A New Year in Schuyler Square

It's a new year in Schuyler Square but the murder of Fritz Weiss remains unsolved. As the case has grown cooler and cooler, interest in it has waned too. With a bitter winter on hand, the good people of Schuyler Square are more concerned with keeping warm than anything else...


"This winter sucks," Sandi Cooper announced to her sister Mindy. "I think I'm going to blow this pop stand and join Mom. Where is she now?"


Mindy looked up from the cup of hot chocolate she was holding in lame attempt to warm her freezing hands. The landlord turned the heat down to 60 degrees at ten o'clock each evening no matter what the temperature was outside. "I think she's in Florida right now at a Herman's Hermits reunion event."


"How does she afford to just travel?" Sandi asked. "It's not like she ever worked or anything. What is she living on?"


"Probably Dad's life insurance. She told me once that he took out a huge policy just in case he died while we were little and she needed to support us."


"So she's spending all that on chasing has been teen idols around the country." Sandi looked disgusted. "Pathetic. What we need to do is find a rich husband for each of us and then we won't have to sit in freezing apartments for the rest of our lives."


"Money isn't everything," Mindy remarked. "Look at me. I was engaged to Bernard, the wealthiest man I ever met, and I was miserable. I'd much rather marry someone for love."


"Someone like Peter Van Husen?" Sandi slyly suggested.


Mindy blushed. "Of course not but speaking of Officer Van Husen, how's the murder investigation going?"


"Oh, it's pretty much dead in the water. No one knows who killed that weird scientist and no one cares. I haven't talked to Peter about that in ages. Maybe you should call him up and see what's happening. You are supposed to be an investigative reporter."


"I'll let someone else on the paper handle it."


"Why? Are you avoiding Peter? You know, I think he has a big ol' crush on you. You should do something about that."


"You're being ridiculous. All I care about is finding out who killed Fritz and why. This town is too small to have an unsolved mystery."


Sandi pulled out her cell phone and pressed Peter's number. "Then tell our local stud police officer that. Here."


"Sandi! I don't want to talk to Peter!" Mindy recoiled from the telephone and then ducked as  her sister threw it at her.


"Hello?" Peter's voice floated up from the cell phone. "Sandi? What's up?"


Reluctantly, Mindy picked up the phone. "Hi, Peter. It isn't Sandi. It's Mindy."


Peter's voice brightened considerably. "Mindy! I don't believe this. I was just thinking about you. There's been a lead in the murder of Fritz Weiss."

Schuyler Square Day 121 A Long Way Down

Frozen at the window, Veronica stared down at Jim Waterston's lifeless body. Behind her, Peter seemed to be coming out of whatever otherworldly state he was in. Veronica watched as the people in the living room rushed outside. In the distance came the sound of sirens and she knew that in another moment or two the Schuyler Square police department would arrive. Wearily, she turned and looked at Peter. "Are you all right?"

Peter shook his head sharply as if he was shaking away cobwebs. "I saw Mary Austin after Jim left. I saw her body lying in front of the fireplace. Jim Waterston killed her and I knew about it all these years but I couldn't remember. Why couldn't I remember?"

Veronica sat down shakily on an old rocking chair and wished that she was any other place in the world. "I don't know, Peter. The mind is a funny thing."

"But I liked Mary. She was always nice to me. I should have remembered what happened to her."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Veronica assured him. "It's all over now."

Peter sat down too. "I feel like I've been asleep for the past twenty years."

Veronica couldn't help but laugh. "Believe me, you haven't been asleep. You have a pregnant wife and an irate mistress. Do you remember that?"

Slowly nodding his head, the mist that had been in his eyes for months began to lift. "I guess I should do something about both of those situations."

They could hear the sound of someone climbing the attic steps, breathing harder with each stair. A moment later Chelsea hurried into the room, her rounded body still moving for a second after she'd come to a halt. "Peter! Oh, thank God you're all right! For a moment I thought that was you who fell out the window." She walked as quickly as she could over to her husband and wrapped her arms around him.

Peter hesitated for a split second before embracing Chelsea tightly. "I'm fine," he told her. "Everything's fine."

Feeling like she was intruding, Veronica got to her feet and began to sidle toward the door. Everything was going to be all right for Peter and Chelsea. She had the feeling that the person Peter Van Husen had been for the past few months had been some kind of imposter and now the real Peter, the decent police officer Peter, was going to return and just in time for his wife.

Veronica was suddenly exhausted. Ever since she'd returned to Schuyler Square she felt like it had been one drama after another. Ron, Chelsea, Mavis, Peter, Tiffany, Tom.

