The Body on the Roof Read online

  Reasoner interrupted. “What about the two glasses on the sink?”

  “Fingerprints on only one of them, the one Jeff apparently picked up, which is a little odd. You would expect something from her. But they were freshly washed and apparently left to air-dry. So maybe she was very particular in her washing.”

  “And used the washcloth to place them upside down on the counter?” Reasoner again.

  Culbertson shrugged. “That’s why I said you would expect some prints, at least partials. It is strange that there are none.”

  “You have been thorough, Phil,” Pierson commented.

  “You may not get much in the way of serious crime here, but we do get a few homicides in Oldstown. We’ve had the practice, and we do know what we’re doing.” He tapped an envelope on the table in front of him. “There are some pictures for you, both outside and in the house, and of the particular areas and locations Bud asked for. You will get my written report later today.”

  He picked up the bagel and took a bite. “I do hate to say it, but I don’t think forensics is going to solve this case. This is probably going to take legwork, witnesses, and good old-fashioned deductions. Motive, opportunity, and means. MOM, as I like to call it.”

  Peabody raised his hand. “Do you have anything for POPS?”

  Everybody chuckled but Culbertson.

  “Perpetrator Outcome – Prison Sentence. Why?”

  That got a slightly louder chuckle and a grin from Peabody.

  Pierson stood and turned to the chalkboard. Hazlett had rewritten everything from the day before in her neat, legible printing, leaving plenty of room for additional columns and information.

  “Thanks, Phil.” He added columns for WHO, WHY, HOW and, after pausing to think, TUES NIGHT. “That will be for whereabouts. We’ll go through what we’ve got and fill in these as much as we can, then figure out what we need to get and where we need to go from this point. Of course, the biggest questions will be to think of WHOs to start with. There’s not a lot of likely suspects yet. Which, I admit, is not what you would expect at this point, but everybody, and I mean everybody, genuinely seemed to like her.”

  He turned to Culbertson. “Phil, you have anything else?” At the shake of his head, Pierson continued. “You’re welcome to stay. You’ve got more experience than any of us, but I know your end is the crime scene forensics.”

  “I need to get back. I’ll be the one to cover your case, but Oldstown had a drug shootout last night, two dead so far and two in the hospital, and many of the others from our unit will be involved in that, so I need to be the one to get your stuff done.” He took the last bite from his bagel and stood up. “I’ll leave the rest of these for you. We’ve got our own goodies in the lab right next to the blood samples.” He winked in the direction of Reasoner, but got no response, and left.

  “Okay, people, what do we have?” Pierson tossed his chalk from one hand to the other. “Pops? Anything that can help clear up the muddied waters?”

  Peabody reported on his interviews with the neighbors, lightly touching on the snacks, but concluded with, “The only thing of significance was Miss Bucholtz seeing that car in the driveway. Nobody else was looking outside during the rain. Or had any reason to. The gray sedan, four-door, with five characters on the license plate and the round sticker in the back window, though I’m not sure if she really could tell that. That’s not a lot to go on.”

  “Almost like my family car,” said Pierson, “and Hazy’s and a few hundred others, probably.” He wrote it specifically under the miscellaneous clues column, and “unknown car” under WHO.

  Peabody shrugged. “Well, Hazy’s is more of a dusty black.”

  “Not in the rain,” said Reasoner. “Then it’s less dusty.”

  Pierson turned toward her. “Speed, what can you give us?”

  “I checked on Harry Townsend’s alibi as soon as I left his office. This Missy Walters did confirm it. She wasn’t uncomfortable about it, and it didn’t sound rehearsed or planned. She expressed what appeared to be appropriate regret at his aunt’s death and gave details regarding their night together.” Peabody’s eyebrows rose. “Much more than I wanted to know. And a restaurant confirms them having dinner together in New Lincoln, which is about an hour away. At this point, it does appear that Townsend was where everybody thought he was. But...”

  “’But’, Speed?” Pierson prompted.

  Reasoner hesitated. “But he was only an hour away, and he might have been able to leave and get back while she was sleeping. Maybe not likely, but he could have.

  “Meanwhile nobody is aware of any outstanding debts on his part, and he does seem to be successful enough in the insurance business to maintain his current lifestyle legitimately. Everyone reports the relationship between him and Mrs. Mathison as loving with no obvious major conflicts.”

  Pierson wrote “Harry Townsend” under WHO and noted his whereabouts under TUES NIGHT, as well as “Inheritance” with a question mark, under WHY.

  “I’m going to put him down even though he appears to have an alibi for that time. But we’re ruling out as well as narrowing in. Anybody have any idea what kind of car he drives?”

  Reasoner responded. “A two-door Honda Civic, bright red. I asked Sherri, then checked in their parking lot.”

  “Okay. Good job, Speed. Anything else right now?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of car Missy Walters drives. He might have been able to borrow it without her knowing. Other than that, nothing at the moment.”

  “Alright. Bud?”

  Addams gave a room-by-room report, noting the two glasses on the kitchen sink and the apparently random collection of odd knickknacks. In the basement, he had also found several boxes of the same miscellaneous … junk, for lack of a better word.

