First Murder

by Fred Limberg

  “Tell me about your Monday morning, Mrs. Kennebrew.” It was a command, not a request.

  “Monday morning.” Roxie looked down at the table. She had both hands wrapped around a coffee mug and stared at it with bleary detachment. “Nothing really. I, uh, went to the gym about 9:30. Then I called Dee’s house, I think about noon. Yeah. Noonish.”

  Carol nodded. There had been a message on the Fredrickson’s answering machine.

  “Earlier?”

  “Ken. Ken had already gone to work. I got up about 7:30. Made some coffee. Read the paper. You don’t think I killed Dee…you can’t!” That brought a fresh wave of tears; deep, heaving sobs. An already sodden tissue was reduced to pulp and shards. Carol spied a box on the counter and fetched it for her.

  “So no one can verify where you were or what you were doing early Monday.” Carol tried to signal Ray with her eyes that he was pressing too hard. After another minute of crying, softer this time, she sat up straight, sniffed loudly and glared at Ray.

  “I want my lawyer here if you’re going to accuse me of killing Dee.”

  Carol shrugged as if to say to Ray ‘I told you so’.

  “That’s certainly your right. I’m not accusing you of anything though, not at all. Your friend was murdered very early Monday morning. We’re trying to place everyone who knew her, everyone she was connected with.” Roxie eyed Ray warily.

  He thought he could smell liquor and wondered if she might have fortified her coffee.

  “I told you where I was and what I did. I didn’t see anyone until I got to the gym. Gold’s, over on County Road E.”

  “All right. We’ll let that go for now. Tell me, do you think Mr. or Mrs. Fredrickson could have been having an affair? Either of them?”

  Ray hoped to slide past her request for a lawyer by ignoring it. They were still groping for a motive. When she answered he knew he’d pulled it off.

  “No way in hell. Dee doesn’t fool around and neither does Scott. I’d know.”

  “Can I ask how? How would you know?” Ray sat back, waiting for another chapter of Snow White.

  “Because Scott knows he has an open invitation any time he wants some, for one thing.” Ray took a look at Roxie Kennebrew again. Beneath the tired eyes, streaked makeup and shapeless housecoat she was another very attractive member of the ‘Go Girls’. He could imagine Scott Fredrickson being tempted, at least, by her looks and the figure she was hiding behind the terrycloth.

  “But he never, ah…took you up on the offer?”

  “Never. Not that it’s any of your goddamn business.”

  Ah, but it is, Ray said to himself, keeping his face neutral.

  “And Dee…I’d just know. We didn’t have any secrets.” Ray hesitated with the comeback he wanted to use. It would just piss her off.

  She surprised him when she confronted it head on. “She even knew I wanted to screw her husband. We laughed about it. That’s how I know, detective.”

  “That’s pretty telling.” Ray wondered if it was the truth.

  “It’s the new millennium. We’re all adults. And we’re really good friends. Why keep secrets?”

  Why indeed, Ray thought. But someone’s got a secret and it’s important enough to kill for. And it’s someone you probably know, he wanted to tell her.

  “Okay, no secrets. Tell me what it was really like on the trips you all took. What happened in Vegas? What happened in Mexico and LA?” Roxie shook her head. She still had the same sad serious look on her face when she answered him.

  “You’re not one of my friends. You’re not one of us. Not one of the girls.” She gave a short bark of a laugh. “Not one of the husbands, either. You, we can keep secrets from. I can anyway.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “That’s obvious isn’t it?”

  “Not really. One member of your little clique is dead. Murdered. I would think you’d want to share anything that might help us find out who killed Deanna Fredrickson. She knew the killer. She let the killer into the house. She knew her killer.”

  Ray hadn’t raised his voice at all. He’d spoken in precise measured tones, stating facts, facts that he normally wouldn’t share with a potential suspect.

