The Sweet Scent of Murder

by Susan P. Baker

  “What are you talking about, Mavis?” Milton asked. He came around toward me.

  “Miss Davis to you, Captain Milton,” I said. “My gun was in Arthur Woodridge’s possession on the night you had him arrested. I want it back. I have no protection for my office.” I knew I couldn’t get it from him. Gillian would have to get the DA to authorize its release, but I kept on.

  “Forget it,” Milton roared into my face. His breath smelled like stale coffee beans. The office smelled like men’s sweat.

  “And while I’m here, I want to know what you’re doing to clear up the false charges that Hilary Lawson filed on Arthur Woodridge thirteen years ago.”

  “False charges. He was convicted.”

  “So? They were false, and you know it. If you’d been the captain on the case back then, you would have cleared him. You’ve seen the file. It’s a pile of shit.”

  “Now wait a minute, Mavis. What do you know about it?” He was suddenly a tad calmer. Flattery will sometimes do that to a person.

  “I was a child welfare worker, remember?” I wanted to say, “remember asshole,” but I didn’t. “I know a put-up job when I see it. Besides, the kids told me how it all happened. And did you know James Rush was his defense attorney? Huh? Doesn’t that make you the least little bit curious? So what are you going to do about it?”

  I couldn’t tell what Ben was thinking. While this exchange was going on our backs were to each other. He had gotten out of his chair and made a pretense of staring through the blinds at the main part of the office.

  “What are you talking about?” the captain asked.

  “I’m talking about the fact that Harrison Lawson’s murder was conveniently executed right after Arthur Woodridge got out of prison. I’m talking about the fact that at the time of the murder, James Rush was present in the Lawson home. Rush, who is Mrs. Lawson’s lover. Rush, who was Arthur Woodridge’s criminal defense attorney thirteen years ago. I’m talking about the fact that anyone who isn’t a fool can read between the lines of that CPS report and see that it was a setup. No one talked to the kids without their mother present then and no one will talk to them now, not if she can help it anyway. She’s fixing to send them off to camp next week so you better hurry and do something fast.” I stopped talking and planted myself in a chair next to an ashtray full of cigarette butts. That old desire reared its ugly head. Luckily, I wasn’t in possession though the thought crossed my mind that I could dig one of the bigger butts out of the sand and light up. What an addict I was. There was something about the captain that made me lose all my resolve to quit, not to mention how I felt about being in the same room with Ben.

  Milton grimaced as he leaned against the front of his desk and crossed his arms. He still had an angry look in his eye as he stared down at me. “Where do you get off coming in here with a story like that? These are highly respectable people. Do you know how important James Rush is? Do you know the kind of power he wields? Mrs. Lawson, herself, sits on several important boards in this town and has some powerful political connections. She even knows the mayor personally.”

  “I don’t think His Honor the Mayor would approve of what Hilary’s done,” I said.

  “Shut up, Mavis. Just shut up.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and stared at me.

  “Fine,” I said, standing. “Just thought I’d give you a chance to get the credit for clearing this thing up, that’s all. You’re going to be awfully embarrassed when it comes out and it appears you didn’t do anything to help the poor man. ” I headed for the door.

  Milton grabbed my arm roughly, jerking me around. “Don’t threaten me, Mavis.”

  Ben was suddenly there beside me. “Now wait a minute,” he said to the captain.

  I shook Milton’s hand off. “Don’t touch me again, Captain, or I’ll sue your ass for police brutality. I don’t give a shit who you are or what your connections are. I’m not afraid of you or your big shot friends.” I reached for the doorknob again.

  “Everybody just calm down!” Ben shouted. He reached out, pushed the door and held it closed. “Don’t you know you can’t burst into someone’s office and start a bunch of shit like this, Mavis? Sit down over there,” he said, pointing to the chair from which I’d come.

  There was a knock on the door, and Ben yanked it open. “What is it?”

  The captain’s secretary stood there with a shocked look on her face. She stretched her neck to see past Ben. “There’s an Angela Strickmeier to see you, Captain.”

  Hope surged through me. “Send her in,” I said. “She can help straighten this whole thing out.”

  Captain Milton gave me an ugly look. “I give the orders around here if you don’t mind.” Then he said to the woman, “Tell her to come in.”

  I suppressed a grin and stole a look at Ben who aimed a reproachful look at me. Angela came through the door. When she saw me, she smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Now her, I really wanted to run to and hug with all my might. She looked at Ben questioningly as he shut the door behind her, then at the captain.

  “Mrs. Strickmeier, have a seat,” the captain said and indicated the chair where Ben had been sitting.

  Angela walked over to sit down and Ben stepped across the room and stood on the far side of the captain’s desk where he could watch us. The captain pushed one of the phones back on his desk, making a space for himself, and halfway sat on the front of his desk, his legs dangling over the sides, one of them not quite touching the floor.

