Eileen Dewhurst - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 112, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 684 & 685, September/October 1998

“This is Joleen Pennybacker. Furs; thyme, not potpourri. It was all dried thyme; scents, not perfumes. The murder weapon, a blood-covered stick, a red stick. Furs, thyme, scents, red stick. First time since Redstick. He’s announcing his appearance. He’s telling us where he came from. I did this one and I said, Triplett, you’re crazy. You’ve tortured the data beyond recognition. You’re the infinite number of monkeys. Voila! Random hammering on the keys and we get Hamlet. Once, perhaps. What if they’re all meaningful and related? God couldn’t make enough monkeys to pull that off.”

I picked up the next picture. “This is Martha Dombrowski. Remember, ignore her body. Left to right: can, not food, not beans; look at the T-shirt: University of California, U C is visible, the rest needs a magnifying glass; and meat. Then: a donut and a gun. Can U C meat. Donut a gun. Can you see me? Done it again. Again. Number two. It only makes sense as the second of a series. They either both make sense or neither of them does.”

I exchanged photos. “Here’s Eleanor Gelman. These coins, I counted them. All pennies. Copper. Coppers. The shirt: University of Richmond, same maker. UR, then a dumbbell. The twenty, that stumped me. Money, greenbacks, dollars, currency, a bill, Bill, his name? It’s Jackson’s face on the bill. See how her thumb is pressed over it. Then her ankles. Tied? Knot? Tube? Hose? Bound.” I stopped to see if she was convinced. She looked like she was trying to suppress a grimace. Her plum-colored lips darkened.

“Cops, you are dumbbells, Jackson bound .” He’s going to Jackson. That’s where his next victims will be found. Some town named Jackson.”

I leaned back. Monica looked into her cup. No help there.

“I know: A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Perhaps, but I know one thing for certain. A demonstrable scientific fact.”

“What’s that?”

“If I’m right, Earl Munsey couldn’t have killed those women.”

“Why?”

“He’s dyslexic, and he has a sequencing disorder. He reverses letters and words. He couldn’t put a rebus together.”

“A rebus?”

“That’s what I think they are. It’s a kind of puzzle where images stand for the syllables of words.”

“We’re halfway home. If I’m right, then Earl Munsey is indeed innocent. Now we have to prove that I’m right. But that’s for tomorrow,” I looked at the clock, “or later, whichever comes first.”

“You can crash here if you want. I made up the bed in the guest room.”

“No, I don’t think so. Besides, wouldn’t that get you in hot water with your ex? Most custody orders forbid overnight guests of the opposite sex.”

“Yeah, well, John isn’t in any position to dictate terms to me. Not with him out every night being true to his new gay identity. I may have been just a treatment plan for John when we were married, but I’m a whole lot more trouble now.” She nodded, agreeing with herself.

I remembered why I quit doing custody work and switched to criminal. Too much violence in the custody work.

“I just think it’d be confusing for Justin to find me here when he wakes up. Tell him I haven’t forgotten my promise. I’ll play with him next time I’m over.” I wondered if she’d remember to do that. If not, I’d call him myself. If you couldn’t keep your word to a child your priorities were in serious disarray.

I put my work in the file, took my mug to the kitchen pass-through, and wished Monica good night.

“Thank you for everything. Even if you can’t prove your theory, I appreciate how hard you’ve worked, and I’ll tell Earl you did all you could. But I have faith in you. If it’s there, you’ll find it, that’s what Paul Talaverde said about you.”

“Yeah, well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I’ll call you when I know something.” I waved and turned down the steps.

“Good night, Dr. Triplett. And good luck.”

She was still outlined in the doorway, her head resting against the frame, when I drove away.

The first thing I did the next day was call Ermentraut. He was in court, so I left a message. Then I tried Bigelow.

“Homicide, Detective Bigelow.”

“Detective, this is Dr. Ransom Triplett. I wonder if I could have a couple of minutes of your time.”

“Couple of minutes, sure. What about?”

“Earl Munsey.”

“Oh Christ. Are you one of those bleeding hearts that thinks we shouldn’t execute this bastard? Let me tell you something. I was there. At the scene. At the morgue. I saw what he did. I’ll sleep like a baby the day they serve him up the juice of justice. Goodbye...”

“Whoa, whoa, just a second, please. This is not about whether he should be executed. I’ve been going over the file as a consultant to his attorney. Personally, I think you guys have the right man.”

“Damn straight we do. And another thing, that confession was pristine. Clean all through. We never touched him. We read him his rights. What were we supposed to do? Talk him out of it? Oh no, Mr. Munsey, that would be unwise, here, let us call a lawyer for you. Why don’t we just stop trying to catch anybody? He freaking confessed. What do these people want?”

“Well, detective, I just want to ask you a couple of small questions, so I can explain them to his attorney. It just might put this whole thing to rest.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“The things that were around the body. That Munsey planted at the scene...”

“You mean like the gun, the tubing, that stuff?”

“Yeah. Did any of that lead anywhere?”

“No. The stuff at the first scene came from the model home. Except the herbs that he spilled. We took his picture to local groceries. Nothing. The food was from the owners. The gun was a Saturday-night special, cold, no serial numbers. We hit all the gun shops, the known dealers. No one could ID Munsey. Same thing for the tubing, the dumb-bell. He could have gotten them anywhere. Yard sales — hell, he could have stolen them out of a garage. None of that stuff went anywhere.”

“Last question. The blood spatters on the floor. Detective Ermentraut’s notes aren’t clear. The blood spatters at the scenes aren’t the victims’. Whose were they?”

“Uh, let me remember. I think it was victim number one’s blood at the second scene and number two’s at the next one. Yeah, that’s right.”

“Could you tell me the victims’ blood types?”

“Yeah, hold on. We pulled that jacket on account of people like you. This one is not gonna get away.”

I doodled on my pad. Zeros, large ones, small ones. Then I linked them. All the little naughts going nowhere. Earl Munsey was moving slowly, inexorably towards eternity.

“Okay. Here’s the lab report. You want the DNA markers and everything, or just the type?”

“Blood type is fine.”

“Girl number one was O positive. Girl number two was AB. Girl number three was B positive. No, that’s the stains. The girls were AB, B positive, and A.”

“You ever find the third girl’s blood?”

“No. He must have stashed it somewhere. We figure he’d have used it at the next scene. But then there wasn’t a next scene.”

“Thanks, detective.”

“No problem. Six days and it won’t matter anymore.”

“Yeah,” I said and hung up. Unless you’re wrong. Then six days from now it’ll matter forever.

I spent the next two days pursuing my theory without any success, although my geographical knowledge was enormously enriched. I learned that there were eighteen Jacksons in the United States, strung from California to New Jersey and from Minnesota to Louisiana. Almost all were small towns with few homicides and not one that looked at all like my rebus killer.