SCHULTZ CALLED THE SIMMONS home. The maid answered.
“How’s it going, Ms. Paulson?” Schultz said familiarly. Since their last conversation, he’d felt a bond with the woman who’d lost her child. The circumstances of her loss were different from his, but it gave them something in common.
“Please call me Mary Beth.”
“Leo here.”
“If you’re wondering how things are going in the household now that Frank’s gone, it’s been very smooth. Almost like nothing’s different. One fewer place to set at the table for dinner is what it amounts to.”
“Not much grieving in evidence, then?”
“Oh, yes. But it’s from the children, the poor things. They had a closer relationship with their father than with their mother.”
“Do what you can, Mary Beth. Those kids are going to need support.”
“Oh, we do. All the staff.”
“Speaking of staff, what’s the gardener’s name?”
“You mean Jimmy Drummond? He’s not on staff here. The landscaping work is contracted out to Green Vista.”
Schultz’s eyebrows rose. “You mean the company Arlan ran?”
“Uh huh. They have to maintain the grounds around their developments, and were constantly having to hire short-term help, so they decided to make the best of it and start a landscaping firm. Green Vista Groundworks, I think it’s called. They have GVGW on their vans. There’s a manager, so Arlan didn’t have to mess with the daily work. It was just a convenience for them.”
How are these families tied together? Let me count the ways.
“So, Jimmy Drummond is assigned to May’s account. Where might I find him when he’s off duty?”
Mary Beth giggled. “I have no idea. I have a crush on him, would you believe? But I only admire him when he’s on the premises. I don’t follow him home.”
“Okay, I’m sure I can find out where he lives.”
“Maybe I should. Follow him home, that is.”
Schultz said nothing. She wasn’t going to get any advice to the lovelorn out of him.
“Do you know if the Simmonses own a garden vehicle?” he asked, thinking that it was likely the cart PJ had seen belonged to Green Vista Groundworks.
“I think so. I don’t have much to do with that, you know. But Jimmy walks to the storage building at the back of the property, in some trees. He comes out riding a wagon with rakes and stuff in the back.”
“And he puts it away when he’s done.”
“Yup. Then he leaves in the van.”
“Thanks, Mary Beth. You’ve been very helpful.”
Schultz tracked down Judge Hector Martinez in the Central West End. The guy approved almost all of the search warrants Schultz took to him, which may have been because Schultz helped get the man’s crack-addicted daughter into a treatment program and dropped in to check on her after that, making sure she stayed straight and continued her schooling. The young woman was in law school now.
Judge Martinez was in the downstairs dining room at Balaban’s having white wine and what looked like grilled salmon. He also had a lady companion who was not Mrs. Martinez.
Judge Martinez seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of Schultz for some reason. He listened to the explanation for the warrant, interrupted saying, “Yes, yes,” and signed it right there on the white tablecloth.
Schultz took a couple of officers and an ETU over to May’s home. Mary Beth answered the door, and in a few minutes had produced a sleepy May in silk pajamas and robe down at the front door to acknowledge the serving of the warrant.
“You want to look at what? My storage building?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Specifically at your garden cart.”
“I don’t understand, but Detective, you didn’t need a warrant. You could have just asked me. And you didn’t have to wake me up for it. That shed isn’t going anywhere.”
“Just keeping everything legal, Mrs. Simmons. You know those lawyers.”
She shrugged. “I’m going back to bed. If you have any questions, Mary Beth can come and get me. Again.”
Schultz considered her demeanor. She showed no concern for anyone looking around in the shed. Either she wasn’t the killer, or she was a brilliant actress, or a complete nut case.
There was a padlock on the door of the storage building that was removed by one of the officers with a massive bolt cutter, and bagged to be tested for fingerprints. The double doors opened, and Schultz swept his flashlight quickly around the interior. He didn’t have any reason to think a bad guy was hiding in there, but it was procedure. The place was filled with rakes, shovels, and wicked-looking, long-handled pruning shears. And the cart.
It was about seven feet long. The carrying bin in the back took up about five feet, leaving a couple of feet for a driver’s seat and steering wheel. Shining his flashlight over the rails into the bin, he could see a little leaf debris but nothing else. No obvious bloodstains and certainly nothing to swab and test.
“Bring that spray stuff in here,” he said to one of the crime scene technicians, who was getting set up in and around the shed. A photographer was at Schultz’s elbow, already snapping pictures with a flash.
A tech named Vic Besle, according to his tag, came up carrying a bottle of Luminol. “We don’t just squirt this everywhere. The chemical reaction can damage other evidence.”
“Just use a little of it in one corner,” Schultz said.
Vic seemed reluctant. Schultz made a grab for the bottle, which the tech quickly moved out of reach. “Hey!” Vic said.
“Gimme that!” Schultz said, getting impatient.
“Okay, okay, just one corner.”
Vic reached over the wood slats, stretched a little to position the bottle, and misted Luminol into one corner.
Schultz flicked off his flashlight. In about five seconds, a ghostly, greenish-blue glow lined the slats and flared in the corner. The glow was the result of a chemical reaction between the iron in hemoglobin and the Luminol, a reaction that produced light.
“Looks good, but not presumptive,” Vic said. “We’ll need more testing. Luminol reacts with other things, like bleach or plant materials, which would seem to be an issue here.”
“Since when did you guys start talking like that? Presumptive this and that.”
“I’m a chemist,” Vic said. “I’m moonlighting.”
“Well, Mr. Moonlighter, I’d bet my balls that’s blood. Photographer, get a picture of this.”
Vic sighed and moved away.
Schultz’s cellphone rang. It was Dave, from the barn on Hank’s property.
“We had the St. Ann PD get in touch with Hank,” he said. “The tough part was finding a ladder to get up to that beam. St. Ann brought in the fire department. They were happy to help out.”
“Cut to it, Dave. Rope fibers or no fibers?”
“Rope fibers, Boss. Hank says he’s never had a rope over that beam.”
“Damn, we’re making some progress here. Now if we only knew whodunit.”
Was May the killer? The inner sense that Schultz relied upon wasn’t jangling in the least.