by Fred Limberg
Tony would miss the trip to the morgue for his first murder; miss the first-hand relay of information, an experience that would probably stay with him the rest of his life. Ray wouldn’t miss it. He wouldn’t miss seeing the gray naked woman on the table, splayed open, chest split with a saw, the top of her head gone so they could weigh the brain, organs laid aside after their inspection. He wouldn’t miss the smell of rot, of decomposition, body gasses and eau de antiseptic. No, Ray wouldn’t have the stomach for much of anything for a while. He might miss it this time but so many others haunted him…so many others.
“I think we can narrow the time of death,” Tony said as he dumped the fingerprint kits on an unused desk. “Maybe even fix it.” Ray swiveled his chair toward Tony’s. He’d been thinking about it too.
“Tell me.”
Tony hitched himself upon his desk top and set down a coffee cup. “Early Monday morning. She’s dressed to go out, just eaten breakfast; cereal and OJ. You don’t eat that for dinner. Plus it hasn’t been digested. The appointment book said she had a 9:30, we can guess it was something at Children’s Hospital. I’m going back over there to check the alarm clock by the bed.”
“6:45” Ray shrugged when Tony frowned a question at him. “I checked.”
“Okay. She hits the snooze once or twice, gets up, showers, makes the bed, dresses, fixes some cereal, what…an hour?” Tony raised his eyebrows and turned the corners of his mouth down, waiting for Ray to argue with his timeline, hoping for an attaboy.
“And on the back end, the trip to Children’s in rush hour from Highland is twenty minutes. Ten to park. Fifteen to chat and say hi.” Ray apparently agreed with him and took it a step further. Tony felt like they were on the same page.
“So she was killed between 7:45 and 8:45 Monday morning,” Tony said with some finality.
“You sure this is your first murder?” Ray chuckled. He was pleased that Tony had figured this out, and pretty much on his own. Granted it wasn’t that big a leap once the stomach contents were known, but the young detective was thinking, keeping his head in the details.
“So did the murderer know her schedule? Know she’d be home then? Or did they just take a chance?” Tony seemed to be asking the questions of himself. Ray noticed he was turned away, looking up at the flickering fluorescents, half lost in thought.
Ray brought him back to the squad room when he spoke. “Good questions. We have to consider it wasn’t premeditated. The murder weapon was a kitchen knife, laying right there on the counter.” Ray looked up at the ceiling too. Recollections of other crimes, other lost lives and mysteries jostled each other. Tony stayed silent. He let the scenarios and what-ifs of his own dance and tease each other.
Ray broke the spell again when he added, “I really want to meet the ‘Go Girls’.”
Chapter 8
The Marland residence was across town, across two or three towns, actually. It was way out west of Minneapolis in the suburb of Minnetonka. Lakisha Marland told them she’d be happy to talk to them and that she planned to be home all afternoon.
The house was set back from the road. Both Ray and Tony could see the slate gray waters of the big lake that the town was named for behind it. There was a breeze, a chill wind that tossed the surface of the water. Irregular lines of whitecaps tossed tears from their foamy crests. There were no boats out. Not even fishermen seemed to care for the sullen overcast day and the uneasy waters.
As they approached Tony marveled at the house. It was brick, painted white, with acres of paned glass arranged just-so across its face. Even though well into October, he could see that the lawn was well cared for. The plantings seemed precise, chosen…specific to a sense of style and order. The house was at least three stories tall. Tony wondered if there were basements this close to a massive lake. It was impressive. The Marland’s had some money. Tony was curious if Scott Fredrickson managed any of it for them. He also wondered if a servant would open the door, a liveried butler or a maid in a starched black dress with white piping or something like that.
Lakisha Marland answered her own door. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, blacker than Ray and almost as tall. She was wearing a full length dress, black, maybe silk, with gold swirls in a random pattern. Tony knew there was a name for that kind of dress but couldn’t remember what it was. It was an African thing or maybe Egyptian.
