First Murder

by Fred Limberg

  “Want to wait inside?” Tony thought it over. Why the hell not? He followed Hong across the street.

  “Does that pizza joint around the corner deliver?” he asked as they climbed the front porch stairs.

  Tony hadn’t played any video games since he was in college and not much back then. He was impressed with the sophistication of the new games. Halo was a challenge. Hong was an expert with the controller. Tony suffered through an embarrassing learning curve but was finally getting the hang of it.

  Swenson came home. He snagged some pizza and joined them on the sofa for another round. Tony had made himself at home. The boys were easy to talk to, witty and intelligent. Tony had tossed his sport jacket aside, the shoulder holstered Glock flapped under his arm as he leaned into the game, putting useless body-english into the electronic bullets. Tony felt a little guilty. This was not how a stakeout was supposed to go. He was having a pretty good time.

  He’d talked to Ray. They were going to have a meeting, go over everything they had. Tony wanted to join them. Ray thought it best for Tony to stay on the stakeout, get the Stuckey kid off the list, that he had a good bit of time invested. Ray told him he hoped he’d be done with the kid tonight, to stick with it. Sure boss, Tony said, and went back inside to the game. He finally made the second level and was out for revenge.

  The front door opened. Tony looked up to see a young man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt wrestling with a backpack. Sean Stuckey. He was about 5’10”, not powerfully built, but not slight, either. Hong had been right. Sean was trying to grow some hair on his face and looked like the blond half of the white kids on campus.

  Tony was concerned with the look on Stuckey’s face. His eyes had narrowed and there was a look of worry on it.

  “Hey, Sean. This is Tony.” Swenson was grinning, having fun with his roommate’s confusion. He was used to the big guy with the matte black gun in a shoulder rig by now.

  “Hey.” Stuckey tossed off an up-nod, trying to be cool. He was thinking of how to get out of there, Tony thought. He knew the look.

  Tony retrieved his jacket and fished his gold badge out of the pocket. “I’m Detective de Luca, St. Paul Homicide. You’re Sean Stuckey, right?” He didn’t offer his hand. Stuckey’s eyes darted around the room. He was nervous. He’d been surprised—jumped. Tony wondered if the kid might bolt.

  “Yeah. Oh shit! You’re the guy on the phone, right?” The look changed. Stuckey seemed more relaxed. Tony thought he was putting on a show.

  “I left several messages.”

  “Man, I was going to call, and then this shit happened.” Sean reached into the backpack. “I dropped the fucking phone and some dude ran over it with his bike.” He held up the busted phone. The screen was gone, just shards clinging to the rim, now, and it was bent. It was a goner.

  “Looks fatal.” Tony nodded. If the kid was making up an excuse it was an expensive one. It was a nice phone.

  “It bites, man. Three hundred bucks! And my whole fucking life is in there—my numbers.” Stuckey stuffed the debris back into the knapsack. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Tony turned to the two guys on the couch. “Somewhere we can talk?” They both just smiled at him. They wanted to listen in.

  “Privately?” Tony shot them a stern look, as if to say ‘game time’s over’.

  “Let’s go in the kitchen.” Sean led the way. Tony noticed he threw a pissed-off glance at the two boys on the sofa. There didn’t seem to be any love lost between them. Sean maneuvered so that he was sitting directly across from Tony at the scarred wooden table.

  Surprisingly, Stuckey fired the first shot. “This is about Scotty’s mom isn’t it?”

  “Not unless there’s another crime you’re connected with I should know about.” Tony tried to keep it light. He thought he saw something. A hesitation? A hitch? Like Stuckey had tried to hide a thought and failed.

  “What do you want to know?” The kid was all business now. Tony wondered if he’d been through this before.

  “Where were you early Monday morning? Early like 6 to 10.”

  “That’s easy. I spent the night with Angie and had a 9:00 class.” Tony made a note. Stuckey watched him closely.

  “Angie?”

  “This chick.”

  “Angie have a last name?”

  “Arkwright. You want her phone number, too? She’s pretty hot. We’re not like, exclusive.” Stuckey’s attitude took the first step toward wearing thin.

