Ring Around the Rosy (7 page)

There couldn’t be more
difference
 
in looks and personality
between her and her sisters. Forty-year-old Clare, five years older,
tan-skinned with strawberry-blonde hair and sea-green eyes, was a little slip
of a thing barely five-foot tall. Petite best described her fun-loving sister.
Susan stood five-foot-eight in her stocking feet, her height apparently
inherited from their father.

Kate, on the other hand, and only
two-years-older, bore no resemblance to either parent. At five-foot-six with
beautiful auburn hair, golden-brown eyes, and a body to kill for, Kate could
have been a model. Serious-minded, she managed a quilt shop in Freemont, Ohio,
two hours away.

Feeling fortunate if they arranged
to get together once a month or so, when schedules permitted, the sisters
usually enjoyed their time together. Today probably wasn’t going to be one of
those times. Susan couldn’t seem to get her mind off the murder or the rose. She
turned her attention back to her sisters.

Kate never had kids, and Susan
suspected her sister still pined after John, who had practically dumped her at
the altar. Sad, Kate would have made a great mother, but she threw herself into
her work and spoiling her two schnauzers, Rebel and Pepper. Those were Kate’s
babies.

“You’re worried about something,
Susan,” her mother said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Too deep in thought again, Susan
jumped at the sound of her mother’s voice. The eyes again, always the eyes.
According to her mother, Susan wore her feelings in her eyes. The woman must be
clairvoyant, but maybe it was just a maternal thing. Her mother always seemed
to know what her daughters were thinking.

Susan moved the silverware around
on the small table, wondering how much to let her mother know. No point in them
both worrying. She would only insist Susan move back home, a frequent argument.
Nope, she couldn’t tell her about the phone call. She had to deal with this her
own way. Her mother couldn’t fix the hurts anymore, couldn’t make the big bad
wolf go away.

She shrugged. “It’s really
nothing, Mom,” Susan finally answered. “Someone stuck a red rose on my
windshield, and it has me bothered, th

at’s all.”

“A secret admirer, how sweet,”
Clare teased in a sing-song voice. “You must have some idea who it is.”

Susan looked at her sister. It
wasn’t like Clare to be so tense. Did her sister know what was going on? Susan
didn’t think so, but something was wrong.
 
The sing-songy voice was an act to cover up something. Clare never joked
that way, and she usually babbled more. Today she was exceptionally quiet.

Why hadn’t her mother mentioned
Clare’s tenseness? Of course, she might have before Susan arrived. Clare was
one of those meticulous people who always took care of herself, make-up just
so, hair always in place, but today, she had bags and dark circles under her
eyes and deep groove between her brows, a trait they had all inherited from
their mother. More than likely, they had already discussed it, and Susan wasn’t
privy to the problem for the time being.

Her mother looked worried, too,
and Susan shrugged off her own problem as probably nothing. “Someone probably
put it on the wrong car.”

“Why can’t you be content to write
feature stories?” her mother asked for the thousandth time. Plus, she kept
hinting about Susan settling down. Susan tried to pacify her, but she still saw
the worry lines around her mother’s eyes. She smiled to herself, talk about
wearing your feelings in your eyes.

Kate, as usual, was the quiet one
at lunch.

* * *

After lunch, Susan kissed them all
goodbye and walked around the mall, window-shopping, half-afraid to go home.
Taking in the surrounding stores, not really paying attention to the
merchandise in the windows, her mind raced as she tried to figure out who could
have put the rose on her car. She went through a mental checklist of everyone
she knew, but couldn’t come up with a single name.

Ever watchful of the people around
her, to see if she recognized anyone hanging around, stalking her, she didn’t
see anyone who looked familiar. After delaying as long as possible, and tired
of walking, she did the inevitable and decided to go home. There was going to
be another call. She felt it in her bones, and Dave had said, “when he calls again,”
not if.

What kind of man committed these
crimes, and why had he chosen to call her? Memory popped into her mind of the
bodies, propped up like dolls, their eyes staring blankly into space and the
looks of terror on their faces.

What was it like, she wondered, to
stare into a killer’s eyes? Knowing you were going to die and helpless to
prevent it. What were their last thoughts? None of the victims showed much
signs of struggle, so they must have been familiar with their assailant.

How did one win a person’s
confidence to move in close enough to strangle? Obviously, there must have been
an element of surprise. A man must have committed these crimes. A woman
wouldn’t have had the strength to overpower the two muscular men.

And the voice… No woman, no matter
how disguised, sounded that harsh or scratchy.

The police were watching the phone
booths around her apartment. Apparently, the caller knew it, because Dave said
the last call came from a pay phone several blocks away.

She went into her apartment, half
afraid to look at the answering machine, knowing the message light would be
blinking.
 
Bella rubbed against her legs,
welcoming her home. She picked up the cat and cuddled her, enjoying the comfort
of her soft fur and purring sounds. Holding her close, she hit the play button
on the machine. Her aunt’s voice, soft and gentle, invited her to dinner on
Sunday.

Clare’s voice came on next.
“Susan, I need to talk to you, please call me back.” Susan laughed. The
ever-mysterious Clare.

Susan breathed a sigh of relief,
grabbed the phone to call Clare, sank down into her favorite chair, and turned
on the television. She usually liked the quiet, but not today. Today, she
needed noise, needed to hear sounds other than her creaky apartment noises.
While Clare’s phone rang, Susan caught her name on the TV. She hung up without
leaving a message, grabbed the remote, and turned up the sound.

“Newspaper journalist, Susan
Weston, who first broke the story of the nursery rhyme murders, has received
several phone calls from the killer.” The newscaster, Jennifer Dunsmore, said,
“Is Miss Weston withholding information from her public?”

