The Maude Rogers Murder Collection

by Linda L. Dunlap

  Maude shifted for a minute, giving Joe a surprised look. She rolled her eyes and nodded, admiring Joe’s technique.

  “I, I was in Angola for five years. But I done my time, and got out on good behavior.”

  Joe wrote in his notebook, catching his breath. I had no idea before I asked the guy about being locked up. I threw a rock and hit a guilty dog.

  “What did you do that got you five years?”

  The sullen man answered, “Assault, burglary, and criminal trespass.”

  “All of those?”

  “Yeah, all of those. But like I said, I got out on good behavior.”

  “So did you live in Louisiana, or were you passing through? That name of yours isn’t usually associated with bayou country.”

  “Yeah, I lived there with my mama’s grandma. Grew up on the river bottom. Never had nothing that wasn’t a piece of crap. So I got tired of it. Stole some things from a house that I thought was empty. Turned out it wasn’t. The man that lived there shot me in the foot when I tried to run away and kept on shooting, trying to kill me. Grabbing at his pistol to stop him from shooting me again was what caused the assault. The butt of the gun hit him in the head while we were wrestling. Little did I know the fool had a silent alarm, that’s how they got me. That and my bum foot.”

  “You’re lucky it was your foot.” Joe said.

  “That’s what they tell me. Didn’t feel lucky at the time. Still don’t.”

  Maude caught Joe’s eye. “Mr. Wojohoitz, can you give me any good reason we shouldn’t think you killed those two and then robbed them?”

  “I didn’t do it. Killing isn’t my thing. I’m a thief, not a killer.”

  “We’ll see about your history, and then we’ll talk some more. Where’s the stuff that belonged to Aaron Dennis?”

  “The sullen look was back. It’s in my truck.”

  “Dang, man, no wonder you get caught,” she said. “Keeping stolen stuff in your truck has to be the stupidest thing I’ve seen a thief do in a while. Joe, would you put some cuffs on this idiot? Take him out to his truck, and confiscate the evidence.”

  Maude thought about the victims found on the grass lined waterway. With her emotions under control she considered the guy named Wojohoitz, trying to put him there. He was off work, so getting there would have been easily done by stealing a boat. He was a good-sized man, though not extra-large as they had supposed one of the killers might have been. He needed money, and someone must have paid a large sum to the killers. She and Jack believed there were three killers involved. The maintenance guy could have been one of them. On the other hand, he might be a thief and only that.

  They took him back to the Sheriff’s Office along with the girl who kept glaring and sprinkling epithets in her conversation. The man, Wojo, as Maude preferred calling him kept quiet, as if an epiphany had occurred in his head, making him realize he might have already said too much.

  Joe was feeling good; he had helped bring Wojo in by getting him to talk about his history. There was a chance the assistant had been part of the killing crew, and if that was true, the rest of the criminals would not be far behind.

  Maude on the other hand was trying to reconcile the huge boot prints with Wojo’s size eleven shoes. But, there were three in the killing crew, so maybe one of the others was the big man. She had given herself a headache while thinking, and her knees were giving her fits. Something about the dampness of the coast made living with arthritis a more painful situation.

  She called Jack, and gave him an update on Wojo, wanting his opinion. He didn’t give it, just listened to her and said “Congratulations. There are others who will make the determination if Wojo is guilty, all you could do was bring him in and get him printed and tested. His DNA should match up with the lab’s testing on Jenny Marx, otherwise, we have a thief and a thief only.”

  There was one more situation that needed looking into—that guy Spillar. The family lived in a rent house at 900 Chicon Street. The neighborhood was a mix of drug sellers and users in the midst of families that had too much invested in their homes to leave them. Some months Jack or his deputies would be in neighborhood once or twice a week to arrest someone for aggravated assault or burglary of a house or building.

