Murder Came Second (6 page)

He stood up and turned to the window. “Hercules was older than God. He probably is lying peacefully under a bush somewhere. A dog or coon got the rabbits. Period. I do not,” he continued slowly, “plan to be the person who single-handedly bankrupts Cape Cod this summer. There wouldn’t be a tourist left any closer to the Cape than Taunton. We have beefed up all our night shifts. All our squad cars are carrying thirty-thirty rifles and making extra runs by all the ponds we can see from the roads. Everyone has extra-big flashlights, and if any foot patrol person is carrying a forty-five in their holster, I’m pretending not to notice it. Everyone is looking, looking, looking. They’ll shoot if they have to. It’s all I can do, Alex. The Chief agrees.” His shoulders sagged.

I felt sorry for him. “You’re probably right,” was all I could think to say in farewell.

Reaching Nacho’s desk, I picked up Fargo’s leash to lead him away from the gourmet deli in her file cabinet. Nacho was busy on the computer, but turned her head to say, “He had three potato chips, two small pretzels and a cup of water.”

“Thanks.” I led Fargo slowly away, head, ears and tail down, a dog obviously in dire need of sustenance. “Listen, Barrymore, you had breakfast at home and a nice little snack with Nacho. Cut the starvation act.” He trudged on, an abused animal if ever I had seen one.

We made it to a park bench without my having to carry him. I sat down. He flopped. “Listen, Fargo, it’s think time. It seems to me, we’ve been hearing a bunch of sobs and moans and people saying, ‘They were all I had,’ or ‘He was everything to me.’

“Now to me, that means they needed these animals a lot, but even more, it sounds like the animals needed
them
to care for them. As it stands, these people are stuck with nothing that needs them. And that’s an awful feeling. Agreed?” He whuffled what might have been reluctant agreement.

“So what needs a lot of care? A baby, right?” No reply. I continued. “Now Harmon would love a puppy.” Fargo looked up and gave a half wag. Sometimes I still called him my
good puppy.
“But a puppy wouldn’t be right for Harmon. He needs something he can leave overnight when he goes out on one of the fishing boats or beachcombing after a storm. And Mildred is a cat person.” The word “cat” got to him. He sat up and looked around alertly, ready for play, a chase, even supervised socializing, whatever worked.

“No, Fargo, I’m thinking in terms of kittens.” He was still looking. “Let’s go. You won’t like where we’re going, but you can stay in the car.”

As we turned into the vet’s driveway, Fargo curled up in a tight ball, getting smaller and smaller as I parked. I opened my door. “I won’t be long, you stay.” He closed the one eye he had cracked open.

Entering the vet’s I saw that Victor was chatting casually with his office manager and a kennel boy. Good, I wouldn’t have to wait.

“Hey, Alex, what’s up? Where’s Fargo?”

“In the car, he’s fine.” I explained the purpose of my visit.

“You’re a good sport, Alex. That’s a great idea. Let’s see who’s got some kittens.” He walked around into the waiting room, where a large bulletin board took up most of one wall. He looked over a number of the notices pinned there, then removed one.

“Here we go, Alice Pennington. She takes very good care of her animals. She felt Melody deserved to have one litter and will have her spayed as soon as the kittens are placed. I believe Melody produced seven beauties. Let me call Alice and see who’s left.”

Four were left—three females and a male. I departed the vet’s with two of those cardboard carriers, several samples of kitten food, and two booklets on the care of kittens, with a note penned on the front:
Be sure the kittens visit a veterinarian by Sept. 1, for booster shots and to arrange neutering.

Alice Pennington was glad to see me. The kittens were now almost nine weeks old and full of energy. I picked out a sweet little tiger female and the gray and white male for Harmon. I figured a gray and white male might have been too reminiscent of Hercules for Mildred. For her I chose a sweet-faced calico, thinking a gentle female might also be better than Hercules in the affection department.

