The Influencer, page 18
part #10 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
“Oh hey, Micah. You guys waiting for the insurance company people?”
“Howzit, Mr. Flanagan,” Micah said weakly.
“Call me Pat.”
“Micah is the insurance company people,” I said. “You’re a claims adjuster, right?”
“Administrative assistant to the claims adjuster.”
“Isn’t that great? Good for you, Micah. Anyway, Pat, come sit down.”
“What?”
“Sit down,” I insisted. “I need to tell you something.”
Pat pulled over a chair and sat.
“Mr. Henriques is over there in the rental unit,” I said. “I called the police and they’re on their way.”
“He won’t leave? I can talk to him.”
“No. No, Pat, he’s dead. Mr. Henriques is dead.”
“Does he have a pulse?” Pat asked.
“Does who have a pulse, the man who’s dead?”
“I mean, did you check for a pulse? Maybe he’s just unconscious.”
“He didn’t fog a mirror, Pat. He’s cold.”
“Oh. Man, that’s terrible.”
We sat uncomfortably for a few moments.
“Pat, you’re fidgeting. Go ahead and get up. I just didn’t want to throw the news at you out of the blue.”
Pat sprang up and headed to the coffee machine.
“I wonder if it has something to do with Jandie Brand,” he called from the kitchen.
“I heard she faked her death, you know,” Micah said.
“Oh that’s right,” I said, “I forgot your cousin works at the police station. What have you heard?”
“The husband is saying it was a publicity stunt gone wrong. I don’t know what she needed to do that for. She’s already famous.”
“I imagine he’d like some publicity for his book,” I said.
“Jandie’s husband wrote a book?” Micah’s eyes widened. “Is it about Jandie?”
“No, it’s about him. What was the title of it, Pat? I Am Very Smart, or something.”
“Rhyme and Reason,” Pat came back holding a coffee mug. “Sorry, did you guys want coffee?”
“No thank you,” I said. “We were instructed to drink water. So that’s what we’re doing.”
“So Micah, what do you think?” Pat eased back into the chair. “Do you think Ladd’s telling the truth now?”
“I don’t think so,” Micah said. “Cause if Jandie’s alive, how come no one’s seen her? And if the dead girl isn’t Jandie, how come there’s no missing persons report matching the girl’s description?”
“Good points,” Pat said.
“There’s something else too,” Micah said. “I’m not supposed to say nothing about it, but the husband, yeah? He says there’s a reporter who can back up his story. But the police went and talked to the guy—”
“A reporter?” Pat interrupted. “Is it Howdy Howell? Red-haired guy?”
Micah shrugged.
“I dunno the name.”
“Sorry for interrupting,” Pat said. “Go ahead, Micah.”
Micah leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
“Here’s how come I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Cause the police went and talked to the reporter, and the reporter guy told ‘em Ladd’s lying, but he’s not gonna say anything about it in public cause he’s scared of Ladd.”
Pat stood up.
“I should call Howdy.”
“Don’t tell him what I told you,” Micah pleaded. “I wasn’t supposed to say nothing.”
“No, I know, Micah.” Pat ambled into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. “I’m just going to check in, see how he’s doing.”
CHAPTER 42
I HEARD A KNOCK AT my front door. When I opened it to invite Detective Medeiros in, I saw an ambulance pulling away slowly down the street. I was relieved Medeiros hadn’t made us go look at the body.
“Just a few questions for you,” Medeiros motioned us to sit back down, and I realized Pat and Micah were hovering behind me. “All of you, please. Okay.”
He took a notebook and pencil out of the front pocket of his aloha shirt.
“We’ve confirmed that the deceased appears to be Reynolds Henriques, of 31 Uakoko St,” Medeiros said.
“Reynolds?” I said. “Huh. I guess I never knew his first name.”
“Did Mr. Henriques have any conflict with anyone you know of?” Medeiros asked.
“Molly thought he was a little creepy,” Pat said.