  Tony flipped to a clean page and slid the notebook and his pen across the table. “And her address please.” Stuckey gave him a sullen look and started writing. “And while you’re at it, write down the class and the building and the professor’s name for the class.”

  “For my alibi?”

  “That’s right.” Tony folded his hands on the tabletop and watched Stuckey write, keeping his face neutral. When he was done, Sean slid the pad back…hard. It skidded off the table and onto the floor.

  “Sorry,” Sean said.

  Little fucking liar, Tony thought. He looked over the notes. The woman’s address wasn’t far away, maybe 15 blocks.

  “History of the Cinema?”

  “Yeah. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’m an art major, leaning toward film.”

  “And you were in class and Monday?”

  “I told you that. It was a film review.” Tony nodded. “I already took this but the credits didn’t transfer. It’s a pain in the ass.”

  “Transfer from where?” Tony really didn’t care. He asked the question reflexively, just making conversation, trying to get the kid at ease.

  “UCLA, if it’s any of your business.” Stuckey was starting to piss Tony off. The notebook. The attitude. He wanted to get in the kid’s face, shove back some, but decided to just keep with the program, get the info he needed and move on. He made a note about the attitude while wondering how Stuckey would react to his next surprise. He pulled the finger print kit out and held it up.

  “Know what this is?” Stuckey shook his head. “It’s a little kit we carry to take fingerprints with. Were you ever in the Fredrickson’s home?”

  “Yeah, I was there once. We watched a football game in the basement like, last week, two weeks ago. Something like that. Why?”

  “I’d like you to let me print you for elimination purposes. There were a lot of prints in the house. This will save us a ton of time.”

  Stuckey frowned. His eyes started searching, left to right, like he was looking for a hole to crawl into.

  “What do you mean save time?”

  “Running all of the prints through the local, state, and fed databases takes a little time. It’s pretty quick now, but there were a lot of prints. We expect some of them aren’t in our system.”

  Tony watched Sean working something through in his mind. Sean looked worried again, not cocky.

  “Do I have to?”

  “No.” It had bothered the Marland woman, the fingerprinting. She’d hesitated. She was in the system; for what, Tony had no idea. Mrs. Boom Boom hadn’t been enthusiastic either, he remembered.

  “Not right now, anyway. I’ll just have to go to a judge and get a warrant if I think it’s worth the effort.” Tony wasn’t sure if he could actually do that but it sounded good. Then he had a thought. “Are you already in the system, Sean?”

  “No fucking way, dude.” While Sean waved his hands Tony thought of at least a hundred gang bangers who were better at the bluff and bluster.

  “Then help me out.” Sean stood abruptly and paced for a minute. Tony realized this was really a dilemma for him.

  “These are just for, what did you say, comparison?” Sean sat back down but wasn’t comfortable. He kept fidgeting.

  “That’s right.” Tony put on a half-smile like he’d seen Ray use, his mind churning with speculations. He wondered if the kid wanted to ask if there were prints on the murder weapon. Did he know it was a knife? Was it the knife he used and now he’s worried he might not
have wiped it well enough? Okay kid, Tony thought, it’s time to raise, check or fold.

  Stuckey folded. “Show me how to do it.” While Tony was working the kit Sean asked him what was next.

  “Nothing really. I’ll check in with Angie tomorrow and give your prof a call so we can get on with the investigation.” While Sean was smearing the ink on his fingertips around with a paper towel Tony couldn’t help but add, “Unless, of course, you did it. Then I have to come back and arrest you.”

  “It’s de Luca right? Detective de Luca?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your sense of humor blows, de Luca.”

  Tony got up to leave. At the door he turned and gave Stuckey his best Columbo. “I’m curious. What film did you watch Monday morning… in the cinema class?”

  It worked. Tony caught him off guard. Stuckey had a cartoon question mark hanging over his head.

  “Citizen Kane?”

  Tony just nodded and walked away. “Falk you, kid,” Tony said to himself as he left the house.

