Barry Friedman - Dead End

by Barry Friedman

  When Schwartz came on the line, Maharos explained that he’d been reviewing the lab report of Marlon Graves. “The report says you found glutaraldehyde traces in the car carpet sweepings. What’s that?”

  “Glutaraldehyde? That’s a tissue fixative. You’ve heard of formaldehyde, also known as formalin, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, glutaraldehyde is a close cousin of formaldehyde.”

  “What’s it used for?”

  “I just told you. It’s a tissue fixative. It’s used to keep tissue from decomposing. We use it in the lab for processing tissue for microscopic examination. Formaldehyde works a little faster so we use that for routine use. Glutaraldehyde is a little better preservative. We use it mainly when we process tissue for electron microscopy. Glutaraldehyde is also a constituent of embalming fluid.”

  Maharos mulled that one over. He knew they hadn’t found Graves already embalmed. “Any idea where it might have come from in Graves’ case?”

  “Have no idea. Maybe the guy who killed Graves.”

  “Or maybe one of your techs picked it up on his shoes from the lab and tracked it in to Graves’ car?”

  “Possible.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up.

  * * *

  Bonnie Graves, Marlon’s widow, was a thirty-five-year-old Dolly Parton-type blonde. Maharos had called from the sheriff’s office and tracked her down at Angel’s Hair, the beauty shop where she worked as a manicurist. He met her there late in the afternoon, sat self-consciously in the small waiting area flipping through Bazaar, while she finished working on a customer. In his reflection on the wall mirror next to his chair he could see the beads of sweat glistening on his hairless head.

  Bonnie dried her hands on a towel and greeted Maharos with a broad smile when she completed her manicure. She said, “You want to talk about Marlon?”

  Maharos explained briefly that he was conducting an investigation of several homicides, Marlon Graves’ among them. He looked around the small shop. Several women were under hair driers; others were having their hair cut. He said, “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

  Bonnie said that she was through working for the day and suggested a bar down the street.

  The bartender at Harry’s Place waved his towel and yelled, “Hi, Bonnie!” over the crowd noise of a wrestling match that blared from the overhead TV screen. Bonnie squeezed into a bench in one of the booths along a wall and Maharos sat facing her.

  The waitress came over and said, “What’ll it be, Bonnie?” She ordered a vodka and tonic, Maharos ordered a light beer.

  She said, “What’s the sudden interest in Marlon’s death? I thought they’d given up any hope of finding the person that did it.”

  Maharos explained that his interest was really in another unsolved case in the Youngstown vicinity. “But if we can find a pattern, we may be able to tell if the same person had committed more than one murder.”

  “Gee, you mean there’s a serial murderer loose?”

  “Well, I don’t know that for a fact. But it’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. The other thing I’m trying to find out is if there is a connection between any of the murder victims. You see, Bonnie, if one person is responsible for several of these deaths, is he or she just picking victims at random or is there some tie between them?”

  “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’.”

  Maharos smiled. This gal wasn’t one of your buxom dumb blonde types.

  He showed her the names of the fifteen victims he had culled from the list of homicides that had occurred on the seventh of each month. He had omitted any reference to the dates or locations of the murders. He asked her if she knew the names of the other people on his list. She took a pair of large-framed spectacles from her purse and carefully read through them. When she came to the name of George Horner, she pointed to it with a long, vivid lavender fingernail. “That name looks familiar.” Maharos’ heart rate leaped. Then she continued, “Didn’t I recently read about it in the newspapers?”

  “You don’t know if your husband knew him, do you?”

  She shook her head slowly, “No, I’m sure he didn’t.”

  Bonnie Graves confirmed that her late husband had a gambling compulsion. She tried to get him into a rehab program but he was convinced that he would hit it big someday and denied he had a problem. She was pretty sure he had paid his gambling debts; in fact he would often clean out their bank account so that he would not be blacklisted by the bookies he dealt with. “He saw other guys with busted kneecaps, so he was careful about paying up front when he made a bet.”

  Bonnie did not know of anyone with a reason to kill her husband.

  She became teary-eyed after she had finished her second drink. For all his faults, Marlon was a loving, faithful husband. They had been married for twelve years, for both it was their first marriage. He had no insurance, so Bonnie had to keep the job she had held all during their marriage. They had no children.

  Maharos was toying with the idea of asking her if she was busy that evening, when she brightened and coyly revealed that she was dating a guy who seemed serious about marrying her “as soon as his wife gives him a divorce.” Uh-huh, he thought, that’s the kind of gamble that kept her late husband broke.

  Maharos gave her his card and told her to call if she thought of anything further.

