A Mystery

©Churchill Mallison 1993

The door stood slightly ajar; a fragile beam of light squeezed through, daring me to enter. I took the dare.

What little light relieving the gloom came from a small window draped with cheap shears———discount-house specials. The room was L-shaped: the larger part the living room, the smaller the dinning area. Enough dust covered the floors that I left tracks. I tried to disturb as little as possible as I made my way to the center of the living room, pivoting in place, observing details.

Dismal. A peculiar smell———a familiar sweet odor of rotting meat mingled with that musty, sour stink of old people in old houses permeated the stagnant air. I didn't want to breath but the lungs kept rhythmically sucking away and cringing at the same time.

It looked like any other old Jewish couple's house in a section of Framingham, Massachusetts which 40-50 years ago was the fashionable neighborhood to raise your kids in. The kids moved away; the parents stayed behind. The neighborhood changed over several times and now was predominantly black. A Star of David hung by a ribbon chord from the corner of a gilt mirror which was permanently fixed to the wall above the fireplace mantle. Photographs in a variety of frames———some silver, some cheap wood and glass, slotted plastic stands———covered every inch of the mantle and spilled over onto end tables, the coffee table———you name it———every available flat surface. I studied the photographs. Could have been your family. Mine. A yellowed black and white wedding picture in a hallowed corner by an imitation Tiffany lamp showed the missing couple———I assumed they were the missing couple———as they looked on that happy day who knows how many years ago. From the style of the clothes, I'd guess the early '20s. Smiling. They were pretty ordinary looking people. Both had black hair———at least it appeared to be black, but this was a black and white photo, so maybe it wasn't black———what do I know. Both had dark eyes, big noses, big teeth. But they looked...nice. Like nice, plain, ordinary folks. From further inspection, I didn't see anything that looked like it might be later pictures of them. Plenty of kids, though, in all stages of development, and their wedding pictures, and then a load of grandchildren.

By now I was mouth breathing, but the stench still ate away at my olfactory. I took out my handkerchief and covered my mouth and nose. At least it filtered out some of the dust.

Lace doilies covered the arms on all the upholstered furniture. Plastic carpet runners protected all the usual traffic areas, but the carpet was so old and worn anyway, I chuckled aloud and the abrupt sound of my voice startled the stillness. My grandmother was a Jew and she did all this stuff———the couch was covered with a crocheted coverlet. Like my grandmother, these folks bought all this nice furniture and then buried it under layers of protection so it wouldn't get dirty, so they never got to enjoy their pretty things. Company would come over and Grandmother would spend all her time worrying if somebody was going to spill something on her beautiful white brocade couch which you couldn't even find beneath the scratchy wool blanket she draped over it.

On to the dining area. There was a mess on the table, but I was saving that for last. Instead I was drawn to a small bay window overlooking a lake which could be seen through a thicket of elms. The bay window had glass shelves from top to bottom loaded with pots of dead plants. Lots of African violets that had shriveled into little black curls and almost vanished into the potting soil. I turned from the window and let my eyes scan the kitchen just beyond. No barrier separated the kitchen from the dinning area———just a simple inverted U of appliances and counter space. Except for the dust, tidy. A coffee pot sat on a cold electric burner.

Now I turned my attention to the only area in the place that was askew: the dining room in which I stood and its oval, marbled-turquoise linoleum-covered dinette.

A cup of coffee with a rainbow collection of fuzz covering its surface sat at the tip of a stainless steel Oneida table knife. The knife had been used to spread what probably had been cream cheese but now was a wilted stand of whitish mold which appeared to be dying from lack of further nourishment. A breakfast plate held a bagel hard as stone and coated with cream cheese that could easily pass for cement. Dried lox, partially imbedded in the cement, was mummified by its salt and as hard as petrified wood. It had long since ceased to smell. An aluminum framed, plastic cushioned (in matching marbled-turquoise) chair had been shoved well back from the table.

