The Maude Rogers Murder Collection

by Linda L. Dunlap

  “I’m sorry I asked,” Joe said. “I didn’t mean to upset you even more.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m used to it. Please find who killed my sister.” Wanda May was back in control of her emotions,

  “We will, Wanda May, we will,” Joe said.

  Ellen Goodbody had been on duty Saturday and Sunday after the train incident. The good days off never seemed to be good enough for her. Most of the registered nurses got those days. Of course, Ellen knew that getting her RN certification would take more education, but sometimes she thought about doing it just so she could say she did. The RNs bossed the other nurses around, giving orders about how to medicate the patients. Land’s sake, Ellen thought, you’d think their poop didn’t stink the way they carry on sometimes. On the Monday following the incident, she was on duty, emptying bedpans because the interns were in a meeting, when she saw a newspaper in the lobby, lying across a chair where someone had left it. She took a minute to sit down and be Mrs. Rich Bitch. The front page of the Madison Gazette said that someone had been killed by a train, which didn’t surprise her none the way those big locomotives went scooting by the hospital pulling a long line of cars. Further down the page it said the woman was Eve Devine of Madison, thirty-two years old and unmarried.

  Poor Ellen puckered up, her eyes sprouting tears over the loss of a friend. Eve had been just as sweet as pie, and nobody ever disliked her while she worked there. Ellen couldn’t figure how her friend could kill herself that way. Run over by the train! She hoped she could go to the funeral at least. Not that anyone else would care now. Eve had made some enemies at the hospital when she left without a word. Some of the women who got their schedules messed up and lost vacation plans were not going to cry over her. Ellen thought it was a shame too, that no one believed Eve when she tried to tell them that 73 was putting on a show, pretending to be comatose when he wasn’t. Eve hadn’t told Ellen, but later someone said that was what made her leave so quickly.

  Ellen got up, and went on about her business, thinking about Eve, wondering why she killed herself. A minute later when her nose began twitching, she knew without a doubt a ‘bad one’ was coming down the hall. Lingering a minute, she thought, He better be in the right place. She gave a little smile as the guard brought Number 89 out of his room, passing Ellen near the swimming pool. Yep, she still had it.

  Chapter 7

  Driving back to Madison, Joe kept up a running commentary on any subject he could think of that might bring Maude out of her reverie. So far he had been unsuccessful. Joe was worried, afraid that she had become depressed over the information about Dawson. He knew the psycho had dealt Maude some heavy blows in the past, but that was before he went down in a bicycle chase with Maude behind him. Since that time she had quit being concerned about him. Joe tried again to engage his partner in light conversation, then he shut up, leaving her to silence.

  They were five miles from Madison when Maude spoke up, “Joe, I need to pee, so don’t drag your feet.” He grinned and nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll make sure I don’t. Glad to see you back in the world.”

  “It’s him, Joe. It’s him in this slimy business. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Dawson is back. He’s pulling strings even if he’s not the one using the knife or the gun. He’s in charge of the turmoil. Doctor Hopkins must be on the tit, taking Dawson’s money. Can’t even trust the medical profession anymore. Joe, we’re going to get to the bottom of this murder and take him down.”

  “I think you might be right, partner. I wish you were wrong, but it sets up to be him. The question is, who’s the guy doing the work?”

  “That fellow Buzzcut is on my list of possibilities. He fits the profile. I’m sure he kidnapped Lilly Ann as part of a bigger plot.”

  Henry Fonda stood behind the ticket window every day of the week, Monday through Friday. His job was to run the station and maintain schedule information with the engineers of the several locomotives that worked through the station. Monday was a slow day in the business, so when he saw the woman detective driving up, he was glad she came during the slow part of the morning. Young, good-looking guy in the car with her must be her partner. That old girl could use some help hustling around the tracks. Henry could tell she had some aches and pains stored up. Good-looking woman, though; he might give her a look-see if it wasn’t for the little lady at home. Henry chuckled, thinking what Inez would do to him if she heard what he was thinking. He laughed a little more, then stopped when something slammed him in the neck and hurt like the devil. Reaching up to put his hand where it hurt, Henry got fuzzy-brained, like he was in the hospital getting ready for surgery. He looked at his hand and saw it came away real wet with all five fingers bloody. Confused, he tried to call his mama, because something was awful wrong and hurting bad. “Mama,” he tried again, his head falling onto the metal countertop behind the splintered glass of the ticket window.

