A Welcome Murder

by Robin Yocum

  “Who were they after?”

  I just looked at him.

  “Jesus Christ. That’s what he was doing up here in your office all the time—trying to set you up. I told you to quit letting him hang around here.”

  “I was trying to use him for some information.”

  “That’s what you thought. He was trying to drop the dime on you. Do those FBI agents think you got rid of him to kill their investigation?”

  “I don’t know what they think, Dad. But the guy who’s heading the investigation, he was Allison’s old boyfriend before I stole her from him.”

  “Oh, that’s jim-dandy. So he’s had a hard-on for you, anyway. Christ. Every problem you have revolves around your inability to keep your dick in your pants. This guy’s trying to set up a sting to nail your balls to the wall for stealing his girl, and his main snitch gets whacked. That’s great, just great.” He ran his hands over his face. “Well, that would make me puke, too.” He stared into his coffee and then into space. Several moments passed.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “I’m fine. I was just thinking about the FBI snooping around. That’s bad. That would be very bad publicity, particularly if they somehow intimated that they had to come in because you were either incompetent or involved in the murder.”

  “I had nothing to do with the murder.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If this guy’s carrying a boner for you, all he has to do is make people think you do.”

  “He couldn’t do that with any credibility.”

  “Don’t be so naive. It doesn’t matter. A guy who’s running for Congress can’t have that cloud over his head.” He chewed his lower lip for a minute. “Do you think there’s anything to Dena Marie’s claims?”

  “About Smoochie?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Sometimes it’s the quiet ones that surprise you. I’m thinking that there could be some good publicity in this. Plant a story about how this investigation is personal, that you’re trying to solve the death of your boyhood friend. Make up some bullshit story about how he helped win some football game and you’ve never forgotten it. Then, you arrest the husband of a woman involved in a love triangle with the deceased. Rayce beat the hell out of Smoochie a while back, didn’t he? There’s motive. Oh, that’s beautiful. Once you charge someone with the crime, what’s left for the FBI to investigate? Nothing. It gets them off your back.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Dena Marie. You want me to convict an innocent man in order to make my life easier?”

  He waved at the air, annoyed. “How do you know he didn’t do it, goddammit?”

  “Dad, two minutes ago you laughed at the idea that Smoochie Xenakis would kill someone. Then you told me to call off the dogs and let it die. Now you’re telling me to arrest Smoochie.” He looked at me in silence, as though I wasn’t there, his gaze cutting through me. “You’re acting a little distracted,” I finally said.

  He got up and started toward the door. “Just give it some thought,” he said. “It might ultimately help pave your way to the Oval Office.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ALLISON ROBERSON

  When Alfred Vincenzio walked through the doorway of the sheriff’s office, I had actually been happy to see him. It hadn’t dawned on me that he was in town in hopes of finding incriminating evidence to make my husband’s life a living hell. If he was successful, God knows how long I would be stuck in Steubenville. Fran and I were suddenly allies again with a common enemy.

  In reality, none of this was about Fran. It was about me. Alfred is a vindictive prick, and this was his effort to make my life miserable.

  I met Alfred at the FBI Academy, just like Fran. He was very good-looking in an almost pretty sort of way. Some might describe it as effeminate, particularly with the buffed fingernails. “Prissy” was what my dad called him the first time they met. He was impeccably neat and had the most perfectly coifed hair I had ever seen. It couldn’t be messed up. I would run my fingers through his hair, and it would fall right back into place. He also smelled good. It’s stupid, I know, but I’ve always had a weakness for cologne.

  Alfred—he insisted on Alfred, not Al—was too fussy for his own good in the academy. They like neatness and promptness and Boy Scout–like qualities, but they would pounce on any sign of weakness. Alfred was taking a class on forensics, and the instructor ordered him to move the arm of a corpse; he reached for the corpse’s arm but then pulled back his hand. “Grab it, Susie, it’s not going to bite,” the instructor said.

  From that point on, they called him “Susie,” which he hated.

  Our first date was dinner at Dehar’s Italian Restaurante. Alfred was charming, and I did sleep with him that night. It was a mistake that I regretted almost from the instant of coupling. I had a mirror on my dresser, and I caught him looking at it while we were making love. He wasn’t looking at us; he was looking at himself. He turned out to be the vainest man I had ever met. He would feed me cheesy lines that sounded like they came out of some bad movie. “Oh, baby, you are going to be in ecstasy tonight” was his favorite. “I’m going to take you to places you never dreamed of.” He would promise me a night of ecstasy, but it was never more than a single, brief romp. He could never rally the troops for an encore performance.

  When he was finished—for the record, I never finished—he always asked, “Was that the best you’ve ever had?” The last night we slept together, he asked me how it was and I said, “Oh, darling, it was the most incredible eighteen seconds of my life.” He got up, dressed, and left without saying a word.

  I was planning on breaking it off when I met Fran. Alfred thinks Fran split us up. So does Fran, and he’s quite proud of it. But the truth is I was simply tiring of Alfred, and Fran’s timing was good.

