Who She Was

by Braylee Parkinson

  “I just read the ticker. Can’t stand what they have to say,” Carson said, as he motioned to the television before he began making the drinks. I noticed that he had not waited to hear what I’d like to drink, or even if I wanted a drink. Type A personality? Not open to suggestions? That was common among surgeons, and while being anal was a great quality during surgery, it rarely went over well in a marriage. What would it be like to be married to him? I decided to stop him before he went too far.

  “Mr. Stark, it’s a little early for me, and I’m working, so I won’t be able to have a drink.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I guess it is early for you. I just got off work a few hours ago. Sorry. My schedule gets mixed up. Move over by the fireplace…It’s nice,” he said.

  Carson handed me a goblet filled with water. I took the glass and watched him take a long sip of his martini.

  “You really think Liza knew the killer? It’s hard for me to believe that. I mean, we had a good life here. She was a great mom. Taught middle school for a year. Then when we had kids, she wanted to stay home to take care of them. We were happy. The cops were big on the infidelity angle. It simply isn’t true. We were so very happy.”

  I looked at the photos on the mantle. There was photo after photo of the family. The housekeeper was in a few, but Madelyn Price, the woman in the photo Carson had showed me at the office, was also in two of the pictures. Her lips were pursed into a tight line that seemed to serve as her version of a smile. Only family members, the housekeeper, and Madelyn…Liza’s brother was nowhere to be seen. Her parents and Carson’s parents were also absent. Strange.

  “Is that Liza’s friend, Madelyn Price?” I asked, interrupting Carson’s stream of denial.

  “Yeah—Liza’s best friend and yoga teacher.”

  Madelyn was the last person to speak to Liza; I’d left her a message the day before, but she had not called back. I made a mental note to try to reach her as soon as I left Carson’s house. Madelyn had made the family mantle. Obviously, she was important to the entire family.

  “Which came first? The friendship or the yoga instruction?”

  “Oh, definitely the friendship. I mean, Liza loved yoga, but she wasn’t into the whole lifestyle like Madelyn is.”

  I looked around the expensive house of excess and imagined that Liza had been far from a yogi.

  “Would you say they were best friends?”

  Carson sipped his martini, gave me a bewildered look, and muttered, “Liza was my best friend; we were very close. But outside of our marriage, yes, Madelyn was her closest friend.”

  “She was the last person to speak to Liza, correct? Where does she live?”

  “Ann Arbor. Not too far from your office. You can talk with her, but I know she didn’t have anything to do with Liza’s murder. I hope you aren’t thinking along those lines.”

  Carson was agitated. I tried to decipher whether this was his usual temperament, or if he was just overwhelmed with rekindled grief.

  “For me to know who Liza was, I have to meet the people she spent time with. That’s all. I have her parents and brother on my list as well.”

  Carson rolled his eyes and took a long swig of his martini.

  “Peter is a total fuck-up. We rarely saw him because he’s a drunk…gets loud and mean when things don’t go his way. Abigail, his wife—rather, ex-wife now—is kind. I hope she’ll talk to you. She and Liza were somewhat close.”

  “I will get in touch with Abigail. Is there anyone else you think I should speak with?”

  Carson took a long sip of his martini.

  “I can’t think of anyone else.”

  “May I speak with Amelia?”

  “Sure, but she’s the housekeeper. Do you think she’ll have something worthwhile to share?”

  “I won’t know until I speak with her. Sometimes people don’t even realize that what they know is important. I just want to be thorough.”

  “Of course. Thank you. I like thorough. I’ll take the kids and you can speak with her.”

  Carson seemed slightly bothered by the fact that I wanted to speak with the housekeeper, but he spoke to Amelia in Spanish and called the kids to his side. They followed him into another room and I went into the kitchen.

  “Hola, señora,” I said, holding out my hand. Amelia hesitated at first, but then relented and shook my hand.

  “Hello, Mrs. Wilcox,” Amelia responded with a shy smile.

  “Is it okay if I ask you some questions?”

  “Yes, yes. It’s okay. Sit, please.” Amelia motioned towards the table. We both sat down.

  “I am trying to find out who killed Mrs. Stark. I know you had only begun working for her a few weeks before her death, but I would like to hear about your relationship with her. What can you tell me about Mrs. Stark?”

  “Are you policia?”

  “No. I am a civilian, a regular citizen who looks into crimes on my own.”

  “Like a…what do they call it? Um…freelancer?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly it. I am a freelancer.”

  “Ah, okay. Well, I can tell you that Mrs. Stark very nice all the time, but sometimes, she nervous about things.”

  “How did you know she was nervous?”

  “She having quiet phone calls, and when this lady come to the door, she tell me not to answer. She answer herself.”

  “So, you usually answer the door, but she answered the door for one visitor?”

  “Yes. Small lady. She knock on door and give Mrs. Stark a note. That was the day before she die. I never see the lady before.”

  “Was Mrs. Stark nervous or angry, happy or friendly, when this lady showed up?”

