by Al Stevens
Everyone left and we closed shop. This time, I had Rodney walk in front of me while I groped my way down the stairs without help. One more hurdle cleared. We went out the front door to avoid the crime scene. I walked with him to the car. He started to get in the driver’s side, but I said, “I’ll drive.”
The drive back to Amanda’s house was okay. I managed to work the shifter and pedals even though I still had casts on.
When we got to Amanda’s house, I told Rodney, “I’m going home. You get your room back. Thanks for all your help.”
“No problem.”
Why do people always say that? Whatever happened to “you’re welcome?” If there had been a problem, does it mean they wouldn’t have done it? I wonder about shit like that.
“Tell your mom thanks too. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Bring my clothes and shaving kit.”
I drove home and managed my way from the parking lot into my apartment. I called Bunny at the diner and invited her over.
“Bring supper,” I said.
Things were looking up.
Chapter 20
I started my investigation into Vitole’s murder at his house the next morning. His widow answered the door. She was startled by my appearance. All the bandages and bruises. Nothing like having a mummy on a crutch show up at your front door. That’s right, I was down to one crutch. It was like being released from bonds. I had my good hand free.
Stella Vitole was as I remembered her. Plump and unattractive. Like many such ladies, she overdid it with makeup, hairdo, and perfume trying to compensate, trying to be young again. Some people refuse to age gracefully. Others have no graceful beginnings from which to age. I should talk.
I introduced myself. “Mrs. Vitole, I am detective Bentworth. I am investigating your husband’s murder.”
I flashed my P.I. badge. She barely glanced at it. The shiny gold shield had done its job. She thought I was a cop on the job, and I let her think it.
She said, “A Sergeant Penrod already took my statement.”
“I know. This is just some follow-up.”
“Do you work with Sergeant Penrod?” she asked.
“I did before he made Sergeant.” Not a lie, but not exactly truthful either.
“Please come in.”
She led me to the living room, the same room where I had delivered a veiled threat to her husband.
“Please sit down,” she said. “How did you injure yourself?”
“In the line of duty. A different case.”
I sat on the sofa, careful not to bump my casts on anything.
“Can I get you something?”
“No, ma’am, I’m fine.” I took out my notepad and pencil. “You told Sergeant Penrod that your husband said you and he would be coming into some money related to Buford Overbee?”
She sat in the chair and looked at me.
“Yes, I did. And now you people have him charged with my husband’s murder. That was really fast. My congratulations and appreciation.”
“I’ll pass your comments on to the sergeant. Do you know your neighbors, the Sproleses? Your husband’s murder happened in front of their house, I believe.”
She got quiet and looked out the plate glass window into her back yard. Then she said, “Yes. We used to be friends.”
“Used to be? Aren’t you still friends?”
“No. Marsha and I had a falling out.”
“What was the nature of that falling out.”
“I’d rather not discuss it,” she said.
“Well, this is a murder investigation. If there’s something I should know...”
“Perhaps you should ask her, detective.”
“I will. Have you returned to work yet?”
“No. I will soon. My employer has been understanding throughout all this.”
“Where do you work in case I need to contact you during the day?”
“The Arnold Locksmith and Security Company in town. Here’s a card with the phone number.”
“The falling out you had with Mrs. Sproles. It wasn’t about her and your husband’s affair, was it?”
That took her by surprise. She took a while to answer.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, detective. I just buried my husband. What kind of question is that?”
“Just trying to get all our ducks lined up, ma’am.”
“Well, line them up somewhere else. I want you to leave now.”
I thanked her, got no “you’re welcome” in return, not even a “no problem,” and went out to my car.
The Sproles house, two doors up, was almost the identical model as the Vitole house. I rang the doorbell and waited. A woman answered the door.
“Yes?”
Marsha Sproles was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties. The pictures I had of her didn’t do her justice. She was standing in a darkened doorway when I took them, and she had just come from a roll in the hay.
Today she wore a house dress that neither flaunted nor hid her trim figure. Her brunette hair was pinned up, and she wore just a hint of blush and lipstick. The all-American girl next door. I couldn’t blame Vitole for going for her.
She too reacted to my appearance. What was this battle-worn, beat-up, and bandaged guy doing on her doorstep? Certainly not selling Girl Scout cookies.
“Mrs. Sproles. I’m detective Bentworth.” I flashed the badge. It worked again.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“This is about the murder of your neighbor, Mario Vitole.”
She got a pained look on her face. I couldn’t interpret its meaning.
“Yes. Terrible, wasn’t it?”
“I need to talk to you about the murder taking place in front of your house. Do you know why he was there?”
“No.”
A lie. We both knew why he was there. Except she didn’t know I knew.
“I was in the house and heard the shot,” she said. “I ran and looked out the door. He was lying in the street.”
