The Maude Rogers Murder Collection

by Linda L. Dunlap

  Chapter 6

  Doctor Jeffries was indeed in room 310 preparing with gloved hands to check the dilation progress of a pregnant woman’s cervix. Maude opened the door to find the doctor with hands busy, holding the woman’s legs down, as he attempted to perform the dilation check at the same time.

  When she walked in, the doctor spoke. “Since you’re in here, put some gloves on, and give me a hand holding this woman down.”

  Maude was fairly speechless, but did as she was told and gloved up. Placing herself at the foot of the narrow bed, near the woman’s feet, she grabbed for the restless ankles and prepared to hold them. It was like trying to hold a bucking horse. Meanwhile, the busy doctor performed his check, half in the air and half on the bed, in time with the pregnant woman’s labor spasms.

  “You’re about ready to go to the operating room.” he told his patient. “About ready to have that baby.” He removed his gloves, and at that time remembered Maude at the end of the bed.

  “Thanks,” he told her. “Sorry to be giving orders, but the patient came first.”

  “Well, I’ve had worse duty,” she told him. “But I can’t say I ever did this before. Name’s Maude Rogers, homicide detective, working with Sheriff Jack Fuller. Wonder if I might ask you a couple of questions as soon as I get these gloves off. Usually the bodies I get hold of aren’t moving,” she added as an afterthought.

  “I only have a minute, but since you were so helpful, I’ll walk with you to the elevators and you can ask your questions.”

  “Thank you Doctor Jeffries. I’m working a case that happened earlier in the week, but it may have to do with someone you did surgery on earlier tonight. A man named Spillar, nasty temper. What I need is that bullet you took from him. Did you keep it?”

  “Yes Detective, that’s a hospital rule. We always keep the bullets. We never know when the police may need them. The hospital requires a writ from the court.”

  “I understand, but do you suppose you could tell me the caliber of the bullet? Or are you allowed?”

  “I don’t see any reason I can’t tell you. It was a .45 caliber, and in good shape if that will help you any.”

  “No, that doesn’t help much, although that information might clear Mr. Spillar in a murder case. He is a thoroughly rude, nasty man at heart. What about the bullet from my friend Sheriff Jack Fuller? ”

  “I’m sorry, Detective, I didn’t do his surgery, but I heard it was a .38 caliber.”

  Maude stepped into the elevator and punched the fifth floor button where she had been told Jack was recuperating after surgery. She knew that Spillar had probably shot Jack, but she couldn’t prove it, not without finding the gun.

  One more stop, then sleep, she thought, stifling a yawn.

  The sheriff lay on his side snoring loudly, producing an occasional, loud fart, unaware that Maude stood and gazed down at him. She decided to leave him to his rest, made her way to his truck parked in the Emergency parking lot, and drove to the Tyler’s home.

  Determined to be a considerate guest and avoid waking them, she tip-toed into the house after using the key they had lent her. The hands on the mantle clock showed the time to be after 2 A.M, and Maude felt it in her sore knees and hips. She sat down at the desk in the chair provided, turned on her computer, and searched Gmail.com for any information that her partner Joe might have sent back. Her earlier request had been for anything he could find on Aaron Dennis or Jenny Marx, but that was before the two were found dead together. Recent incidents had upgraded the request to priority.

  There were a couple of ads in her mail from a company that wanted her to buy land in Florida, as well as one from a time share offering a cruise with absolutely no obligations. She immediately deleted both and turned off the terminal.

  Tossing and turning, Maude found she was unable to sleep without nightmares of large water birds swooping down from a purple sky. They seemed intent on mangling, and then eating her. She finally threw the covers away and put her shoes on, grabbed her unfiltereds and the small gin bottle from her suitcase, and made her way to the back deck. It was quiet outside, with lights along Edward’s Bay shining in the distance. She lit her first cigarette of the day and inhaled the smoke, determined to continue the self-imposed cut-back. Her lungs were already providing more air when she was active, a response that both pleased and surprised her. A couple of swigs of gin and she saw the world in a better light.

