Melody for Murder: A Bertie Bigelow Mystery

by Carolyn Marie Wilkins

  “Oh, no, my dear Bertie. Not so fast. Are you sure I can’t offer you a martini? Before I give you this, I thought we could play a little game.” Judge Green walked back to the bar, set down Delroy’s briefcase, and poured himself another shot of whiskey.

  “Look, Theophilous. It’s really late. Maybe we should just do this another time,” Bertie said.

  Instead of replying, he polished off his drink, reached behind the bar, and flipped a switch. Every light in the room went out. With an eerie, mechanical whir, a set of blackout curtains lowered themselves over the living room window, plunging the apartment into total darkness. Suddenly, the massive TV in front of them sprang to life. While soft music thumped suggestively in the background, vivid larger-than-life images of people having sex writhed on the screen in front of her. Before Bertie could fully register this remarkable turn of events, Theophilous was pressing up next to her on the couch, working his liver-spotted hand up her left thigh.

  “What on earth has gotten into you?” Bertie said. She stood up and brushed the judge’s hand away. “Give me that manuscript and take me home this instant.”

  Stepping around the coffee table, Bertie strode toward the bar where she’d last seen Delroy’s briefcase. Except for the pornographic images flickering across the screen, the room was completely black. In the darkness, she stumbled and fell over what felt like a large leather ottoman. Before she could right herself, the judge was kneeling next to her and pawing at the front of her dress.

  “Come on, you saucy little thing,” he whispered, his breath hot in her ear. “You know you want me to give it to you.”

  “Take your hands off me, you pervert! Now. Or I will scream.”

  Judge Theophilous Avery Green cackled smugly and licked Bertie’s cheek.

  “Mea culpa, my dear. I am guilty as charged. I can assure you it will do no good to remonstrate. This room is entirely soundproof.” With a surprisingly firm grip, Theophilous pinned Bertie on her side with one arm behind her back. Panting heavily, he pulled up her dress. As he shoved his right hand between her legs, Bertie twisted onto her back and drove her knee straight into his crotch.

  Winded and trembling, she staggered to her feet and smoothed down her dress. She’d practiced kicking things as a part of her daily Tae Bo kickboxing workout for years. Who’d have ever thought she’d actually have to kick someone for real? As the judge twisted and turned on the carpet, clutching his privates and moaning softly, Bertie felt her way to the bar and flipped on the lights.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said, poking the judge in the side with her toe. Tomorrow morning, I’m reporting your disgusting behavior to the Octagon Society.” Bertie took Delroy’s briefcase off the bar and stuck it under her arm. “Good night, Theophilous. I’ll be taking Delroy’s manuscript home now.”

  Judge Green, his eyes glassy with pain, whimpered softly.

  “Don’t bother,” Bertie said. “I’ll see myself out.”

  The lobby was deserted when Bertie emerged from the elevator. It was well past midnight, and the doorman had retreated to his office in the back to watch TV. No one saw Bertie step out of the elevator and stand in front of the double doors leading to the street. No one saw that her once immaculate ball gown had been ripped near the right breast. No one saw that her hair was a mess or that her makeup was smeared. And no one saw that she was crying.

  She sat down on a small leather couch that had been placed next to a giant potted palm for the convenience of visitors. Fishing a tissue from her purse, Bertie dried her eyes and scrubbed the makeup off her face. Then, with shaking hands, she dug out her cell phone and called Yellow Cab. When the taxi arrived moments later, Bertie wrapped her mink coat tightly around her, pulled open the passenger door, and collapsed onto the back seat.

  “We are going to Fifty-Seventh and Harper,” she told the driver. “I’ll direct you from there.”

  Just as the cab began to pull away, Bertie spotted a familiar figure approaching the building. Although she hadn’t seen him since the Christmas concert, Bertie recognized LaShawn Thomas instantly. Dressed in a Chicago Bulls jacket and a pair of unlaced Nikes, her one-time favorite student flung open the ornate double doors of the Jackson Towers Apartments and rushed inside. A small black messenger bag, its flap partially open, dangled from his left shoulder.

