Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

Roger grinned expectantly at him. “I wondered the exact same thing, myself. So I mentioned it to Dave and he told me that the closet and bedroom doors were accidentally switched when the workers were painting the interior of the house. He said that he’d meant to switch them back, but had never gotten around to it. That’s why the closet has a lock on it.”

Sam opened the door and peered inside. The closet was very small and very cluttered. He pictured a terrified Tommy Bradley stuffed inside this dark, cramped space, unable to escape, while his mother was being raped and murdered, and suddenly understood why the child was traumatized beyond speech. He closed the door and asked, “Why didn’t the bastard simply kill Tommy, too? Instead of letting him live, and possibly risk being identified by him?”

Roger replied, “There’s several possible options. One is, maybe the creep didn’t have the heart to murder an innocent, defenseless little kid. After all, Marsha is who he wanted, so he might have figured why needlessly kill a child? Furthermore, we still don’t know if Tommy even saw the guy; and even if he had seen him, it’s possible that the murderer could have been wearing a ski mask or something to hide his face. There’s also the possibility that he intended to kill Tommy after doing Marsha in, but had gotten scared off by something or someone-maybe even Dave-before he could follow through with it. Who knows?”

“Anyway,” Roger continued, “The crux of my theory is the fact that the murderer used Tommy as his leverage-his ace in the hole. He simply told Marsha that if she didn’t do as he said, he would kill her son. That would explain why she hadn’t put up a struggle. Her son’s life was at stake, and what mother wouldn’t do everything in her power to prevent her kid from being harmed? It also suggests that Marsha didn’t necessarily have to know her assailant, thus squelching the notion that she might have been having an extra-marital affair. What do you think?”

Sam took a flash attachment out of his coat pocket and slid it onto the camera’s hot shoe. “I think it’s a hell of a lot of speculation,” was his reply. He made his way back to the doorway, looked through the viewfinder then zoomed the lens out to its widest angle and snapped the shutter. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

“Don’t you want to check out any of the other rooms up here?” Roger asked.

“Not particularly. Everything else happened downstairs, didn’t it?”

“That, we’re pretty sure of. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that Marsha Bradley’s assailant chose the kitchen to rape her in, instead of one of the bedrooms?” Roger said as he led the way out of Tommy’s bedroom.

“I think all of this is a little strange, to be quite honest,” Sam replied. “I’m still having trouble with the murderer locking Tommy up in that closet. Think about it, Rog. What are the odds of this bastard making a ‘lucky guess’ that Tommy’s closet is the only room in the house that can be locked and unlocked only from the outside? I’ve been through this house before, and I’m pretty sure that all the doors, including the bedrooms and bathrooms, lock only from the inside, just as they are intended to. Yet the killer seemed to miraculously know right where to put little Tommy to keep him out of the way.”

Roger paused at the top of the stairs and glanced back at Sam. “What are you driving at?”

“I’m not sure, really. Except that it’s starting to look more and more like the murderer knew the layout of this house pretty damn well, and in fact seemed to know a whole hell of a lot about everything. I think he might have not only planned this whole thing out carefully in advance, but that he also thoroughly cased the house out prior to the night of the murder… from the inside. It’s got to be either that, or he’s been a guest here at some point in time-and most likely more than just once.”

Hagstrom shrugged his shoulders and started down the stairs. “Could be. You’re right about the locks-even the door to the basement has a two-way lock, which I thought was a little odd, I might add. But it wouldn’t have been very hard for the perp to notice the lock on Tommy’s closet door when…”

“C’mon, Roger!” Sam interrupted. “I don’t care how calm and cool this asshole might have been – the odds of him ‘just happening’ to notice that there was a lock on that door are slim to nil. Imagine the scenario you’ve just presented: he’s got a weapon of some kind, a gun, pointed at Marsha and a kid he has to get out of the way-quickly-because Tommy is probably already screaming and carrying on when he sees a stranger threatening his mom’s life. Let’s even suppose that the three of them are in Tommy’s room, with a fucking light on, no less. That closet door is in the far corner of the room with a little button on the doorknob facing away from the entrance, and is completely obscured from view by a dresser standing against the wall adjacent to it. The only way the killer could possibly have seen that little lock button would be for him to stand directly in front of the closet. Do you really think that he would sashay all the way across the room, through all that shit scattered around on the floor, just to see if the closet door, by chance, had a goddamn lock on it? Why would he even bother to? Nobody locks their shit up in a closet!”

Roger grinned at him, visibly impressed. “Okay, Sherlock… or is it Watson? You’ve just made an interesting observation-something I’ve overlooked, I must admit. It must be that photographic eye of yours, I reckon. But what does this all mean, may I ask, if you’re right?”

Sam reached the foot of the stairs and watched Roger as he took another sip of Jack Daniels. “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that the whole thing was premeditated to the letter ‘T.’ And I don’t think Marsha’s murderer was a stranger. I think he was a local man.”

Sam could tell by the way Roger was eying him that he wasn’t buying the last part. “Hmmm,” was all he said before turning and making his way into the living room.

Sam followed him over to where Marsha’s body had been found lying on the living room floor near the sofa. The police had removed the black tape outline of her body, but he could still see the exact location and her body position clearly in his mind from viewing the police photos. Her nude body had been lying spread-eagle on the carpet just to the left side of the sofa, her head not far from the end table. Sam stood where he was and surveyed the living room, which was enormous like every other room in the house. There were two doorways besides the one leading to the foyer-one to his left in the corner, which led into the kitchen, and one to the right of the sofa, which led into the study. Roger had already gone into the kitchen and awaited him in the doorway. “Do you want to see where the rape took place?” he asked Sam.

Sam nodded. “Okay.”

He strode over and entered the kitchen. Roger led him over to the island in the center and pointed to a spot on the floor. “This is where he did the deed. Marsha’s clothes were placed neatly on this counter-yet another indication that she’d been quite cooperative with this bastard. None of her clothes were torn or even wrinkled-just placed on the counter here in a tidy little pile. We suspect that her assailant told her to remove them since there wasn’t any evidence that he’d done it for her.”

“How do you know he raped her here?” Sam asked.

“We found pubic hair and small traces of semen right here on the floor and nowhere else in the house. The housekeeper had just cleaned and put fresh sheets on the beds earlier that day, which made our work a lot easier,” he added.

Sam looked around the kitchen, stared down at the cold linoleum floor and wondered the same thing Roger had: why here, of all places?