Bonne Femme

Chapter 15

Mic Boyd's Home Town

Cassville, Missouri, September 5

        The next morning he got up early, shaved, dressed, and went to the motel office for coffee.  He bought a local paper and took it to the car to kill time until she was up and ready to go out for breakfast.  At seven he heard a door shut and looked up to see her walking toward the car.  The restaurant next to the motel didn't open until afternoon, so they drove south on Highway 86 until they found the appropriately, if not imaginatively, named 86 Cafe.

A middle-aged waitress wended through the half filled café dispensing refills and menus.

"Do you have rye toast?" he asked.

"White and wheat," replied the waitress as she snatched a pen from her hair.

"I'll have an order of the whole wheat and coffee."

"And I want the biscuits," said Jill.  "Do you have tea?"

"Iced."

"Then coffee.  Do you have honey?"

 

268.

"That we have, Sugar.  Anything else?"

"I think we're good with that," Richard told her.

Their meager order drew a dour smile, but no comment.

        "The Barry County courthouse opens at nine," said Richard when the waitress left to refill cups at a table where a gaggle of old men were holding forth on the upcoming election.  It sounded like an argument except that they all seemed to be in agreement.

"Preaching to the choir," he said sotto voce after a particularly raucous outburst.

Jill's brow furrowed a moment and then she nodded.

"Loudly declaiming to the already convinced," she said.  "I have not heard that idiom."

        "You're remarkable.  You don't have an accent, so it's easy to forget that English is not your native language," he said.  "How many languages do you speak anyway?"

        "Only French and Spanish well," she said seriously.  "Dialect English gives me difficulty.  As you have noticed, I use inappropriate words sometimes.  Have you studied another language?"

        "Typical American," he said with a smile.  "I'm not smart enough to speak anything but dialect English."

        "It is not intelligence," she said as she opened her purse.  "There is a newspaper vending machine outside.  I want to read a metropolitan paper."

        "I'll get it for you.  I got a local one earlier.  It's in the car and I'll bring it in too.  We have some time to kill before things open."

        They continued to pretend that nothing had happened the previous evening, but awkward silences and clumsy conversation belied the fiction.  Richard paid early and gave a large tip to assure frequent refills while they read the Cassville and Springfield papers while waiting for offices to open.

 

        At the Cassville Democrat they were told that back issues were available on microfiche at the library.  They walked two blocks north where a solicitous old lady retrieved the archives and showed them how to use the viewer.

 

269.

        "Let me," said Jill.  "I am familiar with this old technology, and I scan quickly.  The murder was in May of 1989, was it not?"

        "Yeah, and afterward check the police reports to if ‘Boyd' pops up.  He was a juvie at the time, so his name won't be listed, but maybe other members of the family will be."

"If there is anything here I will find it," she said confidently.

"Then I'll leave you to it.  Will you be okay here while I go to the courthouse?"

"Of course."

 

Making a Fool of Oneself

        Richard walked to the courthouse, arriving at nine-thirty.  The directory just inside the entrance directed him to the third floor.  Ghostly footsteps and indistinct voices echoed eerily from the polished granite interior as he ascended the stone staircase.  The second door from the landing had Barry County Sheriff stenciled on its translucent window.  Door glass rattled as he went in, drawing the attention of a grandmotherly woman behind a teller's window.

"Can I help you?" she asked, looking over her bifocals.

        "I'd like to talk to the sheriff," he said, suddenly unsure as to what he would tell the man.

"And the nature of your visit?"

"I need information about a crime that took place here several years ago."

She eyed his clothes.

"I assume you're not here in any official capacity?"

"No, ma'am.  This is a personal matter."

        "I see.  Then perhaps you should tell me what you want instead of bothering the sheriff.  I warn you though.  You may be wasting your time here.  All the information that we have released can be found in back issues of the newspaper."

        "A friend of mine is at the library doing that right now.  I thought perhaps there might be something the sheriff or someone here could tell me that didn't make it into the paper."

 

270.

"In general things that weren't released won't be."

"What about case files?"

"Those aren't available to the public."

        It was the stonewall he was afraid he would run into.  He thought of a way he might be able to shake something loose."

        "There was this crime here that happened some time ago, a high school girl about eleven years ago---"

        "Why can't you people just leave it be?," she interrupted indignantly.  "You keep dredging up all that sadness.  Let the poor child rest in peace and leave her family alone.  The last time a reporter came here it---"

        "No, ma'am.  I'm not a reporter.  I 'm here because I think an acquaintance of mine may have had something to do with her murder."

