by A. E. Howe
Mr. Kemper handed me an envelope. “His dental records. He had good teeth,” he said flatly. Mrs. Kemper stood slightly back from her husband. He glanced at her. “It’s up to you if you go in.” His voice held no gentleness. It was pretty clear that this marriage had been dead for a long time.
“I want to see him. Why you’re here, I don’t know. You told him you never wanted to see him again.” My heart was breaking for her. At this point I was just hoping that this toxic relationship didn’t explode into violence.
“It’s my duty.” He spat the words at her. Kemper turned to me. “Let’s get this over with.” Now he was echoing my sentiments.
I had called ahead and given the morgue assistant very detailed instructions on how to present the body. Tattoo first with as much of the body’s ass covered as possible. Close the curtains, roll the body over and, with the face and genitalia covered, open the curtains again. Just to be clear, I told the fellow I spoke with that if he caused the family any more grief or indignity than necessary, I would be forced to make sure that he never drove anywhere again without a law enforcement officer pulling him over and giving him a ticket.
Thank God the Kempers were able to identify him without looking at his face. The huge “Y” incision in his chest plus the large wound caused by the shotgun slug were bad enough.
I got permission to use one of the rooms in the hospital’s security office to interview the Kempers. With the animosity between the two of them, I wanted to interview them separately. I took Mrs. Kemper first.
Mrs. Kemper sat down at the table and I took the chair across from her. I almost wanted to reach out and take her hand, but she kept them back. Her right hand clenched and unclenched around a Kleenex.
“I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you. Let me start by saying how sorry I am, and I assure you that I will do everything I can to find the person who did this. We have a witness and some physical evidence.” Not too damn much evidence, but I wouldn’t tell her that.
“This is a nightmare,” she whispered.
There was nothing I could do for her so I pushed on. “I need to ask you some questions. The more information I have, the easier it will be for me to find the monster who killed your son.” Seeing the pain that this old woman was suffering made me all the more determined to solve this case. This was a premeditated murder and it had devastated more than one life.
“I loved my son,” Mrs. Kemper said emphatically, as though there could be any question. “You know, I was shocked when he first told me. It took me some time to understand that him being that way wasn’t the end of the world. I loved him. My boy.” Her eyes were unfocused as she talked. If her husband wouldn’t serve as a sounding board for her grief, it was the least that I could do.
She went on. “That man, his father…” The words were spat out. “I tried to make him understand, to see it the way I saw it. But he refused to see him.”
“Why?”
“My son was gay.” She looked up and met my eyes as though she expected me to shame her for loving him.
“There’s no shame in that.”
“I know that,” she snapped at me before her eyes softened. “Where we lived, the times we grew up in… I wasn’t sure at first. But he was my son. That didn’t make a difference to him… Did this… have something to do with him being gay?”
“I don’t know.”
“You hear about gay men being beat up… even killed.”
“It’s one of the possibilities that we’ll look into. Where was your son living?”
“Alabama, Mobile. He sold things to hospitals. Mobile was about in the middle of the area he traveled.”
I’d need his address and might have to go search his house, but that could wait. “Did he have a… boyfriend?”
“They broke up two years ago. They’d been together for so long. Very painful for Mark.”
“Why did they break up?”
“Tony, Tony Frye, that’s his name. He wanted to live somewhere else. He told Mark that he couldn’t live in the homo… homophobic South anymore. He was moving and Mark could move with him or not. But there was more to it than that. Mark thought Tony was too controlling. Oh, someone will have to tell Tony.” She looked terrified at the thought of having to tell others that her son was dead.
“I can do that if you’d like. I have to talk with him anyway.”
“You can’t think he had anything to do with this? Tony loved Mark. I know he did. They stayed friends. I think that’s why Mark hadn’t found anyone else; he kept hoping they’d get back together.”
“Do you have a number where Tony can be reached?”
“He moved down to south Florida. Somewhere near Miami. He called me on my birthday.” She pulled out her phone and handed it to me. “I barely know how to use this phone. But my birthday was a month ago. October twelfth.”
I took the phone and looked at the recents. Most of the calls were from a 251 area code. She had called it two dozen times or more last week. I asked her if that was her son’s number, and she nodded. I wrote it down. I found the only Miami area code on her phone on October twelfth and jotted it down next to her son’s number.
“Your husband said that you all lived in Florida at one time?”
“Yes, Mark grew up here.”
“In Adams County?”
“We lived in an old neighborhood in Calhoun.” She rattled off the address and I wrote it down. “We moved to Texas after Mark went off to college. My husband got a job offer out there.”
“Just a few more questions. Do you know of anyone that wanted to hurt your son? Anyone who had a grievance against him? Or anyone Mark was afraid of?”
All negative. I told her I would have more questions for her, and she assured me she would answer any questions if it would help to find his killer.