  “This is Lieutenant Sorenson,” he told her, indicating Ben.

  Angela forced a smile at Ben and said something amiable.

  My eyes met Ben’s. He’d gotten a promotion and hadn’t told me. I felt a twinge in my heart. Ben raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. He nodded at Angela. I wondered if he was still a narc or had been moved to homicide.

  “I suppose you’re acquainted with Miss Davis, here,” the captain said.

  “We used to work together,” I said.

  “Shut up, Mavis,” he said with a scowl. “I’m talking to this young woman right now. You’ll get another chance to speak your piece.”

  I don’t take kindly to being talked to like that, but I shut up. Angela shot me a sympathetic look, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  I dug a piece of gum out of my purse, crossed my legs, and pretended I wasn’t offended. Private detectives have to be thick-skinned. It says that somewhere in the unofficial rule book. Number thirty-nine, I think.

  “I suppose you’ve come to see me about the case we discussed a few days ago, is that right?” the captain asked.

  Angela smoothed her hair, pushed a few wrinkles around in her skirt, straightened the hem, and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you taken it upon yourself to review that file?” he asked. “And if so, have you formed any opinions that you’d like to share with us?” He shot me a look that wasn’t pleasant.

  Angela glanced at me; I suppose for moral support. “Look, Captain, I didn’t want to get involved, but there are some things contained in the file that make what happened to Mr. Woodridge questionable.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “And if it were up to me,” she said, “I’d reopen the case.”

  “Ah,” he said and stood, rubbing his hands together like Simon Legree. “You would, would you?” He began pacing up and down in front of his desk, Napoleonic-style. I waited for him to stick his hand in his shirt breast.

  She took a deep breath, gathering her courage, I think, and said, “Yes, sir. If you’ll read each report, you’ll see that Mrs. Woodridge, who is now Mrs. Lawson, exerted a great deal of influence over practically everything that was said and done. It began with the initial interview of the children and ended—well—when the case was closed after conviction.”

  “So you think there’s some chance that Woodridge was innocent?” Milton asked.

  “Definitely,” Angela answered.

  Milton ran his fingers through his hair and sighed loudly. “What
a mess,” he said, as if to himself.

  “Yes, sir,” Angela said. She was sitting on her hands, her knees hiked up, swinging her feet back and forth under her chair like a little kid in the principal’s office. “What scares me is whether this has happened more than once.”

  Milton grunted and took his chair. “Let’s take this one case at a time.” He picked up a pencil and began chewing on the eraser. He glanced at Ben. “Technically, this doesn’t even fall under my jurisdiction—except for that homicide. I think we ought to call in someone from Special Investigations. What do you think?”

  “I agree, sir. It may not even be tied to the murder, but if we could get a man assigned to us, we could coordinate it all from here. We’d take up the homicide part and he could start checking out the allegations that these two ladies have made,” Ben said. It killed me how he referred to me as he would any other woman. Was that all I was to him now? Had he written me off or what?

  “We’d have to keep that part under our hats until we had something concrete to go on,” the captain said. “No use asking for trouble.”

  Ben nodded.

  The captain turned to Angela and me. “All right, ladies—and I use that term loosely when referring to you, Davis—let’s get on with it. Let’s hear what else you have.”

  I smiled out of the side of my mouth. If that’s the only way he could deal with me, so be it. At least I was accomplishing what I wanted. I got up and dragged my chair to the front of his desk. Angela did the same thing. Then the four of us began a round table discussion that lasted until well after dinnertime.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I don’t know quite how it happened, but somehow Angela, Ben, and I ended up going out to dinner together. I remember Angela calling home and asking her husband to pick up the baby from the day care center. The next thing I knew we were all three sitting in a booth in a little Mexican restaurant off Westheimer.

  We had developed a spirit of camaraderie during the day. We had agreed with the captain that for obvious political reasons, the investigation into the Woodridge case would be a secret between the four of us and whoever the Special Investigations Division assigned. At least the sexual assault investigation would be. The homicide investigation was a matter of public record.

  The captain was still not convinced that Arthur hadn’t committed the murder. I had to agree that the man had plenty of motive. No manner of explanation into the character and personality of Arthur Woodridge would convince Milton that he couldn’t have done it and not that the captain wouldn’t have blamed him, he admitted, or at least he wouldn’t have blamed him for murdering Hilary. At any rate, he agreed to keep an open mind and admitted that the investigations together might yield some interesting information about the true killer if it wasn’t Woodridge. Many questions would be asked and many interviews conducted under the guise of investigating the homicide. I probably should have shared with him what I knew about the insurance policies, Hadley, and Smythe, but I didn’t. Okay, I admit to having some character flaws.

  The captain also made it very clear that I wasn’t off the hook for the charges against me. End of discussion.

