Deception (52 page)

56

“I suspect myself. Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
N
AVAL
T
REATY

T
UESDAY
, J
ANUARY
21, 10:30
A.M
.

CLARENCE
AND
I
sat in Ray Eagle’s living room. I claimed the red chair and ottoman for my tired legs, and Ray sat beside me in a low-back armchair. I handed him the page from my yellow pad on which I’d written three lines of dialogue.

Noel: “Get you a soda?”

Ollie: “Sure. I’ll take a Coke.”

Noel: “Coca-Cola?”

“Okay, but what does it mean?” Ray asked, handing the pad back to me.

“It means Noel didn’t grow up in Washington.”

“Yes, he did. I checked it out, remember?”

“I say he didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s right here.” I held up the page. “He asked me if I wanted a soda. You’re from this area, right?”

“Born in southeast Portland. Moved to Detroit at twenty-one, stayed there fifteen years, and moved back here about twenty years.”

“What do you call a soft drink?”

“Pop. Called it pop here and called it pop in Detroit.”

“I grew up in Milwaukee, and we said soda. My cousin Lance in Madison said pop. When I was in LA, it was soda. When I moved up here to Portland thirty years ago, I thought people sounded stupid when they said pop. Swore I’d never give in. But after ten years, one day Sharon pointed out I was saying pop, just like the locals. The point is, a lifelong Northwesterner calls it pop, not soda.”

“I grew up in Mississippi, before we moved to Chicago.” Clarence said. “To us any soft drink was a Coke. That’s what you call it. If you’re drinking 7-Up, it’s still a Coke.”

“That’s the second tip-off,” I said. “When I told him I wanted a Coke, Noel asked, ‘Coca-Cola?’ A Northwesterner would never ask that. Of course a Coke is Coca-Cola. It couldn’t be anything else.”

“But I’m telling you,” Ray said, “Noel grew up in Liberty Lake, Washington. I ran the background check.”

“Double-check it. Find out where his parents came from. A kid could learn his words for soft drinks from parents, but his friends would be calling it pop. I don’t believe he’d call it anything else if he really grew up there. Anyway, check it out.”

I gave them photocopies of Jack and Noel’s receipts from the Nine Darts Tavern. I explained that Linda had a class Wednesday nights, so Jack and Noel normally ate there. They usually had the same thing week to week: Jack fried chicken and Noel a burger and fries. Both would usually have two beers. The tab was the same every week, one beer more or less. But one night, the night of November 27, their tab was twenty-five dollars more than usual. Did Linda skip class and join them that night? Nope—hamburger and fried chicken, as usual. But no beers. Instead, a bottle of wine and nearly double their usual tip.

“So tell me,” I said to Clarence and Ray, “why do two beer drinkers order wine?”

“Special occasion?” Clarence said. “To make a toast?”

“To celebrate,” Ray said. “Graduation. Engagement. Birth of a child. Promotion. Your team wins the World Series.”

“And that’s when you leave a big tip, because you’re happy, feeling generous,” I said. “But none of those things happened November 27. Okay, it was the day before Thanksgiving, but they’d be together for Thanksgiving the next day. So what else do homicide detectives celebrate?”

“Solving a murder,” Ray said.

“When I was his partner, Jack liked to celebrate one week after nailing the bad guy. Look at that date again.”

“November 27,” Ray said.

“What was one week earlier?”

“November 20,” Clarence said. “The night of Palatine’s murder. But … Jack and Noel had a murder case that same night. They were celebrating that one, right? Didn’t they solve it?”

“Jack said it was easy, a no-brainer. The guy confessed within hours. Not worth celebrating. Plus, that murder was actually early morning November 21. But anyway, it’s not the date of a murder you celebrate, it’s the date you solve it or the killer’s arrested, or brought to justice.”

“What’s your point?” Clarence asked.

“Well, who was brought to justice one week earlier, on November 20? Palatine. Maybe this time they were celebrating not an arrest, but an execution.”

They pondered it quietly.

