Finding both dead bodies made the case hers to solve. The women were young, between eighteen and twenty-five, and Maude felt a pang of sadness for their lost young lives. Still, she knew that no matter what happened, a cool head without emotion would be needed to find the man who had killed and mutilated them. In a weak moment she vowed to cut back on her nightly gin until the murders were solved. Already that promise was a source of regret.
Chapter 2
The clock showed ten-thirty when Maude finally arrived home on the outskirts of town. She liked it there. It had been her mother’s house, inherited from her mother complete with two stories of real wood siding, brick walkways, and brick at the base of the structure. Maude had added a metal roof, gutters and a rainwater system for protection against the Texas droughts. The large water container behind her house supplied water to both her house and the rent house down the hill. A college student and her friend lived there at the time, sharing the rent.
Mary Ellen was an easy tenant, careful and respectful of others. What she did in the house was her business as long as she didn’t damage the building. When Maude drove up and parked her unmarked car, she noticed that Mary Ellen’s bike was not on the front porch. The bike was the girl’s transportation from home to school and work. Maude figured the restaurant job was keeping her tenant busy after school. Smiling, she remembered being twenty years old with the world in her hands.
The night was not over for her, there was still work to be done. She had to organize the evidence from both crime scenes and try to make some sense of it. The gin bottle called to her, but for a while she held out, working through the need. She smoked her cigarettes one after the other, inhaling deeply, trying to rid herself of the smell of death. A hot shower and strong soap hadn’t done it for her, but she knew that eventually, it would go away.
The menthol from the muscle rub lotion served two purposes. It helped her sore knees, and quelled the lingering death odors. She had applied it liberally after her shower, wondering as always how the smell of decayed human flesh could stick to the pores of her body even after a vigorous washing.
Frank Almondera had disappeared with no sign of him anywhere. CID posted an all-points bulletin asking the public and law enforcement to call the Madison Police Department should anyone see the man. Almondera was a petty drug dealer, not someone she ‘liked’ for the killings. His modus operandi was too simple. Get the drugs. Sell the drugs. Maude had checked his file, and couldn’t find a history of violence. She was beginning to think maybe Almondera might have been a victim as well. He had been scheduled for court, but no one had seen him since he got out of jail on bond.
The gin bottle won out, and over the first two fingers, Maude began putting it together. Whatever had happened to Almondera occurred at least two weeks earlier. The woman in his apartment was killed about six days ago. What had tied them together? Thinking about the dead woman, Maude called the lab and asked to speak to the night supervisor. She was told that the prints of the two victims gave up nothing, no identifiers at all, which could mean anything. Even dental records had been run without any success.
Maude Rogers was a persistent person who seldom gave up when the odds were against her, even when the situation appeared to be hopeless. That night she worked until long after midnight before the gin called her again. Burning its way to her stomach, the alcohol blocked the memory of the day’s horrors.
The next morning came with typical summer weather. A hot, humid atmosphere had seeped into the house in spite of the artificial air that kept the temperature lowered with each cycle of the unit. She slept fitfully until the alarm went off, tossing and turning, needing to go to the bathroom, but putting it off until the last minute. Her stomach felt queasy and her head seemed blown up three times its normal size. She got out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom, turned the light on, and then quickly turned it off after glancing into the mirror.
The woman in the reflection was tall and thin with a mop of mostly gray, curly hair that had never been obedient to the comb. The color and texture had been modified somewhat by one of the box colors from the shelves of the large grocery store. She needed a haircut and couldn’t decide about a new application. Maybe she would let the color grow off to rat gray.
“Not much of a choice,” she said aloud. Her ears flapped a little but not enough to be clown-like and her lips-her best feature-were still full. She stuck out her tongue in the mirror and was greeted with the grayness cause by an acid belly.
“God, I’m all gray,” she said to herself, moving slowly to allow her knees and back to readjust to standing. “I feel gray.” Her blue eyes were steady, but cloudy, from the early morning pain of arthritis and a headache. She lit an unfiltered cigarette and sat down on the commode, smoking while her head cleared.
“I wonder if I should stop drinking?” She asked herself. “Maybe go to meetings.” She knew some people who went. Some of them got sober. Some didn’t. “What do I do instead of drinking?” she wondered.
Long pajamas were thrown aside as Maude stepped into the shower, grimacing at the cold water that poured from the big round shower head. Someone had told her to have it installed and she did, but hated it from the first use. Whichever faucet she turned on first created a reservoir of water inside the shower head. Then it would wait until she climbed in and adjusted the other faucet before the small cold lake dumped its load.
“Those kinds of surprises could make a person rethink home ownership,” Maude grumbled to herself.
Soaping in the shower made her remember that it was the day of the week she always checked her breasts for lumps hoping to get ahead of breast cancer in case it should start growing. So far she was cancer free. Her mother had died at fifty five from the terrible growth which made Maude more susceptible to the disease. The memory of her mother’s suffering was still clear and powerful. The gin bottle first started talking back then. She was newly thirty-five, still young, and trying to contend with the pain of grief. The booze helped. She started drinking a little at a time, just as a pain killer. Problem was, she never stopped.