  The details of the case had been worrying her rest, her normal reaction during high stress. Seeing Jack with the injury to his shoulder had made the earlier crimes more personal with the assassins targeting law enforcement officers. She looked over her book to see if any of it made more sense in the undisturbed night.

  Doctor Dennis was involved in hush-hush government work and Jenny Marx was his girlfriend, a student who was majoring in medicine. The connection between them seemed a simple one, yet it led nowhere. If the doctor had enemies, why include a young woman who had her life ahead of her? Was it revenge, a payback to Doctor Dennis for something he had done, or someone he had disabused? Once again, why the girl? The killers had made it appear that the girl was being punished for something, or shamed? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be with the doctor. Jealousy? Ambition? Maude thought about all of the reasons that could have led to the slaughter of the two people, but nothing clicked.

  A quarter-moon was high in the heavens, giving off a weak light just bright enough for Maude to see the privacy fence that encircled the Tyler’s property. She appreciated again the courtesy to a stranger that Bear and Andrea had offered, and vowed to keep their lives separate from the deaths of the two people from the university.

  Daylight came quickly, a harsh fact to Maude who had been awake for most of the night and early morning. Groaning from the effort, she pulled herself out of the bed and made the necessary trip to the bathroom. Stretching her long body, she bent down to touch her toes and loosen the stiff joints in her upper torso. The activity caused her head to explode, or so she was afraid. The gin of the early morning hours was taking its toll as the familiar, headache mallet slammed her temples.

  Her preoccupation with thoughts of cancer had created rituals for Maude, regardless of aches and pain. The morning breast exam once a week in the shower, the search for irregular moles on her body, and the application of sunscreen before she went outside were her regular activities. Maude’s mother, Grace Hamilton, had died at the age of fifty-five from breast cancer, a condition of genetics that had crept up, and blind-sided her with its severity.

  The mirror was unkind that morning as the glass reflected the ravages of a sleepless night. Maude looked closely at her face, wondering why she still had freckles on her nose. She smiled for a minute, remembering that her friend Bill had commented that her freckles were sweet spots on her skin. He had added a caveat that something about her ought to be sweet.

  The memory of the last time she had seen him was sharp in her mind. He lived in Philadelphia and had family there. Kids, grandkids, and a cemetery full of relatives that had lived their long and short lives in Pennsylvania. His wife had been buried in that cemetery, and he had always planned to be there too, until he met Maude. Then his life took a different track.

  Old isn’t dead, she thought that morning. There was still plenty of time for a relationship if she would allow it to develop. Bill’s words, words that had turned her head, bringing back emotions she had thought were gone forever.

  At the innocent age of twenty, Maude had fallen head over heels in love with a young, dark-haired man named Paul Rogers. She married him, and then he went to war in Asia along with thousands of other young men. He left her pregnant and happy in the joy of starting a family. She had believed that her future was set, and he would return shortly. Three months later, both her husband and her child were gone. The first was lost to the war, and the second to a miscarriage that finished breaking her heart. She grieved, then went back to work, finished her degree, and put it all behind her, or so she thought.
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  For years Maude ached for her losses, but refused to give in to grief and loneliness, choosing instead to look for outrageous ways to combat her pain. She became daring, working in a police department, putting herself at risk unnecessarily; searching for the answer to her sadness. Afterwards, she went wild, living the free-love life of California for years before the pain finally stopped.

  The years afterward were filled with high profile murder cases, especially the one that was finally brought to rest with the imprisonment of Robert Dawson, aka, The Heartless Killer, an insane serial murderer who butchered young men and women across several states. He was finally brought down in Texas.

  Looking back does no good, Maude thought. There was too much to do to start on that slippery trail. Dawson was locked up ‘good and tight’ in the Madison-MacArthur prison for the criminally insane. Now there was another murder, and Maude was stuck right in the middle of it since Sheriff Jack Fuller was unable to perform his duties safely.

