1 A Small Case of Murder Page 4
Even though he agreed, Joshua shrugged. The point about the tracks being in the left arm wasn’t grounds enough for an investigation. “There have been a lot of performers, back then and even today, who let their addictions override common sense. Janis Joplin, for one; Jimi Hendrix, for another.” He fingered through the collection of articles. “I guess this sister got nowhere?”
J.J. reminded him that the sheriff was Chuck Delaney, the same one mentioned in Lulu’s letter. “He said no one had a reason to kill her.”
It became clear to Joshua from the clippings that Lulu had been murdered before she had a chance to tell anyone about seeing the picture in Reverend Rawlings’ office.
No one knew about the letter.
“The whole case was dropped after Karen Jefferson got killed in a car accident,” J.J. said. “Her car went off the road eleven months after Lulu died. The newspaper editor died in a fire when his house burnt down six weeks after she got killed.”
Joshua didn’t think it was possible for his heart to sink any lower into the pit of his stomach. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Yeah.” Murphy’s face was flushed with excitement. “Lulu was killed because she saw that guy’s picture in Reverend Rawlings’ office.”
Sarah added, “And we need to bring him to justice.”
“We?” Joshua objected, “There’s no ‘we’ here. I’m not saying I disagree with you. This evidence means that we’re dealing with a very dangerous man here. I don’t want you kids asking questions or stirring up trouble.” He made his point by dropping the folder onto the top of his desk and slapping the laptop shut.
“Ah, come on, Dad,” J.J. said. “You’ve investigated conspiracies and brought down serial killers. This is nothing compared to that.” He held up his forefinger and thumb to symbolize a miniscule quantity. “For you, this is a small case of murder.”
Sleeping alone in the bed he used to share with his wife in what used to be his grandmother’s bedroom, Joshua Thornton wished that he had never opened that envelope and read the contents of Lulu’s letter. He realized with dread that he had passed the gene of obsession onto his children. He recognized the spark in their eyes while they argued that it was too much of a coincidence that Lulu Jefferson died the same day she had seen that picture in Reverend Orville Rawlings’ office.
One could argue that coincidences, unbelievable ones, do happen. Lulu had died on the same day her best friend and her husband got killed by a truck driver who had fallen asleep behind the wheel of his rig while driving across an Oklahoma interstate.
Claire and Johnny Thornton hadn’t been murdered. As a curious teenager, Joshua had requested a copy of the accident report from the Oklahoma state police and called the witnesses to question them. Their deaths had been nothing more than a tragic accident.
Why couldn’t Lulu’s death by a heroin overdose be a horrible accident like that of so many other talented artists?
In that case, her death would be a coincidence, along with the deaths of both her sister and the newspaper editor who had claimed it wasn’t an accident.
Their deaths crossed the line of coincidence into that of suspicious.
Joshua climbed out of his bed. When he swung his feet to the floor, Admiral awoke with a yelp.
“Sorry,” he muttered while wondering why Admiral, with all the children sleeping in their rooms down the hall, chose to sleep next to his bed. He was the one who had objected to his addition to the family.
Admiral gazed up at his master and laid his head on his leg.
With a grudging sigh, Joshua stroked the top of Admiral’s head and scratched his ears while debating with his obsession.
It was a short debate.
“Come on,” he ended up telling the dog. “We’re going for a walk.”
It wasn’t long before Joshua was knocking on Tad MacMillan’s door.
Through the kitchen door, Joshua saw his cousin peer in from the living room to see who was knocking. Instead of letting him in, Tad rushed back to the rear of the apartment.
Joshua checked the driveway at the bottom of the steps. Maggie’s car was gone. She had left to continue her journey to Penn State. It wasn’t her whom he heard yelling from inside the apartment before Tad returned to crack open the door.
“What’s wrong?”
Joshua said, “I have a couple more questions about Lulu.”
“Now?” Tad looked back over his shoulder into the apartment. “I thought you dropped this stuff about Lulu.” The dismay in his voice was unmistakable.
“You know how I am.” Joshua saw a woman’s white macramé purse on the kitchen table. “I didn’t realize—”
“It is Saturday night.”
Apologizing, Joshua took a step down the stairs.
“If it’s only a couple of questions, go ahead and ask.” After ushering Joshua inside, Tad guarded the living room doorway to prevent further trespass. “What do you want to know?”
“Did Lulu Jefferson shoot heroin?”
Tad’s answer was quick and to the point. “No, she drank a lot of booze and smoked pot, but she didn’t do anything that involved needles. She fainted at the sight of them.”
“She had a track in her—”
Tad glanced into the living room. Whatever he saw prompted him to halt the interview.
Grabbing Joshua by the arm, Tad escorted him out. “Can we finish this later?”
The latching of the door in his face signaled the end of their conversation.
It was close to midnight and Joshua still couldn’t sleep.
Taking the long way home, he and Admiral strolled up Sixth Street past Oak Glen Middle School. Donny and Sarah were going to go to the same school Joshua had attended over twenty years earlier.
