Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery) Read online

  All the streets in this older part of town were named after U.S. presidents. Since Ames lived on Truman, his ex-wife’s house couldn’t be more than a few blocks away.

  “I sent a couple of guys over to Wendy Ames’s house to inform her of Derrick’s death,” Junior went on. “I asked them to give her and the boys some time to adjust to the news, and then to bring them down to the station so you can talk to them.”

  “Learn anything else from the neighbors?” Bob asked.

  “Yeah, apparently Derrick’s eldest son, Jacob, exchanged some heated words with his father earlier this afternoon. Neighbors overheard them yelling at one another and then they saw Jacob storm out of the house, swearing a blue streak. Apparently Derrick’s girlfriend, Mandy Terwilliger, was here at the time and left a short time later. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. One of the neighbors said she works at the florist shop downtown, but when I tried to call there, I got a recording saying they closed at eight. Aside from that, I haven’t found any other issues or potential motives.”

  “That’s interesting because we just talked to the Terwilliger woman,” Richmond said. “She told us she hadn’t seen Derrick since yesterday. So either she lied to us, or the neighbors are mistaken.”

  “If the neighbors are mistaken, it’s several of them,” Junior said. “More than one person said they saw er williger leave the house this afternoon.”

  “Have you talked to anyone from the school yet?” I asked.

  “No, at least not directly. A couple of the neighbors here are parents of kids that attend the high school, and they said that as far they know Ames was a well-liked, popular teacher. He’s active in the PTA, has received numerous teaching awards, and has mentored a number of students.”

  “I guess we’re going to have to talk to the family sooner rather than later,” Bob said, glancing at his watch. “So far, the ex and the older kid sound like the only ones with motives, although the girlfriend lying certainly looks suspicious.” He turned to me. “Do you want to stay here and help with the evidence collection, or come with me to talk to the family?”

  “Let me check with Izzy and see what he prefers.” My personal preference was to go with Bob. The interrogations and interviews were always more interesting to me than the tedium of evidence collection, particularly when there is a lot of blood evidence. Every sample of blood has to be swabbed, labeled, mapped, and tagged so it can be sent for analysis. Often DNA evidence is found that might pinpoint the killer, but it takes time on both ends. Another reason for my preference—one I couldn’t share with the others—was that I wanted to minimize my exposure to any pathogens that might be present in the blood. But, given my earlier discussion with Izzy, I felt he should be the one to make the call.

  I took out my phone, stepped aside, and dialed Izzy’s number.

  “Hey, Mattie,” Izzy answered. “What’s up?”

  I explained the situation, and Izzy must have been reading my mind because he said, “Why don’t you shoot the scene photos and then go with Bob. I’ll have Arnie come down and help Jonas and the others with the evidence collection. You always do a good job with the photography, and you’re skilled at reading people, so it makes sense to do it that way. Besides, it’s probably safer for you, under the circumstances.”

  “What about Ames’s autopsy? Who’s going to help you with that?”

  “I can manage on my own.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you should wait and do it in the morning.”

  “I’ve done autopsies on my own plenty of times before. It will take me a little longer, but I’ll get it done. If it was a routine death, I’d wait. But since it’s a homicide, I want to get on it right away. If I run into any problems and need help I’ll give you a call.”

  “Do you want me to call Arnie, or will you do it?”

  “I’ll do it. He’s here in the office already anyway. But you and I still need to sit down and talk later.”

  “I know.”

  I glanced over at Bob and Junior, afraid they might be able to overhear. To give myself a little more privacy, I meandered my way out of the living room and into the hallway as Izzy said, “Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night? Dom is making pesto fettuccine with Italian sausage.”

  I winced, knowing the conversation wasn’t going to be an easy one, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. And my decision was made a little easier knowing what was on the menu and that Dom would be cooking. Not only is Italian my favorite food group, Izzy’s partner is a phenomenal cook, which is probably why Izzy is nearly as wide as he is tall. “Okay. What time?”

  “Let’s shoot for six. If you get caught up in something in your investigation that runs longer than that, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  “Izzy, wait,” I said, hoping to catch him before he disconnected the call.

  “What?”

  “Does Dom know?”

  He hesitated just long enough that he didn’t have to answer, but he did anyway.

  “He does. In fact, he was the one who picked up on it first.”

  It figured. If straight men could read women as well as gay men do, the divorce rates in our country would probably plummet.

  “He’s very excited about the whole thing,” Izzy went on. “In fact, he’s hoping you’ll let him babysit.”

  Babysitters. It was one of the many complications that had been lurking in the back of my mind since I’d decided I was going to have the baby. I hadn’t dwelled on it much yet, figuring I had plenty of time and several options. Dom was definitely on the list, as was my sister. But bringing it up now made me realize just how fast time was slipping by.

  “Of course I will,” I said. Then, eager to get off the subject, I said, “We can talk about it more tomorrow at dinner. Right now I’ve got Richmond waiting.”

  “Call me if anything significant comes up.”

  “I will,” I assured him.

  I disconnected the call and headed back into the living room, where I filled Richmond and Junior in on the plans.

