4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4 (10 page)

Chapter 18

Esther Grotz arrived in the middle of the afternoon. She looked like she’d spent the previous fifteen hours on a Greyhound bus which, in fact, she had. Her sleep encrusted eyes peered myopically through Elton John inspired, metallic flecked glasses. Dressed in pink polyester capri’s, matching flip-flops, and a Kelly green blazer over a burnt orange blouse, she could have passed as the poster child for Goodwill dressing gone wild. She introduced herself to Darcie and asked to see the sheriff.

“What is this? Dodge City? What kind of town has a sheriff nowadays?”

Darcie escorted her to Ike who ushered her into his office. He asked for coffee and an extra chair.

“Darcie, see if Sam is available to join us.”

“Okay,” the wife of the recently deceased Anton Grotz declared, “I’m here. What do I have to do so I can go home, and who’s paying for my bus ticket? I had to use my mother’s credit card.”

Ike had not expected the reaction. He assumed that a wife of a homicide victim would be eager to claim the body and cooperate with the investigation. The last thing he expected was a bill for a bus ticket. Mrs. Grotz took a breath and began again.

“Anton spent every dime I made on his stupid investigations. He thought he was on the way to winning a Pulitzer prize. ‘Esther,’ he’d say, ‘this is the big one.’ Like he’s that Robert Redford character, whoever that guy was, that caught Nixon. ‘The big one, my foot,’ I’d say. ‘A big piece of—’”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Grotz, for the inconvenience. It’s just that your husband was murdered and there are some questions we must ask and you may be the only person with the answers. And we thought you’d want to make arrangements for burial.”

“What I gotta do is find me a cheap hotel, grab some Z’s, and catch the next bus outta here. I’m due at work on Monday in the
AM
. I ain’t burying anybody, either. They have a program at the VA, don’t they? He was in the Army. Desert Storm, he was. Only time he had a regular paycheck. Let the VA plant him.”

Darcie brought in the coffee.

“You got any food? I ain’t had a bite since last night.”

“Darcie, run over to the Crossroads and see if they can put a plate together for Mrs. Grotz.”

“Will chicken be all right?” Darcie asked and gave Ike a look.

“Anything as long as it don’t have peppers or okra. You people eat a lot of that crap, don’t you? Okra, terrible stuff. My uncle Frank used to grow it and he’d fry it and put it in soup and, God, it was awful.”

Ike felt his neck turning red. He could be a patient man. Indeed, some of his friends accused him of being too patient. But, in less than ten minutes, Esther Grotz had managed to elevate his blood pressure to a medically significant level. He stepped to his door, leaned out, and yelled.

“Sam, where are you?”

Sam loped around the corner, her face slightly flushed.

“Sorry, I thought I ought to bring the notebooks and Mr. Grotz’s personal things.”

“Thanks, yes, good thinking. Sam, this is Mrs. Grotz. Mrs. Grotz, this is Deputy Ryder. She will conduct the interview. If you don’t have anything else for me, I will excuse myself. Duty…and…all that.” Ike ducked out of the office and the building. He met Darcie with a covered plate on the way in.

“Meatloaf is all Flora had ready for quick delivery. It might have a few peppers in it, I can’t be sure.”

“She’ll eat it. She’ll complain, but she’ll eat it.”

Darcie continued on her way to the office. Ike traced her steps back toward the diner. Coffee, he thought. Coffee and a slice of diabetes inducing cherry pie. That will do the trick.

***

Sam watched Ike’s retreating back and wondered what had gotten into him. Darcie handed her the plate.

“It could have peppers, so be careful.” Darcie whispered in her ear, watching Esther Grotz out of the corner of her eye.

“What…Peppers? Will somebody explain to me what is going on?” Sam closed her eyes, took a deep breath and, a smile carefully arranged on her face, carried the plate into the office.

“No okra, right.”

“Okra? I don’t think so…no, there won’t be any available until late spring and anyway, Flora, the woman who runs the diner, can’t stand it so, no, no okra.”

Mrs. Grotz nodded and dug into her meal. Sam sat opposite her and marveled at how quickly the food disappeared.

“Got any more of this?” the lady said, and extended her coffee cup. Sam poured her another cup. Mrs. Grotz mopped her face with a tissue, drained her cup, and looked up at Sam. “You’re a telephone pole, girl. Good lord, your legs must reach up to your arm pits.”

She proceeded to rant for nearly twenty minutes, detailing her problems, her husband’s failures, the inconvenience she had to bear, all mixed in with
ad hominem
attacks on Sam, Darcie, and the police in general. The only good news, she hadn’t noticed the green peppers.

Finally, Sam had enough. She silently cursed Ike for a coward and turned to the woman who was still belling like a hound after a rabbit.

“Mrs. Grotz, cut the crap.”

