Twisted Reason (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 16

  He walked around to the back, peering in windows on the way. He didn’t catch a glimpse of his wife and assumed she must be upstairs. He checked the French doors on the patio, the back door leading to the kitchen. Both were locked and his keys worked in neither one. He picked up a rock from the edge of a flower bed. Before he smashed it through a pane of glass, though, he became appalled by what he was about to do and set the rock carefully back in place.

  He went back to his car and reached in his pocket for his cell. “Damn,” he said, remembering he didn’t have it. He drove out of the neighborhood and stopped at a service station where he made the call to Lieutenant Pierce from a pay phone.

  Thirty-Two

  Eli Kendlesohn agreed to meet the detectives at the Justice Center. Jumbo called and made arrangements for Eli to be brought up to the interview room when he arrived. He was waiting there when Lucinda and Jumbo walked into the police department.

  Lucinda didn’t quite know what to think of this latest development. She didn’t like Rachael Kendlesohn; kind of liked the idea of cuffing her and hauling her into the station. But it just didn’t seem to fit with all they’d learned. And the man sitting across the table from her and Jumbo looked crazed. His hair stuck up in several directions as if he’d been trying to pull it out. His eyes had the glazed look she associated with someone who’d just been smoking pot. He fidgeted in his chair like a little boy afraid to ask the teacher to be excused to go down the hall.

  “Mr. Kendlesohn, are you okay?” Lucinda asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just fine. My mother’s dead. Murdered. I have no money. I forgot my cell phone but can’t get into my house to get it. I’m homeless now, too, I guess. Except for my car. I could live in my car. And, oh yeah, my wife is a murderer.”

  “What makes you think that your wife killed your mother?”

  “Come on, Lieutenant. Isn’t that why you came to the house in the first place? You thought one of us killed Mom. Well, it wasn’t me. I didn’t want to believe it was that woman. But now I’m sure of it.”

  “Why do you think your wife killed your mother?” Lucinda asked again.

  “I had my suspicions last night when she complained about how much it would cost to bring my mother home for a funeral. But then this morning, I knew it.”

  “What happened this morning?”

  “She informed me about the dinner party. A dinner party! She’s planned a dinner party. Can you believe that? For Saturday evening. I’m getting ready to go to work and she drops a dinner party on me. When I objected, she said now my mother is finally gone, things can get back to normal. That’s when I knew it. She killed Mom so she could have a dinner party. I’ve put up with a lot from that woman over the years. But this time she’s gone too far. I want her arrested. And I told her so. I told her I knew what she did. She didn’t deny it.”

  “How do you think she killed her, Mr. Kendlesohn?”

  “Drowned her. Drowned her in the bathtub. Or maybe the pool.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “How do you suppose the body got out to that pond in the country?”

  “I thought about that. She had to have help. I can’t think of anyone we know socially who’d be willing to help her dispose of a body. I tried but I just can’t imagine that even of the worst of them. So, I figured she must have hired someone. The gardener maybe. Or the pool guy. Or maybe the woman who cleans the house knew somebody who could help her. Maybe she even hired somebody to do the killing so she wouldn’t have to get her hands dirty. Now that I think about it, it sounds like her. Never willing to do her own dirty work. Every mess she ever made was cleaned up by me or the housekeeper. She’s so above it all. She can still get a life sentence if she didn’t actually do it but hired someone to do it, can’t she?”

  “Yes, Mr. Kendlesohn. But we can’t charge her without any proof.”

  “You can lock her up on suspicion, can’t you?”

  “We could bring her in for questioning, sir. But we can’t arrest her based on the word of an estranged husband.”

  “Well, get the proof and arrest her.”

  “It’s not that easy, sir. In fact, all our evidence right now is pointing in another direction.”

  “Well, I sure can’t get in the house and get the proof for you.”

  Lucinda sighed. “Excuse us for a moment, Mr. Kendlesohn.” She turned to Jumbo and motioned to him to join her out in the hall.

