"He was polite, but I didn't like his eyes."
"What about his eyes?"
"They were set too wide apart.” Sally put a hand in front of her mouth and shrugged. “Sounds silly, but my gramma always said be wary of men with their eyes set too wide apart. Too much trash going on inside the head of those kinda men."
"Did you catch this man's name?"
Sally hadn't. She apologized for “generalizing” about the man because of an old gramma's tale.
"No need to apologize,” Beau said. “My mother's full of such notions."
"Really?” Sally's eyes lit up. “About what?"
Beau shrugged. “The White Eyes."
"Who?"
"White folk."
Sally's head tilted to the side.
"Especially men in blue riding horses."
Sally put a hand on her hip, a mischievous look on her face. “What's that supposed to mean?"
Beau took a moment to tell her about the Battle of the Greasy Grass, when his great-great-grand uncle Crazy Horse went up against Custer and his boys in a battle the whites called Custer's Last Stand, better known, now in the twenty-first century, as the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Sally's mouth formed an “O” as Beau passed her a business card and asked if she thought of anything else, to call.
At a small diner on Hampson Street called Café Bayonne, Beau discovered a great steakburger meal and the name of the man with the tattoos—Lee Rumbold.
Waitress Ann Falimy, mid thirties, five five, on the heavy side, with short brown hair and a lean face with a pointy chin, described Lee Rumbold as a “pretty regular customer the last few weeks."
The well-seasoned steakburger, the Bayonne Burger Special, came with curly fries and a chocolate malt. Between juicy bites and Ann's waiting on other customers, Beau learned that Lee Rumbold sometimes parked his lawn mower and edger outside when he came in.
"I think he does odd jobs for people around here. He's nice. Quiet."
"Do you know where he lives?"
Ann wasn't sure but thought Rumbold lived in one of the cheap apartment houses up Hampson on the other side of Carrollton.
"We've only spoken once for more than a minute. Couple days ago. He came after the lunch rush."
"He mention anything about working up on St. Charles?"
"Nothing specific, but he did complain how rich people didn't pay well. He preferred cutting smaller yards away from St. Charles."
Ann stepped away for another customer and Beau went back to his burger. When she eased back, he asked through a mouthful, “He ever mention any elderly women customers?"
"No. As I said. Nothing specific."
He left Sally a tip to match the bill and his business card. “If Lee Rumbold comes in, call this number and tell the dispatcher for me to 10-19 Bayonne. I'll know to come right away."
"Should I be afraid of Lee?"
Beau shrugged. “He could be completely innocent."
Sally chuckled. “Nobody's completely innocent.” She winked at Beau as he stepped out.
Lee Rumbold stayed at the Capri Apartments on Hampson, half a block from Carrollton Avenue. Six apartments had been carved from what once was a southern mansion with six columns out front. Two more apartments had been created from the garage. Lee occupied the lower garage apartment and wasn't in. The manager didn't seem concerned, having a cop ask about a tenant.
"You wanna see his lease?"
Beau was tempted, but if this Lee was involved, he'd better get a search warrant.
"If you could tell me his date of birth, that would help."
Sitting back out in his unmarked black Chevy, Beau ran Lee Rumbold through the police computer, discovering the man had two arrests for disturbing the peace by being drunk in public.
Beau went back into the Capri to use the phone to call the Crime Lab and ask to have Rumbold's prints compared to the prints from the scene.
"Any luck with the other prints?” Beau asked.
"No. Everyone came back negative."
Beau mentally crossed off cableman Jerol Philiber as well as the nine known burglars arrested in the area over the last two years. He'd asked the Crime Lab to compare their prints to the ones lifted from Lily Chauchoin's glass box.
"There he is now.” The manager pointed outside. Beau caught a glimpse of a man pushing a lawn mower around the corner toward the garage apartment. Beau followed him, catching him before he got inside.
"Police,” Beau said, showing his credentials. “How's it going today, Mr. Rumbold?"
Rumbold was thirty-nine, stood around five nine, about one-fifty, with short brown hair that looked as if Rumbold had cut it himself.
