Fred Limberg - First Murder

“My new best friend. You know him?”

“Just barely, but he’s good.”

“And big.”

“That too.” Tony, about to offer her more reassurance, was startled by a rapping on the window. He jerked his head and almost dropped the phone. His right hand instinctively reached for his gun.

“Christ!”

David Hong jumped back, startled by the outburst. Sue Ellen was yelling into the phone. Tony had to deal with the shot of adrenalin that had squirted into his system. He put a hand up toward Hong, signaling wait a minute . He reassured Sue Ellen that everything was okay and promised to call her later. Then he took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen Hong at all, concentrating on what Sue Ellen had been saying. He punched the button to unlock the passenger door. Hong stuck his head in the car, smiling.

“Sorry?” He looked a little embarrassed.

“I didn’t see you coming.”

The big Samoan kid draped an arm over the car door. “You’ve been out here a long time, man. Waiting on Sean?”

“How’d you guess?” So much for covert surveillance, Tony grumbled to himself.

“Want to wait inside?” Tony thought it over. Why the hell not? He followed Hong across the street.

“Does that pizza joint around the corner deliver?” he asked as they climbed the front porch stairs.

Tony hadn’t played any video games since he was in college and not much back then. He was impressed with the sophistication of the new games. Halo was a challenge. Hong was an expert with the controller. Tony suffered through an embarrassing learning curve but was finally getting the hang of it.

Swenson came home. He snagged some pizza and joined them on the sofa for another round. Tony had made himself at home. The boys were easy to talk to, witty and intelligent. Tony had tossed his sport jacket aside, the shoulder holstered Glock flapped under his arm as he leaned into the game, putting useless body-english into the electronic bullets. Tony felt a little guilty. This was not how a stakeout was supposed to go. He was having a pretty good time.

He’d talked to Ray. They were going to have a meeting, go over everything they had. Tony wanted to join them. Ray thought it best for Tony to stay on the stakeout, get the Stuckey kid off the list, that he had a good bit of time invested. Ray told him he hoped he’d be done with the kid tonight, to stick with it. Sure boss, Tony said, and went back inside to the game. He finally made the second level and was out for revenge.

The front door opened. Tony looked up to see a young man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt wrestling with a backpack. Sean Stuckey. He was about 5’10”, not powerfully built, but not slight, either. Hong had been right. Sean was trying to grow some hair on his face and looked like the blond half of the white kids on campus.

Tony was concerned with the look on Stuckey’s face. His eyes had narrowed and there was a look of worry on it.

“Hey, Sean. This is Tony.” Swenson was grinning, having fun with his roommate’s confusion. He was used to the big guy with the matte black gun in a shoulder rig by now.

“Hey.” Stuckey tossed off an up-nod, trying to be cool. He was thinking of how to get out of there, Tony thought. He knew the look.

Tony retrieved his jacket and fished his gold badge out of the pocket. “I’m Detective de Luca, St. Paul Homicide. You’re Sean Stuckey, right?” He didn’t offer his hand. Stuckey’s eyes darted around the room. He was nervous. He’d been surprised-jumped. Tony wondered if the kid might bolt.

“Yeah. Oh shit! You’re the guy on the phone, right?” The look changed. Stuckey seemed more relaxed. Tony thought he was putting on a show.

“I left several messages.”

“Man, I was going to call, and then this shit happened.” Sean reached into the backpack. “I dropped the fucking phone and some dude ran over it with his bike.” He held up the busted phone. The screen was gone, just shards clinging to the rim, now, and it was bent. It was a goner.

“Looks fatal.” Tony nodded. If the kid was making up an excuse it was an expensive one. It was a nice phone.

“It bites, man. Three hundred bucks! And my whole fucking life is in there-my numbers.” Stuckey stuffed the debris back into the knapsack. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Tony turned to the two guys on the couch. “Somewhere we can talk?” They both just smiled at him. They wanted to listen in.

“Privately?” Tony shot them a stern look, as if to say ‘game time’s over’.

“Let’s go in the kitchen.” Sean led the way. Tony noticed he threw a pissed-off glance at the two boys on the sofa. There didn’t seem to be any love lost between them. Sean maneuvered so that he was sitting directly across from Tony at the scarred wooden table.

Surprisingly, Stuckey fired the first shot. “This is about Scotty’s mom isn’t it?”

“Not unless there’s another crime you’re connected with I should know about.” Tony tried to keep it light. He thought he saw something. A hesitation? A hitch? Like Stuckey had tried to hide a thought and failed.

“What do you want to know?” The kid was all business now. Tony wondered if he’d been through this before.

“Where were you early Monday morning? Early like 6 to 10.”

“That’s easy. I spent the night with Angie and had a 9:00 class.” Tony made a note. Stuckey watched him closely.

“Angie?”

“This chick.”

“Angie have a last name?”

“Arkwright. You want her phone number, too? She’s pretty hot. We’re not like, exclusive.” Stuckey’s attitude took the first step toward wearing thin.

Tony flipped to a clean page and slid the notebook and his pen across the table. “And her address please.” Stuckey gave him a sullen look and started writing. “And while you’re at it, write down the class and the building and the professor’s name for the class.”

“For my alibi?”

“That’s right.” Tony folded his hands on the tabletop and watched Stuckey write, keeping his face neutral. When he was done, Sean slid the pad back…hard. It skidded off the table and onto the floor.

“Sorry,” Sean said.

Little fucking liar , Tony thought. He looked over the notes. The woman’s address wasn’t far away, maybe 15 blocks.

“History of the Cinema?”

“Yeah. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’m an art major, leaning toward film.”

“And you were in class and Monday?”

“I told you that. It was a film review.” Tony nodded. “I already took this but the credits didn’t transfer. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Transfer from where?” Tony really didn’t care. He asked the question reflexively, just making conversation, trying to get the kid at ease.

“UCLA, if it’s any of your business.” Stuckey was starting to piss Tony off. The notebook. The attitude. He wanted to get in the kid’s face, shove back some, but decided to just keep with the program, get the info he needed and move on. He made a note about the attitude while wondering how Stuckey would react to his next surprise. He pulled the finger print kit out and held it up.

“Know what this is?” Stuckey shook his head. “It’s a little kit we carry to take fingerprints with. Were you ever in the Fredrickson’s home?”

“Yeah, I was there once. We watched a football game in the basement like, last week, two weeks ago. Something like that. Why?”

“I’d like you to let me print you for elimination purposes. There were a lot of prints in the house. This will save us a ton of time.”

Stuckey frowned. His eyes started searching, left to right, like he was looking for a hole to crawl into.

“What do you mean save time?”