Murder thy neighbor, p.7
Murder Thy Neighbor, page 7
Someone is dragging her through her own home.
Chapter 24
Marjorie Wilson knocks on Ann Hoover’s front door. There’s no answer, and no sound coming from inside. She turns around and looks at Ted Fontana, who is sitting in the idling car, exhaust visible in the cool morning air. She throws her arms up to indicate her confusion.
He shuts off the car and jogs up the walk, still wet from last night’s rain.
“She’s not here?” he asks.
“No,” Marjorie says. “And I talked to her last night. She knew we were coming to pick her up.”
Ted knocks on the door, much harder than Marjorie did.
Still, there’s no answer.
“Maybe she went to the courthouse on her own,” Ted says.
“Wouldn’t she have called me?” Marjorie says. “Or left a note?”
“You’re sure she was going to ride with us? There was no miscommunication?”
“No,” Marjorie says firmly.
They stand in the cold morning air for a moment, thinking. The extension cord that Roy uses for electricity is running up the sidewalk and into his front door, which stands about two inches ajar.
“Should we see if Roy is home?” Ted asks. “Maybe he knows something.”
Marjorie gives Ted an incredulous look. “Are you serious?”
They’ve both been on Ann’s side of the conflict from the start, so Roy Kirk no doubt holds a grudge against them. But Ted doesn’t believe Roy would lie to them or treat them disrespectfully.
“Maybe something happened,” Ted says. “He might know.”
“He might have caused it,” Marjorie says, keeping her voice low.
“You don’t think…?” Ted says, trailing off, not wanting to say the words out loud.
“He scares me,” Marjorie says.
They talk for another minute and agree that Marjorie should go wait in the car. Ted will knock on Roy’s door. If there’s no answer, they’ll head to the courthouse and see if Ann is there.
“Maybe she just forgot we were coming,” Ted says.
Marjorie is sure there was no miscommunication between her and Ann, but she walks down the sidewalk to wait. She doesn’t want to be close to Roy.
When Marjorie is in the car, Ted strolls to Roy’s side of the row house. He raps on the door.
“Roy,” he says, “you in there, buddy?”
Marjorie watches from the car, her nerves on high alert. She half expects Roy to come bursting out, raving and angry. She doesn’t know what to expect with that guy. Ted’s too trusting, she thinks.
Thirty seconds pass, and Ted knocks again, louder this time, really pounding on the door.
Marjorie holds her breath.
Still no answer. Ted heads back down the walk toward the car.
Marjorie isn’t sure if she’s relieved Roy didn’t answer—or scared.
Chapter 25
Marjorie and Ted arrive at the courtroom. It’s even more crowded than it was for the last hearing, but there’s no sign of Ann. Roy isn’t there, either. Both the assistant city solicitor and the lawyer representing Roy turn around anxiously. It’s obvious they haven’t heard from their client or witness, either.
“All rise!” the bailiff declares. “Honorable Judge Stacy Moreno now presiding.”
Marjorie and Ted rise along with everyone else. The judge, a woman with glasses and short silver-gray hair, walks to the bench.
“Thank you. Please be seated,” Judge Moreno says.
The judge notices immediately that Roy Kirk is not present, and when she brings this up, the solicitor points out that his primary witness, Ann Hoover, is also absent. Marjorie knows she has to say something.
She stands up.
“Your Honor, if I may,” Marjorie begins, trying to control the fear in her voice. “I live in the neighborhood. We went by Ann’s home on the way to the courthouse this morning. We’d made arrangements to all come together.”
Next to her, Ted nods his affirmation.
“There was no answer at her door,” Marjorie says. “I’m worried about her. I think something might have happened.”
Judge Moreno thanks her and asks her to be seated. Marjorie’s heart pounds as the judge considers her statement, then turns to the bailiff and asks him to contact the Pittsburgh Police Department, and have an officer go to Ann and Roy’s row house.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this,” she says.
After the judge leaves the courtroom, Marjorie says to Ted, “I want to go back to Ann’s house. We need to be there when the police arrive.”
Chapter 26
Pittsburgh Police Officer Jeremy Benson and his partner, Derek Schmidt, pull up in their squad car in front of the row house on Lawn Street. Nothing seems especially awry, except that one half of the row house looks like a very nice place to live and the other half looks like a disaster, with a trash-filled front lawn.
The front door of the disaster side is ajar, and the officers see an extension cord leading out from it and down the street.
They climb the stairs to the porch and knock on the nicer side, which is the address they were given for Ann Hoover. Both wear handguns on their belts, along with police radios and handcuffs.
There’s no answer at Ms. Hoover’s residence. As the officers discuss what to do next, they notice a man and woman hurrying up the walk toward them.
“Excuse me,” the woman says. “I’m Marjorie Wilson. I’m a friend of Ann’s.”
Marjorie quickly explains that she is the one who prompted Judge Moreno to ask the police to check on Ann. As quickly as possible, she fills them in on what has happened between Ann and her next-door neighbor, Roy Kirk—and why it’s so out of character for Ann not to have appeared in court today.
“There’s no way she would have missed it,” Marjorie says. “Not unless something was really wrong.”
