The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (15 page)

Detective Allen made the trip back to Madison in the old crime lab van midst the cameras, the boxes of chemicals
, and a large plastic case with unknown contents. Two technicians rode in the front, carrying on a line of sports conversation all the way. Joe was exhausted and fell into a fitful sleep for the first few miles then lay wide awake across the seat, his mind racing with the events of the morning and the night before.

Times like these,
he thought
, it might be good to light up a cigarette like Maude, except it wouldn’t be those bent up unfiltereds that she smoked. Oh no, if he ever took on the habit, his choice of smoking pleasure would be the big cigars from the locked cases in the cigar store. Small chance of that, he detested the taste of tobacco in any form. One time, a year or so back, he had dated a woman who smoked, and each time he kissed her the strong smell of her breath almost took away the pleasure of the kiss.

Ah, women, now that was an uncomplicated subject. Not the women themselves, but the idea of women.
Joe loved them all, wishing he could be with one in the back of the van. Not for any reason other than to talk and laugh a little, with maybe a few kisses if she was willing. Usually when his green eyes started flashing most women both young and old took notice. Joe was not unaware of his charms; sometimes taking advantage of the stir he created by asking a woman out to dinner, hoping to get luckier than a smile for the evening. He still missed his wife and the kids, but after a while he had begun to realize that Sheila was right. He had left little time for them in his schedule. If he got really lucky again and found a woman, and they fell in love, he vowed to do things very differently.

The van dropped him off at the
Cop Shop where he got pats on the back from all the staff there, including the lieutenant. He reminded them that he and his partner were working together on the job, and she had stayed there to go over some of the details and possibly catch up on some missed clues to the killer’s identity.

Meanwhile he called the coroner
’s office and was told that the M.E. hadn’t had a chance to spend any time with the body, but the Buena Vista coroner had ruled the death a homicide. His report said the cause of death was the knife wound which punctured her heart. Time of death was uncertain, but appeared to have been twenty four to forty eight hours prior to the discovery of the body; however, the autopsy would be more conclusive in all the details of the murder. The blood on the robe had yet to be tested but it would happen soon, Joe was told.

The task at hand was
to follow up on the homeless woman who was left for dead a few days before, a sorry state to get to it so late, but circumstances had caused the delay, making the possibility of finding the killer more difficult. He missed Maude’s experience and old time wisdom, but she had given him instructions to begin the look-see of the case.

The investigating officer said
in his report that the dead woman had been found by another homeless person who hailed the first cop that he saw. Finding the beat cop on his six to six shift was fairly easy, just a radio call away. When Joe arrived at the officer’s location they sat and shared a soda in the small kiosk area near one of the major banks in downtown Madison.

Officer Kilpatrick,
‘Billy, if you would rather’, said “The woman was a loner in the homeless community, keeping herself and her treasures tucked away in close range of any and all police officers. She always knew where safety was, knew who would protect her. The people who saw her on the streets said she had been talking about a find she made near one of the downtown dumpsters and that was probably what got her killed. Diane didn’t believe in sharing. No, they didn’t know what the treasure was that she had found but it wasn’t on her when the EMT’s took her in the meat wagon. So either she sold it or someone stole it.”

The soda finished and a copy of the officer’s report in his pocket, Detective Allen made a trip to the Thrift
for Profit store over on Vine Street. The man behind the counter was tall and thin, with old pock marks on his arms, and a slight tic that pulled his left cheek down when he talked. The effect was distracting to most people who tried conversing with the man, often resulting in an unresponsive audience when the man spoke at length.

“The woman’s name is Diane Jones, used to come in and sell you some of the things she found on the street. The word is she made a real good find and someone took it away from her then strangled her to keep her quiet. Know anything about that?” Joe was hoping the victim had shown the treasure around and got a value out it from the thrift man.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, his tic working overtime. Seen her about two weeks ago, she had some decent shoes. I gave her fifty cents for them. Nothing else though.”

“Any
one else tried to sell some nice stuff in the past few days?” Joe asked.

“Don’t know. They don’t bring nice stuff here. Go to the pawn shop.” The tic man was in a hurry for Joe to go away. At least it seemed that way.

Joe couldn’t place the tic man near the victim at the time of her death and decided to put the man on hold and go on down to the pawn shop. The bright neon sign screamed, “Pawn Shop”. The door below the sign was outfitted with more locks than Fort Knox. Joe walked through the entry and was greeted by a woman with swarthy skin who looked askance at him, wondering if he was cop or criminal.

“Excuse me
ma’am, hate to bother you but I need some answers to a few questions. Detective Allen, Homicide, Madison PD,” Joe said, pulling his shield for the woman to look over.

“What do you want?” the woman
asked, frightened, to the point.

“This woman, you know her?”
he asked, laying out a photo of the dead woman.

“Yes, she is a thief. She stole from me. I called your Chief of Police but he never came.”

“What did she steal and when did you last see her?” Joe asked.

“She stole a bracelet with two rubies and one diamond. It was on the tray, on the top of the counter. The woman was outside the door. She watched for me to turn around and answer the phone
then ran and grabbed the bracelet off the tray. I saw her and wanted to chase after her, but I could not leave the store. I called your Chief of Police and he did nothing.”

“Oh yeah, what was that bracelet worth?”

“Two hundred dollars, that is what I would sell it for,” the woman responded, hostility and old umbrage against police working through the fear.