Opposite this setting, a half-eaten bagel laid like a fallen half moon on its plate; it, too, smeared with cement. The coffee cup laid on its side, its contents forming an irregular shaped pool which had hardened to a shiny glaze. A coffee spoon and table knife had been knocked to the floor, and a chair had fallen over onto its side and skidded across the floor until it struck the wall a few feet away.

A folded newspaper rested near the edge of the table, not yet separated for reading. With a pencil from my suit pocket, I opened the paper flat.

April 1, 1994. April Fools Day. Only today was July 17 and these folks had just been missed. Lead settled into my chest. I didn't even know these people, but I felt depressed as hell. A couple of old folks———vanished. Poof. Nowhere to be found. Somebody's grandmother and granddaddy. Poof.

*****

I checked out the one bathroom. Everything in its place. Perfume and bath powder to make her smell sweet. Old Spice to make him sexy. Two clean but worn towels neatly folded on the towel bar. No Tears Shampoo; generic hair conditioner standing in a dried water stain on the tub corner opposite the shower and faucets. Two tooth brushes hanging in a ceramic holder with a water-spotted glass seated in its depressed ring. Half a tube of tooth paste, rolled from the bottom. Obviously they still had their teeth. At least then. I noticed two combs and cleaned the hairs out of them, placing them into separate envelopes.

Next the bedroom. Same tidiness. The clothes in the drawers were neatly folded and stacked. I searched each drawer for hidden treasures or weapons but found nothing more peculiar than a penny in his sock drawer.

Okay, so the easy part was done. Now to find the source of the smell. The stink wasn't really strong anymore, just sickeningly there as an undertone that seemed to seep from the pores and fibers of everything about the place.

*****

Two doors led off from the inverted-U kitchen, one on each side and directly opposite each other———the back door and a pantry door. At the back of the pantry, a third door supported a portable plastic-covered wire rack attached by hooks that curved over the top of the door. It was key-locked. The stench in the closeness of the pantry could singe the hairs off a hog. I made a quick scan hoping to spot the key to the lock quickly but gave it up in short order, backing out, gasping for air. This looked like as good a time as any to get the hell out and into fresh air and sunshine to call the station.

*****

Percy Johns came over with a fireman's ax and made short work of the cellar door. He also circled the exterior of the house and smashed in all the cellar windows and then lit a torch before descending the stairs. It helped disperse a lot of the foul gasses and the crime lab guys were grateful. You don't get used to the stink of rotting flesh. I stood on the perimeter of the crew watching. About half the cellar had brick flooring and the other half was dirt. The furnace sat in a corner on bricks. Nearby a coal bin stood half empty, its plank doors that opened to the back yard above, were closed and padlocked from the outside. The walls surrounding the dirt floor area were lined with crude vegetable bins. Some held potatoes that were beyond rotted and close to dust, and onions so far gone that all that remained were stinking, black, moldy, papery skins. A carpenter's bench waited with a pegboard of tools hanging behind it.

For a cellar, it was well lighted, particularly above the work bench. Apparently the old man used to putter; there were several unfinished wooden projects scattered around———a bird house with half the roof on, a rocking chair, its busted arm removed and laid on the corner of the bench.

The lab crew crawled over the house inch by inch. A man was lifting prints from what remained of the cellar door. Manny Casper, my partner as of a week ago, came over to where I stood and stared in the same direction I did.

"They're not going to start the digging until tomorrow," he said, looking me in the eye dolefully. "You gonna be here for that, get here early."

"Why tomorrow?" I asked.

"Don't want to disturb things until the crew gets a thorough shot at this. I don't want anybody saying we made a mess of the scene and destroyed evidence."

"I wanna be here," I said, just to make damned sure he didn't start without me.

Manny looked me up and down. I hate it when the he does that. Stick to business and never mind the "You sure you can handle it, honey?" shit. I smirked. He continued to go over me like I was a specimen with lumps on its chest and he wanted to be damned sure he saw all there was to see. I spread my legs in an aggressive stance and planted my fists on my hips.

