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

by Linda L. Dunlap

  Mama had cried, but then she got real mad. “Not my fault!” The words from mama’s mouth rang in his ears, resounding now, shutting out the sound of the water. “You take him, Elridge! Don’t want him”.

  Daddy got in the car. Bobby could see from the window in the nursery. He raised his small hand to wave at Daddy who didn’t look back. Gone. Mama was in her bedroom, crying really loud.

  “Heartless man, kill you. Don’t want him. So heartless, come back. Don’t want him”. Mama was sad, and Bobby opened the door to go to her, tears on his cheeks like mama. He lifted his small arms to her. Words sprang from him as she drew back her right hand again and again.

  “Ooh. Don’t hit, Mama! No, hurts. Ooh, Mama. Head hurts. Mama, no, hurts. Tummy hurts, no, Mama. Daddy! Daddy!” Mama hugged him then, sorry for so much.

  The nanny came when Mama called and took the small screaming boy away to his favorite place, the creek behind the family home. She washed his face in cold water and removed the tears, sat him down upon the ground and checked his body for injury, hugging him against her. She soothed him, wiping away new tears. It was not the first time that the nanny had comforted the crying child after one of his accidents. That time there was nothing broken or bleeding.

  “This time no big hurts for Bobby, just little hurts that will go away soon.”

  The nanny was young, not yet twenty, a student who went to college during the day when she was away from Bobby. She would be gone for good the next day, suspicious, unable to stomach what she believed to be abuse to the child. The nanny’s youthfulness made her more vulnerable to the pain she saw in the family, but even she who took care of Bobby was unaware of the extent of violence visited upon the child regularly. Once she had spoken to a fellow student about her beliefs that Bobby was being abused, but since her only proof was the sorrow of a child, she was advised by the law student to stay out of the family’s business. There was old money behind Bobby’s family and the nanny would be the one to suffer if she continued.

  After giving her notice, the nanny was quickly replaced by another. But Bobby had already been educated in the application of violence. He knew that his life was controlled by adults, Mama and Daddy who were so adept at producing pain in the boy. Oh yes, he knew all about violence, he had lived with it for three years as the perfect target for Mama who used Bobby for her punching bag when Daddy misbehaved.

  The new nanny came, but she was old, and didn’t love Bobby. She chastened him for the messy in his pajamas and told Mama and Daddy. The bruising on his small body went unnoticed by the nanny, except one time Bobby saw her smile at his broken finger, his pinky, where Mama had bent it till it hurt so bad. That time Mama had cried and hugged him and said “no more messy in his pajamas”. Her hugs were the best when she held him to her breasts, his face against her soft skin, his small mouth open to receive the dry nipple to suckle. Mama would make sounds and keep hugging him. Bobby lived for those times when Mama loved him for a little while, before she flung him from her bed, screaming for the nanny to take him away.

  The coolness of the cave was good for sleeping, for recovering. Mama had come again, looking for him, but she didn’t find him in his special place. Not ready yet for Mama but so glad that she still loved and wanted him! The water, in the river under the tabletop in front of the cave was rushing below him, comforting the man who was once a boy. Later he would climb down, shed his clothes and jump into the cold sparkling water, revived in spirit, ready for the day.

  He missed his treasures, they brought him pleasure to touch and remember. His latest ones lay hidden in the cave, in his special place where he would keep them for a while, to hold when the scary night came. The woman had been hateful to him, calling him names, screaming for him to go away, but Bobby had stayed. He had held her tight, but she didn’t hug him. Her hands had scratched his face, his arms, hurting him. His head had hurt so badly, the noise of her screaming matching his, the sound of the gurgling breath from her chest frightening him, his hands around her throat squeezing to stop the noise in his head.

  He didn’t remember much after that, but Someone had used the knife, the special knife to stop her for good, because she had kicked him and tried to crawl away, forcing his hands from her neck as the last surge of her strength broke his hold. After that he laid the post on the ground and re-tied her to it. Her dead weight dragged him down as he lifted and replaced the post in the same position, the knife in her back difficult to maintain. Then Someone cleaned her, removing his touch, his saliva, the prints from the knife. But he took his treasures. She would never scream again or look at his face with hatred.

  He had two more vacation days to play before going back to the job and after that, home. The JOB, a means for him to ‘travel and meet people,’ the salary a pittance received for a job well done. The ad had run in the local newspaper advertising for employees to sell products in home improvement. ‘Would require some travel and an outgoing personality ready to make things happen and grow a business.’ He had been young when he applied, the second of two applicants. Both got the job, selling porcelain products for business and the home through wholesale contacts.

  He outlasted the other salesman. Thoroughly successful in his line of the business, he had managed a compelling sales portfolio. More importantly, he concealed his considerable intelligence and the fortune left from his loving parents after their untimely accidental death in the northern Rocky Mountains. When he had turned twenty one-a responsible and grieving adult-the money was his. The large family fortune that passed down first to Bobby’s father had been sought after by an uncle, Daddy’s brother, but the man’s legal standing was declared void for there was an heir, daddy’s only son, Bobby. There were also considerable amounts of life insurance on both his father and mother with double indemnity for accidental death.

