Murder Wears a Mask Read online

  “Much more so than when I was a girl. We’d never have kissed a boy out in the street. But I suppose times change.” Then Mrs. Hammond’s face grew stern. “But that’s not what bothers me. It’s the drugs. I see them, right out there, bold as brass. I see people coming to get them.”

  “On Lincoln Avenue?” Kelly asked, feigning surprise. Lincoln Avenue, while not as busy as Roosevelt Avenue, was a public street and not at all the location where drug transactions were likely to take place.

  “Oh, no, not out front. There, over in the alley,” Mrs. Hammond said, pointing to the side window which looked out upon Daffodil Alley. “I still have my lighted pumpkin up,” she apologized. “I’ll be putting my turkey up soon.”

  “You see drug sales in the alley?” Kelly asked, steering Mrs. Hammond back to the subject of crime.

  “I used to go to the council meetings every month when I could walk better. I told them what was going on. But they never paid any attention. They told me they’d send an officer, but they never did. Now, I can’t go to the meetings any more, but I still see what goes on.”

  “Have you seen anything recently?”

  Mrs. Hammond paused. “I saw a car, the night of the murder,” she said. “It’s the car I always see.”

  Kelly hid her excitement. Here, finally, was a clue that Troy would be willing to regard as significant.

  “A car?”

  “Yes, that sporty little red car.”

  “Did anyone ask you what you saw that night?”

  “You mean the police?” Mrs. Hammond asked scornfully. “They don’t ask questions because they wouldn’t like the answers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve lived here most of your life, Kelly, except when you went away to college. You know what I mean. Have a cookie. I baked them this morning. I don’t have the same touch I used to have, but they aren’t too bad. I got the recipe from one of those baking mysteries. Those are a lot of fun to read.”

  Kelly brought Mrs. Hammond back to the topic of Settler Springs. “I’ve lived here since I was eight years old, when my dad took the job of school superintendent.”

  “Then you know. Or your dad did, I’m sure. Certain children got in trouble, but others didn’t, even when they did the same things.”

  “He was bothered by the unfairness,” Kelly revealed. “He said it happens in all school districts, but it seemed to be worse here. He took an early retirement, and now he and my mom travel a lot.”

  Mrs. Hammond nodded. “Good for them. And you still live in the house where they lived. I like that.”

  “It’s still their address, even though they’re almost never there. In the winter they go to Florida and during the rest of the year, they mostly travel. They stay here in the spring. But on Halloween night . . . you said you saw a car?”

  “Not ‘a’ car, Kelly. The car I always see. The red car.”

  “Whose car is it?”

  “It belongs to the young man who sells the drugs, of course. I see him in the alley. I look out; you’d be surprised how much light these holiday ornaments provide. I see him come into the alley, after dark, and then I see people coming and leaving quickly. No one is there long, except for him.”

  “Was he selling drugs on Halloween night?”

  Mrs. Hammond shook her head. “He drove part way down the alley, just far enough not to be seen from Lincoln Avenue. He lifted something from the back seat. I didn’t know what it was then, but it must have been the murdered girl. He put the bag on the ground and then he drove away. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since no one else came.”

  “You didn’t call anyone?”

  “My dear, they would just say I was a senile old lady who reads too many crime novels,” Mrs. Hammond said realistically. “When Harry was alive and we lived on Monroe, I used to go to the council meetings to complain about the drugs. Then, when I first moved here after Harry died, I called about the drugs instead. No one came and no one wanted to know anything. Why would I call about anything now?”

  9

  Trying to Solve the Perfect Crime

  “If she didn’t get a license plate number,” Troy pointed out, “it’s going to be hard to make a connection between the driver of the car and the murdered girl.”

  “But it’s something,” Kelly insisted. “It’s proof that Lucas wasn’t lying about the car.”

  “We can let Lucas’s lawyer know,” Troy said. “Do you think she’d be willing to testify?”

