First Murder

by Fred Limberg

  “De Luca, ma’am. Tony de Luca.” The smile remained when she took his hand, but the eyes tightened and a furrow appeared on her forehead when she realized that Rayford wasn’t there for a social call.

  She led them to a den, a wood paneled man’s room with leather club chairs and ashtrays and supple Persian carpets on the floor. It smelled of cigars and cognac and gun oil. A glass paneled cabinet full of expensive looking shotguns and rifles dominated one wall. A floor to ceiling bookshelf covered the one opposite. This was Mr. Marland’s room, not hers. Tony puzzled over the choice.

  “A business call, then.” She sat upright on the front edge of a burgundy leather armchair. Ray sat directly across from her, close, their knees inches apart. Tony sat on a sofa to the side, looking at the two of them in profile. A fire had been laid. It was warm in the den. He guessed that was why she had chosen the room.

  “But it’s always a pleasure to see you, Lakisha.”

  “So, have you met all of my friends?” Ray nodded. “What do you think of our little group?”

  “I think you’re all burdened with a great sadness, a tremendous sense of loss. It’s obvious you are all close.”

  “Oh we are, Rayford. Did you come from a big family?”

  “One brother.”

  “Then it will be difficult for you to get the real sense of us. Imagine having six sisters. Six points of view. Six sets of likes and dislikes. Six strong personalities in competition.”

  “In competition for what?”

  “Does that matter? Trivial things: the flattest tummy, the biggest boobs, the most money, the fanciest clothes. Label envy. Husband envy. Who has a pool? Who drives a Lexus? Never on the surface though. There’s no scorecard. But six sisters are always going to be at odds over something.”

  “Now I have to ask what Deanna Fredrickson was in competition for. Were any of you jealous of her for some reason?”

  Lakisha gave a short snort of a laugh. “Here’s the thing, Rayford, she was the one that was above it all, or most of it. She was the peacemaker, the mediator, our voice of reason.”

  “The least likely victim,” Ray offered. Lakisha turned inward at that comment. Ray hadn’t posed it as a question but she seemed to take it that way.

  “I don’t think any of us are likely victims, certainly not murder. Our troubles are trivial. Petty stuff.”

  “I’ve seen people killed for their shoes.” Tony spoke for the first time.

  Lakisha replied, sounding defensive. “In the city? In Frogtown or on the West Side or in North Minneapolis? I’m sure that happens. It’s not like that with us.”

  Tony shrugged. “I know what you’re trying to say. My point is that people will commit murder for trivial reasons. That’s all. You’re telling me that it couldn’t happen in your group because you’re all what? Better? Rich? Sophisticated? I’m not so sure.”

  Lakisha turned to Ray. “Your partner has some suspicions.”

  “My partner has lived on those streets for a long time. You brought up competition.”

  “And I wish I hadn’t,” Lakisha said, frostier now…distant.

  Ray wondered if Tony had hit a nerve and continued. “You’re the writer. The observer. You say that Deanna was the peacemaker. What if someone didn’t want to kiss and make up, so to speak? Resented the intrusion?”

  There was a pause before Lakisha spoke again, as if she was working through something. “You still don’t have a motive, do you?” Ray kept his face blank. No, they didn’t have a motive and the mystery writer could sense it. “If you want to talk about resentment, I’ve got a suspect for you. Have you met Gary Hewes?” Lakisha watched the two detectives share a look. “Of course you have.”

  “What about him?” Tony asked the question. He was the one who’d had to restrain him the day before. The man had a temper and he was obsessively protective of his wife.

  “Deanna has tried for years to get the man to lighten up. He all but keeps Karen on a leash. Maybe she had a confrontation with him we don’t know about and he flipped out.”

  “Could that have happened?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like Gary. I could be way off base, but you brought up resentment as a motive and the man carries a grudge.” Without more to work with Ray didn’t want to pursue the issue further. Gary Hewes’ alibi had checked out but he would have a talk with him again…and soon. Lakisha was letting them inside the group now. He wanted to touch on some other things before he dropped the bomb.

