Murder in Rat Alley

by Mark de Castrique

  “Don’t look at me,” Hewitt said. “Neither of them has me on speed dial.”

  Nakayla jotted a note on her pad. “We need to follow up with Boyce. She told you they were checking the 1971 personnel. The FBI has the fastest access to those records.”

  “And what’s your leverage?” Shirley asked. “The FBI doesn’t hand out information like Wikipedia.”

  “No, but I might have something to trade,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me. I was still running the possibility through my head and didn’t elaborate.

  Hewitt held a final bite of a muffin poised in front of his mouth. “Well, are you going to tell us or make us guess?”

  “We have a thread we haven’t pulled yet. Cory’s uncle, Eddie Gilmore. Lindsay Boyce suspects we’ve been inquiring about him, but I didn’t tell her we’d tracked down a veteran in Charlotte who shared Eddie’s covert missions in Vietnam. Then Nakayla’s house was firebombed, and I haven’t had the chance to interview the guy. Whether I get any useful information from him or not, I can dangle that prospect in front of Boyce and maybe entice her to share where the Bureau stands on running down the former tracking station staff.”

  “Is this vet ready to talk?” Hewitt asked.

  “I think so. He didn’t seem reluctant or secretive. But then I really didn’t ask him anything substantial. I told him we’d have to reschedule and I’d get back to him.”

  I recalled the phone call, the one that Chuck McNulty finally answered later that morning. He claimed he’d been driving because he couldn’t sleep. Had my bringing Eddie Gilmore back into his life been the reason? I now wondered how long he’d been driving? Long enough to get to Asheville and back? Long enough to have set a house ablaze?

  “Has Newland or Efird shared any information?” Cory asked.

  Nakayla flipped through her notepad. “Some. No one that they’ve talked to at Jack of the Wood had any connection to Loretta other than her family. No one appeared to act suspiciously or leave without paying their bill. The pink bicycle found on the body belonged to one of the waitresses. It wasn’t involved in the actual attack. The marks on Loretta’s neck are consistent with a heavier gauge guitar string. Sam and I saw the marks on Johnson’s neck. Despite the rope, the darker bruising looks identical.”

  “The significance is the strings weren’t so thin that they sliced the flesh,” I added. “They compressed arteries, veins, and windpipe to knock each victim unconscious within a matter of seconds. Neither Loretta nor Randall Johnson would have had the chance to cry out or struggle. There was no skin under their fingernails, not even their own. Often the victims will claw at their necks in a desperate effort to loosen the garrote.”

  With an audible swallow, Hewitt washed down a large bite of a fresh croissant with a gulp of coffee and then set the half-eaten pastry aside. The talk of strangulations had stifled his appetite. “How much strength would a person need in order to successfully use a garrote?”

  “A trained assassin utilizes technique as well as strength. A small stick at each end of the wire could be used as handholds to draw the noose tighter. That device could slip into a jacket pocket. Strength definitely helps, but in my military training, a quick, small soldier could take out a larger opponent, especially if he half turned and pulled the victim over his back.”

  “Could a woman have done it?” Shirley asked.

  Shirley was the last person whom I wanted to tell she wasn’t capable of garroting someone. She’d strangle me just to prove me wrong.

  “It’s not inconceivable,” I said. “But hoisting Randall Johnson’s body up off the ground would be more difficult. So I think our killer is a man.”

  “And not a particularly smart one,” Hewitt said. “Any half-competent ME would have noticed the inconsistent neck markings.”

  Shirley nodded in agreement. “A smart man. The original oxymoron.”

  No, I thought. Not a smart man. An extremely smart man whose strategy was to keep us running in circles.

  The meeting broke up around eleven. Hewitt and his team offered to research the Cases and Randall Johnson further. Although Nakayla had already made one pass through their history, the law firm could go deeper and broader with an eye to any connection between them and the tracking station. Their scope included any public records, debts, police reports, internet references, or news articles that could give insights into the family dynamics, especially in the twins’ early days.

