The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1)

by Linda L. Dunlap

  “Willy was worried about me because I needed to breathe but my throat was bruised and I was gasping like a fish. I could feel my mouth opening and closing but I wasn’t getting any air. Earl stumbled around and ran out the door but it was dark outside and he fell off the porch steps on his head. Willy went out and tried to help him but Earl crawled away and lay down on the grass. I finally got alright as you can see, but while I was trying to breathe, Earl was hurting real bad.

  “I didn’t know how bad the crowbar hurt him. We should have called the police but I was afraid that Willy would go to jail if we did because he’s homeless. I didn’t know Earl was going to die, I thought he was just hurt and would go away.”

  Betty Ann stopped for a minute then continued, “Willy stayed with me for the rest of the night in case Earl tried anything else, but he never came back. He must have died during the night.”

  The woman finally ran out of words.

  Maude had been very still, not saying anything during Betty Ann’s monologue. Finally she cleared her throat and asked “Is that how Willy lost his handkerchief. Wiping your prints off the crowbar?”

  Betty Ann nodded. “Yes, I had touched the crowbar and Willy was once again protecting me.”

  “Where is Willy now, Betty Ann?”

  “He’s at the park, afraid to come back here. I miss him so much.” the old lady said with tears in her eyes.

  Maude looked at Joe and nodded. “We need to pick him up.”

  “What will happen to Willy?” the woman asked.

  Maude answered her, “I can’t say, Betty Ann. We’ll talk to the District Attorney. If the facts prove out the way you say, after the autopsy, he may get off on self-defense. You should have called the police when it happened, then Earl might have still been alive. For now, I need for you to come down to the station and make a formal statement. I can get a van to pick you up.”

  “Okay,” Betty Ann said, once again concentrating on Joe. “I’ll get ready to go.”

  When the woman left the room, Maude called downtown and requested a van for handicapped to be sent to Betty Ann’s house. She called Lieutenant Patterson and reported it all to him then stepped outside to light a cigarette, breathing the smoke in, thinking about the woman in the motorized chair, her life fractured by a brother that she didn’t ask for but who had been dumped on her. She thought about the man with no home who slept on newspapers and cardboard, his only joy a gray haired crippled lady who needed his help and his company. Then the brother, oblivious to reality and wanting his own piece of attention runs outside and gets a freaking crowbar to break up the two love birds. Jeez, Maude said to herself, a crowbar. I get em, don’t I?

  Chapter 6

  The trip back downtown was quiet, with Joe driving and Maude looking out the window, neither of them happy about the circumstances of the Earl Davis incident. More than likely charges of murder one or at least manslaughter would be filed against Willy and Betty Ann because they let the old man die in the yard. No matter what happened, the fall-out was going to be disastrous for them both.

  “So, how did you know?” Joe asked her. ”Was it something I missed?”

  “Not really.” Maude told him “I had a feeling about her after reading the responding officer’s report. Her crying seemed timed, not real. She knew we were coming.”

  “The thing is,” she mused, “I know what it is to have a close relative who holds the family hostage with his behavior. That poor woman couldn’t get away from her brother. Everywhere she looked, there he was.”

  Back at the station there were congratulations passed around for solving the case, but Maude and Joe were quiet about it, glad to see the puzzle solved yet disturbed by its conclusion. The new little notebook in Maude’s pocket had its first few pages already filled with her notes ready to transcribe but she had one more follow up to do. Alice was busy entering data into the computer when Maude walked into the clerical office. There were others that worked at similar jobs but Alice was the one that Maude would seek out each time.

  “Got a minute Alice?” she asked, pulling up the extra chair from against the wall. “I need for you to run a check for me on a white male, approximately forty years old, five feet ten, brown hair, name is Chris Cole, Christopher Cole, Madison resident. See what you find in local and national. If you don’t mind, I’ll sit here and wait.”

  “No problem. Shouldn’t take long, we aren’t busy today.” Alice said, her fingers clicking the computer keys as she talked.

  About five minutes passed before Maude heard the telex machine clicking off the information from law enforcement agencies around the country. There were five Chris Coles. Two females, three white males with minor traffic offenses, one had a minor in possession charge from three years earlier. One was local. Christopher Douglas Cole, black male, current age 25 years and three months, height: 6 feet, hair: black, weight: 180 pounds. Charge was minor in possession of marihuana, six months ago, nothing since. Last address: 2231 Bradley Street, Madison, Texas.

  Maude sat frozen as Alice read the address off the machine. 2231 Bradley was her address, Mary Ellen’s address. The moment was etched in her brain, the door opening, the sleepy eyed man with disarrayed hair, the edge in his voice, a sound of indignity at being questioned. It was all so modulated, so planned. His intimate knowledge of the local school, of sweet Mary Ellen was unclean, a smear of filth on delicate porcelain.

  How easily Maude had been pulled into the intricate weave of his trap, a trip back into time. Ten years ago the murderer had left his mark in a terrible way.

