First Murder (7 page)

“Homicide, de Luca”

“Hey man.” It was a cheery voice, almost familiar. He tried to place it. “It’s Kumpula. Forget me already?”

“Jonny. What’s up?”

“Ray around?” Tony frowned and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
Here we go again
.

“He’s on with the coroner right now. Want to hold?” Tony almost managed to keep the attitude out of his voice.

“Hell no. Look, I’ve got a problem. You can help me here.”

“I’ll do what I can. What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got so many fuckin’ fingerprints we’re going crazy down here.” Kumpula sounded frustrated.

“Any on the knife?” Tony sat up straighter and grabbed a pen.

“Yep.”

Tony felt the adrenaline squirt right into his bloodstream. His heart rate downshifted and revved to near the red line. “Whose? Whose are they?” Ray turned to look at him. He’d shouted the question.

“Whoa, podna’…down boy. I thought the same thing, first off. It was the vic’s prints, man. The woman grabbed the knife after she was stabbed. If there were others they got smudged. Hers were smudged too, like she dragged her hand down the hilt.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. My feelings exactly. Look, all you guys out on the street start printing the people you interview, okay. I’m not kidding. We’ve got close to two dozen different sets. We’re going to run all of them through AFIS but it’ll take time. Get me some comparison prints, okay?”

“Will do.” Tony replied. He was sure Ray would agree. “Anything promising yet?”

“Get me some comps, Tony. That’ll help.”

“Okay. Will do. You still want Ray? He’s off now.”

“What for? Gotta go. Comps, baby. I need comps!” The line went dead. Tony grinned. At least Kumpula wasn’t treating him like a newbie. He leaned back in his chair to enjoy it for a moment.

“Good news?” Ray had a pair of cheaters on, glasses with small rectangular tortoise shell frames that perched on the end of his nose. He looked over them at Tony.

“Uh...not really.”

“Kumpula?”

“Yeah.” Tony straightened back up in the chair and lost the smile. “There were prints on the knife hilt but they were the vic’s.” Rays face hardened. He let out a short sigh before he looked away.

“Do me a favor, Tony.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Don’t refer to the deceased as ‘the vic’ anymore. The word is victim. Her name was Deanna Fredrickson. It isn’t respectful.”

Tony didn’t expect that. On the street they were all
vics
and
perps
. It might be a hard habit to break, he thought. Then he remembered catching himself when he was talking to the boys earlier. Maybe it wouldn’t be
too
hard.

“I’ll try, Ray.”

“I’ll appreciate it. What else did he have to say?”

“He’s got a shi…big pile of prints. Lots of different sets. Lots of people. He wants us to print anyone of interest, people we interview.”

Ray pursed his lips before replying. “That’ll make things interesting. I was thinking of doing it anyway.”

“How so?”

“Well, we can ask for their prints, but it takes a judge or an arrest to
make
’em give them up if they don’t want to. Just like DNA samples.”

“That
is
interesting.” Tony thought about it for a minute. If someone didn’t want to give up their prints for comparison there would have to be a reason—a damn good one. That could lead to all sorts of compelling conversations.

“When we get a break run down to the lab and get everyone a kit.”

“Don’t you mean a scanner?” Tony was a gear junkie and thought the electronic fingerprint modules were very cool gadgets. He knew the department had a number of them; surely enough for the Homicide teams. It would save a lot of time and mess.

“Nope. I want ’em inked.” Ray watched Tony try to work out for himself why he’d want to use the old fashioned method.

“Intimidation?” Tony guessed that it was a sort of a test, that there was, as usual, a reason for everything with Ray Bankston.

“Mm-Hm.”

“Okay. I get it. What did the coroner have to say?” Ray had been on the phone for a while. Maybe they could skip going to the morgue to watch the coroner perform the autopsy. Tony had seen blood and trauma in all its horrid forms—car wrecks, gun-shot wounds, knifings and slashings, even the aftermath of a hatchet fight one time—but he wasn’t at all anxious to see what happened on the table in the morgue. Not yet.
CSI
on television was one thing.

“Cause of death was, as expected, the knife to the heart.” Ray looked down at his notes. “No recent sexual activity. Stomach contents were barely digested. Some cereal, raisins, some orange juice.”

“No coffee?” Tony remembered the cup and the half full carafe.

“Nope.”