  “Listen,” she said, “we’ve got to get the poor guy into the house to get his stuff. But I don’t trust him not to flip out and start destroying things or taking his wife’s personal property. And I can’t trust her to behave either. You have the best rapport with her . . .”

  “Say no more. I’ll get a patrolman to drive me and Mr. Kendlesohn over to the house. I’ll sit with her while the officer keeps an eye on him.”

  “That sounds like a plan – a good plan. Now, I’ve got to get back to work on the serious leads.”

  Lucinda went into her office and opened her email. She scanned the list of senders and started opening anything from a staff member in the research department. They’d come up empty on the search for any property owned by Gary Blankenship or any of his children. And none of them had any addresses except for the row house she’d searched and a post-office box where the mail had been forwarded. She thought about getting a patrol officer to stake out the box but that could eat up a lot of man hours without getting any results. She decided to save that as a last resort.

  There was a BOLO out on the white van, another on the old Nissan – using the same tag numbers in case the family was switching them back and forth between vehicles – and one for each of the Blankenships. She’d decided to circulate the old missing persons report for Sadie Blankenship to make the DA happy even though she was certain she saw the scene of her murder at the row house.

  She called down to Research. “I know I’ve been piling it on you guys for that last couple of days but I need your help again.”

  “No problem, Lieutenant. Whatcha need?”

  “I need a list of any white cargo vans reported stolen in the last eighteen months and please filter out any that have been recovered.”

  “You are a lucky woman. About a dozen years ago, none of the vehicle registrations listed the color. The only ones that don’t now are old cars that haven’t been sold since the law changed. Still might be a long list – pretty common business vehicle. What else do you need?”

  “I’m going to email you an ancient missing persons report. I need a list of all the unidentified bodies in the country that could possibly be a match for her. The last time she was seen was about twenty years and three months ago. Her husband told the detective that she ran off with another man. I think she was murdered and her body dumped nearby, so first check locally for any Jane Does that date back that far and then spread out the search because I could be wrong. Get back to me with the local results as soon as you have them.”

  “Will do. Now knowing your penchant for starting with the easiest task first and escalating as we go along, I’m almost afraid to ask you what else you need.”

  “Sorry. I know I’m asking a lot. But this last request, I’m not even sure you can do it. I’d like to have a list of everyone who lived on the block where she lived before she disappeared.”

  “We can do it. It will take time. It’s not on the computer but we can dig through the paper archives. Actually, this is easier than your second request – you’re slipping, Lieutenant,” she said with a laugh.

  “But I need one more thing about those neighbors: the most recent phone numbers and addresses. Can you dig that up, too?”

  “We’ll do our best, Lieutenant. Will get on it as soon as that report hits my email box.”

  Lucinda hung up, scanned the report and sent it down to Research. She leaned back in her chair to think. The ringing of her desk phone brought her out of her reverie. “Chief Deputy Hirschhorn on line three, Lieutenant.”

  �
��Thanks,” she said and pressed in the button. “This is Pierce. How can I help you, Chief?”

  “I’m calling with good news, Lieutenant. We picked up your boy on the domestic violence case. The lady’s still in the hospital but the old boy is behind bars.”

  “That is good news. Is he talking at all?”

  “That’s the best part, ma’am. That little bastard admitted to beating up the old lady in the parking lot but he did it with a grin. I said to him, ’You’re looking mighty happy for someone who’s about to go to prison.’ And he laughed at me and said, ‘My mom won’t press charges.’ Then I laughed and said, ‘She doesn’t have to, we can charge you with or without her help.’ Grin slid off the old boy’s face real fast.”

  “Thank you, Chief. I do have a favor to ask you, though.”

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Could you call DA Reed and tell him what happened? I’d really like him to hear the news from someone other than me.”

  “DA giving you a hard time? They sure can be pissers sometimes. I’ll let him know right away.”

  “Before you go, what about the little girl?”