  Sitting in the city car, the detectives looked at one another when they heard the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. They looked for vehicles then quickly turned toward the station, seeing but not quite taking it in: the whole front panel of glass was gone. The sign indicating Station remained intact, but the Madison part had dropped to the floor in a thousand pieces.

  “What happened, Maude? Did you see anything?” Joe was moving away from the car seat, opening the door and crouching behind, looking toward the wrecked front of the building.

  “Not a thing, Joe, but from the looks of it, a bullet came through here just a minute ago. The inside is messed up,” she said from the cover of her car door. “I have to get in there. People may be hurt. Try to cover me if you see anything. I’m going in.”

  “Wait, Maude,” Joe said. “You’re the better shot. Let me go in first.”

  “Nothing doing,” she said, knowing Joe was trying to protect her. “Call for backup and EMS.”

  The broken glass was inside the building, across the tile floor, where it had skittered from the impact. A woman huddled in the corner of the building, hiding behind her bag, tears on her face. A man with crutches had fallen from his chair, sliding to the tile floor, where he lay in terror of what might be coming through the door. Bags were lined across the end of the building, waiting for the next train, their owners standing outside or sitting on benches when the bullet was fired. Maude stepped lightly, weapon in hand, skidding once or twice on the tiny particles of glass that covered the floor.

  The worst was yet to come. Directly across from the broken panes of glass, the ticket booth window was unmanned. Maude stepped closer and saw the blood swipes down the metal shelf and a spray of arterial blood across the cash register, the computer screen, and an open logbook. Henry was an old-time record keeper who liked figures written by hand. He lay on the floor, his face and upper body covered in blood from a hole the size of a silver dollar just below his temple. The jugular had been severed and the top of his jawbone could be seen through the gore. Henry had died on his feet, probably unaware of what had hit him.

  “Anyone hurt?” Maude yelled after a few minutes of quiet. “It’s okay; you can come out now if you’re hiding, just stay low.”

  A few people had small scratches from the glass, but nothing serious. None of the riders wanted to give up their ticket and miss the train, but Maude said she was sorry; they would have to make other arrangements unless she could get their statements before the passenger train was ready to leave. Quickly, each person in hiding came forth to tell what they had seen.

  The backup that Joe had called for was coming in, two and three blue uniforms at a time, crowding the passengers. Maude pulled her whistle from her pocket and blew, getting the attention of the officers who had showed up. She chose a few of them to interview the people outside the station, making sure they gave names and addresses and showed some identification. The crime scene crew arrived soon afterward and began their work, getting pictures of the victim and his surroundings.

  “What a sorry mess this is. Do you suppose the man was the
target, or did the bullet go wild?” she asked Joe. “Why would someone kill him, unless he knew more about the murder of Eve Devine than he had told us?”

  “The crime scene people are going out with armed officers, looking for locations where the shooter might have set up, but if he’s trained by Dawson, they won’t find much,” Joe said. “The coroner didn’t have anything to say, except the bullet killed the victim very quickly. It was a hollow point, most likely. The shooter was a pro, knew where to put the bullet through the glass. Looks like he shot two, three times, breaking out all the windows.”

  “Joe, let’s find out if Fonda was married. If so, he might have told his wife what he had seen. It’s a good idea anyway to make sure she’s okay, although I don’t relish telling her about her husband. I’m wondering if we were followed over here, Joe. It’s obvious the gunman got to him first.”

