First Murder (18 page)

“What about DNA from the coffee residue?”

Kumpula cocked his head at the rookie detective, impressed that he’d noticed the mug in the sink and remembered the details. Ray looked at him too. He’d missed that, or maybe it was in his notes or on the recording and he hadn’t placed any importance to it.

“Sorry, no.”

“It was probably the vic’s, anyway.” Ted Lipka wasn’t as close to the case as Ray and Tony. To him Deanna was just another victim. Tony wondered if by thinking of her always as Deanna that he was getting too close, too involved with her as a person. He’d have to ask Ray about that.

Ray, dug through a pile of papers on his desk, apparently found the one he was looking for, and his face darkened as he read. Worry lines sprouted across his forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Tony leaned over to see what had Ray so puzzled. It was the coroner’s report.

“Kump, try again on the DNA, okay?” Kumpula started to protest. If it wasn’t there it wasn’t there. “Deanna Fredrickson didn’t have any coffee in her stomach.” That stopped the whining. “Just try, okay buddy?”

“I’ll have to go off the reservation.” Kumpula meant he’d have to try to get the FBI involved. They had better toys.

“Wherever you need to.”

Kumpula nodded while he made a note on the folder, then he looked up. He wasn’t done.

“And there’s the Fontaine woman.”

Fontaine?
None of the ‘Go Girls’ was named Fontaine. Tony was puzzled until Kumpula added, “Lakisha Fontaine.”

Tony watched Ray closely. He’d seen the two of them flirting. At least he thought it was flirting. Ray’s attitude didn’t change. He was engaged and curious.

“Lakisha Fontaine did three and a half years in Shakopee for manslaughter. ‘80 to mid ‘84.” Kumpula looked only at his notes while he told the story. “There was a bar fight. Minneapolis. Fontaine killed a woman named Tonya Reller. Reller was stabbed once in the chest. Fontaine claimed it wasn’t her knife. There was some gang connection that isn’t clear from what I’ve got so far. They took it through trial. Fontaine had a PD. They argued it was self- defense and lost. Since then…nothing.”

Ray remained stoic. If the revelation about Lakisha Marland affected him Tony couldn’t see it. Ray made a few notes before he looked up.

“What else have you got, Kump?”

“Boom Boom Bork used to get in a lot of fights. Big surprise. Hey, you think I could get anything on eBay for that comp card?”

T
he case review ended up being a lot shorter than Tony imagined it would be. The senior evidence tech had put a lot of intriguing science and research in front of them. Kumpula headed back to the lab and the five detectives gathered round Ray’s desk.

“Okay folks, let’s get organized.” Ray flipped through his notebook. “Ted, Vang, I want you back in the neighborhood. Karen Hewes says she stopped by the house Monday morning. She thinks it was between 7:30 and 8:00. See if anyone can confirm that. She drives an Audi, a black A-4.”

“The next door neighbor, Mae, heard a car door,” Tony said, remembering his visit with her. “Maybe she can pin the time.”

“Maybe you should do it, check with her,” Vang suggested.

“I want Tony to have another chat with Mr. Stuckey. Tonight? No, tomorrow’s Friday. Tony, see if you can manage to run into him at that film class. I’ll go over how I want you to approach him later.”

Tony was pleased. Ray trusted him to approach Stuckey, who was now, at least in Tony’s opinion, a bona fide suspect. There was no denying that the coincidence of the ‘Go Girls’ trip to LA and Stuckey’s appearance in the Twin Cities could be important. And he’d been picked up for something called sexual misconduct. What was that about? Tony tuned back in when Ray gave Carol her assignment.

“Carol. I need you to find out all you can about Stuckey’s arrest. Kumpula’s not usually vague. What was it he said? It’s murky? He was arrested and taken far enough through their system that his prints are still there.”

“Maybe they screwed up. Maybe the case was dropped, the charges dropped…”

Ray interrupted her. “Let’s find out before we speculate too much. See if you can get the facts.”

“You’re right. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s a hell of a coincidence.”

Carol flipped her notebook shut and stood. “California’s two hours behind us. I’ll get started now if there’s nothing else.”

“You go ahead. And let me know as soon as you find out what’s going on out there. It’s going to make a difference in how we approach Stuckey.”