Maybe things will settle down now. Maybe no one will get murdered and there won't be any rumors about ghosts breaking things in the middle of the night. Maybe we can all get down to the business of normal, everyday life.

But in Schuyler Square, Veronica wasn't sure if normal, everyday life was possible.

Schuyler Square Day 116 Burt and Loni

Mary Austin looked like Loni Anderson.

Peter Van Husen was sweating through his blue policeman uniform. He could sense large pools of perspiration breaking out under his arms and forming psychedelic patterns on his back. Sitting at a table in the break room of the Schuyler Square police station, he remembered how much Mary Austin had looked like Loni Anderson to him--same cotton candy blonde hair, same dark eyes, same fantastic figure. No wonder he'd had such a crush on her way back when he was her newspaper delivery boy. But nothing had ever come of that crush. Mary was an adult woman and he was just a punk kid.

At least he didn't think that anything had ever come of his crush. Peter's memory over that entire block of time seemed to have dried up on him like a puddle under the hot August sun. No, that was ridiculous. Mary had a boyfriend, someone Peter had spied on a few occasions getting into his car very early in the morning. A middle-aged man who looked like Burt Reynolds.

Peter sat upright, the perspiration pumping down his back. Oh my gosh, was that it? Had he seen Mary's boyfriend kill her and kicked it out of his memory because he didn't want to remember, didn't want to be involved?

"What's wrong with you? You look like you just saw a ghost." Jim Waterston entered the break room and headed for the coffee pot. "You sick or something?"

"Something," Peter agreed. "Actually, I do feel a little under the weather."

"Why don't you go home?" Jim smirked. "Provided you remember which home you want to go back to."

Peter was in no mood for any kind of snide comments from Jim. He'd never liked the guy and given Peter's present state of mental health, there was a very good chance that he'd deck him before their conversation was over. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you have your address with your pregnant wife and you have your address with the lovely and loaded Mavis Schuyler. Which one are you going back to tonight?"

"I don't see that that's any of your business," Peter replied as he fought back a strong urge to deck Jim with his coffee mug. He narrowed his eyes suddenly. Funny, but he'd never noticed before what a strong resemblance to Burt Reynolds that Jim Waterston had.

"It isn't. I'm just curious along with everyone else in town. The smart money is on Chelsea--provided she'll take you back. There's no way Mavis Schuyler is going to keep you around much longer."

Peter got to his feet, his mind buzzing with fragments of memories that simply refuses to blossom inside his head. "See you later."

"Something I said?" Jim asked.

"I've got to be somewhere. I'm going to a party tonight."

Jim laughed. "Well, I hate to burst your bubble but you look like you'll be the death of any party you go to."

Schuyler Square Day 67 Haunted?

"I don't know about this Steve." DeeDee Robertson stared up at the ceiling. "Maybe we shouldn't move here." She was lying next to her husband Steve at a rundown motel in the dinky town of Schuyler Square, Illinois, and she had the feeling that the two of them had just made one of the bigger mistakes of their marriage. Bigger than the time early in their marriage they had decided to Z brick a wall in the living room only to find their math was off and they ran out of fake bricks two-thirds through the project and couldn't afford any more. Steve had made up for that goof by strategically placing the remaining bricks in a staggered pattern that looked fine when you were drunk but a lot like a gap toothed beggar the rest of the time. Bigger than when DeeDee planned a camping vacation and then accidentally gave them food poisoning ten miles from the nearest indoor bathroom. Bigger even than when they allowed their daughter's then-boyfriend to move in with them only to find out he was wanted by every branch of the law in the tr-state area. Still, this mistake made the other ones look incredibly minor. Were they really going to be happy living in a small town in a haunted house?

"Honey, relax," Steve said. "The house was left to us, free and clear. We both agreed that if we move to Schuyler Square we'll be able to enjoy our retirement with a lot more freedom. You know the rent back in the city was killing us. And think about the grandkids. Austin and Kayla are going to love visiting us here."

"But the house is haunted," DeeDee reminded him. "I don't want to live in a haunted house and I don't want my grandchildren visiting a haunted house."

"We don't know for sure that it's haunted. We heard it from two women who were probably tossing back Long Island Iced Teas when we interrupted them. Plus we're practically evicting one of them. Maybe they're tweaking the ghost story a little just to scare us off."

"They wouldn't do that. They looked like nice women. I think they were telling the truth. We're giving up restaurants, shopping and museums to move into an old house with a ghost in it."

