by Linda Ladd
“If he’s the perp,” I reminded him.
“You thinkin’ it’s a different perp?”
“I don’t know. There’s something strange about this whole thing. He meant us to find him and come here. Nearly left us a map, for Pete’s sake. Maybe somebody else wanted us to find him and blame him for the murder. Make us figure it for a murder/suicide. Maybe somebody offed him, too, and made it look like Mikey did it to himself.”
Bud did not look convinced. “Could be, I guess. Unlikely, though, if you ask me.”
“We’ll find out. Let’s get the guys up here to process this place. We need to canvass the stores around here and see if anybody heard or saw anything.”
“Good, I’m ready to get out the hell of here. This place gives me a serious case of the creeps.”
Downstairs, Vicky had already shot the victim, and Buck had his team processing the kitchen. The girl was still in the oven, cooling before they could load her onto the gurney. To my surprise, my boss, Sheriff Charlie Ramsay, had shown up, too, and stood across the black granite-topped island from the body.
“What the hell’s this world coming to?” Charlie asked me.
I shrugged. The question was rhetorical, and way over my head, too.
“You positive the bridge suicide is Joseph Murphy’s kid, Claire?”
That didn’t bode well. Charlie on a first-name basis with the governor’s guru. And he was well connected up Jefferson City way, too, politically and otherwise. This case was going to get sticky as road tar and that would make my job a lot harder than I wanted it to be.
“Yes sir. We believe so. Black happened to be with me when I got the call, and he recognized the victim right off as a former patient. Buck found the vic’s driver’s license on the body at the scene. The photo appears to be a match. Buck gave us the official ID and we’re ready to notify next of kin.”
“No. I’m gonna have to do it myself. Joseph Murphy’s an old friend of mine. We haven’t always seen eye to eye politically, but I owe him that courtesy. I’ll drive up there tonight and break the bad news. You and Bud can follow up tomorrow with his interview, and I guess you’ll have to interview all the family members, too. Joseph’s got a bunch of kids.”
“Yes sir. That’ll give us time to interview the people who work around here and see what they can tell us about the vics.”
Bud and I exchanged glances, both very, very happy we weren’t gonna be the ones to tell mom and dad that their lives are changed forever. We usually got that assignment, and trust me, it was not a barrel of laughs. We would take a bye on that unpleasant duty any time we could get one.
Charlie stared hard at me. He had a tendency to do that, not just look at me, like everybody else, but search my face, the depths of my soul, even. “Any ID on the burned vic?”
He didn’t look over at her, but I glanced at the oversize pizza oven. Several techs were trying to remove the body now with silver metallic hot pads on their hands. If it wasn’t Mikey who’d done this to that poor girl, I was gonna prove it and then I was gonna take down the freakin’ sicko. Whoever it was didn’t deserve to walk the face of the earth with the rest of us.
“We found a picture upstairs of a young Asian girl. No name, but it could be the victim. She was wearing a Missouri State sweatshirt, so that’s a lead we can pursue.”
“Don’t do anything until Buck determines identity one hundred percent.”
“Yes sir.”
“This is shit. Joseph and Mary Fern are gonna be devastated. Dadgummit, I am sick of these psychopaths murderin’ my constituents.”
Oh, yeah, dadgummit, that’s one of Charlie’s Southern Baptist adaptations of more vulgar profanity, which is colorful and different, if not downright peculiar. But far be it for me to judge one’s choice of swearwords.
Charlie said, “Okay, both of you get outta here and check out this shopping center. I wanna know who did this, and I want him sittin’ in prison for the rest of his life or strapped to a table gettin’ a lethal injection. Don’t matter to me which it is.”
“Yes sir,” Bud and I said. Almost together but not quite, more like a faint echo.
We got out of there, more than pleased to do so. I, for one, would never eat pizza again, not even a real one in Italy if Black ever took me over to Rome for a look-see, which he was threatening to do. After today, I was beginning to think that skipping the country for a while might not be a bad idea.
