MURDER ON THE ROCKS

by

Ann Lynes

"Bobbie Holbrook." The only words I caught in her explanation were the words she uttered when she faced me. My husband--and partner--signed the other words in North American Sign Language. "Tell me what you saw--in detail."

"I gave all this to the Police."

"And they turned the case over to me." I walked over to the woman, kneeling beside her. "I understand how hard this is, but it is important."

The woman shook as she watched the water. I put my arm around her shoulders. I tried to keep my eyes in view of her lips. "He was motionless when I pulled him out. He couldn't have been more than eight." Her eyes filled up with tears; one escaped down her cheek. "He was a purplish- blue. Very cold."

"What was he wearing?"

Her lips quivered. Tears flowed more freely now. "Blue jeans, a white short-sleeved shirt with a collar, no shoes or socks."

"Can we drive you home?" I smiled back at Greg. Standing with his arms wrapped around his chest, I could tell he didn't like the idea. I turned back to the woman.

"No, thank you, I'd like to sit here awhile longer." The woman looked back at me. Her eyes puffy and red. "I'll be fine. I live down the way." She pointed toward the houses east of the canal.

I hesitated before handing her my business card. "If you need or remember anything, call me." I turned my back on her, heading toward Greg. I decided to find out the boy's identity and who his parents were.

I hated autopsies. No matter how many I attended, it didn't become easier. The lifeless form rested on a long, rectangular table, metallic in color. A little boy--a blond crew cut, emerald eyes--dressed in the jeans and white shirt the woman at the canal described.

Doctor Sampson pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then covered her mouth with her mask. Unbuttoning the boy's bloody shirt, she revealed the long, deep scars that cut up his pale chest.

My heart skipped a beat. Had the boy been in a fight? Was he beaten up? Or almost as an afterthought, I wondered if he'd been in an automobile accident?

A police officer flashed a camera, capturing the scars on film. Another doctor helped Sampson sit the corpse up and remove his shirt, turning the corpse over. More scars on the back, long and short. Reddish in complexion. Streaks of crimson ran down his skull.

Doctor Sampson walked around the body, talking into her mini tape recorder. "Victim doesn't appear to have died from drowning. Rather it seems he slammed his head into something or was struck in the head." She moved to the boy's head, ruffling through the his hair. "As if his head went through a window."

I gasped. A car accident? His head could've went through the windshield, but why would someone want to throw the body into a canal, unless... Unless foul play was somehow involved. Who would want to throw him into a canal? And was it a stranger or a loved one? I gasped again. What if it was a parent?

"After taking blood and hair samples, we are waiting for the results of the DNA tests." Sampson frowned as she unzipped the boy's jeans. "The results of that and the fingerprint test will be concluded shortly."

I clutched my stomach. Sharp pains piercing through it. I excused myself, barely making it to the door. I never felt so ill at the sight of a victim. Something about this victim repulsed me. Maybe it was his age, or maybe the description of what happened. Greg followed me into the hallway.

With the DNA and fingerprints' results in hand, Greg and I climbed out of the black Z-28 Camero we parked in front of an old Victorian house with a white picket fence.

As we unlocked the splintered gate, we walked up the sidewalk. The brown grass smelled like cod gone bad. Empty beer bottles thrown in the unfertile flower bed. The white paint chips fell of the walls, and the rickety roof had numerous holes. Did we have the wrong address. I double-checked the address.

Greg knocked on the wooden door several times before a woman, probably in her late thirties, appeared. She was dressed in a tattered, pink bathrobe. Her hair wrapped in multi-colored curlers, covered by a hair net. She gave me a weak smile. "If you are from the police..." Her breath reeked of Scotch.

I handed her my Private Investigator's license. "I'm investigating your son's demise."

She stood to the side, letting me in. "Just you." She stepped in front of Greg.

"I'm deaf. I can read lips enough to get by if you're facing me." I turned to Greg. "He signs for me."

Putting her hands on her hips, she had a sour look on her face. "If you are deaf, why can you talk?"

I smiled. A relevant question. Should I bore her with the details of my brush with spinal meningitis? No. "A disease when I was young claimed my hearing." I headed past her into the house. I watched as she allowed Greg. "Tell me about the night your son disappeared."

She picked a few clothes off the couch, so we could sit down. Then sat in the recliner opposite the couch. "Jimmy--my oldest son--was suppose to pick Rick up from school." Sitting on the edge of the recliner, her hands folded in her lap, she looked down at the floor. A creme carpeting that looked as if it had seen its share of Kool-Aid spills, dogs, and dragged-in mud. "Jimmy said he waited for two hours, and Rick never showed up."

"I assume you contacted the police."

"Immediately." She glanced up at me. Her eyes were red; tears welted up in her eyes. "He was missing for two weeks. It's so hard...," she covered her face with her hands.

"Not knowing whether your child is alive or dead is always hard." I moved to the floor, inching toward Mrs. Porter. I whispered, "Did you contact his teachers, school, friends?"

She gazed at me through her fingers. "They know nothing."

I smiled. "Of course." I touched Mrs. Porter's hand. "Don't worry, Mrs. Porter, I'll find out what happened to your son."

That was the last time I saw Mrs. Porter before the funeral.

A witness came forward after the body was found. Greg and I were to the first to interview him. We arranged for him to stop by the office. When he arrived, I offered him a seat in a leather chair in front of my desk. He glanced at my framed articles on the walls. My wall of honor, so to speak.

After the introductions, I sat on the ledge between the desk and Mr. Anderson. My fingers steepled. "What happened that day, Mr. Anderson?"

