Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

“As it turns out though, the old geezer had just been bluffing. He returned to his apartment instead of blowing the whistle on Sara. A few minutes later, however, someone did finally turn down her stereo.”

“Someone?” Sam said.

“We think it was the murderer who turned it down.”

Sam stared intently at his friend. “What makes you think that?”

Roger opened the car door. “Let’s go in and order some grub, then I’ll tell you. I’m famished.”

Sam nodded. They went inside and chose a table near a window away from the small lunch crowd. After placing their orders, Roger resumed the conversation, keeping his voice low.

“We’ve come up with a theory of what might have happened the night that Sara was murdered,” he said as he lit up another cigarette. “When the neighbor came to Sara’s door complaining about the loud music, we think the murderer just so happened to be in the process of strangling her at that very moment. The music of course probably drowned out any sounds of a struggle. And because of the murderer’s preoccupation with Sara, he was unable to turn down the stereo and avoid a possible confrontation by the super if and when he arrived. Once he had strangled Sara to death, the murderer ran over to the stereo and turned it down, then made a quick exit through the window onto the fire escape; no doubt praying that the neighbor had only been bluffing about calling the super. Once he was fairly certain that the super wasn’t going to show up, he went back inside and wasted little time in taking a few quick shots of Sara’s body before splitting the scene. We’re fairly sure that he fled through Sara’s door, just as he had entered, because the first witness said that he had continued watching the fire escape for at least an hour or so and never saw him again. Gutsy son of a bitch, eh? You’d think her assailant would have tried to make it out by the fire escape instead of risking being seen by the tenants.”

Sam shook his head slowly. “No shit. This bastard is as lucky as he is gutsy. What about the lipstick mark? Do you suppose he was unable to finish his little message on Sara’s body because he started getting a little panicky?”

Roger nodded. “Yup, that’s my guess. Everything sort of all falls into place when you think about it. Up until the moment when the neighbor knocked on Sara’s door complaining about the music, this guy evidently had everything pretty much under control. But once that happened, it threw the murderer’s game plan off and forced him to hurry up the process.”

“So this guy isn’t quite as slick as he must think he is,” Sam declared.

“Not in Sara’s case, at any rate. But don’t forget Marsha Bradley. Not a single slip-up there… so far,” Roger reminded Sam.

“That’s true,” Sam agreed.

“But he sure is one scary son of a bitch. What keeps going through my mind is that he had to take pictures of Sara Hunt’s body-like he was going to do it no matter what the risk might be. Couldn’t let it slide…”

“I know what you’re saying,” Sam said. “You’d think he wouldn’t have bothered. Apparently, those pictures meant a lot to the sick bastard.”

The waitress came with their drinks. Roger took a gulp of his coffee and said, “The times all match up with our theory, by the way. The man across the alley spotted the murderer on the fire escape at approximately the same time Sara’s neighbor knocked on her door bitching about the music. That’s how we came up with the theory in the first place. But of course it is only a theory and we’re still no closer to catching the perp than we were before. All we really have is a vague description of the guy, and that’s pretty damn weak at best. I mean, how many tall white guys with long dark hair and a beard are there in this country, you reckon?”

Sam nodded as he sipped. “I see what you mean.”

“So all of this information is for the most part useless, unfortunately. So imagine how Lieutenant Mancuso is going to feel when he learns that Mister Small-Town Cop just may have a suspect in mind.”

Sam nearly choked on his coffee. “What?”

The detective grinned smugly. “That’s right, Bucko. Like I told you earlier, there’s a lot more happening here in tiny Smithtown than there is in The Big City.”

Roger Hagstrom certainly had a flair for the dramatic, Sam thought to himself. It was just like him to wait until the last possible moment to divulge the crux of a matter. “What in the hell are you talking about, Rog?”

His friend ceremoniously stubbed out his cigarette and said, “One of my men called me at my hotel room early this morning. It seems that our little Smithtown Class of ‘70 yearbook investigation has yielded a possible suspect after all.”

Sam mentally raced through the senior pictures in the yearbook, wondering who it would be. “Who, Roger?” he asked.

“You ain’t gonna believe it, I can tell you that,” his friend replied.

“Who is it, goddamn it!” Sam snapped impatiently.

Roger stared directly into his eyes. “Stanley Jenkins.”

Sam pictured the horn-rimmed bespectacled geek with the 4.0 average and laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding! Stanley Jenkins?”

“That’s right, buddy. And please, hold off on your understandable skepticism until I’ve finished. Because even if Stanley ends up not being the man we’ve been looking for, I’m sure that you will at least be appreciably impressed with his rather interesting and colorful past since graduating Smithtown High.”

Just then, the waitress came with their food. Sam waited until she had served them then said, “Let’s hear it.”

Roger took a gargantuan bite of his hamburger and washed it down with coffee before speaking. “After graduation, Stanley Jenkins enrolled at a little college in Indiana called Fountainhead Institute of Technology. I’ve never heard of the place before, but apparently it’s somewhere near the Ohio border, not far from Dayton. Anyway, as you recall, Stanley was a bona fide egghead and this college has a rather impressive engineering department. So Stanley chose to go there, as engineering was his major.”

Roger paused for another bite, then added dryly: “Stanley never made it past his freshman year.”

Sam took a half-hearted bite of his BLT. “Go ahead.”

“Well, Stanley was anything but a model student at Fountainhead, believe it or not. He apparently turned over a new leaf after high school and decided to go the full hippie route: grew his hair long, discovered psychedelic rock music, and took lots and lots of drugs. Acid seemed to be his drug of choice. Not unlike us, he partied a lot and studied very little-became a regular guy on campus in the early 70’s, in other words. That is to say, Stanley tried to become a regular guy, but of course it never really happened. You know that old saying: ‘once a nerd, always a nerd.’ Stanley Jenkins was really only a hip and cool guy in his own mind but that persona never really came across to anyone else who knew him, if you catch my drift.

“Anyway, Stanley evidently wanted to make up for lost time from his high school days. He started asking out every beautiful chick on campus with hopes of having better luck than he’d had in high school, now that he was suddenly so hip and popular in his own mind. But unfortunately, he got shut down every time-just like high school. There was one girl in particular he had his eyes on. Her name was Cindy Fuller. A real knockout, from what I’ve been told.”

“Wait a minute, Rog,” Sam interjected. “Before you go any further with this fascinating story, do you mind telling me how in the hell you found all of this out?”

“A real stroke of luck, that’s how. Tom Slater-you know him, the rookie who just joined up last year-is the officer I assigned to track down the men in the yearbook. When Tom discovered that Stanley Jenkins had a police record in Epson, Indiana, he nearly flipped out. Coincidentally, Tom’s older brother had gone to Fountainhead the same time Stanley had. Most of this dope, Tom got from his brother. Now, can I continue before I get any further ahead of myself?”