Kill Six Read online

  “Can I release the body?”

  “I don’t know why not, but give me a day.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Carlisle disconnected. Someone killed Laura Maples, a woman who would die at any time. Had to be someone she knew. She needed to get a look at the guest book.

  Chapter 4

  Grace Canton sat at her small kitchen table reading the paper two evenings later. Canton was short and slight, in her late forties, with a stooped posture. Never married, she lived alone in an aged duplex above the harbor in Duluth, working as a medical records technician. The job suited her. There was little interaction with others, and she was good at typing and on the computer. Canton was an anxious person, afraid of people she did not know and had been since being bullied as a child.

  Canton’s anxiety was high tonight. A mistake had been discovered in her area at work and the technicians had all been questioned about it. The woman who made the mistake had blamed Grace. Canton had been questioned, but showed it could not have been her that made the mistake. The other woman was eventually found out and disciplined, but the experience had left Grace shaken and at odds with her accuser.

  Grace had reached the obituaries now, reading them out of habit and because the news would not be on for ten minutes when she saw the name. Laura Maples. Couldn’t be. The woman had died three days earlier. Canton scanned down to see who had survived the woman. Husband Robert. Two children, James and Janet. And…there the siblings were. All five. Every one still alive, except Laura.

  Canton was transported back in time. She was only six, living southwest of Duluth, in the country. Her house half a mile from the bus stop. It would have been an awful walk in the winter for any child. It was an awful walk each day, regardless of the weather, for Grace Canton.

  There was only one other house on the road. It was about a block from Canton’s home, between her house and the county road where she would catch the bus. Only she wasn’t the only one who caught the bus there. The big white house set off the road, easily twice the size of Canton’s house, was home to Earl and Betty Bishop and their six children—Ken, Laura, Daniel, Thomas, Fran, and Helen. Helen was the same age as Grace, in the same class, the rest of the Bishop children older, evenly spaced about a year apart.

  Grace was shy, like her over-protective mother who made her wear boots and a heavy coat in the fall if she felt there was a possibility of snow. The Bishop children, especially the boys, would mock her and make fun of her, often bringing Canton to tears. Canton learned to hold back on the road, waiting for the Bishops to go ahead, trying to time it so that she would just run up to the bus stop as the bus arrived. But one day that didn’t work.

  Canton thought she heard the bus and ran to the stop, expecting to see the yellow bus with lights flashing approaching, but it had only been a truck. The Bishops laughed at her. Ken Bishop bent over the small girl, a book in her arm, and said, “What are you studying?”

  Instead of waiting for an answer, Ken grabbed the book from Canton, holding it high, well out of her reach.

  “Give it back!” shouted Canton as she tried to jump and grab it.

  The other Bishops soon started to chant ‘Jump’.

  Ken finally stopped laughing long enough to say, “I will give you your book back, but you need to go lie in the road and not get up until I say so.”

  Canton felt as if she had no choice. The other Bishop children were pointing and laughing now. Canton, head down, laid down in the road.

  “No!” shouted Ken. “In the middle of the road.”

  Canton sat up, looked at Ken through watery eyes, her book still clutched in his hand. She stood, looked both ways, and went to the middle of the road. She laid down on her back. The road’s surface was hard and uneven. Small sharp stones poked her through her clothes. The Bishops were clapping and screaming now, loud, pointing at her. Canton thought she heard a car coming and sat up. There was nothing.

  “No, no,” said Daniel. “No getting up until we say it is OK.”

  Canton looked both ways again and then laid down. The Bishops were making noises now, pretending to be cars and trucks, and she couldn’t tell if what she heard was a real vehicle coming until the sudden blaring of a horn. Canton looked down her body at the oncoming truck, rolled to her stomach, and then scrambled to her feet and off the road. The Bishops howled, Ken tossing her book in the weeds where she retrieved it just in time to make the bus. Their laughing echoed in Canton’s ears all the way to school.

  It had been there for forty years, the hatred, growing like a tumor. For stretches, it would be dormant, and then there would be an incident. A man asking for a date, Canton afraid she may say or do something to embarrass herself, turning the man down. A promotion offered and refused, Canton unsure if she could handle new responsibilities, afraid of failure, of being mocked. Canton belittled herself after each incident, each failure, the laughing faces of the Bishop children filling her head. The hatred would burn again, the tumor growing and throbbing, voices in her head screaming at her, making her wince in pain.

  And with each incident, she calmed herself with satisfying thoughts of revenge. Sometimes the Bishop children would burn to death in their house. She would imagine each face at a window, screaming for help, for forgiveness, as the flames consumed them. Other times the Bishops would be in a car, the large black Lincoln their father drove, faces pressed to the windows as the car’s brakes failed and it flew off a cliff into Superior. Murderous daydreams that served as her therapy.

  She had told herself that her thoughts of destroying the Bishops had only been a morbid pleasure, but now she clearly saw that wasn’t the case at all. And maybe deep down, at the core of her tumor, she knew that these satisfying daydreams were much more. That they were preparing her for what she must do.

