Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder!

A GRAIN OF TRUTH, by Leone Ciporin

The truth is, I don’t care enough about anyone to think about killing them. I generally keep to myself. So I certainly never planned on writing a story about murder. But the idea popped into my head, and it wouldn’t leave me alone.

I don’t write fiction and, more importantly, I don’t know where to sell it, so I pushed the thought away. I had a living to make. Planted in a sandy railroad town on the outskirts of the square states, far from the center of the literary world, I make the most of my remoteness by writing magazine articles about a neglected region.

My last assignment had not been my favorite, mainly because of an unpleasant interview with an antiques appraiser. Though the receptionist worked with all the offices on his floor, she didn’t seem overworked. She peered at me above a tabloid. “Yeah?” Very professional.

“I’m here to see Will Renswick. I have an appointment.” I stared pointedly at her empty desk calendar.

She waved a hand behind her. “Last one on the right.”

Last one on the right was a miniscule room still reminiscing on its likely origin as a closet, with stacks of boxes covering two walls and a battered desk along a third. A small, dust-covered window offered hope of escape. The man inside looked as if he’d just crawled in through that window. Mud-splattered boots, worn jeans, and sunburned cheeks all testified to his preference for the outdoors.

“Mr. Renswick?” The room couldn’t hold us both, so I stood in the hall and held out my business card. “I’m Annabelle Gilbert. I called you last week?”

He took the card. “I remember.”

I pulled out my notebook. “I’m writing about Western antiques-spurs, buckles, boots. For example, the Spanish spurs, espuela grande-how have they been adapted?”

The man talked. And talked. Leaning against his desk, he launched into a lecture that gave me way more information than I needed. He extolled the craftsmanship of spurs and the skill of those who made them, including Oscar Crockett.

“Any relation to Davy?” I asked, mainly to stop the flow.

“Not that I know.” He looked down at me through half-closed eyes. “Why aren’t you home making dinner for your husband?”

I showed him my teeth. “Because I have to earn the dinner before I can cook it.” I tapped my notebook. “What about today? What kind of spurs do cowboys wear?”

“Little lady, pickup trucks don’t need spurs. There aren’t many real cowboys today.”

“There are still cows, right?” I spoke just loud enough for him to hear.

The bellow that emerged made me jump. “How dare you tell me about cowboys! Get home where you belong!” He punctuated his instruction with a door slam in my face. I avoided the receptionist’s stare as I left.

I’d been glad to finish that article and move on to one on railroads, even though I was stuck on how to approach it. I pushed myself away from the computer, dumped Cat off my lap, and brushed orange fur from my knees. After Cat followed me home last year and stayed, I refused to name him Marmalade or Fluffy or Pumpkin. I named him Cat because that’s what he is. I’m a nonfiction type of person.

Cat settled himself in his usual corner of the sofa as if the move had been his idea. Though my apartment is minimalist-bare floors, no pictures on the wall-after Cat arrived, I bought a lumpy, overstuffed sofa at a garage sale. He accepted the gift without a trace of gratitude. I liked that about him.

I captured my hair into a ponytail and shrugged on a thin sweater against the morning breeze before heading down to the coffee shop. After standing in line behind two women chatting about a reality show, I eventually got my latte. Gripping my cup’s cardboard sleeve, I skirted the edge of the café to sit at a table for two in the back corner. In my case, a table for one. Other customers crowded by the window, but I prefer walls. The boundaries are clearer.

I sipped my coffee and pushed my mind toward conductors and stationmasters. Then, like train cars coupling, the story idea, the Renswick interview, and the railroads connected. Murder on the Orient Express. Cowboy collides with caboose. Something like that.

Steamed milk dripped onto my knuckles as I trotted back to my apartment. My fingers couldn’t hit the keyboard fast enough. I churned through search engines to see how killing someone and tossing them off a train could look like an accident. I came across references to bodies found near train tracks over the past several years, along with cargo thefts where police suspected a group of transients. I put the two together and patterned my crime like a gang killing, so the murderer could blame it on the gang. The cargo thieves had never been caught, so I looked up local gangs and learned all about them: the Hobo Gang with their black bandannas, the Losers with their snake tattoos, and even a gang that only took in guys who had already been in prison. Ideas snapped into place, and I alternated between the Internet and the story, folding in the search results as my plot hit critical points.