“Pat! I never said that. Micah, it’s not true, just so you know. I always tried to be nice to Mr. Henriques.”
Pat shrugged. “I’m just saying. If he made that kind of impression on you, he might’ve rubbed someone else the wrong way too.”
Medeiros wrote something in his tiny notebook and addressed the next question to me.
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary, as far as Mr. Henriques’s behavior, or the things he was talking about? Did he seem concerned for his own safety, or was there anyone he had a conflict with?”
“I spoke to him at our homeowners’ association meeting,” I said.
“When was this?” Medeiros asked.
“Friday,” Pat said. “Remember, Molly? You and Emma were scheming about giving me the third degree about my conversation with Howdy, and then you remembered you had to go to your meeting.”
I shot Pat the stinkiest stinkeye I could muster before answering Medeiros’s question.
“It seems we have a fact-checker-in-residence,” I said. “How fortunate. Yes, Pat is correct, it was Friday evening. I was talking with Harriet Holmes. Mr. Henriques joined our conversation and started going on about how it was too bad Ladd wasn’t going to get the death penalty, how he wasn’t good enough for Jandie, and so on. He had a crush on Jandie, from what I could see. He told me he sent her flowers.”
“See?” Pat said. “Creepy.”
“Hm.” Medeiros wrote in his tiny notebook. “Anything else you can think of?”
I couldn’t think of anything to add. We all sat quietly until Micah broke the silence.
“He was next to the aquarium,” Micah said. “Maybe he was looking at it when he died. An’ someone snuck in through the front door behind him.”
“The aquarium!” I exclaimed. “Thank you, Micah. Remember, Pat? Mr. Henriques told us Ladd had told him to take care of the aquarium in his absence.”
Medeiros set down the notebook.
“If Mr. Henriques was angry at Edward Ladd, why would he agree to take care of Mr. Ladd’s aquarium?”
“Well he wasn’t angry at the fish,” I said. “I think he saw it as more of a privilege than a chore. But assuming Mr. Henriques is...was telling the truth, why did Ladd plan for someone to watch his fish in the first place?”
Medeiros wrote something in his notebook, tucked it back into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Here, let me show you something.” Medeiros unfolded the paper and handed it to me. It was a photocopy of the back of a postcard.
I’ll be there tonight. Don’t keep me waiting.
“This handwriting look familiar to anyone?” Medeiros asked.
We passed the paper around and examined it in turn, but none of us recognized the writing. The letters were printed, not cursive, and not particularly distinctive.
I went to my file cabinet and pulled out the rental contract. The only handwriting of Ladd’s was his signature, which looked like a tangle of thread. I handed it to Medeiros so he could take a closer look.
“That’s the only sample of his writing I have. Sorry.”
“Don’t you have an autographed book?” Pat said.
“Shoot, why didn’t I think of that? I do. Good thinking, Pat.”
I pulled the book down and opened the yellowed pages to the inscription on the front. I set the photocopied note next to it.
To Amelia, the inscription read. Always Play it Safe. Followed by “Tedd” Ladd’s scribbly signature.
“He misspelled your name,” Pat was peering over my shoulder. “Why is it so hard to write Amalia?”
“I was at the bookstore with a whole bunch of people waiting behind me in line. I didn’t want to make a fuss.”
“Why didn’t you just tell him to write Molly?” Pat asked.
“Because people misspell Molly too. Doesn’t matter. Do these two samples look like the same handwriting to anyone?”
“No,” Pat said.
“Nuh-uh,” Micah said.
“May I borrow this?” Medeiros asked.
“This book has sentimental value,” I said. “And the pages have gotten kind of crumbly. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a picture of the inscription and email it to you.”
Micah insisted on returning to work. He wouldn’t hear of going home and resting. I was sure the insurance company would have given him the day off given the circumstances, but he seemed eager to get back (and, I assumed, tell everyone what he’d seen).
When Micah and Detective Medeiros had left, I stood up and stretched.
