With His Dying Breath

by Nancy Hogue

  “Mr. Fritz, let me tell Mrs. Brockton you’re here.

  JJ left again, mouthing to Chip “tomorrow night.” He smiled back at her.

  “Bill’s here?” Sammi asked.

  “Sammi, Sammi, I’m so sorry, so sorry about all that’s happened. I just don’t know what the cops are thinking to arrest you. Why was that? Have they said anything?”

  “No, I’m in the dark. But Mitch’s brother, you remember Mitch?”

  “Of course, I just talked to him for a bit.”

  “Well, he may have told you that Wilson will represent me.”

  “I don’t know his reputation. Is he a criminal defense attorney?”

  “Yes, in fact, a very good one, according to Mitch, and I trust his judgment, brother or not.”

  “Well, great Sammi. I came down to offer you some names for a defense attorney. And since that’s settled, I just want to let you know not to worry about anything—the house, bills, anything that comes up. So you won’t have to deal with any more stress, I’ll have the mail forwarded to the office, and I’ll keep it for you. I would think you’d be going home tomorrow.”

  Gosh, I hope not! She thought better about saying. “Thank you, Bill. I appreciate it.”

  “Sammi, call me if you need anything. I have some business to take care of tomorrow. Blake was supposed to meet with three big companies wanting land out near the new bypass. But that’s so far off, I’ll try to get it rescheduled. I’m not in a mood to conduct business. My best friend is dead. Can’t believe it, Sammi. What’s the world coming to?”

  “Bill, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  * * *

  Cain left Yum Yum’s right behind JJ. She turned right toward home. He turned left to go back to the office. He fiddled with the seat belt, seemed tighter than before he ate.

  He prepared a to do list. Check out Penny Reid Skinmore, the phone number she gave, and that recording. He laughed out loud shaking his head at the strange phone call and called information and asked for Penny Reid Skinmore or anyone with the last name.

  “Would you check the surrounding areas, please?”

  “I’m sorry sir. I show no listings under the last name Skinmore.”

  “Okay, thanks for checking.”

  Cain called a friend on his way back to the Monitor.

  “Hey, you all tucked in for the night?” he asked.

  “Almost. You got your story done?”

  “Yeah, but something’s going on. In nineteen years of reporting, I’ve never had a caller like I got today using some kind of voice distortion apparatus.” He told her what the caller said.

  “You think there’s some truth to it? Or just a wild goose chase?”

  “You mean to get me off the story?”

  “Yeah, something like that?”

  “But what is the real story? But I’ll figure it out. You go on to sleep and I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay. Watch your back.” Cain smiled that he had a caring friend. He pulled into the parking lot thinking about the sixteen messages to look at, hopefully with more information even another story suggestion.

  The best thing about having an assigned story is an assigned parking space right at the building entrance. He usually kept a hot story going even if he had to start investigating something in the Mayor’s office or local colleges or even charities headquartered in the area. Something was always brewing calling for investigative journalism. He viewed these stories not through rose-colored glasses or with a chip on his shoulder. He did not hold grudges against county officials even though they were always pushing for more tax revenue or spending money on nonsense projects. He simply wanted to report the story not to take down his hometown.

  Cain returned to the office at 9:10 p.m. The city floor was empty except for the night clerk at the copy machine. He walked into his office and realized something was different. The sixteen telephone message slips left on his desk were gone.

  He checked his pockets. The red folder for the Brockton murder. No, not there, either.

  “Patsy,” he yelled “Did you get the messages off my desk.”

  “No,” she yelled back.

  He buzzed downstairs and asked the guard if he’d let anybody up here. No. Just the cleaning crew. A woman came in earlier to use the restroom. But that was all.

  Cain asked, “A woman wanted to use the restroom?”

  “Yes sir, she said she was parked on the other side of the hospital and didn’t think she could make it all the way.”

  “Did she go anywhere else in the building?” The phone cord stretched so tight, Cain knocked his soda off the desk.

