Fred Limberg - First Murder

Carol and Fredrickson went back and forth for a few more minutes. Ray turned into himself a bit and tuned them out.

Something in the back of his brain told him to focus in on the girlfriends. He wanted to know more about the ‘Go Girls’, and right now. The green blinking alarm light. A coffee cup in the sink. Gals out on the town. Ray studied the list in his hand and looked over toward Carol and Scott.

“May I call my son now?” Fredrickson appeared even more drained than when the detectives had arrived. His shoulders sagged more. His hands lay slack in his lap. Ray turned fully toward Carol, catching her eye as she looked up from her note pad. She gave a small shrug. She had nothing more.

“Of course,” Ray replied. “We’ll just step out again for a minute.”

Once outside Carol had a cigarette fired in record time and looked out over the parking lot, arms crossed, her foot tapped a steady rapid beat on the cold concrete floor.

“I want to meet these women.”

Ray had the list in hand, again studying it. “So do I Carol. I might take de Luca with me on some of them.”

“Ray, I’ve got more experience. You know that,” she protested.

“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. I’m thinking you and Pao, with your vast experience, can cover her work, the gym, and the charities better than Tony.”

“Sometimes women open up more to women.”

“I know that. Sometimes they feel threatened, too. True?”

She knew he was right. “Your call, Ray.”

He checked his watch. “Let’s wrap up here for now. I want to see what Tony learned from the son. You track down Pao and start on the hospital and so on. I think the autopsy is scheduled soon too. We’ll stay in touch.” She dropped the cigarette, ground the butt with her heel, nodded, and took the list from Ray to copy the contact information once they were back inside.

“He’s on his way. He was talking to one of your detectives.” Fredrickson was standing, his hands in his pockets. He looked lost.

“You met him this morning. De Luca.”

“I guess.”

“We’re done for now. We’ll want to stay in touch, Mr. Fredrickson.”

“The house?”

“I’ll let you know. It’s a crime scene. We need to control access right now.” Ray left unsaid that they might want to search further into some nooks and crannies uninterrupted.

“I need…I guess I need to make some arrangements. Her body…”

“Don’t worry about that right now, sir,” Carol replied too quickly. “It won’t be released until after the autopsy, and we may need to keep it available even after that, in case something comes up and they need to go back in.” A moan escaped Scott Fredrickson’s mouth, oozed from his soul, low and sad and pained. He melted down, back onto the rumpled bed, an arm laid across his eyes and wept.

Ray lowered his head and shook it slowly. Carol could have said a dozen other things. Television showed too much of the grisly parts of their work. They waited patiently, respectfully, while the man on the bed regained some control. Ray figured he was nowhere near cried out.

After a long minute he mumbled a question through the hands now covering his face. “Do you have to?”

“Yes, sir,” Ray answered softly. “We do.”

“Well then…” Fredrickson took a deep breath and sat up and dragged a sleeve across his wet red eyes.

“I’ll call you later.” Ray said softly. He stepped over and laid what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Scott’s shoulder.

“I’m frightened, Detective Bankston. Frightened.” Ray said nothing, just looked in the man’s eyes and waited for him to go on.

“Somebody she knew, maybe someone we both know, they killed Deanna, and I don’t have any idea who or why. I’m frightened.”

Ray gripped the man’s shoulder firmly. “That’s what we’re all working on. I’ll call later.”

Tony went back to headquarters, parked himself at what he guessed was his new desk, and started making phone calls. Scotty Fredrickson’s alibi checked out. So did Swenson’s. He tried Sean Stuckey’s cell phone every fifteen minutes. All he got was voice mail. He left messages the first two times.

Ray and Carol rolled in just after noon. Carol was polite but chippy. Tony guessed her attitude had to do with their encounter earlier and shrugged it off. Ray was thoughtful and curious what Tony had learned from the son and the roommates.

Ray again directed Carol to match up with Vang Pao and get on the hospital and gym interviews. She snatched up her purse and stalked out. Ray knew she wanted to get to the women friends, the ‘Go Girls’. He did too, but there were other things to do first.

He showed Tony how to fill out the interview forms for the case file. Ray didn’t mind that the file was actually created electronically, just so long as copies were printed and kept in the case folder. He didn’t care to sit for hours squinting at a computer screen, opening windows, searching sub-folders and clicking keys. He liked to feel the paper, read real words in black and white, and occasionally make notes. He hoped Tony would adopt the habit.

Tony took a call from the morgue and transferred it to Ray after the person calling insisted. They’d never heard of a Detective de Luca, they wanted Sergeant Bankston. His attention was split then. He tried to hear what Ray was saying while he transferred notes from his pad to the interview log form on the screen. The keyboard knew he was a little pissed, the way he was punching the keys with authority.

Ray, making notes, the phone handset clamped in a hunched shoulder, said “uh huh” a number of times. The call went on for a while and eventually Tony quit trying to follow Ray’s end. He’d find out soon enough what the coroner had to say so he concentrated on his own notes, carefully transcribing what Scott Jr. had said and what Swenson and David Hong had said. Tony wondered if he should make notes of their body language. He didn’t know. Ray was still on the phone with the coroner and he couldn’t ask. Another line rang. They’d probably want Sergeant fricking Bankston too, he fumed.

“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.”