  “Nervous. The lady was using a tough voice. Not sure what she say, but it not look good.”

  “Would you mind describing her to me? What did she look like?”

  “Short, black, a little big.”

  I wrote down the details. So, a woman had shown up at Liza’s door the day before she was murdered. She spoke in a mean voice, and she wasn’t someone the housekeeper recognized. Not exactly a lead.

  “Had you seen this woman before? Do you think she was a salesperson, or someone trying to talk to Liza about religion?”

  “No. I never see her before, but Mrs. Stark see her before.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because she knew her before she go to the door. She tell me ‘hold on’ when the lady was walking to the door. And she not ask who it was. Mrs. Stark always answer the door when she know the people.”

  “Okay. So, you usually answer the door, unless Mrs. Stark knows the person, correct?”

  “Yes. Unless she tell me no.”

  “Mrs. Stark told you not to answer the door?”

  “Yes. She say, ‘No, Amelia, I got it, I got it,’ and she do this to me.” Amelia demonstrated by flapping her hand in a dismissive manner.

  “Anything else you can tell me about the woman?”

  “She not have a car. No car in front of house.”

  Strange. You needed a car to get around Northville Township. If you didn’t have a car, you were catching a ride with someone. The public transportation system didn’t stretch too far into the suburbs.

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Did you tell the police about this?”

  Amelia rubbed her hands together and waited before answering.

  “They never talk to me.”

  “Am I the first person to ask you questions about Mrs. Stark?”

  “Yes. No one talk to me. If they talk to me, I tell them.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Mrs. Stark?”

  “Uh, no. Just that she was nervous a lot.”

  “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.”

  Amelia nodded, pushed back from the table, and headed back toward the living room where Carson was with the kids.

  A short black woman with a little bit of extra weight, without a car came to the door the day be
fore Liza was murdered. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Now it was time to get a look at the murder book.

  ***

  I met Charles Kettering when I was five years old. We crossed paths for the first time on a day when my twin brother fell off his bike and scraped his knee. While I was comforting my brother, and helping him up, a burly kid with a thick, low cut afro came our way.

  “He all right?” the large boy asked in a soft voice.

  “Yeah. He just took the turn wrong,” I said, wiping tears from Simon’s cheek. I was four minutes older than my brother, but as we aged, the minutes seemed more like years. “Can you walk the bike back to our house?”

  “Yeah,” Charles said. I turned back to Simon and took his hand. As soon as we started walking, Charles zoomed past me on Simon’s bike.

  “Hey! You can’t ride the bike! I said walk it back!” I yelled, dragging Simon behind me as I ran toward Charles. When I caught up with him, I slugged him as hard as I could. He fell off the bike and started crying. All the commotion brought both sets of parents outside, where they found two sobbing boys and one bossy girl standing with her hands on her hips. Over three decades later, Charles and I were still friends.

  Charles was out when I arrived at the 8th precinct but I was still able to get to the murder book. A few years ago, due to a major decline in population, Detroit decided to consolidate precincts. A lot of the guys I’d worked with at the 8th had been consolidated into what was briefly referred to as the Northwest Precinct. Now, after all the consolidating and reconfiguring, the “new” precinct was back to being the good ole 8th. I walked through the double doors and spotted Darrell Anderson behind the call desk.

  “Sylvia Wilcox…Now what have us lowly folks done to earn the pleasure of your company?”

  Darrell Anderson had transformed his natural snake oil salesman persona into a foundation for a successful career in law enforcement. He was the king of the interrogation room; he could go undercover and weave his way into just about any criminal operation.

  “You know me. I only come around when I need something,” I said, winking before slamming my hand into Darrell’s thick palm, and allowing him to pull me into a “bro-hug”.

  “How’s easy street treating you?” Darrell asked, referring to my private investigator status.

  “Easier and easier every day.”

  We laughed and made small talk for a few minutes. After that, I chatted with a few other guys, high-fived my former boss, and then asked to see Detective Cole. He came strolling out of the back of the precinct with a suspicious smirk on his face. I held out my hand as he approached.

  “Detective Cole. I’m Sylvia Wilcox, and I am—”

  “I know, I know. Kettering already put a bug in my ear. Let’s talk.”

  Kelvin Cole was short and stocky with fuzzy, but well-kept mutton chops bordering his upper lip. His eyes were sharp and dark, and they stood in stark contrast to his light brown skin.

  “I hate to have people in my business,” Cole said, gripping my hand tightly.

  “Understandable. Thanks for talking with me.”

  He was around five foot six, attractive, and, based on the fact that he was the only guy with his nose in a file when I arrived, probably a good cop. I could tell by his swagger and laidback sense of humor that he’d probably been born and raised in Detroit. A brief chat with my old chief had informed me that Cole was known for being a solid family man, and was already approaching high solve rates, even though he’d only been a detective for four years.

  “How’s the case?” he asked, flipping through the murder book.