  “Works for me,” Richmond said. “I’m glad to have you in on the interviews, Mattie. You’re good at reading people. The officers at Wendy Ames’s house know to call me when they’re ready to bring the family in. Let’s go take a look at the kitchen while we’re waiting.”

  Junior led the way to the kitchen, which was in a state of disarray. There were broken dishes on the floor, a silverware drawer had been pulled out of its sliders, its contents spilled onto the floor, and a chair had been knocked over. It looked like Ames had put up one hell of a fight. The blood on the floor was smeared in some places, and there was a large, partially congealed puddle in one spot that suggested Derrick had lain there a while. On the counter I saw a butcher-block knife holder with one empty slot, and a large butcher knife that matched the description the ER doctor had provided was on the floor, smeared with blood.

  Jonas Kreideman stood in the doorway of a mud and laundry room built off the back of the kitchen. He was dressed in a paper body suit, booties, and protective glasses, and he held a mask and gloves in his hands. Jonas had put on a lot of weight in the past two months, compliments of the steroids the docs had put him on to help him deal with his allergies. It left him pale and puffy-looking, and with the protective glasses and the white body suit, he looked like a nerdy version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

  At his feet was a box filled with cotton-tipped swabs that were used to collect blood, DNA, and other fluid samples, and a bag filled with small, flattened cardboard containers that could be formed into an elongated box shape with a flap closing on either end. The swabs were placed in these boxes once they were used, and then the boxes were closed and both ends were sealed with evidence tape. Each sample also had to be numbered, labeled, and logged. It was a tedious, time-consuming process, and before any of it could begin, the scene needed to be photographed as it was found.

  “Hey, guys,” Jonas said, nodding
at us as we entered. Then he focused his gaze on me. “This one’s a doozy, Mattie. You can start shooting pictures whenever you’re ready. It looks like we’ll be here a while.”

  “I’ll do the photography,” I told him, “but then I’m going with Richmond to talk to the family. Izzy is sending Arnie here to help you with the evidence collection.”

  Jonas rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you stay here?” he whined. “I’d much rather work with you.”

  “What’s wrong with Arnie? He’s quick, he’s thorough, and he knows his stuff.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that all he does the whole time he’s collecting evidence is talk about how the world is filled with all these secret societies and evil conspiracies.”

  “Arnie does have some crazy ideas, but they’re harmless. Some of them are even entertaining.”

  Jonas sighed and shook his head. “They may be harmless, but after a while the rhetoric gets old. The last time I worked with him he was spouting some garbage about how the wingdings font is actually a secret code that was invented by the Nazis for passing along top-secret messages, and later installed on computers by Middle Eastern fanatics to use in the same way. He said he can prove it because if you type the letters NYC using the original wingdings font, the resultant symbols predict the 9/11 debacle.”

  While the rest of us laughed this off, Junior took out his smartphone and started tapping keys. “Holy cow,” he said a moment later. “Arnie might be on to something. If you type NYC using wingdings, you get a skull and crossbones, the Star of David, and a thumbs-up picture. Look.”

  He showed us his phone screen. On it was a table showing what wingdings symbol would result for each letter typed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Feller,” Richmond said, shaking his head.

  “Hey,” Junior said with a little shrug, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.”

  Though I couldn’t have known it at the time, this line would prove fortuitous and fateful for me.

  Richmond started whistling the theme song from The X-Files, and I would have joined in, but my cell phone rang. I answered it without looking at the caller ID, assuming it was Izzy with some sort of update or change in plans. But it wasn’t, and that X-Files music turned out to be prophetic.

  Chapter 6

  “Hello?”

  All I heard was static.

  “Hello?” I said again. I realized everyone in the room was staring at me, and after listening to the crackling silence for a few more seconds, I disconnected the call. “Must have been a wrong number, or a dropped call,” I said with a shrug and a smile. My tone was light-hearted and dismissive, but the truth was the call spooked me. I chalked it up to the contagious paranoia triggered by the discussion about Arnie’s conspiracy theories and tried to put it out of my mind.

  As I slipped my phone back into my pocket, a thought occurred to me. “Why did Derrick Ames go out into the street for help?” I said to no one in particular.

  “What do you mean?” Bob said.

  “Why didn’t he just call 911?”

  Everyone in the room exchanged looks for a few seconds, and then Richmond said, “A phone. He must have had a phone.” We looked around the kitchen and then ventured into the living room, and from there through the rest of the first floor. On the second floor, which had three bedrooms—two with twin beds that were clearly set up for Derrick’s boys when they stayed with him, and a master bedroom—we found a phone charger on the bedside stand beside Derrick’s double bed. But there was no phone. “No landline, and no cell,” Richmond said.

  “Maybe it was with his personal belongings at the hospital,” I suggested. “They gave Izzy a bag with his clothes and shoes in it. Maybe the phone was in there, too.”

  Richmond took out his own cell and placed a call to Izzy, who said he would look and call him back.

  In the meantime, we headed downstairs to join the others. When we were back in the kitchen, Jonas pointed toward the knives in the holder on the counter. “I’m guessing that’s where the murder weapon came from. And I’m betting the barbecue fork was in that silverware drawer that’s been spilled all over the floor.”