  “Oh,” he sighed. “Hannah Singley? We haven’t found her yet. I’m not having good thoughts.”

  “Hang on to any thread of hope you can find, Chief. And let me know when you find her.” Dead or alive, she thought but could not bear to speak those words aloud.

  Lucinda thought about calling Evan Spencer at his office to tell him about the arrest but decided it would be more fun to deliver the news in person. She’d go over to his place when she left here for the day. It would give her a chance to see Charley; it’d been too long since she’d seen the girl. She thought about calling Jake Lovett to bounce the case back and forth with him. But she worried if she called him at the office, he’d feel obliged to report it. Then she’d have the local FBI jerks breathing down her neck over the attempted kidnapping and the other suspected abductions. She really liked Jake – more than liked him truth be told – but the rest of those Feebs? She’d like to give them all a hand basket and send them on their merry way.

  Thirty-Three

  Jumbo entered Lucinda’s office and flopped into the chair by her desk with a huge sigh. “I hope I never have to see that woman again for the rest of my life.”

  “Didn’t go too well?” Lucinda asked.

  “Could have been worse, I suppose. There’s was a lot of yelling and shrieking, mostly on Rachael’s part but Eli did lean over the balcony occasionally and holler out a zinger. It took all my powers of persuasion to keep her downstairs and under some semblance of control. For a while there, I thought I was going to have to sit on her.”

  Lucinda grinned at the image he created in her mind: a leprechaun perched on a shrew. “Have you given any more thought to Eli’s accusations?”

  “At moments of relative calm, I fired a few questions at her. I did get the sense that she was holding something back, hiding something from me. But I sure can’t imagine her killing somebody. And I can’t imagine anyone she’d know who’d be inclined to commit a crime for her or her money. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who inspires loyalty or devotion.”

  “But she’s lying about something?”

  “Could be just a lie of omission – but, yeah, there’s something there.”

  “Maybe we ought to get busy looking for a connection between Rachael and the Blankenships.”

  “Phone records?” Jumbo asked.

  “I doubt I can get a warrant for the Kendlesohn’s phones and with Eli locked out of the house, he can’t provide them. Damn, I wish I’d thought of that while you all were still inside. I’ll ask Eli to request copies from the phone company.”

  “And I’ll go down to Documents and see what they found at the Blankenship place.”

  “As long as the family’s been gone from that place, there won’t be anything dating up to the time of Adele’s disappearance. But I shouldn’t have a problem getting a judge to sign a warrant for their records from that time until now.”

  “If not, maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe there’s a connection that dates back to when the Blankenships still lived in the house.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not going to count on it. Let’s get busy.”

  It took Eli’s gleeful cooperation and hours of paperwork and conversation, but finally they had all the records they needed. The documents for the land lines were useless since the calls between the two households were local. And there were no records of any of the Blankenships having cells. On the other hand, Eli and Rachael’s cell phones were on a single plan. Eli had no trouble obtaining the records and those documents had every call listed: incoming and outgoing, local and long distance. The detectives went through the pages carefully, line by line, looking for any calls to the Blankenship home and verifying all the phone numbers on the list around the time of Adele’s disappearance. When they finished, Lucinda dropped her head on her desk with a thud. “Another dead end,” she said with a sigh.

  “Rachael still could have called him on the landline.”

  “Shoulda. Coulda. Lot of good that does us. The Blankenships haven’t had a landline since they left the house. They had to have cells, but they must have been throwaways. Those damn things should be illegal.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that legislation,” Jumbo said.

  “Have you seen Ted Branson today?” Lucinda asked, her mind suddenly on other things.

  “Yeah, a little while earlier, he helped me out when I was going through the evidence looking for phone records, but I haven’t seen him since. Why? Is he supposed to be doing something for the investigation?”