  “Kind of a sorry feeling, that maybe we got the man killed,” Joe said thoughtfully.

  “No, it wasn’t us,” Maude said. “The man was doomed from the first, if he knew more than he was telling. ‘A secret once told has no more power,’ my mother told me, and she was right.”

  Henry Fonda’s house was near the station in one of the older neighborhoods with red peaked roofs and two-storied houses. The Fonda’s home had a wrought-iron white gate in front with summer roses and Esperanza blooming beside it, the reds and yellows giving a cheerful ambiance to the house and property. Maude knocked on the door, wishing she was somewhere else. A pretty woman with gray hair and bifocal glasses over hazel eyes answered the door.

  “May I help you?” she asked, more of a statement than a question.

  Maude showed her shield identifying herself as Maude Rogers, Homicide Division of Madison Police Department. “Yes, Mrs. Fonda? Inez Fonda?”

  “Yes, what can I do for you? Would you like to come in?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Fonda. That would be better.”

  “Better than what?” Inez asked. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Maybe we could sit for a minute. Would you mind?” Joe was concerned for the woman and how she might react to the news of her husband’s death.

  “Why yes. Please come in,” she said. “Forgive my rudeness; I am not accustomed to entertaining the police.”

  The couch looked well worn, but comfortable. Maude chose a straight-backed chair that would make it easier to get back on her feet. Her arthritic knees had some difficulty with low seating, but Joe gladly sank into the leather cushions and leaned back against the wide arms of the furniture. Maude remembered the days when she could still enjoy such comfort, but wrestling with criminals in hard places like concrete, pavement, and tile floors had worn the ligaments down in both of her knees. When the necessity was there, she was always the first to pile on if a suspect tried to escape from custody at booking. It came with the turf. Some jail officers referred to it as pig-piling, almost like the pile of football players in a game when someone held the ball at the bottom of the mound.

  Inez sat in disbelieving shock when the detectives told her about Henry. When Maude asked her about the track incident and anything that Henry might have said, she replied, “No, I don’t know any of Henry’s business at work. I’m sorry, it’s just we never talked about his job, nor mine. You see, I work in discount retail, and it’s a real bitch sometime, but was never very interesting to him. And I just never saw the lines of people going back and forth on the train to be the elements of good conversation, so we got into our habits.” She sat gazing off into the kitchen, a few tears making tiny tracks in her pancake makeup, the mascara framing her leaking gray eyes melting as stage black.

  “Will you be all right, Mrs. Fonda, or would you like for me to call victim services to get someone over to help you with your loss? Sometimes people need others in cases like this where there’s been violence.”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine, I have friends. Thank you for coming and I’m sorry I can’t help you any.”

  “Then we’ll go on about our business and find the person who did this to your husband,” Maude said, rising from the chair.

  Once outside, she said to Joe, “I’m beat. Where to? I’m going home.”

  “Run me by the house if you don’t mind,” Joe said. “Think I’ll turn in early.”

  Chapter 8

  Joe’s apartment was three miles from the Cop Shop, and until recently, when the weather became so unbearably hot, he had pedaled his bicycle to work and back, choosing the physical exercise in the early and late part of the day. The heat had been intense for a week, destroying his desire for a three-mile ride at the end of shift. Maude, as senior officer, had use of the city car, and had lately been giving him a lift to work. She enjoyed his company. That evening when she dropped him in front of the apartment, Joe noticed the front door was open. Problem was, he remembered closing it that morning.

  “Wait up, partner,” he said, unsnapping the holster on his waist. “Someone’s been in my apartment. Could be the manager, but let me find out before you leave.”

  “No problem. I’ll take a walk with you,” she said, killing the engine then stepping out of the car.

  The door was open a crack, the cool air leaking outside from the window unit running in the small living area. He hated that; his electric bill was already high enough without that kind of waste.

  “Come out,” he yelled. “Police. Come out of the house.”

