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  FINAL CYCLE

  Elaine L. Orr

  Second Logland Mystery

  Final Cycle

  2nd Logland Mystery

  Copyright 2018 by Elaine L. Orr

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-948070-16-4

  Final Cycle is a work of fiction. No character or activity is based on real people.

  Jolie Gentil Cozy Series

  River's Edge Mystery Series

  Logland Mystery Series

  www.elaineorr.com

  http://elaineorr.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  NICK’S DINER CHILE *

  MORE BOOKS BY ELAINE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dedication

  To my husband and family, always.

  And to those fighting private internal battles. You might be surprised to know there are those willing to help, if only you would ask.

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to the Decatur Critique Group (Angela, Dave, Debbie, Marilyn, and both Sues), and to Karen Musser Nortman, a terrific beta reviewer. Thanks also to Ronny, for the pie expertise.

  CHAPTER ONE

  LOUELLA BELLE SIMPSON did not win any popularity contests during her years as the combined home-ec and health teacher at Logland High. The trend continued after she retired.

  Dislike for her centered mostly on her constant attempts to educate (her word) parents on how junk food would lead to sick and overweight children. Everyone in the Bully Pulpit Diner, her favorite soapbox since retirement, agreed with her in principle. She had a survey to prove it. Most patrons agreed to take it simply to shut her up.

  Eventually, diner operators Nick Hume and Marti Kerkoff told her she could only talk to other patrons if they stopped at her booth or called her over to theirs. Stopping at her booth was not considered voluntary when she told dry cleaner owner Squeaky Miller that his shoe was untied and he should fix it before he tripped.

  On Monday, one week before Christmas, Nick, usually friendly to everyone, stood at her booth to take her lunch order. “Ms. Simpson, I’m here to find out if you want the chili or taco salad, not get told off for eating a donut.”

  The feather in Louella Belle’s brown felt hat shook as she asked, “Do you know how many grams of carbohydrates are in one jelly donut?” She tapped the menu. “Not that you can tell by looking at this. Where’s the nutrition information, young man?”

  “If you don’t want the chili or taco salad, how about the grilled ham and cheese? The ham’s straight from the oven.”

  “The sodium…” Louella Belle began.

  Nick turned toward the lunch counter and the kitchen behind it. “I need to bring ice water to the large booth in the back. I’ll stop by your table again after I do that.”

  She muttered into her menu. “He’ll need a bigger coffin if he keeps eating that junk.”

  Cookie shop owner Doris Minx spoke from her spot in the next booth. “Louella Belle, he’s not dying soon. Nick’s barely twenty-one. I have some new sugar-free cookies. If you stop by I’ll give you a free sample.”

  Across from Doris, Mayor Sharon Humphrey rolled her eyes at the baker.

  Louella Belle turned her head far enough around to look at both of them. “Those artificial sweeteners just make you want real sugar.”

  Ever the diplomat, Mayor Humphrey said, “Lots of choices at Doris’ cookie place.”

  “And all bad for you,” grumbled Louella Belle.

  Marti’s voice cut into the conversation. "Can I take your order before I pick up the diner’s laundry across the street?”

  Marti and Nick used red-and-white-checkered tablecloths for the large table at the far end of the diner’s long L portion and on the booths at each side of the short part of the L, the cigar component, as Nick called it.

  Louella Belle raised a sagging chin to meet Marti’s gaze. “You two would spend a lot less money managing this place if you’d go back to plain table tops instead of wasting detergent doing laundry.”

  Marti tapped her foot, her trademark indication of impatience. “Maybe you’d like to run a couple of errands and then decide what you want to order.”

  Louella Belle shut the thin plastic menu sharply, then slammed it on the table. The harsh slap did not seem to have expressed her outrage sufficiently. She slid to the edge of her booth. “Move over girl. I know when I’m not wanted.”

  None of the regular diners would have found this believable.

  Marti stepped back so she could climb out of the booth. “Your patronage is always welcome, Louella Belle, just not the commentary.”

  Louella Belle, all five feet two inches of her, reached into the booth for her brown cloth coat with its faux-velvet collar. “I’d rather be outside in the cold than in here.” She shrugged her arms into the coat, shooting Marti a dagger-eyes look as she did so.

  “Watch out for slippery spots. We cleared the diner’s sidewalk real well, but Gene hasn’t been to the tattoo parlor yet, so his walk is still covered in snow.”

  “Humph.” She stomped toward the door, stopping long enough to tell a young couple that they shouldn’t give their kids diner food. “You should buy some of my organic vegetables next summer.”

  A boy about three years old opened his mouth wide to show her the mix of chocolate milkshake and peas he had crammed under his tongue.

  Louella walked out the door and managed to pull it to a sound slam behind her.

  No one spoke for several seconds, until Mayor Humphrey said, “She’ll come back in a few minutes.”

  Nick walked past Marti with a tray bearing four glasses of ice water. “Maybe we need a moat.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t scare off other customers.” Marti glanced at the parents and their two toddlers. “I’m sorry about that.”