  All of us encouraged Nakayla to step back and concentrate on dealing with the aftermath of the fire. I planned to reschedule my meeting with Chuck McNulty for tomorrow morning. Although it would be Saturday, I doubted that made much difference to a full-time retiree when a weekday and weekend became indistinguishable.

  The rest of my Friday would be spent rebuilding my life—replacing my identity as defined by a driver’s license, ATM card, and whatever else a twenty-first-century man needs to prove he exists. Fortunately, my passport had been tucked safely away in my apartment, because the sad truth is you need proof of identity to reconstruct your identity.

  Blue, Nakayla, and I walked down the hall to our office. As I reached for the doorknob, Blue gave a low growl.

  “Blue?” Nakayla asked softly.

  He growled again.

  “Did you lock the door?” I whispered.

  “No. You were the last one out.”

  “Oh, right. Then I’ll be the first one in.” I swung open the door and stepped across the threshold, Blue at my side. Five startled faces looked at me from the sofa and chairs.

  “It was unlocked,” one of the Case twins said.

  All five heads nodded in unison.

  “It wasn’t breaking and entering,” said the other twin. “We just entered.” He dropped his gaze to Blue. “That’s a fine-lookin’ coonhound. You should have told us you have a dog.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “His name’s Blue. And yours would be?”

  “I’m Danny. Danny Case Senior. This here’s my son, Danny Case Junior.”

  A man in one of the chairs waved.

  “And my other son, Bobby Case Number Two.”

  The man in the second chair waved. It was like an introduction of quiz show contestants.

  “He ain’t a junior, but he was named after my brother, just like my brother named his second son after me.”

  Bobby Case Senior sat in the middle of the sofa next to his twin. He nodded, “That’s me. We met at Loretta’s house.”

  Yeah, I thought. When you were trying to loot it.

  “And you remember my son, Bobby Case Junior. My second son, Danny Number Two, is in lockup.”

  So if anyone was keeping score, we had three Bobbys and two Dannys. If they’d been a poker hand, we’d have a full house. In fact, we did have a full house. We were out of chairs.

  “How can we help you?” I asked.

  “We just came to talk,” Danny Senior said. He stood and gestured for his two sons to get out of the chairs. “Let the lady and gentleman have seats. It’s their place.”

  Nakayla moved toward her office door. “That’s all right. Sam and I can roll in our desk chairs.”

  We wheeled them to each end of the coffee table so that we were flanked on either side by Cases. I wasn’t keen on having Danny’s two sons between me and the hall, but I figured if they wanted to start something, they would have done so as soon as we entered.

  I took a moment to study them. The five sat stiffly, dressed not in jeans or overalls but ill-fitting suits with wrinkled shirts and ties. The two fathers looked like they couldn’t stretch their suit coats around their bellies if Nakayla and I held guns to their heads. In their minds, they were on some important mission.

  Blue went to his bed in the corner and plopped down. The meeting could begin.

  Bobby Senior stroked his gray beard and then cleared his throat. “First of
all, as the oldest—”

  “By eight minutes,” muttered Danny Senior.

  “As the oldest,” Bobby repeated, “I want to apologize on behalf of the family. We shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions that you were putting pressure on our sister. That night at Jack of the Wood, she seemed so distraught after talking to you, and then you found her body in the alley. Well, you can see how it looked.”

  Nakayla and I said nothing.

  “Then you come talking to my son, Danny Number Two. It was like you was pickin’ on our family.”

  His voice rose, signaling he still harbored animosity under the veneer of politeness.

  “But I heard from Danny’s lips to my ears that he set that fire. The one at the space place as we call it.” He looked at Nakayla. “Not the one at your house.”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” I said.

  “Fair enough. But we want you to know Danny Number Two wasn’t in his right mind. Those UFO people filled his brain with all sorts of crazy thoughts. The boy just fell in the deep end of the pond.”