  “Lieutenant Patterson, please,” she told the dispatcher after calling the Cop Shop and being put through.

  “Patterson here. Maude, is that you? Aren’t you on vacation on the coast?”

  “Sure, just reporting in. I have a few more days, but I wanted you to know that I got right into a stinking murder down here, and the sheriff who runs things has a wounded shoulder. Some snake in the grass ambushed him, and darn near killed him. Came real close.”

  “So what does that have to do with you?”

  “I was investigating off-duty for my niece, looking for a friend of hers that disappeared, when the man turned up dead. Kind of got into it.”

  “Are you sure you have the authority, Maude?” Patterson seemed more concerned with the legal details than the case itself.

  “Yes, sir. Sheriff Jack Fuller has given me the authority to be his designee. Can’t get more legal than that.”

  “You talking about Jack Fuller, the man who almost single-handedly brought down the Machito Gomez drug cartel in 1999? That man is a hero of mine. Heck of a guy. I’d like to be working with him myself. Look here Maude, I’ll authorize time for you, but-a week is all I can do, so you better get going and get the job done, chop-chop.”

  Maude had to clear her head for a minute. James Patterson was actually agreeing to spend money from his budget to allow her to work in another county?

  “What gives Lieutenant? Did you get a heart transplant this week?”

  “No need being rude, detective. Fact is, Rhodes County has helped us in the past, that drug cartel was moving up around here, and across to Austin before Jack Fuller brought them down. We owe him.”

  “Do we owe him enough that Joe could make his way down here for a few days?”

  “Don’t push your luck, Detective Rogers. On second thought, I’ll send him down for a few days. Just tell Sheriff Jack that I said “hello, and many thanks for the work he has done in the past. Tell him I hope he’s better soon.”

  The phone went dead, and Maude stood in silence. After a couple of minutes wondering what in the world was going on with Patterson, she decided to go to the Tylers, thank them for their hospitality and explain that it was not necessary for them to put her up any longer.

  A trip by the hospital showed Maude that she was dealing with a stubborn man. Jack Fuller didn’t get to be sheriff by sitting on his laurels. He was fit to be tied.

  “Staying in the hospital bed while the murderers of Aaron Dennis and that little girl go free is just an abomination, but I’ll abide by what the doctors say. Just don’t get me wrong, I’ll hate every minute of it.”

  “Jack, I’ll keep you up on all the details, and you can run the show from your hospital bed. But old boy, the Reaper is waiting if that artery busts loose in your shoulder, and you’re more than three feet away from a doctor.”

  Jack grumbled, issuing a sound that was more like a groan, his thick neck stiff in the effort of agreeing without liking it.

  “I know Maude, and I’m grateful. Truth is, I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here. Call in the High-way patrol I guess. I just have a hard time with doing nothing.”

  “My partner and I have been loaned to you by Lieutenant Patterson, my boss. Can’t understand his attitude though; he isn’t usually so unselfish.”

  “Patterson, James Patterson?”

  “Yeah, you act like you know him.” Maude was curious about the connection between Jack Fuller and James Patterson.

  “Well,” Jack said, lost in thought , “It was in ’99, I was chasing some drug scum that had packed a load of meth into an apartment, and it blew, killing five kids and two adults in the adjoining apartment. I had a bead on the ringleaders and then, about the time I was ready with a task force to take them out, they skipped town. We had a leak, a direct line of information from a fellow that worked in the warrant section. He was brother-in-law to one of the Machito gang. It was real bad after that.

  “Next thing you know, I heard from some folks up around Madison that a new cartel had moved in there and all the way across to Austin. The word was out that there were gang killings in the takeover of the meth market. Because I knew that scum, knew them on sight, I called and volunteered to come up and help put them all away. Your lieutenant was a sergeant back then, still wet behind the ears, and overcome by the crime that had just hit the streets.

