First Murder (5 page)

“Didn’t seem to matter before,” she said, and then she was gone.

“I
’m sorry for your loss.”

Tony really was sorry even though he hadn’t known the woman, Deanna. He was sure it sounded hollow and insincere, almost rote, as he faced the three young men sitting on the couch. Two of them looked sad. One looked devastated—red-eyed, disheveled, and dispirited.

“You didn’t even know her,” one of the boys snarled. That was Scotty, the son. The other two nodded.

“You’re right, but I’m still sorry.” They fell into an awkward silence. Tony had a job to do though, so he put his street cop face on and took the next step. “I need to talk to each of you, ask a few questions. I need to do it separately.”

That got them all bristling and changed their expressions.

“You can’t possibly think any of us had anything to do with it.” That was from the young man named David Hong. “No fucking way, dude.” Hong was big for an Asian, Tony thought. Then he realized Hong was probably Samoan. Regardless, he was definitely offensive guard sized.

“I don’t think anything at this point.”

“Missus F was the best, man. She was great.” That came from the slight red haired kid named Swenson, sitting on Scotty’s right, hanging onto his arm. Through his trendy black eyeglass frames Tony could see he had been crying too.

“That’s what I’m finding out. That’s why I said I was sorry.”

“So what’s this talking bullshit?” Hong, protecting his friend, Tony thought, not hiding anything.

“We’re trying to get a handle on where everyone who knew Scott’s mother was from Sunday night through Monday morning, anyone with any connection.” Tony took out his pad but didn’t open it.

“Why separately?” the Swenson kid asked. He had an innocent look to him. Tony guessed that in his whole life he’d never been involved with the police, probably never in trouble with the law, certainly not hip deep in a murder investigation.

Tony decided to lay a few cards out, try to get them on his side. “Because that’s what the instruction book says to do.” He tried a smile.

“Instruction book?” Hong’s accusing tone told Tony that the both the smile and the joke had failed.

“Look, I was trying to lighten things up a little. I just made detective. This is my first case. Help me out here.”

“Oh great! Just fucking great.” Scotty buried his head in his arms. “My mom’s dead and we’ve got
you
on the case. The newbie. A noob. Just fucking great.”

“Scott.”

“What.” The young man looked up with something close to a sneer on his face.

“I’m a new detective, not a new cop, all right? I’ve got almost seven years on the force and I spent the last year and a half undercover with the Narcotics Unit. Any of you guys read about the big meth bust, what, four months ago?” Hong and Swenson nodded. Scotty didn’t care. He didn’t seem to hear him.

“I was the inside guy. Look, we’ve got a whole team working this one, a great team. Rayford Bankston is a legend in the department and he’s my partner. We’re going to find out who killed your mother, Scott. I promise. But I need to talk to you guys…separately. And I need to talk to your other roommate. What was his name again?”

“Sean. Sean Stuckey.”

“Right. He around?” Three heads shook. “I’ll catch him later. Scott, let’s you and me go in the kitchen, talk for a bit, and then I’ll get a statement from your friends. Okay?”

“Detective de Luca?”

“Tony.”

“Tony, what’s it like being undercover?” Hong seemed to have calmed down. Scott paused on the way to the kitchen to listen.

“What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been? I mean piss-your-pants scared.”

David thought for a second.
The time he’d bungee jumped? The car crash when he totaled his
brother’s pickup?
He shared both of those stories.

Tony realized they were all listening closely. “Now be
that
scared 24/7 for something like six months. That’s undercover. If the bad guys make you you’re dead. If you slip up, you’re dead. Hell, during the take-down, if one of the cops isn’t in on who you are, you’re dead. I don’t want to do it again.”

“But you got ’em, right? You busted them all? That’s what the paper said.”

“We got all of them involved in the meth operation. The Latin Kings is a pretty big gang though.”

“Holy shit.”

Tony knew he had their attention now, maybe even their respect. And
holy shit
was right, because there were still a lot of the LKs still out there and he had a lot riding on keeping his true identity secret. The trial was still a month away.

The interviews went well after that. Tony had a short list of specific questions he wanted to get into with each of them but he let it run conversationally. He knew he was amassing a lot of information and a lot of it would ultimately be useless. But Ray said they needed to get into these people’s lives to make any progress on this one, so he worked his specific questions in when he could.

