Murder — His and Hers

World’s Greatest Mother

Mark Twain once came to town. He wrote about seeing the most magnificent sunsets here. Nestled serenely on the Mississippi River, our little city offers its citizens good quality life.

But all life ends, eventually. Sometimes abruptly.

My name is Joan Munday. My partner is Frank Lausen. We make up one-third of the six man — actually, five man, one woman — detective unit of the Port City Police Department.

It was Saturday, June 18, a day so perfect I could have killed to be out with Dan and the kids on the river: but instead, Frank and I were called to a new housing addition on the north side of town.

The homes in Mark Twain Meadows were expensive — by small town standards, anyway — with manicured lawns and well-tended flower gardens. The streets had quaint names — Samuel Clemens Road, Tom Sawyer Drive and Huckleberry Finn Lane.

We pulled up in front of 714 Pollyanna Place, and got out.

Walter, our crime lab technician, met us at the door. He was pushing fifty, balding, and looking tired.

“This way,” he said, turning.

We followed.

The living room was tastefully decorated — perhaps too tastefully; it could have been the showroom of a pricey furniture store: couch and chairs matching in fabric, pictures and knick-knacks coordinating in color, all working together in harmony to produce somebody’s idea of wonderful. Not mine. I couldn’t imagine anyone “living” in this living room.

And there was one person who obviously agreed with me.

He was stretched out on the floor, on his face, in front of the fireplace, like a big bear rug. About six feet, two hundred pounds, he wore black cowboy boots, blue jeans and a torn white T-shirt. His hair was blonde — except on the left side of his head, where it was now a blackening red.

Walter broke the silence. “A single blow to the head. His name is Travis...”

“I know who he is,” I cut in.

Every town has a bully. Travis Wykert was ours. As far back as junior high, his penchant for pounding those smaller than him had got him in trouble with the law. As an adult, he’d been brought up several times on assault charges, but no one would testify.

“That the weapon?” asked Frank. He was a sandy-haired, husky man in his late twenties — ten years younger than me. He gestured toward the couch, where a trophy lay encased in a clear plastic bag.

Walter nodded. “Wiped clean.”

“Went there,” Frank said, pointing to the mantle above the fireplace. “See the spot in the dust?”

I looked, and caught my reflection in the large mirror over the fireplace; should have spent a little more time on my hair this morning.

I crossed over and picked up the bagged trophy, a heavy bronze statue of a woman holding a baby. A plaque on its base read World’s Greatest Mother.

“Where’s the owner?” I asked Walter.

“In the kitchen,” he said, “down the hall.”

The kitchen, in the back of the house, was a bright, spacious room, so clean the cabinets gleamed. But like the living room, it too didn’t look lived in. There was nothing on the counters, not even a toaster. Lace curtains framed the windows, while flocks of country geese roamed the walls.

At a round, oak table sat three women. The one on the left, smoking a cigarette, was middle-aged. She wore dark slacks and a black turtleneck top. Her brown hair, streaked with gray, was short, mannish. She wore no make-up.

The woman in the middle, in a white skirt and a blouse with kittens on it, was also middle-aged. Her hair was dark blonde, shoulder-length; her face was obscured, buried in her hands as she sobbed.

The one on the right was young and slender, with long, ice-blonde hair. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt with a Port City Community College logo on it. The girl sat motionless, in apparent shock, staring, her face a mask.

A uniformed cop, who was first at the scene, stood behind them taking notes on a pad.

“This is Louise Harris,” he said, pointing to the woman in the middle. “She owns the house. And this is her daughter, Laura.” He gestured to the young girl. Then he nodded to the woman on the left. “That’s Pamela Schultz. She’s renting a room.”

I approached them. “Who wants to tell me about it?” I asked.

Pamela Schultz threw her head back and blew out smoke, then stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray. “He was hurting Laura so I hit him,” she said, matter-of-factly, like she was giving me the weather report.

Louise Harris looked up from her hands. Her eyes were red, swollen, her face puffy. “Don’t try to protect me, Pam,” she said. “I did it.”

Now the younger woman, Laura, turned her face toward me, slowly, robot-like. “They’re both lying,” she said softly, and then announced, as if ending a game of Clue. “I killed Travis Wykert in the living room with the trophy.”

