“Are you working with Sheriff Jack?” the man asked.
They both nodded, and Joe followed up with a “Yes, Sir.”
“Dave and Mary Armour, we live here on the lake, have a place around the bend, near Jackson Park. This is our granddaughter Susan. Susan Bright. I want to report that our boat was stolen a few days ago, and we haven’t seen it. I thought maybe one of my neighbors borrowed it, but after talking to them, I know they didn’t take it, so someone stole it.”
“What is your address, Mr. Armour? Did you have your boat secured?” Maude asked.
“We live at #344 West Edwards Bay, Lot 23; right on the lake. The boat was parked in the boat slip, with a lock on the starter. It came that way from the factory. We’ve never had a problem with thieves, even when we’ve been out of town.”
The older man seemed worried about his boat, but even more concerned that thieves had been at his property. Welcome to the real world, Maude thought.
The teenager, Susan Bright, had recovered and kept glancing at Maude surreptitiously, wondering if the old lady cop was going to ‘out’ her for her driving. Maude thought she would let her wonder for a while, and kept her eyes turned away from the girl. It wasn’t in her to make someone feel better after breaking several laws and putting people in jeopardy.
Maude thanked the Armour’s after getting a full description of their boat, believing it would be found drifting in a quiet cove. She told them that someone would call if the boat was found, but meanwhile they needed to go to the Sheriff’s Office and make a formal report of the theft. As an afterthought, she gave them her card with her phone number in case the boat showed up. She avoided mentioning that the boat was more than likely used by the murderers of Aaron Dennis and Jenny Marx.
After the sun had gone down and most of the people had gone, Maude wrote her most recent reports, keeping up with the progress of the murder investigation. As the lead investigating officer assisting Jack Fuller it was her responsibility to keep the information flowing among all the law enforcement officers working the case.
“I’m going to call Sheriff Jack and tell him what we’ve found out so far, then go back to the room and go to bed. I’d like to get an early start tomorrow. It will take about an hour, maybe hour and a half in traffic to get there. Give us plenty of time to do some questioning.”
“Fine with me,” Joe said. “But I think I’ll look this town over, see what’s jumping.”
“Be my guest. But you’re driving tomorrow.”
“Good to know. I’ll make sure there’s no one trying to ride in the back seat in the morning. Shoo her out before dawn.” Joe said, his green eyes twinkling.
“You do that.”
Yes, Maude was really glad to have her old partner with his cheerful attitude back. She made a note to ask him about it the next day.
Jesus Jones had left her a note on the door of her room. Miss Maude, that girl’s boyfriend in the blue Chevy disappeared, but the Chevy was left on the parking lot. Also, I called the number the man gave you. I overheard him and copied it down, but there was no such person at that number named Samuel Marshall. The old lady who answered the phone said that Samuel Marshall was her dead husband’s name, and she didn’t have a grandson, and by the way, where was her car?
“Well, this business is getting dirtier by the minute,” Maude said to herself, making a mental note to tell Jones to report the car on his parking lot as abandoned. She thought about getting prints from the car, but knew that was a waste of time. Whoever left it there expected them to look it over. She didn’t need another mystery in her life, but it looked as though she had one.
The quarter-moon had widened a little, but it gave only a stingy light to the area around the motel. The street lights were bright in the front of the motel, but out back of Maude’s room, darkness filled most every nook and cranny outside the window. A fleeting shadow in the quarter-moon’s light could be seen occasionally as a night bird looking for food flew through the bright lights of the parking lot with its plethora of flying bugs; descending on cars, posts, and building to eat the quick meal snatched from the air. Maude saw those shadows as she sat in a chair by the back window, smoking her last unfiltered of the night.
She was still committed to the cigarette cut-back, appreciating more every day the increase in her feelings of good health. I should have done this years ago, she thought. She was lonely, away from the comfort of her own home and the few friends she had there, and picked up her cell phone, thinking about calling Bill Page, but she wondered what she would say. He was a long way away from Madison, Texas. Still, it would be nice to hear his voice.
The coffee pot was still on from earlier, and a cup of the strong, black liquid was available, but she didn’t want to stay awake all night from the caffeine. The gin bottle was calling her. She knew its silky voice, but waiting was always the best response when she first heard the sound. Sometimes it would go away, the calling, but sometimes it wouldn’t leave her alone. Tonight was going to be one of those nights. Each time a case landed in her lap where a young woman’s life had been taken violently, the need would take her there.
The abuse done to Maude when she was a little girl left a world of memories living there in the black darkness of her mind, never going away, just lying quietly most of the time. Her loss of innocence at so early an early age, made Maude feel a kinship with slain young women barely into their blooming years.
The clear bottle lay under her pillow, half-emptied from the night before. She picked it up, staring at the lid, imagining the sweet forgetfulness that would come from the last half. Being alone was a real downer, being sad and alone was a reason to drink. She tilted the opened bottle back and drank the first swallow, the contents burning her throat in the slide down, toward her need.
