First Murder

by Fred Limberg

  Lakisha sighed and looked out over the bleak December-barren back yard. The potential for the group to establish some distance from Karen had been there without her prodding, but she knew she was responsible for some of it. It had been difficult, tricky even. By reinforcing doubts about Gary’s stability she had planted the seeds. It was almost childish the way she had encouraged Karen’s segregation; using back stabbing gossip and innuendo like a jealous high school girl trying to kick someone out of the clique.

  The microphone clipped to her bra burned like a scarlet letter, but she was glad it was there.

  “Earth to Lakisha,” Karen giggled. “You sort of drifted off there.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been like that lately.”

  “Is something bothering you, girl?”

  Lakisha turned and fixed a determined look directly at Karen. She didn’t speak for a moment. They had rehearsed this a dozen times and a dozen ways and it wasn’t working out like any of the scenarios she and Rayford and Tony had imagined. She was too nervous and too angry to ease into a conversation.

  “I’ve got most of it figured out, you know.”

  Karen looked puzzled, but there was a wariness behind it that didn’t escape notice. “Figured out what?”

  “See, I know you recognized that boy. I saw him in the bar out in LA. I told the detectives that.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You were eye fucking that boy in the bar. Then you were for-real fucking him an hour later.”

  Karen sat up straighter. The perplexed look had morphed into a frown, and the wariness was building to anger.

  Lakisha bored in again. “But on film? What were you thinking?” There was a long tense pause. Lakisha watched as what she said registered in the other woman’s eyes.

  “I didn’t know there was a camera,” Karen said evenly but the first blocks were tumbling from the wall.

  “Bullshit. I’ve seen the tape.”

  Karen’s eyes became slits. Her lips disappeared into a hard mean line across her face.

  “What do you mean you’ve seen the tape?”

  “I mean I’ve seen the tape. Whooee, girl. That boy had a bigun’.”

  “Where? How? Is it on the internet?” Karen’s eyes began darting, searching for something. A way out? A better answer? A weapon?

  “Probably. The detectives showed it to me.”

  Karen jerked up. Her chair almost fell when she stood. “What was on it?”

  “You were the one there. You know what’s on it.”

  “When did it cut off?” Karen shouted the question leaning forward, her fists on the table. Lakisha felt the first twinges of fear. They had talked about this too, had set up some code words. One of them was ‘afraid’.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. I couldn’t watch all of it. What were you thinking, Karen?

  “I wasn’t thinking, okay? Jesus, you sound just like Deanna.”

  “Did she get on you for fucking that boy?” Lakisha knew that she had, she’d seen the whole thing, suffered through the entire clip. She tearfully confirmed for Ray and Tony that it was Deanna’s voice in the background.

  “I was just having a little fun,” Karen snarled. She crossed her arms over her chest and walked slowly away from the table and leaned on a cabinet near the sink, glaring at Lakisha. “You have your fun.”

  Lakisha decided to send another message to Ray and Tony. “I’m afraid I do. But Mr. Marland is 85 and he lives in Greece.”

  “So.”

  “And I don’t do it in front of a camera, for crissakes.”

  Karen leaned toward the table and shouted, “I didn’t know there was a fucking camera!”

  Some of her hair had come loose. She had sweated enough her mascara had gone from a delicate line to a thick fierce accent around her eyes. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off the counter and ripped the cover trying to get one out.

  “Okay. Okay. Chill some, girl. You didn’t know there was a camera.” Lakisha didn’t feel sorry for her while she watched Karen fight with the lighter for a flame. “Did the boy follow you here?”

  Karen’s head snapped up, the lit cig clamped between narrow tight lips. “No he didn’t follow me here and no, I didn’t send for him.” She took a lung burning drag and hurled the used smoke from her lungs toward the ceiling.

  “Then how…”

  “I just saw him one day. I mean, there he was over at Scotty’s.” Karen barked a nervous laugh. “What are the odds? What are the fucking odds?” She shook her head. Her lip curled in a disbelieving sneer.

