The Big Bad Wolf
Steven Ryers examined the gold shield he had recently been awarded, shined it on his shirt sleeve and placed the badge in his pocket. At just twenty-eight years old, he was the youngest detective on the police force.
"Your father would have been so proud of you," his widowed mother said, making no attempt to hide her tears as her son prepared for his first day as detective.
Her late husband, Eddie, had been a decorated police officer who was killed in the line of duty when Steven was only three years old. Having lost her spouse at an early age, Claire Ryers had not wanted her only child to follow in his father's footsteps, preferring he pursue a safer occupation. After all, not many computer programmers, high school baseball coaches or accountants had to face psychopaths and vicious killers during the course of a normal working day. Sadly, Steven had a mind of his own. His dream and greatest ambition was always to become a homicide detective.
What he never told his mother was that it was not his deceased parent who inspired him to pursue a career in law enforcement. Truth be told, he barely remembered his father. Rather, it was Shane Landale, Eddie's former partner, a legendary figure on the police force, who had influenced the boy most. In the absence of his father, it was Shane who had taught him to ride a bike, throw a fastball, play video games and drive a car. He was the one who accompanied him on fishing and camping trips, tutored him in algebra, took him to Yankee games and action movies, and basically taught him to be a man.
"Come downstairs, and I'll make you some breakfast."
"Sorry, Mom, but I don't have time to eat this morning."
"It's not even seven yet," Claire argued. "You don't go on duty until nine."
The sudden realization of why her son was eager to get an early start on his day removed the smile from her face.
"You want to go see Shane. Don't you?"
"I thought I'd stop by the Birchwood on the way to the station, just to check on him and see how he's doing."
"After all this time, do you really expect his condition to improve?"
"One can always hope," Steven answered with a heavy sigh. "And if it doesn't—well, we like each other's company just the same."
"Does he even know who you are?"
A look of profound sadness came over the young detective's handsome face.
"No, but then he doesn't know who he is either."
* * *
Following the force's long-established custom of partnering a novice detective with a veteran officer, the chief of detectives assigned Steven Ryers to work with Carl Addis, a seasoned cop with more than fifteen years of experience in solving homicides.
"You're Eddie Ryers's kid, aren't you?" the older investigator asked as the two men sat at a booth at the local diner during their lunch break.
"Yeah. Did you know my father?"
"I knew of him, but I never had the pleasure of actually meeting him. I did know Shane Landale, his partner, though. I was transferred here from narcotics about the same time he began working the Dunmyer case."
Carl's voice trailed off, and both detectives' heads turned toward the window, their eyes seeing not the traffic passing by the diner but the face of one of the most respected officers the police force had ever employed.
"He was like a father to me," Steven said, finally breaking the silence. "He's the reason I became a cop."
"That's quite a role model to have."
"I still visit him at least once or twice a week. In fact, I saw him just this morning."
"Hell of a thing to happen to such a great guy. Who'd have thought ...? Sometimes I think it might have been more merciful if that bastard had killed him."
"He did kill him," Steven concluded in a dull, monotone voice that barely concealed the intense sorrow behind his words.
* * *
Detective Ryers's first day on the job was an uneventful one. In the absence of any active homicides to solve, he and Addis worked on one of the cold cases that had stymied the force back in the 1980s. They had little hope of solving the murder since there were no witnesses, no physical evidence and no DNA.
"A homeless drifter found dead beneath a highway underpass," Carl announced, filling his young partner in on the basic elements of the case. "No friends or family."
"No obvious motive?"
"None. Must have been a thrill killing. Sure as hell wasn't a robbery."
There was little detecting work that could be done. Ryers read over the medical examiner's autopsy notes and the investigators' reports and examined the crime scene photographs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"Don't worry," Carl told the novice investigator. "You won't find anything new, and no one really expects you to. We just go back to the cold case files whenever we have nothing else to do. We haven't solved one yet. Just kick back, relax and pretend you're coming up with a new theory."
Steven was glad when he finally went off duty. He felt he had wasted an entire day. He would have preferred donning a uniform and patrolling the city in his old squad car or even directing traffic to sitting behind a desk, trying to look busy and wasting the taxpayers' dollars.
Did Shane ever have to kill time at the station house? he wondered.
On his way home, he drove down Fifth Street and pulled into the parking lot of the Birchwood Manor, a residential psychiatric care facility for people who, although not considered dangerous to society, were nonetheless unable to live on their own. Although he had visited Shane earlier that morning, he felt the need to see him again.