“So did you find her later and strangle her in her sleep to get the bracelet back?” Joe decided to throw the accusation out to see
how she responded.
Throw a rock, you never knew what you might hit
.

“Strangle her? That woman so dirty and such a thief I would never touch her!” The pawn shop woman was indignant, her repulsion visible in the expression on her face.

“What’s your name, ma’am? I need to know before I take you down to the station to question you about this murder.”

The woman sputt
ered. “No, please. Do not take me to the jail and lock me up. I did nothing. It was not me. My name is Giselle Farouk. I did not kill this terrible woman.”

“But you know who did, Giselle.” Joe said, quietly.
“I see it in your eyes.”
The rock in motion again.

The woman was distraught, overcome with the desire to tell what she knew, to rid herself of
the memory of something very bad. She was withholding information, something important and Joe could see the need to tell it was close to winning out against her loyalty to someone. The fear of jail had been the catalyst, a lucky remark thrown out, disturbing the peace within her.

“In France,
” she went on, “before I came to America, the gendarmes broke into my house to tell me that my husband was a criminal and I must be too, because he had been arrested for selling drugs from my house. They took me to a terrible place, and locked me inside, where I stayed for many days, naked, with a small amount of food that the rats did not take from me. There was a small bucket for me to use for my body functions and a ragged blanket to cover my body. One day, I crawled to the bars to beg again for them to let me go, and the door was unlocked with no one there. They were not gendarmes; they were criminals who wanted my husband to show them where he had his drugs. My life was nothing to them. I walked all the way to my house, starving, dirty, and very sick. When I got to my house my husband was there, on the floor. The criminals had killed him. I was afraid I would be blamed for killing my husband, so I quickly dressed and took the money from his pocket and ran from the house. I was dirty and hungry like that woman, and no one bothered me. Later, I slept inside the train station in a corner near the back door. When I awoke, I used my husband’s money and bought a ticket to America.”

Her story seemed to have an end, but she wasn’t there yet.

“My new husband is very jealous. He has a terrible temper. If he knew about my past he would never let me live in his house.”

Joe stared at
Farouk for a minute. “You had a good motive for killing this woman.” he said, holding the picture of Diane Jones out again.

“No, No, it was him
,” she sobbed. “It was my husband…an accident. He beat me when I told him the woman took the bracelet then he went there to watch her, and to steal it back. He intended to beat her too, but no, it was not to be. My husband grabbed for the bracelet when the woman was asleep, and she woke up, and was going to scream. He found the wire there on the ground, and tried to make her be quiet by tying it around her neck. After a little while she stopped trying to scream. He took the bracelet, and came home; sure that no one had seen him there. He was fortunate.”

Joe listened to the story, imagining how it happened, how Diane Jones believed she had found the big score, how she held the piece of jewelry tight against her, admiring the reflection from the streetlight winking in the small diamonds.
A woman dying, and a man murdering,
he thought
, for a piece of gold and shiny stones worth about two hundred bucks. What a waste.

Shaking his head over the tawdry story, Joe escorted the woman to his car
after she locked the building. Her objections to jail had disappeared with the telling of the story of her husband. A good lawyer would be able to refute her tale because it was hear-say, and because of the husband-wife protection under the law, but as far as Joe was concerned, the story would hold up. He could hardly wait to tell Maude!

When the detective walked into the
Cop Shop, the others were quiet, watching him lead the woman in. He went to the lieutenant’s office and gave his report while the woman waited outside. Patterson stared at the new detective, seemingly puzzled by something he didn’t choose to share with Joe Allen. Nodding his head a few times, he put out his hand to Joe and told him congratulations.

“
It’s about closing cases Joe. Good job. Bring the husband in and let’s see what he has to say for himself.” At the end of the long evening, Joe cleared the Homicide desk and made the trip to his personal vehicle.

Maude would be back tomorrow, he hoped, and they could work on the
East Avenue murders, but for the rest of the night, he refused to think about the job.

T
he local watering hole for cops and firemen was called Dancers, and was located on Fifth and Alamo Street. At one time it was a glitzy fern bar with plenty of lights and reflector balls hanging over a good-sized dance floor, greenery at every corner and tables overflowing with yuppies. The plants left first, just before the yuppies moved out to make room for the cops that landed nightly at the vacant tables near the bar.

That night,
a few women were sitting at one of the tables, drinking quietly most of the time, but breaking out into cheerful laughter occasionally. The laughter drew Joe’s eyes. He was weary of the talk of murder. The pale amber beer in his glass was cold and good as it went down. A finger in the air, and another beer was placed there, the empty glass removed. Cop bars had waiters that were good at that; they catered to men in uniform, taking care of their wants, washing away the sad stories of damaged people.

By the time the detective had finished his second beer, he was less inhibited, more willing to take a chance.
It was a short trip to the old time jukebox where he chose a slow one then he stopped on the way back, asking one of the women to dance while he still had his nerve.

The room had filled up
after Joe first arrived; some EMT’s, firemen and more cops had come in and sat down, some in uniform. Most of them Joe had seen around. The music was soft and low, overwhelmed by the noise from the drinkers in the bar, the floor crowded. Blue eyes stared back at him with friendliness, following his lead, bouncing off other bodies moving to the music.

“My name is Susan Lucas, what’s yours?” she spoke loudly so he could hear over the rest of the
house.

He told her, then tightened his arms around her, moving to the outside of the circle, stepping on feet that weren’t his, aiming for a clear spot near the bar.

“Want to go for coffee?”