The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 32

Pickle McNichol was a dull man, a 34-year-old ham on legs. Born Patrick McNichol, he earned the name 'Pickle' as the winner of a pickle-eating contest just days before his twelfth birthday. That warm June afternoon was the high-water mark of Pickle's life.

He was a poor student who failed to apply himself so the academic track was not a viable option. Due to his laziness and lack of ambition, Pickle never pushed himself to develop the skills necessary to achieve success. He worked odd jobs and what little money he'd earned he lost at the casinos.

For decades, Pickle came to his mother, Estelle, with one sob story after the next. His landlord raised his rent. His car needed an expensive repair. He injured his back while doing yard work. He was always down on his luck and his sympathetic mother continued to bail him out despite the fact that he never repaid her. Her generosity ended shortly after he lost his job at the Gorilla Glue factory. He begged his mother to loan him a thousand dollars to cover expenses, promising to pay back her loan with interest, but Estelle had had enough and refused to grant his request. Pickle was furious.

It occurred to Pickle that when his mother passed away, he would be the only living heir to her fortune. She was in poor health with a worsening heart condition and so it was only a matter of time before Pickle's money troubles would be over. But Pickle McNichol was an impatient, cold-hearted man.

On a crisp fall afternoon, the police received a distressed call from one Patrick McNichol. He claimed his mother hadn't returned his calls for days and when he arrived at her home to investigate, found her unresponsive on the kitchen floor. The medical examiner determined that Estelle McNichol had been dead for three days. Apparently confused, she had accidentally overdosed on her heart medication, stumbled into the kitchen, knocked over the garbage can, and collapsed.

Pickle believed that Lady Luck had finally smiled upon him. He'd managed to sneak enough heart medication into his mother's tea to incapacitate her and her death had been ruled an accident. All Pickle needed to do was to arrange a cheap funeral, act the part of the bereaved son, and appear at the reading of his late mother's will to collect his inheritance. But, true to his nature, Pickle was not known for his strategic thinking.

Although he claimed that he'd called his mother every day, and several times a day once he became concerned about her wellbeing, police detectives were unable to find records of Pickle's phone calls. Suspicions were aroused.

Detective Frazier Stoudemire decided to pay a visit to Lizzie Nickerson. Without her baggy old hoodie, and with her hair neatly brushed, the detective barely recognized the young lady sitting on the fifth step of the apartment building. After exchanging a few pleasantries, and ensuring that her Aunt Sonya was out of earshot, Stoudemire slipped the case file to Lizzie.

"I don't believe this woman's death was an accident," said the detective, "and I'm skeptical about the surviving son's story. There are a number of things that just don't add up. And because the son is frequently at his mother's residence, DNA testing won't be of any use."

Lizzie gave him a cutting glare, which he came to recognize as the shut-up-while-I'm-trying- to-concentrate look. And so he stopped talking and rested against the banister while she reviewed the file.

She flipped through a few pages of the report and then leaned in closer to the photograph of the kitchen where Estelle McNichol's body had been discovered beside the overturned trash can. She pointed to a crumpled brown paper fast food takeout bag amidst the kitchen garbage and said, "Oh, geez. There's no way an elderly woman with a bad heart would be eating cheeseburgers and french fries. You said she was practically an invalid. So how did she drive herself to the drive-through? That doesn't even make sense."

Before Frazier could respond, Lizzie launched into a lengthy dissertation on the dangers of consuming fast foods, focusing primarily on the perilous effects of trans fats, especially on persons with heart and blood vessel diseases. She described the process of adding hydrogen to vegetable oils, known as partially hydrogenated oil, that causes the oil to become solid at room temperature. Before Lizzie could elaborate on trans fats being a conspiracy hatched by the man, the machine, and giant faceless corporations, Ms. Margery Brennan poked her head out into the hallway, muttered something about letting a person get a word in edgewise, and then retreated into her apartment.

Tucking the case file under his arm, Frazier thanked Lizzie for her time and evaluation and then headed back to the police station.

When he arrived, Stoudemire found his partner, Mitch Tarpick, exiting the men's room, his posture nearly as crooked as the grimace on his face. He opened the file folder to the photo of Estelle Nichol's kitchen and, passing off Lizzie's observation as his own, Frazier pointed out the fast food bag.

The detectives tracked down the contents of the late Estelle Nichol's kitchen trash, which included the crumpled brown paper fast food bag. Inside the bag was a time-stamped receipt, October 18, the date that the Coroner determined that Estelle McNichol had died. Furthermore, the receipt revealed that three cheeseburgers (with extra pickles) and large fries were purchased with a debit card belonging to one Patrick McNichol. Pickle was in his mother's kitchen the day of her passing, not three days later, as he claimed, ensuring that she was deceased before he slipped out the door and drove away.

As Ms. Margery Brennan might have remarked, "Pickle's goose was cooked."

Stoudemire felt a pang of guilt when his partner muttered, "That's some fine police work, Frazier. Why didn't I notice that?" 

Instead of finalizing funeral arrangements for his late mother, Pickle McNichol found himself at an arraignment at the District 2 Cincinnati police station following his confession. In an ironic twist, Pickle McNichol was sitting in a jail cell when he learned that his mother's will had stipulated that the proceeds from her estate would be donated to the Salvation Army.