Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2) (13 page)

Chapter 37

August 26, 1998

The forensic guys arrived at Mrs. Johnstone’s house ten minutes later. Janie, her mom and daughter had left a few minutes before, leaving their contact information with me before driving off.

I gloved up and headed in with the crew. Grabbing one of the techs, we went to the basement and found the electrical panel. The one thing I knew our murderer touched was the panel, and I was hopeful that there were fingerprints or other evidence left there.

Next, I went into the garage. Even though we didn’t have enough evidence to determine foul play at the time, I had asked the officers to bag the tools that first day as a precaution. I didn’t know what if anything else we may find here except knowing whether the perp had been in here.

Jacob Baylor, head of the forensic department of the county stuck his head in the door from the house. “There you are,” he said with a smile. “I had heard you were back!”

I waved him over to the tool bench. “We know he got some tools out of the garage here,” I said pointing to some empty places on the pegboard behind the workbench. “I’m hoping he left something for us in trade.”

Jacob grinned at this, “Kind of like a rental fee!”

I smiled at his analogy, but he was already getting to work. Taking out a light and a magnifying glass, he started his slow and methodical search of the tool bench area.

“Problem with a garage and tool benches is there can be so much castoff from whatever the owner has been working on in the past. Grease and oil, metal and wood shavings, paint and…”

Taking out some tweezers, he pulled out a thread from the front of the bench where the wood had splintered a little. Holding it up with the light on it, he examined it with his practiced eye.

“Cotton or linen I would guess, some shade of brown.”

Taking out an evidence bag from his kit on the floor, he deposited the thread, sealed it and wrote on the front with a marker.

“Probably nothing,” he intoned as he stored the bag in is kit. “We’ll compare it to any other cloth in the house, probably just a piece of a rag he used to wipe something off.”

I nodded my head, realizing that it would be many hours or days before the house revealed anything of importance, if it revealed anything at all. I was getting antsy; so I decided to leave the work to the experts and see what else I could find out elsewhere on the case.

Saying goodbye to Jacob, I went out to the Jeep, pulling out my cell as I looked up the number. I was hoping to make a trip to the next county, if my witness was home. Allen was working on an exhumation order for Martha Jackson, and I thought it might be good to talk to her neighbor before word got out. You never know how people will react to disturbing the dead.

I dialed the number and let it ring. After six rings, I was about to hang up when a raspy voice answered, out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Collier? This is Gabriel Celtic, an investigator looking into your neighbor’s death. Would it be possible to come over and ask you a few questions?”

There was silence, followed by,
“You mean Martha?”

“Yes, Ms. Collier, I have some questions concerning the death of Martha Jackson.”

“But that was an accident, you with the insurance company or something?”

“I’m sorry, I’d prefer not to talk about it over the phone; can I meet you there sometime?”

“Well, I guess, I’m home today on vacation if you want to come now. I’ve been working in the yard.”

Looking at my watch, I estimated how long it would take. “I can be there in a half an hour.”

“That will be fine; just walk around the back of the house.”

I thanked her and told her I would be there. Getting into the Jeep, I was hopeful that the interview would lead to something, a break in the case. As I turned the key and the motor roared to life, I started having second thoughts on my positive outlook.

Up to this point, any added evidence had led to nothing. I knew from experience that this is how it went with investigations, bits and pieces that would hopefully mesh together into something. But this time, it was personal, and my measure of patience was small compared to investigations of the past.

Sticking the car in gear, I accelerated up the street, thinking of Frank.

“Help me out here buddy.”

***

Pulling into the driveway, I was greeted by a well kept old two-story frame house. There were plants and lawn ornaments all over the place, as well as a multitude of flowers everywhere you looked. Most of the flowers were well past their prime, getting ready for the winter ahead; many of these had been cut back all neat and tidy.

Grabbing my notebook, I exited the Jeep and started around the back of the house. I smelled the smoke long before I found the source; a long thin cigarette dangling from the mouth of who I assumed was Ms. Collier.

On her hands and knees, the slightly overweight woman with bushy red hair was working on a large bundle of daylily bulbs with a kitchen knife, deftly dividing them for replanting into smaller groupings. The smoke from the cigarette floated up and under the bill of the straw hat she was wearing, then worked its way though the small holes in the hat, giving her a halo of bluish smoke around her head.

“Those were always my wife’s favorites,” I said before thinking.

Glancing around slightly and eyeing me from the corner of her eye, she responded in a raspy voice, “Your wife has good taste… at least in flowers.”

Standing, she took a few steps toward me, giving me the once over. “As to her choice in mates, that’s yet to be determined I guess.”

Pulling off one of her gloves, she offered her hand to me, “Martha Collier.”

I took her hand in mine, offering a firm grip to match hers. “Gabriel Celtic. And as to my wife’s choices, at least most of them were good ones. She died last year.”

A grimace, followed by her looking down, shaking her head. “I’m always spoutin off when I shouldn’t be. Please, let’s get out of this heat.”

She led me through a screen door that squeaked noisily when she pulled it open, loudly banging closed behind me as I entered a cool screened in porch.

“Please have a seat, would you like some iced tea?”

I agreed to the tea and took a seat on a white wicker chair on one side of a small metal table. She returned in a few minutes, carrying a tray with a plastic pitcher of tea and two glasses filled with ice. Pouring the tea, she said, “I hope you don’t mind sweet tea; it’s the only kind I make.”

