Checking the Traps, page 13
part #3 of Isabel Long Series
“Let’s say that I’ve gotten a number of calls from him about it.”
I nod again.
“I can only imagine.”
He slides the folder toward me.
“Here’s a copy of the records you asked for,” he says.
I thank him and watch as my mother comes empty-handed toward the table.
“They’re going to bring it to us,” she says.
“Chief, what’s your take on Cary Moore’s death?”
He works his mouth before he answers.
“Officially, he jumped. Unofficially, I wonder.”
Hmm, I wasn’t expecting doubt from the stoic chief. I glance at my mother who gives a nod so slight only I would catch it. It’s her official green light.
“What are you wondering about?” she asks.
The chief clears his throat.
“As you know, we have jumpers there from time to time.” He shakes his head. “The last one was a woman from out of state. I dunno how she found the spot. But she parked her car on the bridge. She left her phone and purse on the front seat. When I called, the family admitted she had some serious, uh, mental health problems. Some do leave notes. She did.”
“What about Cary?”
He shakes his head.
“No, nothing like that. I got a call from that brother of his a couple of days after his body was found. Gary was all pissed off, saying his brother wouldn’t have jumped. I decided to take a walk around the area. I even did some exploring in the woods. That’s when I found cigarette butts and some empty booze bottles on the cliff overlooking the river. Hard stuff. It’s up the road a way. I wonder if he just got drunk and fell off. It wouldn’t take much in that spot.”
“Is the cliff part of state land?” I ask.
“No, it’s on private property. That guy who writes poems owns it. Nilsson. I’m tryin’ to think of his first name.”
“Cyrus Nilsson.”
“That’s the guy alright. But he doesn’t like people on his property, so you wouldn’t be able to walk there.”
I nod.
“How likely do you think it all belonged to Cary? He supposedly booked out of his house when he got a phone call that day.”
“Not a clue. Or if it was his, why in the heck was he drinkin’ and smokin’ there? The outside of the bottles’ glass was pretty clean, so it had to have been recent.” He taps the folder. “It’s all here in my notes.”
“I take it you left everything where it was.”
“It’s not my job as police chief to clean up people’s trash, especially on private property. But I did call Mr. Nilsson when I got home. He claims he didn’t see it there when he last walked his dog.”
“It’s been a while. But did he say how long ago that was?”
Chief Lively sits back.
“My notes say it seems to have been a few days before Mr. Moore died.”
“So, it could’ve been his stuff.”
“Maybe.”
I bite my lip. Damn it, why couldn’t the chief have taken the bottles and tested them for fingerprints? That was a lost opportunity, but then again, most everybody thought he was a jumper. End of story, except for Gary Beaumont.
“I’m going to the river tomorrow to walk around.” I catch the chief checking out my sling. “It could be kind of hard with only one arm free, but I’ll have somebody with me.”
“When you find the spot, look upstream and you’ll see the cliff I’m talkin’ about. It’s not far from that poet’s house.”
My mother smiles.
“Isabel and I are going to see him Thursday night,” she says. “He’s giving a poetry reading. It’ll be my first one ever.”
The corners of Chief Lively’s mouth turn upward. Ah, the power of my dear, sweet mother.
“You friends of his?” the chief asks.
Now, I smile.
“No. Let’s just say he’s part of my investigation. Cary spent time with him because he wrote poetry, too.”
“I heard that. Any good?”
Good enough for a big shot poet to steal them and claim them as his own. But I don’t say that.
“I’m reading what Cary wrote. I have a whole box of the stuff. I’m on the fourth book. He’s getting better.” I pause. “You mentioned Cyrus doesn’t like people going onto his property. You have many dealings with him?”
Chief Lively presses his lips and makes a low growl deep in his throat.
“Plenty of times. People keep showin’ up, and he doesn’t like it one bit. They want to meet him and have him sign their books. Cyrus finally put up a gate, but that just stops some of ’em.”
We stop talking when one of the hippie-dippies brings Ma and me tea, plus a couple of blueberry muffins.
“Did I hear you talking about Cyrus Nilsson?” the woman asks.
Ma and I give each other a glance. Perhaps we should have held this conversation somewhere else like Chief Lively’s office.
“Yes, we were,” I say.
The hippie-dippie woman sets down our cups and plates.
“He was in here earlier. Comes in most mornings for a scone and coffee. Always at nine. I could set the clock by him.”
I wait until the woman leaves. Thank you very much for that.
“What’s Cyrus like?” I ask the chief.
“He’s kind of a snob. A real pain in the neck if you ask me. He likes being famous but not what comes with it.”
“Do you think he’d be capable of violence?”
Chief Lively doesn’t crack a smile or a frown.
“One thing I’ve learned from this job is that people are capable of most anything.” He pauses as his phone buzzes. One eye is on its screen. “I’m afraid I have to take this. Police business.” He speaks into the phone. “Hold on a sec.”
“Thank you for your time, chief.” I pull a card from my bag. “This is for you.”
He gives my business card a quick look.
“Please call me if you find anything worth my attention,” he says.
“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on doing a citizen’s arrest. I have your number in my phone.”
