At some point over the last few weeks I had texted my three favorite cops several times to see if anyone was up for coffee. I had called Julie, my number one favorite cop, but it always went to voicemail. Since all the texts had gone unanswered, and the calls unreturned, I had almost given up on the police.
It stung, since so much of what I did relied on having good working relationships with official people. But my phone finally showed a familiar number. I answered it on the first ring.
“Maura!” My friend Julie, a seasoned veteran of the Portland Police sounded as happy to be calling as I was to be getting the call.
“Hey Julie, how are you doing?”
“I’m back from my maternity leave and would adore having a coffee with you. Are you free today?”
“Yes, a thousand times yes. Let’s meet at Peet’s Coffee right now. The one by my office.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
I pocketed my phone feeling optimistic. Someone in the police force still liked me and was still willing to let me buy them coffee. And to my joy and great pleasure, it was Julie, a dear girl with no discretion at all, who was hungry to keep me as a source of off-the-record information. So far, we had managed to skirt any kind of impropriety, but her earlier silence during this case had worried me.
She arrived on time, in her street clothes, so a day off, maybe. She and her partner had adopted recently, hence the maternity leave, and I had forgotten because I sometimes suck. I grabbed a bunch of flowers from the grocery store on my way to coffee and handed them to her, in line. “Congrats to you and Josh.”
“Awe, thanks! He has his leave now, which is awesome. I love not having to leave Farrah with a sitter yet. I mean we just got her, you know?”
“I can imagine.”
We ordered our drinks and found a far table to sit at. From the glow on her face I had a feeling I was in for a long chat about diapers and that kind of baby thing. I’d have to find my smile.
She took a long swallow. “I live on this stuff; I swear to you. Even though Farrah is already a year, the girl does not sleep.” She set her cup in front of her and leaned in. “But you and I did not come here to talk about my perfect, awesome, incredible, beautiful baby girl, did we?”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“I’ve been back two days and your name has come up three times. You’ve been asking questions about the Demarcus murder.”
“Caught red-handed.” I sipped my coffee and smiled. I loved—no—adored Julie. From cheating politicians to murder, if my interests and hers intersected, she was here for me.
“I don’t know much. I’m not on the case.”
“I feel like I am in the same boat. The more I uncover, the less I know.”
“And what have you uncovered?” Her grin told me she wanted to get more than she gave today, but I wasn’t feeling stingy.
“Demarcus cheated on his girlfriend. He tried to convert Muslim kids to Christianity. He handed out pot. He took a fundy girl to a liberal church.”
She scrunched her mouth up. “So…not much then.”
“If we wanted to go after low hanging fruit we’d say someone sought revenge for the conversion.”
“Nothing wrong with low hanging fruit, if it’s the right fruit, but, between you and me, the police can’t make anything of it.” Julie pushed her cup back and forth. “Alibis and all of that.”
“The girlfriend seems too reasonable to be a killer,” I supplied.
“We agree.” She took another long drink. “It’s not my case, like I said, but I’m buddies with this kid, Chapman, and he is like a lost puppy, so I want to help him. He doesn’t realize your worth, and I figured if I could dig something out of you, it would help you and him both.”
“I appreciate it. He seemed, when I met him at the scene, like someone who would chat, but clammed up pretty fast next time.”
“His new partner. You know Kim.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kim hates me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“The drugs thing keeps bugging me. There are so many ways it could have played out. He might have gotten on the wrong side of someone’s territory. A street person with a mental illness might have targeted him. Someone’s family might have wanted to stop him from facilitating drug use.”
“As far as the street people go, how would they have gotten him to Crown Point? And where would they have gotten the strychnine?”
I held my face steady. Strychnine. God bless Julie Tremont for ever and ever and ever. My suspicion confirmed. “What about a rival who wanted to sell what Adam was giving away?”
Julie shook her head. “Tempting. Maybe true, but it doesn’t answer the question the murder brings up. I refer to his thumbs and toes, of course, and the way they were chopped off, and the way they were sent to Metro with a note.”
My jaw inexcusably dropped. “Excuse me?”
She grinned and nodded. This was the piece she was willing to give, in exchange for every single thing I knew. And you know what? It was worth it. “Sent in a box, to Adam’s boss, in fact. It was easy to trace via fingerprint, even if it hadn’t had a note.”
“Now you’re just toying with me! What note? When was this package shipped?” I was bouncing in my seat, ready to jump to action the second I had the information.
“One thumb and one toe arrived at Metro with a note that said, ‘there was no king in Israel.’”
I recognized the reference immediately. “In those days there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes.” I muttered it. The book of Judges. Clear as day. A religious killing.
