She threw a furtive glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was listening, leaned close, and whispered, “I've received a death threat!”
The odor of vodka hit me hard, and I realized her words were slightly slurred. There are some people who actually think it can't be smelled on their breath. Ha!
“Tell me about it,” I urged, taking a step backward.
“It was a letter-an anonymous letter. Pasted up out of words cut out of a newspaper, probably one of your
“What did it say?”
“See for yourself.” She pulled a folded envelope from her Gucci bag, but before handing it to me, she again looked over her shoulder. Only Primrose, Buchanan, and Jackson were left in the room, and none of them was paying any attention to us.
I straightened the envelope and extracted a piece of ordinary white typing paper. Words and letters of different sizes, definitely cut from a newspaper, said WHICH ONE DROP THE SAN ANTOINIO MALL OR ELSE.
“I don't see that it's a death threat, Mrs. Roadcap. It appears to be a poorly spelled attempt to change your mind about developing the cold-storage building.”
Her voice turned louder, imperious. “You don't see it as a death threat? What about that ‘or else'? My death will be on your conscience forever if you don't check this out.”
“If you're worried, why don't you go to the police with this?” I asked.
Suddenly, the lofty manner disappeared, as she blinked her eyes and looked at me like a frightened child. “Who? That alcoholic idiot who's acting chief? Or that kid from the junior college who's the part-time patrolman? Or should I say
She looked so frightened, I agreed to help. There really was no way in the world to identify the author of the letter, but if it made Bernice feel better to think I was helping, then let her think so.
She smiled gratefully and left. I studied the plain white business-size envelope the letter had come in. The type sold in boxes of one hundred at any store. The postmark was Harrisburg. That meant nothing. All local mail was sent to Harrisburg for a postmark; locals considered it to be a diabolical federal conspiracy to slow down delivery time. Naturally, there was no return address. Buchanan, standing by the door, cleared his throat. “Time to go, Tori,” he said.
I looked up from the letter and realized the room was empty except for the two of us. “Sorry,” I murmured. I folded Bernice's death threat and jammed it in my purse.
I pulled up to the solitary pump at Hoopengartner's gas station/police headquarters and signaled to the teenage boy on duty to fill the tank. He gestured at the new sign that said SELF-SERVICE, but I put on my New York face-the one that says I have no patience with losers-and he hustled right over. The look had long ago lost its effectiveness in the city but was new to Lickin Creek.
In the back room, I found Luscious sitting at Garnet's gray metal army-surplus desk. The black phone he was using predated the Korean War. He hung up, smoothed his thin hair over his forehead, and smiled wanly at me. “Nothing,” he said. “No signs of him anywhere.”
I smelled garlic and onion on his breath as he spoke, and I was glad to note that was all I smelled. Maybe he'd taken my advice to lay off the bottle during the search.
The phone rang, ignored by Luscious, then stopped abruptly. I guessed someone in the front room answered it. Garnet had once explained the advantage of renting office space from Mr. Hoopengartner was that the garage was open twenty-four hours a day for towing service, so there was always someone available to take emergency police calls. Not exactly 911, I thought, but it worked for Lickin Creek.
“You look tired,” I told him. “Can I do something for you? Run errands? Anything?” I'm not usually so solicitous, but the youthful and vulnerable policeman brought out my maternal instincts.
“You could pour me some coffee,” he said. “I'm too tired to walk across the room.”
I poured out some thick black goop and was surprised it didn't dissolve the paper cup. Luscious drank it without complaint, while I washed the glass container and started a fresh pot brewing.
Satisfied I had prevented a future case of poisoning from rancid coffee oil, I sat on one of the two folding chairs reserved for guests.
Luscious said, “Coroner says those bones we found last night have been in the quarry for more than thirty years.”
He noticed my skeptical look. Caven County coroner was an elected position, and since Doc Jones's death it had been held by Henry Hoopengartner. Yes, the same Hoopengartner who owned this garage. Even though Henry had attended coroner school somewhere in the state, I still had doubts about Henry's ability to figure out anything and get it right.
Luscious guessed what I was thinking. “No special knowledge needed for this one, Tori. The divers found most of the bones under the wreck of a '59 Chevy-belonged to Chucky Fowler, what owns Fowler's Flowers now. He was pretty wild as a teenager, I hear. The car got rolled into the quarry back in '65 during a keg party. So Henry's pretty safe in guessing the skeleton was down there since before '65.”
“Could Henry determine the age and sex of the child?”
“Henry guesses about five years old at time of death. He said he couldn't tell the sex because little kids’ bones all look pretty much the same. He sent them to the medical examiner's office in Harrisburg.”
“Oretta came by my house this morning and told me it was a child named Eddie Douglas. Is that what you think?”
Luscious nodded and held up a manila folder. “I do. I've got his folder right here. He was the right age. And it's not like we've had dozens of kids go missing. There've been a few lost over the years-kids tend to wander-but Eddie was the only one that never turned up.”
“How long ago?”
Luscious wiggled his fingers in the air for a minute before coming up with an answer. “Thirty-seven years, last summer.”
“Have you contacted his parents?”
He shook his head and opened the folder. “According to what's in the file, his parents, Herman and Miriam Douglas, moved to Texas about a year after Eddie disappeared. I called Information, but there's no listing.”
“If you can't find them, who'll be responsible for burying him?” I asked. I hated the thought of the child being buried in the Lickin Creek equivalent of Potter's Field.
“No need to worry about that. Lickin Creek takes care of its own.”
I was waiting for the traffic light to change at the square when I realized I hadn't mentioned Bernice's letter to Luscious. However, since I didn't regard it as a real threat, I didn't think it was important to go back. Instead, I made a mental note to show it to him when next we met.
Cassie's rolltop desk was covered with folders and papers, piled high. I hung my ski jacket on the hook by the door and, as I turned, stubbed my toe on the box from the Home Shopping Network I'd asked Cassie to move yesterday.
“Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “Haven't had time to get to it. I've been collecting background information on Eddie Douglas's disappearance. It's all right here.”
I stifled a grin. Even Cassie had immediately known who the child was. Apparently, I was the only person in town who'd been out of the loop.
She gestured toward her desk. I was sure that even though it appeared to be an unorganized mess, Cassie knew exactly where everything was.
“You're an absolute wonder,” I told her. Her face flushed; the only sign that my remark pleased her.
I could tell by her appearance she now had her emotions under control. She wore an impeccably tailored tweed suit, in a color I would have described as
I sat at my own rolltop desk and quickly wrote down my observations of last night's quarry search. “Can you fill this out with what you've found in the files?” I asked her.