  The front yard of the suspect’s house was trashed. Cans and bottles littered the ground, and the wind had blown pizza cartons and paper cups against the once fashionable brick siding. A child’s toy wagon was filled with beer bottles, the pull handle rusted and broken preventing their delivery. Maude took Wojo with her, his hands cuffed behind him, his mood sullen as he assessed the property.

  She knocked on the door, her weapon in hand, not sure of what she might find behind the entrance. The wait seemed a long one while the occupants of the house made themselves more presentable. Maude kept Wojo out of the view of Spillar, hoping for a surprise. Finally, the door opened a crack, and Maude stuck her shield at eye-level with the looker. The door opened a little more, allowing the person with the door knob enough visibility to fully see Maude.

  Spillar stood there, his leg in a cast, evidently there was a broken bone involved with his gun cleaning accident. “It’s you. What do you want?” he whispered. “Go away unless you have a warrant.”

  Maude pulled Wojo out in front of her, waiting on Spillar to react, and he did. “So who is this schmuck? Why the hell you bring him here?”

  “You don’t know this guy?” She asked Spillar.

  The man looked truly puzzled, “What the hell you trying to pull, old woman?”

  Wojo stepped up, “Hey you don’t get to insult her, scumbag. She asked a question, just answer it.”

  Spillar began closing the door, “Get a warrant the next time you want to bring one of your buddies to play twenty questions.”

  He slammed the door but not before Maude saw the wife and kid inside the room, their faces tear-streaked.

  Wojo began walking to Maude’s truck while she followed and eyed the traffic on the street.

  “What was that all about? Who is that guy?”

  The questions coming from the maintenance man would have to wait. At that moment a car was moving down Chicon very slowly, firing a pistol at telephone poles, headed toward Spillar’s house. Quickly Maude pushed Wojo to the back door of the truck and told him to get inside fast if he wanted to live. She climbed in the passenger side of the front and scooted over, keeping her head low, out of sight of the approaching low-rider and its occupants.

  “Stay down, Wojo. They haven’t seen us yet. Let’s hope we can avoid trouble.” The car was close, intent on making the front yard its parking lot. Maude whispered to Wojo who was lying down in the seat. “I’m going to start the engine before they decide to come over here and break the windows, hoping to steal my stereo. So buckle up, we’re soon going to be leaving.”

  She started the engine, eased the gas down, and steered into the road. When she had cleared the yard she let the hammer down on the truck and left the neighborhood in a hurry. The car didn’t follow them, but Maude called the Sheriff’s Office and reported gunshots had been fired.. Ray and Lyle were on the way, but would get there after the shooter was long gone. Maude knew her first responsibility was to keep Wojo safe until she arrived at Jack’s office. His hands in cuffs would be a catalyst for trouble with street toughs.

  She was glad to see the county building where Ernest and Joe had returned in the four-wheel drive vehicle. Earlier they had dropped her off at her truck with Wojo, not understanding why, but not asking either.

  “That’s a rough neighborhood and I’m sorry to see those folks confined to that house. At least they have burglar bars. Spillar is guilty as sin, and we’re going to prove it soon, but I hope there’s time to get his family to leave before the shooter finds him,” she stated.

  Chapter 14

  The mood at the Sheriff’s Office the next morning was light, for some believed that Wojo was one of the assassins, and the others would be captured soon afterward. Joe was hesitant as was Maud
e, but Jack had called the office and talked to his staff, informing them that the maintenance man had been arrested. Maude was unconvinced, but she kept quiet, waiting for lab results to prove or disprove some of the theories.

  There were reports that needed writing and paperwork by the boxful to be completed with both agencies requiring information from Maude and Joe. An expense account had to be reconciled or the detectives wouldn’t be paid for their time away from home. A couple of small rooms were vacant in the building, and Maude set up her laptop in one and began writing. Joe had his iPad and used the other room. The deputies had locked Wojo in one of the holding cells and gave him a sack lunch of two baloney sandwiches, a package of mustard, and an apple. He was busy eating, but complained about the food.

