Marcie's Murder (40 page)

Branham looked at his watch again. It was nearly 5:30 p.m. “He might still be at the
drug store
.”

“Let’s find out,” Karen said.

Press Blankenship was still working behind the counter at the back of his pharmacy, filling prescription
s.

“Press,” Branham said, leaning his hip against the counter, “got a minute?”

Blankenship nodded and
finish
ed
what he was doing, then
gestur
ed
toward a waiting area off to the side
where there were several hard plastic chairs, all currently unoccupied
. “What can I do for you?”

“
W
e’d like to ask you a few questions about David Morris
,
”
Hank said
.

Blankenship
looked at Branham.
“
I understood that with the case
moved
to the
s
heriff’s
o
ffice and Billy in
jail
down there
,
we don’t have a role anymore. Are
these
two helping
Sheriff Steele now?”

“
Detective Muncy asked us to conduct a couple of interviews to assist
,”
Branham
said
.
“
We
want to talk to
David Morris
,
but we can’t get in touch with him right
now
so we thought we’d have a word with you.”

“About David? I don’t understand.”

“We’d like a little background,” Hank said. “He was there at the bar the night Mrs. Askew was murdered
,
and as a potential witness he needs to give a statement to us. I’d like a little better understanding of him first.”

Blankenship studied him. “You obviously know that David and Billy didn’t see eye to eye whatsoever. You figuring that David might color his testimony to prejudice the case against Billy?”

Hank shrugged noncommittally.

“Can’t see it,” Blankenship said flatly. “Nothing to gain by doing so. Billy’s pretty much put the noose around his own neck without help from any
one
else.”

“You think pretty highly of
this Morris guy
.” Karen put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at him curiously.

“Yes, m’am, I guess I do. Wouldn’t have hired him as
c
hief of
p
olice otherwise.”

“It must have pissed you off when he quit to run for
s
heriff.”

“
I w
ouldn’t quite put it that way
.
More disappointed, I’d say. David was a star candidate, the kind of man you don’t see very often around here.”

“What was his background?” Hank
was
familiar with the high points but want
ed
to hear it from Blankenship.

“He’s from Charlottesville
.
” Blankenship
sat
down
in one of the plastic chairs
and motion
ed
them to do the same. “Did a degree in criminology at the University of Virginia, my alma mater.”

Hank sat down next to him and
casually
crossed his legs. “He was an athlete, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right. Football. Quarterback, as a matter of fact.
Second string, but he started three games his senior year
when the
star
ter
got
hurt
. He
wasn’t
drafted
after
he graduated
,
but the Bears
signed him
to their practice squad for a year. When
they
released
him
he
went
back to
U. Va.
to do a graduate degree, then
joined
the Charlottesville
police
. After three years he applied to the FBI and got in. Spent two years with them
and moved to
the Richmond police
.
He was
promoted
a couple times
,
I believe to the same rank you have, Lieutenant. T
hen
he
saw our notice for
c
hief of
p
olice and applied down here.
Five
minutes into the interview I knew we had our man.”

“This is a lot smaller community than Charlottesville or Richmond,” Hank said. “How’d he fit in around here?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Blankenship shrugged. “He had a big-city swagger to him, all right,
which
ruffled some feathers here and there, but I figured it was all good, you know?
Having a lot of self
-
c
onfidence in a job like that, running the law in a community where there ain’t a lot of jobs and money to go around
and people might be thinking about stepping over the line a little to make ends meet
,
is a good thing because it makes the law high profile and in everybody’s mind all the time. They all knew who he was and what he was here for, and as far as I’m concerned he didn’t need to fit in and be everybody’s pal, he needed to represent law and order
.
T
hat’s what I hired him for.”

“Did he like the rough stuff?” Karen asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, you know what I mean. Ever have any problems with him getting too physical with people, knocking them around a little, that sort of thing?”

Blankenship glanced at Hank. “It tends to go with the territory in a small place like this, as you
learned
, Lieutenant. Sometimes it
can’t be helped
. Billy has a hair-trigger temper, that’s for sure.”

“We’re talking about David Morris right now.”

“Sure, I suppose. There were a couple of incidents, guess you could say. They got smoothed over
,
and everybody went home happy.”

“Any of those incidents involve women?” Karen
asked
.

Blankenship looked
up
at her.

Karen stared back.
“You make it sound like it was just hillbilly DUIs or
kids trying to jimmy parking meters
,” Karen said impatiently
.
“
What about women? He have any problems roughing up women that had to be smoothed over?”