She picked up the phone and punched a button.

 

"Hand over your driver's license," said a decidedly unamused sheriff.

        Richard handed it over and watched as the man alternately punched a keyboard and manipulated a mouse.

        "Okay, so you're clean," said the sheriff, swiveling back to hand back his license.  "Now tell me where you are staying while you're doing your ‘research.'"

        "At the motel on the south end of town," said Richard.  "But I registered under a false name."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because of the guy I told you about.  I don't want him to find me."

The sheriff's disbelief was more than evident.

        "Wait.  I know someone who can sort of vouch for me, JR Reeves.  He's a deputy sheriff up in Lake County, Michigan.  His number is---"

        "Easy enough.  I'll just call the sheriff's department up there," said the sheriff without making a move to pick up the phone.

 

271.

         He was obviously watching to see Richard's reaction.  The only thing Richard worried about was that JR might not be on duty.  Luckily, JR was in the office.

"Deputy Reeves, do you know a Richard Carter?"

He listened without taking his eyes off Richard.

"What kind of nut is he?"

He nodded slowly, apparently listening to a lengthy reply.

        "I see.  Well, you could have fooled me.  He says he's down here looking into a cold case of ours.  Do you know anything about that?"

        He listened again to a lengthy reply, thanked JR perfunctorily, and hung up with a mild look of disgust.

        "Okay, Mike Hammer, tell me how you think you can find out what we overlooked?"

        "I just think I may have the name of a suspect that you might not have considered at the time.  A guy names Mic.  I have a strong suspicion that he killed her."

"And what can we attribute this strong suspicion to?"

        Richard told him first about the fight and the ambiguous remark Mic had made that led him to discover the murder of Carly Williams.  Then he told him about the disappearance of Rose Ford and the subsequent discovery of her body.  Finally, he backtracked to his suspicions about Mic in Somalia.  The sheriff listened impatiently but without interrupting.

"That's it?" he asked as soon as Richard had finished.

"Yes sir."

"Not worth a damn as evidence.  And why would he tip you off like that?"

"I don't know."

        "Well I do.  He was yanking your chain and you fell for it.  He's probably back there right now laughing his ass off and telling your buddies how you ran off down here to check him out."

 

272.

         Richard could easily see how the sheriff had come to his conclusion, but he was still disappointed that he didn't show even the slightest inclination to investigate Mic.

        "Can you spare some time to just talk about the case?  Maybe you could tell me some things that didn't make it into the paper?"

        "I can't.  The case isn't closed.  You know how that works, you being a genuine deputy and all."

Richard ignored the sarcasm.

        "I'm not asking you to give me details only the perp would know.  You'd need those to validate a confession or trip up a suspect during interrogation."

"Well, you get an A in Crime Fighting 101."

"At least let me tell you the name of the guy I think may have had something to do with it and---"

"You mean the guy that you think killed her."

"His name is William Boyd.  He grew up here."

Mentioning Mic's name only drew a sour look.

        "Look, Sheriff.  Let me tell you exactly where I'm coming from.  I'm not actually in the department, right now.  And when I was, I was never involved in any kind of investigation.  I only worked rural patrol for about a year after I got out of the Marines.  Right now I'm in college working on a degree in criminology.  I'm telling you all this because I want you to know I have absolutely nothing to hide."

        The Sheriff got up from his creaking swivel chair and poured a cup of what smelled like two-day-old coffee.  He spoke to Richard over his shoulder.

"Sure.  That's why you registered under a fake name at the motel."

        "I told you.  That was so that it would be harder for him to find us if he followed us down here."

        "Get out of here, Mr. Carter.  I can't keep you from poking around, but I sure as hell won't appreciate it if you bother that girl's family."

 

273.

         "I won't bother the Williams family, Sheriff.  I promise," said Richard, rising to leave.  "By the way, were you on the force when it happened?"

        "Yeah.  We talked to half the people in the county and came up dry.  What are your chance of finding something now?  We're talking evidence, Mr. Hammer.  Unless you have some, don't waste any more of my time."

"Could you tell me anything---"

        "I may not be able to put a stop to your nonsense, but I sure as hell don't have to help you with it."

"Can you at least tell me if you ever questioned William Boyd?"

        "Don't remember," he said with disinterest as he went to the door and held it open as an invitation for Richard to leave.