“There was a coffee cup in the sink.”

“Mm-hm.” Ray nodded. “Why don’t you run down and grab those print kits now. I’ve got to work on my notes and the others should be back soon. We need to see where we are.”

“Grab you anything on the way back up?” Tony was already out of his chair and halfway to the door.

“No thanks. Not right now.” Tony left and Ray dropped the notes from his hand. He had no stomach for anything right at the moment.

Tony would miss the trip to the morgue for his first murder; miss the first-hand relay of information, an experience that would probably stay with him the rest of his life. Ray wouldn’t miss it. He wouldn’t miss seeing the gray naked woman on the table, splayed open, chest split with a saw, the top of her head gone so they could weigh the brain, organs laid aside after their inspection. He wouldn’t miss the smell of rot, of decomposition, body gasses and eau de antiseptic. No, Ray wouldn’t have the stomach for much of anything for a while. He might miss it this time but so many others haunted him…so many others.

“I think we can narrow the time of death,” Tony said as he dumped the fingerprint kits on an unused desk. “Maybe even fix it.” Ray swiveled his chair toward Tony’s. He’d been thinking about it too.

“Tell me.”

Tony hitched himself upon his desk top and set down a coffee cup. “Early Monday morning. She’s dressed to go out, just eaten breakfast; cereal and OJ. You don’t eat that for dinner. Plus it hasn’t been digested. The appointment book said she had a 9:30, we can guess it was something at Children’s Hospital. I’m going back over there to check the alarm clock by the bed.”

“6:45” Ray shrugged when Tony frowned a question at him. “I checked.”

“Okay. She hits the snooze once or twice, gets up, showers, makes the bed, dresses, fixes some cereal, what…an hour?” Tony raised his eyebrows and turned the corners of his mouth down, waiting for Ray to argue with his timeline, hoping for an
attaboy
.

“And on the back end, the trip to Children’s in rush hour from Highland is twenty minutes. Ten to park. Fifteen to chat and say hi.” Ray apparently agreed with him and took it a step further. Tony felt like they were on the same page.

“So she was killed between 7:45 and 8:45 Monday morning,” Tony said with some finality.

“You sure this is your first murder?” Ray chuckled. He was pleased that Tony had figured this out, and pretty much on his own. Granted it wasn’t that big a leap once the stomach contents were known, but the young detective was thinking, keeping his head in the details.

“So did the murderer know her schedule? Know she’d be home then? Or did they just take a chance?” Tony seemed to be asking the questions of himself. Ray noticed he was turned away, looking up at the flickering fluorescents, half lost in thought.

Ray brought him back to the squad room when he spoke. “Good questions. We have to consider it wasn’t premeditated. The murder weapon was a kitchen knife, laying right there on the counter.” Ray looked up at the ceiling too. Recollections of other crimes, other lost lives and mysteries jostled each other. Tony stayed silent. He let the scenarios and what-ifs of his own dance and tease each other.

Ray broke the spell again when he added, “I
really
want to meet the ‘Go Girls’.”

T
he Marland residence was across town, across two or three towns, actually. It was way out west of Minneapolis in the suburb of Minnetonka. Lakisha Marland told them she’d be happy to talk to them and that she planned to be home all afternoon.

The house was set back from the road. Both Ray and Tony could see the slate gray waters of the big lake that the town was named for behind it. There was a breeze, a chill wind that tossed the surface of the water. Irregular lines of whitecaps tossed tears from their foamy crests. There were no boats out. Not even fishermen seemed to care for the sullen overcast day and the uneasy waters.

As they approached Tony marveled at the house. It was brick, painted white, with acres of paned glass arranged just-so across its face. Even though well into October, he could see that the lawn was well cared for. The plantings seemed precise, chosen…specific to a sense of style and order. The house was at least three stories tall. Tony wondered if there were basements this close to a massive lake. It was impressive. The Marland’s had some money. Tony was curious if Scott Fredrickson managed any of it for them. He also wondered if a servant would open the door, a liveried butler or a maid in a starched black dress with white piping or something like that.

Lakisha Marland answered her own door. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, blacker than Ray and almost as tall. She was wearing a full length dress, black, maybe silk, with gold swirls in a random pattern. Tony knew there was a name for that kind of dress but couldn’t remember what it was. It was an African thing or maybe Egyptian.