  “Well, I didn’t follow her around. I showed her to the bathroom passed the visitor’s lounge. She came out a little while later and thanked me and left the building.”

  “You think we got her on the security camera?” he asked wiping up the mess.

  “Well, I’ll have to pull the tape from upstairs. It’ll take about fifteen minutes for me to scan it, but I can’t leave my post. Not until my relief comes in at 10:30.”

  “Okay, if you don’t mind, please get me a copy of that tape. I need to know who she is and what she looks like. Do you remember?”

  “Not really, seemed kind of innocent, you know, just a woman needing to use the bathroom. Seems like she had black hair, all dolled up, you know, makeup, dressed good. I remember she had on high-heeled shoes those five or six inchers. I remembered ‘em ‘cause I was thinking I wouldn’t want to walk all the way to the hospital in those!”

  “Okay, thanks! When you get that tape, please call me and I’ll come down to get it, extension three one five.”

  Blake reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the disc of the recording made earlier. He was so glad he had done that. Why would anyone want his telephone messages?

  He walked two cubicle rows over to the receptionist’s desk located near the elevators, staircase and just outside the City Editor’s office. “Hi Patsy, you got the night shift, huh?”

  “Yeah, afraid so, anything I can get for you?”

  “Well, did you see anybody up here earlier, you know, somebody who doesn’t work here, you know doesn’t belong up here.”

  “No, don’t think so. There was a lady about an hour ago. She wanted to know if Miss Hawkins had left a package for her. There wasn’t one here at the desk. She seemed pretty upset and asked if it could still be on her desk. So I walked back to her office, and there was no package anywhere. When I got back to my desk, the woman was gone.”

  “What was her name?” Cain needed to know who took his messages.

  “She didn’t give her name. The package was for Belium Ronsum Industries. I’ve never heard of them, have you?” Patsy was very upset that she had been duped.

  “Yeah, but it really goes by BelRon that new company that just started up a few months ago. What does Miss Hawkins have to do with them?”

  “Well, I thought her duties were school board, principals, you know, anything and everything school related. That’s what I was told. Maybe they’re putting together employee kits or something,” Patsy said.

  “Maybe. Did you notice her, remember what she looked like?”

  “She was kind of attractive, I guess, in an odd sort of way. She had on too much make-up even for a party. She wore a blue skirt and a blue jacket but they didn’t match. Different fabrics with different tones of blue, you know what I mean. She did have a big purse with her. It didn’t match her clothes, either.”

  “Thanks, Patsy. I might need you to help me later. I think she took some stuff off my desk.”

  “Oh, Cain, you sure about that? I was just gone for a few seconds.”

  “Patsy, did you notice her shoes?”

  “Now that you mention it, she had on bedroom like shoes, not fluffs, but soft looking shoes in pink! Didn’t match her outfit at all.”

  “When she left the lobby, she had on very high heels!”

  “Really?”

  “So, y
es, I’m sure as sure can be. Yep, we got ourselves a real mystery woman here! You feel like doing a little investigating.”

  “Sure.”

  “She took some phone messages off my desk. I need you to go through today’s recordings and write down every message I got. I hope they were all on the recorded line. Should be twenty-two of them. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure. I’ll pull the tape right now.”

  Cain went back to his office to see if anything else was missing or out of order. His office wasn’t the neatest in the building but he knew right where everything was supposed to be.

  He kept a folder of each of his stories that were in some form of investigation whether it was just a thought or almost completed. They were stacked in his middle drawer in colored folders. The various colors did not mean anything particular. Red didn’t mean a hot story any more than blue insinuated a cold lead. He could just remember the story by color and grab the folder without wasting time.

  There should be six folders in his desk drawer. There were only five! The yellow airports folder, the orange Gleason middle school folder, green lotto folder, the white folder for the church charity investigation and the blue taxpayer-fraud program folder were on his desk. The black folder about the Crawford/341 by-pass was missing!