  Roxie froze when he said that. She looked directly into his eyes, not moving. It had hit a nerve—paralyzed her. Ray could barely make out that she was breathing she was so still. He thought he could see her thinking, could see images passing behind her red eyes, questioning, wondering who Deanna knew that could have killed her. He saw fear there. Roxie was wondering if she knew the killer too, he was certain of it. The only sound that intruded was a clock ticking somewhere in the house.

  “Nothing.” Roxie sighed heavily, a deep cleansing breath. “We never fought. There could be a little…cattiness, I guess you’d call it, but it was always in fun. It was never serious.”

  “It might not have been on the surface.”

  Roxie went into another trance, looking deeper, thinking harder whether any of her friends could even be capable of such hatred, because, she reasoned, only hatred could make you kill someone you cared for, someone you loved.

  “We never fought,” she said again, still sifting through memories, through conversations and teasing, through taunts and jokes and a thousand things they’d said to each other. Ray remembered Erika’s story about the strip club in LA.

  “You fought in LA, at the strip joint.”

  Roxie’s brow furrowed. “Who told you about that?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory. She seemed merely curious to Ray.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m just wondering if there could be any hard feelings.”

  “From who? I got smashed and Karen and I were acting like jerks. We teased Erika. We probably pushed it too far. I can’t remember all of it.”

  She paused to collect her thoughts, dig into the memory of it. “Dee hustled us all out of there. I remember that. Karen was kind of wired that night. It was a bad idea to go there. We all agreed on that later, at the bar. We laughed about it.”

  “You went to another bar?”

  “Near the hotel. It was nicer than the hotel bar. It was pretty late. We didn’t fight though.”

  Ray’s tone softened some. “Sounds innocent enough.”

  “If anyone was mad it would have been Erika, and Dee was the one who broke it all up.” Ray had to agree with her on that point. He was trying to fit it together when Carol spoke up for the first time.

  “So you all went to a bar, had a few drinks and patched things up. No harm, no foul?”

  “Lakisha and Erica left after one drink, I think. I stayed for a while, but I probably shouldn’t have. Sometimes I drink too much. Someone has probably told you that already, too.”

  Ray kept his face impassive, stayed silent. Carol was doing okay.

  “So they took you back to the hotel?”

  “I got back there on my own. Dee and Karen stayed for a while. I think Dee was keeping an eye on her, on Karen. She was pretty wound up after the club.”

  “Drunk?” Ray probed.

  “More like horny. No…not horny.” Roxie searched for another word. “Frisky. When she’s not around Gary she’s a huge flirt.”

  “And Deanna was flirting too?”

  “No. Dee was running interference. She and Karen go way, way back. She was just staying close so Karen wouldn’t do something stupid.”

  “Was this normal?” Ray probed deeper.

  “Yeah, but not like you think. Dee watched out for all of us. She called me cabs or drove me home. She ran interference for Erica too. She would talk to Lakisha about her spending and antagonizing Mr. Marland.”

  Ray interrupted her. “Why does everyone refer to him as Mr. Marland? Off the subject. Sorry.”

  Roxie laughed softly, the first time she’d done so throughout the whole conversation. “She never uses his first name. Never. He’s been Mr. Marland for ten years, maybe longer. I have to think what it is. Funny, huh?”

  Ray allowed himself a brief
smile. Carol frowned at him for breaking the rhythm they had built up.

  “Why would Deanna have needed to run interference at the bar? Was Karen that frisky?” Carol asked, trying to get back on track.

  “I don’t remember. I think Karen was eye fucking some guy at the bar. I’m not sure. I do remember that it was our last night in LA and it was a very quiet flight home.”

  “You all stayed at the same hotel?”

  “Sure. I had a room with Ally. Karen and Dee shared a room, so did Lakisha and Erika. It saves money.”

  “And everyone made it back in their rooms that night?”

  “Yeah. I mean we all met in the lobby for the shuttle.”

  Roxie kept looking over at the cabinet over the range. Ray guessed that’s where the liquor was. He weighed the idea of telling her to go ahead and have a drink and decided against it. They were about through there. The LA trip and the strip club incident didn’t seem to be going much further, if it had ever had any legs at all.

