First Murder (26 page)

“I haven’t yet.” David smiled again. There was a brief intermission while the waitress cleared the empty plates. She asked if they wanted more coffee and tempted them with the news that an apple pie had just come out of the oven. Tony and David gave in to that temptation.

“No, you haven’t. Tony?” Ray looked over seeking his partner’s approval.

“David, a while back you told me that Mrs. Fredrickson and a friend of hers, Mrs. Hewes came by the house looking for Scotty.”

“Yeah. Karen.”

“Karen. And you mentioned that Sean was there. You were gaming or something.” David looked out over the nearly empty restaurant, thinking. The waitress dropped off two enormous slices of steaming apple pie and topped off all their coffees.

“Sure. I remember. Now that you mention it, it was a little weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Sean, he was like, ignoring her. Karen. She’s hard to ignore.”

“Attractive woman.” Tony nodded in agreement.

“Scotty’s mom had gone straight back to the kitchen. I don’t know why, but Karen was just standing at the side of the couch scoping out Sean.”

“Scoping him out?”

“Staring at him.”

“Did they talk to each other?”

“No. I think she was about to say something but Scotty’s mom yelled at her from the kitchen and she never did. She went to the kitchen and then they split right away. Barely said goodbye.”

“And Sean never acknowledged her?”

“Like I said, he just played the game. In my opinion he was ignoring her, but he might have just been into it, you know.” Tony made some notes. Ray asked the next question.

“Has Sean ever talked about living in Los Angeles, what he did out there?” David chewed while he thought about it.

“Not really. He says he’s here on scholarship. He doesn’t have a job but he’s always got money.”

“Is he into drugs that you know of?” Tony thought David flinched at the question.

“He looks a little strung out sometimes. He keeps some pretty crazy hours.”

“Crazy how?”

“I don’t know.” Another shrug. “He comes in at like three or four, goes out that late too, sometimes.”

“He ever say where he’s going?”

“Nah. Like I said, he keeps to himself a lot.” Tony put his hand on the big Samoan kid’s shoulder.

“You’ve been a big help, David.”

“Is it important? I mean, that Karen was checking him out? Do they know each other?” Ray chuckled. “See, I told you all kinds of things would start banging around in your head. Seriously, son, that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“David, there’s one more thing we need from you.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“I’m going to give you my cell number.” Tony started writing while he talked. “I want you to call me if Sean starts moving his stuff out or if you see or hear anything…I don’t know…strange.”

David Hong flashed a broad toothy smile. “Davie Hong, agent XXL is on the case, dude.” He gave the detectives a sloppy Boy Scout salute. Ray winced at that. This was serious…serious as death.

“David.” Tony leaned over, scowling.

“This is cool. Like when you were undercover, right Tony? Seriously man, you can count on me. I can do this.”

Tony was behind the wheel. He and Ray were making their way back to headquarters and the squad room. Notes needed to be entered into the crime file, interviews needed to be logged, and they hadn’t checked in with Carol Offord all day.

“Do you think the kid’s solid?” Ray was studying his notebook, ignoring the mysterious mid-afternoon backup on the interstate. He was trying to make sense of Hong’s observations, asking himself question after question, trying to make a link. Had Stuckey simply been into the video game or was he pointedly ignoring Karen Hewes? If he recognized her and was snubbing her, what did that mean? And what was it the kid said, Karen was ‘scoping him out’? Did she just then recognize him? From LA? From whatever happened that night in the bar?

Tony snatched the mic off the dashboard and spoke into it. “Delta-14, repeat last.”

Ray was in the bad habit of tuning out the ongoing chatter on the radio. Tony, on the other hand, was not far removed from being on patrol and was able to keep an awareness of the various crimes and misdemeanors being reported and dispatched in a corner of his consciousness.

“10-30 at 1396 Milton.”

“That’s the Hewes’ address,” Tony said before keying the mic again. “Delta-14 en-route.”

“Copy Delta-14.” The dispatcher replied dryly. Tony toggled the grille lights and siren. Ray reached for the roof light on the seat between them.

“Silent alarm, right?” Ray wasn’t as up on all of the codes as Tony. The siren squawked. Cars and trucks jerked right and left, trying to clear a path for the police car on the packed highway. Tony set his sights on the nearest off ramp and threaded through the meager haphazard path he had to work with.

