Final Cycle, Page 3

  “She left some in the bookstore. Alice just dropped it off. Said it was too bad Louella Belle was killed, but if these were her kids, she’d want to go after her.”

  Elizabeth studied the flyer as she chewed. “You know the kids?”

  “Hammer’s going to ask around at PTA.”

  Elizabeth tapped the flyer. “I take it Doctor Vickers didn’t want these in his office?”

  Grayson sat down again and picked up his sandwich. “Nope. The second time, the doc told Louella Belle if she did it again, he'd call us.”

  “But it never came to that?”

  “This was just a couple of weeks ago. Doubt she tried it again so soon.”

  Elizabeth shook her head slightly. “She was a smart woman. What do you suppose made her so…aggressive about her beliefs?”

  Mahan shrugged. “Some people get religion, some get nutrition.”

  “That’s good. I never heard that.”

  “Not original,” Mahan said.

  Someone came in the front door. Mahan began to rise, but Elizabeth motioned he should stay seated. “I bet it's Jerry Pew.” She handed the flyer to Mahan. “Let’s not release it unless somebody asks about it.”

  A man’s voice called, “Chief Friedman?”

  “Coming, Jerry.” Elizabeth thought the editor cut a lot of corners on reporting, whether covering high school sports or a bunch of car break-ins. He irritated people beyond the police department, but she cut him some slack because he had to do most of the paper's reporting.

  Jerry leaned on the counter.

  “Hey, Jerry. Know anything?” she asked.

  “Came by to ask you the same thing.”

  Elizabeth placed her elbows on the counter and faced him. “Haven’t heard from Skelly. Nobody I talked to saw anything unusual. Until Marti found Louella Belle, of course.”

  “I been thinking she must have been in that dryer for a couple hours.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Once it’s dark, it’s easy to see in that place. Daytime not so much." Jerry jabbed a finger toward Elizabeth. "Squeaky lets people put posters for bingo and stuff on his windows. You kind of have to peer around them to really see what's going on, but you can see in if you really look.”

  “Good point.”

  Jerry nodded. “I kinda stood outside, listening to folks while you were in there with her. Never heard so many people speak ill of the dead.”

  “Anyone seem especially angry with her?”

  Jerry shook his head. “Mostly just tired of listening to her pet peeves for a lot of years. Kinda pushy, she was. Skelly didn’t have any ideas about what killed her?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Between part of her being wet and her time in the dryer, it’s complicated.”

  “Huh. Didn’t realize someone actually put her in there to dry.”

  “I, uh, doubt they did.”

  Since the laundromat had been in full view of anyone standing outside it for maybe half-an-hour after Marti’s screams let everyone know she found Louella Belle, Elizabeth had decided to tell him more than she might have in different circumstances. He’d seen Louella Belle’s body on the table before she and Grayson hung the paper on the glass.

  “Cause of death is not obvious. We’ll have to wait for Skelly to do his magic.”

  “Already had tomorrow’s paper put to bed. I’ll put something short on the web page.”

  Elizabeth avoided telling him she didn’t care what he wrote. “Give me a call tomorrow.”

  She waited until Jerry was out the door before walking toward the break room. Her vibrating phone stopped her. “Chief Friedman here.”

  “Skelly here. Heard something from Dingle.”

  “You letting the city clerk help in the hospital's autopsy suite?”

  “Suite, that's funny. He has a guilty conscience.”

  Elizabeth found it hard to imagine the usually pompous Dingle having any pangs of conscience. “Do tell.”

  “She’d been bugging him a lot at the office.”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth could almost see Skelly smile.

  “To get rid of her, Dingle told her he could use some help figuring out if anything weird was going on at the laundromat.”

  Elizabeth flushed, irritated. “He didn’t mention anything to me.”

  “He didn’t think anything was wrong, he just didn’t like seeing a lot of college kids in and out of there. That’s not how he put it of course.”