“There’s more,” I said. “Flip back a couple pages, and check the receipt. They weren’t just at the Nine Darts one week after the murder. They were there the night of the murder. They didn’t have beer, but they were the up team so that makes sense. But there’s a second sales receipt, after the dinner, next page. They bought something for $24.99.”

“A bottle of Riesling,” Clarence said, reading the receipt.

“White wine. Since it’s a separate transaction, not part of the dinner, the bottle of wine was to go. The Nine Darts owner confirmed that. Jack paid for it, and they took it with them.”

Ray stared at me. “And that same night, two people drank white wine at Palatine’s. And took the bottle with them when they left.”

I came home for lunch and found the answering machine blinking.

“Who called?” I asked Mulch. When he didn’t answer, I pushed New Messages.

“Detective Chandler? This is Cherianne Takalo in Michigan. I got the photo you sent. Thank you! That’s just how I remember Melissa’s parents. Thanks for the note saying which ones are you and your wife. But … something I don’t understand. You were asking me about Donald, like you didn’t know him. Anyway … call me back if you want to.”

I called back. “Cherianne? Ollie Chandler. I didn’t understand your message … your comment about Donald.”

“I just thought it was odd that you asked me about Donald like you didn’t know him.”

“I don’t.”

“But he’s standing right next to you in the picture.”

“What …? Hang on.” I walked over to the table by the recliner and lifted the framed picture of Portland’s homicide detectives and wives. “I’m looking at it. Who are you talking about?”

“Okay, the guy on your left side, with the brown hair and silly grin, standing right next to Melissa’s dad and mom.”

“That’s Noel Barrows, Jack’s partner.”

Long pause. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Wow. He looks just like Melissa’s boyfriend, Donald.”

Sarge let me use the phone in his office again that afternoon.

“Noel Barrows grew up in Liberty Lake,” Ray Eagle insisted, “and I’ve got the records, transcripts, and pictures to prove it. Grade school, high school. Cub Scouts. His parents died in a car wreck his senior year. After graduating he got a summer job in Helena, Montana, then stayed there. That’s the last anyone in Liberty Lake saw him. Ended up calling a realtor and selling his parents’ house without even coming back to town. Signed papers through the mail.”

“You have pictures?”

“Yearbook.”

“They’re a perfect match to Noel?”

“I wouldn’t call it perfect. He was heavy in high school. He’s lost maybe thirty pounds. Hair’s thinned some. I guess he looks as close to his high school picture as I do to mine—which isn’t all that close. People change. But I do have something interesting. I think you should call the guy in Helena who rented him the room.”

“Why?”

“I won’t spoil it. Told him you’d probably call. Name’s Joey Netelesky. Ask him about Noel.”

“Don’t recall every tenant from ten years ago,” Netelesky told me ten minutes later, “but I’ll never forget that boy. One day he just pulls up stakes. Leaves a buncha stuff behind. No forwarding address. Didn’t say so much as ‘See ya later, alligator.’ ”

Without warning, he violently spit some chaw. I pushed away the apple fritter in front of me.

“But he wasn’t in trouble with the law. Didn’t make sense. And somethin’ else, by cracky. He left full payment for his rent. Cash money. Fact is, he left more than he owed.”

“That’s got to be unusual.”

“I’ve rented houses and apartments twenty years, partner, had lotsa skip-outs, but this youngster’s the only one ever paid more than he owed. Left the place so clean you could lick mashed banana off the floor. But he forgets some spendy stuff, like his stereo, which he listened to all the time, so why would he leave it? And he never even picks up his cleaning deposit! All told, cost hisself four hundred dollars, I reckon, plus the stuff he leaves behind. Why would a body do that?”

After hanging up, I considered it.

A body’d do that because he didn’t want a blemish on his record. He didn’t want police involved. He didn’t want someone trying to trace him. And he might not have known the rental amount, so he leaves more than enough. Refundable cleaning deposit? He didn’t know—or didn’t want to show his face. Leaving a place so clean you could lick mashed banana off it? Not just to make mashed-banana-lickers happy. Maybe to eliminate forensic evidence.

