The Pastor’s Daughter: Episode VII

The dead body lying on the trestle table was Brittany, as I expected. There was a sickness inside me that made me feel faint as I stood there looking down at her dead face. I felt so bad that I turned away. I couldn’t stand the sight of her dead face. As Jim pulled the sheet back into place, I walked out into the corridor. There was a fresh draft of air coming in through the open doorway. The breath and feeling of this fresh air did a lot to help me pull myself together.

Soon Lieutenants Jim and Reid  came out silently and we walked back to our cars.

As we reached the car, I said to Jim, “It’s Brittany Waters. There’s no doubt about it.”

He shrugged.

“Even though I already knew it was her,” he said, “I was hoping I was wrong. This is where the trouble begins. I am worried about the publicity, because there will be a lot of it considering Reverend Waters’ influence.”

I can both see and understand why he  was worried about Reverend Waters. A powerful and influential man like  the Reverend can lift him right out of his job if he makes any mistake during the investigation.

“I know,” I said. Lieutenant Jim’s worries doesn’t really bother me. I have my own problems to worry about. “I’ll have to send a telegram to him.”

“We can help you,” he said. “You can use the telephone at the station to contact him.”

          Although I was still pretty shaken, I was feeling a little more like my old self by the time we got down to the Police Station. Lieutenants Jim and Reid went off to another office for a conference and left me in an office. So I called Phorbus.

“It’s Brittany,” I said when he came on the line. “It’s really a bad news to have at this time.”

“Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “So, what’s the next move?”

“Well, I will send a telegram to Reverend Waters and call him on long distance by, say, two hours later,” I said. “I believe two hours is enough time for him to get over the shock.”

I know Phorbus is very worried and scared. Over the phone, I could hear him breathing hard like an old man with asthma.

          After a long pause, he said, “Obviously you have everything under control. Is there anything I can do?”

“Sure,” I replied, “Just look after the job and the office. You know, the job can’t stand still just because Brittany is gone. I know he has significant stake in the company but, I believe he won’t want this incidence to interfere with the job.”

“No problem Harry,” he said. “Just take care of Reverend Waters and you won’t worry about the job. I have it covered.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Please put Candace on the line. I need to talk to her.”

“Sure. Just give me a minute.”

Obviously he was relieved. I can feel it from his voice. Soon Candace’s voice came on the line.

“So this is true Harry? She’s dead for real?” she asked

“Yes Candace,” I replied. “Very sad, isn’t it?

“I still couldn’t believe it,” she said.

“I want to send a telegram to Reverend Waters. Are you ready to take the message?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

          I must admit this: Candace Lateef was the most efficient secretary anyone can have. She never got rattled no matter how big an emergency is. That’s a rare quality which I had always admired about her.

          With Candace taking down the notes, I dictated a telegraph message  to Reverend Waters. I told him I will call him at 14.00 hours European time with the details. I believed this will give me enough time to cook up my end of the tale if necessary. It would also give me enough time to find out how much the police had discovered about the case. When I finished, I told Candace to send the telegraph right away.

“Sure Harry,” she said.

“And one more thing,” I said. “I won’t be surprised if the Reverend calls before I call him. In any case, tell him you don’t know a thing if he does, understand? Let me handle this myself. Just tell him I will call him by the time I stated in the telegraph. You don’t need to get mixed up in this.”

“No problem Harry.”

I love this girl! Her calm, matter-of-fact voice reassured me that, in the end, everything will be okay.

“Bye for now,” I said, and hung up. As I did so, Lieutenant Jim came in.

“We are going to the vacation house where Ms Waters died,” he said. “Do you want to keep us company?”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

          I stood up and followed him out of the office. As we entered the hallway, Lieutenant Reid joined us and we all went to the police car at the parking lot. From the way Lieutenant Reid was looking at me, I had these uneasy feeling that I was his number one suspect.

………….

The police car entered the vacation house in Atlantic City. I was sitting in front of the car, with Lieutenant Jim Ludlum driving. Lieutenant Reid and two other policemen were sitting at the back of the car. As soon as we entered the compound, we all walked to the back of the house where Brittany had fallen. Lieutenant  Ludlum stared up at the house, and made a little face. I told myself that I knew exactly what he was thinking: what it must have felt to have fallen from a two-story build and hit the concrete ground. To be honest, I thought the same thing too. The height of the building, which is almost thirty feet, made me feel like a midget.

Lieutenant Reid said to his colleague Lieutenant Ludlum, “So far, all we did was to remove the body. We didn’t touch anything here yet because I wanted you to see the scene first.”

Lieutenant Ludlum grunted.

Both of them started to search the area, including the surrounding wood. I and the other two policemen stayed on the spot and waited for  them. Soon they found the camera case I had tossed in the wood. They examined it the way NASA scientists would have examined something that had fallen off the space. I was so thankful I had got rid of all my prints as I watched the careful way  Lieutenant Ludlum handled the case. Then he looked at me and said, “I believe this must be hers. Do you know, by chance, if she was interested in photography?”

I almost said she was. But, somehow, I was able to stop myself in time.

“I have no idea,” I said. “In this day and age, most people on vacation likes to bring a camera.”