  I frowned. “And you’re telling us this because?”

  He tugged his beard again. “Because we now know you’re helping the family of that DeMille fellow. We figure Loretta was going to help you set things straight. You had no reason to harm her.”

  “She said she was going to meet someone?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We thought it was you. But from where we were on the stage, that looked like a spur-of-the-moment thing. She was surprised to see you.”

  “What can you tell me about the solo she sang?”

  Bobby Senior swept his eyes across his kinfolk. “We have no idea where that came from.”

  Again, the heads bobbed in unison, only faster this time.

  “You know it was a song about Frank DeMille,” Nakayla said.

  “So we gathered,” Danny Senior said. “Loretta had to be both happy and hurtin’ to learn her boyfriend hadn’t run out on her.”

  “What did you have against him?” I asked.

  “I already told you. We didn’t trust him or any of those people up there. All those men isolated in the forest. Like bucks in rut. So there’s our pretty little sister in a house of the horny. Of course we worried about her.”

  “They planned to marry,” I said. “There wasn’t anything sordid going on.”

  The five men sat quietly for a few seconds.

  Then Bobby Senior spoke. “She told us after he disappeared. We felt bad because she thought we’d run him off. If we’d known he was making an honest woman out of her, then we’d have thought differently. But we sure as hell didn’t kill him.”

  “And how did you feel about Randall Johnson?” I asked. “He could have been one of your bucks in rut.”

  “Randall was different. He was born here. He played guitar.”

  Played guitar. And probably had a coonhound, I thought. In their eyes, Randall was a top-notch matrimonial prospect.

  “Which one of you plays guitar?” I asked.

  Five hands shot up.

  “All of you weren’t playing guitars last Tuesday.”

  “Everybody picks some guitar,” Bobby Senior said. “When all of us are playing, then Danny Senior and I are on guitar. When it’s just the four boys, then Bobby Junior plays guitar, Danny Junior plays fiddle, Bobby Number Two plays mandolin, and Danny Number Two plays banjo.”

  “Not any more, Pa,” Bobby Junior said.

  “Yep. We’re goin’ to have to do some thinkin’ about that.”

  “What’s your favorite guitar strings?” I asked.

  The men studied me a moment.

  “You play?” Danny Senior asked skeptically.

  “Play at it,” I lied.

  “What’s your guitar?”

  I racked my brain for a make but all I could think of was Martin. I was afraid that was too fine an instrument for a novice. Then I remembered a guy in basic training who played a guitar. He was nicknamed for it.

  “Washburn,” I said. “Picked it up in a pawn shop.” I forced a laugh. “All I know is it has six strings that need changing. Somebody told me I should try Martins.”

  “They’re OK,” Bobby Senior said. “We used to play them. Now we only play Elixirs. Randall recommended them, and we’ve never looked back.”

  So much for my effort to narrow the suspect pool by brand of guitar strings.

  “Poor Randall,” Danny Senior muttered and stared at his shoes. “If he’d kept it in his pants, Loretta would have kept him in the house.” He looked up, saw Nakayla, and turned red. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Well,” she said, “you were good to come clear the air. We’re sorry about the loss of your sister. I met her only twice, but she seemed to be a remarkable woman.”

  They nodded.

  Bobby Senior cleared his throat again. “We wondered if you could do us a couple of favors.”

  I shot a glance at Nakayla. Evidently, our peace powwow wasn’t over.

  “What are they?” she asked.

  “We thought maybe you could put in a good word for my son Danny Number Two. We know he did wrong, but if he hadn’t started that fire, then we’d never have learned what happened to Mr. DeMille. That’s got to be helpful to his family. And he’s got his own family to consider.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Turning their logic around, we could argue if Frank DeMille’s bones had not been uncovered, then both Loretta and Randall would still be alive.

