Fred Limberg - First Murder

Ray had to shout over her shrieks. “Knife down! We need to talk, Sean.”

“Fuckin’ A we do! Shut her up!” Karen kept wailing and screaming at the top of her lungs. Every time Stuckey started to say something she screamed louder.

“Karen! SHUT UP!” Tony’s eyes snapped wide open. He had no idea his partner had pipes like that. Ray’s voice boomed over and through the woman’s shrieking. “Now get up, both of you. Knife down! Leave the knife on the floor.”

“She called…” Stuckey was trying to talk. Karen thrashed, twisted, and squirmed, the crying and pleading started up again.

“He’s going to kill me. Do something! Shoot him!” She bucked wildly against him, tugging at Stuckey’s arm around her throat, heedless of the knife.

“I’ve got the shot,” Tony said evenly. Stuckey was looking straight into the pistol barrel.

“Wait!” Stuckey jerked the knife from Karen’s breast and tossed it on the floor. His hand free, he cupped it over her mouth and started to stand, struggled to one knee. Karen, gasping, her pleading throttled, trying to bite him.

“I want you to take me in. You have to listen.”

“We’re listening. Now, let the woman go, Sean.” With a mighty effort Sean Stuckey heaved up, dragging Karen with him, still choking her neck, still cupping her mouth.

“Ever since…” Karen twisted. She wrenched her head from side to side. She kicked at him, tried to stomp on his foot. “She’s been…” Karen’s teeth found skin, she bit down hard. Stuckey jerked his bleeding hand free. The keening and wailing returned.

“He wants money!” she shrieked before Stuckey clamped his hand back over her mouth. He looked at Ray, puzzled…confused.

“Money?”

The room detonated in that instant.

Artillery exploded from the dining room doorway-a spear of flame reached halfway across the kitchen. Sean Stuckey’s head burst into a cloud of gristle and bone, gray brain matter and red mist.

Ray watched, deafened, frozen, unbelieving, as Stuckey’s body tilted, hurled toward the gout of blood and brains that erupted from the side of his ruined head. His feet left the ground, arms flailing, already lifeless, useless…already dead. His body landed on its side, bounced once on the hard tile floor, and settled into a death pose.

Karen Hewes still had her voice, wailing just as loudly as before. She collapsed on the floor, writhing in the widening pool of blood surrounding Stuckey’s body, trying to gain traction, desperate to rise.

Ray looked over at Tony. He hadn’t fired the shot. Tony looked to the right over Ray’s shoulder.

Gary Hewes leaned into the doorway, a smoking rifle still to his shoulder, held down, pointed toward the floor at an angle. He was wearing the same limp pajamas. He also wore a smug satisfied smile. Tony whipped the pistol in his direction, took stance and aim.

“Drop the rifle!”

“Right fucking now!” Ray’s pistol was leveled too, his command voice as loud as the rifle shot.

“Okay. Okay.” Gary Hewes staggered slightly in the doorway and leaned the rifle against the wall. “Got the bastard, though. Got him.” He doubled over into a fit of coughing.

“On the floor!” Ray boomed, moving toward Hewes, pistol in his right hand, fishing under the back of his jacket with his left.

“What?” Hewes, still hacking, looked up at Ray.

Karen crawled over to Tony and was clutching his legs, smearing Stuckey’s blood and brain matter on them, still sobbing and mewling.

“On the floor! He dropped the knife you stupid motherfucker. On the floor!” Hewes dropped to his knees, uncomprehending. Ray forced him the rest of the way down, slammed his cheek into the cold hard tile and wrenched his hands behind him. “He dropped the knife.” Ray ratcheted the cuffs tight.

The front door crashed inward, ram battered open. Picture frames fell to the floor amid wood shards and splinters. Black clad figures poured in, more SWAT officers edged in the back door, automatic weapons tracked right and left, searching for a target.

“Clear!” Ray’s voice boomed again, waving them off.

“Clear! It’s all clear!” Tony shouted.

“What a fucking mess.” The captain was shaking his head, taking in the body on the floor, the blood, and the coughing figure handcuffed on the other side of the kitchen island. He ordered the SWAT team out, dodged the body and pooling blood, shrugged off the cloying hysterical woman and went over to Ray and Tony who were standing over Gary Hewes.

“What happened? You guys do that?” He jerked a thumb towards Stuckey’s body.

“No.”

“You arresting this guy?” The captain was looking down at Gary Hewes. Ray nodded. “What charge?”

“Let’s start with murder.”

“Murder?” Gary Hewes twisted on the floor, trying to get a look at the men standing over him. “Are you fucking nuts? The guy was going to kill my wife, for chrissakes.” The captain looked at Ray.

“We had it under control, Cap. Stuckey, that’s Stuckey over there, he’d dropped the knife. He wanted to talk. He was surrendering.” Ray’s breathing was deep with anger, controlled so the rage he felt didn’t complicate the situation any further.

Paramedics were ministering to Karen, one trying to calm her, the other looking for a wound. Karen, drenched in Sean Stuckey’s blood, was hysterical. Tony hauled Gary Hewes to his feet.

“Then this guy, the husband, lets loose with the deer rifle.” Ray pointed to the scoped long gun leaning against the wall.

“He was gonna kill her. I didn’t know he dropped the knife.”

“Captain, we’re going to have to sedate this woman to transport her.”

Karen struggled against the paramedics’ grasp. Her wails cast an eerie desperate pall over the scene. The captain nodded.

“How did you know he even had a knife?” Tony had a grip on Hewes’ arm and bodily turned him toward the body on the floor. “They were behind the counters. You couldn’t see them from the dining room. How did you know he had a fucking knife?” Hewes tried to turn away from Stuckey’s ruined body. Tony didn’t let him.

“I saw it, okay. And he said it.” Hewes jerked his head toward Ray.

“Not okay. How long were you out there?”

“De Luca, stand down.” The captain glanced around the kitchen. Karen Hewes was quieting, the sedative slowly taking hold. “Let’s take this party downtown, gentlemen. You’re arresting this guy, right?” Ray nodded. “Then we need to get him booked and Mirandized. Play by the rules.”

“How long were you out there, Gary? What did you hear?”

“I said stand down!” The captain’s face reddened. He ordered Ray and Tony out of the kitchen, told them to send a uniform in to collect the prisoner. His experienced eye didn’t see Hewes going down for murder, but he wasn’t going to let technicalities screw things up.

On the way out of the door Ray leaned over close to Tony’s ear.

“Nice try, partner.”

Ray, Tony, and Carol stood shoulder to shoulder looking over the throng. Deanna Fredrickson’s funeral drew hundreds of people who wanted to pay their respects to the woman who had touched so many lives, people from the hospital and the library board, the soup kitchen at the homeless shelter and even some gym rats.

The ‘Go Girls’, all dressed in somber mournful black, clustered just behind the family. They whispered and daubed tissues, holding onto each other, not wanting to say goodbye to their friend and sister. Erika and Roxy were openly crying, their heads pressed together, arms around each other.

The family stood close together, holding hands, looking up at the polished wooden casket on the altar, closed now, with a large portrait of Deanna facing the gathered host. Tony realized they hadn’t seen or talked to Scott Fredrickson in several days. He didn’t look much better than the last time they’d met, still gray skinned and red eyed.