  Back in the car, Carol was thoughtfully smoking another Marlboro while Ray flipped through his notebook.

  “What are you thinking?” Carol asked.

  “I’m thinking we need a motive. Did you buy all that…that they never fought?”

  “Not a chance. But I think they may have picked their battles carefully.”

  “Go on.”

  “As a group their biggest dilemma would be where to go for dinner or whose house to party at. As a group they would be careful to maintain peace and order. Keep the vibe positive. Individually? You cannot have a half dozen women in close contact without, what do you call it? Friction? That’s your word isn’t it?”

  “It’s a good word,” Ray said.

  “I don’t see them as swingers.”

  Ray’s eyebrows went up when he turned toward her. “That came out of left field.”

  Carol explained. “I thought of it when she talked about Deanna’s husband, how he had an open invitation. Maybe I’ve been in Sex Crimes too long.”

  “But you think there’s some sexual tension there?” Ray asked. He hadn’t picked up anything like that.

  “We haven’t met this Karen Hewes yet, but I’ll bet you she’s as good looking as the rest of them. The Marland woman’s attractive, right?”

  Ray nodded. “And so is Erika Hilgendorff. The only one out of sync is Allyson Couts.”

  “My bet is that Couts isn’t part of the inner circle. She’s not as close as the others.” Carol started the car. The interview with Roxie Kennebrew had taken a while. She waited for Ray to tell her where to go next, wondering if they should try to match up with the Hewes’ woman or head for the office.

  “I wonder how de Luca’s doing?” Ray asked. He didn’t expect her to answer. He decided to head back to the station, to the office to do some thinking. He needed more information, needed to talk to Lipka and Pao, check in with Kumpula and see if any interesting forensics had appeared. Then he was going to get them all together to go over it all—the interviews, the neighbors, the science. There was something lurking in there, there had to be.

  There always was.

  Chapter 14

  So this is what it’s like on a stakeout Tony said to himself for the tenth or twelfth time in the last three hours. He was parked across the street from the pale blue house Scott Jr. shared with Hong and Swenson and the elusive Sean Stuckey. Scotty was still with his father, he assumed. Swenson had come and gone once. David Hong was in the house. No one had a picture of Stuckey. Tony’s plan was to approach the house when anyone entered that he didn’t recognize.

  Tony thought that it was a lot of work just to clear a fringe element. Beyond Scott Jr. the roommate connection was tenuous at best. He wondered if Ray was sticking him out here to keep him out of the way, keeping him from screwing something up. It wasn’t a big confidence builder.

  Most of the houses on the street were student rentals. Tony watched as the twenty something men and women came and went. They all seemed to be in constant motion. Some driving, most walking—to the bus stop on the corner two blocks up, to the small grocery on the corner, or to whatever lay on the avenue beyond. There was a pizza place close by but out of sight. The smell had been driving him crazy for the last hour.

  Just fifteen minutes. Tony’s stomach growled, arguing that he wouldn’t miss Stuckey if he scooted over for a slice or two of thin crust. He imagined pepperoni and mushrooms and onions and black olives swimming in mozzarella, little pools of grease puddling on the surface of the pie, steam rising, the smell of a tangy, biting tomato sauce and oregano blending with the cheeses and the sausage.

  He was reaching for the car’s ignition when his phone rang. He noticed who was on the other end and smiled as he touched the screen.

  “Hi.” Caller ID is a wonderful thing, he thought, as he greeted Sue Ellen.

  “Hi yourself, detective. Caught any bad guys today?” She seemed to be in a good mood.

  “I wish. Hey, you want to join me on a stakeout?”

  “Doesn’t that sound like fun?” He could tell she didn’t really think so. “Who are you staking out? Or can’t you tell me.”

  Tony leaned back in the car seat, savoring her lovely voice. “Just a college kid. It’s a real thin connection to the Fredrickson woman. I think your Uncle Ray has me riding pine here.”

  “Clearing alibis, huh?”