"Officer Ryers, I'm surprised to see you back so soon!" the nurse/receptionist exclaimed when he walked through the front door.
"I wanted to tell him about my first day on the job."
"That's right. You made detective, didn't you? Congratulations. I'm sure he'll love hearing all about it."
Steven walked down the familiar hallway toward Shane's room. The patient, who was sitting in a chair reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, looked up at the visitor who stood on the threshold.
"Ah, Japp," Landale said with a poor attempt at a French accent. "I see you've come about the case."
"Good guess."
"The great Hercule Poirot does not guess. He knows. It is the little gray cells. You must learn how to use them."
"Do you remember when I was here earlier today?"
"No," Shane answered, his brow furrowing with confusion.
"My mistake. It must have been Philip Marlowe I spoke with earlier," Steven concluded when he spied a paperback of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep on the bedside table. "Anyway, I was recently promoted to detective and ...."
"Detective Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard. You think I am ignorant of your credentials?"
Steven was not surprised by Shane's failure to engage in a normal conversation, but it saddened him nevertheless. Maybe his partner was right. Maybe it would have been more merciful if Ned Dunmyer had killed him, too.
* * *
When the assistant manager of Play Time toy store asked his employees if anyone wanted to leave early, twenty-two-year-old cashier Tamsin Warnock jumped at the opportunity. Even though it had been a slow night, she was tired after spending four hours on her feet behind a cash register. As she punched her time card at the clock, she wondered how long it would be before she found a job in her chosen field: teaching. It had been two years since she graduated college, and as yet the only position she was able to find was as a substitute in a small school district where few of the teachers took time off. With her student debt hanging over her head, she needed more than a low-paying job in retail.
Maybe I should consider tutoring, she thought as she walked out the back door to the employee parking lot. I might be able to pick up a few extra dollars helping kids prepare for the SAT.
It did not bother Tamsin that the one overhead mercury vapor light failed to illuminate the entire parking lot and that her Hyundai Sonata was obscured in the shadows. She had grown accustomed to working the evening shift, and the darkness no long disturbed her. Besides, Play Time was located in a safe neighborhood.
While she was searching through her handbag for her car keys, Tamsin heard a soft whistling sound, and she realized she was not alone. The unknown presence did not immediately frighten her. Then the whistling grew louder, an indication that the person was getting closer.
What is that tune he's whistling? she wondered. It sounds familiar.
The stranger then began to sing. Although sung much slower than normal, the song was immediately recognizable.
"Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? The Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Tra la la la la."
It was a children's song taken right out of a Disney Silly Symphony cartoon featuring Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. Sung in a slow, deliberate manner, however, the song sounded more menacing than whimsical.
Despite the relative safety of the neighborhood, Tamsin's composure rapidly vanished, replaced by fear. Her hand trembled as she turned the key in the door lock.
"Little pig, little pig," called the looming stranger who emerged from the shadows.
The last thought Tamsin Warnock had before the knife plunged into her body, was an image of Jack Nicholson as the maniacal Jack Torrance in The Shining.
* * *
The following day Steven Ryers sat at his desk reading the file on the murder of a fifty-two-year-old woman who had been found beaten and strangled in the trunk of her car in the autumn of 1972. While the forty-four-year-old case made for interesting reading, he had serious doubts he would discover any new clues.
"Don't waste your time on that one," Carl said, tossing another cold case file in his partner's direction. "There was never any doubt that her husband murdered her."
"Then why does the case remain open?"
"The perp died before we could arrest him. How about another cup of coffee?"
Before Steven could reply, the chief of detectives opened his office door, popped his head out and called, "Addis. Ryers. Enough with the history lessons for today. We've got a body of a young girl behind the Play Time toy store."
"We're on our way," Carl replied and tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash.
As the two men made their way to the unmarked police car in the station's parking lot, Steven could not hide the excitement of the moment. This was it: his first murder investigation!
When they arrived at Play Time, there were two uniformed officers cordoning off the area with yellow and black crime scene tape. A handful of the toy store's employees were grouped together near the building. An overweight, middle-aged man, in the midst of a number of young female associates, some of whom were softly sobbing, was visibly upset.
"Who called it in?" the senior detective asked one of the uniformed men after he and his partner briefly perused the crime scene.
"The store manager, guy by the name of Peasley. He's standing right over there."