  An octopus with eight hands was no match for Cain as he pulled out desk drawers, going through stacks of papers, his briefcase, the file cabinet and two boxes of older files in the corner. The file was simply not there. He was sure it was in a black file folder because the file was getting thicker than the folder was meant to hold, and he was planning to replace it. “Now what!” he said aloud. “What in the world is going on here?” He called down to Patsy and asked if she was able to retrieve any messages yet. She had four that had started at 1:05 p.m. two from that Penny woman and three others. “Patsy, spell Penny’s last name!”

  “S K I N M O R E”

  “Okay, thanks, ever heard of that name before?”

  “Well, not a person. But there’s that cartoon.”

  “Cartoon? What do you mean?”

  “In the comics section, in the Monitor next to the back page, that cartoon ‘Skinmore.’ Don’t know why it’s in the comics though. It’s not very funny, if you ask me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “Patsy, please call downstairs and have Archives send me up the last dozen or so issues as quick as possible. In fact, tell them, I’ll come down and pick them up. Keep getting those messages for me, okay?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What time do you get off tonight?”

  “At eleven but I can stay, Frank’s at a meeting if you’re going to be here. I don’t think I want to be by myself.”

  “Thanks, Patsy. I’m getting the tape of the woman in the lobby at ten thirty. If you can watch it with me, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Cain, of course, you just let me know. I’ll keep listening to these messages.”

  “Thanks, I’m going down to the basement.”

  Chapter 7

  Hilda and Jasper were still at the Brockton’s estate at nine thirty that night. They went through the master bedroom, the master bathroom, two other bedrooms that seemed to be recently used, the kitchen, the great room, a library, and Blake’s office. They even checked the laundry room, a mudroom, the garage, a storage/gardening shed, and two empty rooms and found nothing. They came up completely empty.

  They had no hard evidence on Mrs. Blake Brockton. There was just the phone call at 1:04 p.m. that afternoon to 9-1-1 from Mr. Brockton himself, “help me… Blake, oh, Brock uh ton, at home, unh…I’ve, my wife…my wife’s… kill, no…don’t….no.” There were gunshots, some other loud noises and silence, dead silence. The phone line had stayed open for ten additional seconds. Silence.

  There was evidence of fingerprints everywhere. It was obvious a multitude of people had been in and out of the house. There was no dust on the furniture. Hilda did find this interesting. Was there a full-time maid? When was the last time she dusted?

  “Did you talk to a maid?” she asked Jasper.

  “No, don’t remember it,” checking his notes.

  “Does it seem odd there’s no dust but two of the bedrooms are messed up?”

  After reviewing the notes she made earlier that day, she didn’t see a maid listed either. She had nothing else to go on.

  Jasper told Hilda about talking to some of the neighbors. One of them said there was a big party here Sunday night. He said big cars were dropping people off. You know big SUVs and stretch limousines. One neighbor who was not invited said they could hear some music from the back and party type noise, “no, not rowdy, exactly.” Mr. Brockton liked having cookouts and parties and an entertainment lifestyle.

  “He even had a block party three or four months ago that we were invited to. No wait, it was before Thanksgiving. I haven’t been over there since Thanksgiving,” one neighbor said. “I didn’t know our block was so big, though. I met neighbors I hadn’t even seen in the six years I’ve lived here,” he said laughing almost hilariously.

  Another neighbor said the Brocktons were very nice. Every now and then, they would walk a little ways around the neighborhood. Mr. Brockton liked to meet the neighbors, especially new ones, and welcome them to the area. He was very friendly. Remembered everybody’s name. “That man had some kind of memory,” the man said. “I went to their house when they first moved in about three years ago, I guess. One day I was out walking my Sheltie and I just stopped by to say hello, to see if they needed anything. I mean Mr. Brockton has lived in River Town most of his life, but he was new to the neighborhood. Just thought I’d ask, you know.”

  Jasper nodding while made notes.