  Wonder what he’s doing here, Bertie thought to herself. Not that she really cared. She slumped down against the cool leather of the taxi’s spacious back seat and tried not to cry. Only last week, LaShawn’s disruptive behavior had been her biggest concern. But things were different now. Tonight Bertie had learned that the world is a dark and evil place—a place where even trusted friends could turn out to be predators. As her taxi hurtled through the dark and deserted city streets, Bertie vowed to be more discriminating about the kind of people she let into her life.

  At that moment, no amount of positive thinking could alter the fact that, after ten years of marriage, Bertie Bigelow was once again a single woman—a vulnerable target for horny and perverted creeps with only her wits and the good Lord to guide her.

  The moment she’d locked her front door, Bertie stripped off her battered evening gown and dumped it in the trash. The dress had cost her a small fortune, but she would never be able to wear it again. Dumping a box of Epsom salts and an entire bottle of Savon de Marseille liquid soap into the tub, Bertie spent the next hour scrubbing herself in the scalding, soapy water until her skin was raw.

  Chapter Four

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2013—7:00 A.M.

  Bertie Bigelow tossed and turned most of the night. In her dreams, she ran screaming through the Museum of Science and Industry, followed by Theophilous Green, his black judge’s robe flapping open to reveal scrawny, tan legs and an erect penis. As the first wintry sun of 2013 began to peek through her window, she abandoned all hope of getting a decent night’s sleep and climbed out of bed. She padded into her kitchen, filled a battered kettle with water, and set it to boil on the stove. It was the start of a brand-new day at the start of a brand-new year. Determined to put the previous night’s ordeal as far from her mind as possible, she dug through the basket of magazines she kept next to her kitchen table and extracted the latest issue of Jet from the pile.

  Blowing on the potent cup of double strength Irish breakfast tea that always jump-started her morning, Bertie leafed through the glossy pictures of movie stars, divas, and wannabes until an article entitled “Beauty of the Week Shares Fitness Tips” caught her eye. Patrice Soule, dressed in a skimpy leopard skin bikini that barely concealed her generous curves, gazed eagerly into the camera. Apparently, in addition to running three miles a day, Soule maintained a nine hundred calorie a day diet and met with her personal trainer daily.

  “I like my fried chicken and biscuits as much as anyone,” she told her interviewer. “But if I want to rise to the top in this business, I have to keep my figure in top physical shape.” In spite of her come-hither beauty and her remarkable voice, Soule struck Bertie as insecure, perhaps even frightened. “You never know how things will turn out in the music business,” Soule said. “If I don’t stay on my toes, I could lose everything.”

  Bertie was paging through a delicious, gossipy feature on Beyoncé when her doorbell rang. Wondering who could be bothering her so early on New Year’s Day, she pulled a bathrobe over her pink cotton nightie, walked down the short flight of steps that led from the kitchen to her front door, and squinted through the peephole. A dark-haired white man smoking a cigarette stood on her front porch. Between puffs, the man stomped his feet and flapped his arms to keep warm.

  “Sorry, Mister,” Bertie mumbled under her breath as she turned away from the door. “There is no way I am opening this door to a strange man. Not for all the tea in China. Not after what I’ve been through.”

  As Bertie headed up the stairs, her doorbell rang again in a series of staccato bursts. She walked back down the stairs and looked through the peephole again.

 
“Chicago Police Department, Mrs. Bigelow,” the man hollered and banged on the door with his fist.

  “Hold up your badge where I can see it,” Bertie said. After peering suspiciously at the man’s gold shield for several minutes, she shot back the deadbolt and opened the door. A blast of bitter winter air and the smell of tobacco accompanied the policeman inside.