  “So you jumped him?” Lakisha watched Karen’s nervous eyes dart around the room. She was blinking rapidly and breathing fast and shallow.

  “I think you should go.” Karen pointed toward the door. “Get out!”

  “Some help?” Another code phrase. Lakisha prayed Ray and Tony were just outside the front door now.

  “Help?”

  “Help me understand, Karen. Why did you kill Dee?”

  Karen’s agitation was in full tilt panic mode when Lakisha’s question slapped her. She struggled for words, struggled for air. “I never…if Gary…you don’t understand.” Karen’s voice wavered when she started crying. She turned away from Lakisha and leaned heavily on the counter. Lakisha stood and moved a quiet step from the table toward the archway and the front door.

  “The boy never wanted any money did he? I think the boy just wanted to get away from you. Am I getting close?”

  “Shut up!”

  “But why did you kill Dee? She was your best friend.”

  “SHUT UP!” Karen turned from the counter. A black handled knife appeared in her hand. “She was going to…”

  “Now Rayford! Knife!”

  Lakisha snatched her bag off the table and backpedaled as Karen stepped toward her. There was a crashing sound from the living room. The front door blew in. Lakisha tripped on the edge of a rug and fell backwards, sprawled on her back, the bag still in her hand. Ray appeared in the doorway, a black outline, snow white-bright behind him. Karen squinted into the dim room.

  The back door crashed open, the window glass shattered when it slammed into the wall. Tony, off balance, stumbled into the room. Karen whirled. The knife slashed in a whirl of red skirt and red blood and screaming. Karen shrieked again and cocked her arm for another thrust.

  A gun barked! Once! Twice!

  Karen looked down at her chest. Two bright red stains blossomed on her white blouse. The knife fell to the floor. One hand was still raised, the other tentatively touching the stains. She looked up. Lakisha, lying on the floor in the doorway, was holding a small automatic pistol in both hands. A wisp of smoke curled from the barrel.

  The three of them were standing close together at the door of the big white brick house by the lake. Ray and Sue Ellen each carried two bags of fresh produce and groceries. Tony had one bag, the one with the wine in it. The sling on his right arm got him out of the heavy lifting. A snow covered Jaguar was in the drive. She had to be home. Ray rang the bell again.

  The door finally opened. Lakisha was wearing jeans and a maroon sweatshirt with a bright yellow M on the front. She wasn’t smiling. Neither was Ray. Tony had a big grin on his face though, and tried to break the tension.

  “We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas…” He was singing loudly and winced when he nudged Sue Ellen to join him with his bad wing. It worked. Lakisha smiled and stepped back to let them in.

  “I know it’s a little early, but hey, what are holidays for?”

  It was a week after the shooting, a week after the surgery to repair Tony’s slashed arm, a week after Karen Hewes, still in the hospital, had been charged with the murder of Deanna Fredrickson.

  A week after Lakisha Marland had been arrested as a felon in possession of a firearm.

  Ray hadn’t known about the pistol. Neither had Tony.

  “You a fool, you know that?”

  Lakisha took the bag from Tony and k
issed his cheek, careful of his slinged arm. She shooed them into her kitchen and surveyed the bounty they began unloading from the Lund’s bags. Tonight would be Italian from the look of things, and Tony de Luca was in charge. They all agreed the boy knew his gravy. But first, it was decided, some wine and some conversation.

  They sat in the atrium area, looking out over the frozen lake. New smooth ice was shiny gray-and-blue. Wisps of snow blew across it, dancing across it now and then in a small whirlwind, and after a pirouette or two the ballet disappeared.

  “How you holding up?” Tony and Sue Ellen could see the affection in Ray’s smile when he asked Lakisha the question. She had taken the shooting hard, even though everyone assured her she had done the right thing, the only thing she could have.

  “I’m still angry.” Angry was a surprise until she explained further. “I know between the tape and what she’s been saying that Karen’s going to prison for Deanna’s murder.” Everyone nodded. “But it’s not enough. I hear there’s a plea.”