"We should start canvasing the neighbors." My look warned him that if those bodies were found and I wasn't here, I'd be some kind of hell to live with. He said, "Tell you what, I'll call you before they start. Okay?"

I smiled, looked at him thoughtfully, and said———more to be irritating than anything else, "They should start over there." I pointed towards the work bench.

"The boys will dig up the whole area, Erin———"

"Detective Hoyt to you, Manny."

"What's got your bowls in an uproar?" His face furrowed sourly.

"When the day comes that you look upon me as a partner and not as some frilly broad, Manny, then you can call me Erin. At Phil's I don't care if you call me Erin. On the job, I'm a detective, sir, and don't you forget it." Phil's was the current hangout bar for off-duties where sir spent his time either trying to get in my pants or trying to piss me off because he couldn't.

He ducked his head in a way that could be read a number of ways: submission, condescension, sarcasm———I didn't care since I had every intention of further enlightening him just for the sake of needling him. Ever since I'd overheard his remarks about being stuck with a "stupid pussy for a partner," I'd been on his case but good. Oh, they'd find the body or bodies alright, that wasn't the point. The point was, I knew where it or they were buried and he didn't have a clue.

"Dig underneath the work bench and forget about excavating the whole damned cellar," I said in a voice that implied I was speaking to a moron.

He shot me a look that said I was a certifiable idiot.

I shot him one that said I expected just such a stupid response from him.

Manny Casper was kinda cute when he got riled. His eyes went all fiery———the grays shooting sparks. His mouth would draw into a tight, lipless line and dimples would punctuate his laugh lines making exclamation marks on both sides of his mouth.

I raised my eyebrows, drooped my heavy lids a little and pointed towards the bench with my chin. Speaking in a soft but lecturing tone, I instructed, "As you can see, Detective Casper, the entire dirt area is well packed from years of traffic. But if you'll look closely at the soil under the bench, you'll note it's a little too packed. I mean, well, for one, note the back legs. The right one shows a shallow trench as if the table had been pulled out and then pushed back against the wall. Now, note the left one. Doesn't it look...well, tamped? Like with a shovel or something flat? Note also that there are a number of straight-line ridges around under there as if someone had tried to tamp the space smooth so it would look like the rest of the area. But, look over there." She pointed towards the back wall as she leaned in that direction, squinting her eyes. "A clump of loose dirt there, and, well from here, it looks like a footprint. Now, Mr. Casper, seems to me like you gotta be awfully short to be walking around underneath that table."

"So the guy dropped something behind the table and moved it out to get it," Manny said in a tone that implied that the best thing she could do was go sit in the car. But he was intrigued.

"Whatcha wanna bet? Bet you a ten spot," she grinned.

"Go you one better," Manny replied. "Loser buys at Phil's tomorrow night."

"You got a deal," she shook hands on the bet. He held her hand a little longer than necessary———not that he was romantically interested, but because he was reminding her that she was female and therefore good for sexual adventures only. She smirked and pulled her hand away, adding, "That's assuming, of course, we can get off for Phil's tomorrow night. You know, the job?" A nod of her head reminded him they were here on business. "If not, whenever. Deal?"

*****

Detective Manny Casper would never have admitted it wasn't his idea in a million years, but he couldn't resist telling Jasper Willis, the Regional Crime Lab Coordinator, that he thought he'd save a lot of time if he moved the carpenter's bench and started digging there. Now don't get me wrong, Manny has a lot of respect for Jasper, but there's still an element of male competitiveness between those two. Maybe it's a male ego thing. Me? I could care less who collars whom or who gets the kudos for solving the crime...as long as it's me. My big thing with the police department, and the entire bureaucracy for that matter———hell, the whole damned world!———is sex discrimination and sexual harassment. Get me on those two subjects, or subject me to either of those offenses, and you got a ball-bustin' bitch on your hands. Otherwise, I'm a pretty nice lady. I don't mean to brag, but I clean up pretty good, and I like being pretty and men giving me a lot of attention. But there's attention and there's attention. With Manny, he invariably gives me the wrong kind. I talk to his eyes; he talks to my nipples; it pisses me off.