Her hair was short, curly and styled close to her head. It was soot black with a bare hint of gray at the temples. Golden hoops dangled from her ears. Her eyes were unsettling. They were deep brown, almost black, and slightly almond shaped. Her nose was thin and straight, her lips full and sadly smiling as she greeted them. Ray made the introductions. Tony gawked at the house and the furnishings as she led them through an expansive foyer, past a dining room with a table for at least twenty, gleaming of rich dark walnut wood hues, past a kitchen that looked both practical and comfortable and onto a warm glassed in porch that looked out over a sloping lawn to the lake.
Tony noticed something else. A vibe of some sort…a small electrical charge was building between his partner and this tall, beautiful, exotic woman. There were no sparks flying, but there was a low frequency buzz happening, a kind of sizzle. He grinned, but it went unnoticed.
“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” she said to Ray. Her voice was tinged with an unfamiliar accent. Tony tried to place it as he listened to her.
“I can’t think of where we might have met.” Ray accepted the tea she offered him.
“It will come to me.” She smiled and nodded at Tony when she offered him tea but didn’t address him. She turned back to Ray. “It’s such a sad, tragic day.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. You and Mrs. Fredrickson were close, weren’t you?” Lakisha turned away, looked out the windows toward the gray-blue unsettled water.
“Kind of like the day, as if all color has been drawn from it and it’s turned cold and ugly. Like a light has been turned off. Deanna was such a good person. This is so ugly.” She lifted her head up and breathed deeply. She seemed determined not to cry. “Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs. Marland.”
“You shall call me Lakisha and I shall call you…Rayford, isn’t it?”
Tony figured she wasn’t going to call him anything.
“I have to ask you some questions, Lakisha. Some may be hard.”
“Not as hard as losing a friend.” Ray nodded and poised his pen over the pad that had appeared in his lap. Tony got his out too.
“Did Deanna have any enemies that you know of?”
“Enemies? Foes? Someone jealous of her? Of her beauty? Of her spirit? Of her wonderful husband or her beautiful children?” She looked off out the window again. “Not one that I can possibly imagine. Not one.”
“Could she have been having an affair?”
“Not without me knowing about it. No. She has a wonderful husband. I wish he were mine.” She caught herself and allowed, with a slight knowing smile, “Don’t take that the wrong way, Rayford.”
“I won’t. Could her husband have been? Having an affair?”
“Scott? He’s devoted to her, and why not. She was beautiful and funny and sexy and what…tireless. No, Scott wouldn’t stray.”
Ray nodded. “That’s the impression I get too, but I have to ask.”
Lakisha set her teacup aside. “You’re searching for a motive, aren’t you Rayford?”
Ray pretended to dodge the question even though it was coursing beneath everything he was thinking. “What about your group, your friends? The ‘Go Girls’? Was there any friction there? Do you all get along?”
“Have you met the others yet? Karen or Erika or Roxie?”
Ray shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I suppose with any group there’s, what did you call it, friction? We know each other so well and really are quite close. It would be impossible to not have some…friction. I like that word.”
“I understand that you take group tr
ips. Leave the husbands home and travel.”
“Some husbands are rarely home, but yes. Oh Lord, do we have fun.” She paused, again drawn to the bleak vision outside. “I wonder if we ever will again, without Deanna.”
Ray waited a respectful minute. Lakisha’s attention had drifted out toward the sullen lake, remembering. “Tell me about them. Do you gamble?”
Lakisha sat straighter and replied, “Of course we do. We gamble and we eat too much of the wrong things and drink and tease and flirt and shop. We are accomplished shoppers, yes we are.” The memory of the vacations drew her back into the warm room. Ray and Tony stayed quiet, let her go on.
“We went to Las Vegas, let me think, five years ago. Was it the first trip? I think so. I entered a poker game. It was only a thousand dollar buy in and I thought—what the hell. I won it!” She reached over and put a hand on Rays arm. “I couldn’t believe it! We went to Laughlin once. I didn’t like it there and I didn’t win either. There was Mexico. Ixtapa. That was fun. The others simply cooked on the beach. And the trip to LA, the hunk-hunt we called it. We were determined to meet Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford or Sean Connery. We wanted to meet movie stars and shop on Rodeo Drive.”