  Lakisha locked eyes with Sue Ellen. Karen’s fate was in the DA’s hands now, not the detective’s.

  “I’ve heard that too. She’d be a fool not to try to finagle one.”

  “That ain’t right.”

  Tony and Ray stared out at the lake. They agreed with Lakisha, both of them. They had gotten into the lives of all the people involved, just like Ray said they would have to, to solve the crime. Deanna Fredrickson had been a good person.

  “If it makes you feel any better we’re going after her on a completely separate charge regarding Stuckey. The premeditation factor…well, the charge is going to be murder in the first for Stuckey.”

  Lakisha peered over the lip of her wine glass. “Will it stick?”

  “We think once it’s reduced to murder-two it’s got legs. Karen Hewes’ life, as she knows it, is over. I have no doubt whatsoever that justice will be served.”

  “Well then, I propose a toast,” Ray ahemed and raised his wine glass. “To rookie detective Anthony, I shoulda’ zagged, de Luca on solving his first murder. And his second, as far as that goes. This one’s in the win column, no matter how it turns out, and you did good, son. Real good.”

  Fred Limberg

  This book is dedicated to Kelley, the love of my life.

  Acknowledgments

  Pat and Ken, Sue S., Michelle, Patrick, and Alicia…thanks for the encouragement you gave me early on when I wasn’t quite sure I could actually write a whodunnit. Max, thanks for the keen eye, mate. Evan, thanks for the stunning artwork.

  And thank you, readers…I hope I’ve entertained you.

  Dear Readers,

  I’d love to hear from you! Give me a shout at fred@fredlimberg.com and let me know what you think about the book.

  Here’s a sneak peek at the first chapter of the next adventure featuring Ray and Tony, coming soon to an e-reader near you:

  Double Tap

  Chapter One

  We were standing on a ledge overlooking a brackish oily backwater of the Mississippi River. Someone named it Pigs Eye Lake a couple of hundred years ago. They got it right back then, I was thinking—in a pig’s eye that’s a lake—Pigs Eye Swamp could work, or Pigs Eye Cesspool. Maybe it looked different back then. Maybe it was the garden spot of the whole Minnesota Territory.

  I turned, drawn by an unfamiliar sound. The drop in front was steep. Ray and I were right at the edge, both of us a little jumpy. Behind us were six or maybe eight lanes of railroad tracks, some sort of switching yard or unloading yard. I watched a pair of hopper cars roll down the gentle incline that paralleled Highway 61. No engine—just a pair of gray domed rail cars clack-clacking along all by their lonesome, like they knew what they were supposed to do. Like trained train cars.

  Creepy.

  “There is exquisite beauty in the chaos and offal of industry,” Ray said.

  He’d do that at times—say something lofty or poetic-like out of the blue. Or quote some song lyric. I turned back from the ghost trains.

  “I got your chaos and I’ll raise you a pair of offals, but I do not see any beauty, exquisite or otherwise,” I said. In the nine months we’d been partnered I’d been working on my witty comebacks. “Where’d that come from?”

  “Just something I read somewhere,” he said.

  We were stalling, no doubt about it. Someone had seen what they thought was a dead body on the shore of Pigs Eye Lake. Another three hundred yards downriver and it would have been the BCA’s problem. That’s the state’s investigative arm—the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. They’re pretty good at it too—they make a lot of criminals apprehensive.

  If it had foundered on the other side of the river it would have been South St. Paul’s worry. You would think it would have been West St. Paul’s problem, but South St. Paul is west of West St. Paul. Go figure. Another half mile further and Newport P.D. could have had it. But no—it came to shore in our jurisdiction, that is to say the St. Paul Police Department’s, and by rights it was probably our case anyway. If it was the guy.

  We were standing on that ledge, both of us with fists on our hips looking out over the fetid backwater. To the south, our left, row upon row of massive rusting barges were either waiting to be unloaded or taking on cargo. I assumed the rail yard behind us was capable of servicing either enterprise.