Looking around Beau, batting his wide-set brown eyes, Rumbold shrugged. “I'm okay, I guess."
Tattoos ran down both his arms, an anchor and mother on his left arm, a sailing ship and usn on the right arm.
"I'd like to come in and talk with you,” Beau said in a flat voice, not friendly but not unfriendly.
Rumbold closed the door of his apartment, said, “You can't go in."
"Then let's go to my place.” Beau smiled now, but not friendly at all.
Rumbold insisted on locking up his lawn mower and edger in the small wooden shed attached to the back of the apartments and followed Beau back to his car.
"You have any weapons on you?” Beau asked, opening the back door of his car and patting Rumbold down quickly. No knives, no guns.
"No.” Rumbold's voice sounded tired.
He never said another word all the way to the Detective Bureau.
Beau's former partner, Detective Jodie Kintyre, sat at her desk, which abutted Beau's in the Homicide squad room. Jodie was thirty-six, stood five seven, slim, with blond hair cut in a page boy. She wore a white blouse and black slacks, her weapon in a shoulder rig hanging beneath her left arm. A blond-haired civilian sat in the folding chair next to her desk. He looked to be about twenty.
Beau winked at Jodie as he led Rumbold into one of the small, windowless interview rooms and sat him behind the small table, leaving him to simmer for a half hour.
Jodie joined Beau at the coffee pot, her catlike hazel eyes more narrow than usual as she nodded back toward her desk. “He turned himself in."
"For what?"
"Said you were looking for him."
Beau realized this was the blond guy with the red car and smiled, stirring his coffee as he approached their desks. Beau didn't say a word, letting the man explain how a TV cableman told him Beau was looking for him, how he was a student at Tulane, and how his car breaks down just about every day.
"I rang the doorbell but didn't go inside. Really."
Beau secured the man's driver's license and ran him on the computer. No arrests, but he'd been fingerprinted. Tulane ROTC. So Beau had his prints compared to the ones from the scene. For the next twenty minutes the three sat and talked, Jodie smiling as the young man tried to flirt with her, awkwardly, nervously.
"Olds or Pontiac,” Beau asked.
"Huh? Oh. Pontiac.” He seemed to relax slightly.
When the phone rang, Beau snatched it up before the first ring was finished. It was the Crime Lab.
"Bingo,” said Howland. “Got a hit. Wanna guess who?"
"Rumbold."
"Bingo again,” Howland said. “Good work, Detective.” He was teasing now and Beau was feeling good. He asked Jodie if she could take a brief statement from her young admirer as Beau headed for the interview room.
Turning on the video recorder, set on its tripod in the corner of the room, Beau read Rumbold his Miranda rights from a waiver-of-rights form, and Rumbold initialed next to each “right."
No problem, Rumbold contended. “Sure, I'll talk to you."
Beau started with the preliminaries, Rumbold's age, place of birth: Chicago. The usual background information revealed Lee Rumbold was a Vietnam veteran, U.S. Navy, in-country, gunner's mate on a swift boat, a plastic patrol boat along the Mekong Delta.
&
nbsp; "How long have you been cutting Lily Chauchoin's grass?"
"Who?"
"The lady who lived in the house with the twenty-one steps out front. St. Charles Avenue."
"Only cut it three or four times."
"You ever go inside her house?"
"Nope."
Beau kept his face expressionless as he went on, letting Rumbold paint himself into a corner he'd never get out of, letting him explain his whereabouts for the last three days.
"So the last time you cut Mrs. Chauchoin's grass was three days ago?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what happened to her?"
"Nope."
"Don't read the papers much, do you?"
"Nope."
Beau watched the man's eyes as he told him, “She was murdered."
"No.” Rumbold blinked, then looked down at the tabletop and fidgeted as he sat in the hard wooden folding chair with its front legs shaved down a half inch to make the interviewee lean forward uncomfortably.
"Her house was burgled,” Beau continued. “Ransacked."
Rumbold sat up and shook his head. “Why would anybody do that. She didn't have any money."