“Did you?”
“Shop? My word, yes. Mr. Marland flinched when the statements came, I’m sure. The only movie star we met was Woody Harrelson. That was a severe disappointment.”
“Did you ever have any trouble on the trips? Those are some ah…risky places you’ve visited.”
“Oh, we were always in a group. Well, almost always. And we have Ally.”
“Ally?”
“Allyson Couts. You’ll meet her.”
“Tell me about her. I’d like to hear about all of them, really.”
“Oh no, Rayford. Meet them yourself. Form your own impressions. I’d hate to be the cause of any…friction.” Tony cracked half a smile. He was enjoying the banter.
Ray didn’t push. He realized it would be better if he met them first, developed his own notions. “There’s one other thing. We’d like to get fingerprints from you if we could.”
“From me?” She was surprised. “Whatever for?”
“There were a lot of fingerprints taken at the scene. I assume you’ve been to the house before.”
“Many times.”
“They’re for comparison. It’ll save a lot of time. Have you ever been fingerprinted, Lakisha?” She looked down at her lap, embarrassed. She nodded.
“Fingerprints come to our database from many sources. Armed services, some are given voluntarily, government work…” Ray was trying to shield her from something, Tony sensed.
“Criminal records,” she said, her voice low, the tone resigned.
“Yes, those too.”
“Your system already has my fingerprints, Rayford. It was years ago. Many years.”
Ray picked up on her sadness, sensed some sort of defeat in her attitude and tried to give her an out. “The time saving, Lakisha, comes about in that we don’t have to search any of the databases if we give the evidence techs a comparison card. We don’t even have to look. If you would rather not that’s okay too.”
She sighed and held her right hand out to Ray. Tony passed the ink pad and card over. It seemed to him that Ray took a long time and was very gentle in guiding the woman’s long fingers over the pad and card. He saw them looking in each other’s eyes a couple of times. Then Ray took out his handkerchief and gave it to her so she could wipe the ink off her hands.
“Thank you,” she said. Ray passed the pad back to Tony and slipped the card into his jacket pocket.
“I think that’s all the questions I have for now.” Ray stood, offered a hand as Lakisha rose as well. Tony, ignored once again, realized he was on his own. In a tense and awkward silence she led them to the foyer. She was still worrying her stained fingers with Ray’s handkerchief when she turned at the door.
“I know now. I know where I’ve seen you.” Ray looked down at the floor. “It was just last month, at the Dakota.”
The Dakota? That’s a serious jazz club in Minneapolis, Tony knew, and very upscale. He had never been there. His tastes ran more to Rock and R and B. He cocked an eyebrow at the ever surprising Ray Bankston.
“You were singing with Booker T and the band.”
Booker T and the MG’s? Motown?
“I’ve known Duck and Steve a long time. They were just being polite.”
“You were good.”
“Thank you.”
“You have to let me know when you’re performing again. I’d like to come.”
“I, ah…don’t perform much anymore. It’s not a regular thing.”
“Pity. I’d like to see you again.” She noticed the hint of a smile on Tony’s face. “See you sing again.”
“I’ll try to remember to let you know. We may have more questions in the future.”
“Anything I can do to help. Please, call me.” She opened the door and tried to return Ray’s handkerchief.
As they walked to the car Tony turned to Ray. “Booker T and the MG’s?”
Ray wouldn’t look at him and kept walking.
“Duck and Steve?” They both got in the car, Ray behind the wheel. “You know Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper?” Ray remained silent as they drove down the long driveway and turned onto the twisting narrow road.
After a time, Ray cleared his throat. “What did you think of her?”
Tony couldn’t resist. He tried, but it was a big hanging slider. “What did you think of her? You dawg.”
Ray turned to look at Tony. He had a frown on and had a tight grip on the wheel. “Keep your mind on the case.”
“You keep your mind on the case. I took lots of notes.”