  “What about jealousy? Roxie Kennebrew has a thing for Scott Fredrickson, or so she says.”

  “Sisters also tease, Rayford. Roxie has been teasing Deanna for years. I think she does it to motivate Ken, myself. He’s not the most ambitious man in the world.”

  “Motivate?”

  “Ken’s kind of a slob. Roxie flirts with Scott so her husband will try to keep in shape and have a little style, work harder.”

  “Wrong tree, huh?”

  Lakisha smiled when she replied. “Wrong forest.”

  “There’s one thing that’s come up, a connection to the LA trip.” Tony was surprised Ray brought that up. It felt like an ace to him and he thought a few more cards should be shown before it was played.

  “A connection?”

  “I can’t explain yet. It’s a connection, a coincidence. I sure would like to know more about the last night there.”

  Lakisha’s smile faded. “You’re talking about the strip club. It was surreal. I think it was Roxie’s idea, or maybe Karen’s. We had several cocktails before we went and more when we got there. I’d heard there were places like that but I had no idea. Have you ever gone to a strip joint, Rayford?”

  “Once or twice. Not for many years.”

  “I don’t know where they found these guys. I assume one of the attractions in men’s clubs is the size of the women’s boobs.” Both Ray and Tony nodded, Tony blushing slightly. “The men, boys really, were extremely ah… well endowed. After a few minutes, another song or two dancing, if you could call it that, they started stroking themselves. Women were shrieking and yelling. Some of them were with dates. I remember most of the dates were very quiet.”

  Tony paid close attention to his notebook.

  “It progressed from throwing dollars and underwear onto the stage to women climbing up and, uh…helping the studs out. One woman dropped to her knees and started sucking on one of them, then another. Karen was in a fit. Roxie wasn’t far behind, but at least she stayed in her chair. I, of course, was above all of it.” Lakisha laughed as if at a private joke.

  “When Karen started for the stage, Deanna grabbed her; by the shoulders, by her blouse. I remember they were face to face, yelling at each other. The music was incredibly loud and the shrieking and yelling…then Tia joined in, and they dragged Karen out. I remember Roxie followed. I brought up the rear. Out on the sidewalk they were all doubled up laughing. I was too. What a scene.”

  “So you think Karen would have gone up on the stage?”

  “Oh yes.” Lakisha nodded with a wicked smile on her lips. “When Gary’s not around she lets loose. She gets wild. It’s revenge or pent up emotions or both.

  “But nothing happened that night.”

  “I wouldn’t call it nothing, but no, she didn’t make it to the stage, thank God.”

  “What about afterward?”

  “We went to a bar, a normal bar. I had one more drink and called it a night. You know what I did then?”

  “I’m going to guess you went to your room and made notes, wrote descriptions of the scene.”

  “Very good, Rayford. That’s exactly what I did. I used those notes in my novel Dance of Death. In the book, Carina, the Karen character—original, huh—she makes it to the stage. It’s a very racy scene.”

  “What about the next day?”

  “The next day we flew home. Karen was extremely hung over. I guess she and Deanna closed the bar. I can just see Dee lecturing her about keeping control. Deanna, our mother hen. She w
as quiet on the flight home, I remember. Really quiet. Maybe she and Karen had a fight.”

  “A serious one?”

  “No, in a couple of days we had a picture party and everything was fine.”

  “Did anyone take pictures in the club?”

  Lakisha answered with a naughty, sexy smile. She excused herself, said she’d just be a moment.

  “Sean Stuckey has a big dick,” Tony said.

  Ray closed his eyes, lowered his shaking head and chuckled. Tony was being serious. He’d flipped back in his notes and confirmed what he thought he recalled from talking to David Hong. “What?”

  “Sorry. No, it’s good information. I’m not going to ask how you got it, not right now. It’s just the way you said it.”

  “One of the roommates mentioned it. It just clicked when Mrs. Marland was describing the club scene.”

  Lakisha returned and again sat across from Ray. She handed him a CD.

