Splitting Nines (1)

by Ron Gannon

Chapter 3. The Usual Suspects

  It was a dark summer night. A quarter-moon provided a little light on the rocky beach below and Florence's house. Lumpy and Red scurry down the stairs attached to the large porch.

  The screen door swung open. Jimmy dashed out of the house and across the porch.

 

  Moments later Dave stepped out and gently closed the doors behind him. As he was about to hurry away from the doorway, he noticed the silhouette of a neighbor standing on his deck.

  The man stared at Dave as a white cat strutted across the rail in front of him. The cat

  stopped and arched its back. The man stood still, staring. Dave nodded and sauntered

  toward the bay.

  The tide was out, the water's edge about twenty feet away from the cement walls. Jimmy ran down the cement stairs, onto the beach. He glanced to his left and right.

  Red, ahead of Lumpy, turned off the beach and up a cement stairway.

  Lumpy looked behind and noticed Jimmy. He stopped and waited.

  Jimmy jogged up to him.

  "What happened up there?" Lumpy tilted his head, looking behind Jimmy, "There's Dave."

  Dave stepped onto the beach and headed toward them.

  The boys heard a loud screeching sound of a car stopping suddenly followed by a loud thud. They sensed it involved Red.

  John Dolan, with his belt and pants undone, rubbed his enormous belly as he sat on his recliner in front of his television. James Woods talked to James Garner on the screen. John pointed. “I went to school with that guy. What an asshole.”

  His wife was lying on a beat-up sofa. “I know, dear. You told me a thousand times already.”

 

  The front door opened. Lumpy entered and hobbled across the living room floor.

  John noticed the limp. “What happened to ya leg?”

 

  “I was running and twisted my ankle.”

 

  John glanced at his watch. “It’s after ten. Where were ya?”

 

  “At the movies.”

 

  “Wheredya get the money?”

 

  “Dave paid.”

 

  With a finger John beckoned Lumpy. When he got within striking range, John slapped him hard across the face. “Home by ten don’t mean after ten. Got that?”

  Lumpy nodded. "Yes, sir."

  “And no more hanging around with that rich kid and his Jew buddy. A guy paying for another guy’s movie ain’t right. I won’t have a homo sapien living in my house.”

 

  The telephone was ringing when Dave entered his parent’s mansion. He rushed over and picked up the receiver. “Hello!...No, she’s not home....Dad, we have to talk. It’s serious.”

  Winnie Disenzo stopped loving her husband sometime after her return from vacationing in Europe. She held Ray partly responsible for Dave’s hand surgery: half of three fingers were cut off. And she let Ray know about it. Her constant nagging ended about the time Dave’s doctor and assistant disappeared. That persuaded her to believe the rumor about her husband was true: he is a murderer. That reality made their relationship worse and almost unbearable. Ray would never agree to a divorce or a legal separation. That didn’t matter too much. For years they had separate bedrooms and rarely saw each other. Most nights he didn’t come home. She assumed he had numerous affairs. Eventually, she found herself a lover: Tom Paine.

  "My wife wants a divorce. I’ll be moving to Georgia after it’s finalized."

  “I’m going to miss your backrubs,” Winnie said to her bedmate. “Why Georgia?”

  Tom placed a pillow between his back and bed board. “I was offered a job at the Kingsbay Naval Base. Leave Ray. Come with me to Georgia. Take Dave with you."

  "I’d love to, but I have to think of Dave’s future. Politics." She rubs Tom’s face. "Did Florence have you sign a pre-nuptial?"

  "Yes, but I don’t need her money." Tom rubbed his fingers through Winnie’s hair. He kissed her neck and shoulders. “I’m going to miss you more than my wife.”

 

  Winnie smiled and pulled Tom against her. “Why would you miss her at all? No sex! And she’s not interested in you or anything you say?”

 

  “Every time I look at her I see Sandra. I loved her so much. I still do. To me, Florence is Sandra. That's probably the reason I married her.”

 

  “Tom, you’re a very sick man and not just because you married your dead wife’s twin sister. You do know how to satisfy a neglected housewife. I'll give you that. We don’t have much time. I have to be home before midnight.”

  Tom reached under the sheet. “Why, does this turn into a pumpkin?”

 

  “Maybe.”

 

  “Then call me Peter Peter.”

 

  “Doesn’t he live next door to you?”

 

  “That's Peeping Gene. A nickname Florence gave him.”