“Of course not. David
’
s single
,
and
the girls think he’s good
-
looking, I
guess
,
but I don’t know of anything
along the lines you’re
talking about
.”

“Sure about that?”

“
Sure
,
I’m sure about that.” Blankenship stood up. “If there’s nothing else, I have to get back to work.”

Hank stood up and offered his hand. “We appreciate your help.”

They walked single file through the pharmacy toward the front door, Karen leading, Branham in the middle
,
and Hank bringing up the rear. They passed rows of cold remedies and pain relievers on the right, and toothpaste, toothbrushes
,
and mouthwash on the left. At the front of the store
,
a woman came around from behind the
cash register
as Karen headed for the door. She was about sixty, tall and bulky, wearing a flowered dress, flat-soled shoes
, an elegant-looking wrist watch
,
and a small pendant on a thin gold chain around her neck. Her hair was medium length, nicely styled, and colored to a shade somewhere between coffee and caramel.

“Just a moment,” she said to Karen, holding out her hand. “Can
we
talk for a minute?”

Karen stopped on a dime. “
Talk? S
ure.”

Branham nearly ran into her from behind.

“Just outside, please
.
”
The woman
led the way through the front door out onto the sidewalk, then moved several paces down until she was beyond the plate glass front
window of the pharmacy
.

“I’m Desiree Blankenship,” the woman
told Karen
, folding her arms protectively in front of her. “Folks call me Des.”

“What did you want to talk about, Mrs. Blankenship?”

“Just Des, please.” She worked her jaw for a moment
before
plung
ing
ahead. “I heard you asking
Press
questions about David Morris. He bought a bill of goods from that man and that’s all there is to it.”

“You’ve got a different opinion of him, do you?”

Des Blankenship was several inches taller than Karen, and so she stooped a little as she moved forward, lowering her voice. “He don’t know the half of it. That man was horrible, just horrible. I was hoping against hope he’d just get on back to Richmond after he lost
the
election, but instead he got that job
at
the college.
The men all think he’s just wonderful, one of these macho police types
, former football star, all that
.” She glanced meaningfully at Branham. “But women know better. Least, they eventually do.”

“What are you saying, Mrs. Blankenship?” Hank asked, straining to hear her soft voice. “Were there problems between Morris and some of the women in the community?”

“You could say that.” She looked defiantly at Branham. “I’m sure you wouldn’t agree, would you,
Deputy
Branham?”

“M’am, I never heard anything official about Chief Morris
along those lines
.”

“Oh, that’s right pretty.” Des Blankenship put a hand on her hip. “Just what does that mean, exactly?”

“Yeah,” Karen agreed, glaring at Branham, “what the hell
does
that mean?”

“Just that I was never aware of any complaints against Chief Morris filed by women,” Branham said defensively. “There was a lot of talk about him being a lady’s man, but I don’t pay a lot of attention to gossip.”

“I thought that was a policeman’s job,” Des retorted. “To pay a lot of attention to what’s going on around him.”

“
All right
,” Karen said
,
“
you’ve made your point.
Have you got something to tell us that we need to know?”

Des continued to glare at Branham. “You went and arrested your own
c
hief for killing his wife when he never done a single thing to that poor woman except try his best to make it right for her.” She shifted her gaze to Karen. “You got to understand, Press and I spend a lot of time at social functions and gatherings and the like with all the various people in this town. Town councilors and their wives, the
town
m
anager and his wife, Chamber of Commerce, folks at the college, on and on. It’s a whole lot of work and a lot of time, and us wives don’t have much say in it. So I
’ve
been around Mr. Morris quite a bit since he come down here, and Billy and Marcie too. I seen stuff Press never did, and I heard stuff Press never heard.
David Morris is an oily, two-faced rodent who can’t keep his hands to himself. Women either love that or they hate it. Hell, he even pretended to flirt with me, and look at this.” She passed her hands up and down her body. “Then I let on how much it made me want to puke and he got the idea. Just ignored me completely after that, which I was glad of. But it’s the man’s nature, don’t you see? There ain’t a female
alive
he don’t think he can charm right into the sheets.”

“An oily rodent,
” Karen
mused
. “You see any indication he was bothering Mrs. Askew that way?”

Des looked away for a moment. “I’m afraid so. That poor woman wasn’t too good at hiding what she was thinking. I could read her like a book when she was around that man, and it wasn’t a book I liked to read very much. Not that any of the men had a clue, mind you.” Another disgusted look at Branham. “They’re just plain thick, even when it’s their own spouse he’s hitting on.”

“They were having an affair?” Branham asked.