Murder in the Middle: A Susan Wiles Schoolhouse Mystery (10 page)

Chapter 32

“Too bad your honeymoon was so short,” said Lynette. “Looks like you haven’t been getting a whole lot of sleep. Hey, turn left here.”

“And it’s been worth every minute.” Jackson grinned. “Theresa can’t take a lot of time off from school right now. We’re planning a nice long cruise as soon as summer vacation starts.”

“Nice. Lucky you. Here we are. It looks like the farmer is home. Let’s hope Caleb’s landlord saw something that night. He didn’t mention seeing anyone when we interviewed him, but you never know.”

“Maybe we can jog his memory,” said Jackson.

The farmer came to the door dressed in faded jeans and a flannel shirt. He was caressing a mug of coffee with his bony hands.

“Good afternoon. We’re sorry to bother you again, but we need to ask you a few more questions,” said Lynette.

“Anything I can do to help Westbrook’s finest.”

“We received an anonymous tip that someone spotted a plumbing van parked outside Caleb Bartolo’s the night he was murdered.”

“I don’t remember seeing a van, but I was in here watching TV all night.”

“You didn’t hear anything unusual?” said Jackson.

“No. But come to think of it, I saw a plumbing van parked outside a few days before the murder. Funny thing. I figured if Caleb was having a plumbing problem, he woulda called me first.”

“Can you remember anything else that you might have forgotten about?” asked Lynette.

“I don’t know if this is important, but Caleb had mentioned a few days before he died that he thought someone had tried to break in. I went over and looked at the place with him. There were no broken windows or anything, so I told him everything looked fine to me. Seemed to satisfy him.”

“Anything else?” asked Jackson.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Give us a call if you think of something,” said Lynette. She handed him a card.

Jackson and Lynette got back into the cruiser.

“It’s awfully suspicious how a plumbing van happened to be parked at Caleb’s just days before Caleb was killed,” said Lynette. “I’m anxious to check out Rusty’s alibi for the night of the murder.”

“The farmer didn’t see the van the night of the murder, though.”

“He was inside watching TV. Probably fell asleep in his recliner.”

“Or something else was going on between them that had nothing to do with the murder. I still think the ex-girlfriend is guilty,” said Jackson.

“Seems a bit too flighty to have carried off a murder, but she was pretty pissed off. You know what they say. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I’m not ruling her out.”

Chapter 33

Susan had a monster of a headache from the overheated plumbing shop, so on her way home, she pulled into the Rite Aid where Caleb had worked. She always kept Aspirin in her purse, but when she opened the bottle, she discovered it was empty. She saw her old pharmacist/neighbor behind the back counter and decided to pay for it there rather than at the front of the store.

“Susan, how’s it going? What can I do for you?”

“I just want to pay for these.” Susan rubbed her temples and passed the box over the counter. As she stood there, her eyes wandered over to Caleb’s work area. It seemed like his area had been left untouched. A cork board hung over his desk and displayed a photo of some men in uniform, an outdated calendar, and a Christmas card. She stared at the cork board. Something was off. One side was flush with the wall as expected, but the other was pushed slightly forward. She brought it to the pharmacist’s attention.

“I’d never noticed that before. I left everything as is.” Josie ran her hands over the edge of the board.

Susan reached over and unlocked the counter opening. Once she could reach his desk, she stuck her fingers between the board and the wall, chipping her nail polish in the process. She tugged at the cork board until one of the nails popped out.
Huh?
A manila envelope was tucked in the hiding place.

“What’s that?” asked the pharmacist. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.”

“Strange place for an envelope. Unless, of course, you’re trying to hide it.” Susan opened the envelope and read over the contents. “This looks like a report from some private investigator. Look at the letterhead.”

“Why was he hiding that?” said the pharmacist.

Susan flipped the pages and read through it. “This looks like it’s about Adam Bartolo’s fall at Lake Minnewaska. See the diagram? It shows the trajectory of Adam’s fall.”

Josie read over her shoulder. “It says based on the position of the body and the distance from the edge, Adam couldn’t have been pushed. The conclusion says it was an accident.”

“It sure does,” said Susan. She pulled a sheet of legal paper out of the envelope. “This is odd.” She turned the paper over.