FOUR
Outside, Bud headed down the sidewalk toward the east end of the shopping center, and I walked in the other direction, my destination Stonecrest Book and Toy, my favorite bookstore at the lake. When I entered the front door, I caught sight of Sarah, one of Stonecrest’s managers. At the moment, she was ringing up a stack of books on astrology for a teenage girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen. The teen was wearing a cut-off T-shirt that barely covered her breasts and was very Britney Spears-esque, not a good thing. Her short shorts accomplished their mission, too, but barely, and I use that word literally.
“Hey, Sarah.”
Sarah looked up and gave me a quick smile. She was an attractive redhead and a very nice one, too, and she’d gone out of her way big-time once to help me figure out what to get Megabucks Nicholas Black for Christmas, so I liked her a lot. She helped me pick out a book for Bud, too. One of her former coworkers named Sherry sold really cool jewelry on the side, stuff called Lia Sophia, and at the moment Sarah had on a beautiful filigree cross adorned with cut crystals. It hung around her neck on a thin tan leather cord. Maybe I’d give Black a hint about some Lia Sophia for my birthday, not that I ever wore any jewelry except for the St. Michael’s medal he gave me once upon a time. I always wear that now because St. Michael is the patron saint of police officers and I figure it’s good luck, which is something I have decided I need about a bushel of every day. Okay, it’s true, I’m getting superstitious, not to mention paranoid. But live my life for a month, and you’d armor yourself with whatever cropped up, too.
Sarah finished with the Britney clone, turned to me, and said, “How’d your partner like that book you got him on the origins of popular sayings?”
“He dug it a lot. That’s all I’ve heard about since. And Black liked me making him that custom-bound book on Louisiana bayous, too. The binder you recommended was great. Black didn’t have anything like it, which is the trick when it comes to him. He’s got a zillion of just about everything.”
Her grin was wide and amused. “Wish I had that kinda problem.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“So what brings you in? Dr. Black’s birthday coming up?”
“Not for a few more months, but I’ll be in as soon as it does, so keep your eyes out for something he’d like. Unfortunately, this time I’m here on official business. You got a minute to answer some questions?”
With a look of surprise, Sarah glanced around the store. Only one customer was browsing in the recently expanded used books section. He was dressed in tan pants and a red button-down collar shirt, and was looking at a large book titled Napoleon and Josephine. The romantic type, no doubt.
Sarah said, “It looks like it’ll be pretty slow till closing time. What’s up?”
“Do you happen to know a guy named Michael Murphy? His friends call him Mikey.”
“That the guy who owns that pizza parlor a few stores down? Yeah, sure, I see him around now and again. He’s come in here a couple of times and bought some New Age books. He likes stuff about the Orient. Seems to be really into that kind of reading. He likes Indian music, you know, flutes, and he wore a lot of beaded jewelry. Can’t say I know him much better’n that, though. Why? What’s the deal with him?”
Sarah’s sole customer was sitting down now at a table, thumbing through his French love story, so I lowered my voice. “We’ve got a crime scene at his place, but I can’t really get into the details. Sorry.”
Her curiosity turned into a frightened look, and she said in a whisper, “Oh no, was there a breakin here
at the center? I’ve been really nervous about that kind of thing lately.”
Now that got my interest pumped up a notch. “Nervous? Why? Something happen around here to spook you?”
“Uh uh, I don’t know, really, just bad vibes, I guess, and lots of late nights closing up by myself. Sometimes I get a little freaked out when I’m here all alone after nine o’clock. I really shouldn’t, I guess, there’s a security guard who comes around every night and checks on all the stores. Carman gets nervous, too, when she closes up.”
Carman was the other co-manager, a lovely lady with brown curly hair and a friendly disposition, and both of them were really gonna be freaked when they found out Mikey might have cooked his girlfriend like a well-done filet mignon, and just a short walk down the sidewalk at that. “I can’t get into the details right now. What else can you tell me about Michael Murphy?”
