The Mother's Day Murder (22 page)

“And she kept the letter. Probably put it in your file folder.”

“So Randy knew a lot about me when I opened the front door and saw her standing there.”

“The question is,” Jack said, “what else did she know?”

23

I thought I would have a few days in limbo starting with Monday until the results of Hope McHugh’s blood test came through, but I was mistaken. Just before Eddie’s lunchtime, while we were out front pulling up new weeds among the shrubs along the house, I saw a police car drive up Pine Brook Road and stop in front of the Greiners’ house.

It wasn’t that unusual to see a police car as our department is very helpful and cooperative. If you decide to take a vacation, they’ll send an officer over to fill out a form telling where you’ll be, how you can be reached, and what lights will go on in the evenings. But I wasn’t the only one who found this one interesting. Several neighbors stepped out of their houses to see what was happening. Mr. Kovak was one.

“Peece car,” Eddie said, pointing.

“Yes, that’s a police car.”

“Wanna see the peece car.”

“It’s lunchtime, Eddie. We’ll see it later.”

He stood and watched as the officer got out, put his hat on, and walked up to the front door, carrying something under one arm. Carol Greiner opened the door and nearly pulled him inside. I told Eddie to pick up the
trowel he had been using and we carried the tools to the garage, then went inside for lunch.

The police car was there for about twenty minutes. While Eddie ate, I went to the front of the house a couple of times to check. The last time I looked, the officer came out the front door, stood on the step, and talked to Carol for a minute before returning to his car. He sat inside it and I couldn’t really see what he was doing. Finally, he left.

I was consumed by curiosity. The Greiners’ house was far enough away from ours that I could not see in detail what had happened. It had looked like Carol opening the door. I was pretty sure I knew which officer it had been, but I would not have sworn to it. He still had something pressed between his arm and his body as he left, but I had no idea what it was. When he opened the car door, he leaned in, probably dropping it on the seat next to his, before he got in himself.

And then nothing happened. I took Eddie upstairs for his nap and I went downstairs, hoping to hear something. I went out and did a little more work in the soil. Midge MacDonald came by, my neighbor on the other side of the house, and I got to my feet and walked to the street to talk to her.

“I hear the police were at the Greiners’,” she said.

“One officer around lunchtime.”

“Did he make an arrest?”

“Not while I was looking. He left the house alone, got in his car, and drove away.”

“You think the police would tell me anything if I called?”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” I said. “But if you hear
anything, I’m just as eager as you are to know what’s going on.”

She walked on and I went back to my digging. Finally I went inside and called Jack.

“I think something’s up,” I said.

“Here, too. Arnold called me.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

“The court has ordered Sister Joseph to take a blood test. Arnold said he’d appeal, but she said not to bother. She’s going through with it.”

“I see.” I could tell from the ripple of fear that passed through me that something inside still worried that she might be related to Randy. I was angry at myself for feeling that way.

“You said something was up,” Jack reminded me.

“A cop went to see Carol Greiner around noon.”

“Interesting.”

“Midge MacDonald came by and asked if I knew anything, which I didn’t.”

“So you want Sergeant Brooks to use his influence and find out what’s going on.” I could hear the tease in his voice.

“You got it, Sergeant.”

“Well, why not? I haven’t talked to anyone there for a while. Maybe they’ll tell me something.”

I sat with the paper and waited. Maybe I had made too much of a quick visit by a police officer. Maybe the Greiners were just planning a vacation or had a problem with a security alarm.

Jack didn’t call back for half an hour and when the phone rang, I jumped. “I think things are starting to happen,” he said.

“Tell me.”

“I talked to the guy who’s been my buddy since I moved in. Just asked him casually if there were any developments in the homicide. He said Carol Greiner had called the station house this morning and said she’d just found something that she wanted to turn over to the police. They sent a guy over and he brought back a gun.”

I drew my breath in, feeling elation. “
The
gun?”

