by Zena Oliver
“We have a warrant to search your place.” Johnson flipped the folded sheet of paper back and forth before slapping it into Billy’s open hand.
“What the fuck for? What did I do? Or what do you think I did?”
“We believe you have some guns in there, Mr. Clark. That would be a parole violation and could land you back in jail,” Johnson said. He winked at Billy, then we proceeded to walk up the sidewalk. “Come on, get this door open.”
“I had the guns before I got those charges against me. I only use them for hunting. Is that a crime?”
“When you’re a felon, it is. But you already know that, don’t you?” I stepped up onto the porch. “Don’t delay the inevitable; open the door so we don’t have to break it down.”
“This is bullshit, man. Holy fucking hell.” He opened the door and stepped in before we did, but we were close on his heels. “They’re in my bedroom, the second door on the right. There’s no need to fuck my shit up to find them. The ammo is in my top drawer.”
We could hear him continue to mumble under his breath as we stormed down the hall and into his bedroom, making a beeline to his closet. We saw the guns immediately, lying on the floor in plain sight. We retrieved the ammo to see if there was a way to do a ballistics check against any remnants that may still be in the lab.
Before we left his room, we sifted through the clothes on the floor to make sure there weren’t any more weapons. It was a good thing we did. We found some bloody clothes wrapped around a .22 handgun and a knife. We bagged them for evidence, checked the rest of his room, including under his mattress, and we met up with Mr. Clark in the living room.
“It sure as fuck took you long enough. I hope you didn’t make a mess of my room,” Billy said. His face was twisted in disgust, like he’d been sucking on lemons the entire time we were in his room.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell us?” I asked.
“I’d like to tell you to get the fuck out of my house, but I don’t think you will. So, no,” he said. He shook his head.
“Fine. Turn around please and place your hands at the small of your back.” I removed the cuffs from my waistband, and after securing his left wrist I reached for his right and began talking to him. “Billy Clark, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You have the wrong person. I didn’t kill anyone.”
We drove to the station in silence. Billy hummed the entire time, which drove me batty. When we arrived, and helped him out of the vehicle, I asked him, “Do you want to talk to us, or do you want a lawyer?”
“I’m not scared to talk to you guys. I’m telling you, I’m innocent.”
“That’s what they all say,” Johnson scoffed.
“But I am.” Without another word, we continued to make our way to room number one. Lucky number one.
“Have a seat, Billy,” I said. Johnson said he’d be back. I knew he was going to monitor our conversation and Billy’s body language from outside the room on the monitor. I was flattered that he felt confident enough in me to question Billy alone.
I removed the recorder from my shirt pocket and set it on the table. “You know why you’re here, right?”
“I know what you said I was being arrested for, but you don’t have any proof that I did anything.”
“We have your blood-stained clothes, the gun, and the knife. As soon as ballistics confirms that was the weapon used, and the lab matches any of the DNA from your clothes to Effridge, we’ll talk formal charges.”
“Unless Effridge has the same blood type as a deer, that blood won’t match his. I went hunting on the weekend.”
“And you just so happened to leave your blood-soaked clothes on the closet floor wrapped around a gun and knife, right?”
“That’s what you found, so yep. I needed to clean everything up, but haven’t had time yet. I was going to just throw the clothes away since I didn’t get them washed.”
“I’m not so sure I’m buying that story, Billy.”
“Man, I’m not making this up. I didn’t kill that guy. I didn’t like him one bit, but I sure as shit am not throwing my life away for him. I told you, his wife gave me a second chance and there’s no way I’d throw it away. I have a lot of respect for her.”
“That’s touching. Who showed you the pictures of your girlfriend with Effridge?”
His skin tone changed from a pale and freckled pallor to a spotty, flushed tint; and he was fidgety. He was visibly agitated.
“She did.” He forced the words out between his clenched teeth.
“I’ll bet it pissed you off to no end to see her out with the man who was hell-bent on making her his. I saw the pictures. They would have made a stunning couple.”
“They aren’t a fucking couple!” He huffed in a few breaths. “She’s my girlfriend, not his.”
“And you wanted to make sure he understood, so you put a couple of slugs in him.”
“No. I didn’t kill him.”
“You know, if you confess it will lift the burden from your shoulders and you’ll be free. Free from all the guilt, free from the worry, and free from harboring this awful secret any longer. And we can get you out of here much sooner. What do you say?”
“Wow. Does that work on scared teenagers, Detective? I’m not falling for that line. And I have no burden or secrets I’m holding in. I’m innocent.”
We spent an additional couple of hours going back and forth, making no progress toward getting a confession. I needed leverage. I needed the lab findings. Almost as instantly as I had that thought, the door opened and Johnson called for me to step out. I excused myself and left the room to join him and Sarge in the hall. Before he said a word, I knew he didn’t have anything to tell me that I’d want to hear.
“Bad news,” he said. “We got the lab results. Effridge’s DNA isn’t on the clothes anywhere. As a matter of fact the majority of the blood wasn’t even human, except the few drops that matched to Clark. The gun isn’t a match, and the knife isn’t either.”