Alice gave a little moue, followed by some very unappealing baby talk. “Poor little tabby-kit is going to be left all alone and by her lonesome, isn’t her? Oh-hh. Poor babykins. Poor little orphan kitty-pooh. And, you know, Alex, it’s really easier having two. They entertain each other.”

I knew I was being sweet-talked, but what the hell? I popped poor little tabby-kit into the carrier. I proffered Alice a twenty-dollar bill, which she made one weak gesture of declining, but then reached for, returning to normal-speak.

“Thanks, it’ll help with Melody’s spaying bill.”

Chapter 5

Driving toward Mildred’s house, I thought of names for kittens, while Fargo kept turning toward the backseat and whuffling. Since Mildred had named her old cat Hercules, I figured maybe she was into Greek mythology. Well, okay. We could do that. The little calico looked to be sunny-tempered, so we could call her Eos, the dawn goddess. And the tabby hadn’t seemed the least bit pitiful to me. In fact, she had seemed quite sassy, so she became Eris, goddess of discord.

Parked in Mildred’s driveway, I printed a stick-up note on the pad I kept in the compartment: “We are homeless and helpless. Won’t you please take care of us? We know we will be happy with you. Love, Calico Eos and Tabby Eris.” Making sure the little plastic bowl of food in the carrier was full, I filled the other small container with water from the jug I keep in the car for Fargo, and set the carrier on the porch in the shade. One down.

Making the short trip to Harmon’s place, I repeated my actions. I didn’t really think Harmon would be interested in Greeks of long ago, so I signed his note: “Tom and Geraldine.” Mission accomplished.

It was late afternoon and I figured we had labored long enough for one day. We headed home for a game of tag with the hose, the thrill of picking one of my very own tomatoes, a big bowl of fresh cold water and a can of icy Budweiser. Cigarette number six, I feared, but I was in too good a mood to be very accusatory about it.

We continued the pleasant evening by ordering our favorite pizza—sausage with extra cheese. I made myself a salad and filled Fargo’s bowl with dry food, which he ignored, knowing full well pizza was en route.

Retiring to the living room, I clicked on the telly. One of the cable stations was featuring a Bio-Drama of the Woodchopper Woman whose photo I had seen in Cindy’s scandal sheet the other day. The thing that amazed me about such Bio-Dramas was not how bad they were, but how they existed at all. How on earth did the stations manage to collect so many pictures, so many relatives and neighbors and cops to be interviewed, in so short a time? Surely, they couldn’t keep files and film clips on everyone who ever went to jail or a mental facility! It was truly incredible. Of course we were going to watch it while we ate. Cindy would never know.

It boiled down pretty much to what had been in the paper. According to neighbors, Virginia Leonard was the average American housewife, thought to be happily married, a good housekeeper and good mother, if somewhat overprotective of her two children. Her husband Jeff worked for an auditing firm and traveled frequently, but seemed to enjoy his wife and kids whenever he was home.

“And then one afternoon, it all changed for the Leonards,” the commentator intoned ominously.

A neighbor joined him on camera. “It had been a pleasant summer day,” she said. “A little girl over on Fourteenth Street was having a birthday party. My two kids were going and so were Elaine and Bobby Leonard.” The screen flashed photos of the plain young girl and the beautiful little boy.

“I would have let my kids walk over to the party,” the neighbor continued, “But Virginia called and suggested she would take all four, if I would pick them up. That was typical. Virginia hated her kids to be anywhere without adult supervision. So that’s what we did. She took ’em and I picked them up after the party. I dropped them at the end of their driveway.”

Her voice began to quaver.

“I’ll never forgive myself. I dropped them off at their driveway, and those kids just walked up that driveway and right around the house to see their mother cutting up their father in the woodchopper. But I didn’t know. How could I have known? I had just backed the car out and turned toward home, and then I heard them screaming all the way down the block. I backed up at about ninety miles an hour. I don’t know how I did it. They were in the road holding each other and screaming. I jumped out and got my arms around them, asking them what on earth was wrong? They couldn’t even tell me, they just fell against me, sobbing.”

