my collar.

Mrs. Luray peered first at Jolene, then at me. “You do look pale, Jolene Marie. You do. So do you, Merry, but then maybe you’re always pale. I wouldn’t know, would I?” She smiled vaguely at me, patting my hand.

I smiled vaguely back.

“But are you sure you girls are all right? Have you had a disagreement or something? I know that when I have a fight with Mrs. Samson, Dad can always tell because I look so pale.” She smiled at me again. “Not that we have that many fights, you know. But that’s how it shows when we do. Or maybe—” and her smile faltered as she turned to Jo “—maybe you had a fight with Arnie, dear? You didn’t have another fight with him, did you, Jolene Marie? I can’t stand it when you two fight.” She looked as if she might cry.

Jolene looked at me in helpless frustration.

“Now, Mother,” Mr. Luray said. “Don’t get yourself so worked up. Your heart will start fluttering.”

Oh, boy. A fluttering heart. Just what we needed with the news we were bearing.

“Do you take heart medicine, Mrs. Luray?” I asked.

“Aren’t you sweet to be concerned,” she said. “Yes. I keep it handy all the time in case I need it.”

“Where is it?”

“In the kitchen on the windowsill over the sink. And upstairs both in the bathroom and on my night table.”

“Mr. Luray,” I said, “I think it would be a good idea if you got your wife’s medicine.”

Mr. Luray looked at me with narrowed eyes, saw something in my face, and headed for the kitchen and the windowsill.

“Bring a big plastic bag back with you, Dad,” Jolene called. A muffled assent drifted to us.

“What?” Mrs. Luray seemed confused, which I now suspected was a normal situation. “What’s wrong? Jolene Marie, why do I need my medicine? Oh, I knew it! You and Arnie did fight! You didn’t hit him, did you, dear? Tell me you didn’t hit him! Or throw something at him. It’s so unladylike.”

“Mom!” Jolene shouted fiercely. “Can’t you ever shut up? I can’t stand you when you run on like that!”

Mrs. Luray and I both stared at Jolene. I, in startled disbelief at her tone of voice, her mother with accpetance.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to upset you, but then I can see that you’re already upset, aren’t you? Why, dear? Tell Mommy. You’ll feel better if you tell me. Don’t worry. I can take it. Just tell me. You did fight with Arnie, didn’t you?”

Jolene put her hands to her face in aggravation.

Mr. Luray appeared, a pill bottle clutched in his right hand and the plastic bag in his left. Jolene took the bag and handed it to me. As I held the bag open, she stuffed her coat in. “My scarf and gloves are still in the car.”

I nodded, pulling the ties to shut the bag. “I’ll get them.”

“What’s she doing with your coat, Jolene Marie?” Mrs. Luray asked. “It’s a special coat because Arnie gave it to you. What’s she going to do with it?”

“It’s dirty, Mom,” Jolene said through gritted teeth. “She’s taking it to the dry cleaners for me.”

Mrs. Luray’s face lit with joy. “Why, how sweet, June,” she said to me.

I opened my mouth to say “Merry,” but refrained. She wasn’t listening to me anyway.

“Daddy,” Mrs. Luray said, her high voice tinged with sorrow. “Jolene Marie and Arnie had a fight. She’s just going to tell us about it. Isn’t it too sad?”

“What’s wrong, Jo?” Mr. Luray said. His manner was stark and aware.

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Luray’s hands fluttered with a life of their own, pale butterflies with age spots marking the wings. “Tell us.”

Jolene took a deep breath, then looked steely eyed at her parents. “Arnie’s dead,” she said baldly. “He was shot.”

Mrs. Luray gasped once, twice, three times, clutched her chest, and sank to the floor.