  Diesel fumes spewed from yawning stacks atop the tug boats as they churned the brown water white, goosing barges into position, tiny man-figures scrambling over them like ants with strings, lashing them together for their journey downriver.

  There was dust everywhere. Dust from the busy highway hidden behind the busy rail yard. Dust from the rock plant down near the river itself. Dust from the dry sparsely grassed ground on the hillside.

  Directly across on the other side of the roughly oval shaped lake the skeleton of a barge poked out of the water. Dozens of white birds traded places on it while we watched. The rusted sides were streaked with gray-white guano. More offal. I looked up and saw a half dozen big black birds circling overhead.

  “Buzzards?” I said.

  “Turkey vultures,” Ray said, adding, “they’re related to bald eagles.” Like I gave a hoot.

  Behind the Jurassic barge and over a small spit of land downtown St. Paul loomed over the north shore of the river. Not the biggest city in Minnesota—that distinction belongs to Minneapolis and they are welcome to it—but it was our city, practice freeway, politicians, and all. I coughed out some dust.

  The river was alive with traffic. Tows were herded together, sorted out, I suppose, and readied for a long trip downriver. No Huck and Jim here. They’d ‘a died. Wouldn’t ‘a made it five hundred yards. It made me wonder about the trip our guy had made over the last five days—not all that far—if it was the guy.

  A white boat with flashing light bars winking over the cockpit nudged up to the near shore a few yards from looked like a dead body to me. It lay sprawled out like it had been crucified. A cooling light breeze from the west fluttered our jackets. Ray’s was a stylish Italian cut, with the two vents at the back, part of his summer-weight wool gray suit. Brooks Brothers. He’d been educating me on attire since the night we met. That’s how I know about the suit. I was wearing the lightest weight blue cotton windbreaker I could find over a tee shirt. J.C. Penney.

  “Did I mention that I hate floaters?” Ray said.

  Another thing he’s schooled me on since night-one was to be respectful of victims and most civilians. For him to use the word ‘floater’ was significant. Almost as significant as cussing.

  If this was the victim from the 911 call Saturday night the body had been in the water for five days. In my six-plus years patrolling in radio cars I’d dealt with a number of drowning deaths, some by accident, some by violence and intent, but none that had been in the water more than a couple of days.

  “That’s okay,” I told him. “No way in hell are you going down that bank. Just hang out up here and coordinate.” As I said this I looked down at his
shoes. They were tasseled cordovan loafers—city shoes. Florsheims. I was wearing real shoes with laces and waffled soles. Red Wings. “It might not even be the guy. Could be some drunk that fell off a houseboat.”

  “No missing persons reports,” he said, a factoid we’d discussed when driving out.

  He’d pointed out that no one had filed a MPR on anyone except a couple of kids since Saturday. If there was a shooting Saturday night under the Wabasha Street Bridge no one had reported an adult, male or female, missing since then. It opened the door to our discussing homeless people, vagrants, and towboat crewmen as possible victims, and we didn’t even have a case yet. I study at the feet of the master. Death by misadventure is his life.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “I’ll shinny down there and take a look. If it is the guy you drive back over to Red Rock Road and I’ll make that boat driver go over and pick you up. It’s only a quarter mile or so.”

  “Think you can handle the scene yourself?” he asked me. In the early days of our relationship I’d have taken offense. Now I knew it was just Detective Sergeant Rayford Bankston being thorough—that and mildly obsessive.

  “Ray, it’s not even the crime scene, if this is the guy. It’s just where he washed up.”

  He was thinking about it. I could tell.

  I tried to imagine what was running through his mind. He’d be thinking, if this is the guy it isn’t the actual crime scene. We’d been there already and found a pair of .22 caliber shell casings under the bridge. Ray deduced that the killer used a semi-automatic pistol.

  I suggested that someone could have been down there plinking at pigeons—also a crime, I pointed out. That’s the way we work, tossing ideas around, exploring alternatives, like that.

  Anyway, there was no blood, no fibers, and no body to be found under the bridge. Not much of a crime scene.