Vang and Lipka headed out too. Late afternoon was a good time to catch people coming home from work. Some detectives would have thought it was busy work. Tony was relieved he hadn’t drawn the assignment, but both of the older detectives knew that if you kept approaching the same people asking the same questions over and over, phrasing them differently, that it often led to something.

Scott Fredrickson was still at the hotel he’d retreated to after discovering his wife’s body. His son and daughter were in adjoining rooms. The son had been cleared. The daughter had too, courtesy of a park ranger that told them he had helped the grandmother find their campsite. Ray and Tony didn’t want to talk to them. They wanted to talk to Scott Sr.

Scott invited the detectives to join him on the balcony. He pulled out a cigarette. Ray noticed it was an English Oval, unfiltered and expensive. He had acquired a taste for them on a trip to Europe some years back.

There was a white noise on the second floor balcony, the sound of cars and trucks, both near and far away. It sounded like an urgent mechanical wind. Anemic October sun was hazed by thin high clouds. It had no color or warmth. Most of the trees had lost their leaves. Scott Fredrickson was pale and colorless too, still sad.

“I know why you’re here.” He got right to it. Ray had only asked a question with his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Still can’t, really.”

“You have some history, Mr. Fredrickson. Violence. Against a spouse.”

“History,” he said softly, taking a long drag on the cigarette. “I sure do. Want to hear it?” Ray just nodded.

“It was what? Thirty years ago. I was in school. I was married. We were broke. I drank a lot. Marjorie pissed me off about something. Money probably. I really don’t remember. We fought. It was thirty years ago.” He took another drag on the cigarette.

“Deanna and I never fought. I haven’t had a drink since I got out of the workhouse. That was the worst year of my life…until now.”

Tony listened closely, heard the words and felt the emotion of Scott Fredrickson’s words. He spoke in short, simple, factual sentences, pausing for a beat before each one.

“There’s liquor in the house,” Tony said, his tone matter-of-fact.

“Deanna would have a drink. We served drinks at parties, kept some beer for when the boys would come to watch a game. It didn’t bother me.” He looked up at Tony. There was a hint of something in his eyes. Defiance? Pride? “I haven’t had a drink in thirty years.”

Ray seemed to accept it. The man hadn’t even been in town Monday morning. Still, a history of violence carries a weight, a stigma. Tony worked through these thoughts and others.

“Felons aren’t allowed to have guns,” Ray said. Tony had forgotten about the .38 he’d found behind the nightstand. Ray hadn’t.

“Technically, it was Dee’s. We’ve had it for years, just for protection.”

“You have a good alarm system. It’s tied into the 911 operator.”

“Do you know how long it took for the first police to arrive when I called about Deanna? Six minutes, detective. Six minutes.”

“You’d be in real trouble if you ever used that gun.”

“If I’d ever had to use it, it would have been because of real trouble. I…we were willing to chance it.”

Fredrickson took out another cigarette and lit it after offering one to the detectives. Tony noticed that his hands were steady, his movements precise. He wasn’t nervous about the questioning. Sad maybe, having to relive another tragedy from three decades before, having to make excuses, to confess to a mistake he’d already paid for.

“Does this make me a suspect, Detective Bankston?”

“No.” Ray said after a moment. “But we have to check these things out.”

Tony thought about something Ray had said early in the investigation, the first morning when they were in the house with the dead woman. He said they were going to have to get into these people’s lives to solve this one. At the time Tony didn’t know how difficult and painful that was going to be.

The sun had disappeared by the time Ray and Tony pulled into the Marland’s driveway. It wouldn’t be light out for long. A coach lamp on a pole in the front yard had already come on. They hadn’t called ahead. Tony argued that Ray should take this one himself, see the woman alone. Ray told Tony that he was his chaperone. He’d laughed about it. In truth, Ray didn’t want to be alone with Lakisha, not until he knew more. He worried if he could be impartial. He had laughed because he didn’t want Tony to know how worried he was.

“Why Rayford, how nice.” Lakisha wore a beige colored, soft looking, fleece warm up suit and a broad smile when she opened the door. Then she saw Tony. “And uh, detective…”

“De Luca, ma’am. Tony de Luca.” The smile remained when she took his hand, but the eyes tightened and a furrow appeared on her forehead when she realized that Rayford wasn’t there for a social call.