  Maude had been a veteran cop, ten years on a beat, then the test for detective at Chicago PD. She aced it, once again the model student, always at the top of her class. The years she spent as a street cop had taught her about the evil that strangers do to one another, bar fights that ended with guns or knives taking lives, like little boys comparing the size of their penises to decide who was the biggest. The family violence cases were the sad ones; a husband who slew his wife for looking past him at another. Dead, she looked at no one, not even the kids who sat crying for their mama.

  On the day of her fourth anniversary as a detective with Chicago PD, Maude and her senior partner Mason Aldridge, a long time veteran with the PD were sent out on a welfare check. Dispatch had been called by a frantic mother who said her daughter was missing and the last time she had been seen was over two weeks earlier. Mother thought daughter had been upset with her and had not returned her calls just being snippy as she was prone to do. Mother said at first she didn’t think much about it, but after two weeks and no contact, Mother’s gut told her there was something bad wrong with her daughter.

  When Detective Aldridge and Maude arrived at the address the place showed typical signs of neglect; the grass had grown tall, mail overflowed in the outgoing box. A sad-looking cat sat on the front stoop crying for her mistress. Both detectives pulled their weapons and approached the door staying out of the line of fire from the windows along the front of the house. Mason knocked on the door politely at first then harder so he was sure to be heard by anyone inside.

  With no response from the house and the obvious signs of neglect of the animal and the yard, Mason signaled to Maude that he was going in if the door was unlocked. They had worked together for three of the four years that Maude had been a detective and knew each other from earlier when she was a beat cop and he was in Homicide. They understood each other without words.

  Mason turned the knob on the door and pushed it open then flattened himself against the brick wall siding. A bullet coming from inside the door would probably miss him. Maude understood the tactic and waited patiently with her weapon braced should a shot come from inside the house at any time.

  All was quiet, and both detectives knew there was a very serious problem-call it instinct, call it whatever you like-but they knew. Mason entered the house first, approaching cautiously, keeping the walls and heavy furniture between him and a possible shooter. Maude went through the door and ma
de her way opposite Mason, a maneuver well practiced by both of them. Still there was nothing.

  Just as both the detectives were about to holster their weapons, a shot rang out from the back yard coming through the kitchen window. A moment before the hit the red dot of the laser sight had centered on Mason’s temple. She saw the dot focusing but time messed with her. Things happened as though in slow motion and even though she called his name it was too late. Her partner took the shot and was dead on his feet, the bullet-proof vest unable to save his life this time.

  Maude fell to the floor beside Mason and lay there, checking him for a pulse that was no longer there. She eased her radio out of its pouch watching the window all the while, called the radio code for “officer down” giving the address and advised “caution, man with a gun”. Even though she knew Mason was dead, Maude requested an ambulance. She had seen enough dead bodies to know her partner was gone but it was procedure.

  She stayed low to the floor knowing the danger wasn’t over then made her way in the shadows putting the furnishings of the house between her and the shooter. The grief for her partner would wait. Her survival depended upon her ability to make it until help arrived. It seemed to take hours for the sirens to sound and car doors to start slamming, the men in uniform filling the street like a horde of locusts covering a field of grain.

  Cops were everywhere but the shooter was gone, his shell casings gone, the ground with his shoe prints intentionally stirred erasing any solid piece of evidence. The ambulance came and took Mason away, cops lined up waiting for the stretcher to pass their way, tears in many eyes.

  The crime lab techs showed up bursting with energy, determined to find a piece of evidence to help make it right but of course no one could make it right. A veteran cop was gone in the blink of an eye. If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.

  Maude related the incident to her Captain who showed up before Mason was removed from the premises.

  A determined look on his face he stated to all listening, “We’ll get this guy, whoever he is, we’ll find him,” he said. “I’ll put my best men on it.”

  And that is what he did, leaving Maude out of the loop.

  The original welfare check had so far proven fruitless; there was no one in the house. Maude searched all the rooms after she was dismissed by the Captain to carry on her duties. A patrol officer accompanied her throughout the house, searching for any sign of distress that might have made the resident leave.

  Everything was spotless, even more than it should have been considering the neglect outside. Both bedrooms proved to be almost sterile with stripped beds and vacuumed rugs, some even freshly shampooed. The bathroom was disinfected, spotless also, all hairs removed from the drains with nothing left to give any leads.

  The kitchen had been the last to be searched; the orderly cabinets and sterilized sink were devoid of stains or evidence. Nothing out of place, once again everything was spotless, too clean. Maude knew whatever it was that had happened in that house was really bad. She walked out to the small laundry room, finding it crowded with a washer and dryer and large stand up freezer. Why a single woman needed a large freezer was beyond Maude’s comprehension. Without any further consideration she reached for the door and opened it, swinging it back, opening the appliance to full view.

  The next thing Maude did was look at her watch to determine the exact time. She glanced at the deputy standing beside her with his mouth open and nodded for him to go get his boss. She took a minute to observe, puzzled by the scene before her.