  “I don’t think she’s afraid,” Kelly said. “But she’s convinced that no one will believe her. She’s old, she doesn’t get around well, she’s known for being someone who calls the borough office and the police station to complain. Still, she saw the car. A red, sporty car.”

  “That could be anything to a woman as old as she is. She might be thinking of a Stutz-Bearcat.”

  “Mrs. Hammond knows what PDAs are,” Kelly retorted. “I think she knows a sports car from a Stutz-Bearcat.”

  They were in a sports bar. Monday Night Football was on every television and the noise of the diners made it easy for them to discuss the progress of their investigation. Ever since learning from Carmela that her shared breakfast with Troy had been seen and commented on, Kelly thought it better if they were discreet. Nothing could be allowed to prejudice their progress in proving Lucas’s innocence. The sports bar was a half hour away from Settler Springs and unlikely to be patronized by town residents, who would be watching the game at home.

  “The Stutz-Bearcat was a sports car,” Troy replied.

  “Circa 1911,” came the response.

  “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know who killed Tyra Cardew, but I know it wasn’t Lucas.”

  “Okay. So, we have a potential witness. Maybe there’s something there. You know what bothers me?”

  “Everything about this case.”

  “Besides that. The girl’s father. Wouldn’t you think he’d have some questions about who killed his daughter?”

  “Maybe he believes Lucas is guilty.”

  “His daughter is from a wealthy family, top-notch. She’s pretty and popular. Why would she be hanging out with a fourteen-year-old kid who lives almost an hour away?”

  “No one asked him? Or the mother?”

  “I told you, no one has asked anything.” Troy didn’t add that he hadn’t brought the questions up, either. It was apparent that as far as the Settler Springs Police Department was concerned, the case was solved, the murderer found, and justice was done. He’d broached the subject with Leo and with Kyle, shortly after the murder happened, but neither had much information nor did either seem interested. The state police were handling it. Leo wasn’t as down on the Krymanskis as Kyle was, but even he was conditioned to believe that crime was a Krymanski dominant trait.

  “Can’t you ask?” Kelly said eagerly. “You could find the address in the police report, couldn’t you?”

  It was the same idea that had been germinating in Troy’s mind since the girl had been identified. “I don’t have any reason to question them,” he said. “The case is closed, remember.”

  “And the killer is still at large!” Kelly put down her fork. “It’s worth asking the father if he has anything to add to the report.”

  “I could go by after class tomorrow,” Troy said thoughtfully. “I’ll be in the city anyway. I can call and ask if he’d rather meet at home or at his place of work.”

  “And after the library closes, I can go home by the alley,” Kelly said. “Maybe I’ll hang around and see what I see.”

  “No!”

  Fortunately, Troy’s loud objection wasn’t overheard by the vocal diners at the sports bar; the New England Patriots quarterback had just been sacked and the Steeler fans were jubilant.

  “What do you mean? Mrs. Hammond knows that something is going on in the alley. I don’t think murder is going to stop drug traffic. Don’t you want to find out about the car?”

/>   “I don’t want you going into an alley and taking a risk.”

  “I run really fast, you know. I’d be out of the alley before they could catch me.”

  “One dead body in the alley is enough,” he said in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn’t going to change his opinion. She was naïve if she thought that running fast was enough to elude criminals who were eluding notice. She was someone who acted before she thought, just like on Halloween night when she’d gotten his attention by standing right in front of his car. If he’d been going any faster, he could have hit her. But that hadn’t occurred to her and she was just as likely to be impulsive if she were caught in the alley by anyone who didn’t want to be seen.

  “What should we do, then?”

  The pronoun pleased him. What should ‘we’ do? It was nice to be on the inside of that ‘we’ even though they weren’t actually a couple. They weren’t actually anything, he realized. They weren’t even friends, really. Just two people who didn’t want Lucas Krymanski to go to prison for a crime they knew he hadn’t committed.

