Fred Limberg - First Murder

“Al Cooper. What? I live over there.” The man pointed to a small stucco house three doors down. Tony hurried over to him. In his uniform days anyone hustling away from the crowd of gawkers at a crime scene got special attention.

“Where you going?”

The man had an annoyed look on his face. “I gotta’ get ready for work. What?”

“You see anything strange going on around here the last day or two? You heard my questions back there.” The man’s attitude wasn’t evasive but Tony thought he needed to keep pressing.

Cooper shifted his weight from foot to foot, impatient. “Nah, I ain’t seen nothin’. Look, I gotta get to work.”

“Where do you work, Mr. Cooper.”

“The Ford plant. What’s all the questions for? My shift’s comin’ up.”

Tony got his address and phone number and returned to the thinning crowd of neighbors. Others had wandered off while he was with Cooper.

Great…just fuckin’ great.

He went back and tried again, collected a few more names and numbers. The crowd was dwindling when he noticed one woman, an older lady clutching an overcoat closed over her nightclothes crying softly.

“It’s Deanna, isn’t it?” Her cheeks were wet. The woman’s thin gray hair was still bed mussed and in the streetlight Tony saw her ears were reddening in the early morning chill.

“Did you know her well?” Tony asked. The other gawkers had drifted off, gone back home for coffee and breakfast and worry about a murder on their quiet street.

“I’ve lived next door to Scott and Deanna for twelve years. Right over there.” She pointed to the neat frame house closest to the Fredrickson’s driveway.

Tony wanted to say something to comfort her but he needed to start getting into their lives, as Ray put it. “Tell me about them.”

“Scott’s a financial planner. He handles my accounts, now that Bud’s passed. Bud was my husband. Deanna, my god, Deanna…” the woman started crying again. “I’m cold. Would you like to come to the kitchen to talk? I’ll make coffee.”

“Yes ma’am.” Tony saw the first of the news vans heading up the street. Jackals . Somebody must have used the radio instead of their cell phone. “Why don’t you go on ahead. I need a word with my partner.”

Tony escorted her through the thinning ranks of uniformed officers, across the Fredrickson’s driveway, to her own back door. The two driveways ran parallel. He realized that the woman must have said hello to the dead woman, Deanna, almost every day. He sidled up next to his partner, saying nothing, listening to Ray and the husband, Scott Fredrickson, talk in low tones.

“I know it sounds cliche, detective, but Deanna didn’t have an enemy in the world. Not one.”

Tony observed the man, still sitting sideways in the back of the cruiser, hands still in his lap. The sky had lightened considerably and was hinting blue, nearly cloudless. Tony could see dark circles under the man’s red eyes. It looked like he’d been punched. He’d certainly been crying. He had coarse stubble on his cheeks. His suit was wrinkled, mussed as if he’d been living in it for a few days. His brownish gray hair was disheveled.

“Maybe someone from work?”

“Deanna didn’t work. Well, not at a job, work. She volunteered at Children’s, been helping out there for years. She was on a few boards, the food shelf and a woman’s shelter. She’s busier than I am some weeks but she loves it.”

“You mentioned children. Was she on good terms with them?” Tony thought he could see a knife slash the man’s heart when Ray asked the question from the look of pain and utter despair that crossed his face.

“Good terms? Best friends is more like it. Our daughter lives in Madison. She’s married. Pregnant.” Scott Fredrickson looked up at Ray. “My God. She’ll never…” It took him a minute to be able to speak again. Ray and Tony looked at each other. Ray looked sad and sympathetic. Tony looked angry.

“Scotty, Scott junior, lives over by the U. He’s a sophomore. Econ major. Dee was probably the only mother in the city with a key to her son’s house. Welcome anytime. He has some roommates. Nice young men. They all love her…call her the house mom.”

“You know them well?”

“No, but she did.” Ray made a note.

“What about friends? Any difficulties with her friends?”

“The ‘Go Girls’? Not a chance. No chance.”

“The ‘Go Girls’?”

“A group of them. They do everything together. Have forever, seems like. They take trips every year, sometimes more often. They’re like sisters. My God… I have to call them too.” He looked up at Ray, hopeless and lost…defeated already and the day barely begun. Ray touched his shoulder, sympathetic, thinking already that this man hadn’t killed his wife, but her death might kill him. The detectives stepped away to give him a minute and to compare notes.

“I’m going to talk to the neighbor.” De Luca shagged his head toward the house next door.

“Need any help?”

Tony’s nostrils flared.

Ray noticed but decided to get into it later. “I’d like to stay with the husband and talk to Kumpula. You do it.”

De Luca nodded, already sorry he’d taken it wrong again. “Lady says they lived next door for twelve years. Driveways run right next to each other.”

“See how the windows almost match up.” Ray pointed to the two lit windows. “Don’t you just hate nosy people?”

Tony saw immediately that a person could look directly from one side door into the other. “Nope.”

At that moment two men horsed a raised gurney across the lawn and rattled it onto the driveway. They were almost ready to move the body. Ray and Tony looked over and saw Scott Fredrickson sag further, collapse inward, reality battering a broken, broken-hearted man.

“De Luca you said? East Side?” The tiny woman was fussing with cups and saucers. Pale pink lipstick had magically appeared, her wispy hair combed now, and the housecoat exchanged for a heavier, nicer one. Tony smiled for her. He couldn’t think of anyone who still used a percolator for coffee.

“I know a Louisa de Luca,” Mae said while the coffee perked.

“My aunt Louise, I bet.” He sat back and let her talk.

The woman’s name was Mae Long he learned, widowed three years, with two grown daughters and six grandkids. Her husband, Bud, passed just two years ago. While she rattled off names and ages Tony listened politely for a while, but she did go on a bit, and he started getting impatient. Fine and good, he thought, juggling the dainty cup, but I want to know about the Fredricksons.

“I’m really not the nosy type”, she said.

Just my luck.

“But after twelve years you get to know people. Dee was a saint. I’m not just saying that. She put in more hours at Children’s Hospital and with the Food Bank than most people do at work in a week.” Wrinkled lips pursed, Mae looked toward the window facing the driveway and the Fredrickson’s house.

“Were you familiar with the comings and goings next door, Mae?”

“Like I said, I’m not a nosy sort. But Dee was usually out of the house by 8:30 most mornings, 9:00 at the latest. That’s why I thought it was odd that her car was in the driveway yesterday morning. Scott’s out of town, you see. He was in Phoenix this week. His car’s in the garage. Gracie’s married and lives in Madison, did you know that? And Scotty’s at the U. He almost never comes home during the week.”

“I see.” Not nosy my ass. Keep going, Mae. “The husband and her got along all right, did they?” He thought he saw a blush creep up.

“Oh yes. Oh yes. When Scott would get home from a trip he never made it in that back door without a kiss, and I mean a good old fashioned smacker. It does an old woman’s heart good to see a couple so in love after so long.”