Vengeance: A Mystery

Vengeance

A Mystery

Elizabeth Ticknor

ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-54395-730-3

ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-54395-731-0

© 2018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For Joel, with love.

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to my husband, Joel, and my daughter, Kerrie, patient, helpful first readers. Thanks to my editor, Nancy P. Sherman for her many excellent insights, and to Ed Sadtler and the members of my creative writing workshop who have offered valuable suggestions.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 1

There had been some notoriety after my neighbors, retired CIA operatives Lil and David Stein, and my husband, Ted, and I solved a murder a few years back. We had made the local papers. We had even made a few national ones. I had written a few articles for popular magazines, explaining how we oldsters went about solving the mystery and seeing that justice was served. I had published a memoir, Loose Threads, which got some local buzz. However I had some doubts about the book after speaking to Shelly Morrison who was found guilty of two murders. She tried to convince me that she wasn’t the mastermind, that killing poor old Roger Needham was a team effort led by her best friend, Marcy Foster. I tried to interview Marcy to check out her alibi one last time. She had disappeared. I went ahead and published my book, but I may have gotten it wrong. There’s a faint possibility that the wrong person is sitting in jail. Still, I must admit that, in spite of my niggling doubts, the temporary fame that came with the newspaper articles, the interviews, and the book, felt good.

Time passed. The story faded. Our fame faded too. The four of us went back to our ordinary lives. That wasn’t OK with me. It was a let-down. Recently, I had been fighting malaise.

What’s wrong with you, Ruth? my husband Ted asked as I sat under the overhead fan in our living room, trying to keep cool on a surprisingly warm September night, while listlessly flipping the pages of a book I had been trying to get into for days. You seem to have lost interest in everything. You used to have so many activities—your book clubs, your exercise classes, your writing group. Are you participating in any of these since the case was solved?

I’m taking a break, I said.

It’s not like you to sit around and mope. I’m concerned about you. Ted didn’t look concerned. He looked impatient and slightly annoyed.

Our ordinary lives seem so drab. I put my book aside, and tried not to sound as discouraged as I felt.

Drab? Why drab?

You know what I mean, Ted. We take our lovely walks along the beach, rain or shine. We have our hobbies, our interests. I love all that.

So? What’s the problem? Why are you so restless, Ruth, so seemingly dissatisfied?

I love our lives, but there’s no real adventure. I need an adventure. It’s that simple. I want a mystery to solve.

You have me worried. Ted opened the top buttons of his shirt and fanned himself vigorously with a magazine. He wiped sweat out of his eyes.

I’ll snap out of it. There was no point in bringing up the need to turn the air conditioner back on. It was early September, and Ted had unilaterally decided that there was no need for air conditioning after August, though he did allow the overhead fan that was not doing the trick.

I wish you would. I wish you would make an effort, Ruth. I know you want another mystery to turn up. You want to plunge right back in. But life isn’t all thrills, especially at our age.

And there it was - our age. I longed to be Private Detective Ruth Blank. Yet who exactly was going to hire me at seventy-five? I looked my age—and did not try to hide it—short, plump, gray, wrinkled. Ted looked his age and did not try to hide it either—short, plump, bald, wrinkled. Private detective, private sleuth? Ridiculous aspiration, I told myself.

And then, Connie Carter called.

Connie was in her mid-sixties, and although we hadn’t been really close friends, we kept in touch sporadically for years. She lived in Anthem, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, for a good part of the year, but still had a town house here in Lewes, Delaware, where she and her family spent many summers taking a break from the Arizona heat.

Connie, I began. Are you back in town?

I’m in trouble, she said, her voice cracking. Something awful has happened. I need to see you right away.

I invited her over and put the kettle on. I opened a box of butter cookies and sat at a wicker rocker on our enclosed porch, staring into the darkness and watching fireflies crash against the screen. I thought about the many challenges that had permeated Connie’s life: A messy divorce many years ago. Her daughter-in-law, Tina, killed in a bicycle accident two summers ago, here in Delaware. Her son, Jake, a drunk who walked out on his family after the bike accident. And a teenage granddaughter, Katie, who turned to drugs. Enough trouble for any lifetime. What awful thing could have happened now, something so upsetting that it couldn’t even wait until morning? I prepared for the worst.