Once off the interstate Tony set a course for the Hewes’ house and backed off the siren. It wasn’t far. They pulled up behind a K-9 unit that had just arrived. Tony was out of the car first.

“De Luca, I thought you left all this behind.” Officer Carl Younger was an old acquaintance of Tony’s, not really a friend, but they had been at many crime scenes together over the years. Bankston joined them by the K-9 unit, eyeing the big shepherd in the back seat warily. The big black dog was alert and intense but not barking.

“This house—people we have something going with live here.”

“How do you want to do it?” Younger was deferring to the gold badge, letting the detectives decide how to proceed. That and he recognized Ray Bankston…S
ergeant
Ray Bankston.

“Get a unit in the alley and watch the front. Ray and I’ll see what’s up.”

Carl got the big shepherd out of the car while talking urgently into the mic clipped to his shoulder. He took up station at the front of the house. Ray and Tony headed around the side, through a low chain link gate to the side door to get a look in the back yard.

The house was quiet. There was no one in the yard. The side door was closed and the shade drawn. A patrol car skidded to a stop in the alley behind the fence, next to the Hewes’ garage. Tony trotted over to speak with the officer, to tell him to keep an eye out and both ears open and that he and Ray were going in.

When the shepherd barked Tony whipped his head toward the house. Ray was shaking his head, telling him silently that it wasn’t anything to worry about. Tony strode over to join Ray at the side of the back door. Ray looked calm but his pistol was out, held down by his thigh. Tony stepped to the right side of the door. Ray took position on the left. Tony nodded to him before he rapped on the door frame loudly.

“Mrs. Hewes? Karen? “ Tony shouted. There was no answer. He rapped again. “Mrs. Hewes? It’s Detective de Luca.”

There was a storm door with a lever latch. Tony signaled to Ray to grab it when he pulled it open. Just as Tony reached for the knob the door opened about six inches. Karen peered out, first seeing Ray holding the storm door open with one hand and a matte black pistol in his other, and Tony, his hand still reaching for the knob.

“Jesus!” Karen jerked the door wider and jumped back. Tony edged around, stuck his head in the doorway and scanned the room.

“Are you okay?” He took a cautious step inside, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. “Are you alone?”

Karen didn’t know what to do with her hands. She brushed back her hair, wrung them in front of her, and finally wrapped her arms around her torso under her chest.

“Did you set off the alarm?”

She nodded her head forcefully. “And I called 9-1-1.” She was a little breathless. Tony looked around for her husband. “There was someone out there.” She pointed toward the back yard.

“In the yard?”

“Yes.” She was still pointing, jabbing her finger toward the window over the sink. “In the yard. A man.” Tony heard footsteps behind him, and a scraping sound. Gary Hewes was crouched in the archway to the dining room, swaying unsteadily. He had a rifle in his hands.

“Whoa! Shit!” Tony held his hands up shoulder high. His face was set, serious and frowning. “Gary, put that god-damned thing down. NOW!”

Gary Hewes looked worse than he had that morning. He was grayer and tired looking, even more wretched and wasted than before. He looked confused and uncertain. He held the rifle, a scoped Remington it looked like to Tony, at port arms. He didn’t look like he had the strength left to shoulder the weapon.

“What’s going on? Karen?” Tony walked over to him and gently took the gun from his hands. Gary relinquished it willingly, as if it had been a burden too heavy to carry in his weakened condition. “What the hell’s going on?” She went over to help him, propped him up, and guided him to a chair.

“There was someone in the back yard, sneaking around.”

“Did he try the door?” Ray moved closer. The pistol had disappeared, exchanged for his notepad.

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“Did you recognize him?” Ray worked hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“No.”

“Sometimes the neighbor kids will cut through the yard,” Gary offered blearily. “After school. Saves ’em a block or two.”

“It wasn’t a neighbor kid!” Karen barked.

“Did you get a good look at him? Can you describe him?” Ray had his pen poised, waiting while Karen wrung her hands some more and looked toward the window.

“He was maybe five ten or eleven. Jeans. Hooded sweatshirt. Gray or tannish colored. The hood was up.”

“Anything else?”

