An Uplifting Murder (34 page)

She prayed her quarry had left home already—for Victoria’s own safety. If she got her hands on that woman, Josie would beat her the same color as those stupid purple shutters. She wasn’t afraid of her, either. Josie was armed with pepper spray. She’d take her down like the lying dog she was.

Josie walked to the skinny house faster than she’d expected. She slowed as she turned the corner and took time to scout Palmer Avenue. Victoria’s yellow Miata was not parked in front of the house with the purple shutters. The driveway was empty. Good. She was gone.

She stomped up the front steps, hoping One Buck Chuck, the chatty neighbor in the charcoal house, would come out for a talk. His red front door opened seconds after Josie rang Victoria’s doorbell.

Josie breathed a sigh of relief as Chuck popped out. Bright-eyed and bald, he looked like a chipmunk in a barn jacket. Today, he wore boots instead of house slippers, so Chuck must have been planning to go outside. His lips were flapping before he got to Victoria’s house.

“You just caught me on my way to the supermarket,” he said.

Josie hadn’t caught him at all. Chuck had detoured for a talk on the way to his car. She gave him an encouraging smile. “Hi, Chuck. Is Victoria home?”

“Your friend?” Chuck said. Was he fishing for how well Josie knew Victoria?

“That’s the one,” Josie said. Your neighbor, she thought. The one the police wanted but couldn’t find. The shoplifter who posed as a disabled woman in a wheelchair. The misbegotten liar who threatened my home. You can’t see past that pretty exterior, can you, Chuck? Victoria’s hidden her true self behind a curtain of silky white-blond hair.

“She’s gone to work,” Chuck said. His face was innocent of suspicion. He was eager to give Josie the news. “Second time she left today. Victoria was up in the middle of the night. Woke me about three. Not on purpose, mind you. She’s a considerate neighbor. But it gets so quiet on this street at night. I heard her shut the front door.”

“Slammed it, huh?” Josie said.

“No, she closed it quietly. I only heard Victoria because my ears are sharp. Teeth, not so good. But I’m not going deaf like a lot of men my age.” Chuck puffed out his chest, proud of his auditory powers.

Josie didn’t want to discuss Chuck’s hearing. She steered him back to Victoria. “Wow, that’s impressive if you could hear her door shut when you were upstairs in your bedroom,” she said. “You must have ears like a cat’s.”

“Well, to be honest, I wasn’t in my bedroom. My prostate has me up and down all night,” Chuck said. “But you don’t want to hear about that.”

Definitely not, Josie thought. She kept smiling and hoped Chuck would keep talking.

“I was going down the hall on one of my nightly commutes to the commode,” he said, “when I heard Victoria close her front door. I looked out the hall window and saw her running across her lawn. She didn’t take time to walk down the front steps. Victoria took a shortcut across the snow-covered grass. That’s dangerous, you know. That snow gets slippery when it melts during the day and then refreezes at night. Guess she’s younger and more sure-footed than I am. She doesn’t have to worry about breaking a hip at her age. But she will.”

Chuck paused to savor Victoria’s future downfall.

“So you saw her cross the lawn,” Josie prompted.

“Right,” Chuck said. “Then Victoria hurried down the street. I leaned over to see which direction she was going. I wasn’t being nosy. I was being careful. Maybe someone was threatening her and that’s why she was moving so fast. Neighborhoods have to be alert to stop thieves and rapists.”

“The police say Neighborhood Watch programs are important for crime prevention,” Josie said.

“Exactly,” Chuck said. “I was worried she might get mugged or attacked or something. She’s an attractive young woman to be walking alone late at night. I was relieved when she turned east.”

He pointed toward Josie’s street.

“Those are quiet, residential streets that way. If Victoria had been heading toward Manchester Road, I would have been more worried. Lots of traffic on that street and”—he lowered his voice—“some of those cars are from the
city
.”

Like many locals who didn’t live in St. Louis, Chuck believed the city was a criminal haven.

“Can’t imagine what she was doing taking a walk at that hour of the night,” Chuck said, “but it’s not my place to ask. Still, I felt uneasy. I waited up for her like a worried mother, pacing the hall and checking the window. I didn’t fall asleep until I saw her come back. She was gone nearly an hour. ’Course I didn’t say anything to Victoria about watching out for her, and I hope you won’t, either. Young women today have an independent streak. She’d think I was interfering.”

Good old Chuck, Josie thought. He was a better observer than a video camera.

“You’re right about her being independent,” Josie said. “I have an idea where Victoria was going at that time of night.”

That last sentence was the only honest one she’d said to Chuck. She felt mildly ashamed, but not enough to stop using him. Not until she had all the information she needed. Josie had a daughter to protect. “Was Victoria wearing my favorite scarf? The black-and-white one?”

“Sure was,” Chuck said. “Has those flowers on it. Looks pretty with her long, pale hair. For some reason, she only wears that scarf when she goes out at night.”

“That’s why she bought it,” Josie said. “I bet she was wearing her dark coat, wasn’t she?”

“How’d you guess?” Chuck said.

Victoria was dressed exactly like the woman Mrs. Mueller saw smearing Josie’s car with bird blood—and like Frankie’s killer.

“Well, thanks, Chuck. I’ll catch up with Victoria when she comes back. You expect her home about two o’clock?”