A street lamp lit up the boulevard’s dead end.
Joshua recalled when Rock Springs Boulevard’s dead end had been the entrance to a park bearing its name. A wooden roller coaster once took up most of the hillside behind the school. The park’s carousel that he used to ride every weekend was now at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. All evidence of the park had been destroyed during the construction of Route 30’s three mile path through West Virginia between Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Hearing his name called out when he and Admiral turned the corner onto Rock Springs Boulevard; Joshua stopped and peered through the darkness.
“Josh?” Jan Martin was waving to him from her front porch. “Is that you?” Her home had been built onto the hill-side on the corner. She was cooling off with a glass of iced tea. “Couldn’t sleep either, huh? I guess it’s time for some air conditioning in that old house.”
“I’m still getting used to sleeping alone.” Joshua led his dog up the steep steps to her porch.
Judging by her wet hair, and the short cotton bathrobe that appeared to be the only thing she was wearing, he guessed that she had just stepped out of her shower or bath.
Jan held up her glass. The movement caused ice inside to make a harmonious clinking noise. “Have you tried herbal iced tea? I have a blend made for relaxation. I’ll pour you a glass.” She slipped off the railing and went inside.
After leaving Admiral on the porch, Joshua followed her into the cottage. The mementos inside reminded him that Jan had lived with her mother in the two-bedroom home her whole life.
“How’s your mother doing?” Joshua called into the kitchen where his hostess was pouring the tea from a pitcher. In the living room, he fingered a couple of porcelain thimbles in a glass case on the wall next to a corner curio cabinet filled with seemingly every piece of Fenton’s rose-colored blown glass works collection.
“She’s on a bus tour in Branson, Missouri. She’s been traveling a lot lately.” Jan came out of the kitchen and handed him a frosted mug filled with a red-colored drink.
“Chamomile and hibiscus flowers, peppermint, spearmint, and a bunch of other spices. Try it. You’ll like it.” She pushed the mug towards him.
He took a sip and waited to feel relaxed. It didn’t happen, but he couldn’t complain about the taste. “Not bad.”
“How do your kids like Chester?” She led him back out onto the porch to enjoy the night air on the swing.
“Donny and Sarah are having the roughest time,” he said. “They’ve lived in San Francisco most of their lives and they aren’t used to moving every few years like the other kids. Lately, it seems like they’re always at each other’s throats. The other day, they tore up the attic during one of their fist fights.”
“They’ve just lost their mother.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s been rough on all of us.”
Jan said, “I heard she had a heart condition.”
“No one knew about it. The weird thing is she worked out four times a week. There was no—” Joshua stopped to battle the emotions that welled up inside. “They call it the silent killer for a reason.”
They sat in silence until he continued: “We had a date that night. We went out to dinner and a show.” He swallowed his tears. “The kids were in bed when we got home, and Val and I went in to take a shower together.”
Even though it was dark, he turned his face away so she couldn’t see his pain.
“One minute everything was perfect,” he said. “I felt Val’s breath on my neck. The next thing she was limp in my arms. The water was coming down on us, and she was slipping away from me. I got her out of the shower, carried her into the bed-room, and laid her on the bed.”
Lost in the memory, Joshua took a deep gulp of the cold tea. The sweat from the mug dripped across his fingers and down his wrist.
“The doctors said it happened so fast that she didn’t even know what happened. I went ahead and told the kids that. She didn’t suffer. She was just suddenly gone.” He shook his head. “But that isn’t true. She was talking to me.”
Jan whispered her question. “What did she say?”
“That she’d always love me. Those were her last words.” Joshua took another gulp of the tea.
“Ain’t life ironic?” He chuckled in spite of his pain. “Val was the one who wanted a house full of kids. I didn’t care one way or the other. I mean, I love them with all my heart, but she was the one and I wanted was to make her happy. So, we had all these kids and I feel totally clueless about raising them.”
“Joshua Thornton clueless?” she said in a breathless tone. “I never would have thought it possible.”
“Do you have the confidence to raise five kids?”
“Don’t you think I should get a husband first before I consider having children?” she asked with a smile.
“When you do get that guy, if you have kids, if you have a heart, you won’t die until after they’re raised.
The two old friends laughed as if no time had passed since their youth when they used to kill time on lazy summer nights on the same porch swing on which they now swung.
“I went to see Tad but he seemed to have a date tonight,” he told her.
Jan said, “I’m not surprised. Tad does have a reputation for that. Of course, in this town, once you get a rep it sticks to you like glue.”
“I have to admit, I’m not completely innocent there. I still think of him as the cigarette-smoking, beer-guzzling, motor-cycle-riding hound.”
“Well, he still has the motorcycle,” she said. “As for the ladies, you still hear things about him.”
“What? What do you hear?” Joshua asked.
“I’m not a gossip.”
Recalling that Jan was a part-time reporter for The Review in East Liverpool, he said, “You’re a journalist. That makes you the same thing in my book.”
