“I’ve been on the phone to Illinois; Finally getting some answers around here.”
I could hear Arch thrashing about in the nether regions of the house.
I said, “I’m going to have to call you back.”
“I thought you were interested in solving this.”
“I’ll call you back,” I said. “I have to work something out with my child.”
I followed the noise from Arch.
He had not gone directly to the car to get his equipment, as he had indicated he needed to do. I had heard him clomping down the stairs to the basement, which was the laundry and storage area. Now with the door cracked I could hear him rummaging through boxes and papers. After a few moments he came traipsing back up and I darted into a bedroom I used for filing, sewing, and storing table linens for banquets. On the bed I spread out several yards of unbleached muslin for the costume, in case he came in. Then I heard him clattering around in the kitchen. The noise sounded like the clank of butcher knife blades.
I prayed. After a few more minutes of racket he slammed out the front door. I crept back to the kitchen and counted my knives, every one of them. They were all there. Whatever it was he wanted, he apparently hadn’t found it yet.
I hurried to the front of the house and scanned the driveway. Arch had left the station wagon door open and was throwing the books and bags of stuff he had amassed at Marla’s onto the ground. He was closing the door when he stopped and bent in again, as if he’d seen something he’d forgotten. His head emerged from the car. He looked in all directions to see if he was being watched. I leaned back from the front window. After a few seconds I looked back: he was reemerging from the car, tucking something underneath his shirt. Then he gathered up his paraphernalia from the ground and started back toward the house. I trotted out to the kitchen, picked up the character book, and slipped into the sewing room.
After a few minutes I had the bobbin filled with beige thread and I went to knock on his door.
“I’m getting started on your costume,” I called in. “Want to take a look at it?”
“No, Mom,” he said. “Just go away. Please.”
CHAPTER 20
It certainly is a good thing you’ve got a crack civilian detective working on this case,” I greeted Tom Schulz when he answered his phone. “Although she can be difficult, she comes up with remarkable info.”
“Goldilocks? ’Zat you? Must be.”
“Such enthusiasm.”
“Hey,” said Schulz, “besides close you down, what did I ever do to you? Except be nice? Don’t give me a hard time. Let’s start over.”
With as much patience as I could muster, I told him about my conversation with Vonette. Then I asked, “What did you find out from the neighbor and the doctor? About the day Laura died?”
“Not a whole lot. She saw the doc when she went into town.”
“What did he see her for?”
“Routine visit, so he says. Not much more I can go on than that. The neighbor heard a car, not a gunshot. But I did find some things out from Illinois.”
“Such as.”
“I found the guy who worked the case. Twenty years ago there was this huge brouhaha over Korman.”
I said, “But it all ended in a mistrial.”
“Did you call Illinois, too?”
“No, it was in this article I told you about. I found it in Laura’s locker, but I ripped it trying to get it out.” I read him the fragment.
“That’s what I like about you, Goldy—you’re not bothered by technicalities like search warrants.”
“What was the mistrial about?”
“Sex.”
“Gee, copper, thanks a lot. Even Vonette told me that.”
“Korman was brought to trial on charges of having sex with a minor. Our Bebe Hollenbeck. This guy said that Korman was then also under investigation by the Illinois Board of Medical Examiners for taking liberties with patients, which would explain the rest of the article you ripped.”
“Sorry about that.”
“That’s the difference between you and Laura Smiley,” said Schulz. “She was careful with evidence, that cop told me. She was going to be a witness against Korman. She was a young woman, then, a new teacher, in her twenties this guy thought.”
“So why the mistrial?”
“It was 1967. Supreme Court passed down the Miranda ruling in 1966. Cops weren’t used to it yet. They forgot to advise Korman—of his rights, you know.” He paused for a minute, and I could imagine him drinking coffee, shaking his head. “Anyway,” he went on, “Korman was under a cloud. Then this young Bebe, on her seventeenth birthday, mind you, drinks an entire bottle of liquor and dies on the spot. More bad publicity, so Korman moves out here to get a fresh start.”
“And how did Laura Smiley get involved after that?”
“Now that’s what the cop remembers, clear as a bell. After the mistrial, the D.A. decided not to attempt another trial. So this young teacher comes strutting into his office and throws one holy fit. Turns out her father is an alcoholic. Bebe’s mother is headed that way, so Laura wants to protect her student.”
“What happened?”
Schulz said, “Laura screamed that Fritz Korman was a menace to all women. Said she had evidence that could curtail his practice of medicine permanently. Said if the cops wouldn’t get him, she would. She tried to get the Board of Medical Examiners to do something too, but Korman decided to move out here, and rather than revoking his license, the board said, Just don’t come back to this state. Are you ready for this? Our friend went back to the cops, banged on this investigator’s desk. She said this will happen again over her dead body. Then she marched out. Laura Smiley.”
I said, “But then the Kormans, not knowing her feelings, you’d have to assume, picked Aspen Meadow to live in. Vonette told me back then there was medical licensing reciprocity with Illinois. They liked the place when Laura brought them here, back when they were all getting along.” I thought for a minute, then went on, “Nobody figured on Laura’s parents being killed. She moved back. Her parents were gone, Bebe was gone, and the Kormans were already settled in her hometown, where she had a house and friends. She must have decided to put it behind her.”
“Appears that way. Then after twenty years, something snapped.”
“If she had something on him, why wait? Maybe she was blackmailing him.” I paused. “I don’t think so, though. She wasn’t that type. And it goes against what she said in a note she wrote just before she died.”
“Oh God. I don’t even want to hear how you got that. Why don’t you just tell me the rest of what you’ve been up to.”
I dug out the note to Arch and read it aloud. Then I told Shulz that Laura had been friendly with Pomeroy, that they had been in an Al-Anon group together.
“And speaking of that, there was this weird thing with the drugstore,” I said.
“You break in there, too? If somebody’s listening in on this line, you’re going to have to get back into business. Then you can hire me as a caterer after they fire me from being a cop.”
“Are you interested in the drugstore or not? This’ll go a long way toward getting that body exhumed.”
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You found the murder weapon on aisle B.”
“Your new deputy coroner said Laura had a foreign substance, Valium, in her stomach. She didn’t have a prescription for Valium or any other tranquilizer. And if she belonged to one of the AA organizations there’s a good chance she didn’t drink or take drugs at all.” I hesitated. “Come to think of it, there wasn’t any liquor in her house, either. Odd stuff like flour in a flower box—”
“What?”
“Just her sense of humor. Puns.”
Schulz clucked his tongue.