  So in the summer of 1989, I was angry with myself for not immediately figuring out why Alfred was in town. What a lovely trophy that would be if he could somehow link Fran to the murder of Rayce Daubner and indict a former agent. I was sure that’s what Fran was thinking, but I know Alfred, and I knew that wasn’t his primary motivation. This wasn’t about Fran. This was about getting even with me. I had crushed his Italian pride, and he wanted to get back at me by burying my husband.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  VINCENT XENAKIS

  After leaving my brother’s office that afternoon, I called Shirley and reported off work for the following day. Then, the next morning, I went into work at six and sat quietly in my office, with the lights off and the door shut. I was planning an ambush.

  The manila envelope with a copy of my scathing evaluation rested on the edge of the desk. I couldn’t help but think about the chain of events that had caused my name to be plastered across the front page of the Herald-Star and the Intelligencer. Dena Marie had been unfaithful with Rayce, which for the first time in my life prompted me to show some backbone and confront him, which had ended with me bloodied and broken in the emergency room. But word of the thrashing he gave me had gotten around and made me a suspect in his murder, which caused the detectives to question me, which ended with my name in the paper and, ultimately, me scaring my boss witless.

  It’s funny how things work out.

  I opened my desk drawer for no particular reason and looked at the neat order of my pens and pencils. It made me smile, because at that moment I realized how much I was in control of the situation. It hadn’t been a janitor looking for change who had rummaged through my desk; it had been Douglas Oswald. He had gone through it in search of my review after reading the newspaper story that named me as a murder suspect. He was afraid.

  I opened the envelope, removed the performance review, and reread the damning words. When I was a freshman in high school, there was one particular time when I was getting picked on in the locker room. Some guys were pinching my nipples; others were cracking towels at my privates. I was dancing around, trying to avoid the attacks, when someone took a tongue depressor wit
h a glob of orange muscle balm and swiped it up between my legs, smearing my anus and testicles with the burning goo. It was the only time in my life that I could remember not being afraid. I lashed out, punching several boys in the face. I screamed and cried and flailed, and they ran from the showers. It was humiliating, but I felt good about myself. For once, I had stood up for myself. For once, I hadn’t been afraid. Again, that same swelling entered my chest. My face burned. Not on the surface, but from within. The rage erupted, and I craved a confrontation with Douglas Oswald.

  At a few minutes before eight, I heard Shirley come into the office and begin making coffee. A few minutes later, Oswald entered. They spoke briefly, and I listened as the latch on his door opened. For several minutes, I stared at my own reflection in the window, rolling my lips under, watching my eyebrow dip. With my countenance set, I left my office. Shirley looked up from her desk, and her mouth dropped. I never broke stride, opening the door to Mr. Oswald’s office and walking in. When he looked up, the blood drained from his face.

  “Xenakis, uh, I thought you were off today. I’m really busy right now, so . . .”

  I pulled the door closed and tossed the envelope on his desktop; it slid to a stop on his blotter. “Not too busy, I hope, to talk about this.”

  “Is this your performance review?” he asked, quickly undoing the red thread that held down the envelope’s flap. He pulled it out, noticed that it was a photocopy, and asked, “Where’s the original?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  He struggled to swallow. “I need you to sign the original so—”

  I placed my palms flat on his desk, leaned forward, and said, “Shut . . . the fuck . . . up. I’ll do the talking.” He looked as though he was trying to swallow a tennis ball. “You leave here every day at two thirty and expect me to cover for you. You take credit for my ideas. You make fun of me in front of senior management. You treat me like dirt. I do enough work for three people, and yet you give me an evaluation like that and have the audacity to put me on probation?”

  “I, uh, I just think that recently you’ve—”

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut your mouth?” Oswald’s eyes fluttered, and he shook his head. Maybe we are more primal than we like to think. When I looked into Oswald’s eyes and saw fear, adrenaline surged through my body. The fear in his eyes empowered me. “Now, Oswald, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to pretend like you haven’t given me my performance review. When I come in here tomorrow, I expect there to be another evaluation on my desk. And it had goddamn better well reflect the contributions I make around here. Do you understand me?” He nodded, little beads of perspiration beginning to bubble on his forehead and upper lip. “Good, because if it doesn’t . . . well, if it doesn’t, things could get ugly.” I winked and walked to the door. I opened it about six inches, as though leaving, then closed it again and turned back toward my pasty boss. “By the way—funny thing—when you went to that hospital social worker convention in Saint Louis last year, a friend of mine saw you there with a woman who did not look like Mrs. Oswald. In fact, he said it looked a lot like Patricia Felco, the emergency-room nurse.” I gave him a mocking smile. “That’s just another one of the little secrets I’ve been keeping to myself. See you in the morning, Dougie.”

  As I was leaving the hospital, my briefcase in hand, I walked past the coffee shop and overheard two nurses talking. One said, “He’s such a nice, quiet man. I don’t think he’s capable of murder.”

  I went back to their table and said, “It’s the quiet ones you have to look out for,” then continued out of the hospital.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DENA MARIE CONCHEK ANDROSKI XENAKIS

  Chief Deputy Majowski had called that afternoon and asked me to have Smoochie call him when he got home. I said that of course I would. I would be delighted. Nothing short of seeing that baggy-lipped bastard hauled away in handcuffs could have made me happier. There was an article on the front page of the morning paper the other day naming him as a suspect in the murder. I reasoned that even if he was never charged with murder, but remained a suspect, it would justify my leaving. After all, I had children to protect.