“I never made it as a journalist. I’m a drug store manager who writes little articles on occasion for the lifestyle section.” She drained her glass. “Who was Tad with tonight?”
“I never saw her.”
“Was she Maggie’s mother?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he replied. “What have you heard?”
“I hear things all the time about Tad and his women.”
“I mean about Maggie’s mother.”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” she said. “I would have thought Tad would have told you of all people.”
“He doesn’t tell me everything.”
Jan said, “He told you it was none of your business.”
“I half suspect he’s keeping it a secret to make me crazy,” Joshua said, “It happened so suddenly. Here I am in Annapolis, planning to marry Val the day after graduation, and Tad announces that he’s a father. Boom! No nine months to prepare for that, especially from a wild man like him.”
“Maybe she was married.”
Joshua disagreed. “Even Tad, at his wildest, had principles. But there is one thing I do know. After he sobered up, he became a good father. Maggie has turned out great.”
“Yes, she did. She’s gorgeous. A boy knocked over a display while watching her when she was in buying sunscreen the other day.”
“I think this helped.” He drained the mug and set it on the porch rail. “Thanks for the tea and conversation, Jan.”
“Anytime.”
Joshua took up the dog’s leash. “Come on, Admiral. Let’s go to bed.”
Unaware of her longing gaze, Joshua led Admiral off the porch, down the walk, and on home.
Chapter Three
The sprawling red brick church on top of the hill along Indiana Avenue is a center of social activity on Sunday mornings. Members of its congregation greet each other in front of the First Christian Church to catch up on the week’s news. It is the same way at all the churches representing almost every orthodox religion along the same street.
During the sermon, the Thornton children admired the oak interior of the old church building. The floors were hard-wood with the walls and high cathedral ceilings paneled, and the pews constructed of matching oak. Glass lamps hung down from the ceiling over the center aisle.
Upon hearing the opening notes of the closing hymn, Reverend Steven Andrews gave his customary sigh of relief. He silently thanked God for letting him live through another sermon without throwing up on the pulpit. After six years as a church pastor, the young reverend still got stage fright before giving his sermons.
While he played the keyboard, music director, Tad McMillan, tried in vain to get the pastor’s attention.
Reverend Andrews was unaware of the choir’s gaze at the back of his head. At the close of the hymn, he lifted his arms up towards the ceiling. “And now, may the Lord go forth with you and be with you. Amen.” Instead of going forth, the congregation looked up at their pastor. A murmur rose from within the sanctuary. Reverend Andrews turned to Tad, who hissed, “You for-got the offering.”
Laughter rippled throughout the church while the ushers rushed down the aisle, grabbed the offering plates, and passed them to the pews. Joshua fought to not chuckle while he dropped a check into the plate.
When he turned around in his seat to hand the plate to the family in the pew behind him, he noticed a girl dressed in a skimpy shirt with baggy pants slung so low on her bony hips that it was a mystery as to how they kept from falling down to her ankles. Her poker-straight hair, bluntly cut at her jaw, was the color of a new copper penny.
The girl dressed in black had come in at the back of the church and made her way down the aisle at the far side of the sanctuary.
The father of teenagers, Joshua thought he was incapable of being shocked by anything done i
n the name of fashion. He realized that his assumption was wrong when he laid his eyes on the girl making her way to the altar.
Joshua saw under her midriff top the scales of a black snake tattoo draped across her stomach. The snake wrapped itself around her body, up her back, over her right shoulder, and across the front of her throat. The serpent’s head, his mouth open in mid-strike, rested on her left shoulder.
His concentration directed at the song he was playing on the keyboard, Tad didn’t notice her glassy gaze fixed on him.
The girl with the snake caused a stir amongst the congregation. All eyes were fixed on the visitor.
Was she going up to the pulpit to plead for the reverend to save her from the serpent that had taken control of her body?
Joshua saw beyond the body art to notice her hand in her shoulder bag as she moved in the direction of his cousin. A family consisting of three generations took up the pew between him and the girl with the snake. He didn’t have time to go around them.
“Excuse me,” he said repeatedly while squeezing his way in front of the seven people blocking his path.
The grandmother with a purple hat perched on top of her gray head sputtered when she lost her balance and landed on her rump in the pew. “Joshua Thornton, didn’t they teach you manners at that academy? I never.”
He recalled when the elderly woman had once complained to his grandmother about him being “mouthy”.
The girl pulled her hand out of the bag to reveal a hand-gun. She aimed it at Tad.
“She has a gun!” Tad took the pastor down onto the floor in a full body slam.
Joshua heard the roar of the congregation in his ears when he dove like a player racing for home plate. In midair, he caught her arm and thrust the gun towards the ceiling.
When they hit the floor, the bullet discharged from the barrel and struck one of the hanging lamps to send a shower of glass down onto the congregation. The bullet flew upward until it planted itself into one of the oak panels high above them.