The desperation in his voice echoed throughout the room, taking me by surprise. Up until that point, I figured there was some angle to his request or that he thought I’d work cheap. Either way, I hadn’t liked it. I’d felt uneasy. But now I sensed an urgency in him. Maybe there was something I didn’t understand. I looked into his eyes again and saw an expression I took to be one of anguish. I wondered what Doris was to him anyway. So I asked him. “What was Doris Jones to you anyway?”
The big man lowered his eyes, looking down at his hands as if studying the size and shape of his fingernails. He didn’t answer me.
“Well?” Suspicion is my middle name.
“Nothin’. She just worked for me, that’s all.”
“I suspect from your behavior that it was a little more than that,” I told him as I took my seat again.
He raised his head and looked at me, his hands now twisting the newspaper into a tight roll. There was too much moisture in his eyes, and his mouth turned down at the sides. I could tell that it was hard for someone like him to talk about his feelings.
“She was something special, Doris was,” he said at last. His voice was husky.
The room grew still and silent as I groped for words with which to ease his pain. His feelings for the woman were plain without his having to express them verbally.
“Will you tell me about her?” I asked, my voice almost a whisper in the quiet of the room.
He shifted around in his chair before answering, his eyes darting from object to object. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Doris was a mystery to me.”
Curious now, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘a mystery’? A real mystery or was it just that she was a woman?”
“A real mystery,” he said, and leaned forward to get closer to me. “She came out of nowhere last year and asked me for a job. She was quiet and sort of, well, elegant. I thought she’d add some class to the joint so I hired her even though I could tell she’d never waited tables before—she wasn’t the type.”
“Define ‘quiet and elegant.’”
“Just what I said.” He perked up. “She was always real quiet, never talked much to anyone, kept to herself. Not to say that she didn’t do a good job. She was great. Best waitress The Rex Cafe ever had. She was always real polite to the customers, no matter what, and sometimes at night we get a real rough crowd in there. She could handle them; killed them with kindness, she did.”
I must confess. He had me on a hook now and was reeling me in. Not to say that I was any more qualified than I was a few minutes earlier, but I was definitely interested. “It sounds like she was a very good worker,” I commented, somewhat at a loss for an appropriate response.
“That’s not the half of it.” He had his elbows propped upon the front of my desk now, leaning toward me to tell me the story of Doris Jones. “The way she spoke, it was different. She talked like she had been somebody, like she had a real education. Kinda like you do. Sometimes she’d use big words that I didn’t understand. I’d go look them up at night, only she didn’t know it. But she didn’t use ’em on purpose to make us feel stupid or nothin’; it was just like they’d slip out when she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. She’d try to cover up and change what she said so that we knew what she meant. She’d apologize and tell me that she was reading a lot of books and couldn’t help it if she accidently learned some of the words, but I could tell that she was used to talking that way and having people understand what she said. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. “Where did she come from?”
“I dunno. Like I said, she was a mystery. I asked her more than once, but she only said something about being from north Texas and let it go at that. I knew her almost a whole year and can’t tell you much more than I already have.”
“What about her friends?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t have any. Just us—the people she worked with at The Rex.”
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Singleton, what I think you need is a real detective. Why don’t you go to Leo Barker or somebody? Some of those guys truly know the business and could probably help you find out about her.” I hated to send him out to someone else, much as I needed the money, but he really did need somebody with more criminal experience, not little old me.
He shook his head again. “Leo Barker won’t take the case. I already went to him yesterday.”
I grimaced as my ego took a nosedive. “Well, there are others whose skills are equal to Leo’s.”
His head wagged from side-to-side. “No one’ll touch it. They think I’m crazy. Actually, I think Leo would’ve except he’s going on vacation for a couple of weeks and he said his wife would kill him if he didn’t go this time. I don’t want to wait no two weeks. The others, well, they had different excuses, but I could tell what they thought.”
I had lost some of my sympathy for the man. I mean—it was quite a blow that I was at the end of a long list. I would have felt a good deal better had he not told me. But then, damn it all, I shouldn’t have asked.
“Please, Miss Davis.”
I was befuddled about the thing. In a quandary. Why shouldn’t I refuse like the others? If they thought he wasn’t all there upstairs, why should I think any differently?
Why? Because I needed the money.
Even so, I was still hesitant. “I don’t know, Mr. Singleton. I’m sure the police are doing all they can to solve this thing.”
“I’m telling you it’s not part of the same case. It can’t be. Doris knew better than to open the door to somebody off the street. Hell, the way she acted, she never even wanted to let us in there, much less some stranger.”
“But what if it was some stranger? The serial killer. You’d be paying for work that will be done by the police for free.” I watched his face, hoping for a positive reaction.