“Well, he says the serial number matches the one on Kovak’s gun and his permit file paperwork.”

“Fantastic,” I said.

“Don’t jump on it just yet. It’ll take a coupla days till they can compare it with the murder weapon. But your theory about one of the Greiner boys stealing the gun looks pretty good right now. My guy says Carol Greiner found it in one of her sons’ bedrooms.”

“Poor Carol,” I said. “She must really be going through hell.”

“That’s what the cop said. He was very sympathetic about the family, said these things happen and it’s really tragic.”

“I assume what you’ve told me is to go no farther.”

“I’d keep it under my hat for a while. In a couple of days, when they finish the ballistics tests, they’ll make an announcement one way or the other. Oh, and by the way, they did some digging and found the missing report on Kovak’s lost gun.”

“So he was telling the truth.”

“Looks like it. Not all obnoxious people are liars.”

“And not all tree lovers are immune from family problems.”

“Right. Something to think about. I’ve got another nugget for you.”

“About what?”

“I called my contact at the phone company last week about that number for Katherine Bailey in the Cincinnati area about twenty years ago. He got back to me a little while ago. You want the number?”

“You bet.” I wrote down the number and street address as he read it. “I’ll call Joseph and ask her if she recognizes it.”

“He said the number wasn’t assigned to Katherine Bailey for very long, less than a year. It was cancelled a month or so after Randy was born.”

“So the woman established it before she went to God’s Love and got rid of it when her dealings with them were over.”

“It sure looks like you’re right on that. Well, we’ll know soon.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“Just what I said.”

I called Joseph next. She told me what Jack had, that she had decided it wasn’t worth appealing the decision requiring her to give blood. It had been a matter of principle and she didn’t want to waste Arnold’s time. She had already given a small sample and that was that.

Although I knew I shouldn’t repeat what Jack had told me about the discovery of the gun, I told her and asked her not to say anything till something definitive was announced.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Would a teenage boy kill a girl who was chopping down his mother’s tree?”

“We’ll find out. I have something else for you to think about. Jack dug up the telephone number assigned to Katherine Bailey during the year you spent in Ohio.”

“So there actually was someone with my name who had a phone?”

“Yes, and not for very long. About a month after Randy’s birth, the phone was disconnected.” I read her the number and address.

She waited several seconds before she said, “The address means nothing to me. Maybe the number is familiar. I’m not sure. I’ll think about it. It’s just possible that I have an old address book somewhere. Maybe that would help. I know it’s not my mother’s number. Both my sisters have changed their numbers but I can’t tell you when. Whenever they moved, I suppose.”

“Just think about it. If it’s in your memory, it’ll work its way out.”

“Everything else has in the last few days, not all of it happy.”

“I know. But I think we’re going to get some answers soon.”

“Did you hear the Greiners had a gun?” It was Mel, calling after school.

“How do you know that?”

“Someone across the street saw the police come this morning. She’s pretty sure he had a gun in a plastic bag when he left. Everyone at school is buzzing about it.”

No wonder, I thought, it was impossible to keep secrets in government. “Well, I’m glad you know because I was told not to say a word.”

“Is it the Kovak gun?”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“So he was telling the truth. Isn’t that amazing?”

“So far everyone’s been telling the truth. I’m sure Carol had no knowledge that that gun was in her house.”

“Carol wouldn’t touch a gun,” Mel said. “She hates them. What else do you know?”

“Not much. When they do the ballistics tests, we’ll find out if that’s the murder weapon.”

“I can’t believe this whole thing is going to be solved because a woman cleaned up her house and found a gun lying around.”

“I hope no one in her family did it,” I said.

“Me, too. They’re my next-door neighbors.”

Later that afternoon, in as quiet and subdued a manner as they could muster, the Oakwood police arrested the Greiners’ older son. I was happy to see that they did not handcuff him. Carol looked terrible, her face stained with tears. She held her son’s arm until he got in the back of the police car. Her husband looked grim and drove himself and his wife in his car.