  Chapter 15

  Tony sat in the idling Crown Vic flipping through the notes he’d made interviewing Stuckey. Something bothered him about the kid. His attitude was all wrong. Thoughts about Sue Ellen’s call kept intruding, blocking and checking his train of thought. He opened his phone and started to call her back to get more information on the Latin King threats, but punched Ray’s number in instead. He’d go see her later.

  “Bankston.”

  “Hey, boss. Have I still got time to make the meeting?”

  He’d been in the house a long time. It was dark. Lights shone up and down the street. Street lights, halogen yellow, flickered behind barren branches. House lights whispered through shades and glass. There were few cars. No headlights searched the street at the moment. The foot traffic was almost gone and a chill was settling. He wanted to talk about the Stuckey interview, see if he had maybe read the guy wrong or had forgotten something.

  “We postponed it until tomorrow morning,” Ray said.

  “Just for me?” Tony teased. He doubted that Ray Bankston did anything with his efforts or feelings in mind.

  “Yes, Tony. We couldn’t possibly solve this crime without your keen intellect and insight,” Ray teased back. The real reason was to let Kumpula and the computers do some more work on the fingerprints and to get the reports in better order. Ray also wanted Tony to sit in on the first of the sessions, get a feel for how they sifted facts and suspicions. Maybe the young detective would learn something.

  “I’ve been accused of a lot of things Ray, but keen intellect?”

  “Did you match up with the last roommate?” Ray asked, done with the banter.

  “I did.”

  “Did you clear him?”

  “He says he was with a girlfriend all night and made it to class Monday morning at nine.”

  “Does it check out?”

  “I just got done talking to him.” Tony wanted to add ‘give me a freakin’ break’, but he didn’t.

  “Well, it’s early yet.” Tony looked at his watch. 9:15.

  “It’s early if you’re on the 8 to4 shift.” It had been a long day and the comment slipped out before he could catch it. Tony waited for Ray’s rebuke. He thought he deserved one.

  “Whatever you think is best, detective. We’re meeting at 7:00 here in the squad room.” Tony heard Ray’s phone click off.

  No rebuke. No argument. No hand holding.

  Plenty of guilt though.

  He started the car and checked Angie’s address again.

  Angela Arkwright lived on the third floor of a small white-gone-to-gray stucco apartment building. There was no security door. No intercom. No buzzer. It was an old, tired building. The carpets probably had a color once, Tony mused. Same for the walls a few decades ago, he added as an afterthought. Now they just looked defeated. There were some kid’s toys in the hallway on the main floor and scuff marks on the mop-water colored walls. A nauseating curry smell staked claim to the airless first floor hallway. The stair treads were worn wood, grooved and smooth from years of weary comings and goings.

  It was far enough from campus and the main bus routes that Tony doubted that it was student housing. He had driven past some small factories and warehouses and crossed a pair of railroad tracks to get to the tiny crowded parking lot. As he turned the corner for the last flight of steps he heard a Spanish-language TV program blaring from behind the door nearest the stairs. The canned laugh tracks sounded like all of the others he had ever heard. Laughter, he thought, the universal language.

  Angela Arkwright’s apartment was at the far end of the building. He passed doors of different colors as he walked down the hallway and heard muted snatches of different televisions shows and conversations as he strode past. He turned his head at the sound of an opera recording behind a pea-green door to his right. He felt like he was walking through a brief nothing moment; the actors, anonymous and hunkered down for the night behind hollow wooden barricades, never to know or care of his passing. It was oddly unsettling and made him a little anxious.

  Tony missed his uniform again. He just had a few questions to ask and didn’t want to waste a lot time to establish rapport. He just wanted a couple of answers and no bullshit. He wanted to go see Sue Ellen. He wanted to call it a day.

  He knocked on the door like he was in his blues, authority-hard and urgent. The door was flimsy and hollow, not code, not a real barrier.

  A woman appeared in the chain gap. Tony could see just a slice of her face. It looked as tired and makeshift as the building. He held his gold shield at eye level.

  “Angela Arkwright? I’m Detective de Luca.”

