Alan Cook - Catch a Falling Knife

“When did he leave?” Mark asked.

Donna looked at her watch. “About an hour ago. I was so upset that I collapsed on the bed. I must have fallen asleep. When you first called I was disoriented and thought I was having a dream.”

“Do you know where he went?” I asked.

“No. Home, I guess.”

I had the feeling Donna wasn’t telling us everything, but I might have that feeling because of her propensity to change stories. There was nothing to be gained by talking to her further. I think she was relieved to see us go, but then I would have been too, in her shoes.

“I hope you’ve come to confess, because that’s the only reason I want to talk to you two.”

With that opening salvo, Detective Johnson led us to a bleak conference room, with a table and several chairs. After we were seated he opened his spiral notebook and said, “Okay, I’m ready to take down your confession.”

“We have new evidence,” I said. I figured I had to act as Mark’s defense attorney, in Burt’s absence. That meant defending him from Detective Johnson’s verbal blows.

After the detective asked us what we had, in a voice that showed his skepticism, I said, “We talked to Ted Ulrich, Elise’s boyfriend.”

“I told you to stay away from him. Now he’s going to come running to me, complaining that you’re harassing him again.” His eye twitched. Then he relaxed a little and a smile played on his lips. He said, “You know, that guy’s a wuss. I don’t think he had the balls to kill the girl.”

“We don’t think so, either. But he did tell us something I don’t think he told you. On the night that Elise was killed, he was out on patrol, as they call it, with Eric Hoffman.”

“He told me that.”

“But did he tell you that he and Eric went into Club Cavalier?” I paused to let that sink in.

Detective Johnson didn’t give us the satisfaction of showing his surprise, if any. He said, “I’m listening.”

“They drank beer and saw several dancers, including the Shooting Star.”

Now Johnson’s expression changed from skeptical to surprise to calculating. “So you’re telling me that the boyfriend saw his girlfriend stripping and the dad saw his daughter stripping.”

“Not only that,” Mark said, unable to keep silent, “but Ted claimed that he didn’t recognize her because he had never seen her naked before. In fact, if you can believe it, he didn’t know Elise was the Shooting Star until we told him today.”

“And Hoffman?”

“According to what Ted told us about his reaction, he must have recognized her. But he didn’t let on to Ted.” Mark told how Eric had immediately taken Ted home and then left in a hurry.

“And where do you suppose he went?”

“To Elise’s apartment, where else? He probably got there the same time she did.”

“And in his rage and humiliation he stabbed her.”

“That’s certainly a possibility.”

“Since Elise probably wouldn’t lock her own father out, how did the window get broken?”

I said the obvious. “He might have broken it to make it look like a robbery.”

“And then left before Donna got there.”

Mark and I looked at each other. I said, “Yes. I don’t know of any reason why she would cover for him. In fact, it could have been dangerous for her if she had arrived while he was still there. We talked to Donna today after we talked to Ted, by the way. Eric came to see her this morning after he read in the paper that she had admitted that Elise was the Shooting Star.”

“You’ve been flitting all over the place, haven’t you?” Detective Johnson said. “So what did Eric Hoffman want with Donna?”

“To chew her out for revealing the identity of the Shooting Star,” Mark said. “According to Donna, he really lambasted her.”

“Because it makes him a suspect.”

“Although, if we can believe what Donna told us, she still doesn’t know he knew before the killing…”

“And thus, she doesn’t know he had a motive.”

“Second reason he’s mad at Donna is because this revelation subjects him to public humiliation,” I said, using Johnson’s own word. “His daughter is revealed as a stripper, which goes against everything he stands for. Donna can appreciate that. She said so. In her mind, that’s reason enough for him to be mad at her, even if he didn’t kill Elise.”

“So he’s the killer but she hasn’t been covering for him because she doesn’t know it,” Detective Johnson said. “Poor guy. He’s the salt of the earth, but his kid lets him down.” His voice registered equal parts skepticism and sarcasm. “Assuming everything you’ve told me is true, what about the knife? How did it get into Mark’s car?”

“The last time I visited Eric Hoffman, Mark drove me there. Mark didn’t stay while I talked to Eric, but I beeped him when I was ready to leave and he returned. Eric walked out with me and got a good look at Mark’s car, although they didn’t talk to each other. Since he was in the habit of taking down license plate numbers, he probably wrote Mark’s down. He knew my address at Silver Acres and he knew Mark was staying with me. When he went out on night patrol, he could have driven to Silver Acres and found Mark’s car.”

“Figuring that since Mark was a suspect, anyway, this might seal his fate and get Eric off the hook.”

A reply to this remark didn’t seem necessary, so Mark and I kept silent.

Detective Johnson wrote some notes and carefully studied them for a time, without looking up. Then he met our eyes and said, “If you’re expecting a thank you, forget it. I would have found this stuff out, sooner or later. Now I’ll follow up. I want you two to keep out of it.”

I still didn’t have at least one piece to the puzzle. How had Elise gotten home from Club Cavalier? Detective Johnson didn’t seem to know, or if he did he didn’t tell Mark and me. It’s possible that Eric Hoffman had returned to Club Cavalier after he had taken Ted home, but by then Elise would have been gone.

She might have left even faster if she had seen her father and her boyfriend in the audience, but there was no way of knowing whether she had. From what I remembered of the lighting in the Club, it probably would have been difficult for her to recognize anybody sitting in the back, especially with the spotlights shining in her eyes.

In any case, according to Lefty she had left immediately after her show. So who had given her a ride? That person could possibly be a material witness. Or even the murderer.

In addition, where had Elise smoked marijuana? There hadn’t been a trace of any drug in her apartment, according to the police report. I was not naive enough to believe that nothing like that ever happened in the dressing room at Club Cavalier, but she didn’t stick around long enough to do it there. The obvious conclusion was that she smoked on the ride home. So she must have been with somebody she knew quite well.

What about her old boyfriend from last year, the one Donna said she had slept with? I didn’t know his name and Detective Johnson had never mentioned him. Maybe it was time we started looking for him. But I wanted to do something else first and Detective Johnson could have no objection.

On Wednesday morning I went to pool aerobics with Tess. Then she went off on some errand. By the time I returned to my apartment, Mark had left for a daytime shift as bartender at the restaurant in Durham. I took my car and drove to Bethany. I knew how to get to Club Cavalier by now, without referring to a map or having somebody give me directions. Once there, I parked beside the Club and studied the street map I had brought with me, using a magnifying glass I carry to help me read small print.