“So I’m already late to the Gen Ed committee meeting,” I told Pat. “I need to get going. If you see Emma can you tell her what happened?”
Emma called me that afternoon when I was driving home.
“I’m coming over,” she said. “You want me to bring a pizza?”
“If you want pizza. I do have food, though.”
“Not in the mood for chicken katsu and chow mein again, no offense to Donnie’s Drive-Inn. You like pepperoni and sausage?”
“Yes. Extra cheese too please if you don’t mind.”
CHAPTER 43
“WOW, POOR MR. HENRIQUES.” Emma lifted a slice of pizza onto her plate. “So you think Ladd had him killed?”
“What’s Ladd’s motive?” Pat asked. “It’d be kinda stupid of him to arrange the hit for when he’s in jail but get the guy killed right inside his own house where anyone could find it.”
“Maybe he knows something about how Ladd killed Jandie,” Emma said. “You know how nosy Mr. Henriques was. I bet he saw something he shouldn’t have.”
“That could’ve been one of us,” I said. “We all went poking around in there. Harriet and Nigel too, come to think of it.”
“Maybe it was one of Jandie’s crazy fans,” Pat said. “Could be they thought Henriques was Ladd. Although they don’t look much alike.”
“Pat,” Emma said, “Jandie’s husband is so nondescript, Molly didn’t even recognize him even though he’d signed a book for her in person.”
“It was twenty years ago,” I said. “He still had some hair. But yeah, fair point.”
“Now, let’s talk about this call I got from our friend Rainbow,” Pat said. “About how Jandie, if she were alive, wouldn’t feel safe until Ladd was behind bars.”
“Maybe Rainbow thinks Jandie’s husband killed her, and she wants to make sure he’s punished for it,” Emma said. “It’s a reasonable position to take.”
“Except it’s not a campaign,” Pat said. “She only called me. I got ahold of Howdy and he said he hadn’t heard from her.”
“Well you went out of your way to go down to Kuewa and leave her your card,” I said. “Did Howdy do that?”
“Do you remember the phone call?” Emma asked.
Pat leaned back, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.
“It was after Ladd came on the evening news,” he said. “My phone rang. I left the room and answered it. It was Rainbow from Little Jack Horner’s. I hope it’s okay to call you, she said. You left me your card. Yeah, great to hear from you, I said. She sounded nervous and I wanted to make her feel comfortable. Then she said, I’m not saying Jandie’s still alive or anything, but if she is, she’s not gonna show her face until that man’s behind bars for good.”
Pat opened his eyes and helped himself to another slice of pizza.
“Call her back,” Emma urged Pat.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I trust her story.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I’m not sure she’s reliable. I mean, you know.”
“Cause she’s from the halfway house?” Emma said. “What, you think she’s not trustworthy cause she made some bad decisions in life? It’s only the right kind of people who have a monopoly on the truth? What kind of elitist are you anyway, Pat?”
Pat grumbled about Emma knowing how to push his buttons, but he pulled out his phone and dialed. He listened, introduced himself, and listened some more.
“We’re at Molly’s house,” he said. “No, not her. The other one. The one who sent her water glass back because she thought it looked dirty. Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
He looked at me.
“Molly, she wants to talk to you.”
I took Pat’s phone and put it to my ear.
“This is Molly,” I said. “Look, sorry about the glass, I didn’t realize it was part of the design—”
“You got a good internet connection where you are?” Rainbow asked.
“I think so.”
“I’m gonna give you a link,” she said. “You got something to write with?”
I frantically pantomimed writing. Pat handed me a pen and folded down the pizza box so I could write on it.
I was going to repeat the website address back to her to ensure I got it right, but she’d already hung up.
CHAPTER 44
THE NEXT MORNING, I made a personal trip to the Mahina police station to see Detective Medeiros. He was skeptical. At first, he didn’t even want to watch the video I’d downloaded. But when I finished playing it for him, he demanded to see it again. He told me he’d handle it from there.