We're sitting at the bar at Phil's and Manny's buying. Ordinarily I don't drink that much, but since Manny's stuck with the tab, I'm drinking gin like somebody's going to pull the stopper on the tub any minute. He's so cheap he squeaks, so I'm getting a big charge out of this. No pun intended, of course. Me, being a modest lady and all, I'm rubbing it in for all its worth. You're thinking, you're riding your partner that hard? Aren't you afraid he'll dump your ass for a new partner? Hell no. That jerk tries that on me I'll get him for sexual harassment and anything else I can dream up. Told him so, too.

I'm talking to Manny's eyes, sometimes his nose, sometimes his lips, saying, "It's a good thing the Department finally let a woman make detective. Notice how smoothly things are going? Was I right or was I right? About time they hired some brains."

So Manny says to my nipples, "You know the stupidest damned thing men ever did was give you broads the right to vote. The second stupidest thing he ever did was let you women out of the kitchen. What I need is some skirt telling me how to run a case."

"Listen, think real hard———I know it's difficult, but try. Try to come up with an original sexist remark. Those are so old and worn out you can't even get my dander up. So what did Jasper do when you told him to start digging under the bench?" I asked.

"What do you think the egotistical bone-head did? He started on the opposite side of the room." Manny laughed heartily at this and tipped his bourbon. "Sucker worked his ass off before he found the body right where you said it was. Serves him right."

I smiled triumphantly, even though it wasn't the old couple we'd expected to find buried there.

Manny shifted his eyes all the way up to mine for rare eye contact. He said, "Don't let this go to your head, Erin, but you're a good looking head when you got on civies. Specially in that flowered dress." He let his eyes take in my dark hair, which I wore in a short bob because it's low maintenance. Then he's back to the eye contact thing again, studying my browns. I'm noticing, not for the first time, that he has awesome blue-gray eyes and long black lashes. I make it a habit not to notice his slightly wavy Irish black hair and that stray lock that gives him a naughty look. I refuse to pay attention to his six-foot four wedge shaped frame———or the masculine jaw with the full, almost pretty lips, or the straight line of nose or flare of nostril when I get his goat. I steel myself and try to hate him a little. Especially since he's such an egotistical macho jackass. But he's my partner, so I have to put up with him. Somebody's shooting at me, I want him to back me up with enthusiasm. ———And vise versa, of course.

"...tomorrow," he said. So unused to him speaking directly to my eyes, I hadn't heard a word he said.

"Tomorrow?"

"Are you here?" He snapped his fingers in front of my nose ———God, I hate that. I felt like biting them.

"Sorry, I was elsewhere," I said calmly, not letting on that he was getting under my skin. "What did you say?"

"I said tomorrow we hit the neighborhood. Try to find somebody who'll come to the morgue and identify the stiff."

"I can't wait," my nose wrinkled involuntarily. It was going to be a picnic trying to find somebody to come to the morgue to I.D. a corpse in that degree of decomposition. One of the wonders in life is that anyone is willing to do autopsies on things like that. You couldn't call 'em people anymore. It made you think of your own mortality and shrivel up inside knowing some day you'd look just like that. Ugh.

"Listen, before you fall off that stool swilling gin like there's no tomorrow, wanna go to a movie or something?"

I was startled, I stammered a little, then asked, "Isn't there some kind of rule or something about partners dating?"

"Who says it's a date? We're just going to a movie. Maybe get a pizza later."

"This dutch treat? I'm broke," I replied.

"Well, listen, it's no freakin' date, but I'll pick up the tab. Okay?"