It was 4:35 in the afternoon when we got back to the Public Safety Building — a big, modern, red-brick affair we shared with the Fire Department.

We were faced with a unique problem: usually it was hard enough getting one confession; now we had three.

The women had each been Mirandized; all three declined an attorney.

I waited with Frank in the interrogation room.

“Because the suspects are female,” I said to him, “we might do better if I take the lead. But jump in when you want to.”

He nodded.

“But no good cop, bad cop crap,” I warned.

“Got ya.”

The interrogation room door opened and Pamela Schultz was brought in. I nodded toward a chair. She sat, sullenly, legs crossed, one hand resting casually on the table.

“I called your probation officer in Colorado,” I said. “She said she couldn’t understand why you left friends and a good-paying job to come here.”

“I had permission,” the woman shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to do something different.”

“Like work at McDonald’s?”

She looked away.

“What’s your relationship with Louise Harris?” Frank asked.

She looked over at him. “I’m renting a room from her,” she said.

Frank smirked.

Pamela’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not lovers, if that’s what you’re getting at... God, you men are all alike.”

Then she looked at me. “And you’re just as bad... I can tell what you’re thinking.”

No, she couldn’t — but I let it go.

“How well did you know Travis Wykert?” I asked.

“I’ve never met him before today,” she said. Then she leaned forward, spreading the fingers of the hand that lay on the table. “Look — I’ve already given you people a confession. What more do you want? That creep was beating on Laura so I stopped him. If you ask me, I did the world a favor.”

I leaned in. “Then why are both Louise Harris and her daughter taking credit for your good deed?”

“How the hell should I know!” she said. “I mean, do you really think either of them could have done it? Louise is afraid of her own shadow, and Laura was obviously under the spell of that sadistic bastard.”

“So you stepped in,” Frank said.

“I’ve done it before.”

I looked at Frank; he raised his eyebrows.

I walked around the table and stood next to Pamela Schultz, placing a hand on the back of her chair. “And paid twenty long years for it,” I said, putting compassion into my voice. “But it doesn’t hardly seem right,” I continued, “considering how that man abused you.”

Her body stiffened.

“Back then,” I said, moving closer, “rights for abused women weren’t in fashion.” I whispered in her ear, “Today you would have walked.”

A look of agony passed over her face, then sudden rage.

“I told you I killed the bastard,” she snapped back. “Now quit wasting my damn time!”

“If you did kill him,” I said, “you’ll be doing plenty.”

“Plenty of what?” she smirked.

“Time.”

Louise Harris sat fidgeting, a bundle of twitches and tics. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to come on strong and watch her dissolve into a puddle of protoplasm, or take a more humane approach.

I chose the latter.

“Just relax,” I said to her, reassuringly. “That’s right, take some deep breaths. Now, I want to know exactly what happened this morning.”

She sighed. “It was about eleven,” she said, her voice quavering. “Pam — she’s renting a room from me — and I were in the kitchen having coffee when I heard the front door bang open. Somehow, instinctively, I knew it was him, and I was frightened for Laura...”

“Why?”

“He’s hit her before. A few weeks ago she came home with a black eye. Said she’d run into something. But I knew who did it. I told her I was going to call the police... but she said she wouldn’t cooperate.”

Louise Harris looked at me with sad, swollen eyes. “Do you know what it’s like to have to sit by and watch your child throw her life away?” she asked. “Ever since her father walked out on us five years ago, it’s like she wants every man in her life to treat her badly.”

Mrs. Harris buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

I took some Kleenex from a box on the table and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

I waited for her to compose herself.

“Getting back to this morning,” I said, “where was Laura when Travis Wykert entered the house?”

“Laura was in the living room, reading,” Louise said. “By the time I ran out of the kitchen, that man had her cornered in front of the fireplace. He was shouting at her, slapping her.”

“What was he shouting?” Frank asked.

Louise looked at Frank, then turned her head, avoiding his gaze. “I... don’t remember,” she said haltingly. “Obscenities. Things...”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Pamela — she was standing next to me — tried to pull him off Laura, but he threw Pam onto the davenport. That’s when I picked up the trophy and...”

She lowered her head, crying softly into the tissue.

“Come now, Mrs. Harris,” I scoffed gently, “you don’t have the stomach to commit murder, now, do you? Stop covering up for Pamela Schultz. The most she’d get is manslaughter.”

