Michael McGarrity - Everyone Dies

“No, nothing like that,” Tafoya said. “His employer reported that he hasn’t been at work for the last two weeks. How do you stay in touch with him?”

“By letter. I can’t call him from home. Stanley would know about it when he paid the phone bill.”

“Does Noel call you?”

“Only very rarely when he has to cancel our lunches because of work.”

“And he didn’t call to cancel last Saturday?” Cruz asked.

“No.” She touched a finger to her lips. “Now I’m worried.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Tafoya said. “Do you have Noel’s letters?”

Meredith Olsen stiffened. “You have to understand that Stanley has no son, and I’m not supposed to either.”

Tafoya smiled sympathetically. “Your husband doesn’t have to know about my visit.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Did Noel ever talk to you about getting even with the people who sent him to prison?”

Mrs. Olsen shook her head vigorously. “He made a terrible mistake and he knows it. He’s tried hard to put that behind him and become a good person. It does happen, you know. People can change for the better.”

“Would you get Noel’s letters?” Cruz asked gently. “They could help us locate him.”

“I don’t see how,” Mrs. Olsen said.

“The more we know about him, the more likely we are to find him.”

She left and returned with a shoe box filled with letters. She gave Cruz the box reluctantly, as though turning over a priceless treasure.

He promised to return the letters at a time when Dr. Olsen wasn’t home, said good-bye, and walked to his unit, thinking how the ripple effect of murder always seemed to destroy so many lives beyond that of the victim.

Tafoya called dispatch as he rolled out of the driveway, and gave an ETA to headquarters. He was eager to read what Noel Olsen had written to his mother.

The last room to be tossed again was the kitchen. In a coffee can at the back of the top shelf of a pantry, Ramona found Olsen’s passport and six hundred dollars in unused traveler’s checks.

“Seems you were right,” she said as she showed the items to Clayton.

“That’s our second interesting anomaly,” Clayton said with an approving nod of his head. He opened the door to what he thought would be the back porch and found that it had been sealed off and turned into a utility room that contained a fifty-gallon propane water heater plus a washer and dryer.

Clayton stepped inside and closed the door. There were a number of what appeared to be scuff marks made by rubber soles on the door and the bottom horizontal plate showed a fresh crack. He knelt down for a closer look. Someone had kicked the door repeatedly, and not with the tip of a shoe. There were full footwear impressions on the painted wood.

He gauged the length of the room. It was just long enough for a man to lie prone. He swung around and examined the water heater that sat on a raised plywood platform. It was a fairly new fifty-gallon tank painted a light gray. At the base of the unit was a series of scratch marks that had exposed bare metal. He ran a forefinger along the scratches and looked at the light coating of paint dust and metal particles on his fingertip. From the feel of it, the scratches ran completely around the tank.

He turned to the washer and dryer. The unbalanced dryer wobbled badly when he jiggled it, and there was a dent on the side about six inches above the floor. He opened the dryer door and caught the strong odor of mildew. An unused fabric softener sheet sat on top of wadded-up clothes. The dryer hadn’t been used in some time.

Clayton checked the washing machine, found it empty and dry, and went back to the water heater. There were a few brown spots on the side of the platform and a yellowish stain on the middle of the linoleum floor.

He went into the kitchen where Thorpe and Pino were looking behind the refrigerator and under the sink. “Let’s get some techs out here,” he said.

“What have you got?” Thorpe asked.

“It could be a crime scene,” Clayton replied. “I think somebody was kept prisoner in the utility closet.”

“Another victim?” Pino asked as she flipped open her cell phone and made the call.

“Yeah, maybe,” Clayton said. “But who?”

“A third anomaly,” Russell Thorpe said as he peeked into the utility closet and saw nothing that pointed to a person being kept captive. He decided not to question Sergeant Istee about it. “What next?” he asked.

Ramona held up the address book she’d found in a drawer next to the wall phone by the refrigerator. “First, I need to bring my lieutenant up to speed.” She spoke to Thorpe, deliberately excluding Clayton. “Then, let’s start calling people. If Olsen really is our perp, somebody he knows should be able to tell us something of value.”

“I’ll work part of the list,” Clayton said.

“That’s not the role of an observer,” Ramona replied.

“Do you really want to waste time arguing with me about it?” Clayton asked.

Ramona paused and thought about it. Technically, she could order Istee to back off, but she didn’t want to do it. He was sharp, experienced, and had been more than helpful. “Okay,” she said, “you’re in.”

Samuel Green parked in front of the Laundromat on St. Michael’s Drive, grabbed the pillow case filled with his dirty clothes, and walked inside. The place was empty except for a long-haired college kid who was sitting at a table next to the wall dispenser that changed bills into quarters for the machines.

Green dumped his pillowcase on top of a dryer, which made the kid glance up from his book. Green smiled and the kid nodded in reply and went back to scribbling notes on a yellow pad.

He stuffed his laundry into a machine, poured in some detergent, and walked to the change machine. The kid slid his chair out of the way so Green could get by.

“How you doing?” Green asked, as he inserted the bill into the machine and waited for the quarters to drop down into the slot.

“Good,” the kid replied.

“Studying?” Green asked as he fished the coins out. The kid couldn’t be more than twenty.

“Yeah, summer school. I’m taking a required history course.”

“I like history,” Green said as he started up the washing machine. “You can learn about a lot of interesting people.”

The kid made a face. “Not me.”

“Why not?” Green asked as he sat at the table.

The kid closed his book. “It’s just a survey course of names, dates, and events that you’ve got to memorize, and the instructor is real lame.”

“That’s too bad, because history can be real educational,” Green said. “Like this place, for example. It’s got some history.”

The kid laughed. “What kind of history does a Laundromat have?”

“There was a murder here a long time ago,” Green replied. “An old lady was beaten to death with a hammer.”

“You’re kidding. Right here?”

“That’s right. She owned the place and came in one night to fill up the soap dispensers and collect the money from the machines. She got robbed and killed.”

“No shit? Did they catch who did it?”

Green nodded. “Yeah, a fourteen-year-old. They say he hit her ten times with the hammer. Burst her head open like a melon. There was blood all over the place.”

“Gross,” the kid said. “Did he get sent away for life?”

“You can’t do that to a fourteen-year-old,” Green replied. “In this state, young kids can’t get sent to prison. They get adjudicated and sent to reform schools. Except now they don’t call them that anymore. But they’re still under lock and key.”

“What happened to him?”

“They had to release him when he was twenty-one. Then he just disappeared.”