First Murder (3 page)

“Yesterday morning.” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Early yesterday morning. The lady was dressed, ready to go to whatever
CH/ Orient
is.”

Ray nodded and told him to go on.

“The bowl and the coffee cup in the sink? Purse on the counter? She was wearing makeup and lipstick.”

“Could have been going out the night before?” Ray added. “Or coming in.” He turned to look back up the drive toward the garage. A new looking Lexus sedan was parked in front of it.

Tony pressed on. “Didn’t strike me as going out clothes, the outfit she had on…has on. Looked like office clothes…business clothes. Coffee mug in the sink. Morning.”

“Just how long have you had a gold shield?” Ray looked into Tony’s eyes. Tony thought he was making fun of him, felt a little squirt of anger. Ray intended it as a compliment.

“It’s what
I think
, Sergeant Bankston. That’s all.” It came out more pissed off than he really intended. Tony knew he was a rookie detective but he wasn’t a rookie cop with a rookie mind. He turned away so Ray wouldn’t see his expression.

Ray thought about his reply for a minute. This was turning into one of those moments that can define a relationship, or at least affect it in a negative way for a while. Tony was a rookie detective, true, but Ray happened to think he was right—thought he was pretty observant. But they didn’t have a time of death and she might have had a business meeting the night before and been coming home. Too many
mights
. Still, Ray thought this one, de Luca, might actually have some instincts, some talent. So many other partners managed to disappointed him he was wary by default.

This was not the time for a confrontation, though, so he decided to say, “We’re not in these people’s lives yet, Tony. You go over and talk to the neighbors. You’ve done that before, right? Keep an open mind. This thing’s just starting.”

“You’re going to talk to the husband?”

“Mm-Hm.”

“Without me?” Still tense, Tony could see the logic even if he didn’t like it. He knew how to work a crowd of potential witnesses.

“This time. We’ll be having more conversations with Mr. Fredrickson. And Tony?”

“Yeah.”

“Be sure you ask them about Monday morning.” Bankston gave him a half-smile before he turned to the radio car.

After borrowing a pad from one of the uniformed cops still there and taking the required abuse, Tony approached the small crowd clustered behind a slash of yellow tape. Their hushed conversations quieted further as he approached.

Tony realized that at this moment he missed his uniform. He’d done this dozens, even hundreds of times. Ray’s comment about looking scruffy still stung. Tony knew that he cut an imposing figure in uniform. Six foot one and a muscular hundred and seventy five pounds of black haired, squared away, blue clad, no nonsense cop, with a creaking leather belt and a high riding Glock on his right hip—he got people’s attention
right now
. Well…most people.

Now, he fumed, here he was in yesterday’s jeans with yesterday’s whiskers, undercover hair, probably smelling like he’d just boinked an assistant D.A, and with only one fucking sock he hoped would go unnoticed. Well, at least he had the gold shield hanging around his neck. He stepped up to the yellow tape.

“Good morning. I’m Detective de Luca.”

“What’s going on officer?”

“Was somebody hurt?”

“Who’s dead? I heard one of the cops talking about a body.”

“Why’s there a coroner van over there.”

“Where’s the ambulance?”

“Is it Deanna?”

“Is it Scotty?”

“He’s living over by the U.”

“What’s going on, officer?”

They were ganging up on him. Tony was being stoned, pelted with questions he wasn’t sure he could answer or should answer. Even so, some things registered. The dead woman’s name was Deanna. He hadn’t known that and felt like he should have. He held up his hand, trying to quiet them, missing his uniform more and more.

“Hang on folks!” He said it louder than he needed to but it had the desired effect. Most of them got quiet. “I’m Detective de Luca. I need to get your names. You all live around here, right? And I need to ask a couple of questions right now. I or another detective may contact you later today or tomorrow with more questions.”

Tony ducked under the crime scene tape and started working the small crowd, asking things like have you noticed anything out of the ordinary at the Fredrickson’s the past couple of days? Any delivery trucks? Any strange vehicles? Have you seen any people that looked like they don’t belong here? When? Well, anytime the last couple of days. Monday morning?

He noticed one man walking away from the group and called out after him, untangling himself from the housewives and retirees.