“What? What does it say?”

“It’s pretty cryptic. It says
no push/off,
and there’s a handwritten diagram showing the waterfall with arrows and a body at the foot of the cliff.
”

“I’ll call the police,” said the pharmacist.

“No, better yet, I’ll drop it by the police station and make sure it gets into Lynette’s hands. Let’s look more closely at his desk.” Susan picked up a small notepad which was next to the phone. “This looks like maybe Caleb wrote something and then tore it off. Hand me a pencil.” Susan sketched over the paper with the side of the pencil. “Look at this,” she said. Her heart was pumping faster.

“It’s a name. Dr. Witherspoon.”

“Do you know who that is?” asked Susan.

“No. It’s not anyone I’ve ever heard of. Not a doctor that signs any prescriptions I’ve seen around here.”

“It looks like there’s a phone number too but I can’t make it out,” said Susan. “I’ll Google him.”

“Better yet, I have a directory of all the licensed doctors in the state. Here. Let me look.” The pharmacist flipped through the pages and found four different Dr. Witherspoons listed.

“Too bad we don’t have a first name.” said Susan. “We’ll just have to go down the list and try to find out which one Caleb was calling.”

“The first one’s a pediatrician. The next is a general practitioner. Can’t see why he’d want to talk to either of them.”

“Hmm, this one is a forensic pathologist.” Susan pushed her bifocals up. “That could be it. Maybe Caleb had a question about Adam’s murder, even after reading the report.”

“I’m sure your daughter will be able to find him.”

“Yes, she’s a great detective. I’ll give her this information also.”

Chapter 34

Susan intended to bring this new information right to Lynette, but in the words of the great poet Robert Burns, ‘plans oft times go astray.’ The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Was she being followed?
It’s just your imagination.
Her arms shook on the steering wheel as she noticed a tan Toyota two cars behind her. It turned left when she did, and kept a safe distance behind. She could feel her pulse pounding like a jackhammer on the side of her neck.
This isn’t good.
Rusty drove the plumbing van, so she doubted it was him.
What kind of car does Lindsay drive?
Then she made a sharp right and the car did the same. In her rear view mirror, she couldn’t clearly see the driver, but he or she was wearing a hat and scarf. Susan raced through a yellow light. The Toyota passed the car in front of it and ran the red.
Bet he isn’t expecting to go where I’m heading.
Flooring the gas pedal,
Susan pulled up in front of the police station. When her hands stopped shaking, she let go of the steering wheel. The Toyota had zoomed off. She wished she could remember the plate number. She took a slow, deep breath. Her knees were still quivering. When she finally felt her body was back in equilibrium, she got out of the car.

Inside the station, she discovered that Jackson and Lynette were both out on a call.
Now what? She really needed to talk to her.
Susan decided to help Lynette out and drive over to Dr. Witherspoon’s office. He was located in the basement of the hospital––next to the morgue. Knowing all about privacy laws, she devised a plan on the way.

“Hello, Dr. Witherspoon. My name is Susan Wiles. I’m taking a college course in forensics and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions for an assignment I’m doing.”

“A college course?”

“It’s one of those courses they offer for retirement learning. Great idea, don’t you think? We seniors get to register for all kinds of interesting classes. Never stop learning is my motto. Guess that comes from being a teacher all those years.”

“I’m really busy, but I was about to take a lunch break.” He looked at his watch. “I guess I can spare a few minutes.”

Susan pulled a notepad out of her purse and pushed her bifocals into place. “What sorts of things do you do as a forensic pathologist?”

“I’m a consultant for several neighboring police departments. Sometimes I’m hired by private investigators. Mostly I’m asked to determine cause of death.”

“You mean you help solve murders?”

“There aren’t a whole lot of actual murders in this area. Sometimes a person dies from no obvious cause––like a heart defect or a metabolic disease. I try to figure out why. Helps the families with closure.”

“I just read about a murder in the paper the other day. Man’s name was Caleb Bartolo. Did you work on him?”

“That’s not something I’m free to discuss,”

“Do you ever find cases of poisoning? Blunt force trauma? Accidental falls?”