  “Exactly what did he say?” she asked.

  “Dingle said he thought the college kids were using it more as a hang-out than a place to do laundry. His words were he ‘wanted to know if they were up to something,’ and he asked her to pay attention to the place.”

  Elizabeth sat on the edge of Hammer’s desk. “That old fart wants to micro-manage my budget, but he can’t be troubled to talk to me about something that bothered him.”

  Skelly's voice came in and out of the phone, as if he was doing something else while he talked to Elizabeth. “I don’t think Dingle really was bothered, just wasn’t something he could control, and he wanted her out of his office. Now he feels guilty.”

  “He should!”

  Skelly sounded surprised. “Something was going on there?”

  “No idea. But you put her in the mix and she'll annoy people enough to cause trouble.”

  “Maybe she did see something,” Skelly offered.

  Elizabeth sighed. “And God forbid she bring it to me if she could hassle someone on her own. Any thoughts on cause of death?”

  “Sent some bloodwork to the lab, but doubt it'll show much. Besides the arm, her neck was partially broken. Enough to get her to pass out from pain if she hadn’t already. But I can’t tell if it’s from before or after she took her ride.”

  “Okay. Talk to you tomorrow,” she said.

  “You eat yet?” Skelly asked.

  “Mahan bought subs if you want to stop by. He just got them.”

  “I’ll pass. Good night.”

  Elizabeth started for her office, where she knew Hammer would have placed a pile of messages for her. Her phone vibrated again. “Yes?”

  “Chief, Grayson here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Bike theft, so I’ll take a report for a few minutes rather than patrol.”

  "Odd time of year for that. Kid’s bikes?”

  “Belonged to young teen, so not a big one.”

  The bike behind Gene’s tattoo parlor flashed through her mind. “Damn. See if a bike is behind Gene’s place, in the alley. Call me either way.”

  “Will do.”

  Elizabeth cursed herself. She may have walked right by the murderer’s mode of getaway.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MOST DAYS ELIZABETH WORE a blazer and slacks, maybe a suit if she had to go to a budget meeting or talk to the mayor. The Tuesday morning after Louella Belle’s murder, she figured media – more serious media than Jerry Pew – might stop by, so she wore her formal chief’s uniform. She didn’t realize she’d left the jacket across the bottom of her bed for a few minutes when she’d last worn it, and had to use lots of scotch tape to get all the cat hair off.

  Elizabeth carried her flat, official hat under her arm as she arrived at the station at seven-thirty. She felt well-rested considering the evening’s events. She’d even stopped by Casey’s for a bag of mini-bagels for her officers.

  Sgt. Hammer had beaten her in, apologetic for having left on time the day before. “My wife did the last two middle-school PTA meetings. She understands me changing plans when there’s an emergency, but…” He did a palms-up shrug. "Louella Belle was already dead."

  “We had plenty of guys around. Grayson said you were going to see if anyone knew the kids on the flyer.”

  Hammer began to clear off the wrappers from the prior night’s sub sandwiches. He didn’t like it when his desk became a catch-all. “Thing is, Chief, lots of folks saw the picture. A few people had heard about Louella Belle's death and
a couple parents had the flyer and showed it around. Instead of asking them about it straight-away I figured I’d listen for a few minutes.”

  Elizabeth grinned. “Not like anyone could escape the meeting early.”

  Hammer swept the remaining crumbs from his desk into the trash can that sat behind it. “The December meeting's part social, so folks don't rush out. I heard pretty quickly that the kids on the flyer not only attend school there, they’re the assistant principal’s son and daughter.”

  Elizabeth slapped herself in the forehead. “What could Louella Belle have been thinking?”

  Hammer shrugged. “Happy to say I don’t know how her mind worked. My guess is she wanted people talking about the picture. My son’s science teacher is a friend. At the end, I asked him what he’d heard.”

  “And?”