“Hey! Hold on.” The man kept walking, looking back over his shoulder.

“I said HOLD IT!” Tony’s street-cop voiced command froze the man. “What’s your name?”

“Al Cooper. What? I live over there.” The man pointed to a small stucco house three doors down. Tony hurried over to him. In his uniform days anyone hustling away from the crowd of gawkers at a crime scene got special attention.

“Where you going?”

The man had an annoyed look on his face. “I gotta’ get ready for work. What?”

“You see anything strange going on around here the last day or two? You heard my questions back there.” The man’s attitude wasn’t evasive but Tony thought he needed to keep pressing.

Cooper shifted his weight from foot to foot, impatient. “Nah, I ain’t seen nothin’. Look, I gotta get to work.”

“Where do you work, Mr. Cooper.”

“The Ford plant. What’s all the questions for? My shift’s comin’ up.”

Tony got his address and phone number and returned to the thinning crowd of neighbors. Others had wandered off while he was with Cooper.

Great…just fuckin’ great.

He went back and tried again, collected a few more names and numbers. The crowd was dwindling when he noticed one woman, an older lady clutching an overcoat closed over her nightclothes crying softly.

“It’s Deanna, isn’t it?” Her cheeks were wet. The woman’s thin gray hair was still bed mussed and in the streetlight Tony saw her ears were reddening in the early morning chill.

“Did you know her well?” Tony asked. The other gawkers had drifted off, gone back home for coffee and breakfast and worry about a murder on their quiet street.

“I’ve lived next door to Scott and Deanna for twelve years. Right over there.” She pointed to the neat frame house closest to the Fredrickson’s driveway.

Tony wanted to say something to comfort her but he needed to start getting into their lives, as Ray put it. “Tell me about them.”

“Scott’s a financial planner. He handles my accounts, now that Bud’s passed. Bud was my husband. Deanna, my god, Deanna…” the woman started crying again. “I’m cold. Would you like to come to the kitchen to talk? I’ll make coffee.”

“Yes ma’am.” Tony saw the first of the news vans heading up the street.
Jackals
. Somebody must have used the radio instead of their cell phone. “Why don’t you go on ahead. I need a word with my partner.”

Tony escorted her through the thinning ranks of uniformed officers, across the Fredrickson’s driveway, to her own back door. The two driveways ran parallel. He realized that the woman must have said hello to the dead woman, Deanna, almost every day. He sidled up next to his partner, saying nothing, listening to Ray and the husband, Scott Fredrickson, talk in low tones.

“I know it sounds cliché, detective, but Deanna didn’t have an enemy in the world. Not one.”

Tony observed the man, still sitting sideways in the back of the cruiser, hands still in his lap. The sky had lightened considerably and was hinting blue, nearly cloudless. Tony could see dark circles under the man’s red eyes. It looked like he’d been punched. He’d certainly been crying. He had coarse stubble on his cheeks. His suit was wrinkled, mussed as if he’d been living in it for a few days. His brownish gray hair was disheveled.

“Maybe someone from work?”

“Deanna didn’t work. Well, not at a job, work. She volunteered at Children’s, been helping out there for years. She was on a few boards, the food shelf and a woman’s shelter. She’s busier than I am some weeks but she loves it.”

“You mentioned children. Was she on good terms with them?” Tony thought he could see a knife slash the man’s heart when Ray asked the question from the look of pain and utter despair that crossed his face.

“Good terms? Best friends is more like it. Our daughter lives in Madison. She’s married. Pregnant.” Scott Fredrickson looked up at Ray. “My God. She’ll never…” It took him a minute to be able to speak again. Ray and Tony looked at each other. Ray looked sad and sympathetic. Tony looked angry.

“Scotty, Scott junior, lives over by the U. He’s a sophomore. Econ major. Dee was probably the only mother in the city with a key to her son’s house. Welcome anytime. He has some roommates. Nice young men. They all love her…call her the house mom.”

“You know them well?”

“No, but she did.” Ray made a note.

“What about friends? Any difficulties with her friends?”

“The ‘Go Girls’? Not a chance. No chance.”

“The ‘Go Girls’?”