“Do either of you have a key to her house?” Officer Benson asks. Given the information Marjorie has provided, he feels there’s probable cause to search the place, but he’d rather not break the door down if he can help it. Unfortunately, neither Marjorie nor Ted has a key. They look around to see if one is hidden somewhere, under the welcome mat or a flowerpot, but they can’t find anything.
“I’ll check around back,” Ted says, and Officer Schmidt agrees to go with him.
Around back, the door is also locked, but Ted notices a rock sitting in a small planter, and under the rock they find a spare key.
Schmidt takes the key and carries it back around front. Benson asks Marjorie and Ted to go stand by the sidewalk and wait, then he brushes the mud from the planter off the key and slides it easily into the keyhole. A moment later, the door swings open.
“Ms. Hoover?” Benson calls. “This is the Pittsburgh police. Are you in there?”
There is no answer.
Both officers draw their guns and walk into the house.
Chapter 27
The first thing they notice on the hallway table is a set of keys, a purse, a wallet, and a file folder. Benson takes a quick look inside the folder and sees what are obviously the files Ann meant to bring to court today—photographs, transcripts from the previous court hearing, what looks to be a log of interactions with her neighbor.
Officer Schmidt checks the wallet. Ann Hoover’s driver’s license and credit cards are inside, along with some loose cash.
Benson and Schmidt give each other a look. They don’t need to speak. They know what the other is thinking. It’s highly unlikely that she would leave without this stuff.
Especially the wallet.
Nothing seems out of place in the kitchen. There are no dirty dishes in the sink. No evidence Ann had breakfast. The coffeepot is cool.
The living room is empty. A Steinway piano sits in a patch of sunlight streaming in through the window.
Yet something feels wrong here. Both men sense it. The house is too quiet.
They ascend the stairs, guns drawn. When they arrive in Ann’s bedroom, both men spot the blood, a small red smear on the hardwood floor next to the bathroom.
“I’m calling for backup,” Officer Benson says, grabbing the radio on his belt.
Chapter 28
Marjorie and Ted pace on the sidewalk, unable to stand still. The coolness of the morning has burned off, and the air has started to warm up. Marjorie feels too hot and takes off her coat. Then she feels too chilled and puts it back on.
She’s a bundle of nerves. Every cell in her body is telling her that something is wrong. Very wrong.
The police officers step out Ann’s front door, and for a moment, Marjorie hopes to see Ann with them. To hear that her friend just overslept. That everything is okay.
But Ann’s not there.
The men are alone.
Marjorie starts up the walk, and one of the officers holds up his hand.
“Please stay back by the curb,” he says.
She can hear it in his tone—something is wrong.
“Is Ann inside?” Marjorie says, her voice choked with fear.
“We did not locate her,” the cop says.
The other man is speaking into his police radio.
Ted calls out to the cops, “You should check Roy’s house.”
The officer who held his hand up says, “We’re going to.”
Another police vehicle quickly pulls up to the curb, its lights flashing, but its siren off. One of the new officers from inside the car heads to the porch to talk to the others. The other one heads to Marjorie and Ted and asks them to maintain their distance from the house.
“My God,” Marjorie says. “What the hell is happening?”
Chapter 29
Officer Benson knocks on the door to Roy Kirk’s place, which swings the door open another few inches.
“Mr. Kirk!” he announces, squinting to look inside. “This is the Pittsburgh police! Are you in there?”
When there’s no answer, Benson pushes the door gently, revealing a dark corridor. What he can see of the floor appears to be littered with construction debris—broken plaster, tufts of insulation, glass, nails.
Benson pulls out a flashlight and shines it down the hall.
There’s no sign of life in this house, either.
“Mr. Kirk,” Benson calls into the house. “We’re entering your residence.”
He walks first, light in one hand, gun in the other. Officer Schmidt follows closely behind.
They aren’t even five feet into the house when, seemingly out of nowhere, a man steps into the hallway, squinting at the light shining in his face. He has long hair and a shaggy beard, and he isn’t wearing a shirt. He’s as thin as a skeleton, his skin as pale as white paint.
“What’s going on?” the man asks. “Who are you?”
“I’m Officer Benson with the Pittsburgh Police Department,” he says. “I called out to you but you didn’t answer. Are you Roy Kirk?”
“Yeah,” the man says, scratching his head. He looks like he’s just woken up. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re checking on you,” Benson says. “You weren’t in court today.”
“Oh,” Roy says. “That was today? I completely forgot. I’ve been so focused on my work here that it slipped my mind.”
Schmidt keeps his flashlight in Kirk’s squinting face, while Benson runs his light over the man from head to toe. Kirk isn’t wearing anything but baggy khaki trousers and a leather belt. The man’s pants are filthy and seem to be splattered with mud.
Benson pauses the light on Roy’s feet. They’re muddy, too—only the mud looks reddish.
“Sir,” Benson says, trying not to give anything away with his voice, “would you mind if I had a look around?”
“Of course not,” Roy Kirk says. “I have nothing to hide.”
“Would you please step outside for a minute?” Benson says.