  “Detective Michael Kulicki, homicide division,” the man said, extending a hand the color and temperature of a large frozen haddock. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Tall and stoop-shouldered with thinning gray hair, Kulicki spoke in the flat nasal accent of Chicago’s ethnic working class. Instinctively, Bertie’s stomach tightened with fear. As a black kid growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she’d watched cops just like this one harass the boys in her neighborhood—forcing innocent kids face down on the pavement to be humiliated and occasionally beaten. Bertie took a deep breath to steady herself. Just because the guy was white and a policeman didn’t necessarily make him a racist. Could be that the man, whose bleary eyes and day-old beard indicated he’d gone at least one night without sleep, was just trying to do his job.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Bertie said. “These days a woman alone can’t be too careful. Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “No thanks, ma’am,” Kulicki said, rubbing his hands together. He followed her up to the kitchen and sat down at the table. As Bertie stood silent and wary, Kulicki reached into his back pocket and brought out a small notepad and a pen. “I won’t take much of your time. Tell me about your whereabouts last night.”

  “May I ask why you need to know?” Although Bertie had never studied law herself, she’d often heard Delroy caution his clients never to volunteer more information than absolutely necessary.

  “I can have a warrant issued to bring you down to the station. It’ll be much easier if you just tell me what you did last night.”

  In the clipped tone she used to deal with unpleasant authority figures, Bertie gave the policeman an abbreviated account of her activities.

  “Are you sure about the time you left the judge, Mrs. Bigelow?”

  “Pretty sure. I took a taxi home. You can check the records,” Bertie said. “Why all these questions, Detective? What’s this all about?”

  “Judge Green was found dead in his home this morning,” Kulicki said. “Are you sure he was alive when you left his apartment?”

  Bertie inhaled sharply. Theophilous had been crawling on the ground, whimpering in pain, but he was definitely alive when she’d left. Surely people don’t die from being kicked in the groin, do they?

  “What happened, Detective? Did the judge have a heart attack or something?”

  The detective’s nasal voice was flat, expressionless.

  “He was shot in the face with a 9 millimeter handgun at point-blank range.”

  Bertie felt the room around her begin to spin. Surely, this had to be some kind of bizarre fantasy. Perhaps she was still in bed, dreaming. Placing both hands on the kitchen countertop to steady herself, she repeated Kulicki’s words mindlessly.

  “Shot? In the face? Who would do such a terrible thing?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs. Bigelow. The judge was found by his cleaning woman early this morning. He was lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor. The place had been ransacked, and his wallet, laptop, and credit cards are missing. However, the apartment shows no signs of forced entry. It would appear that Judge Green let the killer into the apartment. Do you own a gun?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do.” Over her strenuous objection, Delroy had insisted on keeping a loaded gun in the bottom drawer of their bedroom dresser. Bertie had always hated the thing, but that didn’t change the fact that it was her gun now.

  Kulicki’s gaze narrowed. “May I see it? You can say no, of course, but I remind you this is a murder investigation. If I have to get a warrant, I’ll be back with a team of officers later this afternoon, and we will turn this place inside out. We might need to cut open the cushions of your couch or poke a few holes in your walls to make sure nothing’s hidden there. Do you understand me?”

  Wordlessly, Bertie climbed the two flights up to her bedroom, fetched the shoebox containing Delroy’s Smith & Wesson, and handed it over.

  “Thank you for cooperating, Mrs. Bigelow.” Kulicki stuck the shoebox under his arm without opening it and stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Judge Green’s murder led the evening news that night. While the mayor, the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, and every alderman on the city council expressed their shock and outrage, Police Commissioner James Bailey, looking overwhelmed and exhausted, fended off a barrage of questions. Did the police have a suspect in custody? “No.” Did the police have any potential leads in the case? “No.” Had the police found the murder weapon? “No.” Did the police have any clue as to the identity of the woman who had accompanied Judge Green to his apartment on the night of the murder? Commissioner Bailey’s tired blue eyes looked straight into the camera as he announced that yes, a Mrs. Alberta Bigelow had been with the judge on the night he was killed.