Carl suggested Steven talk to the man.
"Me?" the young detective asked with surprise.
"You've been a cop for more than five years. You know how to question a witness. I'll stay here and nose around while I wait for the medical examiner to show up."
When he was asked to repeat the details surrounding the discovery of the girl's body, Mr. Peasley's complexion turned from an ashen white to a sickly shade of green. Stephen expected the man to vomit at any moment.
"I saw her car in the lot when I pulled in this morning. I didn't think too much of it. Sometimes boyfriends pick the girls up after work, and they come back for their cars the following day. But then the girl's mother phoned around ten o'clock, looking for her daughter. She said Tamsin hadn't come home last night."
"Why'd she wait until ten?" Steven asked.
"That's the time we open."
"And then what happened?"
"I was tied up with paperwork until about eleven. When I was finished, I looked out the back window and saw her car still parked there. Business was slow, so I decided to walk over to see if there was anything out of place. That's when I found ...."
"Did any of you work with Miss Warnock last night?" Steven asked, addressing the group of cashiers, all wearing pink and white, short-sleeved Play Time tee shirts.
"No," a cute eighteen-year-old with spiky red hair answered. "We all work the day shift. Tamsin worked in the evenings."
The detective asked several more questions, and then, having gleaned as much information as he could from the manager and cashiers, he told them to go back to work and joined his partner who was standing beside the victim's body.
* * *
Normally, on a July day the beach would be crowded with sunbathers and swimmers. With a steadily blowing wind and scattered showers, however, it was deserted. Not a soul in sight: that was the way Celia De la Roche liked it. She put on a sweatshirt, ragged jeans and a pair of dirty sneakers, grabbed an umbrella and headed for the path to the old lighthouse.
The rough waves crashing on the beach competed in volume with the screeching of the seagulls. These were sounds the aspiring writer preferred to the clamor of cars on the highway in front of her apartment building or the seemingly never-ending television programs from the old woman living in the next unit. Alone on a deserted beach, there were few distractions to interrupt her thought process.
The former keeper's house at the base of the light tower was a white clapboard Dutch colonial with the traditional gambrel roof. Although she had never been inside, Celia imagined the interior was warm and cozy, the type of place she would love to own someday when she became a published author. After the lighthouse was automated in 1939, there was no need for a keeper. Now the house served as a museum, open on weekends during the summer months. It being a Thursday, the place was closed.
Careful not to turn her ankle, she walked over the rocky terrain to the former light station. The rain and the high tide had made the surface slippery and potentially dangerous, but Celia was no stranger to those rocks, having climbed them since she was a young child. Once she made it safely to the keeper's house, she walked to the rear of the building where she would be protected from the wind and pelting raindrops.
Staring out at the horizon, she let mind her mind wander, hoping to come up with an idea that would hurdle her over the impasse in her novel's plot. Her characters came alive in her mind. Celia knew them all so well. After all, she had given birth to each of them in her fertile imagination. As she recalled the dialogue of a conversation from the previous chapter of her book, she was distracted by a sound not made by nature but by man. Someone was whistling.
Oh, great! she thought with disappointment. I wanted to be alone.
As the unseen person drew nearer to the keeper's house, the whistling turned to singing.
"Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? The Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Tra la la la la."
* * *
Despite the longer hours he had been working since Tamsin Warnock's body was discovered, Detective Ryers still managed to find the time to visit Shane Landale. Steven's fiancée, Lisa Colbert, in hopes of pursuing a career as a pastry chef, was studying under a world renowned master baker whose shop was on the Champs Elysées in Paris. Thus, he had some free time to spend with his mentor.
When Steven walked into the room and saw Shane in his bathrobe, reading Earl Derr Biggers' The House Without a Key, he knew he was in for a treat.
"Ah, Number One Son has arrived," the former detective said with a Chinese accent that made his pitiful French sound good.
"Good evening, Mr. Chan."
The two men then proceeded to have a conversation that included snippets of cases and old Chinese proverbs from both the pages of Charlie Chan books and the scenes from his movies. Their chat would have been amusing had Steven not known that Shane was not playacting. For this evening, at least, he honestly believed himself to be the famed detective from the Honolulu Police Department.
Depending upon what mystery classic he was reading, Shane's identity changed. One day he was Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, the next he was Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. When Steven visited Birchwood Manor, he never knew if he would encounter Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, S.S. Van Dine's Philo Vance or Frederic Dannay's Ellery Queen. One thing was certain. In the seven years since he had become a resident at Birchwood, he was never Detective Shane Landale.