“How long from when you heard the shot until you saw the body?”
“Less than a minute. I had something on the stove and had to turn it down.”
What presence of mind. Tend to the soup, and then go see why there’s a corpse in the street in front of your house. I didn’t pursue the illogic of that.
“Did you see anyone else out there?” I asked.
“No. The other policeman already asked all these questions.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sometimes a witness recalls details they had overlooked before. It’s routine to do a follow-up interview.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “Would you like some coffee? Or tea?”
“No thank you,” I said.
She got up to pour herself a cup of coffee. I wished she’d have offered a drink. But then I’d have had to do the I’m-on-duty routine, so what would be the point?
“Mrs. Vitole said that you and she have had a recent falling out. Is that true?”
She let go of a big sigh as if I had just opened a door that ought to be left closed. “I suppose you could call it that,” she said. “Stella’s a jealous woman. She thought Mario and I were having an affair.”
Bingo. The affair is in the air.
“Were you?”
“Of course not.”
“Did your husband share her suspicions?”
“I don’t think so.” Now her voice was worried. “I think he would have said something.”
“Where was he when the shooting took place?”
“At work.”
“Where does he work?”
“Arnold Locksmith and Security.”
Things were starting to fall into place. That was interesting. And maybe relevant. The husband of the adulteress and the wife of the cheating husband and victim worked together.
“With Mrs. Vitole,” I said.
“Yes. He hired Stella last year as dispatcher. To dispatch the service trucks.”
“Is Mr. Sproles a locksmith?”
; I needed a suspect who could open the trunk of a Rolls Royce.
“No. He’s general manager.”
“Does he have other duties besides management?”
“Sometimes when they’re shorthanded, William goes on service calls.”
“So he does have locksmith skills.”
“Not at a very technical level. He can install locks and fix alarm systems and like that.”
“Can he pick a lock?” The sixty-four dollar question.
“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
“Just gathering information. Now, did you say that you saw a Rolls Royce parked at Mr. Vitole’s house earlier that same day?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why did you think that was significant?”
“The other detective asked me if I’d seen anything unusual. A Rolls Royce parked in this neighborhood is unusual. That’s all.”
It was time to spring it on her.
“Ma’am, are you aware that Mr. Vitole had a snapshot of the two of you embracing in your doorway?”
“What? What snapshot? What do you mean? Have you seen such a snapshot?”
“Do you think Mrs. Vitole might have found it and shared it with your husband?”
“What are you suggesting? You people caught the man who killed Mario. That big shot financier. It was on the news. Why are you out here—”
“Just some routine follow-up, Mrs. Sproles. I’ll be in touch if anything comes up.”
Chapter 21
Investigating a murder means pissing people off. Maybe you get to apologize later, but for the most part you interrogate people, suggest one form of involvement or another, and watch for their reactions to form instincts about who the bad guys are. If it works right, the practice points you in a direction that helps you close the case. Which makes pissing people off worth it.
I had just pissed off two ladies in a nice neighborhood, one who had recently become a widow and the other who had been cheating on her husband. Now I was about to piss off the husband.
Arnold Locksmith and Security was on the edge of the wrong side of town. Not a place you’d want to leave your expensive car parked. It didn’t worry me. Nobody would steal my car. If anything, they’d leave me another one just like it.
The one-story building was a half block long and wide. Behind it a parking lot held about five vans with the company’s logo on the side, the same logo that decorated the front of the building over the main entrance. The logo was the only part of the business that looked elegant.
The receptionist greeted me with a nice smile. She was a teenager, maybe just out of school. Or a dropout. I showed her my badge.
“Whoa!” she said, even though I wasn’t moving. Except to put the badge away before somebody saw what it was.
“Can I help you?” Her name tag said Pamela.
“I need to see your duty roster, Pamela,” I said.
“My what?” You’d think I’d asked to see her underwear.
“Your log of when employees work and where they’re assigned. I’m investigating a murder.”
“Oh, you mean Mrs. Vitole’s husband?”
“That’s the one. Can I see the roster?”
“We don’t have one. Do you want to talk to the general manager?”
“Not yet. You seem like a bright girl. Maybe you can tell me. Was anyone in your company absent from work the day Mr. Vitole got shot?”
She typed on her computer and said, “Everybody was here that day.”
“Mrs. Vitole too?”
“Yes. Until the policeman came to tell her.”
That gave Stella an alibi. One less suspect.
“How about when somebody goes out. Without a duty roster how do you keep track of where everybody is?”
“We keep a record of the service orders.”
“Was Mr. Sproles in the office that day?”
She referred to the monitor. “No. He took one of the trucks out for a service call.”
“Can you make me a copy of the service order?”
“Sure.” She printed the document and gave it to me. I folded it and put it in my pocket.
