The Cult of the White Owl Read online

  CHAPTER 4

  “Dispatch! Do you need police, ambulance, or medical?” The frantic call came in to headquarters in the late afternoon.

  “Murder, she’s been murdered, help!”

  “Where are you? Who are you? Do you know the victim?” The operator asked calmly.

  “I have to go I don’t want to get involved!”

  “Where are you? Where is the dead girl? Do not hang up!”

  The dispatcher was anxiously trying to get pertinent information.

  “Fairmont Park! Georges Hill!” SLAM. The phone went dead.

  Dispatch traced the call to the Fairmont Park telephone box and immediately sent a squad car to the vicinity.

  The staff sergeant monitoring the police calls informed the detectives in the squad room as a precaution, he knew they were working on an important missing person case.

  When Jake arrived at the station he received word that a body, a woman’s body was found at Fairmont Park.

  “Where in the park?” Jake was out the door and into his car followed by Johnny who turned on the blue flashers and roared into traffic speeding to George’s Hill and the unknown corpse.

  The park was luscious with spring; no single landscape architect could take major credit for its beauty, although many consulted. Fairmont Park grew like Topsy from five acres to the current 3300 or so acres present today, making Philadelphia’s park, some say, the largest municipal park in the nation, certainly the oldest. It was established in the 1770’s by decree of The United States Congress.

  Johnny drove deftly up George’s Hill Drive ignoring the beauty of the forsythia and daffodils that were in bloom along the roadway. Curious onlookers who had been jogging or biking along the trails stopped their pursuits to stare at the multitude of police and fire trucks, they talked amongst themselves about what was going on, and wondered why all the activity?

  Jake jumped out of the car with Johnny at his heels after parking near all the police cruisers; the police officers on guard raised the rope so they could walk through. Jake spotted the body, no mistake, Caterina Woods!

  Caterina was resting against the trunk of a billowy Weeping Willow tree. The branches blowing in the breeze were messing with her hair. There was no blood and no signs of outward trauma, she looked calm and composed almost joyous in a flowing white gown of a diaphones material and a red rose with no thorn’s lay in her arms. Her nails were polished and her face looked professionally made up. There were no signs of the t-shirt or jeans, let alone her emerald ring.

  The ring that was missing from her closet and it was speculated by the officers that it disappeared with the mayor’s wife. However, her fingers had no rings and she was wearing no jewelry of any kind. The white gown Cat was wearing made her look bride-like and innocent…SHE LOOKED BEAUTIFUL AND DEAD.

  Forensics was close to the body taking pictures and waiting for Jake to study the position of the dead body and the over all display! Murphy joined Jake having arrived earlier with Dr. Smith, “Chief she looks like a bride in that get - up, do you think it’s significant?” Murphy asked scratching his head.

  Jake just looked at him refusing to state the obvious. He bent down disturbing the folds of the gown searching for what he felt was probably there, a card! “It’s got to be here somewhere.” Jake was moving his hands over the body when he noticed an indentation on the bodice of the dress. He reached his hand into the neckline and brushed her cold breast; her nipples were stiff from rigor mortis. He extracted the white card engraved with the raised black lettering ‘The White Owl’! Turning the card over he read the chilling message, “Death where is thy sting!”

  “What the purple hell does it mean?” Murphy asked reading the card.

  The medical examiner was looking at Jake his eyes asking a question.

  Jake kept the calling card. “Do not touch anything or move the body yet.” Jake turned to Murphy, “Go pick up the mayor and bring him here. This whole staged lay-out might have some significance to him, on the double!”

  Dr. Smith, the coroner rocked back on his heels and lit a cigarette preparing for the long wait for the mayor. Jake went around the tree and looked at the ground on the other side and felt the earth, it was damp under the branches and on the grass mound where they were walking, going up the hill was wet and yet Cat was dry! Her clothes weren’t wet; her hair was wind blown but dry as a bone. “Find out from the weather bureau exactly when it stopped raining in Fairmont Park.” Jake asked Johnny who was taking notes.

