My First Murder

by Susan P. Baker

  “Mavis.”

  “Mavis. University professors don’t earn that much. We went out and bought this big house when interest rates were high and prices were high, but Liz made good money so it didn’t matter. We ran up a bunch of charge accounts for the furniture, and of course, we had all kinds of accounts for clothes, and we’d eat out all the time. You know how it is. The great American family is in greater debt than ever before.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, when she left, we had very little savings. Some, but not much. And that was used up pretty quickly on Barney. I had trouble making the bills without her income. After I got over the upset, I’ve got to tell you, I was pretty damn mad at her for doing this to me. Anyway, Vem helped out for a while. Sort of buying out her share of the partnership.”

  “Vernon Spencer? He gave you money?”

  “Yes. He said that he felt he owed it to us, because he was still receiving money in on some of her cases. You know, clients that paid by the month. So he gave me some money each month for about six months.”

  “How much?”

  “About five hundred a month, give or take a little. If I couldn’t make ends meet, I’d call him and he might send me an extra hundred or so. It helped pay some of the debts down to a reasonable level. The interest rates of nineteen and twenty percent on some of them were killing me.”

  “Didn’t you find that odd?”

  “What? That he sent us money?”

  “Yes. Didn’t that make you suspicious?” It made me suspicious. Why hadn’t Spencer told me about that? He’d certainly had the opportunity.

  “No. He said it would have been the same way if she had died. Shoot, if she’d died, I’d have been better off. At least I had life insurance on her. So, Vem said that he would have been obligated to sort of buy out her interest in the partnership, her share of the books and furniture, and the accounts. Anyway, I used that money to get the bills down, occasionally giving Barney a few dollars, and after I got to where I felt like I had my head above water, I would have used it to start searching for Elizabeth again, but then he quit sending it.”

  “Why?”

  “Said he thought he was all paid up. He showed me some accounting. I wouldn’t know the difference anyway. He would have loaned me some money, but I wouldn’t have had any way of paying it back.”

  “So how long did Barney what’s-his-name actually search for your wife?”

  “Cline. A couple months, more or less.”

  “And he couldn’t find out anything?”

  “He found her car. She had sold it in Dallas for a few dollars and what was owed on it. We never could figure out how she left or if she even did leave this area, until later. We didn’t even know if she was alive or dead for a long time.”

  “What do you mean? Did Cline find out where she went?” I could see that I was going to have to have a talk with that boy.

  “No. About six months ago, I started receiving money from her.”

  “You did? Well what did she do, wire it, mail it, or what?”

  “Mailed it to me.”

  “Did she write or anything?” I was hoping he knew about Catherine’s letters and would tell me now.

  “No. I would receive an envelope each month with no return address. They were postmarked Houston. They contained money orders, but each month they were different. I called the post office and asked them if there was any way they could tell me what part of Houston something came from, but they said that even stuff from a lot of small towns around Houston would be postmarked Houston.”

  “Didn’t Barney go to Houston looking for her?”

  “No. Where would he look? I wasn’t going to waste money I didn’t have paying him when I couldn’t think of anything he could do that I couldn’t. I went to the library and tried to find her in the new phone book, and I called directory assistance, but there was no listing. We had also checked with the state bar, but she apparently let her license lapse, so I knew she wasn’t practicing law. At least, if she was, she wasn’t doing it legally. I didn’t think she was anyway, because we had put the word out and sent a picture around and if another lawyer had spotted her, I would have heard about it or else Vern would have.”

  “I wish she would have written to you or something.” Hint, hint.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said dryly. “It was the weirdest thing. Nobody knew anything. It was as if someone had waved a magic wand over her head and made her disappear.”

  “What about credit cards? Didn’t she charge on them after she left?”

  “No. I found them on the kitchen counter together with most of the stuff that she would normally carry in her purse. You or the police didn’t find her driver’s license?”

  “No. There was nothing in her apartment except a few things I discovered up in the attic crawl space, including that photograph I showed you yesterday.”

  “By the way, Mavis, did you say that her boss hired you to investigate her death?”

  “Yeah, Carl Singleton.”

  “What did she do for him?”

  “She was a waitress in his cafe.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he looked up again, he said, “What was she to him, Mavis?”

  “He loved her, Mr. Reynolds, but I don’t think they were lovers if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s what I meant, yes. What’s he like?”

  “A nice guy, but definitely not her type. Believe me—there was nothing between them.”

  He sighed. “I wondered.”

  “And you? Was there anyone else for you?”

  He looked up, surprise in his eyes. “Not really.”

  “Do you mind telling me who that woman was that I passed as I pulled up?”