  “That’s it.”

  “It’s important. Want to know why?” Sue Ellen said.

  Oh great, Tony thought, now the cute DA chick is going to give me detective lessons too. Part of him was tired of everyone knowing more about his job than he did. Part of him was eager to learn.

  “I think I do but why don’t you give me your take.” It came out snippy. Tony thought he might have to apologize but Sue Ellen breezed right over it.

  “I’ve been with the DA’s office for almost five years now. We’ve had a lot of cases turn on fringe players. Not the cases where you’ve got eye wits and smoking guns. Cases like this one though…you need to go through all the motions. Just clear the guy and move on. If he doesn’t clear, you’ve got something to work with.”

  “You know about this one?”

  “Not really. Just office talk.”

  Tony knew she was right. Still, she wasn’t the one that had been sitting in a car for three hours. His butt hurt, his neck hurt, and the pizza smell was driving him crazy. “Have you talked to Ray about it?”

  “No. I’m not saying we’ve never bounced anything off of each other, but we try to avoid it. It’s one of our unwritten rules.”

  “Probably smart.”

  Her tone changed. Tony heard her voice shift into a serious mode. “I’m afraid I didn’t call just to talk, Tony.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve gotten some threats.”

  “Threats?” He almost made a joke about an old boyfriend.

  “The Latin Kings.” That was the gang Tony had infiltrated the year before. Sue Ellen was the lead prosecutor. He was the star witness. His identity was a very closely held secret. “They’re letting the word get out that they’re coming after me and any of my assistants. They’re trying to get to you.”

  Tony slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Shit!”

  “People are getting nervous around here.” The Latin Kings weren’t afraid to use their guns to settle arguments. Tony knew this first hand. He’d been inside.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Sue Ellen sounded defiant when she answered. “Nothing, right now. The Gang Task Force is going to put some pressure on. They know these assholes. They’ll let ’em know this is not the way the game is played.”

  “Did they target you specifically?” Tony needed details now.

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “How many people know my name?” Tony wasn’t asking because he was afraid of the gang bangers. He was worried about the clerks and assistants in the DA’s office that could get roughed up.

  “It’s b
een held close.” Sue Ellen paused, thinking about who was in on it. “The judge of course. Reynard over at Narcotics. Your old partner, I assume, and my two assistants.”

  “The defense doesn’t have it? What about the disclosure thing?” Prosecutors were supposed to share anything they got with the defense, and vice versa, Tony knew. He just couldn’t pull up the lawyer word.

  “No name. Remember the deposition? The judge allowed it just because of this kind of thing.”

  He did remember. He had been taped but his voice had been altered and his face obscured. It had been months ago. At the trial he would be live and in person but for now he was anonymous, or almost.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. Nothing different. I won’t let these assholes intimidate me. And I have Marco now.”

  “Marco? Marc Giordano?” Tony relaxed some. Giordano was BCA, the state guys, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He was big and mean and one of the best shots Tony had ever seen. Marco cast a large dark shadow.

  “My new best friend. You know him?”

  “Just barely, but he’s good.”

  “And big.”

  “That too.” Tony, about to offer her more reassurance, was startled by a rapping on the window. He jerked his head and almost dropped the phone. His right hand instinctively reached for his gun.

  “Christ!”

  David Hong jumped back, startled by the outburst. Sue Ellen was yelling into the phone. Tony had to deal with the shot of adrenalin that had squirted into his system. He put a hand up toward Hong, signaling wait a minute. He reassured Sue Ellen that everything was okay and promised to call her later. Then he took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen Hong at all, concentrating on what Sue Ellen had been saying. He punched the button to unlock the passenger door. Hong stuck his head in the car, smiling.

  “Sorry?” He looked a little embarrassed.

  “I didn’t see you coming.”

  The big Samoan kid draped an arm over the car door. “You’ve been out here a long time, man. Waiting on Sean?”

  “How’d you guess?” So much for covert surveillance, Tony grumbled to himself.