  “You know the assistant principal? Her name’s Avery Maxwell. She just saw it a couple days ago, and he said she hit the ceiling. Called a lawyer and everything.”

  “There’s somebody else to interview,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t start out by asking her where she was yesterday at four o’clock or whenever. She has a short fuse.”

  “I’ll light it if it gets some good info. I’m going to check my desk for messages to see if Grayson left a note about a bicycle I saw behind Gene’s last night. If I’m on the phone, interrupt me if Skelly calls, would you?”

  “Will do, and he did.”

  “Called?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I meant Grayson left you a note.”

  Since Hammer said nothing more, Elizabeth left him to enter data from the officers’ time sheets so the city would know how many hours each man booked.

  Three minutes later, she wished Grayson’s message had been different. As he finished the report on the teen's stolen bicycle, Finn Clancy had called to say his bike had been stolen.

  When Grayson checked the alley behind Man Up Tattoos, he found no bike. Gene didn’t know one had been parked there.

  Instinct told Elizabeth that the killer hadn’t wanted to call attention to him or herself by riding away on the likely stolen bike. He probably went back when the police had left.

  Had the bicycle thief taken it earlier in the day? Elizabeth thumbed through the short stack of incident reports beneath Grayson’s note. The top one was Calderone’s report on Louella Belle, the second Grayson’s reports on the two bikes. Stapled to it was a photo of a rusty men’s bike with its scruffy owner sitting on it. Definitely the one Elizabeth had seen behind Gene’s. Grayson's note that said Clancy had provided the photo.

  “Nuts.” A glance at the bottom of the report revealed Finn Clancy’s phone number. “Too bad if it’s too early.” She dialed.

  A man barked into the phone. “This better be damn important!”

  “Chief Friedman here, and it is, Mr. Clancy. Thanks for picking up.”

  More quietly, he asked, “Find my bike? Heard you saw it and let somebody ride off with it.”

  “Unfortunately, we didn’t have your stolen property report when I walked down the alley.”

  Clancy said nothing. Elizabeth knew Finn Clancy as a man who preferred to lounge around town complaining about having no job. She had also heard that the owner of the twenty-four-hour gas station on the edge of town had offered him work stocking shelves at night, with the possibility of a cashier’s job if things worked out. Clancy had told him he didn’t work well after dark.

  “So, you gonna get it back? That’s my main transportation you know.”

  “I can appreciate that. It would help to know when you last had it and when you noticed it missing.”

  “I told all that to the Grayson guy.”

  She nodded. “I have the report. I would like to hear it directly from you.”

  Clancy launched into a long-winded tale of putting his bike in the rack near Doris Minx’s cookie shop, and then heading to the dollar store to do some Christmas shopping. After going to Dollar General, he had dinner at the Weed ‘n Feed and walked back to Doris’ place about seven-thirty. No bike. “And it took your guy a damn long time to come take my report.”

  “I’m sorry. You may have heard we were investigating Louella Belle Simpson’s murder.”

  Less boisterously, he said, “Oh, yeah, well, that’s all right. You gonna find it?”

  “I hope so. As Officer Grayson seems to have told you, I think I saw it behind Man Up Tattoos, in the alley. You’re sure you didn’t leave it there?”

  “Damn sure.”

  “And no lock on it when it was in the bike rack?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Elizabeth almost snapped back at him, but held back. “If someone used bolt cutters to get at it, I’d be inclined to think the person regularly stole bikes or other locked items. If no lock, it could have been taken impulsively.”

  “Yeah, well, no lock.”

  “We’ll keep looking. I have to tell you something really important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you find it, don’t touch it. We’ll want to check it for prints.”

  His laugh was course. “It ain’t all that important.”

  “Not to you, maybe. But it was near the site of a murder. I want to know who touched it besides you.”

  SKELLY CALLED AT ELEVEN Tuesday morning. “Not a lot more to tell you. My guess would be someone shoved Louella Belle and she fell against a thin pipe or something like that. Injured her neck enough that she probably passed out.”