* * *
"Death was the result of sharp force injury. Manner of death, homicide," the medical examiner announced after she had completed the autopsy on Celia De la Roche. "No sign of sexual activity. From the size and shape of the stab wounds, I'd say the same weapon was used in both murders. And based on the angle and depth of penetration, it's my opinion that the punctures were inflicted by a person of the same height and strength."
"So, what you're saying is it's the same killer," Carl said.
"In the absence of fingerprints or DNA, I can't be one hundred percent certain. However, that's a fair assumption."
"What can you tell us about the weapon?" Steven asked.
"I estimate it was a six-inch blade with a serrated edge."
The report from forensics was less helpful. Although the CSIs at the first crime scene found a strand of blond hair as well as several fibers on the body, they all belonged to the victim. The second scene was even more disappointing since the wind and steady rain had washed away all trace evidence.
"What do you say we go get some burgers for lunch before we go back and question Tamsin Warnock's family and friends again?" Steven asked his partner.
"Burgers sounds good, but what do we hope to accomplish by re-interviewing people we've already talked to who had no knowledge of the crime?" Carl responded.
Steven did not know if his partner was testing him or if he honestly believed the questions would be a waste of time. He preferred to think the seasoned detective saw this as an exercise in on-the-job training.
"The two women were most likely killed by the same man. There might be something that links them together. If we find the common denominator, it might lead to our murderer."
A slow smile spread across the older man's face. Apparently, Steven had given him the correct answer.
"And if we can't find a connection between them?"
Another question. Another test.
"Then we could be dealing with a serial killer who chooses his victims randomly."
"Right! Let's hope that's not the case."
* * *
Steven greeted the nurse/receptionist, exchanged a few pleasantries and then headed down the hall. As he approached Shane's room, he wondered what persona the former detective would adopt. He recalled the first time he had come to Birchwood Manor. He was twenty-one at time, a recent high school graduate with plans to enter the police academy. He had walked down the same hall, his stomach plagued by nerves. What could he possibly say a man devastated by inconsolable grief and guilt? What words could adequately convey the love and sympathy he felt?
At first, Steven did not know what to make of his father's old partner. He seemed not to recognize the young man he had practically raised.
"These murders," the patient said, addressing his visitor but showing no recognition, "they are an enigma."
"Is that a French accent you're using?" Steven asked with amazement. He then added under his breath, "If it is, it's not a very good one."
Shane went on and on about conundrums and locked room mysteries, baffling his visitor. It was not until Steven found a book open to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" that he realized what was going on.
"Why are you pretending to be C. Auguste Dupin?"
"I am not pretending," Shane cried indignantly. "I am Chevalier Dupin!"
It was twenty minutes before Steven accepted the truth: there was no pretense involved. At first he hoped the condition was temporary, that Shane would regain his sanity and his identity. After seven years and encountering two to three dozen more personalities, Steven had given up hope. The man he loved was gone, only a string of caricatures of crime-solving heroes remained.
"I got you something," Detective Ryers announced as he entered the patient's room.
This time, he did not need to look at the book on the bedside table to know the identity of the other man in the room.
"Ah, Watson! Glad you're here. The game's afoot! Where is that fool Lestrade? I expected him an hour ago. Don't they have timepieces at Scotland Yard?"
Of all the identities he had witnessed, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic Sherlock Holmes was his favorite. Although it would never fool a native Brit, Shane's English accent was much better than his French or Chinese one.
"Aren't you interested in seeing what I brought you?" Steven asked, as he laid a Barnes & Noble bag on the bed.
"I appreciate the gift, Watson, but I have little time for reading. Professor Moriarity needs to be stopped."
Ignoring his friend's words, Steven continued, "I think you'll like these books. Martha Grimes is an American author whose mysteries feature a modern New Scotland Yard inspector named Richard Jury. Caroline Graham is a British author whose Chief Inspector Barnaby novels are the basis of the popular television show Midsomer Murders."
"Murders!" Shane exclaimed. "Where is damned fool Lestrade?"
* * *
When a third victim was found dead in a prominent lawyer's office, the detectives' worst fears were realized.
"We're dealing with a serial killer!" Carl announced with frustration. "If he doesn't slip up and leave behind some forensic evidence, catching him will be like finding a needle in a haystack."
"Have you ever had such a case before?" his partner asked.