Scotty had been studying Sunday night with a group until ten or after, then came back to the house. Tony wrote down the names of the people in the study group and numbers from Scotty’s cell phone. They played some video games, him and Hong and Swenson, until about midnight. On Monday he had taken an Econ test at ten. He remembered huddling with some of the study group early over coffee before the test. He remembered calling his mom from the bus stop. Scotty cried when he added that he left a message, guessing she had already left for the day and realized she’d been dead.

The phone rang. Scotty’s father asked him to come to the hotel he was staying at. Tony shook his hand when he left, thanked him for the help, and moved on to Mr. Swenson.

Swenson had been at the house all night Sunday, alone until about 11:00. When Tony frowned he fetched his computer and showed the detective the time stamps on the papers he had been working on. Swenson was in the Carlson School of Business. A quick glance at the material told Tony the kid was bright, literate, and knew a hell of a lot more about investments and the stock market than he ever would. De Luca noted the professor’s names for Swenson’s early Monday classes so he could check attendance.

Hong had been working, slinging pizza until 10:00, then back to the house for some Halo gaming with a hot pie. He didn’t have any early classes on Monday and had been at the house alone until close to noon. Tony frowned again and asked him if he remembered talking to anyone Monday morning, if he’d gone for coffee or anything where someone could back him up. Hong drew a blank. He’d slept in, showered, and poked around on ‘Facebook’ for about an hour. Did it leave a time stamp? Would have been around 10:30 or 11:00. No idea.

Then David remembered the fight. A girl who lived in the house next door, Erin was her name—a thin, blonde, ultra-hot girl with a tongue stud. She’d had a shouting match with her boyfriend. Hong smiled, told Tony it had woken him up it was so loud, but that was okay because maybe now she’d go out with him. Swenson knocked on the door asking if they were about done or if he could come in to get something to eat. Tony told him to come on in. He had what he needed. If everything checked out all the roommates had alibis…except for the Stuckey kid.

“Tell me about Scott’s mom, what did you call her?”

“Missus F. She was one cool lady.”

“Cool how?”

“Care packages for one thing. She’d cook these meals, like real meals like pot roast and gravy and drop them off for us.”

“And Christmas presents last year. I mean what mom gets her son’s roommate’s presents…”

“Nice ones, too. And birthdays, too.”

“So you’ve all lived together for a couple of years?”

“All but Sean. He took over Tiko’s lease this summer. Transferred from out west. LA.”

“Any idea when he might show up?” Tony checked his watch. He’d been there for more than two hours already.

“You never know with Stuckey.”

“He’s got a girlfriend.”

“More than one.”

Tony noticed the two share a quick look. Swenson frowned. Hong rolled his eyes. He wondered what that was about.

“I saw Sean Monday morning on campus, on the bridge actually.” Swenson offered.

“What time?”

“Had to be a little after noon. Classes were done. I was going over to the West Bank to hook up with some people.” Swenson hoped he had been helpful. It showed. Still, it wasn’t in the time frame Tony was curious about.

“So anyway, about the vic?” Tony regretted it as soon as it came out of his mouth. Street cop talk did not work in this new gig. “I’m sorry guys.” They were glaring at him. Deanna Fredrickson wasn’t a ‘vic’ to them. She was their friend.

“It’s okay, detective. You didn’t know her, like Scotty said.” Hong shrugged. He was getting to like the detective.

“I’m getting to. I’d like to have known her.”

“We’d go over to their house. They have this great TV and sound system downstairs and a dish. We’d watch football and hoops.” Swenson said.

“And she’d feed us.” Hong looked like he appreciated that more than the skinny Swenson.

“She even bought beer.”

“In the summer she’d let us use the pool like anytime, like for parties.”

“Last summer she and a couple of her friends joined us. We had some girls with us and they just hung out. She was easy to talk to.” Swenson’s voice was quiet and thoughtful as he reminisced.

“Her friends, too?” Tony knew they would be talking to the friends later. He paid close attention.

“Yeah. Sure. There was this one woman, lemme see, Roxie. Right, Swennie?”

“She was a babe.” Tony noticed a little blush creep up Swenson’s neck.

“And this other woman, Erika, she was kind of like…”

“Also a babe.”