        "Now, why don't you go see what Mrs. McCoy is doing?  Maybe she's found out that Professor Plum did it in the library with a lead pipe?"

 

        Jill waited until they were seated at a storefront café before handing him a folder with a half dozen sheets of handwritten excerpts from the microfiche files.

        "I didn't find much that we didn't already know," she said as soon as the waitress had taken their order.

        "That first article tells of the crime, the next two about the investigation, and the rest are just summaries and pleas for people to contact the police if they know anything.  They continue for almost a year like that, but get shorter and less informative as time progresses."

"Summarize how they think it happened," he said.

        "She went to the dance, but left after having a fight with her boyfriend---whether she left alone or by herself, no one knows.  That was around nine or nine fifteen.  No one saw her after that until her body was discovered.  Her boyfriend and her other friends stayed at the dance until the coronation of the prom queen at ten-thirty.  A patrolling deputy found her body early the next morning in a mobile home south of town on . . . I have the name of the road.  The home belonged to a divorced man whose wife moved out two months before it happened."

"Was he a suspect?"

        "No.  He was out of town.  They think someone broke into the trailer and took her there."

 

274.

She looked up at him.

        "That means that whoever it was knew the man would not be coming back, doesn't it?"

        "Probably.  So it was someone who lives here---maybe he even lived close to the trailer.  We need to find where the Boyd's were living at the time."

"I did all right then?"

        "You did great---a lot better than me.  The only thing I managed to do was convince the sheriff that I'm a bumbling jackass, which seems to be pretty much the case."

"But you told him about Mic?"

        "Yes, but he didn't give it a second thought.  He already had his mind made up about me.  The problem is that there are details about the crime that he could have shared, things that haven't been released yet."

"So he will be of no help?"

"The most I can hope is that he doesn't arrest me for impersonating Mike Hammer."

"Then we will have to find other information ourselves," she said.  "We can do this."

"What can we find that hasn't been in the paper?"

        "Much, Richard.  His background, what people thought of him, perhaps why he left here.  One never knows the value of information until later.  At least that is the way research works."

 

275.

 

Discovering Mic and Carly

 

        After lunch Jill scanned police and sheriff's reports on the microfiche while he roamed the stacks and atrium looking for local material.  He happened upon something one would only find in a small town library:  a collection of high school annuals.  On the dedication page of the '89-90 volume he found a full-page picture over the caption, In memory of Carly Williams.  We will miss you..  From across the years she looked out with confident dark blue eyes.  Shoulder length coal black hair framed her pale face.

        A beautiful girl, he thought.  A real person, not just something that happened long ago.

       He sat down and leafed through the yearbook, finding other pictures:  Carly as Treasurer of the Beta Club, as Editor of the school newspaper, as a member of the yearbook staff, and various other group pictures. 

       A small black and white of a lanky teenager with close-cropped hair in the sophomore class pictures was the only one he found of Mic.  He looked altogether unremarkable except for the familiar cocky smile.  Either too young, or too insignificant for the small clique that produced the yearbook, he had not been immortalized with a special place in the annual.  It wasn't unusual.  A small circle of athletes and other activists comprised the bulk of all yearbook photos.  Obviously Mic had not been in that group, at least not in his sophomore year.

       Scanning later yearbooks, he decided that Mic had never become a member of one of the important groups.  That didn't mean that he had been isolated or resentful, he reminded himself.  Many groups into which one might fit in high school didn't find their way into yearbook or receive recognition at the awards assembly.  Richard photocopied the names of Mic's fifty-four sophomore classmates and returned the annual to its place.

       At three Jill finished the microfiche files.  Richard carried the box of cards back to the desk.  An elderly lady took it with slightly shaky hands, the librarian who had greeted them having gone for the day.

"Have you two just moved to town?" the old lady asked in a perky voice.

"No, we're just visiting," he said.

        "Well, I hope you found what you're looking for.  Are you doing genealogical research?  A lot of people are nowadays.  If so, we have several local histories:  Barry County, of course, and most of the surrounding counties too.  They're poorly written, but have a lot of the names of the early settlers.  There are also cemetery registries."

 

276.

         "We're interested in the family of William Boyd," said Richard.  "Do you happen to know if they still live here?"

        "William Boyd?  Now that name sounds familiar.  Yes, it is familiar, but I can't place it.  Was he an old settler?"

        "No.  He's about my age.  There's a picture of him in one of the annuals.  Let me get it."