The screen now featured a picture of Virginia and Jeff Leonard in happier days—a slender young woman, slightly taller than her husband, who was a stocky young man with light brown wavy hair and an easy grin. She held a baby. He clasped the hand of a little girl.

Another neighbor next joined the interview. “I lived right across the street. A little earlier in the day I had been busy, and my then two-year-old Petey somehow unlatched the screen and got out of the house. He was always quite a little terror.” She smiled, remembering, as if it had been some sign of greatness to come.

“When I realized it, I ran out just in time to see Jeff Leonard pull in his driveway, jump out of his car and run out into the street to pick up Petey. Jeff was laughing as he scooped Petey up. ‘Now, Cowboy, where do you think you’re going? You’re going right home to mama, that’s where! No more adventures for you today, pal.’”

The woman took a drink of water. “He set Petey down in our yard, patted his bottom and said, ‘Now get along home, Cowboy, before you get hurt.’ I ran down and got Petey and thanked Jeff. I had Petey in my arms and he leaned over and gave Jeff a kiss on the cheek. Jeff tousled his head and left. I called out an apology and he turned and laughed again. ‘All kids get loose sometimes, no matter how hard you watch. I guess they have guardian angels.’”

She sniffed. “That was the last time I saw him alive.
He
was the one that needed an angel
.
Then later, Virginia tried to say Jeff was abusing Petey! Right there on the street with me watching. Poor woman was crazed, of course.”

Fargo and I were doing pretty well. I was watching the screen and eating pizza and salad, with the occasional sip of beer. Fargo was eating the crusts and counting the pieces left in the box. The drama returned after brief commercials—about six minutes worth.

Our next guest was a retired woman police officer who had worked on the case. “Worst damn case I ever got assigned to,” she began. “I had nightmares for years to come. When my partner and I got there, a man from a nearby house was already standing at the end of the driveway, stopping neighbors from going into the Leonards’ backyard. When the kids had started yelling, he had come over and helped the neighbor woman herd them into her car again, and then he had run to the back of the Leonards’ house to see what was wrong. What he saw was Mrs. Leonard with a butcher knife and a hatchet, dismembering her husband on the picnic table and feeding the smaller parts into a woodchopper.”

The ex-cop made an automatic gesture toward her shirt pocket for cigarettes, remembered where she was and settled for water. “When Virginia Leonard saw the neighbor, she screamed something like, ‘Go away! I must save the children from this monster!’ The man saw the knife and hatchet and didn’t argue. He ran back out front, hollering for someone to call 911, and waving people off . . . and barfing all over the place.” That earned her a sour look from the commentator.

The ex-officer continued, with a faraway look, as if she were seeing it all again. “We were the first police car there. We talked her into turning off the chopper and telling us what was going on . . . as if we couldn’t see. She told us very calmly that her husband had often sexually abused their son and daughter. That he had admitted it and agreed to seek help. Then, just minutes before, she had seen him openly abuse the little two-year-old across the street and laugh about it with the mother, who must be abusive also.”

“That had apparently put Mrs. Leonard over the top,” the cop continued. “When her husband came into the kitchen his wife stabbed him six times with a butcher knife and dragged him into the backyard.”

A social services worker appeared next. “It took us till the next day to calm the children sufficiently even to talk to them. And to this day, I’m not sure what part of that whole sad story is true. The daughter Elaine said that the mother was always ‘nervous’ and wanted to know where they were and what they were doing every minute. Elaine added that up until the last few months, things had been a lot more fun when Daddy was home. He helped with homework, took the kids to baseball games, swimming, hiking, etc. Sometimes all four would go to a movie or, occasionally a theme park.” The woman stopped, put on her glasses and consulted some notes.