Three aspirin and a cup of strong coffee later, Maude was thinking clearly, rehashing the day and night before. She was puzzled by the lack of clues from both murders. Nothing obvious had been found at the crime scene, the hairs on the victims’ bodies were their own. Not enough time had passed yet to know if they were raped. The kitchen of 507 was a mess, but whoever handled the food containers must have worn gloves. So no prints, not even the victim’s. The same went for the refrigerator and the stove. Did he hand feed his victims or did he starve them?
Unless they were restrained at all times the women would have handled the food containers during meals. The coroner said nothing about restraints, and Maude hadn’t seen any signs indicating bruising at the wrists of either of the victims. It could all come out in the autopsy. The wrists weren’t the only place to restrain someone. She remembered a case in the past where a woman was locked in a basement for days, restrained by a chain wrapped around her waist and her ankles and attached to an iron bed frame. There was no end to the misery that evil people could invoke upon their victims.
After a second dose of caffeine, and two more cigarettes, she dressed to go back to the crime scene for another look. Something about the first room bothered her, and she couldn’t put a finger on it. Usually on her day off, a list of domestic chores needed doing, but the memory of the victims’ mutilated bodies was too strong to set aside in favor of housework.
A tree saw seemed an unlikely weapon. It was a difficult tool to use even on hard wood. The time the killer spent getting the teeth set just right, positioning the saw for maximum cutting must have been extensive. A saw with a blade about ten inches long was a possible weapon, the type commonly purchased for removing small limbs from trees and bushes. It would have been sharp enough to cut through tender young flesh.
The coroner said the ragged cuts were not the cause of death. The victims were still alive after the blo
oding. Maude could hear their agonized screaming in her head. The killer must have liked the results of the first amputations so much he had to do it again exactly the same. The thrill of reenacting the slaughter took him to apartment 509.
There were several tests results that would be available the following Monday. They might answer some of her questions though not soon enough to make her happy. The crime lab was partially dependent upon the feds files and those people didn’t work weekends.
The yellow tape was on the building when Maude got there. She began the climb that seemed steeper the second day, especially because her calves were sore. Also, a new savage pain now resided in the bend of her left knee. She really needed to go to the gym more regularly. Truth was, she needed to lose a few years.
On the landing of the second floor, Maude stopped and looked down the corridor, hoping to talk to someone who lived there. Her intent was not to question them about the murder, but to feel them out about the people who came and went from the apartment building, and the times of day that were the busiest.
She saw a small boy about six years old at the end of the landing sitting on the filthy, torn carpet. He rolled a ball against the wall in the same way that people have been rolling balls since rubber was first made round. The wall would fire it back to the kid after he threw it. Sometimes it went away from him, but the ball roller was patient, and would go get it, and sit back down.
“Hey kid, what’s your name?” She asked. He sat quietly staring straight ahead. She got nothing out of him. Somebody had taught him to never talk to cops. “Hey Junior, you’re pretty good with that ball.” The kid turned his eyes toward her, keeping his body rigid, prepared to jump and run. “Yeah,” she continued, “I have a ball like that; only mine won’t bounce. My ball yells, “Ouch”, when I throw it against the wall,” she said conversationally.
The boy grinned for a minute, knowing she was lying, but liking the sound of it. “What else does it say?” the kid asked her, continuing to bounce his silent ball.
“My ball calls me bad names,” she said, watching him giggle. “You live here or just visiting?”
He nodded, warming up to her.
“Your mama live in that apartment behind you?” She asked.
The boy quickly lost his friendliness. Maude figured he didn’t have a mama or had been warned to keep his mouth shut about her.
The kid jumped and ran to the door at the end of the hall, slamming it after he went through. He returned after a minute or two to open the door a little and peeked out the small opening. Maude heard a loud, female voice yelling from inside the apartment.
“Maurice, what are you doing? Shut that door!” The kid looked at Maude with regret as he closed the door.
She thought about the exchange with the boy, Maurice, and wondered if he would be in the hall later. If anything had happened in the building he might have seen it. She decided to look on the way back and see if he had returned. Who knows? She might even find another ball for him.
All of the apartments had been visited by police. The residents were singly questioned about what they had seen or heard during the previous two weeks. No one saw anything. A good investigator knew to keep asking even though the answer was usually no. Sometimes a guilty conscience would cause an honest man or woman to step forward and tell what they had seen. Maude wanted to go back and ask around, but she needed a partner to go with her. She also needed to talk to the boss to find out what was up with Maxwell, if he was coming back to work.
The police tape was the same across the doors at 507 and 509. Maude had a master key that allowed her to open police locks. A homicide detective might have to return to the scene several times before the case was put to rest or solved. She stood for a minute outside 507 thinking about what was inside the apartment.
Pulling one of her unfiltereds from its crumpled pack she lit up, inhaling deeply of the smoke before blowing it out her nose. Funny how a cigarette tasted so good at times. She wondered if she was destined to have lung cancer because of her habit and then chided herself for being obsessed with the big C. Someone would probably shoot her before cancer ever got close.