  The call came in about 10:00A.M. Shots were fired from inside 900 Chicon Street, and people in and around the front yard had responded with answering fire. A holiday for shooters it seemed. Going to that neighborhood two days in a row was not something Maude wanted to do, but there was no choice. The officers had to try to put an end to the violence. There were three county cars that sped off to the location, all officers armed with shotguns and personal weapons. When they arrived, the people in the yard disbursed to their homes or lairs, to whichever destination held the most safety from arrest.

  All law enforcement officers used the cars for cover with Maude directing them to the side windows of the house and the front door. She and Joe took the back door and made their way under cover of the building and several red leaf photinia bushes that bordered the yard. The shrubs were in their thin winter garb but gave some protection covering the officers’ furtive movements as they advanced to the back door. Maude remembered a deputy remarking that the Spillars had locked themselves in except for pizza deliveries at the back door.

  The back yard was more of the same--trash had blown across the yard, and on the back patio, several trash bags stood against the siding, the plastic torn in several places where dogs, cats, or raccoons had searched for food. The smell of garbage was one familiar to man and beast. Maude avoided the bags and made her way to the wall alongside the back door, noting the burglar bars were still in place, but the door was open. Joe looked across the door at Maude and they both nodded, observing the evidence that someone had been that way recently.

  Maude knew that rushing a door where gunshots have been heard is not always a safe play; however, there are those times where necessity demands quick action. Three people resided in the Spillar house: the rude, ambushing polecat, his wife, and their child. Strangely enough, dedication to the law would propel most sworn officers into the thick of danger to save the life of any person, even a man of Spillar’s character.

  She also knew that if she survived another day, the spasms in her knees would be back with a vengeance from low crawling in the yard. The pain made her want to light up an unfiltered and hold it in her mouth, enjoying a last smoke as the bullets began flying. But the door greeted her, and she pushed it wide open and entered the kitchen weapon in hand as her eyes searched for armed shooters or victims of an assault.

  In the corner of the room a figure crawled on hands and knees, bleeding out on the tiled floor. As Maude watched, Corrine Spillar collapsed and lay on her belly. Her blood was seeping from several bullet holes. She turned her head slightly toward the new person in the room, her dying eyes registering that help had come too late. Maude went to her and noted the big hole in the woman’s neck, a wound that should have already killed her. Corrine lifted her eyes one last time and stared at the small pantry door behind the side chair. She looked back at Maude with a plea in her expression. Maude nodded that she understood, and the mother breathed her last breath into a sigh.

  Joe moved on to the living room, searching for bodies or armed men, and finding none, he opened the front door for the deputies to enter. He then began a cautious survey of the small bathroom whose tub had a curtain pulled across.

  A dark shape could be seen through the thin liner and Joe called out, “Police, come out with your hands up.”

  There was silence and stillness from beyond the curtain, no movement telling the tale. Joe move toward the curtain and jerked it across, weapon in hand. Carl Spillar sat in the bathtub, his body leaning against the shower handle, head flopped upon his shoulder with no visible sign of a mouth or chin, just his forehead intact. Spillar had been dead on impact for only a small amount of blood had pooled on the floor of tub. The man was naked, his genitals removed and wrapped around his right hand, a punishment Joe had not seen before in his forensic time with CID. He wondered what the symbolism meant.

  Maude moved the side chair and began speaking in a low comforting voice, informing the little guy in the pantry that she was no threat. She hoped he would remember her from the night at the hospital. The door was hard to open. The hinges were old and rusted, and its hollow core was scarred from feet kicking it closed. The black shoe marks were tell-tale. A large bag of government packed flour stood in front of the bottom shelf and Maude had to move it to see the child hidden there, under a faded blue blanket. The boy looked at Maude and began screaming and reaching out to her, possibly remembering her from another time.

  She took the boy from his safe place and held him, patting his back. He kept his eyes turned away from his mother lying on the floor. Leaving the kitchen as quickly as possible, Maude carried the boy toward the deputies in the living area. “When you call for emergency services, get CPS out here for this child. They’ll have to find his relatives-maybe a grandmother.”

