The 6:10 To Murder (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 3)

by Linda L. Dunlap

  “Yeah, well, you already had that one figured out. Why is that so bad?”

  Dang it, he just won’t stop, she thought. “Because the murderer cut her heart out, that’s what caused her to bleed to death.”

  The line went dead. No sound at all except maybe some soft music in the background.

  “Joe, you still there?” She hoped he hadn’t pissed himself with the news.

  “Yeah, Maude. I’m here. Catching my breath. Jeez, that’s a bad deal, a sicko.”

  “You know what I thought first? That he had somehow got out, but he’s still there. Condition not upgraded. Same report as the last time. A copycat is my take.” She let out her breath, feeling better with her partner’s input. Two heads were always better than one in murder situations. It was easy for a lone detective to put too much emphasis on the wrong thing.

  “Monday I’m headed to Bisbey. I guess if the lieutenant is okay with it, you and me both will go. Depends on what comes in tonight and tomorrow.” She was hoping there wouldn’t be anything happening for a week, but that was a joke. Something always happened. Just didn’t come to light for a few days sometimes.

  “Want me to help you tomorrow?” Joe asked.

  “Nah. Not as is. If I need you though, I’ll call. A promise. Chew on this situation and let me know what you think. Meanwhile, goodnight. Hope I didn’t disturb your sleep.”

  “Sleep? Who sleeps on his day off?” He was trying to make a joke, but he wasn’t into it. The seriousness of what had happened lay heavy. He would be up for a while, putting it together.

  “Goodnight, Joe. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Okay, but if you need to call, I’m here,” he said seriously.

  The next day was quiet, with no call-outs or disturbances requiring a homicide detective. As far as the death of Eve Devine, there was nothing Maude could do until Monday when the workweek started. Until that time, Maude had a couple of drinks while cleaning her house and visiting the dry cleaner to get her uniform ready for the next week. Lightweight blazers and thin blouses along with tailored slacks were her summer wear. Winter was about the same, with heavier-weight clothing. Maude preferred to dress for getting on the ground, as she often had to do at a murder scene. When all the mundane duties were done, she sat at the table with her notebook, sorting through what evidence was found, as well as what witnesses had told her. She still needed to interview some of the people who were passengers that day. The manifest from the stationmaster showed twenty-five people boarded the cars that Friday morning, all headed to different places, but some returned to the station in the evening. Five people were commuters, leaving and returning the same day. Out of those five, someone must have seen something odd about Eve Devine. Fifty people got off the train at the Madison station. Ten of those had boarded at some other site then detrained at 6:10, jumping off into the grass and siding when the doors were opened by the conductor. Jeez, it was a mess.

  The gin bottle was making its distress call, feeling the loss of Maude’s daytime attention over the call weekend. Sunday night she comforted the bottle until they both fell down from exhaustion. Monday morning came with a shock. Awakened as always by the sound of the six o’clock alarm, she made a bleary-eyed trip to the bathroom, greeting her ravaged face in the mirror. Blue eyes shot through with redness gave evidence of the amount of alcohol she’d consumed the night before, and the lines in her face seemed deeper than they were yesterday. She looked her long frame over and tried unsuccessfully to recall getting ready for bed, but the inside-out pajamas gave proof she had performed the task in her drunken state.

  Chapter 5

  For everything we do there is a reckoning, a time to face our fears and sins, and decide if we are indeed worth saving. That Monday morning, Maude stared at herself in the mirror and hated what she saw. It wasn’t the person in the mirror that disgusted her; it was the power of the gin bottle reflected in the light of morning. Years and years of heavy drinking was not much to show for a lifetime, and Maude knew that worse yet, she was headed for the morning when she couldn’t get out of bed without an infusion of the clear alcohol. Her body craved a drink, a long-lasting pull on the bottle to give her synapses reason to pop. She was frightened of what she had become and where she was headed.