Four hundred dollars and somebody else’s stereo is a cheap price for a new identity, especially if you take possession of a guy’s parents’ assets. Then sell the house, with an easily forged signature, without ever showing your face where people might notice your face had changed.

A chill went over me. I sat there at Sarge’s desk, looking out the windows to Homicide, seeing the man I knew as Noel Barrows reading a golf magazine while munching on a sandwich.

All I could think about was one thing: What happened to the body of the real Noel Barrows?

57

“There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans.”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
A
DVENTURE OF THE
E
MPTY
H
OUSE

ONCE
A
PARADIGM
SHIFT
OCCURS
, you see everything differently. In Palatine’s living room, Clarence had commented how brothers sometimes fight. Looking back, I could see in my mind’s eye how Noel had chuckled and nodded his head, like someone who’d experienced it. Yet he claimed to be an only child.

Was it really true that the Noel Barrows I knew was not the boy who grew up in Liberty Lake, Washington? And if he wasn’t, then who was he?

But no, I told myself. What about Linda Glissan’s testimony that Noel refused to cooperate with the murder? And what about his airtight alibi?

T
UESDAY
, J
ANUARY
21, 3:00
P.M
.

I sat in Linda’s living room, me in Jack’s chair, her on the leather couch nearby. This time she offered coffee, and I took it. Nice and dark. Jack and I both liked it that way. Sometimes I add cream, but Jack always took it black, no compromise.

“I was looking through Melissa’s case file,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’m digging. If Jack didn’t kill those other men, somebody did. Who had a motive? I interviewed Melissa’s old roommate, Cherianne Takalo.”

“Cherianne? I haven’t thought about her for years. Where is she?”

“Outside Detroit. She told me about the professor. And she claims Melissa had a boyfriend named Donald, who came and stayed with you and Jack. Then when she broke up with him, he came back to talk her out of it.”

“No,” Linda said. “He only came out once, when he stayed with us. Next time he came to Portland was for the funeral.”

“Where’d he live?”

“I don’t remember exactly. We didn’t have much of a chance to know him. I picked him up at the airport the night before the funeral.”

“What time did Noel arrive?”

“I don’t know. It’s been ten years. I just remember picking him up … Wait. You called him Noel.”

“Donald changed his name to Noel Barrows, didn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“Why were you hiding it?”

She stood, wringing her hands, pivoted, then fell back on the couch. “Noel … Donald, was crushed by Melissa’s death. He’d stayed with us three weeks that summer. No one out here knew him. After the funeral, he didn’t want to go home. He had an abusive mother and some troubles. He needed a fresh start and wanted to change his name. He even asked if he could take our name, but that seemed a little … premature.” She smiled. “Jack helped him out. Noel got his name changed and entered the police academy.”

“He assumed the name of a dead kid from Liberty Lake, Washington.”

“He was about his age and didn’t have family. Donald wasn’t hurting anybody.”

“Look, Linda, I’ve read Melissa’s investigation files. There isn’t anything about a boyfriend named Donald. They interviewed you and Jack. Why didn’t you tell them?”

“Why? Noel had nothing to do with her being on drugs. Or the suicide. That was the professor’s fault. Melissa and Noel had broken up. We were sorry because we really liked him. They were good for each other. I think sometimes how Melissa could have stayed with Noel and married him. We’d probably have grandchildren now and.” She kept swallowing but appeared to be out of tears.

“You really thought Noel wasn’t in Portland until the funeral?”

“He wasn’t. He stayed with us three weeks that summer. That’s when we got to know him. Jack was on vacation two weeks. They played golf all the time. But like I said, he didn’t come back until just before the funeral, maybe four days after Melissa died. I’m the one who called Noel to tell him. He was in … well, he wasn’t in Portland.”

“Cherianne Takalo says he was here before Melissa died.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Why would she lie?”

“Ask Noel. He’ll tell you he just came for the funeral.”

“How about you call him and invite him over right now?”

Forty minutes later Noel showed up at Linda’s. They hugged. She offered him a pop. Not a soda. Not a Coke.