Maude had been using gin since her mother died of breast cancer. She always wished she could have saved her from the ravages of the disease, even when Grace was lying in the bed, weighing barely eighty pounds, Maude believed her mother might still be healed. The funeral had been blurred, formal, with so many strangers from her mother’s life. Then the loneliness came hard and fast, her whole family gone, all that is except the old man--her father--her abuser. The one who should have died was still alive, trying to whine his way back into her life. He finally died, but not soon enough as far as Maude was concerned.
The last half of the bottle was gone and Maude passed into a kind of sleep, restlessly tossing and turning on the motel bed. It was a way of life for her. She slept on through the next four hours, awakening with a headache and a need to pee. It was time to get up and greet the day.
Chapter 10
Her head seemed the size of a basketball, swollen and full of air, and she couldn’t think straight in the early morning. The coffee pot was too slow, the water in the shower too cold, the mirror too true. Her curly hair was unruly, too long, and rat gray. It was time for a box color. My, my, she thought to herself, I am a pretty, pleasant thing this morning.
Joe was his regular cheerful self, a fact that could have brought him an early death had Maude been quicker, but the young man with the smile on his face also carried her first cup of coffee to the chair where she sat. He saved his own life. The resulting smirk on his handsome face told the real story; she was too old to keep up with him, especially after a ginned up night and four hours sleep.
“Need to get going, partner. I have tacos in the car.”
“Tacos, my favorite food?” She asked, hopefully.
“Uh-huh. For the road.”
“You see Jesus Jones around this morning?”
“No, he wasn’t in the office when I walked by.”
“Oh Lord, I’ve told him time and again to stay out of police business, but he doesn’t listen. Yesterday he was following up on Samuel Marshall, or whoever the heck he is, calling the phone number he gave us. Bogus of course, but Jones is putting himself out there, going to get hurt. I don’t know who Marshall really is, but he knows us all now, especially
Jones. I am a little concerned about the man and his eagerness to help the police.”
“Maybe he’ll be around when we get back,” Joe said.
“Well, let’s go. Tacos are waiting.”
The weather was good, clear and heady with a light north wind, a precursor of the cold front that was coming. The two detectives made small talk on the way to the university and Lilly Ann’s place. Both were thinking of recent events, the man who was spying on them and Jesus Jones gone missing. It didn’t bode well, and they both knew it. Determined to keep her mind on things ahead, Maude gave Joe directions to Lilly Ann’s house, hoping to catch her niece still at home. She punched in the gate code, and the street opened up to them.
“This niece of yours, what if I like her?”
“Fine with me, better you like her than don’t.”
“Yeah, but I mean really like her?”
“Well, let’s get the mystery over with and see if you do. Pull into this driveway. This is where she lives with her mother.”
The garage door was still closed, a fact that made Maude believe Lilly Ann had waited for her before leaving. The front door was unlocked and Maude tapped on the hard wood, lightly at first, then a little harder, to keep from frightening the girl. She had heard a lot of bad news at one time, and didn’t need to get the pants scared off her.”
“Lilly Ann, it’s your Aunt Maude. The door is open, so we came in. Where are you?” Maude yelled.
The house was quiet, no radio or television noise in the background, an empty sitting room, kitchen. The car was in the garage, Maude recognized Lilly Ann’s gray Audi, her salute to class. She opened the car door, smelling the leather seats and polished console. A really nice car, Maude thought.
“I guess she got a ride to the university this morning, and forgot to leave us a message.” Maude said, wishing it had been different. Lilly Ann was special to her, the only relative she really knew. “I called the dean yesterday and told him we would be there early this morning. Maybe we’ll see her on campus.”
Joe was quiet, sitting in the passenger seat, enjoying the morning, thinking a variety of thoughts. Riding in the car with Maude was a lot better since she quit smoking those foul, unfiltered cigarettes inside. Not that he minded so much, but it was better. He wondered about his two kids, wishing there was some way he could see them more, but Sheila, his ex-wife had told them he didn’t love them, convinced them he was a bad person, a terrible father. They refused to be around him, always had somewhere they needed to be.
“We’re here, Maude told him. “Where were you?”
“Just thinking about the case.” He said.
“Okay. Well, let’s go to the dean’s office. I’d like to get in Doctor Dennis’s office, providing it hasn’t been sealed by the group that oversaw his work. I haven’t had a fight with a stuffed shirt in a long time, so one may be coming. Just warning you.”
“I have your back, partner.”
The woman at the reception desk was the same one who chastised Maude for not having an appointment on her first trip to the dean’s office. Her desk was covered with stacks of papers in orderly groups. Any person of substance could see that this woman was in control of her life, defying anyone to disturb the sangfroid of her existence.
“Hello, do you remember me, Mrs. Clark?”
“Yes, I seem to recall you were here to see Dean Stone and did not have an appointment. Am I correct?”
“Correct. I need to see him again. No appointment, but I did call him.”
“I’m sorry, but the dean is a busy man in the midst of a budget meeting. He can’t possibly be disturbed.”
“Yes, I’m sure he is busy, but then, so am I. Mrs. Clark, I don’t want to be a jackass, but if you don’t call him and tell him I’m here, I swear I’ll just walk right in on him and whoever he’s chatting with. I know you don’t want that.”
