The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 6

Frazier Stoudemire knew that his partner, Detective Mitch Tarpick, had scheduled time off Tuesday afternoon for a dentist appointment. Fortunately for Detective Stoudemire, criminals operating in and around the city of Cincinnati had also taken time off that afternoon from their murdering, robbing, burglarizing, and general criminalizing, which gave Stoudemire an opportunity to visit Lizzie Nickerson.

He parked across the street from the small apartment building and noticed that from his vantage point, the structure no longer appeared to be leaning back on its heels. In fact, it didn't seem to be leaning at all. The afternoon sun washed the red brick building a chalky red.

He climbed the porch steps and peered into the entryway through the tiny window in the front door. There she was, Lizzie Nickerson, sitting on the fifth step, almost lost in her familiar hoodie.

Frazier tapped on the glass and waved. She remained lifeless like a mannequin offering no reaction. He tapped again. Still nothing. He turned his eyes to the call buttons and pressed the buzzer for the first floor's occupant, Ms. Margery Brennan.

A short time later, the woman exited her apartment and took a series of careful baby steps toward the front door.

He waved, hoping she would recognize him but she wore a cautious expression on her face.

He produced his ID and held it to the window. "Detective Frazier Stoudemire," he said. Ms. Margery Brennan squinted through the glass and then opened the door.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, a fog of her potent perfume enveloping the detective.

"No, no. Nothing at all," he said, rubbing his nose. "I just stopped by to thank you for contacting the Cincinnati Police Department to report the unfortunate incident involving your neighbor, Mr. Frederick Gibbs."

Her expression remained unchanged. Once again, she seemed to be unnerved.

"We at the police department are grateful for conscientious citizens such as yourself."

"I don't consider myself conscientious," she said, her hand flat against her breastbone. "I mean, I came out of my apartment one morning to find a dead neighbor lying at my feet. Of course, I called the police. Who would I call? An exterminator?"

The detective shrugged. "May I come in?"

She opened the door wider, allowing him to enter. He glanced up the staircase at Lizzie and, with a polite smile, waved.

She offered no reaction. The only movement he noticed was the slight bouncing of the toes of her sneakers on the stair.

"The man we arrested for the mur–." He stopped himself and began again. "The man who was arrested in connection with the unfortunate situation concerning Mister Frederick Gibbs–"

"You mean his murder," said Lizzie.

"Here we go again," said Ms. Brennan. "I believe I've heard quite enough about murder." She slipped into her apartment and closed the door.

Frazier Stoudemire cleared his throat. "May I have a word with your Aunt Sonya?"

"About the murder of Mr. Gibbs?" Lizzie asked. "Oh, geez. She doesn't know anything about it except that he's dead. And it only made her even more worried about some of the people in this neighborhood. Could there be other violent maniacs living nearby? I think they say people with a predisposition to violence, right?" 

"Well, maybe."

"Predisposition," she said. "I just read it. I like that word."

"Yeah, that's a good one. I need to speak with your aunt. Is she home?"

"Up on three," Lizzie pointed. "She likes to watch her stories while she folds laundry. It's laundry day."

He started up the stairs and stepped around her.

"Tomorrow is grocery shopping day," she said. "I don't like grocery shopping day. She makes me come with her. I'm fourteen years old. I'm perfectly capable of staying here by myself but she says no, I can't. There's no logical or reasonable explanation. I'm a grocery store hostage. That's what it feels like. Oh, geez. Doesn't she have any regard for my feelings?"

Her voice faded out as the detective reached the landing and began climbing the staircase up to the third floor.

"It's the middle one," she shouted just as he reached the third-floor landing. The layout of the apartment building's third floor was the same as the second-floor layout, with one apartment in the center, flanked by an apartment on either side.

Frazier later learned that the first floor had only two apartments. The apartment facing the street had been occupied by Mrs. Margery Brennan for the past sixteen years. There was a larger apartment in the rear of the first floor where the landlord once lived while on the premises. He moved out five years ago and the apartment was now vacant except for the old furniture he left behind, cleaning supplies, two second-hand vacuum cleaners, ladders, spare lightbulbs, a well-worn broom, a few old snow shovels, and a 50-pound bag of rock salt.

As he approached the third-floor apartment door, the detective heard Sonya's television.

"Don't you look at me like that, Hector," a shrill woman's voice shouted.

A baritone voice replied, "And how would you prefer that I look at you, Oceana?"

"Just don't! Take your filthy eyes off me! I won't have those sapphire pools of lust washing over my body like a thundering waterfall of desire!"

The detective knocked. He suffered through a few more lines of painful dialogue before Lizzie's Aunt Sonya answered the door.

The conversation with Sonya was brief. She was Lizzie's caregiver and guardian. She'd had custody of Lizzie since Lizzie was seven years old. Sonya didn't care to elaborate but it seemed clear to Stoudemire that this was another case of an unprepared mother taking a cold, hard look at parenthood and realizing she didn't have the skill set or the stomach for it. So Sonya stepped in and reluctantly accepted the challenge. Sure, Sonya admitted, Lizzie was a handful and to put it mildly, an unusual child. She didn't fit in with other normal kids and she didn't seem to mind.

Stoudemire understood. In his line of work, he was well aware that the world was a mean place particularly unkind to loners and misfits.

Nothing Sonya said surprised the detective except for the fact that the child's name was actually Maribeth Finch.

"So where did the name Lizzie Nickerson come from?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Just got it into her head. I fought it for a long time but she stopped answering to Maribeth. So, okay, I thought. We got enough problems around here. Lizzie Nickerson it is. I thought she'd grow out of it eventually but actually, it seems she grew into it."