  “The only indications of anything missing were the few things from the living room cabinet that didn’t match up with the picture. I didn’t notice any other blank areas, but then there was so much stuff it’s hard to tell. And there could be whole boxes missing, and we’d have no way of knowing. We can check with Harry Townsend if he knows about the values of any of her stuff and can get us into a safety deposit box, but, without digging deep into any drawers or cabinets, I couldn’t find any list of a specific collection.”

  Peabody put down his second cinnamon roll and interjected, “I hate to add any unnecessary work, but we could also see if she liked to frequent garage sales or auctions. Sometimes they sell stuff by the boxful, and you don’t always know what you’re getting. My wife likes to go to those types of things, just to see what might show up. I think that’s half our house now. At least I don’t know where much of our stuff came from. I know I didn’t buy most of it.”

  “I get that, that’s not a bad idea,” Addams responded. “But why then display all of them? I would think you’d pick out what you want, then just put the rest out for another sale, or even pitch them.”

  Reasoner spoke up. “Speaking of garage sales, didn’t we have some recent reports within the last six months of thefts at garage, yard, and tag sales, with all sorts of things being taken? Small appliances and electronics, but also odd boxes of collectibles and assorted – junk.” She turned to Pierson. “It appeared to be that someone was checking out homes and valuables while visiting these sales. Somewhere we should have lists of what was taken. Jeff, you had that happen, didn’t you?”

  Rolling his eyes, Pierson reluctantly replied, “Yeah, we did. It’s hard to admit that the police chief was robbed, particularly when I was right there. I didn’t even want to report it, but I think Judy made up a list of what she thought was taken –- stuff that she was sure she put out but had no specific record that it was sold. And she was m
eticulous in keeping track of what was there and what went. I didn’t get to pick what was going to go into the sale and what wasn’t, so I really have no idea what was out there to take. I do think we had an old microwave and a stereo system that disappeared.”

  “Was Grace Mathison there?” Addams asked.

  “I don’t know. I was in and out of the house a lot. There was a ballgame on the TV that I wanted to watch, and Judy ran the sale. Our agreement was that she sell what she wanted and I stayed out of it.” He grimaced. “But I can’t imagine Mrs. Mathison walking out with the microwave and stereo. I don’t remember seeing her there, and I just can’t see her doing anything like that.”

  “Those bigger articles aren’t the same types of things we’re talking about in her house, and that doesn’t explain her death,” Addams added. “Even if some of her collection ends up being some of the same smaller objects that are reported stolen.”

  “But it gives us a place to start.” Reasoner took a sip from her coffee. “Maybe we should check if she had a history of doing anything like that. You know, picking up small things from people’s homes, or from the school.”

  Pierson tapped his chalk on the board. “I asked Hazy to check on some background for both her and Townsend. I’ll ask her to be more specific in her questions, particularly in regards to that.”

  Addams pulled the envelope that Culbertson had brought over to him. “I did request Phil to take pictures of the various boxes and cabinets, and to blow up the photo of the cabinet from before so we can see exactly what isn’t there anymore.”

  “You take a look at that, Bud.” Pierson wrote “garage sale thefts” under his initial column of general comments, then, after a pause, added it to the WHY column with a big question mark. There were as many question marks as any other comments on the board.

  “Meanwhile, it seems to be stretching it to tie it to this case, but I’ll note it. Anything else to add to our board? Any other WHOs?” He turned back to the team. “Not so much so far. Especially with Harry seemingly unlikely as a suspect.”

  Reasoner pointed at the board. “You talked with Mel Johnson. I admit it’s very improbable, but you should put his name down. And maybe jealousy or frustration as a motive if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings.”

  Pierson sighed and reluctantly added that information. “I really didn’t get any sense that, at his age, he was going to get that upset about any of his feelings getting hurt. I think he’d be more worried about what other people would think if he did something about it. He seemed to be okay with where their relationship was, and to be aware it was unlikely to lead to marriage. And I can’t see him carrying her up to the roof.”

  “That seems to be an issue all the way around,” Peabody commented. “Who would have been strong enough to get her to the roof, and why? What was the point? I haven’t even been up on my roof in years.”

  “But,” Reasoner noted. “Various people were up on her roof. Regularly. To get her cat. It’s an excuse for her to be up there. He, I hate to say it, but it’s probably a ‘he’, would have wanted us to assume, like most of us first did, that she had slipped and fallen and died from exposure.”

  Pierson caught the “most of us”, but didn’t comment on the remark. He turned back to Addams. “Anything else, Bud?”

  Addams, just starting to look through the pictures from the envelope, shook his head.

  “Okay. What we’ve got so far is an unidentified car in the driveway, maybe around the time of death, but not sure, no real suspects, and unexplained ‘junk’ in her house, that may, or probably may not, have anything to do with her death. Not a lot to go on, is there?”