Beau continued staring into Rumbold's eyes. “She pay you in cash?"
"Yep."
"She tell you she didn't have any money?"
"Huh?"
"How'd you know she had no money?"
Rumbold sat back and looked up into the video camera lens. Beau loved it when they did that, looking right at the jury with “guilty” written across the face.
"Everyone, even her next door neighbor of forty-two years, thought she had money.” Beau let that sink in a moment before repeating his question, “How'd you know she had no money?"
Rumbold swallowed loud enough for Beau to hear.
"All right, let me try another question. If you never went inside the house, how did your fingerprint end up on the glass box next to the body?"
Rumbold started shaking his head, putting his elbows up on the table, clamping his hands against his temples.
"We know what happened,” Beau said. “You wanna tell us how it happened?"
Rumbold took his time. Didn't mean to kill her, of course. After cutting the grass, Lily brought him some tea in a paper cup, a paper cup. All the money in that big house and he wasn't good enough to drink from a glass. That's what sparked him to shove his way in and “rob the place."
Unfortunately, Lily Chauchoin panicked. “I just wanted to shut her up,” he said.
As the statement concluded, Beau filled out the arrest form, charging Rumbold with first-degree murder. He looked into Rumbold's eyes for a long moment and remembered what Sally Branson had said about being wary of men with wide-set eyes. “Too much trash going on inside,” she'd said. And he remembered Ann Falimy saying, “Nobody's completely innocent."
It was Beau's job to prove Rumbold was completely guilty. After booking Rumbold, Beau would get a search warrant for the man's apartment, certain he'd find something belonging to Lily there.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?” Beau asked, as he led Rumbold out.
"Yeah."
Beau pointed to the coffee area. “All we have is Styrofoam."
At ten the following morning, as Beau pulled up in front of Lily Chauchoin's, a white van pulled in behind him and Jerol Philiber climbed out. They met next to the wrought-iron gate.
"That student come and talk to you?"
"Yeah. You read the paper this morning?"
"Didn't mean to interfere,” Philiber said. “I see you caught the killer."
The door opened and another version of Lily Chauchoin stepped out on Lily's gallery. Her sister from California waited for Beau. She raised a hand and waved tentatively. She was waiting for the details of her sister's murder, a job Beau never relished, but knew how to handle.
He thanked Philiber again. “Nosy citizens are appreciated. And you didn't interfere at all."
Philiber seemed relieved, shot Beau a smile as they shook hands. Beau opened the gate and told the cableman, “Keep your eyes open."
"I will."
Beau crossed to the steps and counted them on the way up, “One, two, three...” Like a mantra.
Copyright (c) 2006 by O'Neil De Noux
[Back to Table of Contents]
One for the Road by Gigi Vernon
Marilyn drained her gin, then carefully set the glass down on the bar, which seemed to bob like a rum-running boat on a choppy crossing of the Detroit River.
"Bottoms up,” the swell-looking gangster on the bar stool next to her said with a wink.
With difficulty, her numb, clumsy fingers screwed a cigarette into her holder and, without turning away from his soothing smile of admiration, she groped behind her for the lighter in her purse. Her fingers pawed at thin air. She turned to look. No purse on the counter. Or on the empty seat next to her, or in the darkness on the floor of the speakeasy.
The cigarette and its holder flopped out of her mouth and rolled away. She turned back to the gangster extending a lit match to her and socked him in the arm. “Very funny. Give it back,” she said, her tongue and lips thick on the words.
"Give what?” he said with a cocky grin, then blew out the match flame suggestively.
"My purse, numskull.” She slid off the barstool.
Ray would kill her if she'd lost the protection payoff to the cops. He'd send one of his suits to rub her out and she'd be dead by tomorrow. Maybe he'd somehow already discovered the loss and had already sent someone. A vision of her bullet-riddled corpse floating in the river came to her.
She belted the creep again, then groped him, trying to search him, keeping her feet under her with difficulty.