  No one knew what had started the gunshots outside. Maude assumed it was a group of young men wanting to get into the melee, hoping to make someone notice that they too had weapons and could kill. It was obvious that the shooter in the house had come to destroy the man and his family, but Corrine had protected her son as best she could. It must have been agony when the man was there and the mother was praying the child would not cry out from the pantry.

  She continued to hold the clinging boy until the advocate from child protection arrived and took him away. Maude waved at him as he left. She made a promise to go and see the child before she left town.

  “Joe,” she said in passing, “I’m going to search for some kind of communication from the shooter to Spillar. Pull his and his wife’s cell phone and see if we can get any numbers off them.”

  “No cells, Maude. We.ve searched, but they aren’t here. Suppose the shooter took them?”

  “How about their computer?”

  “Not one here, but there are wires and connections.”

  “Right now I should start cussing, but I found over the years that doesn’t help. Sound like he thought of everything, but there must be something he didn’t find. Send all the deputies along their way, I’m going to search this place until I find something. Appreciate it if you would stay and help.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Notes, instructions, receipt; any kind of communication that would point to the Edwards Bay murders.”

  “Got it. I’ll start in the bedrooms.”

  “Okay, I’ll start in the kitchen and meet you in the middle.”

  The kitchen cabinets were covered in powders from overturned spices and canisters, a few dishes out of place, and some broken glassware lay on the shelves. The countertop was the same; disheveled items and broken plates caused by an impatient search lay in the sink. On top of the cabinets a thin layer of dust was all that could be found. The refrigerator freezer held some ice trays, while bottles of mustard, ketchup, and a jar of pickles, the things kids like, sat on the refrigerator shelves.

  The trashcan was empty, its previous contents scattered on the floor along with a month old newspaper, some dried pizza slices, and a tiny man sitting in a plastic racecar. Maude picked up the toy and put it in her pocket before leaving the room. Corrine Spillar’s blood had cooled, beginning to darken.

  The small dining room was an afterthought, a space added to hold a table and four chairs in the way that
housing projects were often built. The ‘projects’ were the Federal/City Housing offered to low-and no-income residents of the city. The Spillars had to qualify financially to be accepted, thus Maude knew they had very little money. The man probably took the job working with the killing crew to make some quick money. It backfired on him and his wife, as those kinds of shady deals so often do.

  She wanted to know what part Spillar played in the assassination. She believed him to be a bit player--he had appeared to be out of his league. His behavior at the hospital was not smooth at all, putting Maude on his trail. A professional would have had his story straight, built to gain sympathy from those asking.

  The living area with its obligatory couch and chair faced a nineteen-inch television set against the wall. The window next to it was covered with aluminum foil to block the sun. Bookshelves on the wall were empty except for a few Sci-fi that had been turned inside out, the pages lying loose across the wooden shelf. A well-worn copy of Outbound by Sonya Craig lay upside down on the old shag carpet.

  There was nothing to indicate Carl Spillar had had any contact with the killing crew. Maude wasn’t surprised, but she had been hopeful that something would have been found.

  “Nothing, Maude,” Joe said grimacing, “but someone sure made a mess of the place.”

  “I know. The kitchen’s a disaster. Let’s get out of here. Time to eat.”

  “My vote.” Joe said, opening the front door to exit the house.

  They chose a restaurant that boasted a salad bar and a sign that read: ‘All you can eat for $7.99’.

  “That looks good to me, I’m starving. I missed breakfast, you know.” Joe rationalized. “It’s funny how we can see all that stuff and still be hungry.”

  The restaurant was crowded, with some uniformed officers from the highway patrol, and a sprinkling of construction workers from the building across the street scattered about. The menu was everything a person could think of with waiters carrying cups and glasses to tables and taking soiled dishes away as the guests emptied them and went back for more.