Fred Limberg - First Murder

Ray picked up the thread from there. “Now she has to cover her tracks. She wiped the knife handle with a silk blouse, thus the smeared prints. She wiped the mug in the sink, but forgot to wash it out. Deanna drank OJ, not coffee that morning. The last problem is Stuckey.”

Tony took over. The more they talked it through the more sense it made. “Now it gets complicated for her. Stuckey’s phone gets run over so she loses the way to contact him. She’s panicked because we’re onto him and has to call Hong to get the new number. She fakes the intruder in the yard to get her bedridden and insanely protective husband all worked up and somehow lures the kid over that morning.”

“Why that morning? Because she knew we were coming to talk to her.”

“And the husband’s getting better.”

“She set him up.” Each of them in the booth wore dark, scowling frowns. Sue Ellen’s was the grimmest of all. She took a deep breath and finally looked up.

“I buy it,” she said flatly. “I buy the whole thing. Just one eensy problem, fellas.” She paused for a beat.

“You’ll never be able to prove it.

“Lakisha?”

Karen Hewes opened the front door wide, surprised to see her friend standing there. Lakisha, bundled in a parka and floppy wool hat, shivered in the doorway. December had been unkind since its arrival. Not only were the frequent icy snows a great nuisance, the blistering cold waves seemed downright cruel so early in the season.

“I was in St.Paul and I haven’t seen you since…”

“Come in. Get in here, girl.” Karen, smiling, wrapped her arms around Lakisha and hugged her close. “It’s freezing out there.”

Lakisha let Karen help her with her coat and hat and followed her into the kitchen. She lagged behind briefly, taking in the room, the doorway, imagining the bullet’s trajectory. In the kitchen she found herself tuning out Karen’s words while she scanned the cabinets and floor for bloodstains or other remnants from the shooting. Silly woman, she silently berated herself, of course there’s nothing to see.

“It is so good to see you.” She was dragged from her grim revue by Karen’s chatter. “Finally, someone’s brave enough to come to the house. Coffee?”

“Well, with the holidays and this weather…” Lakisha made her lame excuses. None of the other ‘Go Girls’ had apparently been burning up the phone lines or rushing to visit Karen either. Lakisha knew that Roxy and Tia had visited her in the hospital. They felt like they had to. She was in there for almost a week. She also knew that Ally was on the fringe of the legal issues Gary was still dealing with.

“So what’s new?” Karen poured mugs of rich smelling coffee and gestured for them to sit. “How’s the new book coming along?”

Lakisha studied the woman across from her. Karen was dressed in a festive red flouncy skirt and a white blouse with a Christmas patterned shell over it. Her makeup was perfect. Her hair had been done recently, cut shorter and highlighted. She looked like she was going out for the day. Actually, she looked turned out for holiday party or an evening out.

“I’m not keeping you from something am I?”

“Lord, no. I was just going to start digging out some of the Christmas crap today.”

“Ah.” Lakisha looked over her shoulder toward the stairs. “Is Gary around?”

“Oh no, he’s got a new project starting. He won’t be back ‘til evening. Why?”

“No reason.” She shrugged, wondering if Karen dressed this way every day. Maybe it was for Gary. She knew Karen didn’t go out much.

“So what are the other girls up to?”

It felt odd to Lakisha to be sitting in the warm cheery kitchen sipping coffee and talking girl talk just feet from where a young man had been killed. It was creepy. Rayford had warned her about that.

“Let’s see, Erika’s got a guy now.”

“Really? I haven’t talked to her since the incident.” A shadow seemed to cross Karen’s face just then, Lakisha thought. “Come to think about it, I haven’t talked to anyone since then.”

Lakisha knew that without being told. The other ‘Go Girls’, all but Ally, had talked a lot since ‘the incident’, as she called it. The general consensus was that they were all a little scared of Gary now and didn’t want to be around him for any reason. Lakisha had other reasons for avoiding her. Karen and Gary wouldn’t be getting any Christmas party invitations. There wouldn’t be any shopping trips or lunches. There wouldn’t be any phone calls.

Lakisha sighed and looked out over the bleak December-barren back yard. The potential for the group to establish some distance from Karen had been there without her prodding, but she knew she was responsible for some of it. It had been difficult, tricky even. By reinforcing doubts about Gary’s stability she had planted the seeds. It was almost childish the way she had encouraged Karen’s segregation; using back stabbing gossip and innuendo like a jealous high school girl trying to kick someone out of the clique.

The microphone clipped to her bra burned like a scarlet letter, but she was glad it was there.

“Earth to Lakisha,” Karen giggled. “You sort of drifted off there.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been like that lately.”

“Is something bothering you, girl?”

Lakisha turned and fixed a determined look directly at Karen. She didn’t speak for a moment. They had rehearsed this a dozen times and a dozen ways and it wasn’t working out like any of the scenarios she and Rayford and Tony had imagined. She was too nervous and too angry to ease into a conversation.

“I’ve got most of it figured out, you know.”

Karen looked puzzled, but there was a wariness behind it that didn’t escape notice. “Figured out what?”

“See, I know you recognized that boy. I saw him in the bar out in LA. I told the detectives that.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were eye fucking that boy in the bar. Then you were for-real fucking him an hour later.”

Karen sat up straighter. The perplexed look had morphed into a frown, and the wariness was building to anger.

Lakisha bored in again. “But on film? What were you thinking?” There was a long tense pause. Lakisha watched as what she said registered in the other woman’s eyes.

“I didn’t know there was a camera,” Karen said evenly but the first blocks were tumbling from the wall.

“Bullshit. I’ve seen the tape.”

Karen’s eyes became slits. Her lips disappeared into a hard mean line across her face.

“What do you mean you’ve seen the tape?”

“I mean I’ve seen the tape. Whooee, girl. That boy had a bigun’.”

“Where? How? Is it on the internet?” Karen’s eyes began darting, searching for something. A way out? A better answer? A weapon?

“Probably. The detectives showed it to me.”

Karen jerked up. Her chair almost fell when she stood. “What was on it?”

“You were the one there. You know what’s on it.”

“When did it cut off?” Karen shouted the question leaning forward, her fists on the table. Lakisha felt the first twinges of fear. They had talked about this too, had set up some code words. One of them was ‘afraid’.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I couldn’t watch all of it. What were you thinking , Karen?

“I wasn’t thinking, okay? Jesus, you sound just like Deanna.”

“Did she get on you for fucking that boy?” Lakisha knew that she had, she’d seen the whole thing, suffered through the entire clip. She tearfully confirmed for Ray and Tony that it was Deanna’s voice in the background.

“I was just having a little fun,” Karen snarled. She crossed her arms over her chest and walked slowly away from the table and leaned on a cabinet near the sink, glaring at Lakisha. “You have your fun.”