  “I’m afraid we can’t help you there,” Nakayla said. “We won’t be called to testify, because the arson case is a matter for the FBI and Sheriff Hickman. We’re only involved with the death of Frank DeMille.”

  Tears glistened in the twins’ eyes.

  “Well, ma’am,” Danny Senior said, “would you and your partner consider taking on an investigation into who killed our sister? Our family’s not in good graces with the law, what with my nephew Danny Number Two’s screwup. They ain’t about to tell us anything. And there’s got to be some overlap with DeMille’s death.” He reached inside his coat pocket and retrieved a worn wallet. “We pooled our money together. Cash money. Six hundred dollars. We can pay more later.” He looked at me. “I’ll throw in guitar lessons.”

  “We can’t take your money, Mr. Case. It wouldn’t be right, since we’re already working for another client. But among us, I agree that the murders are connected. When we find the guilty party for one of them, then I believe we’ll have found the guilty party for all of them. And we’ll gather here and give you a full report.”

  “We’d be much obliged, sir.” He stood. “Well, boys, I think we’re done here.”

  Nakayla and I headed for the door to bid them goodbye. Each of the men first stopped to pet Blue and then shook our hands.

  When we heard the elevator descend with the Case clan, Nakayla said, “That was interesting. Either their visit was a genuine effort to find justice for their sister or a calculated maneuver to remove themselves as suspects. What do you think we should do next?”

  I picked up my car keys for my dreaded trip to the DMV. “Why don’t you fill Newly in on what just happened.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I guess I need to buy a Washburn guitar. What song would you like me to learn first?”

  “‘The Sound of Silence’—literally.”

  Chapter 21

  I left for Charlotte a little after eight on Saturday morning. Traffic was light, and I used the two hours to mull over all that had happened since DeMille’s bones had been unearthed.

  Dots were plentiful, but connecting them to support a coherent theory proved elusive. The dot named Chuck McNulty could be a total outlier with no connection whatsoever to our case. But McNulty’s revelation that Eddie Gilmore had also been murdered linked the two deaths in a totally unexpected way. As each mile
brought me closer to Charlotte, my excitement for meeting McNulty intensified.

  Charlotte, the Queen City, prided itself on being one of the jewels of the New South. What once had been the intersection of two Indian trading trails was now the intersection of I-77 and I-85. Ranked either the second or third largest financial center in the country, clearly behind New York City but dancing back and forth with San Francisco, Charlotte proclaimed its success through a shining skyline of office towers and high-rise residences. But Chuck McNulty wouldn’t be found there.

  When I’d spoken with him the night before, he’d said he’d be in his rose garden, pruning and weeding before the heat drove him inside. I’d looked up his address on Google Maps and learned his house was in a neighborhood called Dilworth, one of the city’s first suburbs, now almost within the shadows of the skyscrapers.

  As I followed my GPS for the final mile, I was struck not by the variety of old yet well-maintained homes but rather the proliferation of tall trees lining the streets and gracing yards. The neighborhood was an arborist’s dream.

  My journey ended at a two-story brick house that I guessed had been constructed in the 1920s. I parked on a shady street in front. McNulty’s home stood on a corner lot that appeared to be twice the size of those around it. What I’d envisioned as a couple of rose bushes in a backyard turned out to be a large garden adjacent to the house and encompassed by a decorative black wrought-iron fence. A separate cement sidewalk branched off from the one to the front porch and ended at the garden’s gate.

  Inside the perimeter, rose bushes grew in raised beds bordered by railroad ties. Red roses, pink roses, yellow roses, white roses, and varying shades of these major hues. Well-worn pathways crisscrossed among the beds. A breeze carried nature’s sweet perfume. Here and there, a few benches created the feel of a bucolic park. Maybe Mr. McNulty would let me hang out the rest of the day away from fires, murders, and mysteries. Sam, I thought, if ever there was a time to stop and smell the roses.

  A metal plaque attached to the gate read:

  A Gardener’s Prayer

  Thank you, God, for sun and shower,