Authors: Elaine Orr
Walking back to the side yard, it occurred to me that, since Syl had moved here from Los Angeles, it seemed odd he had a local colleague.
I worked for another two hours, most of it behind the house so there would be less brush against the house. Perfect for termites.
At some point, probably when someone built the deck, a large evergreen bush had been planted. It had apparently become a spot to ditch stuff if a trash barrel wasn't handy. I found the flat part of the tool used to smooth cement, a rusty crowbar, the other part of the cement-smoothing tool, and an empty paint can. It was a big bush.
I put the items in the barn with the growing pile of odds and ends I was finding on the property. Some could be recycled, some would go to a guy I knew who sold scrap metal.
So far, the only decent thing I'd found was the arrowhead.
I DROVE BACK TO Hal's neighborhood about seven-thirty. If neighbor Jean had seen him leave at about that time on the day he was killed, maybe some of Hal's other neighbors had. More important, did they remember him coming and going again or someone else arriving?
My knock on the house directly across from Hal's brought a sour-faced man about sixty-five to the door.
"What do you want?"
Not the usual Iowa greeting.
"Hi, I'm Melanie Perkins and I…"
"You're the one who off'd Hal. Come in."
I sort of sputtered as I followed him down a narrow entry hall to a small living room. "I really didn't. That's why I'm talking to his neighbors."
The man reattached an oxygen cannula to his nose and sat in a large, green, stuffed chair that had an ottoman in front of it. "Humph. Can't give you a medal then, can I?"
I glanced around the room. An oxygen concentrator emitted a low hum, and the television was on mute. The remote was on the arm of his chair, ready to be used. As I sat on a love seat across from the man, I couldn't help it. I smiled. "I used to work at the paper, but Hal fired me a few weeks ago."
"Good motive." He coughed into a handkerchief that had been balled up in his hand. It was a rasping smoker's cough, which explained the oxygen.
"Bunch of people had that motive. Why do you seem not to like him?"
"Nothing 'seem' about it. Remember that dry spell two years back?"
"Sure. Couldn't water even my tomato plants some days."
"'Zactly. Hal was doin' a story about how not everyone watered on odd or even days, whatever it was."
"Varied by your house number," I said.
"Right. Well, you can bet your sweet bippy I stuck to the letter of that. Son Sam works at the water plant in Ottumwa." The man's face began to get red. "But old Hal, he wants names to put in the story. He and I had words many times, so he prints I watered my lawn every damn day but Sunday."
When he said his son's name was Sam, I realized I didn't know his. Not the time to ask.
"Bastard wouldn’t print a retraction. So, I called our water plant. They can tell how much water you use every day. Put a sign in my front yard with a copy of what the town water folks told me. Showed I used a bunch less water, when I was 'sposed to." He looked very pleased with himself.
I had no memory of this. This man must not have come into the office to complain, and Hal wouldn't have told his staff if he had to eat crow. "Did Hal retract?"
"Put a tiny note, on the classified page no less, saying there had been a… What did he call it? A transcription error."
I looked up from the three-by-five card on which I'd been taking notes. "More than he did some other times, Mr., um, I'm not sure I got your name."
"Anderson. Morton Anderson. You gonna quote me?"
"No, sir. I don't work at the paper now. I just want to find out…"
"Well, I didn't do it."
I wanted to say I could see he wouldn't have had the lung capacity to haul Hal out to Syl's place. Instead, I said, "Didn't cross my mind. I wanted to know if you saw him at all the night he died."
He shook his head. "Sometimes I looked out the curtain if I heard him start the car or pull in. Had to make sure it was someone supposed to be in the neighborhood. Hal saw me, he'd give me the finger. Not that night."
"Any idea who might want to kill him?"
"How much time you got?"
I laughed. "All you need."
He thought. "Nah. Never met a person liked him. Don't know who'd waste their time killin' him." He coughed into the handkerchief again.
"Just one more question."
Anderson nodded.
"Did Hal park his car in the garage or the driveway?"
"Humph. Garage is full of crap. Couldn't fit a toadstool in there."
"So, did the police tow his car away at some point?"
"Not that I saw. Good question." Anderson looked at me intently. "You investigating so they don't stick the murder on you?"
I ignored the question, but handed him half of a three-by-five card with my name and phone number. "If you think of anything else or hear someone else mention that they saw something, will you call me?"
He studied it and looked up. "You find who did it, I'll chip in for the medal."
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES later, I knew nothing more. Other neighbors were not as blunt as Morton Anderson, but they all said they'd had some kind of run-in with him.
Basically, if even the smallest thing bothered him, like a kid running into the yard to fetch a ball, Hal pitched a fit. A few years ago they had stopped inviting him to the annual block picnic, which was held at a park at the end of the street.
I sat in my truck for five minutes, studying the brief notes I'd taken and the addresses of any houses I'd visited. Basically, I was nowhere. It did seem that if the sheriff, with help from my favorite IDI agent, tried to get the county attorney to accuse me of killing Hal, at least a few people would testify they had given it fleeting thought.
People have a reason or benefit to acting the way they do. Or both. I went to high school with a girl whose mom had died when she was six. It was probably why she wanted attention from other kids' parents. She also had learned that the 'poor little me' demeanor got her sympathy. She milked it.
So, what was with Hal? What benefit did he get by being angry all the time? His temperament was why he had no friends in River's Edge. He was old enough, mid-fifties, that it hadn't seemed odd to me that his parents were dead. I didn't remember anyone who said they'd known him all his life.
Hal's obit said he had been born in Iowa Falls. Maybe I should check newspaper archives up there for the name Morris.