“What? What do you mean? I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Yes, you do. Here’s why. We have a murder. Your husband took four bullets and ended up locked up in a room at the home of Jonathan Lydell. The only person we’ve come across with a motive is you. So put a sock in it, and tell me what your husband was doing in the valley.”

“Motive? You think I killed the stupid son of a—”

“Why was he here?”

Esther Grotz took a deep breath and let it out in a low whistle. She shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack of generic smokes.

“Not in here,” Sam said and took the offending item from her.

“Jeez, you people are something.”

“Why was he here, Mrs. Grotz?”

“Like, I don’t know for sure. He said the usual, ‘This is the big one, Esther.’ I asked what and where. See, I needed to do that because the last ‘big one’ turned out to be a story about some of the family members in the area. You know what I mean about the family?”

“He planned to expose the mob?”

“The New Jersey family, right. Like, people ain’t seen enough on
The Sopranos,
so before he gets that one done…remember, he hasn’t earned a dime in six months at that point…two goons show up at the door and take him for a walk around the block. He came back a little rumpled and white as a sheet. He told me I should burn his notebooks.”

“And did you?”

“He thought I did. He told the goons I did. When they come around, I showed them some ashes. I don’t think they bought it. But you never know.”

“What happened to the books?”

“Well, when that all went away and he got started on this new project, I told him I still had the books. He said, ‘Jesus, Esther, you want to get us killed?’ I said, ‘These books are worth money to somebody, and since you aren’t earning out, I’m testing the market.’ He went really white then. You should’ve seen it.”

“What happened to the books, Mrs. Grotz?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. He was working on this new project. He says he found some old papers down in the library. There was this guy, Brian…I don’t think I ever heard of anybody in the family named Brian. Most of them are goombas, you know? Vito, Tony, Vince…like that, so this guy had come from outside the neighborhood. There’s a kid in the neighborhood, Brian O’Neil is his name, but I don’t think that’s who he meant. Anyway, the next thing I know, he’s gone and so are the books. You have a mafia down here? Maybe he came to sell them here.”

“We’d like to keep the books for a little while longer. Would that be all right with you?”

“They’re worth money.”

“They’re worth your life. But if you insist, we will send them back to you.”

“You keep them for now. I’ll let you know.”

Sam spent another half hour trying to extract some useful information from her. Beyond the unlikely idea that her husband came to rural Virginia to peddle insider information to a local Mafia Don, she learned nothing new. Ike returned at the end of the session.

“Anything?” he asked, after Mrs. Grotz had been directed to the local Holiday Inn Express.

“Unless we have an organized crime family in the area, nothing. She is ignorant of what her husband was up to and didn’t seem to care. Do we?”

“Do we what?”

“Have a mafia chapter in town?”

“That would be too simple. No. All we have here is the usual collection of misfits, bullies, and an occasional homicidal maniac. Just your typical southern town.”

Sam missed the irony and nodded.

Chapter 19

God watches over children and drunks, the saying goes. Jonathan Lydell snapped his cell phone shut and contemplated his daughter sprawled at the foot of the stairs, her limbs splayed in an awkward array, head twisted at an unnatural angle from her torso, and dead eyes staring at the ceiling. Apparently that protection did not extend to fake drunks. The expression on her face looked as if she’d just opened the door to a dark room to find all of her friends waiting to celebrate her birthday. Surprise! Unconsciously, his gaze followed her line of sight to the junction of wall and ceiling where a spider’s web held a newly captured house fly. The more the victim struggled, the worse its predicament became. Trapped in a tangled web. He shook his head in appreciation of this intersection of metaphor and reality. Oh what a tangled web we weave…

“Poor girl, so many mistakes, so many wrong turns, and now this,” he murmured. He slipped the pillow in his hand under her head, as if it might make her more comfortable. He sat back and waited for the Picketsville volunteer fire department to arrive. He wiped his eyes. He thought he ought to shift her body, rearrange it in a more decorous way. Why bother? Certainly she was past caring and so, he supposed, was he, yet…as much as they had differed and fought over the years, she was his only daughter, the mother of his grandson, and the last
doyenne
of Bellmore. What would he do now? Living with her had been difficult, without her…?

***

Sam explained to Karl what she’d learned from Mrs. Grotz.

“Where is she now?” he asked.

“Darcie sent her to the Holiday Inn Express.” She turned to Ike. “I asked you before about organized crime here in the valley. You said it didn’t seem likely, but it’s still a possibility. Karl, can your friends at the Bureau help us?”

“Assuming I still have friends there, yeah, maybe. At least I can call.”

Ike swiveled around in his chair. The air in the room had become stale. From too much Grotz or just too many people for too long, he couldn’t be sure.