  The uncle had declared a suspicion of foul play in the death of his brother and sister-in-law. The brakes on their car had failed on one of the downhill mountain roads, causing the car wheels to escalate their rotations to a sustained speed of at least one hundred and twenty miles per hour just before it jettisoned off the s-curve into the valley below. No evidence of brake-tampering was found even though there was so much damage to the entire vehicle it might have been overlooked in the wreckage.

  The rental car, a foreign sports model, had been issued with the standard safety inspections before the man and his wife took the car on the scenic drive into the mountains. The local Colorado police who had too much to do to worry about a man jealous of his nephew’s inheritance shrugged their shoulders and got on with other business.

  The couple, who had been back together for a short time were trying to revive a failed marriage, hoping the mini-vacation would be the stimulus for a second trip to the alter. On one of their son’s short visits to his parent’s home, he had overheard the kitchens cooks talking about the planned trip a week in advance, and though he waited patiently as always, he was neither asked by his parents to go along, nor informed of the plan.

  Bobby lived in his own apartment in another city and had returned there after the authorities began searching for him. When they found him at his job and told him of his parent’s death, they advised him that it was routine police work to question him of his whereabouts at the time of the deaths. Sad-faced Bobby nodded his head and showed them his time card from the small shoe store where he worked, then closed the door of the business behind them.

  That night, he moved into his new apartment and called to thank a particularly helpful man in the rental car business in Colorado. Afterward, he opened a bottle of very expensive wine and drank several glasses in celebration of a job well done.

  The next week the helpful man in Colorado had his own accident in his new porcelain shower, although there was never any evidence that might incriminate Porcelain Worx or its products. The delivery man who carried death to the helpful Colorado man had parked his van behind a convenience store a block away then walked to the door, thank you gift in hand. />
  Inside a colorful wrapper tied with a red ribbon, a large container of body wash with skin softening glycerin additives lay waiting to be used by the helpful man. The delivery person returned later, jimmied the lock, and hid in the house, waiting for an opportune time to finish his task. Even later, the no-longer-patient delivery man jerked the shower curtain open and surprised the helpful man who slippery from the glycerin in the body wash, lost his footing and allowed maximum forced contact between his head, the stainless steel faucet, and the tub bottom. The delivery man carefully removed the body wash label and erased all fingerprints other than the victim’s from the bottle. He left the helpful man’s house by the back door, removed his gloves and returned to the unmarked van.

  The coroner found no conflicting evidence to prove foul play and thus ruled in his report;

  ‘The cause of death appears to be a large cerebral contusion resulting in hematoma of the frontal and rear lobe, traumatic brain injury was due to a slip and fall within the home.’

  Bobby became a very wealthy man after the will was read and the insurance claim on his parents was paid. His inheritance allowed him many privileges, one was the ownership of the large family home which his educated father had christened, Feldspar. The grounds of the property were Bobby’s play area where he had begun the early preparations for his craft.

  In the forested area outside the privacy fence there had been feral housecats that came onto the grounds to deposit their litters of wiggly babies in concealed places, but they couldn’t hide from little Bobby. He found the kittens and began his ministrations that were done with such precision that his mother might have approved had the small boy told her.

  Their little hearts were hard to find at first, but he got better after more and more tries, learning to poke them first with an icepick, (don’t touch that Bobby, it might hurt you!) that he stole from the kitchen cook and returned later. Scissors with blunt ends were hard to use, but he found some with pointy ends in the sewing drawer, and they worked just fine.

  The small boy always took care of the things he loved. Scissors back to the drawer, his treasures in a kitchen match box under a rock near the patio and the useless kitty thrown into the creek to float away. Mama always thought he had cut himself when she saw the blood on his little short pants. She didn’t worry about him though. Just smiled and wiped her drippy nose, sniffing up the white medicine that she said made her strong.

  Chapter 16

  Detective Allen made the trip back to Madison in the old crime lab van midst the cameras, the boxes of chemicals, and a large plastic case with unknown contents. Two technicians rode in the front, carrying on a line of sports conversation all the way. Joe was exhausted and fell into a fitful sleep for the first few miles then lay wide awake across the seat, his mind racing with the events of the morning and the night before.

  Times like these, he thought, it might be good to light up a cigarette like Maude, except it wouldn’t be those bent up unfiltereds that she smoked. Oh no, if he ever took on the habit, his choice of smoking pleasure would be the big cigars from the locked cases in the cigar store. Small chance of that, he detested the taste of tobacco in any form. One time, a year or so back, he had dated a woman who smoked, and each time he kissed her the strong smell of her breath almost took away the pleasure of the kiss.

  Ah, women, now that was an uncomplicated subject. Not the women themselves, but the idea of women. Joe loved them all, wishing he could be with one in the back of the van. Not for any reason other than to talk and laugh a little, with maybe a few kisses if she was willing. Usually when his green eyes started flashing most women both young and old took notice. Joe was not unaware of his charms; sometimes taking advantage of the stir he created by asking a woman out to dinner, hoping to get luckier than a smile for the evening. He still missed his wife and the kids, but after a while he had begun to realize that Sheila was right. He had left little time for them in his schedule. If he got really lucky again and found a woman, and they fell in love, he vowed to do things very differently.