"Well, you put it that way. Just no funny stuff."

"Oh, yeah," he sneered, "Like I'm dying to get castrated by the ball-buster of Precinct 9."

"Just when I think you might be human. Next time, it's on me. Then we're even."

"Get a move on, it's almost show time."

*****

We split up. He took three blocks surrounding the neighborhood and I took the other three, thusly surrounding the block where the Hermans had lived. Lt. McGowen said we didn't need additional help and even if we did, he couldn't spare anybody. So it was up to us. We'd spent an hour or so earlier going through the Hermans' personal papers, which hadn't been disturbed, except by the MRCL men, but they hadn't shown any particular interested. Strangely, no identifying photographs were to be found. No passports, no driver's licenses, no credit cards. There was a key to a lock box at a Merchant's Bank on North Bank and Rouarke West which might hold passports or the like, but we'd have to get a court order before we could open it.

I started out with the house next door. A brass plate said Mr. and Mrs. Elwood lived there. I rang the bell several times, knocked, and was about to give up when I heard a reverberating "Who's there?" from the other side.

"Detective Hoyt," I said in as nonthreatening a voice as I could muster.

"Who?" The voice sounded like a comic imitation of a little old lady.

"Detective Hoyt of the Framingham Police Department, ma'am. Just need to ask you a few questions regarding a neighborhood disturbance."

"I don't know anything."

"Mrs. Elwood? Please open the door."

"How do I know you're from the police?"

"Happy to show you my badge." I don't know how I was going to do that. The door didn't even have a peephole. She provided the answer.

"Step over to the window." Her voice quivered like an image off hot tarmac in August.

There was a window to the left of the door. Venetian blinds were drawn. I obediently stepped over, drew my badge, and held it up to the window. One slat cracked just a little, then I could see a yellowish fingernail lift it a little higher. Finally, Mrs. Elwood said, "Well, okay." She opened the door wide enough for me to see one murky eye. "What do you want?"

"Do you know Myrtle and Jacobi Herman?"

"Well, I suppose you could say I do, but we're not, you know, intimate acquaintances." She opened the door a little wider.

"When is the last time you saw either of them?"

"Oh, goodness, I don't know. Like I said, we didn't socialize. They're Jews, you know. We're Christians."

"Well, when was the last time you just, you know, saw them. Like putting out the garbage or something like that?"

"Oh, my," Mrs. Herman's head shook in tiny little jerks from side to side as if spasmodic. What with her standing at under five feet tall, my five-ten dwarfed her. She had little bird bones and flesh that hung off her forearms in speckled folds badly in need of a good ironing. Her nose dominated a sunken face wrapped in parchment. To tell you the truth, she looked much worse than the deceased. "My memory's not so good...tell you the truth, dearie, I don't remember seeing either one of them folks for some time. Of course, I never see much of them anyway. They keep pretty much to themselves."

I straightened, stretching out my long frame and screwed my mouth around trying to figure out a tactful way to tell the old biddy that her neighbors were missing without scaring her into a cardiac. "Mrs. Elwood, do you suppose I could come in a minute and we could sit down?"

She let me in and led the way to a living room that looked very much like the Hermans', only she didn't drape all the furniture. She sat on a flowered settee and I sat opposite her in a tapestried wingback that was older than my grandmother.

"Okay," she said with determination to handle whatever I dished out, "I'm sitting, so get on with it. I have noticed a lot of police activity over there since yesterday."

"Well, the Hermans are...gone. Missing, that is. Do you think you can come downtown with us and identify the body we found in the basement?"

"Oh, good Lord! How long they been dead?"

"OH, no, it's not the Hermans———"

"———You want me to go down and look at a rotten old corpse? Why don't you just call their daughter and let her do it. Ugh! I wouldn't be able to eat or sleep for a month!"