  “I’ll drive by the alley,” he said. “It won’t seem strange, since there was a murder there.”

  “If you drive by in a police car, anyone who’s there will scatter. I know! I’ll ask Mrs. Hammond to give me a call if she notices anything going on in the alley.”

  Troy shook his head. “We don’t want to get her involved in this. She’s an old lady and she’s vulnerable.”

  “Then you come up with an idea.” But it wasn’t in Kelly’s nature to let someone else take charge of the creative thinking. “Why don’t we do a stakeout?” she suggested, her eyes animated with the idea as it struck her.

  He laughed. “You sound like a librarian who’s been reading too many crime novels.”

  “Maybe I am,” she answered, the dimple in her cheek doing a kind of hula dance as she grinned. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.”

  “We’d have to have a good hiding place,” he said, picking up on the notion, even though he’d made fun of it. “We’d need to be in a car so we’d be hidden, but we’d have to be able to see what’s going on.”

  “All the stores have back lots,” she pointed out.

  “Not many cars, though. The business owners go home after they close. The lots don’t have anything but trash cans.”

  “A lot of trash cans,” she brightened. “They’d make a great hiding place. And it’s dark back there; no one would see us.”

  He wasn’t keen on the idea of giving up the relative security of a car. To be exposed in an alley that had turned into a spot which had its share of crime didn’t inspire optimism. Not to mention that they’d be pretty uncomfortable, hiding on the cold cement on a chilly fall night.

  “There isn’t any other plan that will work,” she persisted when he remained silent.

  “Let me think about it,” he said. “Something might come to me.”

  “Uh-huh. You’ll decide not to do it.”

  He was stung by the implied criticism. “It’s not a chapter in a book, you know. Turning the page won’t make everything turn out right. If drugs are being sold there, you can be sure someone has a gun. A red car that’s associated with drugs doesn’t prove that the driver killed the girl, at least not in terms that will convince the law. Yes, it’s suspicious,” he said, holding up his hand to stave off her immediate protest. “But no one saw a license plate in the dark. And if we’re going to be solving this, we’re doing it unofficially, so we can’t count on any support from the police. We’ll need more than suspicions. The drug sellers, if they’re also killers, won’t need more than suspicion, though, if we’re seen. They’ll take care of the problem.”

  “You’re a cop. You have a gun,” Kelly pointed out as if he were slow in connecting the obvious dots, ignoring everything that he had just said.

  “I’m not going to be in uniform.” But her words brought up an interesting puzzle. He’d never heard a word about drug trafficking in Settler Springs from any of the officers on the force. If the old lady had called the borough office about what she’d seen, why hadn’t the police investigated?

  It was something to pursue. Maybe he’d ask Leo or Kyle. It was no use asking Chief Stark; he upheld the mayor’s line that Settler Springs was a nice, quiet town with almost no crime except when the Krymanskis got into trouble. If he’d been told about Mrs. Hammond’s calls, he probably had dismissed the information just as most people were dismissive of old people. But Troy knew, from living on Jefferson Avenue, that old people noticed everything. His neighbors knew when everyone on the street left in the morning and when they came home. They knew who had gotten packages from UPS and who had company coming. Even though Jefferson really was a tranquil neighborhood, the residents would know what parts of town had secrets they were hiding. Maybe he needed to start asking around, in a casual way, to find out more. A red car shouldn’t be hard to pin down.

  10

  Meeting the Dead Girl’s Parents

  He wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get from the father of the murdered girl when he called, identified himself as a member of the Settler Springs Police Department, and asked if he could meet with him to go over a few things. The man immediately agreed to meet. His house, seven o’clock.

  Troy’s class had ended two hours before that, so he stopped to get something to eat before driving to Golden Ridge, a neighborhood which exuded an impression of sleek comfort. The homes were all architectural splendors, the landscaping was carefully and exquisitely maintained, and every car that wasn’t in its garage was something well above the average person’s pay scale.

  The door opened as soon as he knocked.