  The man wiped dribbles of chocolate milkshake off of the three-year old's chin. “Be glad you didn’t have her for health class.”

  The glass door opened and aging newspaper editor Jerry Pew came into the diner, stomping his feet on the black mat in front of the door. “Afternoon Marti, Mayor.” He glanced around. “Nice Christmas tree in the window, Marti.”

  She gestured toward an empty booth near the door. “Thanks, Jerry.”

  Doris turned so he could see her face, and waved lightly.

  Jerry grinned. “Ah, my favorite baker. Hello Doris.” He turned to Marti. “How ‘bout some of that tomato soup for starters? This old guy is chilled to the bone.”

  “Sure thing, Jerry.” Marti made for the kitchen, Nick behind her. When she walked ahead of him, they looked like a costume-party horse, short in front with a tall rump and tail rising at the back end.

  MONDAY AFTERNOON HAD TURNED to dusk before Marti remembered the load of tablecloths
and kitchen towels in the laundromat across the street. She and Nick had been pleased when Squeaky took over a vacant store next to the dry cleaners and added five washers and four huge dryers. But, they didn’t like to leave dry linens in the tumbling drum. Too many wrinkles and a temptation for any light-fingered laundry doer.

  She took off her apron and turned to Nick, where he sat at the counter with his afternoon ham sandwich. “I’ll probably be over there for ten minutes. I want to fluff up the tablecloths so they aren’t so wrinkled.” She pushed a button on the cash register to open the drawer and remove a quarter.

  “No problem. It’s our quiet five minutes before the six-o'clock rush.” He downed a huge gulp of the sandwich in one bite.

  Marti grabbed her ski jacket from the hooks across from the entry door. She waved at Gene as she crossed the street toward the laundromat. After a day of cold, any unshoveled snow had ice underneath. In front of Man Up Tattoos, even owner Gene, with his broad shoulders, seemed to have a hard time chipping at the layer below the white stuff.

  The laundromat’s warmth felt good to Marti. She strode to the commercial dryer where she had placed the diner’s tablecloths several hours ago and inserted the quarter.

  The thumping sound made her wonder whether the lint catcher had fallen into the spinning drum. She peered into the round window in the dryer door in time to see the surprised-looking face of Louella Belle Simpson cycle by.

  CHAPTER TWO

  POLICE CHIEF ELIZABETH FRIEDMAN studied the wet countenance of the late Louella Belle Simpson. Before Elizabeth arrived, two officers had wrestled her body from the dryer in response to Marti’s hysterical call.

  The woman now lay on her back across the laundromat’s wooden table that usually held folded clothes. Gray hair fell in clumps on her forehead and cheeks, and unseeing eyes appeared to focus on the ceiling. In death, her skin acceded to gravity and eased the wrinkles in her eighty-year old face.

  Elizabeth's quick examination of the dryer door had convinced her it would be difficult to close it tightly from the inside. Besides, the device had to be started from the outside. Louella Belle definitely hadn’t begun any spin on her own.

  Since Louella Belle’s hair and the upper part of her coat were still wet, Elizabeth thought she probably hadn’t been in the dryer too long. Someone else would have found her.

  She hoped Louella Belle was dead, or at least unconscious, when someone stuffed her in the dryer. Determining that would be up to Dr. Isaac Hutton, a.k.a. Skelly, the county medical examiner and coroner.

  Elizabeth watched him gently prod the back of the skull, probably looking for indentations. She saw no blood on the floor, though her officers would have to determine if any had been recently cleaned.

  Still probing, Skelly glanced up at Elizabeth. “I probably won’t know anything until I finish her autopsy. No ligature marks on her neck, though her dousing and spinning could disguise all kinds of things.”

  She nodded, noting the lock of black hair that fell on his forehead when he bent over Louella Belle again. Skelly came to Logland about four years ago, Elizabeth not long before. They’d become friends, but Elizabeth wouldn’t let herself think of him as more than that. Not someone she had to work with. She'd fallen into that trap in Chicago, and she wouldn't again.

  “Can you determine much while you’re here?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Her time in the dryer, to say nothing of the water, complicates everything. It’ll be hard to tell if what looks like a broken arm took place in the dryer or before she went in there.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Even without her head and shoulders being wet, it’ll be almost impossible to isolate fibers or hair to a perp. I bet at least two dozen people wash clothes in here every day.”

  Skelly finally stopped probing and called to the two police officers stationed near the laundromat front door. “How about some lifting help, guys?” To Elizabeth he added, “I’ll let you know what I find out as soon as I can.”

  He would call with preliminary thoughts later that evening and probably finish his work sometime the next day. She hoped so. With Christmas so close, she wanted to figure out what happened to Louella Belle before she had to cancel vacation plans for the small Logland, Illinois police force. And to catch a murderer, of course.

  Officers Tony Calderone and Christopher Mahan, whom she'd called back to duty after their shift ended, walked to the folding table from the door, where they’d been standing sentry. Now that orange cones and police tape kept curious eyes a good distance away, they could leave their posts to help move Louella Belle again.