“Most of the time, they don’t need me for that. Poisons show up pretty readily upon autopsy, and blows that are hard enough to cause death can usually be seen with the naked eye.” The doctor glanced at his watch. “I need to be going. Hope I’ve helped some.”

“Oh, yes. Thanks so much for your time.”

Susan thought she’d try dropping by the station again on her way home. She couldn’t stop analyzing the new clues she’d found. Rusty and Lindsay were involved with each other. They both knew where Caleb lived and had reason to want Caleb dead. Rusty was friends with Sophie and felt protective of her. Maybe protective enough to turn up at Caleb’s house, thinking he was holding Sophie. When he didn’t find Sophie, maybe he got angry and clobbered Caleb over the head. He’d been seen in the area a few days earlier by Caleb’s farmer landlord.

Lindsay hated Caleb for breaking off their engagement and had recently found out that he was back in town. Maybe she went after him. Susan could see that she still harbored lots of anger towards him by the passion and venom that came out of her mouth when speaking about him. And she was crazy. She’d heard that more than once.

She shook the snow off of her boots and went into the police station. Now Lynette was back in her office.

“Mom? What are you doing here?” said Lynette.

“I came by to give you some new information. I went to see Josie at Rite Aid, and we discovered that Caleb had hidden an envelope behind the cork board over his desk.”

“You went back to Rite Aid? An envelope? We went over Caleb’s work space and didn’t find anything like that.”

“It looked like the board may have just pulled away from the wall recently.” She closed her hand to hide her chipped nail. “Anyhow, to make a long story short, it was a report from a private investigation firm.” She handed the envelope to Lynette.

“You took this? If there were any fingerprints on the envelope you’ve already messed those up. Why didn’t you just call me to come get it?”

“I was trying to save you some time. Open it.”

Lynette pulled the report out. “This shows that Adam Bartolo was not pushed over that waterfall. We already knew that.”

“But this proves it. Now we know Sophie for sure didn’t push her husband.” Susan handed her the paper from the note pad.

“What’s this? Playing secret decoder?” said Lynette.

“It came from Caleb’s notepad by his phone. I could tell it had recently been written on. Look. It’s the name of a doctor.”

“So what? Pharmacists deal with doctors all the time.”

“But Josie had never seen the name before and she’s worked at Rite Aid for a long time. Josie had this directory and…”

“Mom. Don’t even tell me you hunted down this doctor. Please don’t tell me that.”

“He’s a forensic pathologist.”

Lynette covered her ears. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Works over at the hospital––nice young man.”

“Great. Don’t you think you should have brought that to me too? I’m surprised he’d even talk to you.”

“I have my ways. All I found out was if someone is poisoned or hit with a blunt object, cause of death can be determined during a regular old autopsy.”

“And you didn’t know that from binge watching
Law and Order
?”

 
Jackson ran into the office holding a cell phone. “Lynette, we did it. We traced…” He stopped short when he saw Susan.

“Well, Mrs. Fletcher, what brings you here today?” He cleared his throat and hid the cell phone behind his back.

“So you traced that cell phone to…” said Susan. She motioned with her hand as if drawing it out of Jackson’s mouth.

“Mom, this isn’t any of your business.”

“What’s the big deal? You traced a lost cell phone. Come on, Jackson. Spill it,” said Susan. “You know, I just ran into someone who lost a cell phone. Lindsay, Caleb’s ex-girlfriend. It’s hers isn’t it? I see the leopard case on it. She told me that’s the kind of case she had.” She was bluffing about the leopard case, but it worked.

“But it’s
where
we found it. The evidence guys came across it in the items taken from Caleb’s house the day his body was found.”

“So that proves that Lindsay was there at his house. She must be the killer,” said Susan.

“Mom, all it means is she was there at some time––not necessarily the day of the murder.”

“People notice their phones are missing rather quickly. Remember that day you left yours on the park bench when we took Annalise to the playground? You noticed it was missing before we even got back to the car. It couldn’t have been sitting there for long.”

“Mom, if you want to be helpful, how about swinging by the day care and picking up Annalise? It looks like I’ll be staying late tonight.”

“You know, I wouldn’t give up a chance to spend time with her. Alright. But I’m taking her to the toy store on the way home. And stopping for ice cream.”