  The door opened and a blonde female stepped outside with her hands in the air. “I give up,” she said with a droopy smile. “Don’t shoot,” she continued, staggering toward Joe.

  “Sheila? What are you doing here? How did you get in my apartment?” Joe was firing questions to get over the surprise of seeing his ex-wife.

  “Well, I told the manager I’m your wife and he let me in,” she said laughing.

  Joe wasn’t laughing; in fact, he was angry and disturbed that the manager had allowed a stranger into his apartment. He knew Joe was a cop, which made it worse. Turning toward Maude, Joe shrugged, a defeated expression on his face.

  “You can go. I know her,” he said, waiting until his partner drove away to turn back to his ex-wife.

  “So who’s the grandma? Rowrrr, a cougar. I never knew you liked older women, Joe,” she said drunkenly.

  “Go inside, Sheila. Tell me what you’re doing here. Where’s the boys?”

  “Shure thang,” she slurred, settling on the couch. “The boys are fine. How about a drinky-winky?”

  The person in front of Joe was a caricature of his ex-wife, a drunken, messed-up woman who looked ten years older than she should. It hurt to see her that way; the three years she had been gone were hard years for him. He had learned to cry again after she left—deep, racking sobs that left him empty and sad. Nights of squeezing the pillow, pretending it was her body, ran quickly through his mind. Part of his mended heart thrilled at the thought that she was here.

  He unloaded his equipment while Sheila helped herself to his liquor cabinet and sang to the apartment community. No matter how he tried to shush her, she kept it up, causing him distress that someone might knock on the door from the department with a citizen noise complaint. He went into his small kitchen and removed two chicken breasts from the freezer, put them in cold water to thaw, and began to change his clothes.

  “Umm, you look good,” she said, easing up behind him, rubbing his back. “Haven’t seen you looking this yummy before.”

  “It’s the workout I do to keep my job.” He was nervous, the feel of her fingers so familiar, yet foreign at the same time. A thousand times he had dreamed of her fingers on his skin, touching him in the old way when they were first together. A warning shot through him: Can’t go there. She’s drunk; she’s not the same. She doesn’t care for me, doesn’t even like me.

  He removed her fingers and finished undressing in the bathroom, finding his workout pants hanging on the shower rod where he’d left them that morning.

  “I’m going on a run. Be gone when I get back.” Th
e words hurt him to say, but rightness accompanied them.

  “You mean you don’t want me?” she slurred, the drink in her had wobbling, threatening to spill. “Where you getting it? Huh, who’s giving it to you, Joe? You know she’s not as good as me, can’t make you feel like I can.”

  “Just be gone when I get back,” he said.

  “Aw, come on, Joe. Don’t you remember how good I make you feel, the way you like to hold me?”

  “I remember how badly you made me feel when I wanted you with every nerve in my body and you didn’t care, but I don’t want you anymore. You took my kids! Now take your drunk self out of my apartment. Be gone when I get back,” he said for the third time.

  “Liar! Of course you still want me,” she screamed. “You loser, I’m leaving. Who needs you anyway?” Her arm was shaking, her head bobbing with the hateful words she spat out. “Loser cop, you’ll never be anything else. I came here to see someone else, but he was out for a while, so I thought I would see poor, sad Joe. Even his kids hate him. But you can rot, as far as I care. You hear me, Joe? You’ll always be a loser.”

  He ran out of the door, stumbling over the sidewalk in an effort to get away from the vitriol in her voice, the hateful words slamming him as he ran. The city was noisy with traffic moving from downtown to the outskirts, where more people were living every year, but Joe couldn’t hear anything except the hate in his ex-wife’s voice. He ran farther than he had before, giving her plenty of time to get out of his apartment, praying she would be gone when he got back. He wondered if she was lying about his kids hating him. They were still young and impressionable. She could sway them if she wanted, but he had never believed she would stoop to that. Not caring about him was one thing, but she wanted to hurt him that night because he had rejected her. He had to believe that, or everything else he’d ever believed about her was a lie.