A number of people stood around watching. I stayed on our front lawn but I scanned the group to see who was there. The Kovaks were not, which I thought was very kind of them.

Midge MacDonald walked by on her way home. “I hope that’s the end of it,” she said. “But I can’t believe that boy did it.”

“I can’t either.”

“He looks like such a child. I hope Carol doesn’t collapse.”

“So do I.”

“See you.”

I waved and she moved on.

Tuesday was such an ordinary day I was almost able to believe that there had been no homicide, no question
about the birth of Randy Collins, no blood tests, no missing gun. In the morning I went to the college. In the afternoon I put my house in shape and took Eddie out shopping with me. But when he wasn’t asking me questions or clamoring for my attention, I wondered about the phone number. I thought about the results of the blood tests. And I kept asking myself whether Randy had found something in Joseph’s file that had somehow foreshadowed her death.

24

On Wednesday things started humming. Jack called to say that the Kovak gun was confirmed not to be the murder weapon.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It’s the same caliber, thirty-eight, and could have fired the same type of ammunition, but it didn’t fire the bullet that killed Randy. All the test firings and comparisons rule it out.”

I said, “Whew. That means the Greiner boy is off the hook.”

“Off the hook for homicide but he’s facing some pretty serious felony charges, any one of which could mean prison time.”

“Maybe they’ll go easy on him,” I said. “I’m sure after all this he’s learned a lifetime lesson.”

“It’s possible. His lawyer may try for a ‘YO’—youthful offender treatment and probation. I’m glad to hear you’re still the optimist I married.”

“But we don’t have a killer and we don’t have a murder weapon.”

“Be patient. We should start to hear preliminary reports on the blood tests soon, especially if they’re negative.”

“I can’t wait.”

*   *   *

He was right about the blood tests. In the afternoon Arnold called.

“I’ve just talked to my client and given her the news and she said I could tell you, too. Sister Joseph is absolutely excluded as a possible parent of the homicide victim.”

“Arnold, that’s wonderful.”

“There was never any doubt that this was pure harassment.”

“But it’s a relief. I assume she’s no longer a suspect.”

“There isn’t a chance in hell that they’ll pursue this. I want that detective to give her an apology.”

“It’s probably not in his nature,” I said. “And I suspect it doesn’t matter to Joseph. She always knew she wasn’t related to Randy in life or in death. Now she can get back to her work without the distractions of the last couple of weeks.”

“You have more sweetness and light in you than I have in me.”

“You have other fine qualities, Arnold,” I said with a laugh. “I assume Joseph’s sister has also been excluded. That means my last suspect may be the—”

“Slow down, slow down. Who said anything about excluding the sister?”

“I just thought—”

“She hasn’t been excluded. We won’t know for a while about her. DNA takes a while to be processed.”

“So it’s still possible Hope is the mother?”

“Still possible.”

I hung up with those words ringing in my ears. Still possible. It wasn’t what I had expected.

Joseph called a little while later. “Chris, there are some
things I’d like to talk to you about. Do you think you could manage to come up here tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“I know it’s short notice—”

“I’ll come up first thing in the morning.”

I decided to leave Eddie with Elsie and at nine-thirty I was on my way. I was at the convent well before lunch and immediately ushered to the office upstairs. Joseph was at her desk as I stepped inside.

“Chris, come in. It’s such a beautiful day, we should be walking outside to talk, but I want to tell you a number of things and I don’t want to keep you. This affair has already occupied too many people’s valuable time. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay Arnold Gold.”

“Just remain his friend,” I said. “I think he values that so much that he couldn’t measure it in billable hours.”

She smiled at that and left her desk to join me at the long table where we customarily sat to discuss the various homicides I have worked on over the last few years. I took the seat opposite her, wondering what the purpose of this meeting was.

“When we first talked about Randy’s death and how I might have figured in her life, I told you the truth about myself but I withheld some facts that I have decided to tell you now.”