*****

Manny found a younger couple a few blocks away who just happened to know the Hermans and corresponded with their daughter. The Jay Foxes agreed to go to the morgue with them and take a look. Julia Fox provided Manny with the name and address of the daughter, a Nelson Herman Smith, who lived in  Greenville, North Carolina.

*****

"I don't understand it," Julia Fox stared at the corpse. She held a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, though the only odor now was formaldehyde.

"He was so good with them. Loved them. Devoted to them, he was," Jay Fox added.

"What killed him?" Julie asked.

"Heart attack," the doctor answered. "If I don't hear from some family by today, I'm going to go ahead and incinerate the body."

"Just throw him away and burn him?" Julie was shocked.

"Ma'am, I'm not going to keep a dead dog in my freezer forever."

*****

Manny and I sat in a dark booth in the back of Phil's drinking beer. We'd been arguing about the case. I wanted to go through the old house one more time. He said he didn't want to go back there again, the house depressed him. Made him think of his grandmother's old house and how she used to rock him to sleep on the porch on lazy afternoons. He was so morose he talked to my eyes!

I settled the argument. I left Manny swilling beer at Phil's. On my way home, I just happened to go past the Herman house. I pull loose the crime scene tape and let myself inside.

I switched on the fake Tiffany and wandered around the room. I returned to the corner to switch off the lamp, but I stopped and eyed the antique secretarial. Always wanted one of those. This one was in pretty good shape, too.

Sitting down on its small, mahogany chair, I pulled down the ornately scrolled cover down and peered into the row of cubby holes. Systematically, I sorted through the assortment of papers and musty envelopes. It was in the third cubby hole. I jammed it in my pocket and took off for Phil's like a cat with a scorched tail!

He was still sulking over his beer when I burst through the swinging doors. "Yo! Manny!" I yelled clear across the room. "Drag your chin out' them suds! I got it! I got it!"

*****

When we found 'em, the Hermans were sequestered in a bridge tournament on The Britannica docked at St. Georges, Grenada. The Captain kept us at bay until the bidding was over. They had a lot of explaining to do.

Mrs. Herman, a shrivelled up little biddy of a woman, could scarce be found amongst the voluptuous folds of her aqua silk gown. Beady little eyes flashed at me with open hostility.

"We ain't done nothin' wrong for no cops to come bothering us clear down here in the islands! This is all above board and I'm gonna sue the hell out of Framingham!"

"Now, just you say calm, Mrs. Herman," I implored. After all, it took a lot of imagination for me to talk our chief into letting us pursue the perps to the islands. No need to push this thing too fast. I'd never been to the islands.

Manny spoke up, standing tall in his bright iguana-green walking shorts and red hibiscus Hawaiian shirt. "We just got to wrap up some loose ends. Won't take but a minute. You just tell us why you ups and disappears like that without a word to anybody. And why did you bury the dog in the basement?"

"Hell, young fellah," Mr. Herman bellowed, puffing out a bony chest adorned in the finest of cruise-wear, "We got so damned excited we just upped and run! Figured we could tell everybody later, that's all."

"And poor Junior," Mrs. Herman's wrinkled face crumpled for a second, then brightened again. "Why, they announced the lottery number on the television, and we both jumped out of our chairs and started hollerin'! We was a hootin' and a hollerin' and cryin' and jumpin' up and down, we wuz so excited! Then all of a sudden, poor ole Junior started hackin' and coughin', and next thing you know, he keels over dead as a cod fish! I reckon we plumb scared the poor thing to death!"

"So I just quick buried him in the basement. It was already dark outside, and besides, the ground was still frozen. I planned on burying him nice and proper when we got back. But we got to having such a good time down here, why...hell, son, ma'am, I don't rightly know if we even will go back! We ain't never had two nickels to rub together a'for now, and we're gonna kick up our heels while the kickin's good. Besides, soon as we get back, the kids and every dad-burn charity in the world will come banging down our doors trying to cash in. No, sir, gonna have us a nice, long vacation and spend ourselves blind!"