“Shit.” I was beyond frustrated. I had hoped we had the killer.
“What do you have on that guy?” Sarge asked.
“It looks like just illegal possession of weapons,” I replied.
“Confiscate the weapons and let him go. We can’t waste time on him anymore. There’s a killer out there just waiting to be caught.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Chapter 20
The days seemed to drag on. Two days after our faux pas with Billy, Effridge had a large, solemn funeral service. I hated funerals. We attended and hung back to observe the attendees and their reactions. Everyone we’d expected to see was there except Mr. Buckley, the neighbor.
Mrs. Dupree, the not-so-loving wife, played the part of a grieving widow quite well, with Jonathan at her side. We watched her dab at non-existent tears near the bottom of her dark sunglasses, and wipe the handkerchief under her nose a few times. Knowing how she felt about her husband, I couldn’t help but be suspicious about any emotional sincerity. But to other attendees who came to pay their last respects, she had to have looked sincerely devastated.
Ms. MacDonald was surprisingly seated in the front row, her squirming toddler son on her lap. Her grief seemed to have subsided quite a bit since Jones and I had talked to her. It was hard to tell if the son was distracting her, and because of him she wasn’t teary-eyed, like when we went to her house. Or was there something else that was behind her unemotional reaction to her baby’s father’s send-off?
The funeral home was packed. Every available seat was taken and the crowd overflowed into the lobby/reception area, and outside.
“Surprising turnout,” I whispered to Johnson.
“Not really. You figure the wife’s circle and his circle f
rom the college have to be quite extensive,” he said. He was right. My initial assumption of a small turnout was based on the comments of our people of interest, namely Calhoun and Clark.
I was surprised when I saw Ms. Sims and Billy Clark, but given how he’d said on several occasions how much respect he had for Mrs. Dupree, I’m guessing that was his motivation.
In the crowd we noticed Professor Daniels and Ms. Green. They were somewhat near each other, but definitely not together. There were several older gentlemen and women, most likely from the college near Professor Daniels, who was visibly upset. Her tears seemed genuine. A couple of the ladies patted and rubbed her back to comfort her. From our conversation, I had no good reason to suspect that they weren’t tears of sincere distress. After all, she was the one who had called in that he hadn’t shown up for work.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t believe it took me this long to think of it. Why hadn’t anyone missed Effridge before Monday?
We left before the service was over. That was more than fine with me, too. As soon as we were out of earshot of any of the mourners, I stopped walking and called Johnson’s name.
“Why would a man who has a child and mistress, is a tutor, a husband, who asked someone to dinner Friday night, and who knows what else, not be missed until Monday morning?” I asked.
“Damn good question.”
“You would think he’d have wanted to spend time with his son and girlfriend at the very least. And if she hadn’t heard from him all weekend, she should have gone over to the apartment. Right?”
“It makes sense to me. I also think there was a tutor appointment scheduled for Saturday with his little co-ed. We need to talk to both of those women. Something just isn’t copasetic,” Johnson said.
We drove back to the precinct and pulled out the binders with all our notes and the professor’s schedule, and then we began reviewing everything together.
We went over the gathered details. Johnson asked me questions about a few things, then we continued until Sarge appeared at our desks.
“How was the funeral?” he asked.
“Same as they always are – sad. Everyone was there except the neighbor,” I said.
“Maybe you should go check up on him and make sure he’s not the next case we’re investigating. See why he didn’t go today, too. Surely you don’t plan to haul anyone in here today for more questioning, do you?”
“I want to. We have two people we need to talk to again. Effridge’s girlfriend and the co-ed he was tutoring,” Johnson said.
“Why them? And which one of them wears men’s sneakers?”
“I’m going to bet neither of them do, and that’s still a confusing piece of the puzzle. But what we’re wondering is why neither of them checked on him or got concerned enough when they hadn’t heard from him over the weekend to call the police.” I said.
“Good question,” Sarge said. “Who have you definitely eliminated?”
“The wife, her son, the model, and her boyfriend are off the list, unless something extremely compelling points back in their direction,” I replied.
“Well, keep at it and keep me posted.”
“I surely will.”
We looked through the pages for the next hour to make sure we both were on the same page. I was also getting Johnson’s feedback on some of the questioning that took place. He offered up a lot of suggestions for the next time I began a case, and gave me a couple of suggestions for the remaining interviews we needed to do. Johnson assured me he wasn’t trying to take over, and he was not going to step in unless I needed him to, but he may still ask a few questions along the way. I was more than fine with that.
Chapter 21
I made two phone calls. The first one to Larissa MacDonald went unanswered. The second was to the co-ed, Megan Green. Megan answered the phone and reluctantly agreed to meet with us at her dorm room. Within a minute of hanging up, she called right back to say she’d rather come to us instead. My mind began churning and immediately wondered if she was trying to keep us away for some reason. The question was definitely on my list to ask.