Sarah shook her head. Nervously, she fingered the cross she was wearing and glanced at the man in the red shirt like he was gonna whirl around and pull a gun on us. She was spooked, all right. Can’t say I blame her. So am I. I’m just more used to it.
She said, “Not much. He seemed like an okay guy, maybe a bit on the eccentric side. I do know he had lots of girlfriends, and the girls here were saying that they thought some of them looked like hookers. He hit on Carman once when he was in here, but she wasn’t interested.”
And lucky Carman might still be alive because she had the sense to blow him off. “What makes them think he spent time with hookers?”
“The way his girls dressed, mostly. Sort of like that last customer I waited on, but worse. You saw that girl’s black thong under her shorts when she turned around, didn’t you? Kids nowadays don’t know what modesty is.” She smiled, but her eyes remained serious.
Unfortunately, I had seen the aforementioned thong, but had tried to block that disgusting image out of my mind. As far as that goes, most young girls nowadays dressed more like hookers than hookers themselves, and it was hard to tell them apart. Bud usually could, though, had a real knack for it, actually. Usually the hookers were loitering on street corners and the teenagers had iPod earbuds in their ears.
I said, “You mentioned that he wore beaded jewelry? Can you describe it?”
“If I recall, he wore some bracelets made out of blue and white beads. I noticed it because he wore so many at a time. I thought that was more than a little weird, for a guy like him, anyway.”
“Do you happen to know the significance of the bracelets? Where he got them, maybe? What they meant?”
“No. I just noticed because he wore five or six on each wrist. I suspect it’s something to do with his New Age interests, but I haven’t seen anybody else wearing them.”
“How does his pizza restaurant do? They get a good business?”
“Oh, yeah. I usually run down there for lunch myself and fix a salad at their salad bar, but most of the time, I bring it back here and eat in the back with Carman. I haven’t seen Mikey out front much with his customers, though. I think he does the cooking.”
Yeah, you can say that again. Well done, too. “So the restaurant is crowded most of the time. Not in danger of going out of business or having any kind of financial trouble that you know of?”
“Oh, no. They do real well down there. Especially at lunch. Lots of people who work around here either stop in there or go to the Steak and Shake a couple of blocks up the street. Mikey’s gets a good crowd at dinnertime, too. Has lots of birthday parties for kids, stuff like that. They’ve got good pizza, better’n most the chains, at least I think so. It’s the thick Chicago style with lots of different kinds of toppings, and the salad bar’s really good, everything real fresh. Saturday night is the busiest, I guess. Sometimes there’s a line, with customers waiting outside on the benches. They’re closed on Sundays, which is a little unusual nowadays.”
“What about his employees? Do you know any of them personally?”
“A couple, I guess. He hires a bunch of high school kids to work on Saturdays, I think. Carman might know some of their names.”
“Carman’s not here, I take it.” Sarah shook her head, and I said, “Could you have her give me a call, if she can identify anybody by name working down there? Anything else you can tell me, Sarah?”
“Well, one of the waitresses down there might’ve been his girlfriend. She came in here with him once, I recall, and she had on a Missouri State jacket, so she might be a student down there. A lot of MSU kids come down here on weekends in the summer to work in food joints when the tourists are all here because of the big tips or just to party.”
“You don’t remember the names of any girls he might’ve dated? Did you ever see a girl of Asian descent?”
“Yeah, actually, that one I just told you about from MSU looked Asian.” She frowned. “Yeah, and now that I think on it, there was another one I saw hanging around with Mikey, too, a pretty little thing, who was from China, or somewhere.”
“You know her name?”
Sarah shook her head. “She came in here not long ago and bought some romance novels. She usually comes in on Fridays, after she gets paid. She likes the historical ones set in England, you know, the knights and ladies, that kind of book.”
“Okay. I guess you don’t know where she lives, do you?”
“Can’t say I do. She pays in cash and we’ve never talked about personal stuff, just about the various romance authors and who we like the best, you know.”