“Good.” They drove on in silence for a minute. The frown dissolved into a half-smile. “I sort of forgot.”
“I noticed.” They drove on, trying not to get lost in the maze of curling roads around the lake.
Ray cleared his throat again. “I did some backup work for Smokey some years ago.”
“Smokey Robinson?” Ray just nodded. “Man. Sue Ellen told me you sang some but…man.”
“No big thing. How long have you been seeing my niece?” Ray asked as they turned onto the interstate.
“Not long.” One night. Jesus…last night.
“She’s a nice girl.” Tony wondered if Ray was sending a message…or a warning to him to play nice. “I can see you two getting along. Now get out your phone and see if you can reach the one who lives in Eden Prairie. I’d hate to waste this much driving for one interview.”
“Tia Bork?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why is that name familiar?” Tony punched numbers. Tia answered. Yes, they could come by now. Twenty minutes would be fine. Tony looked out at the ocean of brake lights ahead of them on the crowded rush hour three-lane and told her it might be longer.
“Let’s try again. What did you think of the Marland woman?” Ray asked. Tony flipped through his notebook, shot a side look at Ray. The Marland woman?
“I think once we get more to work with she’ll be a good one to confirm or deny things.”
“I agree. You don’t see her for it, do you?”
Tony stared out at the traffic, thinking, trying to keep things straight. “Hard to say, Rayford. You forgot to ask her where she was Monday morning.”
“I believe you’re right. I guess I’ll have to call her later to clear that up.”
“I can do it.” Tony offered, always the innocent immensely helpful junior detective partner.
“Nope. My mistake. I’ll do it. No problem.”
“I hope she has an alibi.” Tony hadn’t forgotten about the fingerprint card Ray had slipped into his pocket instead of back into the kit. He wondered what Lakisha Marland had done years ago that got her into the system. He was sure Ray would tell him when he found out. “And ask her if Scott Fredrickson manages any of their money too.”
“You thinking something?”
Chapter 9
Ray and Tony found the address. Eden Prairie, a newer suburb, was much more navigable than Minnetonka. The house they approached was big. Not ‘Marland’ big, Tony mused, but substantial. The door was opened by an immense man with short blond hair, an easy smile, and the largest arms Tony had ever seen.
“Now I got it! Boom Boom Bork!” Tony spurted, offering his hand. Ray rolled his eyes. Boom Boom crushed Tony’s hand and in turn, Ray’s.
“Mr. Bork. I’m Sergeant Bankston and this is Detective de Luca. We spoke with your wife earlier.”
“About Deanna’s murder.” The recently retired Viking defensive end had a powered subwoofer buried in his chest. His voice was low and rumbling and sturdy. The smile disappeared. Tony thought he could hear a low growl as they were led into the house. In the kitchen they were introduced to his wife, Tia, another of the ‘Go Girls’.
Tia Bork was cheerleader beautiful, Tony saw immediately; blonde, fit and buxom. She was dressed in some sort of athletic suit that swished and whispered when she moved. Her husband dwarfed her, but then, Boom Boom loomed over Tony and Ray too. She was not a small woman. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Another set of red weary eyes looked at the detectives hopefully.
“Any questions for me?” Boom Boom rumbled. His arm was protectively around Tia’s shoulders.
“Not right now, sir,” Ray looked up at him. “We’d appreciate a few minutes with your wife.”
“Working your way through the girl gang?”
“Something like that.”
Bork snagged an amber drink in a low clear glass from the counter. Ice cubes rattled.
“You find the fucker did this to Dee and let me have just two minutes with him.” Boom Boom finished off the drink. Tony noticed a bottle of Makers Mark on the counter, recognized the distinctive red wax top. “I’ll be downstairs,” he said and left them alone with Tia.
“He means it,” she said, indicating they should sit at the kitchen table. She grabbed another low rocks glass and topped off a drink. “Do you mind?” Both detectives shook their heads. “Want one? Can I get you something?” Again they both declined so she slid into a chair across from them.