“Sure. You’re the pastor’s wife. Chapman said it was a Bible thing, too and fit with the thumbs. So…” She nodded, stretching the word out. She wanted something more, something only I could give her… “My dear and only church friend. What does it mean?”
I crossed my arms and leaned back. Her dear and only church friend? Who? What? Since when was I anyone’s church friend?
She frowned. “I mean, you and Rick run the Family Healing Seminars, and work for the church.” Her face was confused. “I didn’t…offend you, did I?”
“Family Healing is Rick’s thing. Not mine.”
“But, in years past, you have mentioned stuff about church, and being married to a pastor…”
“He’s not a pastor. He’s a counselor with an office in the church.” My jaw was tight, and I couldn’t help it. It was like a punch. Her church friend? Did she really see me like all those other ladies?
“Sorry. I don’t do religion, so I don’t know the difference. But when I saw the note was a Bible thing, I thought of you. Sorry.” She sipped her coffee and looked apologetic.
“It’s a bit of a sore spot right now. I don’t really do religion either, and every way I turn this case hinges on it. I’ve been hoping that it was something else, anything else really.”
“Do you make anything of it?”
“I’m sure you’ve already looked up the book of Judges. There’s this enemy king at the very beginning and they chop off his thumbs and toes.”
“That’s what Chapman said.”
“There you go. You and I are in the same boat.” I sipped at my coffee, having lost the taste for it. Her “church friend”. A thousand times ug. “But, really Julie…you see me as your church friend?”
“That’s really eating at you!” She laughed. “You never swear, you’re only like thirty, but you’ve been married forever, you never party, you, um, go to church. You’re kind of the dictionary definition of a church person.”
“But I do swear. And I don’t go to church very often.”
She laughed so loud people across the café turned. “You ‘church swear’. In all my life, despite the crap you’ve seen in your line of work, I have never heard you drop an F bomb. And what do you mean you don’t go to church very often? Like only on Sundays?”
“And sometimes for potluck on Wednesdays.”
She laughed harder. Tears filled her eyes and her face went red. “Oh my gosh, you have no idea. No idea. The rest of the world thinks like, going Easter and Christmas is a lot. Only Sundays and sometimes on Wednesdays for pot luck. Oh. My. Gosh. You are killing me. You even have that Church Lady face—remember from Saturday Night Live? You have it on right now, in fact.”
I stared past her, trying to let her words slide off my back. This was my friend. She didn’t know better. It didn’t matter.
It did.
But it didn’t. Just don’t shoot off my mouth, that was my goal.
“Listen, sorry if I offended you. I don’t know why it would, you’re the one who makes it a huge part of your life. I get it that you don’t, like, believe any of it. Who could? I’d bet half the people in a church don’t believe it.” She tipped her coffee back and then looked at the cup, disappointed. “It would explain why everyone was so cranky. That’s a lot of sitting still and being quiet, much less putting money in a pot, if you didn’t actually like what you were hearing.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go. Like I said, I’m not on the Demarcus case, but I sure would like to help out Chapman, so if you think of anything Bible-related that could open the case up, and want to pass it along, I’d sure appreciate it, and I’d make sure Chapman was grateful to you, too.”
I sighed—also involuntary. “I’ll keep you up to date.”
She furrowed her brow. “I honestly don’t know why you are so offended. The only bad church person is the hypocrite.”
I stiffened.
“I’ve never thought of you that way. You seem legit, but maybe you think of yourself that way.” She shrugged. “Don’t let it eat you alive though, okay? Of all the church people I’ve known, you’re the one I stuck with.” She caught my eye and tried to get some kind of smile of agreement out of me. I kept the face in neutral.
Me, her church friend.
Of all the damn things.
I had to put the insult out of my mind, and the best way was to just get moving on something. I needed to catch Linda and discuss my contract and my new contact at Metro before she vanished forever. Her phone went to voicemail when I called, but I took that as a positive sign that she was still Linda Smith of Portland. If they hadn’t shut off her phone, she might still be at home. I put her address in my phone and went to find her.
Linda lived in a historic brick building turned apartment complex on the river. A doorman buzzed me in. I bypassed the elevator and stomped up five stories to her apartment. I wanted to expel some of my anxiety, but it only served to amp me up.
I knocked on the door more loudly than necessary, but it felt good. I did it a second time, with a little more force and the door inched open.
I froze, fist poised to knock again.
Women who lived in buildings with doormen and buzzers for security didn’t leave their front doors off the latch. Not in this town, anyway. I pulled gloves out of my purse and slipped them on. If something had gone down, my fingerprints didn’t need to be on the doorknob.
I pushed the door the rest of the way open with just my fingertips at head height, so I didn’t smear anything that might be on the doorknob. “Linda?” I called out.
I could hear music somewhere in the distance. The low thrumming of strings playing jazz. I followed the sound.
