Fred Limberg - First Murder

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.”

“Did you?”

“Shop? My word, yes. Mr. Marland flinched when the statements came, I’m sure. The only movie star we met was Woody Harrelson. That was a severe disappointment.”

“Did you ever have any trouble on the trips? Those are some ah…risky places you’ve visited.”

“Oh, we were always in a group. Well, almost always. And we have Ally.”

“Ally?”

“Allyson Couts. You’ll meet her.”

“Tell me about her. I’d like to hear about all of them, really.”

“Oh no, Rayford. Meet them yourself. Form your own impressions. I’d hate to be the cause of any…friction.” Tony cracked half a smile. He was enjoying the banter.

Ray didn’t push. He realized it would be better if he met them first, developed his own notions. “There’s one other thing. We’d like to get fingerprints from you if we could.”

“From me?” She was surprised. “Whatever for?”

“There were a lot of fingerprints taken at the scene. I assume you’ve been to the house before.”

“Many times.”

“They’re for comparison. It’ll save a lot of time. Have you ever been fingerprinted, Lakisha?” She looked down at her lap, embarrassed. She nodded.

“Fingerprints come to our database from many sources. Armed services, some are given voluntarily, government work…” Ray was trying to shield her from something, Tony sensed.

“Criminal records,” she said, her voice low, the tone resigned.

“Yes, those too.”

“Your system already has my fingerprints, Rayford. It was years ago. Many years.”

Ray picked up on her sadness, sensed some sort of defeat in her attitude and tried to give her an out. “The time saving, Lakisha, comes about in that we don’t have to search any of the databases if we give the evidence techs a comparison card. We don’t even have to look. If you would rather not that’s okay too.”

She sighed and held her right hand out to Ray. Tony passed the ink pad and card over. It seemed to him that Ray took a long time and was very gentle in guiding the woman’s long fingers over the pad and card. He saw them looking in each other’s eyes a couple of times. Then Ray took out his handkerchief and gave it to her so she could wipe the ink off her hands.

“Thank you,” she said. Ray passed the pad back to Tony and slipped the card into his jacket pocket.

“I think that’s all the questions I have for now.” Ray stood, offered a hand as Lakisha rose as well. Tony, ignored once again, realized he was on his own. In a tense and awkward silence she led them to the foyer. She was still worrying her stained fingers with Ray’s handkerchief when she turned at the door.