  Winnie turned on her back and stared at the ceiling. "Why the divorce? She’s suspicious?"

  "I think so, but we’ve been arguing a lot about my daughter, lately. Last week she hit Cookie."

  Tom was on a recliner reading Carrie by Stephen King. Cookie sat on the sofa watching Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd argue in a TV episode of Moonlighting. Florence, nude, strolled from the stairway toward the kitchen.

  Cookie noticed her. "Put some clothes on, you pervert."

  Florence stopped, turned, and rushed over to Cookie. "How dare you to talk to me that way. This is my house." She smacked Cookie across her face.

  Winnie stared at Tom. "If someone hit my son, I would lose it. I’d go after her so fast."

  "Oh, so you’re a hothead."

  "Not really, but if someone hurts my son, I’ll will go after her or him."

  “Does Ray know about us?” asked Tom.

 

  Taken aback, Winnie turned. “No, why do you ask?”

 

  “Just wondering. I thought one of his goons was following me the other day. And something Florence said before wanting me out of her house.”

 

  Winnie got out of bed and headed for her clothes. “I better go home. There’s no telling what that nutcase would do if he found out about us.”

  "I'm not afraid of him."

  "I am! Get dressed!"

 

  In his library, Ray Disenzo sat at a table across from his son. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, we won’t talk to anyone except your lawyer. Dad, that postman saw us.”

 

  “I’ll take care of him. Just do as you’re told. What time did your mother go out?”

 

  “I don’t know.”

 

  “Okay, first thing tomorrow morning my lawyer will be here. Again, you talk to no one but him. If the police try to question you, you tell them to contact me or him.” Distracted he snapped his head toward the sound of a door closing. "The bitch of the evening is home."

 

  Detective Shortman stood over seven-feet tall with shoulders as wide as a standard doorway. He kneeled and examined a broken jewelry box on the floor: no jewelry inside or around the box. After noticing cat’s fur on the floor, he rubbed a gloved finger along the floor and inspected several filaments of animal pelt stuck to the latex. “Do they own a cat?”

 

  A uniformed policeman stood in the doorway and the one behind him answered. “Don’t think so, but the neighbor has quite a few. They were everywhere when we were getting his statement.”

 

  Shortman glanced at his wristwatch and pondered for a few seconds. He decided it would be more fitting to interview the neighbor in the morning. He stood up and walked over to Florence's body, face up on her king size bed. There were multiple stab wounds but little blood. “Most husbands would pull a sheet over their naked wife’s body before cal
ling the police. I know I would.”

  Shortman bent over and examined her face, up-close. All the tell all signs were quite clear to him. "Smothered to death, then stabbed forty or fifty times to make it look like that murder two years ago in Buttonwoods."

  When Gene Evans was eighteen, his mother passed away. He inherited her house and nine cats. After a few years they multiplied so much that he started to drown all newborns. He’d place them in a pillow case and submerge them under water for several minutes. The bodies were buried in shallow graves under his porch. Gene always felt extremely depressed afterwards. He loved his cats. They were the only friends he had. He hated young people. While growing up they made fun of the way he looked and talked. Even at twenty-two his flat top crew cut, pockmarked face, slightly bulging-eyes, and feminine voice still made him an easy target for ridicule.

 

  The knocks on the door were loud. They startled Gene and several of his cats. When he opened the door he looked up in amazement at the well dressed giant holding a police badge.

  “I told them cops everything last night,” Gene said in a high-pitched voice.

 

  “Do you mind if I come in? I have a few questions.”

 

  “Do I have a choice?” Gene stepped aside to allow the huge man to enter.

 

  It wasn’t long before Shortman was brushing cat fur off his blue blazer. Out of curiosity a large number of cats had entered the filthy kitchen to observe the mammoth visitor. They eyed him from every direction. But it was the foul odor of animal feces and urine that bothered Shortman more than the flying fur.

 

  “Were you ever in Mrs. Paine’s bedroom?”

 

  “Am I a suspect or something?”

 

  “Just answer the question, please.”

 

  Gene grinned, showing his bright yellow teeth. “No! Do you think we were having an affair?”

 

  “I’m trying to account for cat fur in her room and on her stairway.”

 

  Gene picked up a yellow cat and held it in front of his face. “Were you trespassing, Honey?” He turned away from the cat and looked up at Shortman. “I have no idea. If you arrest them punks, you betta protect me. One of them kids has mob connections.”

 

  “Who?”

 

  “David Disenzo. His father is Raymond Disenzo.”