By midnight, the tips of my fingers were sore, my brain felt pleasantly emptied, and a passable draft stared back at me. I saved it to my hard drive and launched myself onto my bed, so tired I fell asleep in midair.

After I finished my railroad article, I re-read my murder story. Half-decent. Fully decent for my first try at fiction. By the end of the week, I’d begun exploring fiction markets to find out who’d pay me for it.

Saturday afternoon, two plainclothes cops showed up at my door. One was tall and very nice looking; the other was short and somewhat wide. The tall one spoke. “Ms. Gilbert? Annabelle Gilbert?”

At my nod, they flashed badges and the tall one said, “I’m Detective Brogan and this is Detective Short.” I didn’t smother my laugh fast enough, and Short glared at me. Brogan asked, “Do you know a Willard Renswick?”

Oh, no. Whatever he’d done, I did not want to be involved.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

Brogan looked at me through tangled blond lashes, then at my apartment. I took the hint. “Would you like to come in?” I asked. They walked in before I finished the sentence. As they scanned the apartment, I was grateful for its neatness, but, watching Brogan stride across the room, I regretted not losing those ten extra pounds.

Brogan perched on the edge of the sofa while Short stood next to it, his head now slightly above Brogan’s. Cat, displaced from his spot, watched from the kitchen, tail twitching.

I sat in my desk chair and swiveled to face them, wishing I’d worn a skirt. “What can I do for you?” I asked. What had Renswick done?

“Are you sure you don’t know him?” Short said.

“No, I’m not sure. I meet a lot of people.”

Brogan raked a hand through short hair. “How so?” He softened the question with a smile from bright blue eyes.

My anxiety began to blend with a different kind of excitement. I don’t meet many men with eyes like his. “I’m a freelance writer, mostly articles on the Old West, that kind of thing.” A strand of hair wandered into my mouth, and I pushed it aside. “So I interview people.” I stabbed a glance at Short. “I’m careful to get my facts straight.”

“Mr. Renswick was found dead earlier today,” Short said. “His wallet was gone, but your business card was in his pocket.”

No way I could stay uninvolved now. “Dead? And he had my business card? What does-did-he do for a living?”

Brogan flipped open a notebook. “Antiques appraiser.” He ran a finger down his notes. “Also worked on a ranch.” A real cowboy, after all.

I nodded. “Oh. The antiques guy. I interviewed him about an article on Old West artifacts.”

Short had moved next to me. He pointed to my desk. “You’ve got a lot of material here on trains.”

As I tilted my head to face Short, I saw Brogan’s mouth twitch. Not a flirtatious twitch. Uh oh. “I just finished an article on railroads for a travel magazine,” I said.

Short’s black eyes glimmered. “Mind if we take a look?”

Shark-movie music played in my head as I pulled up the article and wheeled back to let Short shuffle closer. His bulbous nose nearly touched the screen. Brogan crossed the room to lean in behind him, his taller frame forming a second quote mark around Short’s body. Brogan’s eyes formed slits and his square jaw moved back and forth. I wasn’t sure he was cute anymore.

The two men straightened in unison. Brogan flicked a glance at Short, who mumbled goodbye and left. Returning to the sofa, Brogan sat on its corner and asked, “When did you meet with Renswick?”

I spread my palms. “A few weeks ago, I guess.”

“But you didn’t remember him.”

I abandoned being agreeable. “I didn’t remember his name. Look, what’s going on here? You said this guy Renswick was found dead? How did he die?” I was betting his wife had done it. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

Brogan aimed his beautiful eyes at me. “He was murdered. His head cracked open and his body thrown by the train tracks just east of here.”

Goose bumps crawled up my arms. “Train tracks?” Nausea now joined the goose bumps for a plague-like effect.

He lowered his head to stare at me from the roof of his eyes. “I have a few more questions.” Brogan peppered me with queries on my background before getting up to leave. Despite the eyes, I was glad to see him go.

When Short returned with a warrant for my computer, I nearly cried watching my livelihood disappear down the stairs. As soon as he left, I looked up lawyers, called the one with the biggest ad, and made an appointment.