  “No, we just started a conversation I’d like to finish but we never seem to be in the same place at the same time. Well, that will have to wait,” Lucinda said. “In other dead ends, I heard back on the criminal background checks of the staff at River’s Edge. A few traffic violations, a couple college-era misdemeanors but not a single felony in the bunch – not one red flag, not even a pale pink one. Research is preparing a spreadsheet for the complete list with employment dates and job positions. We should get it in the morning. We’re going to need to follow up with each one of them.”

  “Is that really necessary? I mean, I know that River’s Edge keeps popping up but the investigation seems to be pointing in another direction.”

  “Yes, it seems to be but what if there is an accomplice at River’s Edge – someone who perhaps does nothing more than feed information to the Blankenships? That’s a possibility but, I agree, the leg work will probably turn out to be a big fat waste of time, except for one thing: we can never close a door that the defense might open at trial. Every avenue needs to be followed to the end.”

  “I think I’ll stay in Missing Persons – we don’t have trials, just successes and failures. And if the failures end in murder, we give them to you guys.”

  “After all this afternoon’s futility, it’s time I switched gears and did something pleasant. I’m going to give someone else a bit of good news,” Lucinda said. “If you think of anything, give me a call, anytime. Otherwise, I’ll see you back here in the morning.”

  In the lobby of the building where the Spencer family lived, Lucinda called up to the condo and Evan Spencer activated the elevator for her to go up to the top floor. The moment the lift’s door slid open, she heard a squeal down the hall. Charley was running toward her at full speed. Lucinda embraced her, lifting the girl off the ground. She gave her a kiss on the forehead and set her back down.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lucy! You get another star on your hero chart.”

  “You already know?” Lucinda asked.

  “You mean about you saving Daddy from jail?”

  “Yes. I thought I was going to deliver the news.”

  “Some man called for Daddy and told him that they were dropping the charges and it was all because of you.”

  “I bet he didn’t say that last part.”

  “Wel
l, no, but me and Daddy, we know – if it wasn’t for you, he’d be a jailbird.”

  Lucinda laughed. “I doubt that, Charley.”

  The eleven-year-old girl stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “You never give yourself enough credit, Lucy.”

  A bitter-sweet thrill rushed through Lucinda’s mind as she looked down at her young friend. Still such a child despite the veneer of maturity granted by her intelligence and enhanced in the fire of tragedy. Soon, though, the transition will begin and where will we go from there? It will change our relationship and probably not for the better; not until she’s made it through the rebellious rite of passage. Lucinda sighed.

  Charley cocked her head to the side. “Okay?”

  “Yes, okay.” Lucinda smiled.

  The door opened and Evan said, “I cannot thank you enough, Lucinda.”

  “Evan, this would have eventually worked out fine without me.”

  “Maybe. But even if it did, it certainly would have dragged on a lot longer.”

  Lucinda caught sight of Ruby, Charley’s six-year-old sister, peering out from behind her father. “Hi there, Ruby.”

  “Hello, ma’am,” she said and then stuck the knuckle of her thumb sideways in her mouth and gnawed on it.

  Lucinda crouched down to see her eye-to-eye. “How are you doing in school, Ruby?”

  One of her shoulders pulled up to her ear, “I’m doing okay,” she mumbled.

  Poor little thing. Is she always this shy? Is the pain always so obvious in her eyes? Or is it just me. Do I remind her of her mother’s murder?

  “Okay?” Evan said. “You’re doing much better than okay, Ruby.”

  The little girl squirmed; her discomfort obvious. Lucinda rose to her full height; getting down to the girl’s level seemed to have made matters worse.

  “Ruby has gotten excellent marks on her report card and she’s started playing the violin. But she says she really wants to play the cello as soon as she’s big enough, right, Ruby?”

  She gave a tiny nod and shrunk back further. Charley patted her sister on the shoulder and Ruby offered up the hint of a smile. Charley turned to Lucinda and said, “Oh, enough about Ruby. C’mere. Come to my room. I need to show you something.” She grabbed Lucinda’s hand and tugged.