“Before you do,” he said, “let’s think this thing through. The likelihood that there is a local mafia connection is slim at best. But allowing there might be one, why would Grotz want to approach them? What does he gain? Families look after each other when an outsider interferes. Doesn’t it seem more likely the New Jersey crowd would be the shooters or at least put out a contract? If they discovered the Grotz woman did not destroy the books, and her husband might still have them, then wouldn’t they be anxious to punish Grotz, follow him down here, or tap a local connection, and dispatch him? And then take out the missus. If I were that lady, I would disappear for a while. At least until we clear up this mess.”

“Do you think we will?” Sam asked.

“Part of it, maybe. I hope we will figure out the why, and maybe even the who. It’s the how that has me stumped. And until we get that worked out, knowing the who and the why isn’t worth squat.”

Karl wiped his forehead. “But at least then the bad guys would know we knew and they’d be looking over their shoulders from then on.”

“Small comfort in that. This whole set-up just doesn’t make sense. We need to know what he was tracking when he came here. What was he up to?”

“You’re not buying a mob hit?”

“No. He’s too easy a target at home. Kill him right there in Passaic. Why come here?”

They sat in silence for a moment. “Sam, any other thoughts?”

“Yes, two things. First, I saved the cutlery and cup from Mrs. Grotz’s dinner so we’ll have her prints and, if we need it, a DNA sample.” Ike tilted his head, peered over the top of his reading glasses.

“Okay, Ike, I know that the DNA thing takes fifteen forevers, but you never know. Second, he had an overdue library book with his stuff. I can search that library’s files and find out what else he was reading. That may give us a clue about what his ‘big one’ consisted of.”

“Good. Karl, your turn.”

“I’m still stuck on the why he ended up in a locked room. It is so idiotic. Nobody, except mystery story junkies, thinks about locked rooms. I mean, it must take hours to set one up, and did you know there’s a whole book about them? Locked room mystery stories, that is. Somebody catalogued them, I looked. Every conceivable way is discussed. Amazing and entertaining, but murderers aren’t in the entertainment business.”

“Maybe,” Sam said, “maybe the two are not related at all.”

“What do you mean, not related?”

“A hypothetical to consider. The murder is separated from the lock up. One person did the shooting, another locked the room. Possible?”

“Possible,” Ike said, “but the question remains, why bother?”

The three fell silent again. Ike cracked the window and let in some cool spring air. The phone rang in the outer office. Darcie frowned and then called Ike, a tinny voice on the intercom. “Ike, the dispatcher over at the volunteer fire company just called. She thought you’d like to know there’s been an accident out at Mr. Lydell’s house.”

“What kind of acci…can you hear me?”

“You have to push that little button that says MIC,” Sam said, and pointed at the phone.

“Oh, okay…Darcie?”

“Yes?”

“What kind of accident?”

“Seems like his daughter fell down the stairs and broke her neck, bless her heart.”

***

Ike pulled up behind the fire company’s bright red pumper. The Picketsville Volunteer Fire Company, like its big city counterparts, responded to 9-1-1 calls with a full complement of equipment. The captain would then release the units not needed after he assessed the situation. Picketsville firefighters were cross-trained. The pumper crew could double as an EMT team. Lights from roof mounts flashed asynchronously and the neighborhood residents lined both sides of the road, gawking. He slid out of the cruiser and walked toward the house.

“Sheriff,” Lydell said, barely loud enough to be heard over the noise of idling diesel engines and shouting fire fighters. “These men insist that my daughter’s body must be taken to the coroner’s office. I won’t have it.”

For once Ike sympathized with Lydell. It did seem harsh and unnecessary to quarantine a body in that way, particularly in the case of an accident, but the town statute was firm. Any death that might be construed as suspicious, no matter how slight, had to pass muster with the coroner. The statute had been placed on the books as a result of some egregious, and highly suspicious, accidents involving court witnesses and municipal reformers in years past.

“Sorry, Mr. Lydell, but it’s the law. I’ll speak to the doc and ask him to give a quick release.”

Lydell did not look particularly mollified. “It’s outrageous. My daughter fell and I cannot even make decent arrangements. I must contact my grandson…he’s an attorney, you know, he may have something to say about all of this.”

Ike disengaged from the angry old man. He climbed the stairs to the porch and stepped into the hallway. The stranger room door had been closed but the lock did not seem to have been repaired yet. The fire company captain met him in the hallway.

“Best guess, Buck?”

“Drunk as a lord, Ike. She reeked of whiskey. The decanter on the sideboard is empty. It looks like she tried to go upstairs, maybe to sleep it off, missed a step and tumbled down.”

“Who called it in?”

“The old man.”

Ike circled the body, peered up the steps and frowned. He climbed halfway up and bent over to inspect the carpet runner on one step. He pulled an envelope from his pocket, lifted the flap and scooped something that looked like a press-on fingernail into it. It wasn’t much, but you never know. He nodded to the ambulance crew who slid Martha Marie Winslow, nee Lydell, into a body bag, zipped it shut, and carried her away. Lydell stood outside the door, his face shattered with grief. It looked like grief, but you never know.