  They set up a meeting for the next morning between Ben, Captain Milton, and the assignee, if you will, from Special Investigations where they’d review the case. The first thing one of them would do would be track down all the professionals who were used as expert witnesses in court, in. hopes of finding out how everything had really transpired.

  Lastly, much to Angela’s relief, the captain requested that in light of the confidential nature of the investigation, it would be in the best interest of all concerned if Angela didn’t mention what was going on to anyone in her office, including Mandy. No telling what political alliances people had that would cause them to tip off someone.

  It was nice finding myself sitting across the table from Ben, discussing a case, one professional to another. We hadn’t done that in a long time and I hoped it was an indication that our relationship was taking a new turn. I also felt reassured to know that he would be involved with the case. I knew that he was honest and wouldn’t let anything get swept under the rug.

  After dinner, Angela begged off and went home, leaving a few awkward moments between us. I started to make my excuses, too, but Ben wasn’t having any.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  A knot made from refried beans and nerves formed in my stomach. “When did you make lieutenant?” My eyes flitted around the restaurant, meeting his, but not stopping for a visit.

  “They announced it on Monday afternoon,” he said, “but I never had the opportunity to tell you.”

  “And with it you got a transfer to homicide?”

  “At least temporarily.”

  A silence followed. The waitress came to clear the table, and we ordered a couple more bottles of beer.

  “I got a lawyer,” I said. “Her name’s Gillian Wright. You know her?”

  “Heard of her. Don’t know her.” His eyes were all over me.

  “She’s neat. Different, kind of, from most of the ones I know. Older than me by maybe ten years.”

  “How’d you find her?”

  “She’s a distant relation of Candy’s, a cousin thrice removed or something. Her father’s a judge in Angleton.”

  He cocked his head. “Yeah, I do know her. She’s kind of a nut, isn’t she? Goes around making snide comments and laughing all the time.”

  “Yeah, but I like her.”

  He nodded. “You would.”

  I sipped from my long neck.

  “I’ll be making quite a bit more money,” he said.

  “That’s good. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Save it, I guess. Maybe take a vacation.”

  “I’ve been thinking I might go down to Galveston for the weekend when this is over.”

  “Be a tourist again?”

  “Yeah. Just need to get away,” I said. “Lie out on the beach again while there’s still some beach.”

  “I know what you mean.” He drank from his beer. “Next hurricane may take out the island. Their luck’s got to run out pretty soon.”

  “Do you think the captain is worried about this case?”

  “Yeah. He’s bucking for deputy chief. Hates to make waves.”

  “But if he solves it, he’ll be a hero.”

  “Not really. Rush has a lot of friends.”

  “At least I know something will really be done with you on the case,” I said.

  He looked at me with a melancholy little smile. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  I shifted around on the bench and propped my legs up. “Ain’t no big thang,” I said.

  He chuckled halfheartedly and tipped his long neck up, swallowing half its contents. Then he said, “How’s Margaret? Is she mad at me, too?”

  “She’s been like a mother hen since I got out of jail. I think it scared her.”

  His lips formed a thin smile. “But it didn’t scare you.”

  “Nope.” I smirked. “I didn’t like it, but it didn’t scare me.” There was a tone of defiance in my voice that I couldn’t keep out.

  “You’re tough, you know it, Mavis?”

  It was the first time he’d called me by name in a good while. It sounded strange. “Not so tough,” I said.

  “You’d make a good cop.”

  “I don’t like taking orders.”

  “No shit.”

  We both laughed.

  “I like this—being able to talk to you the way it’s been today,” Ben said, his face softening.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t always go around trying to tell you what to do.”

  “Sometimes it’s like you don’t give me credit for having any sense.”

  “When it comes to you, my thinking is somewhat antiquated.”

  “Chauvinistic.”

  “Don’t get carried away. Outmoded—outdated maybe.”

  “Cha
uvinistic. You don’t treat the police women you work with that way, do you?”

  “No,” he said slowly as he searched my eyes with his, “but I’m not in love with them.”

  That one caught me off guard. I almost broke out in warm tears. He took hold of my hand. It only served to make me feel worse. I couldn’t speak for a minute. I couldn’t look at him, either.

  “Did you hear me?” he said in a low voice.

  I nodded.

  “How about we skip the apologies and go ruffle the sheets at my place?”

  So we did. I followed him in my car. When we got there, it was just getting dark. He lived in a small apartment complex on the fringe of the Heights area. They reduced his rent in exchange for being on call for security.

  His large, one-bedroom apartment was furnished with the remnants from his first marriage, which ended eons ago according to what little information I’d been able to glean from him since we’d started seeing each other. His living room furniture consisted of a worn sofa, a recliner, and an old, small TV/VCR/DVD combo. He used a large orange crate with a beach towel thrown over it for a coffee table. A cheap, plastic dinette and four chairs sat just off the kitchen. I think he bought that after the divorce because I have trouble thinking that any woman would have such poor taste.