“Do you remember seeing the shoes for our victim? I’m just curious because the men you have on the list don’t wear New Balance, and their foot size doesn’t match the print,” Johnson asked.
“I didn’t bother to look at that. We checked the closet for weapons, but I never paid attention to his shoes, other than to notice he had a lot of them.”
“I’m going to call his wife. We need to know what size shoe he wore and what brand of sneakers he was most likely to wear.”
“You know he couldn’t have made a print in the blood himself.” We both chuckled.
“No, that’s not what I’m thinking. What if he left shoes at someone’s house and they somehow trudged over in them instead of their own? That would be weird, but would definitely throw off the investigation.”
“It would be a de-railer for sure. But it seems hard to imagine, honestly,” I replied.
“You’re probably right. Then the question remains, how did a man’s size eleven sneaker make a print in the victim’s blood?”
My eyes felt like they were crossing looking at the murder binder. My head hurt and I had a pain behind my eyes. I rested my head in my hands and closed my eyes for a few minutes. Reviewing the notes was really taking a toll. When I looked up, I saw Megan Green walk in.
“She’s here,” I said. Johnson turned and looked in her direction.
“Let’s go do this,” he said.
I grabbed a notepad and my recorder and met her just as Rodriguez was pointing in our direction.
We walked in her direction and met her halfway. “Good morning,” I said. I stretched out my hand and she hesitated to shake it. She’d reached out, but pulled back a few inches as she stared at me. After inhaling, she slowly let her hand meet mine. “I’m Detective Oliver, and this is my partner, Detective Johnson. We’re sorry for your loss.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Megan. Thanks.”
“We have some questions we’d like to ask you. Let’s step into room number one where we can talk,” I said.
“Okay.”
As soon as we walked into the room, she spun on her heels to face me. “I’m not under arrest, am I?”
“No. We don’t have any reason to arrest you.” I held out my arm and motioned to the empty seat for her. “Why would you ask that? Did you do something that you think we might arrest you for?”
“Well, no. I mean, I’m in college and do stupid stuff sometimes. I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“We actually want to talk to you about Professor Effridge,” I said.
“Oh. I didn’t really know him that well, I guess. He was my professor and he tutored me.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe she was going to lead off the conversation with a lie. “We noticed you at the funeral.”
“Oh, yeah. A few of us from school went together. It was really sad.” She pursed her lips into a pout and lowered her head.
“Did Professor Effridge tutor the others? Or just you?” I asked.
“I think just me. I was really having a hard time understanding his lectures. He was nice enough to agree when I asked him to help me. He was making sure I understood and passed. Now I don’t know what I’ll do with him gone and all.”
Johnson and I looked at each other. “So, you had no contact with the professor outside of school work?” I asked.
“No, not really. Maybe we’d say hi if we saw each other on campus.”
“Maybe you can help us with this then.” I slid the photos of her and Effridge from the back of my notepad and laid them in front of her.
“Oh, wow,” she muttered. Her eyes never moved from staring at the images.
“We’re a little confused. These pictures look like you may have known the professor just a bit more than you’re telling us. Is there a reason you’re covering up your relationship?”
“Where did you g
et these? This is, like, an invasion of privacy. Someone should be arrested.”
“Actually, Ms. Green, it’s not. People have the right to photograph you in a public place. If these were taken of the two of you inside your apartment without your consent, that would be different. But since you’re clearly outside, in the open, there’s no violation.”
“Well, isn’t there something you can do? Can’t you fine someone? You won’t show them to my parents or anything, will you?”
“No. We’re not showing your parents. The person who took them was well within their right to do so, though, so we won’t be fining them or doing anything about the pictures. We’re investigating the murder of Professor Effridge. That’s our concern right now. We’re trying to figure out who murdered him and why,” I said.
“So why talk to me? I … I didn’t kill him.” Her face became a deeper shade of pink with each of her remarks.
“You also just told us you only knew him in passing. That he was nothing more to you than your professor and tutor. That wasn’t true, obviously, but that’s what you told us. So now, we’re not exactly sure what to believe, Ms. Green,” Johnson said. His voice boomed and his tone was powerful. She slid down in her seat a couple of inches like a scolded child, and still didn’t look up at us.
“But, I swear,” she sniffled. “Can I tell you something? Promise you’ll never tell my mom.”
“Yes, please tell us.”
“See, I, Professor Effridge and me, well, we were, um …” Her mouth twisted as she fought to get the words out. “We never meant for it to be more than a hook-up. But, um, we kind of fell in love.”
“Did Professor Effridge tell you that he loved you?” I asked.
“Chase, that’s what I called him. He told me he loved me a lot of times. This picture here,” she pointed at the one where she was standing in front of him. “He told me he loved me that day, too. He told me he was getting divorced from his wife and then we could be together all the time.”
“Did you know about Ms. MacDonald?” I asked.
“He told me an ex-girlfriend got pregnant and that they had a son together. He said she was like a stalker, but he went to see his son and still had to deal with her.”