Taking a sip of the cool liquid, my taste buds were assaulted by the super sweet tea, not a bad taste, but I would probably develop diabetes if I drank it all of the time.

“So Mr. Celtic, what is your interest in my old friend?”

“Ms. Collier…”

“Marti.”

“Ok, Marti, I’m an investigator with the prosecutor in Allenville. We are just doing some follow-up interviews on some accidents that have occurred lately. There seems to be more to some of them than we first thought.” 

Shaking her head with a smile and picking up her glass, “Don’t you guys talk to each other over there? I talked to another one of your men a few months ago, stocky guy named Fred, or Frank maybe?”

Of course, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about Frank’s earlier interview. I felt like an idiot.

“That was Frank Luther Ms. …err Marti. I’m sorry to say he died a few months ago; all of his notes are….missing.”

“That’s a shame; I liked him.”

“I did too; he was a good friend. So I need to re-interview you; I’m sorry.”

“I’m here now; let’s get on with it.”

I pulled the notebook out of my pocket, “Were you close friends with Ms. Jackson?”

“Well, we’d known each other, socially for quite a while. And we worked together at the glass factory. I wouldn’t say we were great friends, until she moved in here a couple of years ago.”

“I noticed her family is from Allenville, and she worked there; what was her motivation for moving out here, so far from her daily life?”

“Among other things, she liked the quiet neighborhood. When I mentioned to her that my apartment had opened up, she jumped at it. She was real happy here.”

“The file also mentions that you found her, and that you had planned on going out with her that night?”

“Yep, we were going to The Bar.”

“I’m very sorry you had to find her like that. That must have been hard on you.”

“Yeah, well it messed me up pretty good for a few weeks after that.”

Laying down the notebook, I sat back, sipping on my tea. I was having trouble wrapping my head around this case; why anyone would want to kill Ms. Jackson? I decided to share a little more information with her, see if that would bring anything to light.

“Marti, to be quite frank, I’m at a loss as to what I am doing here. These “irregularities” that I mentioned were discovered by Frank Luther while going over some cold cases. Since some of his records are missing, I have been assigned the task of trying to reconstruct his investigation. Martha’s file was in his stack, the only file from outside our county. Truthfully, I don’t know what it means or what the connection is.”

She was quiet as I thought it out further. An idea popped into my head.

“Can you recall anything he might have said, or questions he asked that I haven’t? Anything you can think of may be helpful.”

“Well, let me see,” she said while stirring her ice with her finger, “he asked about the bar, the name and location.”

“Ok, which bar and where is it?”

“It’s only about a mile down the road, and the name is ‘The Bar’.”

“I’m not familiar with it; in fact I didn’t even notice it on my way here.”

“That’s because it doesn’t have a sign, and the clientele it serves probably isn’t your cup of tea.”

My interest was piqued now, asking her to explain.

“Well, you see Mr. Celtic; it’s a gay bar. I’m a lesbian, and Martha was as well.”

Chapter 38

August 26, 1998

I took a minute to examine in my head Marti’s statement. Although it had surprised me, it didn’t seem relevant to the case; so I dismissed it out of hand.

“Is there anything else that Frank said or did that might be helpful?”

“The only other thing is he looked over the apartment.”

“I would also like to take a look if that is ok; is there someone living in it? I can come back if you need to talk to them first.”

“No, I haven’t had the heart to try to get another renter. Martha’s family hasn’t even come to get her things; they kind of disowned her, if you know what I mean.”

Marti got up and entered the house, returning in a few moments with a key on a keychain with a little plastic turtle attached.

“Help yourself, stairs are on the side of the house.”

I took the keys from Marti, got up and headed around the house, finding the not so sturdy stairs on the side. Making my way up and unlocking the door, I was met by the hot musty smell of a space not recently used.

I took my time, looking quickly through the apartment before checking drawers and cupboards as I went. I found nothing of interest, save for a few sex toys in the table beside the bed. Sitting down at the desk, I open one drawer after the other, looking for any pertinent information that could lead someone wanting to kill Ms. Jackson.

In a file marked insurance, I found a small life insurance policy of $20,000, beneficiary listed as her parents. It looked like a policy paid for by the glass factory, standard employee benefit.

Finding nothing else of note, I was getting ready to leave when my eyes locked on another picture of Jesus, his eyes seeming again to be imploring me to do something. I stared at the painting, not able to decipher any real meaning from it, just a repeat of the weird feeling of the last time. The apartment suddenly felt cool; so I opened the door and went back outside, locking the door behind me.

Returning the keys to Marti, I was struck by one more question for her.

“Marti? Was Martha seeing anyone, or had she just broken up with anyone?”

“No,” she said with a smile, “she wasn’t seeing anyone, hadn’t in a long time. We’re just like anyone else Mr. Celtic, just because we are not heterosexual, doesn’t mean we aren’t by ourselves if we haven’t found the right person. Martha preferred monogamous relationships; she just hadn’t found anyone.”

I thanked her for her time and made my way to the Jeep. My last best guess at a motive, jealousy, had just been effectively blown out of the water.

I left the quiet street and made my way toward the highway for home. At this point, it seemed that the whole trip to Ripley County had been a bust. Despite Frank’s inclusion of the case in his files, it seemed to me to be unrelated to anything concerning the other cases. Of course, none of the other cases had offered me a clue as to why they were related either.

Turning onto the highway, I had the feeling of failure surrounding me, well deserved in my estimation.

I had never been so wrong.