  The tall ladder-back chair near the bathroom supported her weight as she sat down, overcome by the realization that there was nowhere to go to get away from herself. Over twenty-three years ago, Maude had dived into gin, its mild odor usually undetectable on the breath. The smooth liquid helped her forget about Grace, lying in the hospital about to die.

  Surprisingly, the booze had never interfered with the job, but how much longer before she started sneaking sips while sitting at the desk? Sometimes she wanted to do just that, but all her training and work ethic forbade such actions. Still, the need was there. Drinking had made her late for meetings, late for work, sometimes gave her a crappy attitude. In that mood people avoided her, not wanting to be the object of her derision.

  A bad way to start a busy day, she thought, her head the size of a Halloween pumpkin, and eyes the color of red Kool-Aid. She stopped at a large convenience store and gas station and bought a tall black coffee, needing the caffeine. Her first cigarette of the day was behind her, but the second one was motioning her toward the pack, looking for a light. She obliged, and stood outside the store slurping coffee and smoking, hoping to find the human behind the red eyeballs. There was so much to do for the day: she had to report the death of Eve Devine to Lieutenant Patterson, fill out a time sheet for the overtime, and get permission to leave the area to interview the woman in Bisbey. So far there was no information about her name, age, or physical condition. A trip to see the store manager where Eve worked might help her there. Holly had said the report would be out on Monday; she hoped it would be early in the day when it reached her desk.

  Driving to work was a fast trip; there was little between the store and the Cop Shop. She pulled into the employee parking lot and saw all the spaces were filled. That’s just peachy, she thought. I get to drive around and find a place to park the city vehicle; meanwhile my head is killing me. Finally, a clerk working the night shift pulled out of a spot, intent on getting home after a long night. Maude quickly pulled into the lot before the car behind her had a chance to grab the space. A uniformed cop was sitting in the driver seat of the other car and began to honk at her, trying to get her attention that he needed to park his car worse than she did. Usually those kinds of happenings went by her like chaff blowing on the wind, but that Monday morning, she had beaten herself up already, and refused to take guff from a rookie who didn’t know his ass from his elbow. She stopped the car quickly, jumped out of the seat as fast as her arthritic knees would allow, and projected herself toward the car behind her. She beat on the closed window of the by now regretful driver, and demanded he run down the glass.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her reddened eyes flashing fire, “who do you think you are, honking at me to move my car? Young man, I’ve a mind to pull you from that seat, turn you over my knee, and give you a paddling for your rudeness.”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am,” the officer said, ducking his head. “I was in a hurry and thought you might be a clerk who could wait for a few minutes. See, this is my first day and I didn’t want to be late.”

  “And you already have a city car?” she asked him incredulously.

  “Yes, ma’am. Issued yesterday. Working patrol with my FTO.”

  “You suppose your field training officer would approve of this kind of rudeness?” she asked him, fury making her tremble.

  “No, ma’am. I reckon he wouldn’t. Probably fail me for it.”

  Maude was cooling off from the effects of the soured gin in her throat, her embarrassment at reprimanding the young officer beginning to take the place of the fury. “Watch your behavior, officer, if you want to survive in this old woman’s world.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

 
“What’s your name?” she asked him, a little more subdued.

  “Steve Sanborn,” he said quickly. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “We’ll see,” Maude said shortly. “We’ll see.” She left the officer in his worries, and entered the building through the back door, the employee entrance. By the time she reached the office, her good humor was taking over, making her see the comedy in the young officer’s expressions. He was worried, and it would do him good to have that lesson reinforced. Rudeness from a city employee was a dish that taxpayers shouldn’t be served, but she had no intention of ratting him out to his supervisor; that would be unfair after the ripping she had given him.

  The incident with the new officer had the effect of clearing her head and putting her job in perspective. She needed to be at her best to find the woman’s killer and bring him to justice. A quick trip in to see the boss had Maude retelling the weekend action and turning over the time sheet for him to sign. Her coworkers, Detectives Eberhart and Wheeler, waved a good morning before getting back to the serious business of donut eating.