Mrs. Clark blanched, swallowing hard, not once, but several times at the audacity presented before her. “I will call and see if he is available,” the woman whispered, her orderly world threatened. In a moment, she silently motioned for Maude to go on in. Her austere expression had returned, although it was considerably diminished.
Maude shook her head and chuckled, “I get ‘em, don’t I?’
The dean’s office door was unlocked, his conversation confined to the telephone which sat near his hand, the conference function in use. He noted that Maude had entered the room and put his call on hold.
“I fear the bad news you bring is worse than we had thought,” he said.
“Yes, that’s true,” Maude replied. I don’t believe anyone considered that your professor and a student were dead, and not just missing. I am sorry for the loss of these two.”
“Thank you, Detective Rogers. It is a terrible thing to consider. Great losses to the medical world.”
“Now, Dean Stone, we have a situation. My partner, Joe Allen and I need unfettered access to any and all areas that Doctor Dennis and Jenny Marx either worked or consulted in, including all the professors who had Jenny in their class. I promise we will be discreet and avoid disrupting classes. This could take a few days.”
“Of course, whatever you need. I do appreciate your consideration, but by all means, find the murderers of those fine people.”
The door opened, and Joe came through, after being held up parking the car and talking to the lot attendant.
“Dean Stone, this is my partner, Detective Joe Allen, who’s working with me on this case. I believe I have told you about the sheriff’s shoulder wound caused by a dirty low-down ambusher, otherwise, he would be here himself.”
Acknowledgements made and greetings over put Maude and Joe out on campus with maps, schedules, and basic information about each of the victims. Mrs. Clark had recovered completely, but seemed snake-bit as far as Maude was concerned. She recoiled whenever the detective stepped close to the desk.
“What did you do to that nice woman?” Joe asked.
“Not a thing. Just told her I needed to see the Dean.”
“Hmm. Why do I not believe you, Maude Rogers?”
“You have me wrong, young man. I would like to get a cup of coffee to go with my second cigarette of the day, maybe we can figure out a plan. Let’s find the cafeteria,” she said with a straight face.
The university cafeteria was no different from all the school cafeterias in the state of Texas, or other states: the coffee boiled and strong after eight o’clock and the servings of food tasteless, and in small portions. The two detectives sat down to make a plan since they had the dean’s permission to begin the search for evidence on campus. There was one small table set aside to accommodate the Neanderthal smokers who continued even after a lifetime of education. Maude fit in at the table, where two of her ilk sat with thick, black liquid in front of them, and a cigarette burning in the ashtray.
“Excuse me, Joe. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Maude said, fingering the second cigarette of her day out the pack. Her lighter was already in motion toward its target. She took her coffee and sat at the table with the other smokers. “May I join you?” she asked.
The other smokers made room, moving around table, welcoming the outcast. “Maude Rogers, homicide detective,” said, introducing herself to those at the table. The original two had become four, and the table was crowded.
The smokers all nodded, blowing smoke as they acknowledged her introduction. They were from different sections of the university, their common denominator the tobacco they burned. The man directly across from Maude was curious about her, and asked what she was doing there, was she teaching a class.
Wondering how much to tell and how much was already known about her visit there, Maude responded to the queries with as little information as possible, though she added that she would be visiting several areas around campus and asking some questions about a professor they might know. She noticed one woman, a youngish sort, mousy brown hair, nondescript brown eyes, with what appeared to be a perpetual frown on h
er face. The woman hurriedly finished her cigarette and jumped up from the table, making her way out of the room.
“Was it something I said?” she asked the others.
“Don’t pay attention to her, she doesn’t like anyone here. No reason she should like you any better.” The response came from a tiny woman who sat near Maude, her legs so short they did not reach the ground. “Rebecca Stevens, Assistant Professor, Linguistics. Nice to meet you, detective.”
“Thank you,” she returned, “The university is good-sized. Are there golf carts a visitor might use to get back and forth?”
“Well, yes, if you speak to the maintenance people, they could provide you with one. Let me see if I can get them on the phone,”
“Much obliged. Ms. Stevens, did you know Doctor Aaron Dennis?’
“Why yes, I did know him, though not very well. I am sorry to hear of his passing. Word travels quickly on campus,” she said by way of explaining her knowledge. “I knew the girl, the young woman, also. She had classes with me two years ago, before she changed her major.”
“When was that?” Maude asked, staring at her pack of unfiltereds, knowing it would be several hours until the next one. She sighed, and placed them back in the pocket of her blazer.
“Well, she changed her major from English Lit to Chemistry. Quite a go-round if you ask me. The reason I remember it all so well is her Chemistry professor came to me, quite surprised with his new student. The uptake was, Jenny Marx had more than enough ability to reverse her choices. She was quite intelligent, you know.”
Maude’s little book was getting filled, and another such notebook would be needed soon. She reminded herself to make a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a few of the necessities for the job, including more notebooks. Being away from home base meant spending money unnecessarily sometimes. She bought her notebooks in cases of twenty-four and had a stack of unused ones in her closet at home.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 37