  I tried to catch a glimpse of the information as the pages turned. Murder books are great resources because they contain pictures, notes, and information from interviews, but from what I could see, this one didn’t contain much.

  “It’s not moving as fast as I would like it to, but there are some leads.”

  “Really? Well, that’s good. So, you’ve chosen the PI thing. How’s it working out?”

  I thought about the large sums of money I’d collected from spouses eager to know if their significant others were cheating on them. One case could net enough money to sustain me for several months, and if the information helped the victim get a nice divorce settlement, they were gracious and paid me even more. When I’d decided to become a PI, I hadn’t considered the financial gains. At the time, I didn’t want to be part of the police force. I was bitter, and blamed the DPD for Derek’s death. Eventually, it was revealed that Derek’s death was not the fault of the department, but I still chose not to return from my leave of absence. After the first few cases as a private detective, I realized that my income was going to increase by leaps and bounds.

  “Things are good. Of course, this murder case will be tough, but I think we can solve it. We’re just missing something. We need a piece of evidence that isn’t there.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “No idea—but looking at the evidence might help.”

  The evidence was sparse. The only items collected from the scene had been Liza’s gold bracelet, her wedding ring, the carcass of a dead squirrel that had been underneath her body, and a bandana that she had stuffed into her purse. The bandana was the item that had made the police think she was having an affair. Brightmoor was known for its interesting Blood and Crip spin-off gangs. Liza was suspected of seeing one of the gang members, and the bandana was thought to be a gift of some sort, or left behind because the killer was interrupted. The other thing that was curious about Liza’s murder was the fact that the killer didn’t take her jewelry, money, or vehicle. Instead, they shot her and left…Perhaps in a panic, but maybe because they weren’t interested in the money or the other items. This was very strange, and didn’t support the cheater narrative. A man in Brightmoor could have supported himself for at least a year with the amount of money and jewelry Liza had on her the day she was murdered. If he’d included the truck in the deal, he would have been set for more than a year. Something else was going on.

  “No DNA?”

  “Nope. Nothing. The scene was clean. We’re pretty sure she was killed there, as opposed to being dumped, but that means she was somewhere else that afternoon and evening. Somehow, she ended up in that alley.”

  “Lured there?”

  “Possibly. She was shot from the entrance of the alley, so she could have been lured there, or chased.”

  I read over the officers’ reports. It appeared that Liza hadn’t gone into the party store, so that meant she had probably been meeting someone in the alley, or she had been taken into the alley and executed. The killer was familiar with the alley, and the ability to take a life while one was concealed there, so there was a good possibility that the person was from Brightmoor. I jotted down “local” on my notepad.

  “How did you get her there?” I murmured to myself. What would draw Liza to that area? Who was it? What was it?

  “There was a footprint in the dirt near the body,” Cole said.

  “What size feet are we talking about?”

  “Smallish. The dude must be little.”

  “Really? Any photos of the print?”

  “Sure.”

  The footprint was around a size eight or smaller. This was exciting. If they had a shoeprint, it would probably be easy to match it up with a shoe.

  “What other evidence is there?”

  “There wasn’t much, but there are a few insignificant things we gathered from the scene. The way that Liza was found, it was clear that she didn’t fight back. She knew and trusted the person who killed her. It was a total surprise.”

  Who would Liza trust? Her husband, of course, but there had to be others as well.

  “The store owner called in the body, right?”

  “Yep. He didn’t find her until ten o’clock the next morning, but she had been there since the night before. He didn’t take out the garbage until that time.”

  The murder book said that Liza died between midnight
and 3:00 a.m. What had she been up to before that timeframe? If she was having an affair and things went wrong, that would explain the time of death. But, since there was no proof of an affair, I had to think about other situations that might have occupied her time before she was murdered. Could she have been held somewhere before being taken to the alley and executed?

  “What leads did you guys have?”

  “Virtually nothing. We didn’t have much in the way of leads, that was part of the reason why we thought the cheating scenario might be the issue. The husband was difficult to deal with, and we had to consider him a suspect, but no one really thought he did it. It seemed like he loved the woman…he was pretty broken up over things. We hated him, but he wasn’t a killer.”

  “Why did you hate him?”

  “He was rude; thought we owed him something, which we did, and we knew that, but he treated us like simple servants. Was always throwing big words in our faces and getting all upset because we couldn’t tell him why his wife was in the ghetto, or why she was murdered.”

  “He was never really a suspect?”

  “For a minute—but he was at work during the time that she was murdered, so there’s no way that he did it. We thought about murder for hire, but the guy had no major motive. Liza didn’t have any money, and they seemed to be happy, so there was no reason to get rid of her. Over time, we figured that we just didn’t like him personally, but he wasn’t a realistic suspect.”

  Carson had been relatively easy to deal with, but he wasn’t a warm and fuzzy guy. It was easy to imagine him clashing with DPD officers.

  “I assume that you guys investigated the infidelity angle.”

  Cole tilted his head to one side, as if he was formulating what he wanted to say.