  “Morning to you,” she acknowledged, wondering why Fat Frieda, also known as Detective Wheeler, a rotund Irishman with a tendency toward obesity, continued eating the carbs that made him fat. Eberhart was a lean black man who was handsome, even with his bald pate, but his wife kept him on a strict diet, avoiding any extra pounds like those his partner had acquired from eating a highly caloric diet. Maude could understand the need to nibble sometimes. What the heck, she thought, I have my weaknesses too. Who am I to say anything?

  About that time, one of the sergeants passed through the office and yelled out, “Frieda, uh, Wheeler, what do you have there? Calorie-free donuts. Who woulda thunk it?”

  Wheeler looked down for a minute then raised his eyes, red in the face. Maude almost felt sorry for him. Almost, that is, until she remembered all the snakelike things he’d pulled on the job. Wheeler was a guy who cried over his ethnic status, blaming the department for bias, then the supervisors would remove him from a tough case that had no glory and shift someone else into it. Bob Eberhart, on the other hand, was a decent guy who treated Maude and everyone else fairly and did his share of the workload. How he could put up with Fat Frieda puzzled her. Wheeler had earned his nickname early on from a patrol officer who saw Wheeler eating a large meal at lunch, and named him for his size and his first name, Alfred. The moniker had stuck, and even become one that some officers used when they spoke to him. The detective always blustered to the boss about it, but so far nothing had changed. He was still Fat Frieda to the boys in blue.

  “So, boss,” she said to Patterson, “okay for me to run down to Bisbey, question the sister? I’d like to get an early start, get back home before too late. How about Joe going too?” In for a penny, in for a pound, she always heard. “Nothing going on but this case, and from the looks of the two donut eaters outside, they aren’t too busy to take care of anything might happen.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” Patterson said distractedly. “Just don’t dilly-dally. Get back as soon as you’re done.” He had to say it, even though Maude and Joe gave more time than they frittered away. No complaints about their work schedule. Joe Allen had proven himself to be a good detective, even though his beginning was a joke that went sour. The captain at the time had disliked Maude for his own reasons and had made her life difficult when he could. He ordered Patterson to give her the worst that came along, hoping she would quit. Finally, her partner before Joe left the department, and the captain thought it would be the end of Maude to saddle her with a rookie. She proved him wrong, though, and Joe had been a good addition to the section.

  “You just never knew where the next blessing will come from,” Joe’s grandmother was fond of saying. She was right about the Rogers/Allen team. They were still there, and the previous captain had taken early retirement after the commissioner found out about some deals made under the table in the captain’s office.

  Joe came in, beating the clock by a minute, and noticed there were donuts left on the table. “Hey,” he said, “can I have some of these?”

  Eberhart nodded, but Fat Frieda looked sad for a minute, then nodded too. “Go ahead,” they said.

  “Afternoon, Detective Allen. You decide to come to work for the last half of the day?” Maude asked, gathering up her gun and equipment for the road. “Would you like to take a drive to Bisbey, see the sights?”

  “Sure,” he said, with a mouthful of powdered sugar. “Let’s go.” After grabbing another donut, Joe handed over his time sheet to the boss and headed to the door with Maude.

  “Remember what I said. Get back here.” Patterson waved them out of the room, intent on the figures he was adding on paper.

  “Yes, sir,” Maude answered. “We’ll do just that.”

  The ride to Bisbey was pleasant, with Joe driving and Maude kicking back, enjoying the scenery. She glanced over at her partner, smiling to herself, looking at the young detective. Joe was a handsome man, his dark hair and green eyes sure attractions for the female population. He was aware of his appeal, and sometimes used it to make the job easier. He can certainly get more information out of women than I can, Maude thought. Getting back to the case at hand, she mulled over what they knew about Eve Devine, most of it what she had learned from the woman’s supervisor at the grocery store. Kurt Graham had worked for Wranglers Grocery for five years, two as a clerk, and the last three as the day shift supervisor.