  But now that had all been ruined too. She was gone. Laura Bishop. Canton could never touch her. Never make her suffer, make her feel the fear and humiliation. A lesson learned. The others would not slip away so easily. She felt her life suddenly filled with a purpose and resolve she had not known. Canton read to the bottom of the obituary, finding the time and location of the funeral.

  Chapter 5

  Carlisle was looking out the window. It wasn’t easy. Her cube had walls on three sides, her desk in the corner of two of the fabric panels creating the walls. To look out the window, Carlisle was forced to either stand by her desk, or, if she sat in her chair and backed out of her cube, quite a ways out, she could just see between a cube across the aisle and a column to the window on the exterior wall. She didn’t have one of those computers on an adjustable platform that you could raise or lower and stand while you worked. Thought they were just kind of weird. She realized if she had one she could look out the window, and it would still appear to anyone walking by that she was working. But she felt that would be dishonest.

  So now, she was leaning back in her chair, in the aisle next to her cube, seed bag in her lap, looking out the window. The sun was shining in. It had rained and misted on and off for three days in a row, and then it got colder and it snowed. Just enough to cover the lawns, but it was still there despite the sunshine. October had been cold and cloudy nearly every day. November was statistically the cloudiest month of the year in Duluth, but it was going to have a hard time beating October this year. At least Carlisle hoped so. She didn’t mind the cold so much as the lack of sun. Just made her sad.

  Her boss caught her. Came from the opposite direction of his office.

  “See any crooks out there?”

  Carlisle spit a seed, catching it in her lap. “Not yet. But I’ll be ready when I do.”

  “Knock them down with sunflower seeds? Very humane.” Farmer walked into Carlisle’s cube and sat in the guest chair; Carlisle walking her chair back to her desk and sitting. He wore khaki slacks, a dress shirt, and a sport coat. The same thing he did every day. “What can you tell me about the Maples’ murder?”

  “Mike talked to the husband,�
�� said Carlisle as she opened the file on her computer. “Said the guy, Bob, was pretty broke up about it even though he knew it was coming. More upset than the kids. None of them really seem to have anything to gain by her death except for Bob who will get the proceeds from a small life policy and not have to pay for her care anymore.”

  “Was he hurting financially?”

  “Not really. His wife’s long-term care policy picked up most of the expenses for her. He’s not wealthy by any means, but not hurting either. Has a good job.”

  “Possible that he just couldn’t take it anymore, waiting for his wife to die?”

  “I didn’t get that feeling at all. I asked the nurses if they felt that he was emotionally on the edge, stressed out, but they all said he didn’t seem any worse than any other husband had been in similar situations. In fact, they said that the longer she held on, not really knowing him, that he had come to realize that he shouldn’t expect much from his visits.”

  “OK.”

  “We have also interviewed all the staff and some residents, and most of the people who visited her in the last six months.”

  “Anything there?”

  “One brother, Ken Bishop, visited her quite often. He’s single. Lives and works close by. The oldest of five siblings. Mike talked to him and said he also seemed pretty broken up. Nurses all remembered him and said he’s been really good about stopping in. Each of the other four siblings has visited in the last six months. Fran Naulty, her sister from Superior, the most after Ken. She is three years younger than Laura. Owns the Bluebird restaurant south on 35 with her husband.”

  “I’ve been there. Good soup.”

  “Yes, sir. Anyway, she said that her sister’s death was a blessing, which just about everyone we talked to said, but that it was sad that someone needed to cut Laura’s time short.”

  “And the staff?”

  “They all have worked in nursing homes and hospice situations for at least a year, some for almost ten years. Seem to know what they’re doing. Noticed nothing suspicious about Mrs. Maples or her visitors.” Carlisle looked away from her screen at Farmer.

  “But?”

  “I just got the feeling that some of them seemed a little nervous, on edge.”

  “Intimidated talking to the police?”

  “No, just like they weren’t telling me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, sir. But there’s something there.”

  “Why would a nurse want Maples dead?”

  Carlisle shrugged her shoulders.

  “The residents?”

  “None of them saw or heard anything.”

  Farmer stood. “Anything else?”

  “Funeral for Maples today. Mike and I were planning on attending.”

  “Hmm. OK. Just seems strange that someone would want to kill a woman that would be dead in days. Odd. Keep me informed.” He turned and slapped the top of the cube panel, took one step out, and then turned back to Carlisle. “Look at this,” he said pointing to the trail of sunflower seed shells between Carlisle’s cube and where he first came upon her. “Is it possible that you can take up chewing gum or something else instead of these seeds? It’s a mess.”

  Carlisle leaned to the side to see what Farmer was looking at. “I’ll try to be more careful, sir.”

  “Carlisle…” Farmer shook his head and walked away.

  Carlisle felt like her father had scolded her, only he would have called her Danny. She pushed her chair backwards, out of her cube, picking up shells in one hand, putting them in the other as she went, stopping when she could just see the window again. The nurse thing bothered her. No possible reason any of them could want Maples dead, in fact, just her being there was kind of job security she supposed. And she guessed Maples was a lot easier to handle than an active resident. And maybe that was partly it. There was no anxiety about answering questions about Maples; it seemed to be just the fact that they were being questioned. Not all, but most.