Roy walks toward the front door, and both officers follow him. Once on the porch, Benson asks Schmidt and the other officers to keep an eye on Roy while he goes back inside to look around.
Out in the sunlight, some of the mud on Roy’s pants now looks maroon, matching whatever is staining his feet.
Before stepping back into the house, Benson glances toward the street and notices a third police vehicle pulling up. This one is a police van. Also, the man and woman on the sidewalk have been joined by other neighbors.
A crowd is growing in front of the row house.
Chapter 30
Marjorie gasps when she sees Roy, unable to hide her shock at how much the young man has changed since she first met him ten months ago.
He looks pale and emaciated. His bare skin is streaked with mud, and his pants, the only clothes he’s wearing, are filthy. He looks like someone who’s been trapped somewhere for days or weeks—dirty, starving, weak, and blinking in the unfamiliar sunlight.
“Is that blood on his feet?” Ted asks.
Marjorie feels like she’s going to throw up.
A neighbor from down the street asks Marjorie what’s going on. Others from the neighborhood association who’d been at the courthouse have also arrived. More police are pulling up, asking the growing crowd to stand on the other side of the street.
“Can you tell us what’s happening?” Marjorie says, nearly in tears.
“No ma’am,” the nearest officer says. “We can’t make any statement at this time.”
As they relocate to the other side of the street, Marjorie takes Ted’s hand and asks him to pray with her. It’s the only thing she can think to do.
Chapter 31
Officer Benson walks into Roy Kirk’s residence with a flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other.
The house looks like a bomb went off inside. The walls are missing Sheetrock. Clumps of waterlogged plaster hang down from the ceiling. The air stinks of mildew. Benson’s boots crunch as they step on dirt and glass and whatever else is littering the floor.
He arrives at the staircase leading up to the second floor.
The extension cord coming in from the front door runs farther into the house and, as far as he can tell, goes downstairs. He hesitates.
Upstairs or downstairs?
Benson chooses to follow the electrical cord.
When he arrives at the top of the basement steps, he sees light coming from downstairs. He eases down the stairs, each step creaking under his weight. As he descends, the smell in the air changes. The dank smell of mildew remains, but there’s another odor on top of it.
The stink of meat that’s just beginning to go bad.
He arrives at the bottom. Bright construction lights fill part of the room with harsh yellow light, but the basement is large and cavernous, leaving several areas in darkness. Trash is everywhere—fast-food wrappers and soda cans, newspapers and magazines, black bags and broken boards, bricks and chunks of concrete.
Benson scans his flashlight quickly past a mannequin lying on a pile of garbage bags. The mannequin, partly hidden in shadows, wears a wig but is missing its arms and legs. Benson shines his flashlight deeper into the cavern of the basement onto a cluster of tools—a masonry hammer, a circular saw, a hacksaw, a pair of tin snips.
The red liquid staining the tools is unmistakable.
Benson jerks the flashlight back to the dummy he’s just swept past. His breath catches in his throat as he realizes what he’s seeing isn’t a mannequin at all.
Chapter 32
What’s taking so long?” Marjorie Wilson says, staring across the street.
The police officer—was his name Benson?—went into the house several minutes ago. Roy is standing in the yard at the bottom of the porch with three other officers, shuffling his feet impatiently, like it’s merely an inconvenience that a whole squad of police have taken over his lot and are keeping a crowd of onlookers at bay.
Marjorie has a sick feeling that the police officer is going to emerge from the house and say nothing looks amiss. That they’ll then drive away as if nothing is wrong.
But that’s not what happens.
Across the street, the officer bursts from the house in a sprint.
“Arrest him!” the officer shouts. “Cuff him!”
Roy Kirk tries to run, but one of the officers grabs his arm. He twists free, but the other officers spring into action. One grabs Roy’s other arm, and another wraps his arms around Roy’s torso.
Roy kicks and flails. He clenches his teeth and growls like a rabid dog.
Benson jumps off the porch and joins the fray. Soon the four of them have Roy pinned down on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back. He fights against the cuffs for a few seconds, then gives up. His body loosens, resigned to its fate.
“Oh, no!” Roy wails, his voice a haunting cry that Marjorie and the others will remember for the rest of their lives. “Kill me! Please, kill me!”
The men lift Roy and carry him bodily toward the police van while another officer pulls open the back door.
“Kill me!” Roy moans again. “Kill me!”
Chills race over Marjorie’s body, covering every inch of her skin.
When Roy is locked inside the van, he thrashes around for a long minute, shaking the whole vehicle. His cries of “Kill me! Kill me!” can be heard outside.
Then the van goes silent.
Marjorie’s hands cover her face. Her breathing is shallow. Everyone in the crowd is aghast.
The police are in a fervor, talking on radios, securing police tape in front of the property.
Marjorie can’t stand it anymore. She marches across the street with Ted Fontana.
“You have to tell us what is happening!” she demands.
Officer Benson approaches with his palms raised. Something in his face, in the pallor of his skin, takes the fire out of Marjorie.
“Ma’am,” he says, “we found the body of a woman in Mr. Kirk’s basement. We haven’t confirmed if it is Ann Hoover, but we suspect that it is. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