  Before they left town, Maude asked Joe to take a side trip to Wranglers Grocery, where they found Graham, a man of German descent who displayed the American flag in the corner of the store, visible to all his shoppers. Graham was in his fifties and had immigrated to America when he was ten years old, making the move with his grandparents after mother and father were killed in an explosion in the Dithmarschen District, an area famous for its cabbages. Kurt was adopted by his maternal grandfather, and grew to love the country that took him in. The grocery business seemed his rightful path, ‘because of the cabbages’, he liked to say. He had come from millions of pounds of the green, leafy vegetables.

  Graham invited them into his office and pulled the record on Eve Devine, seeming saddened by the information they brought. The news hadn’t released her name, but Graham said he had a firm suspicion when his employee hadn’t returned to work since Friday and he heard about the woman killed by the train. He seemed truly upset.

  “Mr. Graham, what can you tell me about Eve Devine? Her friends, likes, dislikes, anyone she talked about from home.”

  “Yes, of course, but Eve was a very private lady. She talked of nothing much except her job. You need to speak to her friend Marta Ruiz. They talked often.”

  “Would you ask her in, Miss Ruiz?” Joe had spoken up only once before. He looked at Maude, who nodded. Sometimes Joe was the better interviewer with women. They seemed to trust him.

  The door opened, and Marta Ruiz entered the room, frightened because the police were there, and saddened over the death of her friend, Eve. Ruiz told Joe, “Eve and I didn’t pal around much, because Eve stayed home alone, with her doors locked. She was afraid of someone but never said who it was.”

  Ruiz went on to say that she knew there was a sister in Bisbey, a youngish woman, about twenty-eight years old, who had muscular problems. The doctors said she was never going to heal but might get better with medical help and rehabilitation. Eve sent all her money to the rehab center to pay for her sister’s part, but Ruiz had never seen her. Just heard it from Eve Devine.

  “Thank you, Miss Ruiz. You have been a great help. Can you give me the name of the sister?” Joe was at the top of his game, firing the questions to Marta Ruiz, but not seeming to hurry.

  “Yes, it is Wanda May Wilson, or so Eve said. I remember because I thought the name sounded kind of…you know.”

  “Redneck?” Joe asked. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Um, yes. I don’t want to sound uppity, but it seemed that way to me.”

 
; “Anything else you can think of?” Joe asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if it matters, but Eve went a little loco if I ever talked about where she worked before. She didn’t ever want to talk about it, so I never knew. But I think something went wrong at her other job. Something bad.”

  At that point, Maude looked sharply toward Kurt Graham, but he shrugged and said he knew nothing about that. “Eve told me she had worked out of state in a refinery up near the Oklahoma border, but she was part-time and I could never check it out, couldn’t find anyone at the company who knew her.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Maude said quietly. “Sounds like Eve Devine had a past. Maybe it caught up with her. Miss Ruiz, did Eve ever talk about her son?”

  “Her son? No, she had no children. That’s one thing I know for sure. She told me that she had never married because of taking care of her sister after the parents died. She said she never had children for the same reason.”

  Graham shook his head and said the subject was not one he had ever discussed with Eve, but he maintained Eve had never mentioned a kid. When he reiterated his Friday night denial, Maude was inclined to believe she had been snookered. There was no boy whose mother was Eve Devine. There was, however, a cold-blooded killer on the loose, and he was on her list.

  “Joe,” she said, “ready to go? I think we have everything for now.” She rose to leave, inwardly groaning from the pain in her hips, the arthritis affected by long spells of sitting. “We may have to come back to clarify some information as time goes on. I’ll try to call first,” she said to Kurt Graham.

  “Fine, Detective Rogers. Any way I can help, just let me know.”

  “I’ll do that, you can bet on it,” Maude said as she walked out the door.

  Graham watched intently as the detective closed the door behind her, then picked up the phone and made a quick call. “Hello, are you there? She’s suspicious, doesn’t believe that’s all there is to it.” The phone died in his hand, the party on the other end disconnecting without saying anything. “But that’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” Graham said to dead air. He leafed through the envelope of money and figured he’d take a short vacation, maybe see the coast.