         Richard brought the yearbook to the circulation desk and turned to the sophomore portraits.  "There," he said, indicating the picture.

        The old lady squinted through her thick glasses.  "Yes, of course.  I remember young William.  An unusual one.  Most children that age don't come to the library much, but that shy little fellow checked out a lot of books."

        "Are you sure it is William Boyd you remember?" he asked as Jill joined them at the front desk.

        "You think maybe this old woman has a few too many jokers in her deck?"

        She smiled tolerantly at him.  "No.  I remember young Master Boyd.  He was a handsome lad, but somewhat sullen.  He never wanted any help.  He would go directly to the section he needed, and took no time at all to pick the book he wanted."

"Do you remember the sort of things he read?" asked Jill.

        "That's why I remember him so well.  Philosophy.  Can you imagine?  He checked out books on philosophy.  I imagine that if you checked some of those books back when we still used the sign out cards, his name would be the only one on many of them.  We switched over to scanning about six years ago."

"Mind if we look through the stacks for awhile?" asked Jill.

        "Non-residents can't check books out, but you're welcome to read anything you wish while you are here.  Only don't put anything back in the stacks.  Drop them off here.  And call me if you need assistance."

        As Jill suspected, many of the books still retained their now unused sign out cards.  Mic's name was on cards in volumes of Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, and Sartre.

        "Pretty heavy reading for a teenager," said Richard.  "Look at this.  He checked out Kierkegaard!  Do you know anybody who's ever read Kierkegaard?"

        Jill raised an eyebrow, more surprised that Richard knew of the Danish philosopher than that the young Mic Boyd had read him.

 277.

Cassville, September 6

On their way back to breakfast, Richard saw flashing lights in his rearview.

"I didn't miss a stop sign, did I?" he asked as he looked for a place to pull over.

"I saw none," replied Jill.

"Well I wasn't speeding."

        He pulled onto the nearly non-existent shoulder, as a sheriff's department cruiser pulled in behind him.  A uniformed man got stiffly out and approached slowly, taking a pad from his shirt pocket.

"License and registration, please," said the man in slightly gravely voice.

        He was a short man with khaki clothes and a khaki complexion, a little stocky with age, yet retaining the faded image of a once powerful trim body.  His deeply lined face, earned with a lifetime of smiles and frowns, spoke of too many hours in the sun.  With short thick fingers he took Richard's drivers license.  Liver spots overlay the faded tan on the backs of his callused hands. 

"What did I do officer?"

        "Deputy," said the man distractedly as he read the license.  "You didn't do anything Mr. Carter."

"Then something's wrong with the car?"

        "No.  The Sheriff didn't want to talk to you about Carly Williams, but if you'll meet me at Kenner's Café around seven this evening we can discuss it."

Richard was wary, but he sensed no danger from the old man.

"What's this all about, Mr. . . . ?"

        "John Spence.  Bring your lady along if you like---that is, if you're as interested in that case as you seemed to be at the office."

 

278.

"Okay.  We'll be there."

        The deputy handed back his license, nodded silently toward Jill with a hint of a shy smile, and then walked back to the cruiser.

        "What was that all about?" asked Richard as Spence pulled back onto the road and passed them.

        "We will discover that tonight," she said.

 

Cartier, 9:55 AM

        He adjusted the binoculars as the taxi pulled up.  Marta came outside and closed the door.  Then she shifted her books and purse to her left arm and inserted a key to set the deadbolt.  During initial recon he noted that the absence of cover near the entrance ruled out a daylight rush despite the time and distraction necessitated by having to use two keys.  The street light was back on the corner, however, so darkness, especially if accompanied by rain, would turn her time consuming routine into a fatal flaw.  The upscale construction of the houses and their wide spacing would ensure the necessary privacy once he was inside.

         It ran through his mind instinctively.  Mic hadn't come to stalk Marta.  His only interest in her was to find them.  Ricky had run again rather than face him like a man.  No surprise there.  Rabbits ran---and they always circled back eventually.  At first, Richard's failure to confront him was irritating.  Now it was beginning to be fun.  It wasn't that he thought of him as a worthy adversary; more like a canny prey.  Inevitably he would hunt them both down.  The thrill was in the chase, but the satisfaction was in the kill.

         Yet the tension was building and Marta was out of the question.  Denise wouldn't do.  But he knew what would.  He drove back downtown, and bought a pair of cheap jersey gloves at a convenience store.  At the Walmart he bought a braided cotton clothesline.  When he filled up he bought a small roll of duct tape at the gas station.  When he left town, he took the highway southeast toward Grand Rapids, not caring where he was going, content to let fate deal the hand.