  Addams found a picture and held it up. “I’d like to go through the lists of stolen goods from the garage sales and anywhere else and see if I can match it up with anything in her house.” He shook his head. “It is such an odd collection that I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “Sure, why not. Maybe that would solve one mystery anyway. Pops, why don’t you check with her friends to see if they know anything about her collection or any disagreements with anyone? Hazy will probably know at least some of the members of her book club. Speed, talk with Harry Townsend about any possible valuables in the house and see if you and he can get into a safety deposit box, if she has one.”

  “Jeff, I’m not real comfortable being alone with him.” Reasoner spun her coffee cup in her hands. “I always feel like he’s … checking me out, if you know what I mean. It’s uncomfortable anyway, but now, with his aunt having died, it’s downright creepy.”

  “Yeah, I can appreciate that, Speed, and I don’t want you to be in a situation that could get awkward at the least.” Pierson considered what she was saying for a moment. “I don’t want to seem like a jerk here, but has he actually said or done anything? Or is it more of a sense that he might?”

  “He hasn’t done anything, and it’s not that I really think he’s going to, but, I just don’t know.” She straightened up. “I can do it. Forget I said anything. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “The thing is you’ve already met with him, and I think he’s comfortable with you, and he may tell you some things he wouldn’t tell anyone else. You’re a professional, but, if there’s any real problem, let me know. Okay?”

  She nodded, not too happily, but seeming to recognize the priority.

  Pierson continued, “I think we had a good discussion this morning. I like this kind of interaction among us. But we don’t really have much yet, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s get to it.”

  As they started to gather up notes, he looked at his watch. “Let’s meet at...four o’clock, that okay?” They all nodded. “Unless you’ve found something that we need to know right away. Then get Marie to gather us all together.”

  Addams and Peabody went to talk with Hazlett regarding the list of stolen items and the names of the book club members, while Reasoner reluctantly but dutifully left for another meeting with Harry Townsend.

  Pierson went into his office, shut the door, and sat down to think. It was a real mess so far, with no clear answers yet, but some information was entering the picture that needed thoughtful and quiet consideration.

  He was still there a half hour later, sitting with his head in his hands when Hazlett knocked. He said “Yeah?” and she opened the door.

  “Jeff, I hate to bring this up at this time, but it’s bowling league tonight. I’m going to call and see if I can get us rescheduled, but I don’t know for when.”

  “No, Hazy. I can’t be there, not unless somebody walks in and confesses today, preferably before lunch. But you and JJ and Paul go. See if Roy Washington can take my place. He’s a high school teacher; he certainly doesn’t have anything to do with this. I know he’s not as good as me,” Pierson shrugged and ruefully grinned, “but he’s better than a forfeit.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hazy, you need the night out. You had watch last night. I know it’s Bud’s turn to be available and take any calls, but I also know I’ll just be hanging around here for a while and trying to figure this out. Speed and Pops have the next two nights, but I suspect I will be having late nights too until this thing gets resolved. That’s what I supposedly get paid to do, to take the worry and responsibility. Hopefully the others will come up with new information, and maybe something will click. I think I’m pretty much on this until we come up with the answer, or the town council selects another police chief. Whichever comes first.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Following the department meeting, Reasoner slowly made her way back down the street to interview Harry Townsend. As she passed the green one more time, she detoured to the bandstand and sat down on the steps. There were lights on at the Johnson & Johnson Insu
rance office, but she wanted a few moments to gather her thoughts and decide just what information she specifically wanted before approaching Townsend again.

  She had always liked this spot. Downtown Summerfield presented itself in front of her, with the shops and businesses vital to the town’s life just starting their mornings. She saw movement in some windows and a few mid-morning shoppers or late-arriving workers on the sidewalks. Hank Peters was setting up a display outside his hardware store. The head of the town council, Myron Stump, liked to take his morning constitutional around the green, checking that “his” town was in good shape before heading to his furniture-making shop two blocks away at the northernmost end of the green. The day lay ahead of them, with all sorts of possibilities and dreams. It wasn’t the chaos and the noise and the stress of the big city, but it was life nonetheless. People grew up here, and had families here, and lived their complete lives here, with joy and satisfaction and no regrets.

  But now a murder. An actual police case. Something to be solved rather than just processed. Something to raise the adrenaline.

  If Harry Townsend, the most legitimate suspect, the only one with even the glimmer of a motive, had an alibi, then that left the field either wide open or closed shut. A motive had to be found, and one of the biggest questions in this case other than who? was why? Why would anybody want to harm, not to mention kill, Grace Mathison? That was the first thing everybody said when they heard the news – why kill Grace Mathison? No one had an answer for that question, could even suggest a possibility to answer it.

  Reasoner thought back over what just passed through her mind. Not why kill Grace, but the word “harm”, why harm her? And go back even further. Maybe, just maybe, there wasn’t even an intent to harm. Bud said several objects seemed to be missing from her bric-a-brac shelves and Culbertson had found blood near those shelves. Maybe this whole incident had been a spur of the moment thing, closer to the idea of an accident, like Harry Townsend earlier insisted. The perpetrator had picked up something from the shelf and swung it in … anger? Frustration? Fear? Guilt?