Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

The coffee maker fell silent. He took a mug out of the cupboard, filled it up, and carried it with him into the den. Plopping down on the sofa, he took a cigarette out of the pack lying on the coffee table and lit it up before stretching out his long legs.

Sam spent a lot time in this room. Not only was it bright and sunny, it afforded the best view in the house. Outside he could see the brightly colored leaves on the trees that sprawled up the north slope of the hillside and the winding creek that cut between the hills through his backyard, forming a natural boundary between his property and the state forest. He peered across the room at the typewriter on top of his cluttered desk. He had purposely left the last page of his manuscript he’d worked on in the carrier as a constant reminder of yet another ambitious project he’d started up and never finished, hoping that some day he would feel the inspiration to take up where he’d left off. Then he thought about Marsha Bradley’s murder and the article he had to write for Monday’s paper, realizing that his book would remain pigeonholed for at least one more day. Perhaps even forever…

His thoughts shifted to Ann and Amy, wondering what they were doing that very moment. Amy would no doubt still be asleep, he thought with a grin. Ann would be awake though-she was an early riser. He recalled how she was always the first one up in the morning when they were still married, how the coffee would already be brewed, and the way she would be puttering around in the kitchen when he would finally saunter in, still half asleep. And never once had she failed to greet him with her familiar bright smile and cheery, “good morning, dear…”

Sam closed his eyes to blot out the memories. Was he ever going to get used to this? he wondered. Hadn’t he suffered long enough for his screw-up? Hadn’t he been a good husband and father up until that one little fall from grace with Shelley Hatcher? She had meant absolutely nothing to him-she was just a young, perky temptation who had thrown herself at him one too many times until he’d finally given in to his animal instincts. What normal, red-blooded male could have resisted?

This one should have. That was more than obvious now.

He gulped his coffee and took another long drag off his cigarette. Nothing good had come from his romp in the hay with Shelley Hatcher. He had lost his family, couldn’t add a single coherent sentence to his manuscript, and Shelley had ended up losing her job at the paper and leaving town. He felt bad about that-she hadn’t really done anything wrong. But McNary had wasted no time in firing her from the Observer, citing that the publicity of the affair was bad for business. After all, he couldn’t continue employing a young woman who was a bona fide house wrecker. It was a damn shame, too. Shelley had shown great potential as a photojournalist. She was aggressive, creative and a fast learner. Only problem was that she was a fast lay as well.

He hadn’t slept with anyone since Shelley. Six months, he counted on his fingers. Divorced and celibate at forty. And now he was living like a hermit in the sticks of Seleca County. What was his next move in life? Become a monk? Or a hopeless drunk?

Sam gazed out the window again. A squirrel sitting on a fencepost was cutting on a beechnut that it held in its paws. The squirrel could see him but wasn’t intimidated in the least. It merely sat there chomping away at his nut, probably wondering how much longer before he had start to storing the things away for the winter.

Sam stubbed out his cigarette, stood up and went back into the kitchen to warm up his coffee. He plotted out his day, deciding that after breakfast he’d take a shower then drive into town to work on the Bradley story. He had just replaced the coffee carafe when the phone rang. He went back into the den to answer it.

“Feeling crispy this morning?” Roger’s voice asked, gruff but alert.

Sam feigned a groan. “I’ve felt better. What in the hell are you doing up so early? I thought you worked the afternoon shift today.”

“Something’s come up. I think you ought to come down to the station ASAP-you’re gonna want to hear this.”

“What is it?” Sam asked.

Roger sighed impatiently. “We got a call from the New York P.D. earlier this morning. It may be something, or it may be nothing. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Something to do with the case?” Sam asked, feeling his pulse quicken.

“Possibly. Just get your ass down here and I’ll give you the details.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Sam said before hanging up the phone.

He drained his coffee, went into the bathroom and washed up, dressed and was out of the house in five minutes.

When he arrived at the Smithtown Police Department, Sam could see Roger Hagstrom in his office huddled over some paperwork. He walked up to the desk sergeant, Mark O’Brien, greeted him and made his way over to Roger’s smoke-filled cubicle. His friend looked the worst for the wear and apparently had been rousted out of a coma-like sleep and ordered to come down to the station by the chief. He was unshaven and still wearing the same clothes he’d worn the night before.

“Yo,” he greeted as Sam strode in.

“Rough night, eh?”

Roger glanced up at him and grimaced. “You don’t look so hot yourself. But it was a pretty decent drunk, you gotta admit.”

“Yeah, but we’re paying dearly for it now. What’s going on?” Sam asked, sitting down on the other side of the desk.

“Do you remember Sara Hunt?”

Sam thought for a moment then replied, “Yeah. She graduated in our class at high school. Then her family moved away not long afterwards.”

“Well, she’s dead. Murdered in New York City a few weeks ago,” Roger declared grimly.

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Jesus! What happened?”

Roger Hagstrom lit up a Camel filter, glanced down at the report he had been reading and peered across his desk at Sam.

“Raped and strangled.”

He studied the incredulous look on Sam’s face before continuing.

“I’ll give it to your from the beginning: we got a call this morning from a Lieutenant Mancuso of the N.Y.P.D. He told me that he was following up on a homicide investigation he’s been working on and was requesting our cooperation. He went on to say that Sara Hunt’s body had been discovered in her apartment by her roommate at around 2:30 a.m. Her assailant had entered her apartment, beat the shit out of her, raped and strangled her, then left her apartment without having been seen or heard by a single solitary soul in the building. Not a single clue to his identity had been left at the scene. No prints, no murder weapon, nothing. All the murderer left behind were a few strands of hair and his semen, deposited inside and upon Sara’s body.”

Roger took a drag, exhaled and resumed. “Mancuso suspects that Sara had known her assailant. Although the lock on the door of her apartment building had been broken and non-functional for several weeks prior to her murder, the door to Sara’s apartment showed no signs of being tampered with, indicating that she most likely had invited her assailant inside.” He paused a moment and yawned. “I need some more java. You want some?”

Sam nodded. “So this Lieutenant Mancuso thinks that Sara Hunt’s killer is the same guy who killed Marsha Bradley?”

Roger stood up. “Hold your horses a second and I’ll explain. Mancuso didn’t even know about Marsha Bradley’s murder until I told him.” He walked over to the coffee maker and poured Sam a cup, warmed up his own then went back over to his desk.

“I’m confused,” Sam said.

Roger sat back down with a groan. “Mancuso called us on a lark. He said that evidence has been so scarce in the case that he and his men were scouring every potential piece of evidence. They’d found a Smithtown High School yearbook stashed away underneath Sara’s bed and hadn’t thought much of it at first, but later on discovered that a page of the yearbook had been marked with a tiny piece of paper tucked just out of sight.” He shuffled through the papers piled in front of him and handed Sam a couple of documents stapled together. “He faxed these to me.”