  As Calderone stared at Louella Belle's contorted expression, he spoke to Skelly. “I saw Jerry Pew outside. You want me to get the gurney from your van for you, so you don’t have to blow off everyone's favorite newspaper editor?”

  “That’d be great. There’s a black body bag sitting on the gurney,” Skelly said. “When I walk out I’ll tell Jerry to call Elizabeth later.”

  “Oh, joy,” she said.

  Elizabeth moved past the now-silent washers and dryers to the locked entrance and looked out one of the two plate glass windows. To her right was Squeaky's dry cleaning business, with Gene's Man Up Tattoo Parlor next on this side of the street.

  Next to the tattoo place was an empty building whose windows the Chamber of Commerce decorated for each change of season. Then Combine Street emptied into the town square.

  Almost directly across the street was the Bully Pulpit Diner, ensconced between an independent insurance agency on one side and a tiny shop that sold fabric, yarn, and crafting supplies. Farther down the street, away from the town square, were Dollar General, Doris' Cookie Shoppe, Ringlet's Beauty Salon, Alice's bookstore, and the pizza place.

  Buildings along Combine Avenue weren't attached like row houses in larger cities, but they abutted one another, with occasional access to the street between buildings. Usually the space was a vacant lot, the result of a fire or maybe a demolition if the city condemned a building. When an ancient five-and-dime store came down last year, Elizabeth joined the crowd that gaped at a World War II-era painting of Rosie the Riveter on the building next door.

  No matter where she looked, Elizabeth saw nothing out of the ordinary -- other than the small crowd that had gathered across the street. A killer could stand nearby, but wouldn't have a sign that said "arrest me."

  Only a Logland winter streetscape met her eyes. The light snow had turned slushier earlier, but was back to a mix of frozen snow and ice. The old-fashioned street lamps each held a huge artificial wreath of holly leaves and huge red berries, complete with a red bow and a plastic candle the size of Elizabeth's cat.

  As Calderone and Mahan pushed the gurney with Louella Belle's body bag on it toward the alley exit, someone crossed the street, ignoring the traffic cones and police tape. Elizabeth squinted.

  City Clerk Donald Dingle walked directly to the laundromat front door and pressed his nose to the glass. “Let me in.”

  Dingle had been city clerk for forty-two years. Full-time nuisance was the least offensive term Elizabeth used for him.

  From behind Elizabeth, Skelly muttered, “He’s all yours.” He took off his gloves and placed them in a plastic bag in his black medical satchel.

  She nodded at Dingle through the door. “Crime scene, sir. How about heading to my office? I’ll be down there in a few minutes.”

  Dingle scowled. “Is it really Louella Belle?”

  “I’m sorry, yes. Corporal Grayson will be here soon with some paper to cover the windows. Sorry you had to hear from someone besides me.”

  “I need to see her,” Dingle said.

  Elizabeth turned slightly, and met Skelly’s surprised expression. It probably matched hers.

  Skelly walked to the door and stood next to Elizabeth. “I’ll have her at the hospital in about half-an-hour. Why don’t you come by there in an hour or so?”

  Dingle seemed to want to say something else, but he shut his mouth, turned abruptly, and
walked away.

  “You’d let him see her?” Elizabeth asked.

  Skelly shook his head. “After I check a couple things, I’ll comb her hair and take a photo to show him, something like that. Were they friends?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I would have said adversaries. She attended a lot of city council meetings to…offer ideas.”

  Skelly turned toward the back exit. “Last suggestion she gave me was to force the hospital to take out all the snack machines in the doctors’ lounge.”

  Officer Grayson came in as Skelly followed Louella Belle out the alley door. Elizabeth helped the five-six Grayson tape blank newsprint paper to the windows. Jerry Pew was smart. He'd provided the paper, now she owed him a favor.

  “Where’s Squeaky, Chief?”

  “He was pretty shook up. Asked me if I minded if he grabbed a pint at the bar in the Weed ‘n Feed. I told him one only. You know how he is.”

  Grayson grunted as he stuffed a roll of masking tape into the pocket of his dark blue, waterproof, bomber-style jacket. “You hangin’ out here for a while?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Calderone’ll be back in a few minutes. He’s going to stop by the station to get the crime kit. I want you guys to get prints from all over the dryer, not just the handle.”

  She headed to a different dryer and placed a palm flat against the front portion, which the dryer door latched into. “Somebody may have had to lean against the door to shove her in.”

  “A couple somebodies, probably.” Grayson scanned the approximately sixty-by-fifty foot room, cluttered with equipment, tables for folding clothes, and laundry baskets on wheels. “We’ll think of more stuff to check.”

  Elizabeth smiled inwardly. Grayson was a decent cop, but he’d never stretched his mental capacities. “Calderone took that three-day course up in Springfield. The one in evidence gathering.”

  “Sure.” He grinned momentarily. “He knows how to boss us.”