  “What? Oh. No one special. Madge Hennesey. She was Liz’s best friend.”

  So that was Madge. I loved her name. I could empathize with someone labeled Madge. I smiled at Mr. Reynolds, but he couldn’t know why. “I wish she would have stayed. I would have liked to meet her.”

  “She felt awkward about it, and she was pretty overwrought. Besides, she’s just returned from a two-week vacation and has a lot of things to catch up on. She and another girl went on a cruise.”

  “Must be nice. Where’d they go?”

  “South. Cancun, Cozumel, and someplace else. You’d have to ask her.”

  “I’d like to meet her and see if she knows anything that would be helpful. Do you think she’d mind?”

  “No. I’ll arrange it and call you.”

  I stood up and turned to leave. There wasn’t much else I could get from him if he didn’t know about Catherine’s letters.

  He walked me to the door. I hollered good-bye to the girls, and they hollered back from the kitchen. I stopped outside the door, remembering one more thing. “By the way, Mr. Reynolds. You mentioned life insurance. How much insurance was there on Elizabeth?”

  “Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Mavis Davis?” a loud, gruff voice inquired when I picked up the receiver. It didn’t sound like the mystery caller of the year.

  “Yes.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, flipped on the bedside lamp, and squinted at my wristwatch. It was the witching hour.

  “I need to talk to ya.”

  “Who’s this?” I sat up in bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

  “Never mind who this is. I’ll tell ya when you get here.”

  “Honey, I’m not going anywhere until I know who I’m talking to,” I said. My stomach felt a bit queasy. I’m not sure if it was fear or the greasy dinner I’d eaten at the motel.

  “All right. M’name’s Willard, and I wanna talk to ya about Lawyer Reynolds,” the deep voice said.

  I was suddenly wide awake. “What is it you want?”

  “To talk. I just said so, didn’t I?”

  “So talk already.”

  “Not over the phone. You gotta come here and meet me.”

  “My mother didn’t rai
se any fools, Mr. Willard. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

  “It’s not Mr. Willard. Just Willard. I got some information for ya on Lawyer Reynolds. Ya want it or don’t ya?”

  “I do, I do, but you can’t expect me to come out in the middle of the night to meet a stranger. I’m not crazy.” Nervous, yes—crazy, no.

  “Nothin’s gonna happen to ya; just meet me. I can’t stay on the phone too long. If ya don’t wanna know, don’t come. Otherwise, show up at the intersection of Main and Rosedale in an hour.”

  The phone clicked in my ear and then I got a dial tone. Maybe I was crazy, but I pulled on my jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes and climbed into my Mustang. After studying the map, I headed toward downtown Fort Worth, which was the last place I wanted to be in the middle of the night.

  When I reached Main and Rosedale, a big car flashed its lights at me and did a U-turn. I followed it to who knows where and finally, when it pulled over, so did I. We were in the middle of nowhere.

  A huge man dressed all in black got out of the old Cadillac I’d been following and lumbered back toward me. I rechecked to be sure my doors were locked. My palms became sweaty.

  He knocked on my window and I rolled it down about an inch so he could talk to me. “You Mavis Davis?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded vigorously.

  “I’m Willard. You wanna get out of the car?”

  No, I didn’t. I looked back at him apprehensively. He was leaning down, speaking through the crack. I could no longer see his whole face, but his body I could see, and he was enormous—about the size of a black bear I’d once seen in a zoo. My heart was racing; then I realized how stupid I must look. And actually, when you get right down to it, the man probably could have ripped the car door right off its hinges if he so desired. What the heck, I thought, you only live once, and considering he hadn’t threatened me or anything, I decided that it would only be polite if I got out.

  I got out and immediately realized how helpless I’d be if he wasn’t the friendly type. He didn’t offer to shake hands or anything, which was fine with me, so I stood there waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “I hear you’re investigatin’ on Lawyer Reynolds—that she’s dead. Well, I’m here to tell ya that I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” I said.

  He cocked his head to one side and gave me an odd look. “What are you, a smart ass or somethin’?

  I was startled. Me and my big mouth. “Look, I’m sorry Mr. Willard.

  “Thompson.”

  “What? Oh, Mr. Thompson. Right. I’m sorry if I was flippant; it’s just that you get me out here in the middle of the night to tell me you didn’t murder Elizabeth Reynolds, and I don’t even know prior to this that you exist. What do you expect me to say?”

  “Huh. I thought you’d already be zeroing in on me, that someone would’ve tipped you off that I was out of the joint, and you’d figure I done it. I just wanted to tell ya that I didn’t.” He was staring down at me from where he stood on the pavement, his dark eyes unfathomable in the dim streetlights. I was not comforted by the knowledge that he’d just gotten out of the “joint.”