Connie fell into my arms when I opened the door. There were dark circles under her eyes. Usually a fastidious dresser who took great care with her appearance, she looked thrown together, a wreck. Her clothes were wrinkled, her shirt missing a button, her socks mismatched. She wore no makeup. Her long gray/black hair hung in oily tangles, the bangs practically covering her face.

My God, what’s happened? I asked.

It’s Katie. She’s gone. Connie began to sob.

I reached for the box of tissues and handed them to Connie as I steered her into a wicker chair on the porch.

Gone? I murmured, wondering if she had run away again. It wouldn’t have been the first time. I sat down next to Connie and passed her a plate of cookies.

Dead. She’s dead. She shook her head at the cookies and sobbed louder.

Dead?

Connie blew her nose and tried to compose herself. Minutes passed. The word dead hung in the air.

I should never have left her alone for the weekend, Connie finally mumbled, gasping for breath. She smeared tears from her cheeks. Katie seemed so much better this year. So much more stable. I went off to visit a friend in Cape May, and now Katie’s gone.

I reached over to give Connie a hug. She pulled away and buried her face in her hands.

I’m sorry, I said. So very sorry.

There was a long silence.

I stared at the full plate of cookies. Would you like some tea, water, a soda? I asked, trying to fill the silence.

Connie shook her head. You, Ted, Lil and David, Connie finally managed. You solved that murder a few years back. I need your help. Find her murderer. A tear ran down her cheek and her face seemed to collapse. Her voice faded and I leaned in to hear her next words. Katie’s been murdered. My darling, troubled Katie has been murdered.

Murdered, I repeated, trying to take in the enormity of what Connie was telling me.

I thought Katie had come through. We had such a lovely trip down the Danube last month— a celebration. She had plans. Solid plans. I was so happy for her. A half smile lit up her face for an instant, and then, her gaze clouded over. The police say it was suicide, a drug overdose. Case closed. It couldn’t have been that.

I said nothing, though I thought, Are you sure? She’s used drugs for so many years.

I’m sure, Ruth, Connie said, apparently reading my mind. She’s been clean for months. She had Robert, her first solid boyfriend. She had dropped out of her band. Something happened but she wouldn’t discuss her reasons. I tried to pry into it a few times but she shut me down. She just wouldn’t go there.

I remember you told us she composed the music, wrote the lyrics, played guitar, sang some of the songs.

For so many years, she seemed to have her whole life wrapped up in her music. Still, if they had had a falling out, would that be enough reason to start using again? I can’t see it. She left the band months ago, before Robert, before our trip down the Danube. Why overdose over it now? She wouldn’t. She didn’t. The police are wrong. Connie blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and tried to compose herself.

I’m so sorry, I repeated.

I didn’t do enough. She turned away from me, her voice anguished and strained.

You can’t blame yourself, I said, and then wished I hadn’t said that. It seemed so lame, so inappropriate, and banal.

The police are convinced it’s suicide. It isn’t. Something happened in my town house. They found drugs in her system, but she wasn’t using. There were no fingerprints. Not mine, not Katie’s. I told the police this was impossible. We lived there. Our prints should have been everywhere.

What did the police say about the missing fingerprints? Surely they had a theory.

They did. They postulated that Katie had overdosed when a friend came to see her. She was dying, and the friend could do nothing to stop the outcome. After Katie died, according to the police, the friend panicked, thought he or she would be implicated in Katie’s death, wiped the place clean, and fled.

It is a possibility isn’t it?

I don’t think so. The police are wrong. Katie had put that part of her life behind her. It just didn’t happen the way the police believe it did. It didn’t. I should never have left Katie to visit my friend in Cape May. Katie was murdered, and it’s all my fault.

Connie, dear, I said, whatever happened is not your fault. It’s not. Katie was nineteen. If this was an overdose, it could have happened anywhere.