Frank Gaston’s office resembled an anthill, with phones ringing, keyboards clicking, people trotting the hallway. Though I saw only four people, they seemed like a hundred. After the din outside, his private office seemed like a retreat, with white walls, an occasional photograph, neat bookshelves, and a spotless desk.

He motioned me to sit. “You’re taller than I expected.” His voice carried a reassuring rumble.

“What did you expect?” I slid my purse down by my chair.

“I heard that Brogan called you ‘petite.’”

My cheeks burned. “You’ve been talking to the cops?”

“I have a contact there. I like to know what I’m getting into.” He leaned back. “They think you did it. There’s some incriminating stuff on your computer, and Renswick’s receptionist said you and he weren’t exactly buddies.”

A concrete block landed in my stomach. I didn’t see the leap of logic from my arguing with Renswick to my murdering him, but a jury might.

“I didn’t do it.” I explained about the interview, my railroads article, and my mystery story. He told me not to say anything when they arrested me, except to ask for a phone to call him.

A few days later, as Gaston predicted, Short arrested me. The clincher was my computer, my research on train murders, traced through cookies, the footprints computers leave behind. The cops pulled up my searches on past train murders, forensics sites on how to kill someone, law enforcement sites outlining homicide investigation techniques. Gaston told them about my mystery story, which, of course, the cops found on my computer, but they must have thought I’d killed Renswick and then written about it-committing murder and then trying to make money off it. I was annoyed that they thought I’d be that stupid.

So I ended up in the county jail in an orange jumpsuit. All the other inmates wore one, too, so no one-upping each other in fashion. I shared a room of bunk beds with ten other women, each with her own rehearsed defense. A roomful of story leads. If I ever got out.

Gaston had told me the police found black fibers under Renswick’s fingernails. Renswick had probably clawed at his attacker, so the fibers could be from the killer’s shirt or…I remembered the Hobo Gang wore black bandannas. Could that be it?

Thanks to a pending civil liberties lawsuit, the county was experimenting with limited Internet access for legal research. They’d blocked the best sites, allowed only an hour a day, and had a guard pacing the room, but I took full advantage of it. Research is my business, and I’m good at it.

I searched the web for arrests and incidents close to the train tracks and found an article on the recent arrest of a drifter named Randy Bonner on assault charges. His mug shot showed a torn black bandanna around his neck. Yes!

I alerted Gaston. He seemed less than impressed, telling me, “Plenty of bandannas around.” But I pressed him to let me talk to Brogan, enduring a flood of caveats, cautions, and objections before he finally agreed.

Brogan would have been a fine sight in any event, but he was especially dazzling after staring at gray jailhouse walls. I wanted to swim laps in those eyes.

“You wanted to see me?” Brogan leaned back in his chair in the stark interview room like he was in someone’s comfortable living room. His eyes drifted from me to Gaston and back. “Ready to confess?”

“If I ever do anything worth confessing, I’ll let you know.” Then I laid out the documents I’d printed and ran through how I’d found Bonner. He picked up each one as I spoke, eventually shepherding them into one neat pile. “I’ll look into it.”

After several more days with my life hovered on pause, he matched Bonner’s bandanna with the fibers caught in Renswick’s fingernails, and I became a free woman. Brogan met me at the jail entrance with my computer, offered me a ride, and said to call if I needed anything.

I grinned into his blue eyes. “I love Italian food.” If I started writing mysteries, I’d need a cop for a friend. Especially a cute cop.

When he dropped me off, I handed him my card, and he gave me a sideways smile, holding up my card with two fingers as I shut the door.

The next morning, I celebrated my freedom with a visit to the coffee shop. Brushing pastry crumbs off the newspaper story on Bonner’s upcoming arraignment, I tried to feel sorry for the dead Renswick, but not a finger of pity crossed my heart. Instead, I leaned against the wall, hooked my jeans around the chair legs and, holding my cup in a salute, I toasted myself with a victory latte.

The way things had turned out, I’d have no problem selling my story.

When she’s not writing mysteries, Leone Ciporin works in public affairs for an insurance company. Her short story “A Rose by Any Other Name” was published in Chesapeake Crimes II, and several of her mini-mysteries have been published in Woman’s World magazine. A member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, Leone lives in Virginia.