“You can set your watch by that young lady,” Chuck said. “Leaves home at nine thirty sharp. Comes back at two o’clock. Modeling must be a job with bankers’ hours. Pays well, too. She brings home lots of bags from fancy shops. Well, she’s got the figure to wear pretty clothes. Might as well have fun while she’s young. Parties, shopping, things like that.

“Speaking of shopping, I’d better head for the grocery store. I’m out of coffee and peanut butter and Wesson Oil is on sale two for one.” He held up a fistful of coupons. “Nice talking to you.”

Josie waited until Chuck drove away. Then she crunched down Victoria’s shoveled and salted porch steps and found the boot prints that he’d said Victoria had made on the lawn last night. Josie thought the prints seemed smaller than the trail left by Mrs. Mueller’s massive Russian-winter boots at the edge of her lawn.

These soles had a pattern of intersecting curves instead of Mrs. M’s waffle-pattern boots. Josie wondered if the boot prints leading to Amelia’s window had the same distinctive curves.

She was glad to hear that Victoria was still leaving home at nine thirty and returning at two o’clock loaded with shopping bags. She must have been hunting five-finger discounts—and holding shopping parties to sell her loot. Victoria had broken her promise. She hadn’t stopped shoplifting. She’d double-crossed Josie and taken away her ride. Worse, Josie had stupidly given a murderer a break. Well, Victoria wouldn’t get a second chance.

Josie barely noticed the cold on her walk home. Now she was warmed by red-hot thoughts of revenge. She had enough to put Victoria behind bars. All she had to do was make a phone call.

Chapter 37

“I’ve found the evidence!” Josie shouted into the phone. “I found Frankie’s killer. I know who vandalized my car! I can take you there. I can—”

Officer Doris Ann Norris stopped the landslide of words. “Whoa! You can tell me who you are for starters.”

“Josie Marcus. You were at my house this morning. Remember, I had—”

“The cool ride,” Officer Norris said.

Josie didn’t say anything. She didn’t think her situation was funny.

“Is that what you call a frozen silence?” Officer Norris said.

Josie didn’t trust herself to answer.

“I shouldn’t be making jokes when your car is out of commission,” Officer Norris said.

Finally, the woman got the message. Josie hadn’t had to say anything offensive, either.

“Now, take a deep breath and start talking,” Officer Norris said. “Slowly. So I can understand you.”

The words poured out of Josie in a second rush. “Those shoe prints in the snow in my yard. The ice on my car. The bird blood on my windshield. I know who did it. Victoria. The police looked for her, but never found her. She’s a shoplifter, too. And a killer. You can arrest her after two o’clock today. You can have the credit.”

“I’m still not tracking this,” Officer Norris said. “Let’s try once more from the top. Tell me who this Victoria is, what she did to you, why police were looking for her, and why I should arrest her.”

The third time, Josie was able to slow down and explain herself better.

“Her real name is Victoria Malliet,” Josie said. “She was in the restroom at Plaza Venetia when I found Frankie Angela Martin’s body in the handicapped stall. Victoria was in a wheelchair. She said her name was Kelsey, gave a false name and address, and ran away. Rolled away, actually, in the wheelchair. The police were looking for her in connection with Frankie’s murder.”

“Which has been solved,” Officer Norris said. “The suspect is in custody and awaiting trial. So we don’t really care if this woman gave you a false name.”

“She gave us false names twice,” Josie said. “She wanted to get away from the police and from me. She’s a shoplifter. She wears a big dark coat to look fatter than she really is. She puts on two or three layers of stolen clothes and hides them under her coat. No one suspects a disabled woman.”

“So she wheeled herself over to your house last night?” Officer Norris asked.

“No!” Josie said. “She’s not really disabled. She used the shopping mall’s wheelchair to make it look like she couldn’t walk. The wheelchair was a disguise.

“I tracked down Victoria to her home. She lives in the house with the purple shutters on Palmer Avenue. I talked my way into her home. She has a living room full of stolen clothes. She sells them at parties at her house. Victoria is the vandal who damaged my car by hosing it down so it was covered in ice. I have her boot prints for proof.”

“Proof of what?” Officer Norris asked.

“Proof she was at my house, using my garden hose to turn my car into an icicle,” Josie said. “The boot prints on my lawn match the boot prints in the snow on her yard. We could arrest her for vandalism.”

“We? Since when did you get a badge?” Officer Norris sounded annoyed with Josie’s presumption. “Why would a woman in your neighborhood walk over and vandalize your car?”

“Because she’s a murderer. She killed Frankie Angel.”

“Did you see her do that?”

“No, but she was in the handicapped stall at the time it happened.”

“You think,” Officer Norris said.

“I know she’s a shoplifter. She’ll be home at two o’clock and you can arrest her then.”

“Did you see her shoplifting any of those items at the stores?” Officer Norris asked.

“No, but—”

“Then how do you know she wasn’t cleaning out her closet and piling the clothes in her living room?”

“Because the clothes still have the tags on them,” Josie said.

“And you’ve never had an item in your closet with the tag on it?”

“One,” Josie said. “Maybe two. But we’re talking mountains of sweaters, skirts, and dresses.”

“So what if she leaves the tags on?” Officer Norris said. “You’ve made a good guess. But that’s not proof of shoplifting. Lots of people buy stuff, leave the tags on, and pile them high in closets and on furniture. Isn’t there a hoarder TV program that shows houses with stacks of expensive items people bought and never used?”