  “Could it have been the lip of the laundry tub?”

  “Might make sense. She might not have died right away, but it would have been quick. They could have hefted her up and put her head under water until she stopped breathing.”

  Elizabeth groaned. “That poor woman.”

  “Doubt she knew what was going on. Just the smallest amount of water in her lungs. She wasn’t gulping for air.”

  She sighed. “The guys got about forty different sets of latent prints from the place. I guess we’ll focus first on those around the tub.”

  “Not the dryer, Chief?”

  She smiled. “The dryer, too. But by the time they got her over there the killers could have thought to put on gloves. Cold enough that just about everyone would have had a pair with them last night.”

  “Good point. That’s why you’re the big boss. Gotta run.”

  Elizabeth had wanted to ask if he had results of any blood work, but she supposed he would have said so. He’d likely have a written preliminary report to her in a few hours.

  She studied a list of people to interview. It included anyone Nick and Marti could remember being in the diner between the time Louella Belle left and was found dead, and businesses near the laundromat. She added Assistant Principal Maxwell, the city clerk, and Louella Belle's neighbors.

  She’d asked Mahan to visit nearby gas stations to see if any patrons seemed to be acting odd in the late afternoon or early evening, or had wet sleeves – a sign they may have dealt with Louella Belle in the laundromat.

  Squeaky said he would develop a list of regular weekday laundromat customers. The few he’d remembered either lived in the senior housing apartments or worked in a couple nearby businesses. Elizabeth hoped he could come up with a more diverse group.

  Before she looked at anyone else, she called Donald Dingle.

  If someone could have a guilty tone of voice, the city clerk did. “You heard about me asking Louella Belle to, uh, stay alert?”

  Elizabeth didn’t plan to cut him any slack. “You told her you thought students used the laundromat for more than washing clothes, and asked her to check it out.”

  Dingle’s usual officious tone came through. “Now, chief, that’s an exaggeration.”

  “Glad to hear it. What did you ask her to do?”

  Dingle said nothing for several seconds. “See, I saw a lot of them going in and out of there.”

  “The students, you mean?”

  “Yes. It seemed odd. I me
an, they have washers and dryers in the dorms.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Kids like to congregate. Did you think something illegal was going on at the laundromat?”

  Dingle spoke forcefully. “How would I know without information?”

  “The police work for the city. Why ask Louella Belle rather than me? Has it occurred to you that you may have placed her in danger?”

  “Now, Chief, you have no proof of that.”

  Elizabeth deliberately said nothing.

  “Do you?”

  “You know I don’t discuss active investigations. Have you asked private citizens to snoop anywhere else on your behalf?” Elizabeth knew it might not be smart to antagonize Dingle, but she wanted to be sure he wouldn’t do something stupid again. At least not in the same way.

  After at least ten seconds, a subdued Dingle said, “No.”

  “Did Louella Belle pass on any of her observations?”

  “Not that I recall,” Dingle said.

  “Okay. Next time contact me, please.”

  “I’m getting another call. I have to go.” Dingle hung up.

  Calderone walked in. “Heard who you were talking to. Skelly told me what Dingle said about Louella Belle.”

  Elizabeth shoved her office phone a few inches from her. “He’s an old fool in a position where he can do harm. If I find out she was killed ‘looking into things,’ I’m going to talk to the county attorney to see if any charge would apply to Dingle.”

  “Damn, Chief, remind me not to piss you off.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ELIZABETH DIDN'T OFTEN ASK her officers to work during meal breaks, but the day after a murder was an exception. She scheduled lunch in her office to go over what they knew, and ordered in pizza and pre-packaged salads from the Logland Pizza Parlor next to Alice's bookstore.

  "Whadda we owe you?" Mahan asked.

  "Merry Christmas," she said.

  "In that case," Calderone said, "you should have ordered a supreme."

  "Damn, Tony," Hammer said.