“Good enough.”
Chief Lively is out the door. When I lean back in my chair, I see him talking on his phone as he walks. Then, he’s inside his cruiser and taking off.
“Don’t forget your tea,” Ma says.
I nod and give the teabag a squeeze with my spoon.
“What did you think?” I ask.
“It seems the Big Shot Poet doesn’t like people bothering him.”
I laugh thinking that Big Shot Poet is now Cyrus Nilsson’s official name for Ma, too, even capitalized like the Floozy for Marsha and Tough Cookie for Annette. Of course, I have the Old Farts in their various forms. Don’t forget Dancin’ Dave.
I take a sip of my tea.
“I need to be careful about putting all of my suspicions on one person,” I say. “I want to keep my options open. In the last two cases, the killers turned out to be people I didn’t even suspect when I started.”
Ma swallows a bite of muffin.
“Are you talking about that man, Victor?”
“I’ve been putting off dealing with him just because he’s not the most upstanding citizen. He’s also a scary guy. You saw him that day. I’m gonna have to figure that one out. Plus, I’m still absorbing that news about him and Cherie.”
“You haven’t touched your muffin,” Ma says. “You can think while you eat.”
I do as Ma says. I eat and think, eat and think. I go over people who I need to contact for this case and decide Cherie is high on my list. She’s not a suspect at this point, but I want to find out if she has any deep dark secrets like her relationship with Victor, or she might have some on Cary. I swallow the last bite.
My mother, who is done with her muffin, studies me.
“What did you come up with?”
“I’ve got a ways to go.”
“I see it that way, too. When are we going to see Cherie again?” she asks.
I smile.
“There you go reading my mind again.”
She laughs.
“I’m getting very good at that, wouldn’t you say?” She touches her hair. “And she did such a nice job, don’t you think?”
Jeff
“Hey, Jeff, got anything for me?”
Jeff Murray laughs on the other end of the phone line.
“Isabel, I was just about to call you.”
No, he wasn’t, but that’s the exchange we used to have when I stopped at the Titus Grocery Store, one of the traps worth checking on Fridays. Jeff would be behind the counter and always happy to see me. He was a wannabe journalist, well, perhaps the snooping part of the job. Sometimes if he had a news tip too hot to wait, he would call me at home.
“It’s been a while. How’s life in the banking world?”
“Not as much fun as it was running a store, but I sure make a lot more money,” he says. “How’s life as a P.I.?”
“Ha, I make even less money than I did as a reporter.”
“Isabel, what can I do for you?”
I smile. Banker or not, Jeff is a newshound through and through.
“Didn’t you still own the store when Cary Moore died?”
“Uh-huh, I sold it a year later. What’s this all about?”
I go into semi-detail about the case. Jeff hums when I mention Gary Beaumont. I ask if Cary might have stopped into the store that day.
Jeff clicks his tongue.
“Sorry, Isabel, I wish I could help you. The family and I were away that weekend. I was shocked to hear about it when we got back. People sure were talking about it.”
“Crap, I was counting on you to give me something useful.”
He sighs.
“Have you talked with Sue Lehman? She delivers mail in Titus. Been doing it forever.” He chuckles. “And I know for certain she sees a lot. Sometimes she and I used to compare notes.”
“Sue Lehman. I don’t think… oh, wait, I do. I remember her coming into the selectmen’s meeting because her neighbors couldn’t control their dog. It killed her chickens. Boy, that was a long time ago.”
“You were still a reporter then?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll just track her down at the post office. Thanks for the tip.”
“I wish I had more, but if I do, I know how to find you.”
“Hold on. I’ll give you my cell number, too.”
By the River
The next morning, Jack and I are standing on the bridge near the Titus State Park. Below us the West Branch of the Brookfield River rolls strong, not surprising given the amount of snow we had this winter. But I’m hoping we can get close enough to the place where Cary’s body was found. Jack doesn’t seem so sure, I could tell from the comments he made when he parked his truck.
He pats my right arm.
“You sure you wanna try this, Isabel? It looks kinda rocky down there.”
I pat him back.
“That’s why I brought you along and this.” I raise a hiking stick. “So, don’t worry.”
Jack chuckles.
“You have to be one of the most strong-headed women I’ve met. I mean that in a good way, Isabel.”
“Stubborn, yeah. That and thick skin, I suppose. I needed it when I was a reporter. Now, I can use it as a P.I.” I point my walking stick toward the spot down river where Gary said his brother was found. “That’s where we’re heading. It’s about a mile.”
Jack glances around. He gestures toward the woods to the right of the river.
“We’re gonna go there,” he says. “See that small bridge? It leads to the path along the river.”
A green pickup truck stops behind us. Ranger Paul Roberts leans over to roll down the passenger window while the truck’s engine chugs.
“Hey, you two, come to do some fishing?” he asks.
Jack nods.
“Kinda. Isabel’s fishin’ for clues for her case. I’m just her bodyguard. Is that path the best way to reach the spot where they found Cary Moore’s body?”