"No. The only murderer in the city's history to have the dubious honor of being labeled a serial killer is Ned Dunmyer."
The name cast a pall over the conversation.
"He was caught," Steven said, a fact that gave him neither satisfaction nor hope for the successful conclusion of his own murder case.
"Yeah. He was," Carl agreed, equally glum. "What do you say we try to go find that needle?"
Oddly enough, it was not forensics that led to the break in the case. Rather, it was an eye witness—or, more accurately, an ear witness that provided the first useful clue.
A week after the body of cleaning woman Robin Sampson was discovered in a downtown law office, Rosemary Beaton, secretary to the senior partner, walked into the police station and asked to speak with the detectives investigating the case. Shaking and visibly upset, Rosemary bravely fought back tears as she took a seat in the interrogation room.
"Would you like some coffee?" Steven offered. "A cup of tea? A bottle of water?"
"Tea would nice," she replied, smiling at his thoughtfulness.
Somewhat relaxed by the hot beverage, the secretary began to talk, beginning her narrative with an apology.
"I'm sorry I didn't come forward sooner, but I ... Will what I tell you here have to be repeated in court?"
"Only what is pertinent to the murder," Carl replied. "We'll make every attempt to keep anything else you say confidential."
"I stayed late that night, way beyond the normal closing time of the office."
"Is it common practice for a young woman to remain alone in the building after hours?" Steven asked. "Especially when there have been two recent unsolved murders?"
"I wasn't alone," she replied softly, lowering her head in embarrassment. "Do I have to tell you his name? He's married, you see, with a family."
"We may want to talk to him," Carl answered. "Maybe he saw something we should know about."
"It was my boss, the senior partner of the firm. We didn't want anyone to see us leaving together, so he left, and I offered to remain behind for a few minutes. I was in the ladies' room freshening up when I heard the cleaning woman get off the elevator. I didn't want her to find me, so I locked the bathroom door. I was going to wait until she vacuumed the conference room and then sneak down the stairs and out the back door, but ...."
"Take your time, Miss Beaton," Steven said soothingly.
"Robin was emptying the wastepaper baskets. I assume she was listening to an iPod because she was humming along with the music. Then I heard the elevator door open again. Someone else was there."
"The killer?" the detectives asked in unison.
"It must have been. He was whistling. It was such an eerie sound, like something out of a horror movie. As he passed by the bathroom door, he began to sing. It was even creepier than the whistling."
"Do you know what it was he was singing?" Steven inquired.
"Yeah. An old kid's song," Rosemary said and then repeated the lyrics. "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? The Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Tra la la la la."
The secretary stopped speaking long enough to finish her tea. Then she continued with the most difficult part of her story.
"He stopped singing, and a moment later I heard Robin scream. Why would anyone want to kill her? She was just a single mom, working a lousy job to support her child and put food on the table. And I ... Oh, God! I was afraid for my own safety, so I stayed locked in the bathroom for more than an hour after he went down the elevator. Finally, I found the courage to come out. I followed the trail of blood to the conference room. There was nothing I could do for the poor woman; she was already dead. I know I should have called the police then, but ... I was such a coward! I snuck out the back door of the building, got in my car and drove away."
* * *
Even with Rosemary Beaton's account of the murder, the detectives were still no closer to finding a suspect. After having put in a twelve-hour day, Carl decided to call it a night.
"I'm going home to see my wife," he announced.
Steven left, too, but he did not go straight home. Instead, he went to Birchwood Manor for the second time that week.
"Good evening, Troy," Shane called in the same British accent he used when he assumed Holmes's identity.
"Tom Barnaby?" Steven asked after taking a seat and stretching his legs in one of the visitors' chairs. "I see you've been reading The Killings at Badger's Drift. I thought you'd enjoy that one."
His mind on his own case, the young detective paid little attention to Shane as he spoke about the poisoning death of Emily Simpson, Caroline Graham's fictional character.
"I'm sure you and Gavin will have no difficulty finding the culprit who did it," Steven declared. "Maybe I should consult with the Causton CID to solve my case. All I've got to go on is someone singing 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.'"
Shane's face suddenly became drained of color. He turned toward his visitor and echoed the last three words.
"Big Bad Wolf?"
"Yeah. Remember the old Disney cartoon about the Three Little Pigs?"
As though a light switch had been thrown, something in Shane Landale turned off. Tom Barnaby was gone as was every other fictional detective in the patient's repertoire. Not receiving a response to his repeated attempts to get through the stony silence, Steven called the nurse.