Linda was stretched across her bed, arm over her eyes.
“Linda, your door was open. Are you all right?”
To my great relief, her arm shifted.
“Migraine.”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. We need to have a talk.”
She didn’t rise or open her eyes. “I know.”
“We’re both here now.” I took a seat in the white leather wingback chair across from the bed. “Let’s talk.”
“What is there to say? Adam is gone. I’m leaving. It’s all over. Everything I’ve worked for.” Her voice was a low rumble like she didn’t want to move her jaw.
“We don’t need to talk about any of that.”
“Hmmm.” This time she didn’t even try to make words.
“I want to talk about my contract.”
“Calls, all day. All night. All week. They won’t stop calling.” She struggled for a breath. “You promised they wouldn’t call.”
“I never promised anything.” My back was up. She couldn’t hold me responsible for media phone calls. It was ludicrous. “The calls can’t hurt you now. The worst has already happened.” This was the literal definition of cold comfort, but the despairing lady in front of me needed to buck up.
She murmured more nonsense at me. “I don’t answer. I just see the number and don’t answer.” Her breathing sounded labored. Whether she was sincerely struggling or not was up in the air still. She seemed to enjoy the role of victim. “Can you get me an aspirin. We can talk, but I can’t, the light, the noise, I can’t sit up.”
“Do you want me to turn the music off? Or the lights?”
“Please do, and an aspirin, from the dresser.” She had a glass of water by her bed, but there were no pills on the dresser. I flicked the lights off and hunted for the sound system. A small gold colored Bose sat on a side table. I turned it off.
“He wanted to turn on the music, but my head…I just want quiet.” her voice trailed off. I searched her master bath for some aspirin and found a bottle of Excedrin Migraine in the drawer.
I stepped softly back into her bedroom. Migraines were the worst. Even after this pill she might not be able to talk. “Got it, Linda.” I knelt by the side of her bed to give her the pill.
She didn’t respond.
I nudged her arm, not knowing if she was a migraine barfer or not.
She really didn’t respond.
Her round face glistened feverishly in the dim light that came through the window, but that was the only sign of life. I placed two fingers under her jawbone, but there was no pulse.
I slammed my hands on her and began chest compressions. While doing it, I took a gamble and cried out, “Alexa, call 911.”
“Calling 911.”
God bless rich people.
I went through the motions of the 911 call while performing CPR. I couldn’t get the pressure I needed while she was on the mattress, but moving her risked her heart stopping, if it hadn’t already.
I risked it.
She wasn’t a small woman, but I managed it. I laid her out on the floor as quickly as I could. I didn’t have time to be gentle.
After what felt like an hour of pumping her chest with enough force to break a rib, while singing We Will Rock You to keep the right rhythm, the paramedics entered. Four of them, brisk and efficient. They nodded approval, ripped her shirt open, and applied the paddles. She jerked with the jolt. The woman with the paddles nodded to another one, a smile on her face. It had worked.
“What do you think happened?”
“She complained of a migraine, but I don’t know her well enough to know what was going on. I came over, uninvited, about five minutes before she passed out.”
They were putting her on oxygen, putting her on a cot, carrying the cot out of the room.
I followed them to the elevator, but they let the door shut in front of me.
I stared at the door and wondered: who was this man who had wanted the music on? And could you simulate a migraine with poison? If so, had someone just tried to kill Linda?
Her apartment, full of answers, was right behind me, and I still had my gloves on. No one had told me to go home, so I didn’t.
Linda’s apartment was sparse and modern. Clean lines, low furniture. Welded steel and white leather. Polished marble tile floors with no rugs. Her large television was mounted on the wall above a low lacquered table.
Her male visitor had been with her in the bedroom, so he was someone she was close to, and felt safe with. I’d bet that someone her age still had photo albums and phone books. She might even have a calendar lying around. I went to her kitchen, the age-old hub of the home.
The kitchen was white, sleek, and well stocked with liquor, but there was no sign of a calendar, or phone book.
Being an old building there were only two closets outside of the bedroom, a coat closet by the front door and a linen closet at the end of the one hall. I checked those next. The coat closet was stocked with an assortment of winter looks and one set of winter boots. But not one of the pockets held a note reminding her an old friend was coming today. The linen closet held what you would expect, all in white, as well as a spare feather pillow, two minky blankets and a shelf full of unscented white pillar candles. No photo albums tucked into the shelves.
She had nothing stored under her bed, and her dresser and bedroom closet only held clothes. Nice clothes. Clothes I really liked.
The office, separated from the living room by French doors was better.
Her desk was cluttered with notes on the local shelters. I skimmed through a list of how many beds were currently empty, another list ordered by who was running out of food fastest. A short stack of spiral notebooks full of handwritten notes, also on the committee work was under the jumble of papers.