“A small lady, but not like a midget.”

“Not everything’s small.” Hong shot a frown toward Swenson.

“Okay…
Sean
.” Something was going on between them that Tony couldn’t get a handle on.
Why did he call him Sean?
Some roommate thing?
He was glad they’d opened the door about the friends. He thought he remembered Mae talking about them. The husband definitely had. He decided to nudge a little.

“Sure, I get you. Mrs. Fredrickson was kind of a babe, too.” Swenson screwed up his face at that, and Hong rolled his eyes again. “What?”

“She was Scotty’s mom, dude.”

“Moms can
not
be babes. Major foul. Hit the escape button.” Tony thought of some of the pictures he’d seen in the house. Deanna had been a very attractive woman, definitely a babe in some of those pictures. Then he remembered her sightless surprised eyes, the knife in her chest, and the blood pooled on the floor. Too bad she hadn’t had an escape button then.

“This is so bogus. I mean, I just saw her last Friday.” Hong stared out a dirty window toward the street.

“At the house? At the Fredrickson’s?”

“Naw. She and her friend, uh…Karen. They stopped in to see if Scotty was here. Me and Sean were just hanging out, you know. Neat lady. This all sucks so bad.”

“Sorry. Hey, either of you have a cell number for Sean? I still have to talk to him.”

“Not me.” Swenson shrugged. That surprised Tony. A roommate didn’t have his cell number? Maybe they didn’t get along.

“I do somewhere,” Hong said and headed off to his room.

Tony made a note of Stuckey’s number and rose to leave. He told the young men that he’d probably need to talk to them again, that he’d enjoyed meeting them. Actually he had, he realized. Nice kids, in school, out of trouble and on their way somewhere in life. He’d seen too many young people headed in the opposite direction—down instead of up. Even in the midst of the tragedy that had been Deanna Fredrickson he felt some bit of hope.
Now if their alibis will
just check out…

On the way to his car he veered to the house next door and rang the bell. A striking young woman—thin, blonde and smiling, finally answered it.

“Erin?” Tony asked tentatively.

“Do I know you?” She wide-eyed the badge he held up. Confused, maybe a little worried. The smile faded.

“Did you have a fight with your boyfriend Monday morning? Out here on the porch or in the yard?”

“Did someone complain?” Erin looked up and down the street.

“Do you remember what time it was?”

“Why?” She crossed her arms across her chest and cocked her head to the side.

Tony rubbed his face with one hand. “Erin, at some point one of us is going to have to answer a question instead of asking one. Did you know that?”

“What’s going on here?”

“See what I mean?” Tony had his charming smile working. The girl was disarmed.

“Why do the police care if Gregg and I had a fight?”

Tony was determined to keep up with her. “Did I say the police cared if you had a fight?”

“Am I in some kind of trouble?” Erin frowned.

“If you ask me one more question I’ll arrest you for blatant curiosity. Would you like that?”

“There’s no such thing…is there?” Tony laughed out loud. She still didn’t get it.

“What time Monday morning did you throw Gregg out?”

“8:30? Maybe 9:00?”

“You’re not sure?”

“What business is it of yours?” Erin shot back petulantly.

“What if I told you it would provide an alibi for a suspect in a murder investigation?”

“An alibi? What did Gregg do? Is he in jail or something?”

“Did I say this was about Gregg?”

“Who’s alibi? What murder?”

“What time, Erin?” Tony barked. Enough was enough. He needed to get things moving.

“8:30!”

“Thank you. Now see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I am so confused.”

“I believe you. Thanks.” Tony walked away, leaving the girl shaking her head on the steps. He couldn’t resist, turned, and said over his shoulder, “If you’re on the outs with Gregg the guy next door, David, he thinks you’re hot.”

“Is he the big guy or the red head?” she called after him. He chuckled all the way to the car and halfway back to the station.

S
cott Fredrickson Sr. sat on the edge of the bed, wearing the same crumpled slacks and dress shirt. He had what looked like two day’s growth of beard and a lifetime left of sadness on his face. Ray had gotten a call from Ted Lipka en route. Fredrickson’s plane had been held hostage on the Phoenix airport tarmac by a warning light in the cockpit that took over five hours to be resolved. Alibi confirmed.