"He'll be all right," she assured the worried young man as she helped the patient prepare for bed. "He just needs some rest."
"I'll try to come back and see him tomorrow. If not, then definitely the next day."
At midnight, however, Steven was woken from a dreamless sleep by the persistent ringing of his telephone. It was the nighttime nurse at Birchwood Manor, informing him that Shane Landale was missing.
"I have a pretty good idea where he might have gone," the detective said as he got out of bed.
It was only a ten-minute drive to 518 Lilac Street. Although he had been nowhere near that address for the past seven years, Steven had gone there so many times in his childhood that he could walk to it blindfolded. One look at the 1980s bi-level and memories flooded his brain—some good, some bad.
As he had suspected, the missing patient, clad only in slippers and pajamas stood on the sidewalk, staring up at what was once his own home. When he spoke, there was no accent, no affectation.
"It was Ned Dunmyer," Shane said. "He did it."
Steven's trip down memory lane came to a sudden end. He forgot both the good and the bad days, in the presence of the overwhelming joy he felt.
"You know who you are! This is wonderful!"
His happiness at what he assumed was Shane's recovery was short-lived, however.
"He's your killer, Eddie. The Big Bad Wolf."
"I'm not Eddie. I'm his son, Steven. My father, Eddie Ryers, died back in 1992. Don't you remember?"
Shane shook his head and repeated, "The Big Bad Wolf. It's Dunmyer. He's the killer. Check the tattoo."
"He can't be the killer," the young detective insisted. "He's been in his grave for seven years. You put him there."
Steven called the nurse at Birchwood on his cell phone and told her he had located Shane Landale. Then he helped his confused friend into the passenger seat of his car. Both men were silent on the short drive back to the residential care facility.
"Here we are," Steven announced sorrowfully as he pulled up to the front door. "Home, sweet home."
"Thanks, Wiggins," Shane said, his British accent having returned. "I expect Melrose Plant is inside, waiting to speak to me concerning the case of the Anodyne Necklace."
As the nurse helped the errant patient inside, the young detective wiped a tear from his eye. For one delightful but short period of time, he thought Shane Landale had regained his sanity, only to have him now turn into to Martha Grimes's Richard Jury.
* * *
Stephen Ryers was back in his bed, but sleep eluded him. The trip to 518 Lilac Street had disturbed him too much.
It's so unfair! Steven thought bitterly, punching his pillow and turning restlessly from his left side to his right.
Ned Dunmyer had viciously murdered eight innocent young women. Thanks to his dogged determination and excellent detecting skills, Lieutenant Landale and his specially appointed task force managed to discover his identity and arrest him. For Shane, it was the tour de force of an already exemplary career.
He had Ned Dunmyer dead to rights! The bastard should have gone away for life.
The American justice system had its flaws, however. All too often it is not a question of justice or of determining guilt and innocence. It usually boils down to which side had the better lawyer. The Dunmyer trial was like the first televised presidential debate. The defense attorney came off as a cool, collected John F. Kennedy. Good-looking, tanned, expensively dressed, personable and well-spoken, he charmed the jury and had them believing in his client's innocence. The prosecutor, on the other hand, fared worse than the haggard, pale Richard Nixon with a five o'clock shadow. He was seen as a sweaty, overweight snake oil salesman who was persecuting an innocent man in order to make a name for himself in the political arena. The jury deliberated only two hours before delivering a verdict of not guilty.
A vindictive sociopath, Ned Dunmyer was not content to simply thank his lawyer and vanish into the sunset to enjoy his freedom and his undeserved second chance for a normal, happy life. He wanted revenge on the man who put him in jail and made him endure the humiliation of a public trial. In order to get back at Shane Landale, the killer went to the 1980s bi-level at 518 Lilac Street and butchered his wife and two-year-old daughter.
The inconsolable detective, having lost all faith in the legal system, decided to take matters into his own hands. He exacted rough justice for his slaughtered loved ones by tying Ned Dunmyer to a wooden pole and setting him on fire. Even if his colleagues had wanted to arrest him for the deed—which, quite honestly, they didn't—Shane would have been deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. After executing his wife and daughter's killer by burning him at the stake, Shane Landale committed what can only be described as mental suicide. The highly decorated police officer ceased to exist, and a motley crew of fictional crime fighters took his place.