By that evening, Detective Medeiros had arranged a press conference. The local evening news was there, represented by a single cameraman. The print press was there as well, in the form of Pat Flanagan and Howdy Howell. The conference took place in the Mahina PD main meeting room. A few uniformed police officers hung out in the back, watching.
Detective Medeiros didn’t want Emma and me in the room, but he couldn’t stop us from lurking outside in the hallway. The wooden double doors had glass windows, crisscrossed with black wire in a diamond pattern. The wire may have reinforced the glass but didn’t affect the visibility. The doors weren’t soundproofed either, fortunately for us.
Medeiros loomed behind a tiny podium at the front of the room.
“I’m here tonight,” he said, “to share with you a development in the disappearance of Jandie Brand, a new resident of our island. Ms. Brand went missing on March fifteenth. Tonight, we have new evidence that may shed light on the situation.”
Pat and Howdy Howell stood side by side against the wall. Pat typed on his phone while Howdy scribbled in a steno pad.
Medeiros stepped away from the podium and a television monitor mounted on the wall behind him flickered to life.
The video showed a darkened bedroom, as cramped as a monk’s cell. The image was tall and narrow, as if it were being filmed from inside a closet or through a partly-open door. Something that looked like a heap of blankets lay on the narrow bed. The camera zoomed in and out and focused near the top of the pile of blankets. The image snapped into focus, showing a tangle of dark hair protruding from the blankets.
We heard a hammering noise, and then a man’s slurred voice.
“Jandie? Jandie, where’s the light. Jandie. Talk to me.”
Medeiros walked to the back of the room, toward us. He planted himself in front of the door, blocking our view. The pattern of his aloha shirt filled the window.
“Why doesn’t he want us to see?” I whispered to Emma.
“Ssh, we can still hear,” Emma said. “Besides, we already watched it.”
“I know, but I want to see the reaction.”
“Too good fer me?” the man on the video cried out. “Yrr too good fer me, ‘s that it?”
We heard a low-level commotion in the conference room. Voices murmuring, a chair scraping.
From memory, I knew the press conference attendees were now watching a man enter the darkened room, his back to the camera. The camera shook a little but kept its focus on him.
“Y’ gonna say somethin’ to me?” The man cried. “You gonna lie there an’ ignore me?”
I hadn’t recognized the voice right away the first time I’d seen the video. But now, hearing it a second time, it was unmistakable.
Inside the room, it grew quiet. I knew they were watching the man in the video raising something over his head, preparing to bring it down full force onto the bed.
“Still wish you were watching?” Emma whispered to me.
“No,” I said.
“You shoulda gone with me,” the man on the video cried. “You had your chance!”
The rest of the soundtrack was sickening thuds, slurred swearing, and panting as Howdy Howell brought down the shovel as hard as he could, over and over, until he was exhausted.
The video ended with Howell wiping the shovel on the bedspread and walking out of the shot.
Emma and I stepped aside as the doors swung open. We watched Howdy Howell being led out of the room in handcuffs by the uniformed police officers. Howdy was not taking advantage of his right to remain silent.
“Golly, I don’t get it,” Howdy was objecting. “You don’t really think it was me doing those awful things, do you? Guys, this is an awful misunderstanding.”
“Whoever was filming, how come they didn’t they stop him?” Emma said.
“So there would be two murder victims instead of one?” I replied. “If I’d been the one hiding in the closet and filming, I’m not sure I would’ve been brave enough to jump out and intervene. Would you?”
“Yeah, I dunno.”
We watched the cameraman and the other reporters follow Howdy Howell down the hallway. Finally Detective Medeiros came out. Instead of following the crowd, he came over to Emma and me.
“Professor Nakamura. Professor Barda. You did the right thing leaving the investigation to us.”
It wasn’t exactly the outpouring of gratitude I thought we deserved. I was the one who had given Medeiros the video, after all. But it was probably as much appreciation as I’d ever get from Mahina PD. At least when Detective Brian Medeiros told me to butt out, he was tactful about it.