Sitting across from Mark’s father, I saw a man who was filled with rage. Could he kill his son? That seemed unlikely. Anyway, why would he travel all the way to Florida to do it?
He showed no emotion when we talked about his son. It wasn’t until I asked him about their time in Adams County that he seemed to come alive.
“Those were good years. Mark was normal then. He dated girls, played baseball. There was none of that homo crap. My wife was different then too. He changed and then she changed. And who the hell did they blame? Me. That’s who. How the hell? I didn’t become a queer. He did.” He seemed to relax, having blown off some steam. Kemper was wound way too tight.
“Did Mark have any enemies when you all lived here?”
He seemed to be thinking about my question. “No. I mean, there were some minor things. Just what you expect from kids. When he was in middle school there was a kid he didn’t like. They got in a fight. Both of them were suspended. I think for a day, maybe two. But he didn’t get into any fights after that. The neighborhood had a lot of kids. Different ages. Mark was younger than most of the kids he hung out with. Of course, he was pretty mature for his age.” Did I see a crack in his thick skin? A little bit of pride in his son? This man had led a sad life dictated by his stubborn nature.
After we finished, I walked them back out of the hospital. It was still raining. I watched them walk away, separated by a couple of feet and years of anger.
Chapter Ten
I drove over to the Kempers’ old address when I got back to Adams County. I hadn’t thought about it until I turned onto their street, but their house was only a block over from the arson case. Maybe this will prove whether there is such a thing as coincidence, I thought to myself.
I drove slowly by the house. It was small, craftsman-style and apparently lived in and well loved now. The lawn was neatly trimmed, the house recently painted and there was a cute barn-shaped mailbox at the curb.
He hung out with the kids in the neighborhood, they said. Wonder if that included the Danielses? I drove over to the arson site and pulled into Mr. Canfield’s driveway. He wasn’t out on the porch that day, which wasn’t surprising with t
he cold, wet weather. A knock on the door summoned Mrs. Canfield, who ushered me into the living room where Tom was sitting in a recliner wrapped in a blanket.
“Feel like a damn invalid. The physical therapist was here this morning. Now I’m aching all over. Sit down. Mary, get him something to drink.”
“No, I’m fine,” I assured them. I sat down on the sofa. “I just wanted to ask you a few more questions.”
“Funny, that other investigator came over after you were here and he seemed more interested in what questions you asked than he was about the fire.”
“Sorry about that. We’re kind of stepping on each other’s toes.”
“Don’t worry. Can’t say I liked him that much. What do you want to ask?” He had perked up once we started talking.
“The other night we talked about the kids that used to hang out across the street.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember a young man named Mark Kemper?”
“Maybe… Mary?” He raised his voice, calling his wife into the room. “Mary, do you remember a boy named Mark Kemper?”
She knuckled her forehead and thought. “Yes, younger than most of the ones that hung out there, though. You remember. Blond hair, very polite. Dressed a little too neat. The other kids made fun of him, but not… you know, mean. Just kidding. I think they liked him. They seemed to include him in their activities. One of the girls seemed particularly sweet on him.” She turned to Tom. “Don’t you remember him?”
“I do now. Like you said, he was the one that would offer to help with groceries and such. I don’t remember the girls taking up with him.”
“One of them—probably Dell, she was the nice one, but it might have been Margret, I just don’t remember—used to hang around him more than the other. I thought they had a thing for each other, but who knows with kids.”
I stood up. “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me. This is actually related to a case I’m working. I may as well tell you since it will be in the paper eventually, and we’ve notified his next of kin. You might have heard about the body that was found out by the AmMex trucking company?”
“My nephew told me about it,” Tom said.
“That was Mark Kemper.”
“But what could his childhood have had to do with that?’
“Maybe nothing. I’m just following leads. Again, thank you for your help. I’ll be in touch.” I left the Canfields somewhat slack-jawed. I think I left them feeling as if violence was encircling them.
I couldn’t resist walking over to the burned-out hulk one more time. Did someone have a vendetta against Mark Kemper? If so, why burn down a house that he used to visit instead of the house he actually lived in? I’d have to check the timing, but was it possible that Mark burned the house down and then was killed? I couldn’t remember exactly when the fire was recorded, but that seemed unlikely. I was beginning to think that if I solved one mystery I’d have the answer to the other.
Looking at the remains I remembered the articles I’d read about arson. It’s a very difficult crime to investigate. In fact, until the 1990s just about everything fire investigators thought they knew about arson was wrong. I knew that there would be a professional report done by the fire investigators from Tallahassee, but without any injuries or ready suspects this case was going to be given a very low priority. I wondered if Matt was making any serious attempt to investigate it.
I had a bit of a dilemma. I should tell Matt about the connection between the murder and the fire, but I didn’t really want to. I thought about just sitting on it and pursuing my own investigation to wherever it might lead. But I couldn’t quite square that. Matt really was a pretty good investigator. He might be able to use this information to lead him to a suspect. I knew he would never tell me where he was on the fire investigation, but I couldn’t be that petty, not at the expense of my investigation. I called him.