  “Why would I have thought you killed her?”

  “’Cause I would’ve if I’d know where she was. She stole my dope before she disappeared.”

  He could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean it. This was the first I’d heard about dope. I was beginning to feel like one. A dope, I mean. “Yes, well, Mr. Thompson, this is all news to me. I didn’t know she was a doper.”

  “She didn’t use it; she sold it.’’

  Well, faint and fall out. I stared hard at the man. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same woman?”

  “Yeah. Elizabeth A. Reynolds. She was my lawyer for years.”

  “Okay. So why do you think she stole your dope? What was it anyway, pot?”

  “Coke. And I don’t think it. I know it. I’ve had a year to figure it out, and she took it all right, and then she split, ’cause she knew if she hung around that I’d come after her when I got out.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense, Mr. Thompson. She could have hung around at least another eleven months if you were in Huntsville in the penitentiary.”

  “I wasn’t there when she left. I was in the local slammer. Look. This is the way it was. It took me a long time, but now I got it all figured out.” He started ticking off reasons on his fingers. “She found out that I was selling dope to kids, right? Then she set me up for a fall. I get picked up, but I’m not holding much. Only I got a history. I call her, but I ain’t got no bread, so I tell her that if she’ll get me out of jail on bond, that I’ll get the bread. She says she don’t do bonds and can’t get me out, when she really don’t mean for me to get out at all, but I don’t know that. So finally, I tell her that if she’ll get my dope, she can sell it and get the bread and get me out and pay herself to fix up my case. So I tell her where it is. It was a lot, too. Man, I bet she was living like a princess. Anyhow, instead of getting me out, she gets my dope and skips. See why I would’ve wasted her if I caught up to her?”

  I’m totally flabbergasted. “Why did you think that she’d sell the dope for you and get you out?”

  “Ya hear a lot in the slammer. It was like, you know, she pretended she wanted to help them people, but she was really usin’ ’em. There was this setup with a DA, see.”

  “Yeah? What kind of setup?”

  “I’m not clear on that, yet, but I’m workin’ on it. I heard she’d set people up to get busted.”

  “What? You mean she’d inform on her own clients?”

  “Yeah, well, some people will do anything for a few bucks.”

  “You’re kidding.” She would have had to be out of her mind to do that. No wonder she’d been killed.

  “Hey, I don’t know for sure, but it seemed thataway. All I know is, when I told her where my dope was, she split, but I swear I didn’t kill her, though I would’ve. I bet she was having a great time with my money.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that Mrs. Reynolds was living in abject poverty when she was killed?”

  “Huh?”

  “She was poor, Mr. Thompson. Was waiting tables in a slummy cafe in Houston.”

  “That don’t make no sense when she stole my dope.”

  “Maybe she didn’t steal it. Maybe it was just a coincidence that she disappeared around the time that your dope was taken.”

  “I ain’t buyin’ that. Nobody else knew where I put it. She was the only one. Except …”

  “Except who, Mr. Thompson?”

  “Nah. Nobody. I left this kinda-coded message with her secretary, see, but I don’t think her secretary would’ve know what it meant. It had to be Lawyer Reynolds.”

  A car drove by slowly just then, and Willard glanced over at it nervously. “I gotta go, lady.”

  “Wait, I have some more questions for you.”

  “Can’t wait,” he said, looking all around, as if expecting someone.

  “How will I get in contact with you if I need to talk to you again?”

  “I’ll call ya. Don’t tell nobody I talked to ya, okay?”

  “Okay, Mr. Thompson. Look, I’m sorry I smarted off earlier. I really do appreciate your coming forward with this information.”

  He nodded at me and started backing toward his car.

  Say, Mr. Thompson, how’d you know about me? How’d you know where to find me?”

  “Fort Worth is a small town, lady,” he said. “I gotta go.” And he got into his worn Cadillac, started it up, and drove off, leaving me standing in the street God knows where, about as confused as I had ever been in my whole life. I watched after him, memorizing his license number, and then climbed back into my car. I drove around for a while until I found a highway I recognized and then used the map to get back to my motel.

  When I got back, the little red light was lit up on my phone, so I called the office for the message. Catherine Reynolds
had called and left a message that she’d call back. I slept until then. She wanted to meet with me the following day right after school, and would I go to the Candleglow Inn at three-thirty? I said I would and went back to sleep. It was by that time three-thirty in the morning and although I had a lot to think about, I didn’t have the energy to do the thinking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  First thing the next day, I went back to Spencer’s office and cornered him.