“I don’t care, Miss Davis. I have to have the answer. She was like a riddle. Even if a serial killer did do it, I still won’t have the answer to Doris Jones. I want to know who she was. Could you just look into that part of it for me? Could you just help me find out who she was? I’ll pay you. I have money saved ’cause I don’t have a family or nobody to spend it on. I can pay you. At least look into it. You never know what you’ll find. Please. I’m asking you. Maybe as a woman you’ll be better anyway. Maybe you could unravel Doris’s life.”
So what else could I do? I mean, really? I needed the money. It would be better than sitting around the office waiting for a home study. I could at least look into it for the man; maybe spend a few days talking to people, snooping around. It might even be fun. I was still hesitant. I’m not sure why. My ego? No. Money is much more important. I guess I was a little scared because of the facts. But honestly, I have to admit it was interesting. The mystery woman. And what if it turned out to be more than interesting? I might be able to make a name for myself. This might be the beginning of something. It could be my big break. I might become a real investigator: a criminal investigator.
So what was I waiting for?
I was trying to decide how much to charge for snooping around for a few days.
“I’d have to charge you thirty-five an hour plus expenses,” I said, cringing internally as I anticipated that he’d change his mind.
As I looked on, he stood up, dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a wad of bills. He peeled a bunch off and laid them on the desk in front of me. “Here’s seven hundred. It’s Wednesday, and that should cover the rest of the week. Let me know if you need more.”
I was simply astonished. He must have really loved her. Maybe I should have quoted a higher hourly rate. “I’m not promising you anything, you understand, Mr. Singleton. I’ll look into it for you. I’ll ask around a little and see what I can come up with that will convince you that her death was part of a serial killing. I’ll check on her background. I can’t guarantee anything more than that.”
A huge grin spread across his face. “It’s a start, Miss Davis,” he said. Then, much
to my surprise—and before I knew what was happening—he came around my desk and gave me a big wet smack on the cheek, squeezed my shoulders, and was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
It took me a few minutes to fully recover from the shock of being hired on a real murder case, but when I snapped out of it, I was raring to go. I gave Margaret Applebaum some instructions for tasks for her and Candy to carry out during the remainder of the day, clipped the article out of the Chronicle, and headed for the newspaper office downtown. I wanted to read the back issues for details on the other murders.
What drudgery. After hours of reading, my research into the deaths of Mary Lou Redmon and Susie Steinberger didn’t turn up much that I considered helpful.
Mary Lou Redmon had lived alone in a singles complex in northeast Houston. She was thirty-five years old, divorced, and had no children. She made her living as a bookkeeper at a small downtown office.
Susie Steinberger was thirty-four years old and had lived in a duplex off Westheimer. She was a cocktail waitress at a bar in Pasadena, which was quite a bit south of where she lived. She had been thrice divorced. One of her ex-husbands had custody of the only child she had ever borne, a boy aged fourteen. They lived in Oregon.
Both women had been raped and strangled in their homes.
Both bodies were discovered on holidays, Mary Lou’s on Thanksgiving, Susie’s on Valentine’s Day.
Mary Lou was short, slightly overweight, and had brown hair.
Susie was tall, underweight, and had bleached-blond hair.
I didn’t know what connection the police had found between the two to make them think the deaths were serial killings unless there was something that was not reported in the newspaper. The first thought that came to mind was that the semen specimens matched. Somehow I’d have to finagle that information. I jotted down one last note in my spiral notebook before returning to the world of the living.
I stepped outside the newspaper offices, my head in a fog as I thought about the dead women, and was greeted by a blast of hot, humid, Houston air. My eyes burned from the glare of the sidewalk. My stomach rumbled with hunger, and I realized that I’d worked through the noon hour. I stopped and lit a cigarette while I tried to make another decision. I was anxious to get over to Doris Jones’s apartment to have a look around, but at the same time, my stomach was arguing with my brain. We compromised. I’d grab a sandwich and eat it in the car.
I never was much good at doing two things at the same time. As I walked toward the car, I was fumbling for my sunglasses and keys when I literally ran headlong into my old drinking buddy, Fred Elliot, whose huge mass was like a barricade across my path.
Fred was a reporter for the Chronicle. He used to be assigned to the courthouse beat when I was an adult probation officer. He was always hanging around trying to get information on criminal cases to put in the paper or else waiting to hear a politician put his foot in his mouth. I hadn’t seen him since I’d left the county payroll, but I’d heard a rumor that the previous year he’d gotten too personally involved in some political goings-on and was switched to another beat.
“What are you doing in my neck of the woods, Mavis?” he asked me after our initial greeting and a kiss on the cheek. My cheek, not his. His was dripping perspiration.