I was a little surprised that he took my call. “Yeah,” was his laconic greeting.
“Larry here. I’ve got some information related to your arson case.”
“I thought you were told to lay the hell off my cases.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Not that I hadn’t tried to get ahead of him on the case. “I came across this while investigating one of my cases.”
“Okay.”
“I can meet you someplace.”
“Can’t you just tell me? Or if it’s something I need to see, can’t you just leave it on my desk?”
For some reason, I’d wanted to see his face when I told him about the connection, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. “My victim used to spend time at your arson site.”
“Really?” He actually sounded interested. “When was this, and how did you find out?”
“The when was when he was a kid, about sixteen years old. The how…”
He interrupted me. “How old was your victim when he was killed?”
“Fifty-one.”
“That was over thirty years ago.” He raised his voice so loud I took the phone away from my ear.
“I know that. But don’t you think it’s odd that he’s killed the same night a house from his childhood is burned?”
“Are you drunk or crazy? Or is this some sort of stupid joke?”
“No, it’s not a joke. I thought you might be interested in the information.”
“I’m not. You are the worst damn investigator ever. Jesus.” He broke the connection.
Try to help some people, I thought. I was actually glad he hadn’t been interested. I didn’t want to work with the stupid prick anyway.
Two new cases were waiting on my desk. Both were minor issues that could probably be handled over the phone. I sat down to read over them, planning to get them out of my hands as quickly as possible.
Pete showed up about an hour later as I was closing out the cases. He picked up his own pile of new work and shifted through it.
“How many did you get?” he asked.
“Two new.”
“Hell, I got three.”
“Remember, I’m the lead on the murder.”
“Hmmmm, I don’t know about that… Let’s see… an assault, a robbery and a burglary.” He thumbed through them, tossing one aside. “Okay, that one’s crap. The man is always drunk. Filing a report of assault against another candidate for a year’s detox. And the officer writing the report couldn’t even see any evidence.” He looked at the next one. “Robbery is legit, but I know this little peckerwood too and I’ll bet you that the ten dollars and fifty cents was only part of what was taken. Can you spell D.R.U.G.S?” He opened the last folder. “Okay, this is odd. Burglary, fairly nice neighborhood and nothing was stolen. Why would someone break in, spend a bit of time and not take anything? Odd. Domestic maybe? This one might require some effort.”
“Don’t short-change the other two.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m being unfair to the alcoholics and the drug addicts. Please, I’ve got better things to do than help lowlifes get back at one another. Speaking of that murder case, how’re things going?”
I filled him in on the victim, the family and the strange connection from the past with the arson.
“That is weird. You tell Matt?”
“Of course. He thought I was crazy.”
“He ain’t one for subtlety. Sounds like you played it right. Now you don’t have to sneak around. You’ve got a clear connection between the two cases. Well, sort of clear.”
“I need to call the victim’s ex.” Not being able to interview him properly, I decided that I wanted to record the conversation. Even if we eliminated him as a suspect, if we went to trial the defendant’s lawyer could try to prove that we didn’t follow all the available leads, so it was handy if you could pull out a record and prove that you had talked to as many people as possible.
Tony Frye picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” He sounded short of breath.
“Hey, this is Deputy Larry Macklin with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office…”
He started crying. “I know. I can’t believe it.”
“Mr. Frye, I’m going to record our conversation. Do you understand? Is that okay with you?”
He was choking on tears as he answered, “Yes, oh God…”
“So you’ve already heard that your friend Mark Kemper was found murdered here in Adams County?”
“I called his mother.” More crying. “I hadn’t gotten a text or a call in a week. I wanted to know what was wrong. I never thought…”
“You all were still close after the breakup?”
“Yes, friends, more than friends. We’d been together for fifteen years. It was me. I’m so stupid. This never would have happened if I hadn’t left.”
“Do you know who might have done this to him?”
“Oh, oh, no. It couldn’t have been done… on purpose. Everybody liked Mark. How… could someone? No. He didn’t have any enemies.”
“Are you sure? Sometimes people can get mad about stupid things. Are you sure he didn’t mention any problems with someone?”
“No, he never had any trouble with people. He always wanted to make things right. That’s what he’d say. I just want to make things right with people.”
“I’m sorry, but I need to know where you were on Monday night a week ago.”
“You’re kidding me.” He was sputtering and crying. “How dare you? I loved that man. I never would have done anything to hurt him.”
“Please, Mr. Frye, understand my position. I don’t know either one of you or anything about your relationship. Now, if you could just tell me where you were on Monday night a week ago.” Interviews like this were difficult at best to do over the phone. Of course we didn’t have the money or manpower to send me down to Miami for a routine questioning. Get a serious suspect and you could get authorization pretty quick, but just to make it easier on a deputy and a grieving friend, no.