  A youngish woman was frozen in an upright position taking up the space in the largest part of the freezer. All shelving had been removed to accommodate her. Her arms were folded against her chest, head bowed, knees slightly bent, overcome by frost. The body was naked, and the ice that covered her was old, at least by several days. As the fluids in the woman’s body froze they created a heavy coating of rime from head to foot. Across the woman’s chest a long row of careful stitches could be seen through the frost, an obvious repair of a long and deep incision. It would only be later when the pathologist opened the body for autopsy they would discover that the victim’s heart had been taken.

  From the very first Maude had been saddened by the waste of life, the terrible theft of the young woman’s future. Her belly tied itself in knots when she considered the sick pervert that killed the woman and Mason Aldridge. In Maude’s mind there was no doubt that the killer was one and the same. The shooting of her partner was territorial, the red dot of the sensor a mark of ownership, the piss of a predator who knows he rules that part of the jungle. Maude raged inside, the desire to slash the sick pervert asunder, a primal wish to devastate the evil in him before it seeped out again into her city.

  It happened three more times within three months, the killing, the plotting, the gleeful set ups of law enforcement officers. From each woman he killed, he took her heart, sewing her chest back together afterwards. With each victim, the incisions and closures became less precise, as though his human desire for perfection was growing thinner and the animal part of him more savage. He had noticed Maude from the very first, sending her notes on elementary school paper, written with a soft lead pencil. No smudges at first, then later his writing became slanted and erratic but never careless. The notes were childlike appealing to her for approval rather than condemnation. They made her shudder with revulsion. The newspapers never found out or her life would have been on display. That was one good thing her chief did, he kept the notes under wraps. Finally they stopped coming. She never knew why he chose her, but she was glad when he stopped writing.

  They had no real evidence; no one ever came forward with information that might have helped. It was as though the man did not exist on the same plane as the rest of the world. Maude became obsessed with finding him. She began contacting the victim’s families by phone, encouraging them, telling them that any day a break could come. And it did, but it was Maude who broke. Her supervisor had a phone call from the father of the first victim, asking him to stop Maude from calling. The man said it was too painful to go through it again and again. The FBI had already taken the case from Chicago PD and the detectives in Homicide had been told to let them do their jobs. Her supervisor insisted that she go to the department counselor and get over her preoccupation with the man the local media had named the Heartless Killer.

  After the grisly delivery of the frozen hearts to the Chicago restaurant, Maude put in her letter, packed her bags and moved back to Madison, the place where her mother lived, the place where she and her mother and grandmother were born.

  Chapter 7

  When Maude left the clerical section, she quickly made her way back to Homicide and burst through the door of the lieutenant’s office, explaining what she had discovered about Chris Cole. She told him the man who had met her at the door of her rent house was a white male and the real Chris Cole was black. She also explained her concern for her renter’s welfare.

  “Boss, it was him last night playing a game, pretending to be someone he’s not. It was all set up to show what a genius he is and what fools we are. And I fell for it, took him at his word and all the time he was laughing at me, at us. We need to get some officers over there and call the crime lab to print the front door where the suspect stood holding the door knob trying to get rid of me. We have to find out if he has hurt Mary Ellen.”

  “Get a warrant Maude. Even though you own the house, we need to have everything legal.”

  “No warrant necessary, Boss, it’s in my rent contract, I can go in anytime to check on the house if I believe my property’s been damaged.”

  Three patrol cars, the van from the crime lab, and Maude’s unmarked car arrived at 2231 Bradley within fifteen minutes and immediately officers began surrounding the house with weapons drawn, a bullhorn in Maude’s hand amplified her command to ‘come out with your hands up’. They were greeted with silence from the house, the quiet overwhelming in its significance.

  The trip
to Mary Ellen’s had been fast and rough, the old beat up car bouncing Joe off the seat cushion at every pothole, its worn springs loose and useless. The ride had been silent except for radio traffic. When they had arrived at the house, Joe jumped out of the car and went around to Maude’s side supporting whatever role she decided to take. She was grateful to have him nearby.

  The officers stationed around the house waited for her to make a move. She felt the pressure to end the standoff, to enter the house and answer her own questions. The door waited unopened, and in her need to get into the house she rushed forward placing herself out of the line of fire from inside. The knob turned easily opening the latch. She touched the side of the door and pushed, waiting while the gentle pressure from her touch swung the door inside. Joe had made it to the opposite side of the door ready to rush inside whenever she gave the word.

  Caution was the name of the game because Maude remembered Mason Aldridge and the bullet that took him down so many years ago. The killer was twisted and enjoyed the shock value of his work, dismissing human life as unimportant except as a means to his own ends. He would maim and kill as it pleased him with no remorse.

  They entered the house as a team, while the officers outside covered the back door and the windows, ever watchful for any sign of the man they sought. He was nowhere in sight. The forensics team was next in the door once the all clear sign went out. No one was allowed in, except the Homicide detectives, and the lab techs. Maude wished she could be anywhere else other than among Mary Ellen’s possessions, about to enter the rooms where the young woman spent her most intimate hours. She felt like praying, like asking Divine intervention in Mary Ellen’s life but in her gut she knew her request to God had come too late.