  Carlisle was thinking about this when her partner approached from the same direction that Farmer had earlier.

  “Ready to go?”

  Carlisle jumped, the shells she had picked up flying from her hand. “Crap!” She stood, the seeds falling from her slacks. “Two minutes. I’ll meet you in front.”

  Carlisle insisted on driving, and Lerner was fine with that. He didn’t mind driving, but when someone else would do it, he was happy to ride and look out the window.

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  Carlisle thought the sun was nice, except for when it was in her eyes as she drove, like today. “Kind of cold.”

  “Brisk, Carlisle. Brisk! Makes you feel alive.”

  Carlisle glanced over at her partner who was smiling like he had just won the lottery. She thought she was a pretty happy person, but this guy was terminal. “If you say so.”

  The parking lot of The Blessed Savior Church was a little over half full when they pulled in. The sun had finally melted the snow, the lot now wet. They sat in the car watching people hustle across the lot into the church, the women wearing coats, the men trying to tough it out with suit coats, sweaters, or just shirts. Carlisle had vacuumed her car the night before, knowing she would be driving with her partner today. Now she looked at the center console and the area between it and her seat, wondering if she might have missed a seed or two. That’s all she really wanted.

  “You lose something?” asked Lerner.

  “No. Come on. Let’s go in.”

  Blessed Savior was an older church that had seen a couple of additions over the years. It had a red brick exterior, six concrete steps leading to an arched entryway, a tall arched window above, and a steeple with a white cross on top of that. The agents found themselves in a small entry outside the nave. It was dark, cool, and an odor coming from a mixture of burning candles, incense, and perfume. Carlisle noticed James and Janet Maples talking to their father, a woman she did not recognize also in the discussion. They were all dressed in black, with long faces, heads bowed as they whispered to each other. Carlisle suddenly felt uncomfortable, a voyeur, intruding on something she did not want to witness. It had been two years since she attended the funeral of a past boyfriend, the feelings of panic and numbness close to the surface.

  “You OK?” said Lerner.

  “Yeah. Let’s just hang over here for a minute.” She moved to the side, opposite from the Maples family, letting a couple who had come in behind them get into the church. Carlisle wasn’t sure she could stay. The organ began to play. She took a deep breath and said, “Let’s go in.”

  They each took a program and sat near the back of the church. The nave was long and narrow, an aisle down the middle, pews with room for about a dozen on each side. A row of large brick columns ran down the center of the pews reaching to the high arched ceiling. Narrow stained-glass windows reached nearly from the floor to the ceiling, the sun highlighting the biblical scenes in the glass on the eastern wall. The volume of the organ suddenly increased, and the congregation in front of the agents stood; the agents following suit. They watched as the priests and casket came down the center aisle followed by the family. A tear formed in Carlisle’s eye.

  Carlisle estimated there were nearly a hundred people at the service. She could pick out a few of the relatives and visitors to Maples they had interviewed and two of the nurses. They slipped out of the church just before the service ended and went to the car, watching as they wheeled the casket to the waiting hearse. The family and then the other mourners followed, making their way to their vehicles, many getting into the procession to the cemetery.

  “Did we get anything out of this?” said Lerner.

  Carlisle watched the lead car in the procession pull out of the lot. “We’ll go get a look at the guest book when the cars are gone.”

  “I don’t know, Carlisle. Maybe this is one that’s better left alone, you know?”

  Carlisle stared through the windshield, not answering, but t
hinking maybe he was right.

  Two days later, Carlisle and Lerner met to go over the interviews they had conducted with people from the funeral. It was tedious work, trying to track down names impossible to read off of the guest register and others who had only listed towns or states as their address. They estimated that when you eliminated those they had contacted before the funeral and the children and spouses of families that had attended, that they had covered over half of those in attendance. Carlisle had learned nothing that made her think she was anywhere near finding the killer. Lerner revealed the only thing unusual in his conversations was a former nurse who seemed a bit short with her answers, something he put off to the woman nervous about talking to the police.

  “So, we have nothing?”

  “I would say that sums it up, boss. What do you want to do?”

  Carlisle leaned back in her chair, popping some seeds in her mouth, looking at the time on her computer. “Let me go talk to Bob before he takes off. We can talk in the morning.”

  Lerner stood, shells sticking to the seat of his pants. Carlisle opened her mouth to say something but then thought she should let it pass.

  Lerner stopped, looked at her. “Something else?”

  “You may want to brush off the back of your pants before you leave.”

  Lerner turned, trying to see, knocking the shells to the floor. “Thanks, boss. Have a great night.” He gave Carlisle a big smile and walked off.

  Farmer was shutting down his computer when Carlisle knocked on his open door.

  “One minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  Farmer leaned on his desk, fist to his cheek as Carlisle updated him on their progress on the Maples’ case. When she had finished talking, he leaned back in his chair, his hands settled in his lap and blew out a breath. Carlisle had worked with Farmer long enough to know this was a sure sign that a decision had been reached.