  “That’s from my computer. I had a digital camera, a little one, with me that night in my purse. The pictures aren’t very good but maybe your connection is there.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And you should also have this.” She handed him a book. It was a hardcover, well thumbed, with a tattered but intact jacket. It was titled Lost Years, Lost Dreams, written by Tonya Reller. Ray searched for the name. It was vaguely familiar. He opened the book and read the jacket notes.

  Lost Years, Lost Dreams is the story of one woman’s fight for survival in prison. Wrongly convicted of manslaughter and imprisoned, Laticia Lafleur finds comfort and reassurance, and most important, her sanity, in conversations with the ghost of the woman she was accused of killing.

  For three years she and her ghost revisit the night of the murder, the events leading up to it, a senseless altercation in a run-down bar. Her ghost is sad and sympathetic. She knows Laticia is innocent, but all she can do is counsel her and help her survive.

  Tonya Reller—the woman Lakisha was convicted of killing years before.

  “It was my first book. The publisher loved it. One reviewer called it ‘haunting fiction’. Isn’t that funny? I tried to tell them it was really an autobiography; that Laticia really didn’t do the crime and really did talk to the murdered girl’s ghost all those years. It sold okay.”

  “I want to read this.” Ray held the book up. “May I borrow it?”

  Lakisha nodded. “I want you to. I know you have questions. I knew the fingerprints would open this door. The answers are all in there. I’d rather not speak of it again.”

  Chapter 20

  Tony looked over the empty squad room early Friday morning. He felt alert, refreshed, and eager after his first good night’s sleep in a week. He had talked briefly with Sue Ellen the night before. The Marshal’s Service had been called in. She was staying in a safe house at night and would have an escort, as she called it, during the day. Both of them wanted to make plans for the weekend but between her escorts and his murder investigation they agreed it was wishful thinking.

  Tony picked out the navy blue single breasted suit for the day’s adventures from his new wardrobe, going so far as to iron a new white oxford cloth shirt. Out of practice, the tie had been a problem.

  Carol was the first of the team to arrive. Tony noticed she had dark smudges under her eyes and had paid little or no attention to her hair or makeup. She dumped an armful of files on her desk before grinding a fist into the small of her back when she straightened. She smiled when she saw Tony and walked over.

  “First that jacket yesterday and now this?” She reached over and began worrying the knot on his tie. “Lightning strike?”

  Tony stood there with his arms at his side like a kid being fussed over on a Sunday morning. “Ray helped me. I think he wants me to look as good as he does.”

  “I like it.” She gave the knot one final yank and smoothed down the tie. Ray walked in and stopped short, looking at the two of them. Carol was close to Tony, inside his space, patting his chest. The scene was almost intimate. He wondered if he was interrupting something. He also wondered what his niece would think.

  Then he shrugged it off. Tony and Carol had known each other a long time. There were the rumors, true, but Ray had his own romantic queasiness and a murder to solve. He had spent most of the night reading Lakisha Marland’s book. The honesty and emotion—the sense of despair in it had bothered him. Lakisha wrote in her own voice. He imagined he could hear her speaking in the passages where the main character described her journey from shame and hopelessness toward understanding. Laticia Lafleur hadn’t killed that girl in the bar and Lakisha Marland hadn’t murdered her friend Deanna.

  Ray approached, smiling at his partner. He was pleased, but Tony was a bit overdressed for chasing down a college kid on the busy, sprawling U campus.

  “Looking good, partner.” Ray watched while Tony did a slow turn, showing off, proud of his new look.

  “He cleans up pretty good, doesn’t he?” Carol added. “I just hope he doesn’t get too dirty when we get into what I dug up on Stuckey yesterday.” Playtime was over. It was time to get to work. They grabbed coffee and ducked into the meeting room so Carol could spread out her files.

  “None of my old contacts out west were much help. I guess there’s a pretty high burnout rate for people working sex crimes in the LA area.” Carol found the file she was looking for and continued.