“Uh-huh, that’s what the fishermen use. They park up where you did and hike down. It might be wet, but I see you’re both wearing boots,” Paul says. “By the way, Isabel, I thought of somebody you might want to talk with, Sue Lehman, the mail carrier. She delivers to the houses on this road. Her last stop used to be the ranger station, but after Cyrus had that house built, he requested service. Guess he was a pain about it, which doesn’t surprise me. Then, his neighbors up the road wanted boxes, too. Maybe Sue saw something that day.”
“You’re the second person to mention her name. I’ll definitely check her out.”
I smile and thank him.
“You ready, big guy?” I ask Jack.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jack and I walk along the road to the small bridge at the entrance of the path, where a wooden sign says: Go Fish. Past the bridge, the path is wide enough for us both, but considerate Jack stays a step ahead of me, so he doesn’t bump me, but he’s close by if I need him. To our left, the river roars. The bare trees are spread apart, so I can see its roiling waters.
After a half-mile or so the path splits. We take the one closer to the river, where as Paul says, the ground is indeed wetter and rockier. Jack slows his pace. I prod the ground with my stick.
“How far?” Jack asks.
“Keep going. We’re looking for some boulders.”
The footing gets trickier as we go along. Jack insists I hold onto his arm. He takes the hiking stick.
“I think that’s it ahead,” he shouts above the water.
Jack is right. Somebody nailed a cross to a tree. The carved letters say: JESUS HAS CARY MOORE WITH HIM IN HEAVEN.
“Cherie must’ve put that up,” I tell Jack.
“I heard she found God. Sure better than what she was findin’ before.”
I study the flow of the river, specifically the nest of boulders on this side, and the bank on the other. I see the Big Shot Poet’s house and the cliff the Titus police chief mentioned, which might be part of his property. It’s too bad my mother couldn’t make this trek. I would love to hear what her sharp eyes detected. But maybe Jack will come up with something useful.
“What do you see, Jack?”
“You say this was in May?” He waits for my nod. “I don’t remember the winter that year and how much snow we got. But I guess the river would’ve been high. Unless he was a real good swimmer, Cary would’ve had a hard time with that current if he could survive the cold water. Plus, if his head hit the rocks, he wouldn’t have stood a chance getting out. Wait a sec.” Jack lets me go. “Don’t you follow me now.”
“Where are you going?”
Jack steps forward until he reaches a large boulder. He pulls himself up on its flat top. He glances back at me.
“I’m tryin’ to see how he ended up here. It’s hard to tell with this much water, but I’m wonderin’ if his body got caught on somethin’ like a dead tree or stone, so it got pushed here.”
“Do you think he came from the bridge or that cliff up there?”
He shakes his head.
“Dunno. We’re down far enough it could be either.”
“You game to take some photos with my phone?”
He keeps searching the river.
“Sure.”
“How about a video? It’s not hard.”
“Just show me how to do it, Isabel.”
Now, that’s something my mother couldn’t do. I smile. Jack is getting into this. I don’t think he has the instincts or the interests to be a P.I., but he’s a good sport helping me out.
“Why don’t you come down from there, and I’ll show you.”
I use my free hand to give him a lesson before I hand him the phone.
“Remember what you see on the screen is what you’re shooting. You’re gonna take a photo of me? Ha.” I smile as he does. “Alright, wise guy. See where it says video on the screen? Just let your finger slide a little. That’s right. You got it. And when you’re done, press the button again.”
With a grin, Jack heads back to the top of the boulder, where he takes photos up and down the river.
“I’m gonna try to shoot that video now.”
“Okay, just don’t slip and fall. I don’t wanna lose you or the phone.”
I watch with more than a bit of amusement as Jack pans the river slowly. Then he’s back down and handing me the phone.
I check his handiwork.
“How’d I do?”
A few of the photos are blurry, but he took plenty, so I have enough I can work with no problem.
“Nice job. These will be just fine. Let’s see the video.” I get it started. “Hey, wait a minute.”
“I do somethin’ wrong?”
I check across the river to the high bank ahead. I rewind the video to the spot I want.
“No, no, look what you found for me.”
He bends his head beside mine.
“Shit, who’s that?”
“Cyrus Nilsson. He’s staring at us across the river. I was too busy watching you to notice.” I glance toward that exact spot. “He’s gone now.”
“Is that important?”
“I dunno, but it sure is curious.”
The Find
Jack and I aren’t in a rush to do anything but spend the rest of the day together. Ma didn’t mind. She’s got a couple of new books, and besides, she’s making dinner for when Jack comes over later. I plan to print out a few photos and show her the video. Jack can tell my mother how he managed to catch me when I slipped and almost fell into the river. Yes, that actually happened on our way back.
“I’ll tell my mother you pushed me,” I joked at the time.
“She’d never believe you.”
He’s right, of course. You should hear Ma talk about Jack. Sometimes I wonder if she were a lot younger, she might try to steal him away from me.
After we leave the river, we stop for food at the Titus Grocery Store, but there are no Big Shot Poet sightings there today. I even ask the hippie-dippie server if he’d been in earlier, but she says no. I guess he was too busy spying on us spying on him.
“Wanna stop by the house for a while?” Jack asks me in the truck. “I have a surprise for you.”