Not that an unknown tragedy would account for regularly criticizing people and exhibiting a mean streak. Certainly not for poking holes in a neighbor's hose because he didn't want water from their sprinkler to reach his yard. And Hal wondered why newspaper subscriptions were down.
I BAKED A MIX of chicken and vegetables and read until it was time for the ten-thirty news. The network television that most often carries news about River's Edge is in Quincy, Illinois. Since Hal was a fellow journalist, they had covered the story, but had lost interest after a couple days of 'no new developments.' That was fine with me.
ELEVEN-THIRTY ROLLED around, then midnight. Sleep eluded me. I tried warm milk, and then soothing music. At one in the morning I looked at the clock, groaned, and got up.
I couldn't believe that Sheriff Gallagher, buttressed by his IDI buddies, would arrest me. But I hadn't expected to find Hal in a pile of mulch, so maybe I should expect more surprises.
Whoever took my hoe certainly wanted the sheriff to think I killed Hal. The hoe hadn't been mentioned in the paper yet. I saw nothing to gain by telling Fred or Sandi, so I'd kept my mouth shut. The murderer knew who put it there.
After pacing the apartment for ten minutes, I had an idea that seemed ridiculous, even to me. What had the light been like the night Hal was killed, and how much of the area at the back of Syl's driveway would be visible from the road? Five days ago there had been a quarter moon, and now it was almost half. More light, but not as bright as with a full moon.
The only way to find out was to see for myself.
Jeans were in order, since the temperature was supposed to drop into the low fifties tonight. Technically, Saturday morning, which it was. I didn't own a black stocking cap or trench coat, but I had a navy blue hooded sweatshirt.
I walked down the exterior stairs as quietly as I could, and I didn't turn on the truck's headlights until I was on the road. The drive to Syl's was fast with no one else on the road. I had gone through town and was nearing the end of the blacktop in seven minutes.
No way would I pull into Syl's driveway at almost two in the morning, so I drove past his acreage and pulled into a driveway near the wide spot in the road where the letter carriers stood to stuff mail into four rural mailboxes that were grouped together. The house that went with the driveway was probably a quarter-mile from the road, so no one would notice my truck.
The walk was roughly the length of one Iowa City block, so it wouldn't take long to get to Syl's driveway. I stayed to one side of the road, where gravel and sand mixed with soil that had traveled there from a field. The soil had been softened from spring rains. If I'd been a criminal, I wouldn't have wanted to leave footprints from my ankle-high boots. But I wasn't, so I didn't care.
As I neared the driveway I pulled a pen light from my pants pocket. On the road I knew what to expect, but not on Syl's property. A larger flashlight was in the center pocket of my sweatshirt, but I hoped not to use it.
There are no street lights where town turns to country, and it felt even darker once I walked off the road. Suddenly it sounded like a cricket chorus. I suppose my presence had alerted them, although I was surprised so many males had wings to rub this time of year.
I stayed to the side of the driveway. When I reached the end, near Syl's truck and back door, I squatted and shone the light around the area where the mulch and Hal had been. I had not expected to see anything remarkable. It was dry now that the mulch had been gone a few days.
I stood and looked toward the street. Assuming the murderer wasn't wearing traffic-safety orange, it would be almost impossible for someone in a passing car to see anyone back here. Maybe if the murderer had been moving quickly, but someone dumping a body would be able to hear a car approach in time to duck either behind Syl's truck or whatever they were driving.
And they had to be driving. It would've been nearly impossible to put a man's body in a wheelbarrow and move it, with arms and legs flailing. I hadn't noticed any small tire tracks or the marks a wheelbarrow makes when you park it, so to speak. Only a weight lifter could have carried Hal any distance.
I shivered. I was thinking about Hal as if I was playing a part in a TV show. I knew Hal. When my parents died he gave me a week off. I should feel sad. An image of him throwing the orange at me in Hy-Vee came to mind, and I smiled. No stapler he could reach for.
I backed a few feet further from the house and slowly surveyed the entire area. The barn behind the house looked almost sinister in the dark. I half expected a horde of zombies to come toward me, parading through Syl's large back yard with their awkward gait.
Ugh
.
The crack of a branch made me turn to peer toward a group of overgrown bushes and small trees a few yards from the driveway. I really need to get those trimmed. They'd be a great place for a burglar to hide.
I didn't want to use the larger flashlight. Waving its beam around could call attention to me from quite a distance away. There couldn't be another person here. Deer and opossum are as rampant as raccoons in Iowa. It had to be an animal. If anyone was over there, they wouldn't be anxious to run into me. No need to worry, right?
Get moving. You don't want to hang out here until dawn
.
I walked toward the barn. The sheriff deputies and IDI would have searched it well, so there would be nothing to find. I merely wanted to look toward the driveway from the barn.
I stood in the barn entrance closest to the house and looked toward the house and its driveway. This was how it would likely have looked to the murderer. No lights on in the house, no farm dog to bark and rouse Syl.
He should get one
. No indication that anyone would appear to interrupt the untraditional burial.
When I did a half circle turn in the barn, it looked as it did a few days ago, except the tarp was off the tractor in a heap beside it. It was awfully clean for a barn, even given that Syl didn't use it for anything.
In the corner stood an old broom, the kind with long, stiff bristles that everyone's grandparents had. I walked to it and stooped, shining the light on the bristles. They looked clean for a barn broom, but maybe Syl washed it. Or had someone do it. I couldn't see him out here in his snazzy suit.
A small brown spot caught my eye, and I put the pen light closer to the bristles.
Can that be mulch
? I reached for the spot and then pulled my hand back. It had to be the sheriff or somebody using gloves who removed it.
The sound of a person's footstep behind me made me straighten, but before I could turn, the back of my head exploded in pain.