He nodded and gave the camera case to one of the policemen. He immediately put it carefully into a plastic bag. Meanwhile, the two lieutenants continued their search. After about fifteen minutes, I saw Lieutenant Reid bent and picked something up from the grassy wood a few feet from the back of the house. Obviously, they had made another discovery. The two of them stood close together, while they examined what it was that  they had found. My heart skipped a beat as I lit a cigarette and waited.

At last, after what seemed like a century, Lieutenant Ludlum made his way to where I was sitting. As I watched him coming, I saw he was holding what remained of Brittany’s Bell and Howell 8mm Reflex Zoom Cine Camera. To tell you the truth,  I have no idea how the camera fell so far away from the house. Even if it hit the rocky ground as Brittany fell, I doubt that it would bounce and fall that distance away from the house. Some things are just simply mystery. When Lieutenant Ludlum showed me the camera, I noticed that its telephoto lens had snapped off and also that there was a dent in its side.

“This camera may explain how the accident happened,” Lieutenant Ludlum said. “Maybe she was taking a picture while looking out of the window, holding this camera like this.” While saying this, he held up the camera and gently peered through its viewfinder. “If she had stood on the edge of the window, which is very possible, it would be easy for her to lose her balance especially with this camera obstructing her view.”

Taking the camera from him, I looked at the little window panel at the back. This is the panel that usually showed how many feet of film the user had run off. It showed thirty feet. I told him that there is still a film in the camera.

“From the look of the camera, I don’t think water has got into it yet,” I said. “Perhaps we can know for sure if she was taking something from the window in the second storey if you get the film processed.”

He seemed to like the idea.

I knew he had been secretly worrying about the trouble Reverend Waters might make for him all the time we were heading to the vacation house where Brittany had died.

“This would have been a very straightforward affair if she hadn’t called herself Mrs Graham Reed,” he said again, taking the camera from me. “I think this is now the right time to enter the house and talk to the servant she hired.”

So, leaving two of the policemen to continue the search for clues, we entered the vacation house. As we were entering the house, I took another look at Brittany’s Mercedes convertible. I noticed that Lieutenant Ludlum was looking at the car too.

“Is this her car?” he said.

I told him I didn’t know.

“Sure, it is hers,” Lieutenant Reid said. “I have already checked the registration plates. She bought the car weeks ago, soon after she had arrived in Middle River.”

I wondered where she got the money to buy such an expensive car. I thought I heard her say the car belonged to her father. Even though I told myself that it was possible that her father had sent her the money, one part of my mind continue to doubts it, given what he told me about keeping her within her allowance.

We entered into the lounge. Lieutenant Ludlum said to me very politely, “Harry, please sit down and wait for us, while examine the house.”

I sat down and waited.

They went into the bedroom and spent some time there. Lieutenant Ludlum came out after  a while, carrying a small leather box. He put the box on the table and said, “Please take charge of this thing. Make sure Reverend Waters gets them. “

I nodded.

“I will need a receipt from you,” he said.

He lifted the lid of the box. The box contained pieces of jewelry. A few of these stand out: two rings, one of which had a large sapphire stone, while the other had three diamonds. There was also a pair of diamond ear-rings and a collar of diamonds in the box. I may not be a jeweler but one thing I do know is that the contents of this box would be worth quite a lot.

“Wow!” Lieutenant Ludlum exclaimed. “These are very nice. It is a good thing that no one broke in here while the place is unguarded”

When he said that, I remembered the intruder who had broad shoulders.

“You found these in the bedroom?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “They were on her dressing table. Like I said earlier, it’s good that no one broke in here. Otherwise, they were there all this while for anyone to steal.”

“Do you think they’re genuine? I mean, they are not fake?”

“I believe they are real” he said. “I could be wrong but my guess is that they are worth two thousand dollars.”

Two thousand dollars is a fortune  in the 1970s.

He started writing out a receipt for me to sign while I stared at the box and its contents in disbelief. Two thousand dollars worth of jewelry on Brittany’s dressing table for anyone to steal! Unbelievable! I was so scared that  I felt a chill of uneasiness crawl up my spine. I knew exactly what this meant then: the intruder I had seen in the dark was not a sneak thief. But, if he was not a thief, then who had he been? I was startled by the sound of the telephone bell.

Lieutenant Ludlum answered it.

He said, “Yes…yes…yes.”

He listened for a long moment. He then grunted something and then hung up.

Lieutenant Reid came into the room, with expectant expression written all over his face.

Lieutenant Ludlum lit a cigarette before saying to me, “The autopsy report is out.”

Something must have upset him as I could see that his eyes are uneasy again.

“Well, from your current investigations here I guess you now know how she died,” I said, trying to bridge over the long pause that followed.

“Sure, I have no doubt in my mind about how she died.”

He gently stood up and moved away from the telephone. His uneasiness was so real that I could feel it the way you feel the touch of a hand in the dark.

“You look upset,” I said. “Is there anything else in the report?”

I was sure there was something else in that report because of the way his frowned at me. That made me worried too and I was aware that my voice had sharpened. I saw Lieutenant Reid turn to look at me.

“Yes, there is something else. Actually it is a bad news” Lieutenant Ludlum said and grimaced. “Brittany Waters was pregnant.”

END OF EPISODE VII

P.S. Episode Eight will be published here next Monday.