Grinning, his hands held up as if he were under arrest, he said, “Hey, if you want to get fresh with me just say so."
"Give it back,” her voice rose into a screech. She whacked him, trying to push him off the bar stool.
At the commotion, the jazz band faltered into silence, as did the frenetic tapping of Charleston-jiggling couples.
"Ray doesn't like his molls messed with!” she heard herself accuse the startled spectators. She wondered if everyone already knew she was no longer Ray's. She glared, or at least tried to glare, attempting to focus through a murk before her eyes, almost as if she were already at the bottom of the muddy river. She swayed in the hush, waiting for someone to confess.
No one stepped forward. Instead, the crowd parted for the head bouncer, Ralph, a middle-aged man, beefy, with bushy eyebrows and mustache and a missing front tooth. He frowned, annoyance crinkling his broken nose. “Marilyn, Marilyn,” he crooned in a low voice. “Pipe down. What is it with you? You gotta make a spectacle of yourself everywhere you go?” He snapped his fingers at the band.
A bass player tentatively plucked a string and the rest of the band answered. They revived the interrupted tune and the dancers caught the rhythm. Conversations and drinks were picked up again.
With a hand to her elbow, Ralph helped her onto a bar stool. “You gotta problem? Tell Ralph all about it,” he crooned.
"My problem, Ralph,” she said sarcastically, “is that you let two-bit grifters in this joint."
"This is a dandy speakeasy."
"Oh yeah? Somebody snatched my purse while I was sitting here at the bar minding my own business,” she spluttered with anger and gin.
"You don't say?"
She turned to the bartender, a fat, older man, his bald head as smooth and gleaming as his bland, doughy face. “Joe, who'd you serve next to me?"
"Don't you know yourself, Marilyn? Maybe you ought to take it easy on the booze."
"Give a girl a break,” she snapped.
"No one ever sat down next to you,” the young rumrunner chimed in with a wink. “I would have noticed the competition."
She elbowed him away.
"Are you sure you had your purse when you came in?” Ralph the bouncer asked. “You were pretty sauced."
"'Course I had it,
” she said, slurring, thinking back, not so sure even as she said it.
"I never saw a purse,” Joe offered as he wiped a glass clean.
She'd come directly from the hotel and Ray. The schmuck. Had she had it then? Her head was so fuzzy. She shouldn't have drunk so much. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, trying to force clarity back. She'd be dead tomorrow if she didn't get that purse back. Ray would never cut her any slack now.
"Ralph, give me a few bucks for cab fare? Ray won't mind,” she pleaded.
The bartender hit a key on the cash register, a bell tinkled, and the wooden drawer shot open. “Anything for the boss.” He counted a couple of bills into her palm.
She pulled on the fur coat that Ray had once given her, then left, wobbling between slanting walls and floor toward the shifting door.
Outside, a violent spring wind off the river howled through the unforgiving granite canyons of the Detroit streets. She wrapped her fur coat around her and breathed deeply, hoping the chill, grimy air would clear the muck from her head. The uniformed cop paid to turn a blind eye to the speakeasy tipped his cap to her. “Miss Marilyn."
"Even',” she mumbled unsteadily, the wind pushing at her, making it impossible to stand still. A trolley rumbled by. In too much of a hurry to be inching along jammed in with businessmen, she let it pass.
"Would you be needing a cab?” he asked.
"Yeah, and be quick about it,” she said, attempting to snap her fingers unsuccessfully.
He whistled and an ancient Model-T ducked out of traffic and rattled to a stop. Negotiating the cab door proved an impossible challenge and she was glad of the cop's help.
"The Book Cadillac Hotel,” she told the driver, a kid who didn't look old enough for long pants, much less driving.
"Right away, Miss Marilyn,” he chirped, small behind the big wheel.
They all knew her as Ray's moll. If they didn't know already, soon they would know how Ray had dumped her. Then they would hear how she had disappeared, and some time after that, they would hear how her corpse had been found in the river.
With a series of pops that sounded like gunshots, the kid driver pulled out into the chaotic late-afternoon traffic.
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