  “He was very appreciative. Said he’s looking forward to getting to know the neighbors. Wanted to have a cookout and invite everybody over. You know just the neighborly stuff. And he did. Invited about ten, maybe twelve, families over. Grilled out steaks. We all helped him open up the pool. He didn’t quite know what to do it seemed. But it was very nice. Had a good time. But what I was starting to tell you, I saw them out walking one day about a year later, and he remembered my name but what was really impressive, he remembered Becky’s name, you know my Sheltie.”

  Neither Hilda nor Jasper talked at length to the man who found the body. Checking her notes, Hilda read the name as Jonas Attaway.

  “Jasper, this Mr. Attaway who found the body is the man who can help the most,” Hilda said. “He’s got the timeline, and it’s very possible if he passed by the house just a few minutes before, he saw or heard something, that maybe he hasn’t remembered yet.”

  “Yeah, you see what you expect to see. Could’ve seen a different car in the street, or other neighbors out walking, working in the yard, children playing, dogs barking, noises—anything that wasn’t right?

  “Exactly, we need to ask him a few questions some more in-depth questions.”

  Detective Nelson went back to Blake’s office returning a few minutes later. “Hilda, come in here for a second. I gotta show you something.”

  Hilda followed the short, round detective back into Blake Brockton’s office. “What is it, Jaz?”

  “Look at them books, those on that top shelf.”

  Hilda smiled. “Jasper, you’re a doll. How in the world did the techs miss that?”

  “I got something else. You ever heard of this rag before?” He held up several editions of “Saga,” a true crime magazine. It was a small magazine found at the checkout line of the grocery store.

  “No, don’t think so, have you?”

  “No, I ain’t never heard of it. There’s six dating back to October. It’s printed up in Forsyth. Think I’ll check it out.”

  Hilda looked at the subscription label addressed to Brock Blackson, P. O. Box 451, River Town, GA 31218. Is that his office address? And who’s it addressed to?”

  “Never heard of him, but sounds awfully close to Blake Brockton. Think it was just typed wrong, just a mistake? That P
.O. number could be addressed to his business, huh?”

  “I don’t know,” Hilda said. “Check it all. See if they still have the form, who paid the bill, you know what to ask. Might be a mistake, but might be more an intentional mistake! Let’s see what else is being delivered to that box!”

  “Yeah, Well, I’m gonna sit here a minute and see what we got. They look like they’ve been well read. See how some of the pages here are dog-eared.”

  “Well, I’m going back up front. See if I can tell anything about that blood splatter. I’ve just never seen that much blood before, have you?”

  “Not really, just when I’s a kid, on the farm. I saw a bad accident, won’t never forget it. It was bad. Not from a gunshot though!”

  “Might need to get more help on this case, Jaz. I have some contacts from that team in Brunswick. Would you have any objection?”

  “‘Heck no. Let’s get this thing solved. If Mrs. Brockton did it, we need the evidence. If she ain’t guilty, she don’t need to be sitting in jail, and whoever did it does!”

  Hilda loved the way Jasper talked. He was a good ole down to earth man. He loved his job. Always on the side of right, and it didn’t matter as long as truth was the victor. She liked that about him. He didn’t have any hidden agenda or bone to pick with anybody.

  “Oh, Jasper, about that top shelf. Let’s get a photo and get the crime scene guys back out here. Think they missed a big clue. You found it. You make the call, okay.” Jasper pulled out the cell phone he very seldom uses, and never answers, and pushed pound one to dial the station.

  “I still don’t see how they missed it, and none of this mess in the kitchen was here earlier. Ask them about that. Who made this mess anyway?”

  Chapter 8

  “What is your problem, Jenny? I am not having an affair with anybody, let alone, Sammi Brockton. Don’t know why you’d even think that!” The last thing Jess wanted was to come home to World War III. Jenny blasted him with questions and crazy statements from the moment he opened the door of their tiny two-bedroom duplex apartment.

  “Well, if you saw your eyes every time you mentioned her name, you’d know why. She’s nothing but a show-off. She rolls into town one day, gathering up men like they’re her toys or something to carry around. Then when she gets tired of them, out they go to the trash or in this case to the morgue!”