She led them to a den, a wood paneled man’s room with leather club chairs and ashtrays and supple Persian carpets on the floor. It smelled of cigars and cognac and gun oil. A glass paneled cabinet full of expensive looking shotguns and rifles dominated one wall. A floor to ceiling bookshelf covered the one opposite. This was Mr. Marland’s room, not hers. Tony puzzled over the choice.

“A business call, then.” She sat upright on the front edge of a burgundy leather armchair. Ray sat directly across from her, close, their knees inches apart. Tony sat on a sofa to the side, looking at the two of them in profile. A fire had been laid. It was warm in the den. He guessed that was why she had chosen the room.

“But it’s always a pleasure to see you, Lakisha.”

“So, have you met all of my friends?” Ray nodded. “What do you think of our little group?”

“I think you’re all burdened with a great sadness, a tremendous sense of loss. It’s obvious you are all close.”

“Oh we are, Rayford. Did you come from a big family?”

“One brother.”

“Then it will be difficult for you to get the real sense of us. Imagine having six sisters. Six points of view. Six sets of likes and dislikes. Six strong personalities in competition.”

“In competition for what?”

“Does that matter? Trivial things: the flattest tummy, the biggest boobs, the most money, the fanciest clothes. Label envy. Husband envy. Who has a pool? Who drives a Lexus? Never on the surface though. There’s no scorecard. But six sisters are always going to be at odds over something.”

“Now I have to ask what Deanna Fredrickson was in competition for. Were any of you jealous of her for some reason?”

Lakisha gave a short snort of a laugh. “Here’s the thing, Rayford, she was the one that was above it all, or most of it. She was the peacemaker, the mediator, our voice of reason.”

“The least likely victim,” Ray offered. Lakisha turned inward at that comment. Ray hadn’t posed it as a question but she seemed to take it that way.

“I don’t think any of us are likely victims, certainly not murder. Our troubles are trivial. Petty stuff.”

“I’ve seen people killed for their shoes.” Tony spoke for the first time.

Lakisha replied, sounding defensive. “In the city? In Frogtown or on the West Side or in North Minneapolis? I’m sure that happens. It’s not like that with us.”

Tony shrugged. “I know what you’re trying to say. My point is that people will commit murder for trivial reasons. That’s all. You’re telling me that it couldn’t happen in your group because you’re all what? Better? Rich? Sophisticated? I’m not so sure.”

Lakisha turned to Ray. “Your partner has some suspicions.”

“My partner has lived on those streets for a long time. You brought up competition.”

“And I wish I hadn’t,” Lakisha said, frostier now…distant.

Ray wondered if Tony had hit a nerve and continued. “You’re the writer. The observer. You say that Deanna was the peacemaker. What if someone didn’t want to kiss and make up, so to speak? Resented the intrusion?”

There was a pause before Lakisha spoke again, as if she was working through something. “You still don’t have a motive, do you?” Ray kept his face blank. No, they didn’t have a motive and the mystery writer could sense it. “If you want to talk about resentment, I’ve got a suspect for you. Have you met Gary Hewes?” Lakisha watched the two detectives share a look. “Of course you have.”

“What about him?” Tony asked the question. He was the one who’d had to restrain him the day before. The man had a temper and he was obsessively protective of his wife.

“Deanna has tried for years to get the man to lighten up. He all but keeps Karen on a leash. Maybe she had a confrontation with him we don’t know about and he flipped out.”

“Could that have happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like Gary. I could be way off base, but you brought up resentment as a motive and the man carries a grudge.” Without more to work with Ray didn’t want to pursue the issue further. Gary Hewes’ alibi had checked out but he would have a talk with him again…and soon. Lakisha was letting them inside the group now. He wanted to touch on some other things before he dropped the bomb.

“What about jealousy? Roxie Kennebrew has a thing for Scott Fredrickson, or so she says.”

“Sisters also tease, Rayford. Roxie has been teasing Deanna for years. I think she does it to motivate Ken, myself. He’s not the most ambitious man in the world.”

“Motivate?”

“Ken’s kind of a slob. Roxie flirts with Scott so her husband will try to keep in shape and have a little style, work harder.”

“Wrong tree, huh?”

Lakisha smiled when she replied. “Wrong forest.”

“There’s one thing that’s come up, a connection to the LA trip.” Tony was surprised Ray brought that up. It felt like an ace to him and he thought a few more cards should be shown before it was played.