  When he walked in about four—extraordinarily early for him—I said, “Deputy Majowski called. He wants you to call him.” He didn’t say anything. He just sat down at the kitchen table and looked at me like I was speaking another language. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I’m not deaf, am I?”

  His response startled me. In all the time I had known Smoochie, he had never once used a harsh tone. “No, but I—”

  “I heard you fine.” For a long moment, he stared at me, and I swear it was the same look that Rayce would give me when he got disgusted with me, like after we’d had sex.

  “Well, aren’t you going to call him?”

  “I got nothin’ to say to the cops.”

  “But they want to talk . . .”

  “I don’t give a damn, Dena Marie. See if you can get that through that thick skull of yours. I talked to them the other night. Those detective wannabes can go bark up some other tree.”

  “Look, Smoochie—”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Vincent . . .” I don’t know what brought that on, either. He had been “Smoochie” all his life. Now, he was demanding to be called “Vincent.” “You have to call him. How will it look if you don’t talk to them? I think if they want to talk to you that you should . . .” I trailed off because he was giving me the meanest look I’ve ever seen. His jaw tightened and his face turned scarlet. I thought for a minute that he was going to jump up and hit me. “Fine, whatever you want,” I said. I picked up a stack of folded bath towels and went upstairs. I used the bedroom phone and called the sheriff’s office. “Deputy Majowski, please,” I whispered. It seemed like it took him forever to pick up the phone.

  “Majowski here.”

  “Mr. Majowski, this is Dena Marie Xenakis. My husband is here, but I don’t think he’s going to call. You might want to call back in a few minutes.” I hung up and went downstairs. Smoochie was still at the kitchen table, going through his mail. When the phone rang, I picked it up. It was Majowski asking for Smoochie. “It’s for you,” I said, handing him the receiver.

  He took the receiver and said, “Yeah.” He was quiet for a full minute as he listened to the chief deputy, then, as God is my witness, he asked, “Hey, isn’t this weather a motherfucker?” Never in my life had I heard him use that word. He listened for a moment, then said, “The weather. The heat. Don’t you hate it? I do. It’s one of only two things that chafe my ass, and talkin’ to you is the other. That’s why I’m not wasting any more of my time. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to my lawyer. His name is Daniel Sabatino. He’s in the book. Feel free to give him a call. I’m sure he would be delighted to hear from you.” He held the phone out to me. When I didn’t take it right away he said, “Take the damn phone, Dena Marie.” After I hung it up, he said, in a very soft and agitated tone, “Come here.”

  “What do you want?”

  He smiled through clenched teeth and slowly uttered, “I said, ‘Come here,’” and he pointed to a spot right in front of where he was sitting. I did as I was told, and when I got near him, he reached up, grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled me down until my face was only inches from his. I was more scared than hurt, and I fought back tears. Still speaking in a soft tone, he asked, “Dena Marie, did you go upstairs and call the sheriff’s office?”

  “No, I—” He yanked harder on my hair, and I cried out. “Stop it! You’re hurting me.”

  “I’m going to give you a reason to cry in a minute. Now, I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me the truth. Did you go upstairs and call Majowski?”

  “Yes. I was worried that you’d get in trouble if you didn’t talk to him.”

  “I don’t need you to stick your nose in my business. You’re my wife. We’re supposed to
be on the same side. Don’t ever do anything like that again. Do you understand?” I shook my head. I had never seen him act this way before. He was terrifying me. “Now, fix me some supper. And that doesn’t mean throw one of those goddamn frozen dinners in the oven. Fix me a real meal.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SHERIFF FRANCIS ROBERSON

  I hadn’t even finished my first cup of coffee when I heard the familiar clacking of high heels across the marble lobby. At 7:25 a.m., Dena Marie Xenakis was again in my office. “You’ve got to arrest him, Francis. He really killed Rayce. I mean, really killed him.”

  “That’s what you told me last week, Dena Marie.”

  “I know, but I was just making that up so you would get him out of my hair, just like you said I was doing. But this time it’s for sure. He killed Rayce. I know he did because . . .” Her voice trailed off and she squinted hard at my face, which was still a magnificent array of purple and blue and yellow. My eye sockets were rimmed in black, and the eyeballs were full of bright blood, seepage from the little blood vessels that had ruptured when Johnny head-butted me. “What happened to you?”

  “Your old boyfriend rammed his forehead into my nose.”

  “Johnny did that? You had a fight? Why? You’ve always been friends.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I thought, too.”

  “Was it over me?”

  I massaged my temples. “Dena Marie, you really need to get over yourself. No, it most certainly wasn’t about you.”

  “It really looks bad.”

  “Really? I thought maybe it was a good look for a lawman.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, completely missing my attempt at humor. “When are you going to arrest him? He really did it.”

  “Dena Marie, what do you want me to do? I can’t just run out and arrest Smoochie because you think, for real this time, that he killed Rayce Daubner.”