 

Cassville, 12:36

"Only thirteen of the names are in the directory," said Jill.  "And twelve are men."

        "I told you," he said.  "Everyone gets married in small towns.  None of the girls still have their maiden names.  I guess most of the guys left town.  Small towns wouldn't stay small if they didn't."

        "If we talk to the woman maybe she can supply the names of other women who live her or nearby."

 

279.

Richard dialed the number.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the phone.

        Jill began by explaining that she had come to Cassville for research purposes, and asking the woman could spare time for an interview.  She got a quick refusal, but managed to extract the name of another female classmate.  The second call ended abruptly when she mentioned Mic.

        "Talk to Leona Morgan.  She was one of his druggie friends," said the irate woman before hanging up.

Richard saw Jill's reaction.

"What was that?"

"How do you say it?  I think I touched a nerve.  But she gave me another name."

"You're not having much luck.  Don't mention Mic when you call this time."

 

        Leona Morgan ran a day-care out of her home, and was a sharp-featured woman with short, frosted hair, and more earrings than customary for someone of her generation.  She smiled warmly when Jill and Richard introduced themselves, obviously welcoming the unexpected interruption of her routine.

        "When you told me you were doing research, I had this picture of a frumpy woman in horn-rimmed glasses," she said.  "Just shows to go you.  What kind of research are you doing in Cassville?  Nothing ever happens here."

"It's a little more recent than what most people consider history," said Richard.

She looked speculatively at him.

"So, your man's not just along for decoration.  You two are writers, right?"

        "We are doing background research on a man who used to live here," said Jill, evasively.  "A classmate of yours, William Boyd?"

        "You want to know about William?" she asked in an amused voice.  "But you won't tell me what you're up to.  Well you're not police, so what---government?  Is this a security check of some kind?"

"No, it's a private matter," said Richard.

 

280.

"What you say will be kept confidential," Jill assured her.

"You guys are writers, journalists, right?"

"You will not be quoted nor identified," said Jill.

        "Oh heck.  I'm not worried about that.  Maybe it's payback time---but let's not go into that."

"Tell me about him," said Jill.

        "Drop dead looks, eyes that would melt your heart.  That boy was handsome and knew it.  Bad boy image---a real turn-on for a little girl with too many hormones," she said, giggling as she recalled it.

        "He cost me a semester of credit and almost kept me from graduating.  My older sister had this surgery on her knee, and he talked me into bringing some of her pain-killer to school.  I didn't take any, and neither did William, but two guys that hung out with him and my best friend got high and got caught.  They narced on me, and all four of us got suspended for the rest of the semester.  I ended up flunking all my classes."

"Did William get suspended too?" asked Jill.

        "No.  He was too slick---and he didn't take any of the stuff.  The only thing he ever got in trouble for was fighting.  Everyone knew he put me up to it, but they couldn't prove anything.  He got off on that."

"And you felt betrayed and angry," Richard suggested.

        "No.  The funny thing was that, after he like bragged on how tough and brave I was, I felt like all grown up and desirable---you know, worthy of him.  I would have done anything for that boy."

She laughed.

        "What an idiot!  But you see, he was just so handsome and it was really cool that he liked me.  But then it like faded.  It was like I didn't exist.  So I decided to quit hanging around him because he had like used me and then threw me away."

"And that was the end of it?"

        "I think so, but maybe not.  I started going with Jeremy Cross, and William beat the hell out of him one day in gym.  I thought at the time that was about me, but I don't know."

She squinted at Jill.

"I bet you know what it's like having boys fight over you, don't you?"

"Yes.  It is sickening," replied Jill.

"Did you know Carly Williams?" asked Richard.

        "Sure.  Everyone knew Carly---Oh.  That's what this is about!" she said.  "I knew it!  You guys are reporters.  You're investigating the murder again.  Oh no!  You think William did it."

She shook her head, obviously amused by the idea.

"You don't think he could have?" asked Richard.

She frowned, considered the possibility for a moment.

       "Of course not.  He took advantage of girls, and he enjoyed getting them to do stuff like he did with me, but William could have any girl he wanted.  He wouldn't have to force himself on any girl."

        "He took advantage of you," said Jill.  "And then, what did you say?  He threw you away?"

        "He was vicious with guys who crossed him, but he would never hurt a girl---not physically, that is."