Her hair was short, curly and styled close to her head. It was soot black with a bare hint of gray at the temples. Golden hoops dangled from her ears. Her eyes were unsettling. They were deep brown, almost black, and slightly almond shaped. Her nose was thin and straight, her lips full and sadly smiling as she greeted them. Ray made the introductions. Tony gawked at the house and the furnishings as she led them through an expansive foyer, past a dining room with a table for at least twenty, gleaming of rich dark walnut wood hues, past a kitchen that looked both practical and comfortable and onto a warm glassed in porch that looked out over a sloping lawn to the lake.

Tony noticed something else. A vibe of some sort…a small electrical charge was building between his partner and this tall, beautiful, exotic woman. There were no sparks flying, but there was a low frequency buzz happening, a kind of sizzle. He grinned, but it went unnoticed.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” she said to Ray. Her voice was tinged with an unfamiliar accent. Tony tried to place it as he listened to her.

“I can’t think of where we might have met.” Ray accepted the tea she offered him.

“It will come to me.” She smiled and nodded at Tony when she offered him tea but didn’t address him. She turned back to Ray. “It’s such a sad, tragic day.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. You and Mrs. Fredrickson were close, weren’t you?” Lakisha turned away, looked out the windows toward the gray-blue unsettled water.

“Kind of like the day, as if all color has been drawn from it and it’s turned cold and ugly. Like a light has been turned off. Deanna was such a good person. This is so ugly.” She lifted her head up and breathed deeply. She seemed determined not to cry. “Who would do such a thing?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs. Marland.”

“You shall call me Lakisha and I shall call you…Rayford, isn’t it?”

Tony figured she wasn’t going to call him anything.

“I have to ask you some questions, Lakisha. Some may be hard.”

“Not as hard as losing a friend.” Ray nodded and poised his pen over the pad that had appeared in his lap. Tony got his out too.

“Did Deanna have any enemies that you know of?”

“Enemies? Foes? Someone jealous of her? Of her beauty? Of her spirit? Of her wonderful husband or her beautiful children?” She looked off out the window again. “Not one that I can possibly imagine. Not one.”

“Could she have been having an affair?”

“Not without me knowing about it. No. She has a wonderful husband. I wish he were mine.” She caught herself and allowed, with a slight knowing smile, “Don’t take that the wrong way, Rayford.”

“I won’t. Could her husband have been? Having an affair?”

“Scott? He’s devoted to her, and why not. She was beautiful and funny and sexy and what…tireless. No, Scott wouldn’t stray.”

Ray nodded. “That’s the impression I get too, but I have to ask.”

Lakisha set her teacup aside. “You’re searching for a motive, aren’t you Rayford?”

Ray pretended to dodge the question even though it was coursing beneath everything he was thinking. “What about your group, your friends? The ‘Go Girls’? Was there any friction there? Do you all get along?”

“Have you met the others yet? Karen or Erika or Roxie?”

Ray shook his head. “Not yet.”

“I suppose with any group there’s, what did you call it, friction? We know each other so well and really are quite close. It would be impossible to not have some…friction. I like that word.”

“I understand that you take group trips. Leave the husbands home and travel.”

“Some husbands are rarely home, but yes. Oh Lord, do we have fun.” She paused, again drawn to the bleak vision outside. “I wonder if we ever will again, without Deanna.”

Ray waited a respectful minute. Lakisha’s attention had drifted out toward the sullen lake, remembering. “Tell me about them. Do you gamble?”

Lakisha sat straighter and replied, “Of course we do. We gamble and we eat too much of the wrong things and drink and tease and flirt and shop. We are accomplished shoppers, yes we are.” The memory of the vacations drew her back into the warm room. Ray and Tony stayed quiet, let her go on.

“We went to Las Vegas, let me think, five years ago. Was it the first trip? I think so. I entered a poker game. It was only a thousand dollar buy in and I thought—what the hell. I won it!” She reached over and put a hand on Rays arm. “I couldn’t believe it! We went to Laughlin once. I didn’t like it there and I didn’t win either. There was Mexico. Ixtapa. That was fun. The others simply cooked on the beach. And the trip to LA, the
hunk-hunt
we called it. We were determined to meet Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford or Sean Connery. We wanted to meet movie stars and shop on Rodeo Drive.”