“A group of them. They do everything together. Have forever, seems like. They take trips every year, sometimes more often. They’re like sisters. My God… I have to call them too.” He looked up at Ray, hopeless and lost…defeated already and the day barely begun. Ray touched his shoulder, sympathetic, thinking already that this man hadn’t killed his wife, but
her
death might kill him. The detectives stepped away to give him a minute and to compare notes.

“I’m going to talk to the neighbor.” De Luca shagged his head toward the house next door.

“Need any help?”

Tony’s nostrils flared.

Ray noticed but decided to get into it later. “I’d like to stay with the husband and talk to Kumpula. You do it.”

De Luca nodded, already sorry he’d taken it wrong again. “Lady says they lived next door for twelve years. Driveways run right next to each other.”

“See how the windows almost match up.” Ray pointed to the two lit windows. “Don’t you just hate nosy people?”

Tony saw immediately that a person could look directly from one side door into the other. “Nope.”

At that moment two men horsed a raised gurney across the lawn and rattled it onto the driveway. They were almost ready to move the body. Ray and Tony looked over and saw Scott Fredrickson sag further, collapse inward, reality battering a broken, broken-hearted man.

“De Luca you said? East Side?” The tiny woman was fussing with cups and saucers. Pale pink lipstick had magically appeared, her wispy hair combed now, and the housecoat exchanged for a heavier, nicer one. Tony smiled for her. He couldn’t think of anyone who still used a percolator for coffee.

“I know a Louisa de Luca,” Mae said while the coffee perked.

“My aunt Louise, I bet.” He sat back and let her talk.

The woman’s name was Mae Long he learned, widowed three years, with two grown daughters and six grandkids. Her husband, Bud, passed just two years ago. While she rattled off names and ages Tony listened politely for a while, but she did go on a bit, and he started getting impatient. Fine and good, he thought, juggling the dainty cup, but I want to know about the Fredricksons.

“I’m really not the nosy type”, she said.

Just my luck.

“But after twelve years you get to know people. Dee was a saint. I’m not just saying that. She put in more hours at Children’s Hospital and with the Food Bank than most people do at work in a week.” Wrinkled lips pursed, Mae looked toward the window facing the driveway and the Fredrickson’s house.

“Were you familiar with the comings and goings next door, Mae?”

“Like I said, I’m not a nosy sort. But Dee was usually out of the house by 8:30 most mornings, 9:00 at the latest. That’s why I thought it was odd that her car was in the driveway yesterday morning. Scott’s out of town, you see. He was in Phoenix this week. His car’s in the garage. Gracie’s married and lives in Madison, did you know that? And Scotty’s at the U. He almost never comes home during the week.”

“I see.”
Not nosy my ass. Keep going, Mae.
“The husband and her got along all right, did they?” He thought he saw a blush creep up.

“Oh yes. Oh yes. When Scott would get home from a trip he never made it in that back door without a kiss, and I mean a good old fashioned smacker. It does an old woman’s heart good to see a couple so in love after so long.”

“And the son? They got along as far as you could tell?”

“They had some set-tos when he was in high school. Dee was harder on him than his father. Of course, she was around more. But he grew up into a fine young man. Even brings his friends over now and then.”
That’s interesting.

“Friends?”
Not that you’re nosy or anything, Mae my darling
.

“From the school I think. They came over on Sundays sometimes. I think they come for the big TV downstairs and Dee’s cooking.”

“Ah. Just a couple more questions if that’s okay?” Mae fetched the percolator and refilled their cups. “Think back to yesterday morning. Was there anything out of the ordinary? Any early visitors you might have noticed?”

“Is that when she was killed?” Tears welled now. Mae stared sadly at the tabletop and said softly, “I knew I should have gone over there when her car sat there all day.” Tony gave her a long minute. “I heard a car, a car door, yesterday morning. I was still in bed. Asleep, really. I didn’t think anything of it then. I guess I thought it was just Dee leaving. Guessed it was 8:30 but I never bothered to look at the clock. Now I think about it, it could have been a car on the street too.”

“Anything else you remember?”

“Yesterday morning. I made coffee, got the paper from the front stoop around 9:00. I can’t remember anything out of the ordinary. You know, I never even went out the side of the house until afternoon. I was going to the grocery. That’s when I noticed her car still there. I’m so sorry, Tony.”