“Okay, Sarah, I really appreciate your help. I’m going to ask you to keep this conversation quiet. The scene’s being processed now and forensics should be working for most of the night. If you think of anything else, give me a call, okay?”
“Sure. Gosh, this’s pretty scary. That guy, Mikey, was kinda odd in some ways, but he was pretty nice. I hope nothing too bad’s happened.”
If she only knew, but I wasn’t going to tell her the gory details. I didn’t even want to remember them myself. My phone rang at that very moment, so I thanked her and gave her a good-bye wave and headed out the front door.
Black said, “You about done?”
I merely laughed. He got the message loud and clear. “How much longer?”
“All night, maybe.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish.”
“And you’re frowning, too.”
I stopped walking and glanced around the parking lot. It didn’t take me long to find his gigantic black and silver Humvee sitting under one of the lampposts. He blinked his headlights flirtatiously. Glancing at the pizzeria and crime scene van just down the sidewalk, I turned gratefully and made a detour to his impressive tank. I got in, clunked the door shut, and immediately smelled something delicious. Black was all cleaned up and dressed in khakis and a black linen shirt and smelled really good.
“I brought you dinner. I’ve already eaten but thought you’d probably be hungry.”
“I’ll never be hungry again. You won’t believe what we found over there in that pizzeria.”
“I see that Buck’s here with his team. Do you think Mikey was murdered? Did you find a note?”
“No note, but he did leave us a girlfriend cooking in the oven.”
Black frowned. He even looked good when he frowned, I’d found, which wasn’t often. We got along pretty good thus far. “I hope you don’t mean that literally?” He gave a little uncertain grin. He’d been with me well enough to know bad things had a tendency to happen when I was around. Grotesque and stomach turning, even.
“Unfortunately, yes, it’s true. Bud and I found her. It was not a lot of laughs, believe me.” Inside my mind I saw again the charred, smoking corpse and decided to pass on whatever goodie he’d bid his chef cook up for my dinner.
Black said, “No way.”
“Way. Oh, yeah.”
“Are you actually telling me that Mikey Murphy put his girlfriend in the oven of that restaurant over there and turned it on?”
“That’s exactly what we think
happened. Probably just before he tripped off to the bridge and hanged himself, which would give him one helluva good motive to kill himself as soon as he found a strong enough rope. I’d have some trouble carrying on, too, after doing something that awful to somebody.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God.” Black said, being a good Catholic boy from the bayous. He stared at me as if I’d just told him something truly revolting, and then said, “I treated Mikey long enough that I can’t see him ever doing anything even remotely like this. He was shy and retiring and didn’t appear to have any violent tendencies. He had lots of issues, mostly involving drug use, brought on by insecurities and low self-esteem, maybe a bit of paranoia, too, but I can’t see him doing anything this sick.”
“I don’t see anybody doing anything this sick. It takes a special kinda person.”
“Have you notified his dad?”
“Charlie said he’d do it and more power to him. He knows the guy.”
“Think he’d let me come into the restaurant and take a look at the crime scene?”
“You don’t want to, trust me on this.”
“Are you heading back over there right now?”
“Yes. We haven’t even gotten started.”
“I won’t touch anything. Charlie’s pretty much given me carte blanche on your cases in the past. Maybe I can help, especially since I treated Mikey for a while.”
I sighed. But he was right. Charlie always wanted Black’s professional opinion on my more psycho/sadistic/godawful kind of cases, probably because the department got expert opinions pro bono. I nodded and got out of the Humvee. I could see Bud now under the streetlights edging the sidewalk. He was striding down the parking lot toward us. We met up with him in back of Buck’s crime scene van.
He said, “Charlie just called. Joseph Murphy and his family are now wingin’ their way home from England and are probably somewhere midway over the Atlantic Ocean. Comin’ back from vacationin’ in London, no less, so we get to do the notification, after all. Charlie’s gotta leave for Washington, D.C., early tomorrow so he can’t do it in person.”
“Great, we’re just so lucky. Find out anything else?”