Her one file cabinet was crammed with city business stuff. Nothing personal as far as I could tell, certainly no photo albums. The desk drawers were cluttered with the usual office detritus—pens, paperclips, sticky notes.
But, in all that work-oriented, depersonalized space, she still had an old leather phone book. I exhaled in relief as I flipped it open. Phone numbers for Mom and Dad were scratched on the wrong side of the cover. I snapped a picture of them with my phone and flipped through the pages. Names and numbers. No notes to indicate who she knew well, or who was a personal friend. And very few numbers per page. I would never call every number to find out who had come to the house, but I took a picture of each page anyway and put the phonebook back where I had found it.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. Even if Linda lived after this, she would disappear any day now, never to be heard from again. If she had been poisoned…
I stared at the phone book.
If she had been poisoned it was literally a federal case and she had literal case managers to handle it. If someone had tried to kill her, people with better training than me would be on it before I could figure out who to call first.
Then again, the Feds would never tell me what they knew. If this was related to my case, I’d have to find out for myself.
I was on my way out when I remembered that “he” had wanted the music on. If “he” had been the one to turn it on, I might have a good chance of getting his identity. I grabbed a roll of scotch tape and a blank piece of printer paper from the office and went back to her bedroom.
I found some eye shadow in her bathroom and scratched the top of it, just enough to loosen the silvery dust. Then I took it to her Bose and blew it over the top.
I pressed a piece of scotch tape over the dusty buttons, ripped it off fast, and then pressed the tape to the paper. I did all the buttons. Of course, “he” might have made her turn it on herself. If he was trying to kill her, and was at all smart, he hadn’t left any prints in the room.
I blew the dust off the Bose and put my supplies away. Perhaps I had ruined the prints for the Feds, but I had a feeling they didn’t need a little thing like fingerprints to get their job done.
I stared at my paper, proud of my quick thinking.
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, I saw it differently. My stomach flipped. My head spun. This was a misstep. If she died, there would be an autopsy. That would reveal foul play and the Feds would absolutely come looking for prints. Instead, they’d find smudges covered in eyeshadow. And they already knew I had been here.
I swallowed my shame, owned my mistake, and drove directly to the police station. I only had my word that she had welcomed me to her apartment, and that she had mentioned someone else being there before me. And my word wasn’t worth too much to the police. But never mind all of that, I had to fix this as best as I could.
I had to hope Julie had a sense of humor and some patience left for her only church friend.
Julie met me at one of the private interview rooms at the station. She didn’t look like she hated me.
“I have been waiting for you to call.” She passed me a cup of bad police station coffee. “Please tell me you’ve dug through all of your Bible books and found the answer to all of our problems.”
I set the paper of poorly and illegally acquired prints on the table between us. “I just made a very bad decision and need to own up to it.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “A professional-license-risking kind of decision?”
“When do I go for less than that?”
I told her about Linda, the paramedics, and my search of her apartment.
“You let yourself in.”
“Yes.”
“But she welcomed you.”
“Yes, and if she lives and doesn’t suffer from serious lack-of-oxygen related brain damage, she will back me up.”
“Do you have a written agreement that shows she is your client?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, you’re not going to need to prove it wasn’t breaking and entering. Also, you tried to save her life and called paramedics. If you had done that as some kind of ruse you would have made sure she was dead before you called.”
“It would make more sense.”
She smiled. “It’s the prints that are the problem.”
“Obviously. She mentioned that some man had wanted the music on despite her headache, so I had got to thinking he might have left prints on the radio.”
“When you get home, burn that paper.”
I winced.
“Seriously. Burn it. It’s not admissible. It only makes you look bad. Right now, you’re concerned about foul play. You’re here to report suspicious activity, on her behalf. We’ll have officers down there ASAP to see what we can find. If the man who wanted the music on was dumb enough to go there, turn the music on without gloves and then kill her, he is the kind of person to leave his prints other places too. Besides,” She glanced at the paper with a disgusted look, “Does that look like a quality fingerprint sample to you?”
I stared at the page. It did not.
“Don’t do dumb things and you’ll get to keep your job, okay? Let’s file a report right now and get the move on before someone else pops by the apartment to clean up.”
“I locked it when I left. Will that be a problem?”
“We’ll work with what we’ve got.” She passed me a piece of clean paper. “Go ahead and write out a statement. Put it all in, even the thing about taking the prints.” She pulled my sloppy paper towards her. “And never mind about burning these. I’m not saying they are the least bit useful, but we’d better keep them.”
I agreed and began writing in my nicest printing. It was slow going, but I didn’t leave out even the stupidest thing I had done. Including taking the photos of Linda’s phone book. I left nothing out and left the results to God.
If he was real, anyway.