  Richmond nodded, frowning. “That makes it harder for us since we can’t connect the weapons to someone from outside the house. Looks to me like whatever happened here was an unplanned, heat-of-the-moment thing, and the killer just grabbed whatever was handy.”

  I started snapping photos of the room and its contents, including the blood spatter and several closeups of the knife before Jonas bagged and tagged it. A few minutes later, Richmond’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and said, “It’s Izzy.”

  We all watched as he listened to what Izzy had to say, curious about the phone thing. When Richmond’s look of hope faded to one of curious disappointment, I knew what the answer would be.

  “There was no phone with Derrick’s personal belongings,” he said once he disconnected the call. “Where the hell is it?”

  “Maybe the killer took it?” I posed.

  “Why?” Richmond said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe not now,” I said, “but if the killer took it, I’m sure they had a reason. And if they still have it, maybe it will help us find whoever it was.”

  That made Richmond brighten a little, and as the rest of us went back to our separate duties, he gave Junior a list of tasks that included digging up a cell phone account and number for Derrick, seeing if the phone could be tracked with GPS, and looking into the man’s bank accounts. “Look for any unusual transactions,” Richmond said. “Since the last thing Ames said was the word payday, maybe there’s money involved somehow.”

  I was taking pictures of some blood smears on a low cabinet by the refrigerator when something in the crack between the cabinet and the fridge caught my eye. The space was about four inches wide, and something with a shiny circle on it was wedged a few inches in. I stuck my gloved hand in sideways, and after a bit of maneuvering, I was able to push the item out.

  “Look at this,” I said, holding up a small, handheld camcorder. I pointed to the area between the cabinet and fridge. “It was wedged into this space here with the lens pointed out toward the kitchen.”

  No one looked particularly excited by my news until I told them the next part. “And there’s blood on it.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s turned on,” Richmond asked.

  I shook my head, and after making sure there was no blood evidence on the power button, I pushed it. Nothing happened. “It won’t turn on. I wonder if the battery is dead,” I said. “Maybe Derrick was using it when his killer was here. How else would it have ended up stuck between the fridge and the counter?”

  Richmond said, “Maybe it was sitting on the edge of the counter and got knocked off during the struggle. Maybe it’s not a dead battery, maybe it’s broken.”

  Junior said, “I’m pretty sure it’s new. I saw a box for it in the trash out there in the laundry room.” He pointed to the room off the back of the kitchen.

  “Did anyone see a charge cord for it?” I asked.

  Everyone looked around the kitchen, scanning the outlets above the countertops, but there was nothing there. Jonas walked back into the laundry room and said, “I’ll bet this is it.”

  I tiptoed my way through the spilled silverware and the blood smears over to the entrance to the laundry room. There, on a table against the wall, was a cord plugged into an outlet. I picked up the other end and examined the adapter, comparing it to the plug-in notch on the camera. “Looks like a fit,” I said.

  “Stuff like that often comes with some charge on the battery, but they have to be plugged in for twenty-four hours before they’re fully charged,” Jonas said. He rummaged a little deeper in the trash bin and pulled out a piece of paper. “It looks like it might have arrived today. Here’s the box and the receipt. The camera was ordered two days ago from a company in Massachusetts.” He then looked at the box and sm
iled. “And it was delivered via UPS.”

  “Good news for us,” Richmond said as Jonas slid the receipt into a plastic bag, sealed it, and handed it over to him. “We should be able to find out exactly when it was delivered.” Jonas then handed the box over to Richmond, who snapped a picture of the labels on it with his phone’s camera before handing it back to Jonas for packaging, labeling, and sealing. Then Richmond stepped out of the room, presumably to make a call to UPS.

  I resumed my picture taking, and Jonas resumed his evidence collection with some help from a trio of uniformed officers. A few minutes later Richmond returned and said, “You were right, Jonas. UPS delivered that package at ten this morning.”

  “Should we plug the camera in to charge it up?” I asked. “Maybe there’s something on it that’s relevant to the crime. Maybe Ames filmed whoever was here.”

  Richmond considered this and then said, “It’s not a bad idea, but for the sake of securing our evidentiary chain, I’d rather just bag and tag everything as it is for now and let Arnie or the lab in Madison deal with it.”

  Jonas did just that with the camera and the power cord, adding them to the box of growing evidentiary specimens he had on the floor of the laundry room.

  I had finished taking pictures in the kitchen, so I moved on to snap the rest of the house. I carefully walked the length of the front hallway, taking shots of the blood trail. I took some general pictures of all the rooms off the hallway as I went, and while none of them appeared to offer any evidentiary value, I did find the color schemes and architecture interesting. Every room had high wooden baseboards, crown molding, and wide window trim with decorative rosettes at the corners. All the trim was painted in a bright, glossy white that beautifully framed the vividly colored plaster walls. The living room, entryway, and hallway were painted in a rich, dark, forest green, the dining room was done in colonial blue, and plum was the color of choice for a front room that had probably served as a parlor at one time but was now a TV/family room, complete with a game system. Judging from the controllers sitting on the coffee table, I surmised that the game system was used a lot, or at the very least had been used recently.