Katie was not using, Connie insisted again. This was not a drug overdose. Someone made it look that way. Katie was murdered. I know it looks bad, but it’s not what it seems. Katie was upbeat. Hopeful. She had Robert. She had me. She had gotten her GED and was taking courses at a community college. Connie slumped in her seat, her face crumbling. Something happened in my house. Find out what happened, Ruth. I owe my Katie that.

My God, I said. Murder.

The police checked the house over. They interviewed me. Nothing seemed suspicious to them. No evidence of a break-in, an attempted robbery. I told them that Katie’s smartphone was missing. They shrugged and talked about how kids relapse. They said they dealt with it all the time. Kids are clean for a while; then, they get in with a bad crowd, and start using again. Some of them overdose. Some of them die.

I know you don’t want to believe it, but the police could be right, couldn’t they?

Connie frowned. Her voice shook. No. I know it looks bad, but that’s not the way it happened. The police didn’t know Katie. They generalized. They went with the doctor’s report, the autopsy. They went with their theory of the missing fingerprints. I wish now that I hadn’t told them about Katie’s drug history, her relapses. They jumped to conclusions, emphasizing that Katie had had two relapses, and that I didn’t really know who her friends were in Lewes, or Rehoboth, or what she did during the day.

So, they were certain she followed a pattern they saw frequently with kids on drugs?

Yes. I couldn’t get them to see it any other way. They didn’t know my granddaughter. I couldn’t convince them that Katie hadn’t relapsed again. She wasn’t other kids. Ruth, I need you, Ted and the Steins to take a closer look. It’s just not right. My darling granddaughter is gone, and I know—I just know—the police are wrong. This is murder.

By the time Connie left, I had agreed to see if I could help, but I wasn’t hopeful. I didn’t see where I could take things. I just knew that I wanted to try. I headed to our bedroom to bring Ted up to date. He was sleeping soundly. My news would have to wait.

I told Ted about my conversation with Connie over breakfast the next day. As he bit into an apple, he almost choked.

But, how are you going to proceed? he asked when he stopped coughing. How? Doom seems to follow that poor woman. Her husband, arrested for child molestation all those years ago. Her kid, Jake, a high school drop-out, and a father at fifteen. Wasn’t Connie also dealing with her demented mother way back then?

Yes. It’s one of the reasons Connie moved to the Phoenix area with her son, his 14-year-old wife, Tina, and baby, Katie. God, Ted, what a history.

Then, that awful bike accident two summers ago. Tina killed instantly. Sounds like the Biblical Job.

And Jake went to pieces. He began drinking heavily and then disappeared. Connie still doesn’t know where he might be.

Well, Ruth, it’s no wonder Katie started taking drugs, moved out, and lived on the streets.

There was some glimmer of good news. Connie says Katie went through rehab twice and seemed to be pulling out. She got her GED, and was taking college courses. She had a boyfriend. Things appeared to be coming together for her. And now—.

Now, she’s dead. Ted shook his head. Ruth, how in the world can you help Connie? How?

Ted and I cleared the breakfast dishes and we headed into the living room. I handed Ted a cup of his favorite ginger tea, and sat beside him on the sofa. Connie gave me a list of names, I said after he had had a few sips of tea and was about to open up a fat biography of Hamilton he was making his way through. Some of Katie’s friends, people she and Robert hung out with, members of her band, a few youngsters in her rehab clinics over the years. It’s a start.

Ted put the book down reluctantly and looked at me with skepticism. A start? The clinics aren’t likely to release names or addresses of people she knew there. That’s a dead end. And Robert is someone new in her life, from what you tell me. She left home and lived rough for a few years. Who did she hang out with during that time? Does Connie know?

She doesn’t.

You said she lived with someone in a biker gang for a while. What do you know about that someone?

I shook my head.

What do you know about other gang members?

Another head shake.

Who else did she know after she left home? You say Connie doesn’t know. I doubt Robert knows either.

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

You tell me that Connie took Katie on a celebration cruise recently. Who might she have met on the cruise? You have no idea? What about her band? Who was in it? Why did they break up, or did they? Did Katie just pull out? Why? Who had motive? Who had means? Who had opportunity? You always start there.