The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 26

Once again, it should be noted that this is not a police story. Not in a traditional sense. No car chases, no gunfights, no determined cop climbing a fence to chase a perp down an alley. This is a story about hippies and single mothers and hemp soap and loving aunts and dogs but primarily, it's about an amazing little girl named Maribeth Finch who made an inspired transformation into the person she most wanted to be, Lizzie Nickerson. Admittedly, she became a valuable asset to the Cincinnati Police Department, but Lizzie's story is not a police story. Except for the occasional chapter like this one.

When Detective Frazier Stoudemire rang the doorbell, Benjamin Tuttle answered his door with car keys in hand.

"What do you want now? Tuttle said with indignation.

"Mind if I come in?"

"I was just on my way out." Tuttle swung the keys on his keyring back and forth.

Wearing an affable smile, the detective said, "This will only take a minute."

Tuttle begrudgingly stepped back and opened the door wider. Stoudemire entered. He hadn't walked more than a few feet into the front room when he noticed the fish tank against the wall. Judging by its size, he estimated it was a 20-gallon tank.

'What kind of fish do you have?" Frazier asked. "Guppies? Tetras?"

"Yeah, mostly," Tuttle replied. "I got a few swordtails in there." He jangled the keys in his palm.

"Yeah, I see them." He peered into the tank, watching the fish swim through the murky water. "Are you having some issues with your pump and filter?"

"That one's getting pretty old. I saw a couple on eBay I been thinking about."

Three sentences into the conversation, Tuttle established that his dull personality matched his dull face.

"Your water circulation doesn't look too good." Frazier took off his jacket.

Benjamin Tuttle looked on, his eyes narrowing. "What are you doing?" His keys jangled at a quicker tempo.

Stoudemire unbuttoned his shirt sleeve and began rolling up his cuff. "I'm taking some of this gravel back to the lab."

"No, you're not." Tuttle advanced.

"I got a search warrant in my jacket. I'll show it to you in a minute." Frazier removed an empty prescription bottle from his pocket and gently dipped it into the tank, scooping a sampling of the colored pebbles from the bottom of the tank.

The doorbell rang. "That's probably Officer Ott," said Stoudemire. "You mind letting him in?"

If Tuttle had harbored any thoughts of running, it was now too late. He stopped swinging his keys. He opened the door and admitted Officer Delvin Ott. The uniformed police officer entered.

Stoudemire said, "We found some fish tank gravel at the train trestle in Ault Park very similar to this gravel." He shook the gravel in the prescription bottle. "We pulled some DNA and we're gonna see if it matches the DNA on these samples."

"Wait a minute," Tuttle said. "There's no way that gravel's going to match. I changed that gravel at least twice since..." His voice trailed off.

"Since the night you pushed Jahelen Booth off that trestle," Stoudemire said.

Benjamin Tuttle hung his head as the detective informed him of his rights. He stared down at his shoes as if they had sage advice to impart.

Tuttle didn't know that the detective's search warrant in his jacket pocket was fake. He also didn't realize that pulling DNA samples from fish tank gravel was impossible. But none of that mattered now. 

........

At the police station, Benjamin Tuttle confessed to the crime. "There was no sense in denying it," said Stoudemire. "The fish tank DNA was a perfect match."

On that fateful night, just after cleaning his fish tank, Tuttle lurked in the bushes in Ault Park waiting for an unsuspecting victim to pass by. Jahelen Booth had the misfortune of being that unsuspecting victim. Her first mistake was running unaccompanied through a deserted area at night, something people, especially women, should never do. Her second mistake was blasting music through her Beats earbuds as she ran. Although she found her favorite jams a necessary component of exercise, the music negated any chance of hearing Tuttle coming up from behind. She was easy prey.

Had he given the matter serious consideration, Benjamin would have realized that ambushing a jogger wouldn't produce the desired results he might have achieved had he accosted a woman carrying her purse.

When she felt a hand on her shoulder, Jahelen whipped around and swung, catching Tuttle by surprise. He stumbled and on the way to the ground wrapped his arms around her ankles. She hit the ground hard and kicked at him until she was free. He knew she would be able to provide a description to the police. Benjamin couldn't have that and so, as she got to her feet and started across the trestle to make her escape, he gave chase.

"Hey, listen!" he called. "Honest mistake. I thought you were someone else."

Her only response was to shout, "Help!"

"No, no, listen. Let's talk about this. Okay?"

"HELP!" she screamed.

He wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of this one. Once he closed the distance, he shoved her. Tuttle watched her disappear over the edge of the trestle and plummet to the ground.

"Crap," he muttered. Glancing to his right and then to his left he heaved a sigh of relief. Although the robbery didn't go as planned, at least no one saw him commit it. He thought he'd gotten away scot-free until someone with super-human powers of observation noticed the fish tank gravel at the crime scene. Benjamin Tuttle had been linked to the murder of Jahelen Booth by a girl he'd never met.