  “Should I ask when it started also?” Johnny looked up from his note pad, at Jake’s affirmative nod, he continued writing.

  “Dr. Smith I want pictures of the body from every angle and the surrounding area.” Jake continued.

  Dr. Smith gave instructions to the waiting photographer to get busy.

  Jake lit a cigarette and walked in a wider circle. He made note of the crowd that was gathering below. Turning to one of the blue uniforms, Jake told him to go amongst the crowd and ask if any one noticed anything out of the way, even though he suspected it probably was a waste of time. Time, killing time, tick tock the beat of the clock, got to establish a time-line, put my priorities in order. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t get scared. This gruesome crime, the staging, this snuffed out life has all the markings of a serial killing. Only time, (time again) would tell.

  Jake lit another cigarette off the butt of his old one and peered closer at a disturbance in the grass pattern by Cat’s feet, the only disruption around the body. Her feet were enclosed in stiletto heeled pumps with pointed toe tops. The shoes were white satin and clean as fresh snow except for the stiletto heel by the disturbed turf. There appeared to be a speck of blood or something red and wet. The soles of the shoes were spotless, brand new, never worn before. Just purchased?

  Jake called the doctor over and showed him what he had found. Dr. Smith was impressed, but he knew of Jake’s keen eye for details.

  He called his men to bag the shoes and hands as soon as the mayor left, because here he was, running up the hill toward his dead wife, “Caterina, Caterina!”

  Jake stopped him by grabbing his arm, “No, wait, you will disturb the crime scene. Does any of this look familiar to you, this staging, this set up? I know Mr. Mayor she is gone but I need you to focus. This was all arranged for your benefit, does it look familiar?”

  “My wife! My beautiful wife! God, look at her, she could be sleeping!” Anger poured out of his pores, “I will crush whoever did this to my darling, rip him apart with my bare hands, murder him!” Gasping, the mayor sobbed and wrenched his hands together, finally falling to his knees. Jake held him up or at least kept him from throwing himself on the ground. “Gerry does this scene look familiar to you? The placement of Caterina’s body, her clothes, anything at all?”

  “I can’t Jake, I can’t think! My mind is red! My eyes are red! I can’t...he started to dry heave, bent double.

  “Get the mayor home, right now and call his family physician to administer to him.” Murphy helped him up and started to lead him away. “You stay with him till I meet you at the house, understood?” At Murphy’s thumbs up, Jake indicated to forensics they could take the body away. “Take more pictures first,” Jake instructed, “also bag some of the grass by her heel. Let me know! I need to know how she was killed!”

  “Right Chief, it is priority one!”

  “Johnny, any action from the crowd? Did anyone notice anything or anyone?”

  “No Chief, apparently they were shooting a commercial down the hill all the attention was on the models.”

  Jake wheeled around and made his way down the hill to where the car was parked, stuck to the windshield in the well where the wipers are, was a card, a white card with black lettering. Jake picked out the card, embossed on the front was, The White Owl!

  “Any message” asked Johnny.

  “No!” Jake put th
e card in the envelope with the other two and into his pocket not even bothering to look around, he felt sure he was being watched, so he didn’t react. He slid into the passenger seat and Johnny slowly put the car in gear and drove away.

  “Nice going Johnny you played that exactly right.”

  “Thanks Chief, what next?” Johnny looked at Jake for confirmation.

  “The mayor’s house! I want you to relieve Murphy and I want to check on the mayor. He is taking this very hard. I can’t help thinking that spectacle had to be familiar to him or he wouldn’t have broken down so completely.”

  Gerry Woods lay on the leather couch in his library, a wet washcloth on his brow. He lay quietly thanks to a mild sedative the doctor had given him.