“Is Mr. Sproles here now?”
“That’s the door to his office.”
“Thank you, Pamela,” I said.
I knocked.
“Come in,” a man’s voice said.
I opened the door and went into William Sproles’s office.
Sproles was middle aged, balding, and every bit the couch potato I saw from across the street the other day.
“You’d be detective Bentworth,” Sproles said. “My wife called and said you were at our house. Please sit. I wouldn’t want you to fall down in my office.”
He seemed pissed. She must have told him what I’d asked her.
He didn’t ask to see my badge, and I didn’t offer it.
I sat in an uncomfortable folding chair, the best his office had to offer for guests. I guessed that he didn’t close many sales here.
“Mr. Sproles, where were you the morning Mario Vitole was killed?”
“I was here. Working.”
“Think back carefully, sir. That’s not what your girl Pamela said.”
“What Pamela said? How would she know where I was that many days ago? She can’t even remember where the coffee room is.”
“She looked up your work orders. You were out on a service call.”
“Well, if you already know that, why ask me? I probably just mixed up my days.”
“Not many people would forget where they were when their neighbor was gunned down in front of their own house.”
He glared at me for a moment. “If you don’t have any more questions, detective, I have work to do.”
“One more. Did you see the picture that Vitole had of him kissing your wife in your doorway one day while you were at work?”
“Whatever are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the affair that your wife was having with the dead man. I’m talking about the proof of that affair that Mrs. Vitole had and probably showed you. I’m talking about you not having an alibi for the time of the murder. Do you want me to keep talking?”
I really wished Bill Penrod was here. He’d have had this guy pissing himself to confess long before now. All I was doing was pissing him off.
“No, I don’t think you should keep talking,” Sproles said. “I think you should leave now. I know my rights. I don’t have to talk to you.”
He was right. Even if I was a cop, he didn’t have to talk to me. I wasn’t getting anywhere. But his reaction to the story about the affair was telling. He wasn’t shocked, surprised or outraged. The affair wasn’t news to him.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Sproles,” I said. I pulled myself out of the metal chair and went out and toward the main door. Sproles came out of his office and spoke to Pamela. He was probably chewing her ass about the service orders.
The next stop was the home of the customer on Sproles’s service order for the day of the murder. A lady came to the door.
“Good afternoon ma’am. I represent the Arnold Security company. This is just a follow-up courtesy call to make sure you were happy with our recent service call.”
“Service call? I don’t recall any service call.”
I showed her the service order. “Didn’t you have one of our technicians here to repair your alarm system?”
“No. I’m sorry, there must be some mistake.”
“Probably a clerical error,” I said. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
I returned to my car and left.
Sproles was caught in a lie. He wasn’t where he said he’d been that day. He’d probably fabricated the service order to account for his absence. Its relevance to the murder of his neighbor wasn’t clear, however. Many valid reasons could have a fellow taking time off work under false pretenses. Maybe he was interviewing for another job. Maybe he snuck away to go to a ball game. Or maybe he too had a lady friend on the side.
I
t’s a complicated world. Nothing is ever cut and dried.
Chapter 22
I stopped at Ray’s for lunch, took my usual seat in a booth, and waited. After a while, the cook, who was Ray the owner, stuck his head out of the kitchen and said, “In the ladies room. She’ll be out soon.”
I waited for several minutes more. A couple came in and took a seat. They had to wait too. After five more minutes, the fellow called out, “Is this place open for business?”
Ray came out and took their order. He looked at me and shrugged. Then he came over to my table.
“You know what you want?” he asked.
“A burger and some fries, Ray. And coffee.”
On his way back to the kitchen, Ray stopped at the ladies room door and pounded. “Come on out, Bunny. You have customers.”
The bathroom door opened, and Bunny came out. She looked at me, and then away. She took water and tableware to the other party.
Ray called out, “Order up,” and Bunny went to get my burger. She brought it over and put it in front of me. Then she turned to walk away without saying anything.
This was the lady I slept with last night and intended to sleep with tonight. And she acted like I was wearing an AIDS medical alert bracelet.
“Hey!” I said. “What’s the idea.”
“Order up!” Ray called.
“I have to get this order,” she said and hurried away.
When I finished my burger, I waited again. I could have tossed the money on the table and left. I could have walked out on the check. But I waited. After about a half hour, she came over and took my money.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I said when she brought the change. “As if I didn’t know.”
“What do you mean?” she said, still not looking me in the face.
“Come on, Bunny. I know the heave-ho when I see it. We’ve done it enough times already. Who is it this time?”
She sat down across from me.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
“Since when?”
“I don’t. But here it is.” She paused and looked out the window. “Barry is back. He wants to go out with me again.”
“Then do it,” I said. “Just do it. But this is it.”