  Bertie stared in stunned disbelief. As her heart thumped frantically in her chest, her mind spun like a hamster on a wheel. This just could not be happening. Millions of Chicagoans now associated her with the murder. What would her friends say? What about Chancellor Grant and her colleagues at Metro College? Never in all her life had she felt so embattled and alone.

  For the next three days, Bertie’s phone rang off the hook. Friends called to see if she was alright. Acquaintances called out of morbid curiosity, and people who disliked Bertie called just to hear her admit that yes, she’d actually been desperate enough to go on a date with Theophilous Green. Each person she talked to had a theory about the identity of the murderer. Many people thought Judge Green’s murder was just the latest in a series of deadly home invasions taking place on the South Side. Others speculated that the judge had been killed in retaliation. In his forty years on the bench, Judge Green had sent many a man to prison, including members of the Roselli crime family. Perhaps the murderer was someone from Theophilous’s past.

  No one was rude enough to suggest outright that Bertie, the last person known to have seen the judge alive, could possibly be the murderer. At least, not to her face. Behind her back, Bertie was sure the rumor mill was running overtime.

  After dealing with all the gossips and busybodies, David Mackenzie’s phone call was a welcome relief.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he said. “Next time the police come by your house, call me, okay? You shouldn’t have given the police Delroy’s gun.”

  “It was seven o’clock in the morning on New Year’s Day. Even if I’d had the presence of mind to think of calling a lawyer, I wouldn’t have wanted to bother you.”

  “Don’t be silly, Bertie. That’s what friends are for. You sure your gun hasn’t been fired recently?”

  “I hate guns,” Bertie replied. “I haven’t opened that shoebox in years.”

  “You and I know that’s true, but once the police get involved in a situation like this, there’s no telling where it could lead. Did you at least get a receipt for the gun?”

  “I should have, but honestly, I was so flustered I just handed it over.”

  Mackenzie grunted. “This is why you need me to look after you. Next time the police call, do not say a word without talking to me.” He sighed, then said softly, “You’re one of my favorite people, Bertie. I’d hate to see you wind up in jail.”

  The next day over lunch at Giordano’s, a popular pizza parlor located near the University of Chicago’s South Side campus, Bertie told Ellen Simpson about her visit to Judge Green’s apartment.

  Resplendent in a brilliant purple caftan, matching headscarf, and oversized hoop earrings, Ellen shook her head in disgust.

  “I’d have shot his sorry, yellow behind for sure,” she said. “You sure you didn’t kill him, Bertie?”


  “Quite sure. As I walked out the door, he was holding his crotch and making whimpering noises. Someone must have shot him after I left.”

  “I wonder what for,” Ellen said. “Other than being a pompous ass and a dirty old man, the guy seemed harmless enough.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Bertie said slowly. “Theophilous was a big snob and wasn’t shy about telling people he thought he was better than they were. He had a big argument with Charley Howard while we were at the party. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but now I wonder.”

  “The Hot Sauce King? That man is downright scary. Everybody knows he’s in tight with the Roselli Family.”

  “On the night he was killed, Theophilous called Howard an ignoramus in front of hundreds of witnesses. You think I should have told the police about it?”

  “Probably,” Ellen said. “When that cop comes by to return your gun, you can tell him.”

  “If they return it.”

  “They’d better. If they don’t, you can ask David Mackenzie to sue their asses for harassment.”

  “He says I should never have given the police my gun in the first place.”

  Ellen gave Bertie a speculative look. “You know the man is sweet on you, right?”

  “No way. Mac is an old family friend. He’s just trying to help me out, that’s all.”

  “For a so-called intelligent woman, you can be really dense, Bertie. Haven’t you ever noticed the way he looks at you? That snippy little wife of his sure has.”

  “There’s never been anything between us, and there never will be. The man is married, for Pete’s sake.”

  Ellen arched an eyebrow. “Sure he is, honey. Not that it matters all that much.”

  “Hush your mouth,” Bertie said with a nervous giggle. “Now that Delroy is gone, I don’t think I’ll ever love another man again.”