Louise Harris looked up angrily. “May I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Do you have any children?”

I nodded again.

“Then you can understand how a parent feels when their child is in danger... you would give your life for that child, you would do anything... even kill.”

The woman was right.

“And I hated that man!” Louise Harris said viciously. “I wanted him out of Laura’s life!”

I looked down at her. “I’m afraid you’ve got that wrong, Mrs. Harris.”

“How’s that?”

“He isn’t out of her life yet.”

“I’d been seeing Travis for about six months,” said Laura. She seemed composed, but her eyes were haunted. “Could I please have a glass of water?”

I looked at Frank, who left the room.

“I know what people thought of him,” Laura said, “but I saw something different: a frightened, abused little boy. His father beat him. I guess I thought I could help him — which was a laugh, considering what my own father did to me...”

Frank returned with the glass of water and set it on the table in front of Laura, who took a drink.

I waited.

“A while back,” she continued, “I came home with a black eye. Travis and I had an argument.” She paused. “Well, actually, I won’t lie... he hit me for no good reason. My m-mother was furious. She wanted to press charges against Travis, but I told her I loved him and I wouldn’t cooperate.”

Laura took another sip of water.

“Shortly after that, she rented a room out to that woman. At the time I couldn’t understand why — we didn’t need the money.”

“Did you know the Schultz woman was convicted of murder?” I asked.

She shook her head, then she nodded, “Not at first. But I found out later.”

“Your mother brought this woman in to kill Travis Wykert,” I said flatly.

“No!” Laura said sharply, “That’s not true!”

“Then what is?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Pamela Schultz is my m-mother.”

“What?” Frank and I said.

“My natural m-mother.”

Frank and I exchanged wide-eyed glances.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“I think I always suspected. But I knew for sure the moment I saw Pamela Schultz... and my own eyes looked back at me.”

Laura told us that she had confronted her adoptive mother who said that she and Pam were best friends in high school. After graduation Pam got married and moved away. A year later when Pam came to visit Louise — who herself had gotten married — she had a new baby. But Pam didn’t seem happy. Pam asked Louise to take care of the newborn while she visited another friend. It was a few days later that Louise heard Pam had killed her husband.

“So my m-mother... Louise Harris... kept me as her own,” Laura said, “and never told me about any of it... until my real mother came around...”

The room fell silent.

“Why did she come around?” I asked, finally.

“To try to talk some sense into me.”

“About Travis abusing you?”

“Yes.”

Frank asked, “Why was Travis so pissed off when he came to see you this morning?”

Laura winced. “He wanted me to get an abortion. I told him I wouldn’t.”

“Did your mother know you were pregnant?” I asked.

“Which one?”

Frank rolled his eyes.

“Either,” I said.

“Well, they both knew after he started yelling about it.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“When Travis hit me, Pamela attacked him. But he threw her off. Then Travis looked back at me with such hatred that I was really frightened... I was scared for me, and the baby! I grabbed the nearest thing I could get my hands on, a trophy I had given my m-mother...”

Laura stared at her hands. “Funny,” she said, “a decision you make in a split second can change the rest of your life... or somebody else’s...”

She looked up at me with eyes that pierced me.

“Don’t you see?” she said, pleadingly, “I had no choice. I couldn’t get an abortion.”

She shook her head. “No... there was just no way I was going to do that. After all... that would be murder.”

It was 8:45 that evening when I stood with Frank on the steps of the Public Safety Building, watching the three women get into the backseat of a squad car.

We let them go. For now.

“I have a feeling,” I said slowly, “that we may never solve this one. Hell. Maybe I should have been tougher on ’em.”

The car door slammed shut.

“Know what I think?” Frank said.

“What?”

“I think that each of those women thinks that she really did it...”

The car pulled away from the curb.

“...that for one moment, in front of the fireplace, the urge to kill Travis Wykert entered all of their minds... and then it didn’t matter whose hand actually held the trophy.”

I looked at Frank. “But if you had to pick one, who would it be?”

He looked at me, shrugged. “Who cares who killed Travis Wykert?”

We watched the squad car, until it disappeared into one of those magnificent sunsets Mark Twain wrote about.

“Not me,” I said.

Then we went back into the station.