Sitting forward in her chair,
Susan listened to the report. How...? Where had Jennifer gotten that
information? Had Dave or someone at the police department leaked it?
 
Of course, Jennifer didn’t reveal her source
for the story. Susan picked up the phone and called Dave. He wouldn’t have
leaked that information.

Would he?

The only other person that knew
about it was Jim Dahl.

“Dave, how did Jennifer Dunsmore
get the information that I’m getting phone calls from the killer? Would Jim
Dahl tell anyone?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just now on the news, Jennifer
Dunsmore announced to the world I’m getting phone calls from the killer.”

“Shit!”

“So, obviously it wasn’t you. How
about Jim?”

“Jim? No, he knows better than
that. Besides, he’s on the inside. Reporters don’t even have access to him.”

“Reporters have access to
everyone.” Susan knew she sounded annoyed, but she didn’t care. Someone had leaked
that story. Who was Jennifer’s source? Shoot. Well, it was out, now. Ernie was
going to have a fit that she hadn’t told him.

“Darn! Who else knew about the
phone calls?” Susan paced her apartment, walked to the window, and looked out.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The shades. She forgot to pull them again.
She yanked the shades with such force, it surprised her they didn’t come off
the rollers.

“Calm down, Susan. I’ll check into
it and see you later.”

“You darn well better check into
it. And you darn well better find out who it was.” Susan hung up without saying
goodbye.

Ernie would expect more
information now. She had to go public. Her mother was going to hear this story.
She picked up the phone and dialed her mother’s number. Better to get it out of
the way. Explain it, and hope her mom hadn’t heard it already.

 
Of course, she had.

Surprisingly, her mother took the
news far better than Susan imagined.

“Susan, I just heard the news. Why
didn’t you tell me the killer was calling you?”

“I didn’t want you to worry, Mom.
Besides, we weren’t sure if it was him. It could have been a crank caller.”

“I think you should come home for
a while.”

“You know I can’t do that.
Besides, it’s a forty-five-minute ride every day. I hate that drive.”

It only took her thirty minutes
worth of argument, instead of the usual hour-and-a-half, to convince her mother
she was safe.

“Besides, there’s no reason for
the killer to come after me”

“Just be careful, Susan,” her
mother said before they hung up.

Susan felt guilty for being
annoyed with her mother, but she was a big girl, now, and had to deal with this
on her own. It went with the territory.

She picked up her laptop and began
writing.

Will The Nursery Rhyme Killer Strike Again?

Is there a method to his choice of
victims? Is there a sequence as to which nursery rhyme he’ll use next?

The nursery rhyme murderer
contacted journalist, Susan Weston after the first murder and warned of a
second. Ms Weston doesn’t know why he singled her out. At first, the police
thought the calls were cranks, but after two murders, and the nursery rhymes
left with each victim, the police have established the calls were, in fact,
from the killer. Ms Weston also reported that she couldn’t tell if the voice
was a male or female. ‘

Susan stopped typing, sat back and
rubbed her neck. It wasn’t easy to write about yourself in a news story. After
a short break, she continued.

As reported earlier, the only
connection between the victims is their ages and their Thayer’s Crossing
neighborhood.

Anyone with information about this
case is asked to contact the Second District Detective Bureau 216-500-4444

She hit the fax button and sent
the story to the editor. It wasn’t her best writing, but it was difficult to
concentrate. Ernie couldn’t take her off the story now.

She yawned. Tomorrow she needed to
meet with Gloria to do a story on the new Science Center. She curled up on the
couch to wait for Dave when the phone rang.

Chapter Five

Susan froze, remembering Dave’s
advice to screen her calls. The machine finally picked up, and the grating
voice came on the line. “Tomorrow, Willie,” something that sounded like a
gurgle, and then click, he hung up.

Her hands trembled so badly, she
could hardly dial Dave’s number. Her heart pounded against her chest. She
curled up on the chair, shivering while sweat rolled off her forehead. Bella
lay on her lap, giving her little comfort, while she waited for Dave.

Then he was there, and somehow,
she was in his arms, sobbing and clinging to him. Nothing had ever shaken her
so badly. What had happened to her calm reserve?

For a moment she even considered
moving home with her mother. But only for a moment. Her stubbornness still
overcame her fear.
 
Finally calmed down
and overwhelmed with a wave of embarrassment, she pulled away from Dave and
composed herself.

Dave grinned at her, making her
all the more embarrassed about her impulsive behavior.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t
usually react this way. These phone calls really have me spooked.”

“I kind of enjoyed it.” Dave put
his arm around her and smiled. “I’m not used to women throwing themselves at
me.”

“You arrogant bastard! I wasn’t
throwing myself at you.” Her hand came up and made contact with his face.
Horrified, she jerked it back. Darn, that was the second time she slapped him.
What was it with this man? Minutes ago, she felt safe and secure in his arms,
and now he infuriated her.

She backed away from him. “I’m
just upset by these phone calls.” She walked across the room, putting some
distance between them, pulled the shade aside, and looked out the window. Was
that the same car she saw the other day? Someone was in it. A shadow moved
inside.
 
She dropped the shade and turned
back to Dave.

He touched his reddened cheek and
laughed, while he played the message again before pocketing it.

Unaffected by her slap, he seemed
to enjoy her discomfort. That annoyed Susan even more.

“I’m sorry. Would you like a cup
of coffee?” Sorry the instant she offered it, she bit her tongue. To her
surprise, he accepted. He stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat. Damn these
tumultuous feelings he stirred in her. She hated this attraction and worse,
hated making it so obvious. There wasn’t room in her life for a man. Her career
held top priority. But she couldn’t help herself. As much as his attitude
annoyed her, she liked having him around, especially under the circumstances.
She busied herself with the coffee, not trusting herself to look at him.