I looked up at Fred’s friendly face and formed an idea. Maybe—just maybe—Fred would know a little more about the murders than what was printed in the newspaper. He was like that, just a well of information. I was going to drop my dipper in and see what I pulled out. “Just doing a little research job for a client,” I answered and turned on the charm. I also shuffled the notebook in my arms and placed the article about Doris Jones on top, where he could see it.
“You mean your business is actually making it? I thought surely you’d be back at the county before too long. I’ve missed seeing you.”
I grinned, hoping to dazzle him with my brilliant smile. “You know me, Fred. Once I make up my mind to do something, I stick it out. Besides, they wouldn’t take me back now on a bet.” Fred laughed and encircled my shoulders with an arm. “Told them what you thought again, did you?”
I shrugged my shoulders, hoping he’d take the hint. Speaking for myself, I never wanted more than a father-daughter relationship. “Yeah. The day they told me I didn’t have time to counsel with the probationers—that the paperwork was more important than the people—was the day I made up my mind to get out. Probation has become just a bunch of bureaucratic bullcrap. But that’s old news, Fred. Listen, I’m fixin’ to find something to eat. Want to come along so we can do some catching up?”
“Sure. Which way are you headed?”
“I don’t know. I was going to get a sandwich, but is there any place around here that serves a decent plate lunch?”
“Nope. There’s a cozy little restaurant around the corner though. Come on girl; we can talk better on a full stomach.”
I cocked my head at Fred to let him know that my feelings about a relationship with him hadn’t changed. He smiled an acknowledgment, then led me to a little vine-covered restaurant, which from its appearance and that of the late lunch crowd that was still on the premises, was apparently a haven for newspaper folks.
We squeezed behind a corner table just inside the door and, except for interruptions from all the backslappers, had a good lunch. I managed to glean from Fred that he was on the police beat now. I couldn’t fathom why he hadn’t commented on the Jones article. He had to have seen it. I left it in plain view off to the side of the table, knowing how nosey reporters are.
Finally, I decided, the heck with it, and asked him point-blank, “Fred, what do you know about the murder of Doris Jones?”
Fred’s pretty cool, and I could tell he didn’t want to indicate that he knew much. He kept his reaction down to one of mild surprise, barely even raising his bushy gray eyebrows. “Isn’t that the dame they found murdered yesterday morning?”
“C’mon, you know it is. You’re probably the one who wrote the article with no byline in this morning’s Chronicle.” I grinned at him. I was never one to play a game too awfully long. “Besides, I’ve been flaunting the clipping since I ran into you, and I know you better than that. It’s just too obvious that you’ve been ignoring it.”
Fred’s large face broke out into a toothy smile. “You’ve got me, Mavis. I guess I should have asked why you’re carrying it around, huh?”
To which I nodded my head self-assuredly.
“So why are you carrying that clipping around?”
“I asked first, Fred. What do you know about it?”
Fred shook his shaggy head. “Looks like we’re in a Mexican standoff. I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me, but we’re both going to have to keep it under our hats. It’s Captain Ron’s case.”
“Who the heck’s Captain Ron?”
“Girl, you have been gone a long time! Captain Ronald Milton of HPD.” He pointed to the name in the article. “His team of detectives is investigating it, and he doesn’t like anyone snooping around. It’s harder than hell finding out any information from his people, ‘cause they know if they get caught, there’ll be hell to pay. He’s the most secretive son-of-a-bitch in the police department.”
I guess disappointment showed in my face. I sure felt it. It was going to be harder than I thought finding out anything for Mr. Singleton. I must have let out an audible sigh, because Fred said, “That bad, huh?”
I looked up at him across the table. “Yeah. I promised this guy I’d look into it for him.”
Fred patted my hand. “Well, don’t give up. I’ll tell you all I can.”
“Thanks, Fred. I’m not. I guess in my dreams I thought it would be easy being a criminal investigator. I’m still going to snoop, and I promise you I’ll give you anything I find if you’ll help me.”
“So who’s your client? What does he want to know?”
“Uh, I don’t think I can tell you who he is. Ethics—right?”
He nodded and grinned, his sm
ile wrinkles showing up again in his meaty face. I guess he thought I was dumber than I am.
“Suffice it to say that I’m being paid to find out for sure if Doris Jones was the third in a series of killings, and to look into her background, find out all I can about her.”
“I can tell you this, Mavis. HPD is considering bringing in a psychologist to do a profile on the killer. They really do suspect it’s a serial.”
“But why? What’s the connection between them? There are murders almost every day in Houston. What ties these three together?”
“The dope isn’t all in on Jones, but I can give you what I have on the first two. I promised not to print it yet, but there was a semen match for Redmon and Steinberger.”
“That’s what I thought.”
My First Murder Page 2