  “Well, since I could identify the Machito gang leader, your lieutenant and me worked together some, caught them drug pushing murderers, killed most of them, and locked a few up for a long time. I reckon that is what James Patterson is remembering.”

  “I guess that would explain it,” Maude said with fervor. “It was a few years later when I showed up, then even later when I finally made it to Homicide. Makes me feel even more inclined to find the murderers of those two on the lake. If my remembrance is right, the kind of killers we’re dealing with now don’t just step back and wait. They clear all the obstacles out of their trail. We may be seeing some more of their work before we catch the polecats.”

  “Maude, you are a picture to see when you get mad. I hope I’m never in your gun sights.”

  “If that should happen, Jack, it’s because one of us has jumped the fence, a situation that I don’t expect to happen. Those Machitos stay locked up?”

  “Last I heard all but one was killed on the exercise yard at the Rusk unit. Made it all the way there with good behavior. Guess the others didn’t like meth makers playing nice.”

  “Think you could check into his whereabouts? See what he’s doing, maybe he got out early.”

  “I can do that, Maude. Give me something to do besides pick my behind.”

  Maude had a sudden picture of that activity, and shut it down as fast as possible. She preferred to see Jack in a better light.

  It was late morning when she left the hospital on her way back to the Tyler’s home. Weariness seemed her constant companion, too many hours spent without sleep taking its toll, filling her head with fuzz. The bedroom offered her rest, and she slept soundly for five hours, got up, showered and changed clothing. Her bag took only a few minutes to put together, and she loaded it in the car, trying to be as quiet as possible.

  Chapter 7

  The local motel around Edwards Bay was a sleazy number, set up for canal workers, delivery men, and the low income bracket that couldn’t afford the resort. Maude stopped in and asked to see the rooms, she wasn’t about to rent a roach haven or a dive. The owner/manager lived on the property and showed her around, eager to get her business. She did her usual check of the beds and found them to be serviceable, if not the most comfortable. The owner said he would provide the newest mattresses from storage. The small refrigerator in the corner of the room chugged along, cooling the inside, and a coffee pot was available if she wanted it.

  The room for Joe was a duplicate many he had stayed, and so were the manager’s promises. Maude let him know quickly and quietly that anything less than acceptable and he would suffer her wrath. The manager was nervous
after, that and walked on his toes in Maude’s presence. She noticed his demeanor, and wondered why people behaved that way around her. The newer, gentler Maude Rogers was trying to be less intimidating, but no matter what she did, small men usually reacted in the same way. It wouldn’t surprise me, she thought, if he starts flirting next.

  The Tyler’s home was about three miles from the motel and the Sheriff’s Office was about the same distance on the other side of town. Maude locked the door to the motel room, trusting the owner to see that the new mattress was on the bed when she came back. Joe’s flight would be arriving in about three hours, which gave her time to go to the local florist shop, and pick up flowers for Andrea.

  A blue Chevy sat outside the motel, its motor running, the driver waiting for someone. Maude wasn’t paying attention to the car, but the owner of the motel, Jesus Jones was watching anything that had to do with his new resident. He observed the blue Chevy, a model about ten years old with dirt on the sides as if its owner was not concerned with automobile cleanliness. In most circumstances the vehicle would go unnoticed. The license plate was from Arizona and also dirty, but the manager took the time to read it. He made a note to inform his new tenant about the car. He really liked helping the police.

  When Maude pulled out of the drive, the blue Chevy followed her for a while, and then fell back to keep her from noticing, but Jesus Jones was in his own car, tailing the tailer. When the blue Chevy fell back, the motel man almost ran into the bumper of the dirty blue car. Cursing as if it was in no part his fault, the motel man slung his fists at the driver ahead for stopping short, and then after he got the attention he desired, he too fell back and stopped his vehicle.

  Jesus Jones was an organized man, thorough in his actions, but his motel was very cheap. His tenants paid a lower rate than he wished he could charge, however, the ambiance of the motel didn’t allow for higher rent. The sad truth was there was no ambiance at all.