  The van dropped him off at the Cop Shop where he got pats on the back from all the staff there, including the lieutenant. He reminded them that he and his partner were working together on the job, and she had stayed there to go over some of the details and possibly catch up on some missed clues to the killer’s identity.

  Meanwhile he called the coroner’s office and was told that the M.E. hadn’t had a chance to spend any time with the body, but the Buena Vista coroner had ruled the death a homicide. His report said the cause of death was the knife wound which punctured her heart. Time of death was uncertain, but appeared to have been twenty four to forty eight hours prior to the discovery of the body; however, the autopsy would be more conclusive in all the details of the murder. The blood on the robe had yet to be tested but it would happen soon, Joe was told.

  The task at hand was to follow up on the homeless woman who was left for dead a few days before, a sorry state to get to it so late, but circumstances had caused the delay, making the possibility of finding the killer more difficult. He missed Maude’s experience and old time wisdom, but she had given him instructions to begin the look-see of the case.

  The investigating officer said in his report that the dead woman had been found by another homeless person who hailed the first cop that he saw. Finding the beat cop on his six to six shift was fairly easy, just a radio call away. When Joe arrived at the officer’s location they sat and shared a soda in the small kiosk area near one of the major banks in downtown Madison.

  Officer Kilpatrick, ‘Billy, if you would rather’, said “The woman was a loner in the homeless community, keeping herself and her treasures tucked away in close range of any and all police officers. She always knew where safety was, knew who would protect her. The people who saw her on the streets said she had been talking about a find she made near one of the downtown dumpsters and that was probably what got her killed. Diane didn’t believe in sharing. No, they didn’t know what the treasure was that she had found but it wasn’t on her when the EMT’s took her in the meat wagon. So either she sold it or someone stole it.”

  The soda finished and a copy of the officer’s report in his pocket, Detective Allen made a trip to the Thrift for Profit store over on Vine Street. The man behind the counter was tall and thin, with old pock marks on his arms, and a slight tic that pulled his left cheek down when he talked. The effect was distracting to most people who tried conversing with the man, often resulting in an unresponsive audience when the man spoke at length.

  “The woman’s name is Diane Jones, used to come in and sell you some of the things she found on the street. The word is she made a real good find and someone took it away from her then strangled her to keep her quiet. Know anything about that?” Joe was hoping the victim had shown the treasure around and got a value out it from the thrift man.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, his tic working overtime. Seen her about two weeks ago, she had some decent shoes. I gave her fifty cents for them. Nothing else though.”

  “Anyone else tried to sell some nice stuff in the past few days?” Joe asked.

  “Don’t know. They don’t bring nice stuff here. Go to the pawn shop.” The tic man was in a hurry for Joe to go away. At least it seemed that way.

  Joe couldn’t place the tic man near the victim at the time of her death and decided to put the man on hold and go on down to the pawn shop. The bright neon sign screamed, “Pawn Shop”. The door below the sign was outfitted with more locks than Fort Knox. Joe walked through the entry and was greeted by a woman with swarthy skin who looked askance at him, wondering if he was cop or criminal.

  “Excuse me ma’am, hate to bother you but I need some answers to a few questions. Detective Allen, Homicide, Madison PD,” Joe said, pulling his shield for the woman to look over.

  “What do you want?” the woman asked, frightened, to the point.

  “This woman, you know her?” he asked, laying
out a photo of the dead woman.

  “Yes, she is a thief. She stole from me. I called your Chief of Police but he never came.”

  “What did she steal and when did you last see her?” Joe asked.

  “She stole a bracelet with two rubies and one diamond. It was on the tray, on the top of the counter. The woman was outside the door. She watched for me to turn around and answer the phone then ran and grabbed the bracelet off the tray. I saw her and wanted to chase after her, but I could not leave the store. I called your Chief of Police and he did nothing.”

  “Oh yeah, what was that bracelet worth?”

  “Two hundred dollars, that is what I would sell it for,” the woman responded, hostility and old umbrage against police working through the fear.

  “So did you find her later and strangle her in her sleep to get the bracelet back?” Joe decided to throw the accusation out to see how she responded. Throw a rock, you never knew what you might hit.

  “Strangle her? That woman so dirty and such a thief I would never touch her!” The pawn shop woman was indignant, her repulsion visible in the expression on her face.

  “What’s your name, ma’am? I need to know before I take you down to the station to question you about this murder.”

  The woman sputtered. “No, please. Do not take me to the jail and lock me up. I did nothing. It was not me. My name is Giselle Farouk. I did not kill this terrible woman.”

  “But you know who did, Giselle.” Joe said, quietly. “I see it in your eyes.” The rock in motion again.

  The woman was distraught, overcome with the desire to tell what she knew, to rid herself of the memory of something very bad. She was withholding information, something important and Joe could see the need to tell it was close to winning out against her loyalty to someone. The fear of jail had been the catalyst, a lucky remark thrown out, disturbing the peace within her.