"A free old house with a ghost in it."

"I don't want to live there."

"DeeDee, you're going to make yourself crazy and take me along for the ride. What can we do so this ghost business doesn't bother you so much?"

DeeDee considered their options and was dismayed to realize that they really didn't have many at all. Steve was right; the cost of living in the city was ridiculous and their retirement dollars would definitely go a lot farther out in the sticks. Plus they'd never had a house before and she knew it was going to be wonderful to finally have a garden and a garage and a yard. "I suppose that if we got to the bottom of what happened in the house, maybe it wouldn't be so scary. Chelsea said they never found out who murdered the woman living in our house. Maybe if we find out her soul will be at peace and she'll leave us alone. At least that's the way it always works in movies."

"Great idea. You get to the bottom of it. You love to read mysteries so maybe you can solve this one." Steve sounded like he was almost asleep.

"Will you help me?"

"You know I will," Steve agreed.

DeeDee felt better. "The first thing I need to do is find out just what happened. Who was she? Why would anyone want to kill her? How was she killed?'

"That's right, honey," Steve said, his voice barely a mumble. "You figure it out. You can do it."

DeeDee nodded in the dark. She could do it and she would. Starting first thing in the morning.

Schuyler Square Day 59 Cause of Death

In the twenty-four hours that had passed since Ron Schuyler's death, tips had been pouring into the Schuyler Square police station. Unfortunately, none of them were much help.

"This is all crap," Peter said, hanging up the telephone angrily after the last caller reported that he had seen a plump red head enter the country club kitchen right around the time Ron had been murdered. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to remember that his wife Chelsea was now a red head and that she was also a bit of a porker. But Peter knew there was no way Chelsea murdered Ron. She wasn't the type. If Chelsea had murder on her mind, Peter had no doubt that he would be the intended victim, not Ron Schuyler.

"What's crap?" Jim Waterston asked as he peered over Peter's shoulder. "A red head, huh? That's the third time a broad with red hair has been mentioned from the tipsters, isn't it?"

"So?" Peter asked.

"So your wife has red hair now. Bright red hair. Lucy red hair. Little Orphan Annie red hair."

"What are you saying, Jim? Spit it out, OK?"

Jim sat down next to Peter and smirked at him. "Just putting two and two together."

"And coming up with five," Peter shot back. "Besides, the autopsy report isn't back yet. It's highly possible that Ron Schuyler died of natural causes."

The smirk grew even broader on Jim's face and he patted his basketball sized paunch. "Sure he did. It's also highly possible that I'll be chosen as the next Sexiest Man of the Year by People magazine."

"He could have had a heart attack," Peter said. "There was no gun shot wound, no stab wound, no external marks."

"Other than the six inch gash on his forehead."

"He could have hit the edge of the counter when he fell," Peter said.

Jim shook his head in disgust. "You are pathetic but go ahead and stay in La La Land for as long as you want. In the meantime, I'm going to go to your house and talk to your wife."

"The hell you are!"

"The hell I am. It's my job, Van Husen. There was a murder and it's all of our jobs to talk to likely suspects. That would be your wife, Mavis Schuyler and...you."

Peter stared. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. Where were you when Schuyler died anyway?"

Now it was Peter's turn to smirk. "Actually I was dancing with Mavis Schuyler. There's no way either of us killed Ron Schuyler."

"That still leaves your missus."

"No one killed Ron Schuyler." The captain's irritated voice interrupted them. "He had a massive heart attack." The captain looked from Peter to Jim. "However, we don't think he was alone. Evidence indicates that Ron Schuyler was...sexually active at the time of death."

"You mean he was bopping someone when he died? Who?" Peter demanded.

"What a way to go," Jim added. "Yeah, who was it?"

The captain sighed. "A temporary worker hired by the country club for the evening for eight bucks an hour. Apparently some gal was playing waitress for the night and she caught Mr. Schuyler's eye when she served him his drink."

Peter was even more disgusted than he'd been before--although also vastly relieved. Chelsea hadn't killed Ron and neither had Mavis. The women in his life were innocent. "Served him right," he commented, "but that had to be pretty awful for the kid."

"What kid? You mean the waitress?" The captain shook his head. "She was no kid. Sixty if she's a day and not in very good shape herself. Seems she had a little heart event after Ron collapsed. She's in the hospital right now, singing like a canary. You know what she said was the worst thing about the whole shebang?"

Peter could only imagine. What could be the worst thing about having sex with someone and then having them expire on you? "I'm afraid to ask."

"Ron was a lousy tipper."