  “Then I found Marcy Shriver. Marcy’s a supervisor in the LA version of our Sex Crimes Unit. Listening to her made me glad I live here.”

  “She found something on Stuckey?”

  “Oh yeah. Now I know why Kumpula thought the case out there was murky. Here’s what happened. LA Vice busted a video shoot. They had a tip that some internet porn producers were using underage talent. They went in thinking they were looking for young girls being filmed.”

  Ray frowned. “Not the case?”

  “No, but not what you’d think. Two young men had started a web site—get this—called ‘Ur MoM is So Hott’. They would film these young studs getting it on with older women and sell views and downloads. All by credit card. One of the kid’s fathers is a big shot with one of the studios.”

  “Stuckey’s not underage,” Tony pointed out.

  “Let me finish. They only made seven videos total. Stuckey was only involved with the last shoot, the one that was busted, or so he said. He and the two underage guys were doing the nasty with two women. Turns out the women were part-timers, older gals making a buck they thought.”

  “So what’s murky? You said two of the guys were underage, that’s pretty cut and dried isn’t it? And if the women were having sex for pay, that’s prostitution, right?” It seemed straightforward to Tony.

  “LA Vice didn’t see any money change hands or get anything about money on tape. The gals both said it was consensual, so did Stuckey. They didn’t know the two boys were underage, or so they said. And it’s not against the law to produce porn and sell it on the web.”

  “It should be,” Ray muttered.

  “But the DA didn’t buy the consensual story. I mean, it was no secret they were selling downloads. They’re really pissed about the underage stuff out there. There’s a lot of it.”

  Tony was still puzzled. “So they prosecuted?”

  “They wanted to, but they didn’t find the computers. The operation was 100% digital, remember. What they think happened is that the studio big shot found out what the kid was up to, maybe he was in on it, they don’t know. They think the servers got erased and sold, probably overseas. Maybe they were destroyed. No trace. No financial records. No footage. Nothing.”

  “But what about the, uh…episodes that got sold? Those are out there.”

  “Remember there were only seven. It takes time for these things to build up steam. According to Marcy the earliest episodes were filmed with hidden cameras, or semi-hidden ones. The video quality was crappy, the sound was crappy, and they weren’t in very much demand. In the first three episodes the women didn
’t know they were being taped.”

  Ray shook his head, disgusted. “Jesus.”

  “And according to Marcy, it was after a problem with the third shoot that the young entrepreneurs started hiring the talent, the women.”

  “Well, that’s sure as hell against the law, too. You can’t film anyone without their knowledge for your own use; much less hawk it on the internet.” Ray was pleased to see his new partner was indignant and angry about the crimes.

  “You can until you get caught. The producer guy, he’s really rich. Marcy thinks he set some geeks up with a bunch of cash and they bought every episode they could get a line on. There are some still out there, but think about it…if you have a bunch of porn on your computer are you going to advertise it?”

  “So they dropped the case.”

  Carol shrugged. “They had to. There wasn’t any evidence. Want a sobering thought? Marcy said they consider it a victory anyway. The boys are out of business. The porn they produced is off the market, and for all practical purposes, gone.”

  “So Stuckey does this porn shoot, no doubt for some cash along with him having a reputation as a horn dog, and gets jammed up when the shoot is busted?”

  “That seems to be it.”

  Tony cocked his head to the side, talking to himself as much as the others. “I wonder if he was involved before, in the earlier episodes.”

  Ray probed further, anxious for a lead, for something to connect the dots scattered about. “Carol, did Marcy have any of the videos, the other episodes?”

  Carol laughed, but there was no humor in it. “They did. They had copies of all the episodes at one time, but remember I told you about the geeks and the cash?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They don’t have them anymore. Imagine that.”

  “I have a very bad feeling about this.” Tony’s voice was low and firm. He was the only one who had met Stuckey. He was the one who had met the girlfriend, Angie, and knew first hand that Stuckey wasn’t choosy about the women he slept with. He and Ray had just the night before heard Lakisha Marland describe a disturbing scene at a sex club in LA—where Stuckey was from.