“What are you doing here?” Noel asked me.

“When you came for Melissa’s funeral, you flew to Portland straight from Pennsylvania, right?”

“Pennsylvania?” Noel looked at Linda.

“He’s fishing,” Linda said. “I wouldn’t tell him where you’re from.”

“I’m from Liberty Lake, Washington,” Noel said.

“No, you’re not, but we’ll get back to that,” I said. “Melissa’s funeral was Saturday, November 26, two days after Thanksgiving. When did you fly in?”

He looked at Linda. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on, Noel,” I said, “is that your real name is Donald.”

“That’s a lie.” His sideglance at Linda showed he thought she’d betrayed him.

“He already knew,” Linda said to him, putting her hand on his arm. “He called you Donald.”

Noel paused. “It’s not illegal to change your name.”

“It’s illegal to assume an identity.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Yeah, your previous girlfriend had died too.” It was a shot in the dark. I watched both their faces.

“It was an accident,” he said, making my bluff pay off.

“One girlfriend dies in an accident, next girlfriend commits suicide. What a coincidence.”

Linda gave Noel a vacant, eerie stare.

“But you called me … back home,” Noel said to her. “To tell me Melissa had died.”

“That’s right,” Linda said, her voice lifting.

“Think back,” I said. “I’ll bet you got his answering machine, didn’t you?”

“It’s been ten years. I can’t remember some things ten days ago. But it’s like that terrible time is engraved in my brain. I do remember—when I left the message, I decided I couldn’t say she’d died. But,” she looked at Noel, “you called me back just a few hours later. I broke the news to you. You were devastated.”

“I returned your call as soon as I got home from work.”

“You called from Portland and checked your messages back home,” I said. “It isn’t hard.” Okay, it was hard for
me
, but I figured it wasn’t for him.

“No way.”

“How could you know where he called from?” I asked Linda. “You didn’t have caller ID back then, did you?”

She shook her head. She turned to Noel. “You told me you’d fly in for the funeral. You called me back and gave me details. I picked you up at the airport.”

“Not where you could see him coming from the gate,” I said.

“Outside baggage claim,” she said to Noel. “Curbside. That’s where you asked me to come.”

“Right,” he said. “I was there with my bags. You remember.”

“Probably took a taxi to the airport,” I said. “Just stood curbside with your bags, as if you’d just flown in. Piece of cake.”

“You stayed with us, at our place,” Linda said. “But … you were already in Portland?”

He coughed, from his waist. “I flew in Friday night, like I said. Just before you picked me up.”

“Well, Donald, I have a sworn statement from Melissa’s roommate that you were in Portland a few days before she died.”

“My name’s Noel.” He looked at Linda. I saw his wheels turning, wondering if now was the time to give up part of the lie. He sighed. “Okay, I flew in early to talk with Melissa. It was private, so we didn’t announce it to you and Jack. I’m sorry.”

Linda’s eyes sank. She didn’t move, but she’d been leaning toward Noel and now leaned away.

“If your point was to visit Melissa,” I said, “why wouldn’t you want her parents to know? Why wouldn’t you stay here like you did before, have a good time, play some golf?”

“Melissa was upset. She told me about the professor. I tried to talk her out of suicide.”

“She told you she was suicidal?” Linda jumped off the couch.

“Palatine had messed up her mind.”

“No one told me she was suicidal. I’m her mother. I might have been able to stop her.”

“Linda …” He reached out to her, and she backed away. “Jack knew I was here. He just thought it might look awkward if …”

“Jack
knew you were here? I don’t believe you. You’re lying. And
awkward
? Melissa died that night. You acted shocked when I told you on the phone. You were in Portland? You knew she was dead?”

“I heard it on the news that morning. I
was
shocked.”

“You pretended you were hearing it from me.”

“I thought you should be the one to tell me. I owed you that.”

“You owed me that? You owed me the truth!” She slapped him. “Get out of my house!”

He looked at her sadly, apologetically. As he walked to the door, his gaze fell on me. What I saw took my breath away.

It wasn’t irritation. It was murder.