He kept his hands stuffed in his pants pocket. A scowl on his face. "I drive home every day around three in the afternoon. I always slow down to pass through the school zone."

"What was different about that day?"

He closed his eyes. His hands now holding the armrests tightly as if he were going to take flight. "A green '78 pickup, beat-up, motley-painted, if I recall, was swerving through the school zone. He was going in the opposite direction, but he came too close for comfort." He shivered, opening his eyes. He remained silent.

"What happened next?" A swerving pickup? A drunk driver? Either the pickup hit Rick Porter, or the pickup contained him.

"The green truck slowed down to pick up the boy." He closed his eyes again. "I could see him in my rear view mirror." He leaned forward. "Next thing I heard was the crash."

"When you looked back, what did you see?"

He rose from the chair and walked around the small office. "I saw that green pick-up had slammed into the car in front of it." He moved through the filing cabinets and bookcases to my kitchenette. Leaning against the counter, he continued, "I pulled over and ran to the accident."

"What did you see?"

"The boy flew through the windshield." He poured himself a cup of coffee in my white monogrammed mug. "I took the boy's pulse. He was dead."

"Did you contact the police?"

"Yeah, but by the time they arrived, the driver had drove the boy to the hospital, or so I thought." He wiped his forehead with his arm. More in relief than wiping away the sweat. "I tried to stop him. I really did."

"What about the car the driver hit?"

"She stuck around long enough to give me her license plate number and information." Anderson handed me a deposit slip. I flipped it over to find the other information such as her social security and license plate number.

He gave a quick excuse and left the room. Something about another engagement. An interview with the Police, I suspected.

The other driver--Karen Login--didn't lead me to the green pickup, but after Greg spent hours calling towing companies and junk yards, he finally located the green, beat-up, '78 Chevy truck with many different color chips remaining from previous paintings. We found the vehicle in a heap yard seven miles from the Porter house. I was able to get the junk yard owner to let me investigate the car.

It looked smashed in the front. Serious damage--the hood was crumpled up tighter than an accordion. Putting my arm through the rolled window, I unlocked the driver's side door. A hole remained in the wind shield on the passenger's side.

I climbed in, and after pulling on my white gloves, I put my hands on the steering wheel in the nine and three o'clock positions. Then reached around under the seat, searching deeply until I felt a cold, glass bottle. A liquor bottle, I assumed. Upon retrieving it, I spotted the Jack Daniels label.

I pulled out the ashtray. Cigarette butts. I leaned across the seats and opened the glove compartment. Inside, I found another bottle of Jack Daniels and a plastic bag filled with a white powder.

Drinking and doing drugs. No wonder Mr. Anderson saw the pickup swerving. I got out of the car, smiling and thanked the junk yard owner, jotting down the license plate--AGL-485.

When I arrived back at the office, I shut the door behind me. I sat down in my chair. Greg was on his way home, to cook dinner.

Turning on the computer, I smiled at our gold-framed picture set on my desk. Our offices were adjoining with only a pull-out partition in between.

I held the mouse, dialing up my Internet account. Once inside, I composed a note to my friend, Zeke Valentine, at the Motor Vehicle Department. Could you run a trace on license plate AGL-485? E-mail me with result. With a click of the mouse, the message was sent. The name of Rick's killer would be in tomorrow's E-mail. I turned off the computer, grabbed my briefcase, and went home.

I tossed and turned all night trying to figure out what exactly happened. The next morning I went out to the scene of the crime--Williams Elementary.

If a drunk Jimmy picked Rick up, Jimmy could be driving the green pick-up. Or maybe what Jimmy told his mother was correct, and a stranger picked Rick up. But why throw Rick's body into the canal? Maybe because the person didn't want anyone to know about his addictive behavior.

I headed back to the office, sorting the whole affair out as I drove. By the time I arrived at the office, I still wasn't sure Jimmy did it.

Greg and I stood in front of Mrs. Porter's house again. The yard looked as bad the second time. I knocked on the door. I imagined the sounds of footsteps, surrounded by children laughing and screaming. I vaguely remembered what noises sounded like.

Mrs. Porter opened the door, but this time she stepped outside. She was dressed in a navy business suit like she was on her way out. "I don't know what you think you are doing--"

I held my hand up. "I know what happened to your son." I paused a moment before continuing. "A witness saw Rick in a green, '78 pick-up truck. Does Jimmy own a vehicle like that?"

"Jimmy didn't pick Rick up." She stood with her back toward me. "I told you that."

"Mrs. Porter, Rick was killed when the green pickup struck another car in front of the school." I suddenly realized Jimmy hadn't picked Rick up. I had a hunch who did. "Alcohol and drugs were involved."

"Did you find the killer?" Turning around, she folded her arms.

I moved toward her. "You picked Rick up, Mrs. Porter." I inched closer, remembering the empty bottles outside in the flower bed. "You were drunk out of your mind." I stopped about three inches away from her. "When you crashed into the other car, when Rick's head crashed through the window, you panicked."

"Throwing him into the canal?" She threw her head back and laughed. "Nice theory, Detective Holbrook, but I would try and pin this murder on someone else."

"I suspect the fingerprints on the car are yours, Mrs. Porter. I suspect your fingerprints will appear on the Jack Daniels bottles as well."

Reaching into her blazer pocket, she retrieve a .38 revolver and aimed it in our direction. "Like I said, pin this murder on someone else."

I tried to stay calm as I looked down the barrel. I was never so glad to see the Mirada Grove Police as they snuck behind Mrs. Porter. As they hand cuffed her, I saw her lips form the words, "I never meant to kill my son." Tears streamed down her face. Another Case closed.