The stink of the apartment hadn’t dissipated with the removal of the body--in fact--the raw odor had migrated to the hallway. CID had taken the trash to the lab to look for anything connected with the murders, but the thin, faded carpet just outside the doorway was coated with a layer of solid filth. Groaning with the effort, Maude stooped toward the floor, bending her knees to see what might have been missed by the techs. As far as she could tell they hadn’t missed anything. The carpet though grossly stained had been swept clean of even the smallest items. She was about to rise to her height when out of the corner of her eye she spotted two small feet.
“Hey kid, it’s good to see you, but you aren’t supposed to be up here,” she said.
“Yeah, I know.” the kid volunteered.
“Hang on a minute, let me stand up. Now, does your mom know you’re up here?” she asked. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Nah. She don’t know it.” the boy said, staring at her struggling to stand up straight.
“What’s your full name so I don’t have to call you kid?”
“Maurice. Maurice Elroy Brown. Thas my name. I’m six years old. How come you bent over like that?”
“My back hurts and I’m old. How come you aren’t in school Maurice?” She asked.
Maurice looked at her as if she had just fallen from the sky. “It’s Saturday. No school on Saturday. You stupid or somethin?”
She slapped her forehead as if overcome with amazement. “Of course, it’s Saturday! No school on Saturday. But I have to work on Saturday.”
“Whacha doin?” Maurice asked her. “Wha kinda work?”
“Looking for the bad guy who came up here and hurt someone,” she ventured, wondering how far to go with the child.
Maurice was quiet for a minute. “He had a cool hat,” the boy said. “Brown hat. He skeered me.”
She felt the jolt in her stomach. “Who had a brown hat, Maurice?”
“That man who come up here,” he replied absently, suddenly distracted by a skinny tomcat that slid by them headed downstairs to the fourth floor.
Could it be, she wondered, that this kid had seen the man who violated and killed two young women?
“Maurice, I need you to listen real good,” she said quietly. “Can you tell me what that man looked like? Was he tall or short?”
“Like you,” the boy said. “He like you.”
“He was he a white man, Maurice? Did you see a white man in a brown hat come up here?”
“Yeah. I gotta go. My mama get mad,” he said, turning and running down the stairs, back to the second floor apartment where he lived.
“Maurice, wait,” she called desperately. “Don’t run away.”
The boy was gone. Maude thought about chasing after him, but she felt movement behind her, and a hard slam on the back of her head. Her knees weakened and her lights went out as she fell toward onto the filthy carpet. Blackness came, and nothing else.
“Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” the voice droned on so loud it hurt her ears, filled her sinuses with water. A cough started in the lower part of her chest.
“Ma’am, are you alright?” Someone asked. “Are you hurt?” Maude lay still, coming to her senses, waiting for the inner fog to clear.
“I need a cigarette,” she said, rising on one elbow. “Oh, my head! Someone hit me. Felt like a sap as big as a hammer. Coward got me from behind,” Maude complained, not caring who was beside her. She finally looked up through bleary eyes and saw a dark-haired man in his late twenties. Green eyes and a puckish smile lit up his face. A police shield was attached to the pocket of his light blue shirt.
“You’re alive. I was wondering if you were coming back.”
“Who are you?” She asked groggily. “And why are you so dang cheerful?”
“Name is Joseph Conrad Allen, ma’am, but you can call
me Joe,” the young man said, reaching under Maude’s arms to lift her to a sitting position.
“I found you like this,” Joe said, “laid out on the carpet. You have a big lump on the back of your head. Want to go to the hospital?” he continued without taking a breath.
“Slow down and light my cigarette,” she muttered gruffly. “If we’re talking about what I want. I’m going to sit on the stairs over there and rest myself for a minute, choking my lungs with smoke while you tell me who you are, and why you’re standing at the door of my crime scene.”
“Yes ma’am, I sure will,” he said quickly. “Lieutenant Patterson put me on homicide detail yesterday, but I didn’t get to leave my other post until late last night. He said I would be working with you, and for me to show up here last night, but I couldn’t, so here I am today. It seems I came along just in time.”
“Slow down,” Maude said, letting the soothing smoke fill her nostrils as she rubbed the goose egg on the back of her head and crawled to the stair landing. “Joe, if you call me ma’am one more time, I’m going to pull my gun and shoot you,” she growled.
“Oh, okay, ma’am...uh Detective Rogers,” the young man managed to get out.
“Just Maude to you,” she said. “I can’t believe the creep got me in broad daylight. He must have been trying to get out of the building, maybe took the kid with him.”
She thought about Maurice, wondering if he was okay, or if the perp had even seen the kid talking to her. Again, maybe the sap-wielding scum had nothing to do with Maurice’s family.
From her position on the stairs, she looked around, wondering how the person who hit her managed to get behind her. Where was he? Where had he been? There were ten small apartments on the fifth floor, two of them closed off with yellow tape and police locks. That left eight places where the sneak could have hidden. She got on her cell phone and called dispatch, asking for a couple of street cops to search the fifth floor. The Saturday supervisor was reluctant to help, saying his division was short on personnel and it would be difficult. After Maude explained what had happened and the immediacy of the need, she got a better reception. He said an officer would be there soon.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 3