  His mind wandered back to the image of Caterina in the white dress under the willow tree, but in another time and place. She was laughing up at him petting his cheek as he bent over her. “What a day,” he thought, as a faint smile played across his face, “Oh my beautiful Caterina, who could have destroyed all that enthusiasm for living! May he rot in hell, and a million devils feed on his balls, the bastard! “

  The mayor heard Jake calling him in the hall and half raised himself on his elbow, the wet washcloth falling to the floor, “Here Jake, in the library,” Gerry called out.

  “Gerry, I am sure you recognized the tableaux the killer set up! I feel it was for your benefit especially. What do you think?” Jake sat down heavily on the chair near the mayor. He lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply.

  “Yes you are right! Caterina and I had a picnic under that willow tree; back when we were first married. It was one of my most happy memories.”

  “Did you ever discuss those memories with anyone, besides your wife?”

  “Probably, it was a special memory, not a private one.”

  “So any number of people knew about your picnic on that spot?”

  “I guess so. How did she die? Caterina looked so peaceful, just as though she were sleeping.”

  “I don’t have a clue as yet, but as soon as I know, you will.”

  “Will you pour me a stiff drink I can’t seem to stop shaking? The decanter is over oh yes that’s it. Thanks Jake.”

  The liquor tumbled out of the glass from Gerry’s uncontrolled shaking hands and Jake put his hands on the double old fashion crystal glass to steady him and help him swallow the scotch.

  Jake went into the kitchen to get a tea towel to mop up the spilled liquor and wet the end in the sink. He ran a hand through his dark hair and threw some water on his face, stymied as to this seemingly senseless killing.

  Sure, he thought she was beautiful and full of herself but that was no reason she should die like that. Alone and under a tree in Fairmount Park.

  Why?

  What had her maid to do with it?

  Was it a Russian hit?

  Was the very good-looking dark man a hit man, tying up an old Russian feud? Maybe.

  He walked into the study with the dish towel to mop up the scotch and saw Gerry had dozed off into a fitful sleep. He laid the towel over the spill and quietly left the house with a nod at the officers standing watch on the outside of the proper

  CHAPTER 5

  “Did you see the papers this morning sir? They were all about the murder. The mayor’s wife, Caterina found dead in Fairmount park. Councilman Carter, she was found in the park, dead.”

  The councilman noted the malevolent gleam in his secretary’s eye, as she kept repeating dead. (No love lost between those two.) ‘Your wife was a friend of hers, wasn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t call her a friend, acquaintance maybe. They were members of the same club and played tennis together.” Carter thinking of the mayor, continued giving his secretary instructions.

  “Politics does not enter in a tragedy such as this, we have to stand behind the mayor one hundred percent. Put out an immediate press release about just that, Deepest sympathy…we must use all our resources to catch this fiend, etc. While you are at it try to find my wife, she might be at the club.........don’t look at me like that, it’s possible, it’s possible.” Carter was talking to his secretary’s departing back, but he heard her mumble “shopping’s more like it.”

  He had to admit Daphne Carter was a shopper if they had a shopper’s anonymous she would be the premier member. It was like a disease with her and he had the bills to prove it, mountains of them. If he did not love her so much he would have closed her bank account long ago. But shopping was her addiction and she was his. She was not going to stop spending.

  Carter shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and looked down at all the work on his desk. A second term councilman had a lot of unresolved administrative work to do. But he loved it. He had power and that made him happy.

  “Is there nothing in my life that is simple?” He asked the photograph of the blonde, dimpled, smiling beauty. Daphne Carter, Immaculate College graduate in Home Economics.

  “Hah, Home Economics, what a laugh! I haven’t had a home cooked meal in a decade, thank God for the maid.” Joe Carter got on the phone and started his workday.

  Daphne loved her husband in a shallow, me first, kind of way. She came from hard working parents, who gave her every advantage possible; good schools, and a home in an upscale neighborhood. The one thing that mattered to Daphne that they did not provide, designer clothes! All her school friends and her friends in the neighborhood had great cars and expensive clothes, a style they carried nonchalantly, an entitled air for the good things that life and their parents could provide. Daphne would sit in the bedroom of her friend Phyllis, watching her put away an array of cashmere sweaters in assorted colors and dream of the time when she too would have a similar collection.