* * *
The following day Carl Addis called in sick.
"I don't know if I've got a bug or if it was the burritos I had for dinner, but I was worshipping at the porcelain altar all night."
"You get some sleep. I'll handle things here. I hope you feel better soon."
Left to his own devices, Steven pulled out the files on all three murders and went over the information again. When he reread Rosemary Beaton's statement, Shane's wild babblings of the previous evening came back to him: The Big Bad Wolf. It's Ned Dunmyer. He's the killer. Check the tattoo.
"Tattoo? What tattoo was he talking about?"
Tired of banging his head on the brick wall of his stalled investigation, Steven decided to take a break from the case. He walked downstairs to the records office and asked the clerk to see a copy of the Ned Dunmyer files. She returned several minutes later with a cardboard file storage box.
"Here's the first one," she said.
"There's more?"
"There's about a dozen."
"Let me have a look through this one first. Maybe I won't need to see the others."
The fourth folder in the box contained the medical examiner's autopsy notes. Although Dunmyer's body had been badly burned, she was still able to discern the tattoo on his upper right arm. It consisted of three words, each roughly two inches high: Big Bad Wolf.
Steven saw it as nothing more than a simple coincidence. Ned Dunmyer was dead, and unless he came back from the grave, he could not have killed Tamsin Warnock, Celia De la Roche and Robin Sampson. What surprised him was that Shane Landale had remembered the tattoo on the killer's arm. There might still be hope for his eventual recovery.
* * *
This time it was Detective Ryers who made the announcement at the end of yet another fruitless twelve-hour day.
"I'm going to call it a night. Lisa is making beef bourguignon tonight."
"It must be nice having a French chef cook for you. The best I can expect from my wife is Hamburger Helper."
When Steven walked through the front door, his fiancée greeted him with a kiss and a glass of wine.
"It's good to have you home," he said.
"As much as I adored Paris, it's good to be home, but don't get used to this king of the castle treatment. I start working next week. Speaking of work, how did your day go?"
"About the same. We still have no idea who the killer is."
"Don't let it get you down," Lisa said as she placed the main course on the dining room table between two lit tapers in silver candleholders. "From what I've heard, your father was an excellent cop."
"That was my father, not me."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, you know."
It was a trite expression, a well-worn saying that could have a good or bad connotation depending upon the parent and child involved. It was an overused idiom that normally went in one ear and out the other. That evening, however, it planted a seed in Steven's mind that germinated overnight and sprouted into a nagging idea the next morning.
* * *
When Detective Addis arrived at the police station, he found his partner sitting at his desk, surrounded by a mountain of file folders.
"I brought you a coffee from Starbucks," Steven announced, not looking up from the police report he was reading. "You might want to warm it up a bit in the microwave, though. It's been sitting on your desk for almost an hour."
"What's all this?" Carl asked, sipping his lukewarm latte.
"Files on the Dunmyer case."
"What the hell are you doing with them?"
Steven raised his head, smiled, and cryptically replied, "Looking for an apple."
"Think I'll go heat this coffee up after all."
When Carl returned from the lunchroom, he found his partner in an exuberant mood.
"We gotta go," Steven announced excitedly. "I'll drive. You can drink that on the way."
"Where are we going?"
"To talk to Charlie Dunmyer—Ned's kid. I got a hunch he's Rosemary Beaton's mysterious songbird."
* * *
Unlike his father, young Dunmyer could not afford to hire a handsome, personable lawyer to sweet talk the jury. Furthermore, the assistant district attorney, a skilled prosecutor who looked more like a fashion model than a lawyer, went into court with an ironclad case against the Big Bad Wolf, and in three weeks' time got the twelve jurors to come back with a conviction and a sentence of life without parole.
After the trial was concluded, Steven, married to Lisa Colbert for more than six months, went out to dinner with Carl and his wife to celebrate the guilty verdict.
"You did it, Stevie, my boy!" Detective Addis announced, raising his glass of champagne to his young partner in a congratulatory gesture. "You got him."
"I didn't do it alone. I had a lot of help."
Steven lifted his own glass and gave a silent toast to Hercule Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, Nero Wolfe, Philo Vance, Ellery Queen, C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Barnaby, Richard Jury and, most importantly, Detective Shane Landale.
'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf' (1933): music by Frank Churchill; lyrics by Frank Churchill and Ann Rondell
Salem isn't afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. In fact, like Kevin Costner, he dances with wolves.