  “I’m Les Cardew,” said the man at the door. He was a man in his late forties or so without a speck of gray in his hair, a physique which indicated that only regular trips to the gym were holding off middle-age spread, and a piercing gaze. “This is Lauren, my wife. It’s taken you guys long enough to show up.”

  Mrs. Cardew’s eyes were red; for the family of the murdered girl, the case wasn’t closed and wouldn’t be for a long time, regardless of who was convicted of the crime.

  “May I come in?” Troy asked, puzzled by the man’s comment.

  Mr. Cardew opened the door wider. Mrs. Cardew led him into a room off to the side. All the furniture was white. The floors were gleaming hardwood. The Cardews, Troy decided, must not have pets. He could only imagine what his living room would look like if Arlo had free rein to a white couch.

  There were trophies in a case by the window. “They were Tyra’s. Softball,” Mr. Cardew said, noticing that Troy’s attention had been caught by the trophy case. “She got an academic scholarship to Duquesne, but she could just as easily have gotten an athletic scholarship for softball somewhere. She was good. They won the championship this year.”

  “Sit down, Officer,” Mrs. Cardew said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you. I appreciate you seeing me.”

  “What took so long?” Mr. Cardew demanded. “We’ve been waiting for someone to ask us real questions.”

  “I’m sorry . . . real questions?”

  “Officer, I don’t want to come off like a snob. Our daughter was beautiful, accomplished, popular. She had a boyfriend, someone she’d met through a friend. A college student. We hadn’t met him yet, but she said she would introduce us. She said he was busy with studies and didn’t have the time to meet us until Christmas break. I wasn’t happy about that, but . . .” he shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Nothing I could do about it. When I saw the picture of this kid they’d pinned for the murder, I said to Lauren, ‘there’s no way that Tyra was involved with him.’ He’s—” Mr. Cardew struggled to find the words. “He’s not her sort,” he finished lamely.

  “Can you fill me in on what you told the police?”

  “It’s in the report,” Mr. Cardew said. “Not that the cop wrote much down. He said they’d found the murderer, this fourteen-year-old. Officer,
I’m not saying my daughter was perfect. They told us that she was—pregnant. I’m not happy about that, but what difference does it make now? I don’t know who the father is, but it wasn’t some fourteen-year-old kid who looks like he doesn’t shave yet.”

  “There were no signs of rape,” Mrs. Cardew said quietly. “We asked the officer.”

  “There weren’t any signs of sex, period,” her husband said. “Whatever happened that night, it wasn’t a—whatever they’re trying to make it seem like, that wasn’t it. Tyra has her own car. It was gone on Halloween night; she said she was going to a party. It was Halloween; we didn’t think anything of it. She was going as Princess Leia. She told us that her boyfriend was going as Han Solo. Her car was found in the parking lot of a shopping plaza where she left it. She didn’t drive to the party. Her boyfriend must have picked her up, or else friends did, and drove to the party. You can’t tell me that a fourteen-year old kid drove out this way, picked her up, drove her back to that town, and killed her. What I want to know is why your police department is so sure that this Kermanski kid, whoever he is, killed my daughter. I’ll bet you he never met her until that night, when he found her body—”

  Mr. Cardew covered his face with his hands. Sobs came from his body as if they were escaping a long time of imprisonment. His wife put her arm around him, and the couple sat close, sharing their grief.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Cardew said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Tyra—she was our daughter. Your officers, the state police, the police captain, they made her sound like she was some kind of cheap . . . they said that we needed to protect her reputation or else what would come out in court would tarnish her memory. They said—”

  Troy felt a surge of anger. How could anyone deny these people the right to have a resolution, if not to their grief, at least to the uncertainty?

  “Mr. Cardew,” Troy said. “You need to remember your daughter as you knew her. If you’re willing to find out the truth, whatever it is, in order to find out what really happened to your daughter and why she was murdered, then that’s what you need to do.”