  It took a beat for it to register on her face. Her brown eyes were dilated and red rimmed. He smelled marijuana and something else he couldn’t put his finger on. The look on her face wasn’t fear or surprise. It was a look of resignation. He thought he noticed her slump and heard a quiet sigh. The door closed. Tony waited for the sound of the chain being removed. Finally, he knocked again.

  This time the chain rattled and the woman opened the door. She wore a wan smile and a wrinkled Cuervo Tequila tee shirt. Her blond hair needed a touch-up. A brown stripe bisected the top of her head where her shoulder length hair was parted. Her face showed where she had lost a battle with acne; not the whole war, but one or more skirmishes, for sure. Dark eyebrows were separated by frown furrows of worry and curiosity. She wasn’t wearing any makeup Tony could find. She held the door half open with one hand. The other held a smudged glass tumbler, a quarter-full of clear liquid. There were two nearly exhausted ice cubes and a road-kill lime floating in it.

  “Help you?” she said and took a sip from the glass. Tony traded his shield for the notebook.

  “Just a few questions if you’ve got a minute.”

  “Is this about the car?”

  Tony didn’t want anything to do with the car. He smiled and shook his head. “Do you know a Sean Stuckey?”

  A door opened down the hallway. An old woman with frizzy gray hair peered around the jamb. Angela gave her the finger and the woman retreated back inside her apartment. Then she grabbed Tony’s jacket and pulled him inside, muttered something that sounded like ‘nosy fuckin’ bitch’, and slammed the door.

  “Why do you guys always say it like that?” Angela was drunk, or stoned, or maybe both Tony figured. She tried to take another hit off the drink and frowned. It was empty. “This way.”

  She walked through a jumbled living room toward the kitchen. Tony took a quick look. She’d either emptied or hidden the ashtray with the joint in it. The pot smell was strong in the apartment. He had no choice but to follow.

  “Say what like what?” he asked when he caught up to her in the dingy kitchen.

  “Like, do you know ‘a’ Sean Stuckey? How many could there be?” She was leaning against the counter now, arms crossed beneath heavy breasts. She tried to take a sip from the empty glass again. Tony didn’t take any pleasure in her n
ervousness.

  “I guess I could have asked if you knew the Sean Stuckey, but I didn’t know that he was famous.”

  Angela laughed and scratched her backside. “More like infamous. Yeah, I know him.”

  She turned and reached above the stove for the vodka bottle that was on a shelf up there. Tony looked away, embarrassed. Angela wasn’t wearing anything but the tee shirt. He remembered Sue Ellen flashing him like that two nights ago, reaching for his shirt behind the sofa, the white sheet riding up, the laughing. That was sexy. This was just sad.

  “Was he here with you Sunday night?” He watched her struggle with the ice cube tray. Tony took the tray from her and cracked the cubes himself to help move things along.

  “Sunday night?”

  Angela went off somewhere looking for Sunday night. She splashed vodka in the glass and took a thoughtful sip. Tony noticed she didn’t wince or grimace when she swallowed the straight warm liquor. Kharkov. Cheap stuff. Sunday night seemed to be hiding across the room somewhere above the refrigerator.

  “Sure. Sunday night.” She nodded thoughtfully and then smiled, like she had earned some small victory. “Sean was here Sunday. Monday night, too. God, I’m still sore.” She giggled. Tony held the ice cube tray out. Angela studied it like it was a box of chocolates before picking out two for her drink.

  “Sunday, was he here all night? Did you see him in the morning on Monday?”

  “You want a drink?”

  Tony shook his head. He remembered Sean teasing him when he asked for her number. He remembered him saying she was hot. Angela looked like she should have been in her twenties, but it would take some work to sell the deal. Her skin was grayish. Wrinkles were already hinting at the corner of her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. She looked to be a haggard thirty. Maybe she was. She wasn’t hot though. Not by a long shot.

  “Monday morning?” he reminded her. She’d gone off somewhere again. Probably working her way up to Monday.

  “Why do you want to know?” She was braver now, hiding behind her vodka.

  “I’m with the Homicide Unit, Miss Arkwright. We’re just trying to clean up some loose ends.”