  Phyllis’s, bedroom was color coordinated, as though it was cut out of the House Beautiful magazine. Her bedspread matched the drapes and her walls were papered in a coordinating color. Phyllis had girlie White French Provincial furniture and wall-to-wall carpet that picked up the color of the rose buds in the printed bedspread and draperies. She had a drawer for her belts, a drawer for her lingerie, her scarves and handkerchiefs were in silk drawstring bags. She even had a tray full of perfumes. The piece de resistance was, SHE HAD HER OWN BATHROOM! What luxury!

  Daphne on the other hand, had a closet that held two school uniform jumpers and three starched white blouses, one dress for special and jeans for every day. Her drawers consisted of t-shirts, bras, panties and socks all lumped together.

  Nothing was coordinated in her room. The furniture was hand me down mostly maple. The walls were painted white, (it was easier to touch up) and her bedspread was chenille, (easier to launder). The window had a matching white blind. The floors were wooden with scatter rugs that hid the scratches from furniture that was moved over the years and the dog claws, many of those. Worst of all she had to share a bathroom with her brother......ugh!

  As the years went on Daphne studied hard, received a scholarship to college but had to take jobs baby sitting, waiting tables to make up the short fall. She saved what she could, because she had a dream. Upon graduating Immaculate College in the top 10% of her class, she went job-hunting in the city to pursue that dream.

  Daphne took typing and shorthand as an elective in school She typed fast. She could take shorthand at 100 words a minute, a big help getting a job in City Hall. Councilman Carter was enchanted with her from their first meeting, admiring her spunk and wit. He arranged for Daphne to fill the vacancy in his office, when his secretary got pregnant and had to leave work. Daphne was skilled, she did her job, smiled at his advances. He asked her to meet him after work one night for cocktails. There in that trendy nightspot Joe Carter poured his heart out.

  Joe explained how he felt about her from the moment she applied for the job. He told Daphne how hard it was for him to keep his feelings in check. He tried to tell her everything he felt for her and still keep his dign
ity at the same time, but he told Daphne that he could not stand watching her every day without wanting to touch her hair, kiss her lips and enfold her in his arms. Daphne started to get down from the bar stool where she was sitting stunned by Joe’s revelations, feeling a cross between indignation and lust.

  Joe stopped her with “I love you! I want to marry you!” Daphne had reached her goal, marriage to a handsome, savvy, up and comer! She leaped into his arms, “Yes, yes, darling Joe! “

  Shopping became her middle name, Daphne made very wise choices and was always well turned out. She had years to perfect her taste in clothes and life style.

  Joe Carter was crazy about her and proud. Daphne felt she helped his career by entertaining friends and constituents. Because of her efforts as a gracious hostess and a very clever helpmate she was instrumental in Joe being reelected to a second term. They became a powerful and sort after team.

  Daphne smiled happily as she wandered through the shops on Chestnut street. All the sales personnel knew her but shared mixed opinions as they watched her progress through the stores. She was oblivious to their stares, could care less what they thought. She was in her element. Shopping though great was secondary to conquest and Daphne had a man to captivate. A secret lover. Definitely a secret from Carter, but her close girl friends knew and shared in her adventures. She was unhappy about the death of her friend Cat, but not scared. Tucking her designer purse more firmly under her arm, she was on her way to meet her lover. Not the least bit concerned that danger might be following her.

  Daphne was click -clicking in her Charles Jordan shoes, trying not to catch her spiked heels on the broken sidewalk. She was way off the beaten track in a part of the city out of her comfort zone. But she was meeting her lover, a recent lover to be sure, but one who titillated her soul and other body parts. This wasn’t the first time Daphne experimented outside her marriage, but he was the most intriguing man she ever met. There was an element of danger about him and he filled her daydreams even more than the latest fashion trend. She ignored a sense of foreboding and blamed the ashcans and the run down neighborhood for her momentary sense of fear, certainly not the death of her friend.