“He was white, I could tell that, but I didn’t get a good look at his face. And he had a scraggly sort of beard.” Ray made the notation, wondering how she could identify his race but not his face.

Karen looked up hopefully at the two detectives. Ray assured her she did fine, that it was a good description and excused himself and Tony for a minute. He said they needed to talk to the officers outside. They left Karen and Gary anxiously huddled together at the big oak table.

“Pretty good description.” Tony had a skeptical look on his face, a mirror of Ray’s.

“Yeah…of Sean Stuckey.”

“What the hell is going on here, Ray?”

Standing at the side of the house Bankston could see two squad cars in front and two in the alley. He had some bodies to work with, and a big black German shepherd.

“I’m going to get these guys working the neighborhood. I want you to go back inside and gently…gently, get her to give you another description. Find out how long before she saw this dude before she triggered the alarm. Find out if
Typhoid Gary
saw anything or heard anything, but I doubt he did. And make him lock up that damn rifle.”

Ray turned and headed for the cops in front first. He wanted that dog to start working. Maybe Stuckey had been in the yard. The guy was going to need another alibi in any case. Ray hoped that for once it would be a good one.

Sean Stuckey was out of passes and there were no get-out-of-jail cards on the table.

“T
he funeral’s day after tomorrow.”

Carol Offord was driving. Ray shared the front seat with her. Tony and Jonny Kumpula were lounging in the back as they sped south on I-35. They were headed toward Austin, Minnesota, the home of Spam.

Kumpula loved Spam. By the time they passed the massive
Cabelas
complex outside Faribault he had told them much more than they ever wanted to know about the ubiquitous lunch meat and given them a half dozen recipes that none would ever dare try.

Carol was trying to get their heads into the case. They were heading for a house in the farmlands outside of the small city to meet with Darcy DuPree. She filled them in on the guy and her history with him.

Darcy didn’t like people much. Darcy liked pornography. Carol knew Darcy from a case she had been involved with nearly five years previous. DuPree was famous for trading porn on the internet. He collected still and video images from all over the world. While tracing the recipients of a particularly nasty and illegal kiddie porn broker, Carol ran across Darcy’s computer address and eventually Darcy himself.

Darcy was deathly afraid of child pornography. He had nearly been convicted of trafficking twice. He beat the rap both times by handing over both the images and the distributors, helping the Sex Crimes Unit in setting up a sting.

Dupree might have presided over a warped and disgusting Smithsonian-worthy porn collection, but when the cops came calling he turned into a very cooperative snitch. Carol told them she had contacted him seeking episodes of the ‘
Ur MoM is so Hott’
series while Ray and Tony were working the leads.

He had them…all but one. He repeatedly made a point of telling her he didn’t have the last episode, the one where the underage boys were involved, but he seemed to know a hell of a lot about it.

Carol was surprised that any of that last episode’s footage was available, that it even existed. The set had been raided. The whole operation had been shut down. Darcy assured her it was out there but he didn’t have it. She proposed buying copies. Darcy laughed. He said he wanted ‘tit for tat’, and giggled when he said ‘tit’. Darcy disgusted Carol Offord.

This was where Kumpula entered the picture. Carol was crying in her beer, at The Red Door, having a drink with Kump and a few others the night before. She was complaining that this Darcy character had some clips she desperately needed and would only trade for something he didn’t have yet. Kumpula looked sheepish when he told her he might be able to help.

She got Darcy on the phone with Kump and a tentative deal was struck. Darcy wouldn’t hand over the ‘
Ur MoM’
episodes until the senior evidence tech proved he had what he said he did. When she quizzed Kumpula about what he was trading he just smiled and said, “You don’t want to know.”

“Are you going?” Carol asked Ray, back in the moment now, referring to the funeral. He nodded.

“I wonder if our pal Stuckey will be there.” Tony said. He was planning to go too.

Kumpula fiddled with an electronic device in his hands. “Turn left on 46.” It was a GPS unit. They were driving through flat vast oceans of brown corn. Some had been harvested but much remained. Combines and pickers plodded through many of the fields, stopping now and then to blow bushels of yellow gold into ramshackle trucks. The stake trucks with peeling faded paint jobs, many with round ancient fenders, were testaments to the thriftiness and the mechanical skills of the farmers that kept the relics running.