  On the drive back to Youngstown, the picture of Bonnie Graves fresh in his mind, Maharos recalled that it had been more than a month since he had gone out (or stayed in) with a woman. He was beginning to hate the mating dance each time he took out someone new: The posturing, the casual touch of hands, the tentative invitation “your place or mine,” the fumbling with clothing. Afterwards, he would debate whether to continue a “relationship” or terminate it causing as little hurt as possible. Often enough, the decision to end it was not his.

  Sure, they’d tell him he was fun to be with. Even exciting. His stories about his life with the sleaze kept their attention. He neither exaggerated nor minimized the danger. The truth was he did most of his work with his head. Only once had he fired a shot at a person.

  It’d be easy if he had an eight-to-five job. But something always came up at the wrong time. He couldn’t count the times when the promise of an evening of fun and excitement, was canceled. It might be two, three days before he could get around to calling again. He’d promise to make it up to them, but the same thing could happen a second or third time. No lady will stand around by herself, all dressed up and reeking with something expensive from Chanel, twirling the stem of an empty cocktail glass, waiting. Not more than twice or three times if she’s in her right mind. It doesn’t matter how exciting he might be, if she’s not sure he’ll be there.

  Now that he was getting close to fifty, he thought that the time had come for him to find someone with whom he could comfortably spend his leisure moments. In a few years he would be eligible for retirement. Then he could take his pension and supplement it with a cushy part time job, maybe selling security systems, or something like that.

  In the past, he had given some thought to moving to Florida or California where he would get a police job in a small town. The deterrent was Annie. He knew that once he left Youngstown, he would rarely see the child; she would forget her father. He wanted to watch her grow, at least until she left home to go to college.

  When he got back to headquarters, he stopped at Frank Fiala’s desk. Fiala was typing up a report.

  Maharos said, “Frank, a few weeks ago, you said Henny had someone she wanted me to meet.”

  Henny was Frank’s wife and the mother of their six children. She had fixed Maharos up with more than a dozen dates since his divorce. Each time, after some emergency had forced Maharos to call it off at the last moment, she vowed it would be the last. But there isn’t a married woman alive who can stand to see a healthy, eligible male eating and sleeping by himself when there are healthy, eligible females around.

  Fiala looked up fro
m his typewriter. He winked. “Uh-huh. Horny again.”

  “Don’t be crude, Fiala. Since I no longer have you around to listen to my brilliant conversation, I decided to share it with some appreciative person of the opposite sex.”

  Fiala fished in his desk drawer and came up with a slip of paper. “Speaking of sex, here’s her name and phone number.”

  TWELVE

  Lieutenant Ed Bragg leaned back in his swivel chair while he chewed on the remains of a pizza. He beamed at Al Maharos sprawled in the chair in front of his desk. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Maharos ignored the “we” reference. All the information he had, and was sharing with Bragg, he had gotten by relentlessly sniffing into every cranny that seemed promising. Now he sat with Bragg telling him that he had uncovered another homicide that fit the pattern of the murders of George Horner and Noah Hamberger. Also, he had finally received Hamberger’s autopsy report. From it he learned, without surprise, death had been due to .25 caliber bullet wounds through the spinal cord at the level of the seventh cervical vertebra and another entering from the level of the seventh thoracic vertebra, passing through the heart. Both bullets had been recovered and examined for characteristic markings. He had called down to the Medical Examiner’s office and asked that photomicrographs of the spent missiles be telefaxed to other ballistics laboratories in the state for comparison.

  Any question that Hamberger had been the victim of the same killer who had murdered Horner and Graves, was now erased. He could now account for murders on the seventh of January (Burnstein), March (Graves), and June (Horner). It looked as though the killer was selecting a victim on the seventh day of alternate months.

  Bragg said, “I got a call from that lawyer in Canton, the one who’s defending the swishy decorator.”

  “Lavant?”

  “That’s the one. He got an extension on the trial date. He figures maybe you’ll dig up some evidence that’ll help his case.”

  “Meantime his guy sits around in jail.”

  “Better a little more now than a lot more later.”

  “If we can nail someone else for the job on Burnstein.”

  “Anyway, you can expect to be subpoenaed as a witness when the trial comes up,” said Bragg.

  “Do they have a new trial date set yet?”

  Bragg rummaged through the pile of papers on his desk and came up with a memo note. “Yeah. Wednesday, July 8th.”

  Maharos jotted it down in his spiral notebook.

  Bragg said, “Okay, Al, what’s our next move?”

  “Well, I’m not finished bird-dogging the list I’ve got. There may be more than just the three homicides we know about. I could use some help.”

  Bragg shook his head slowly. “I wish I could spare someone, but I can’t at the moment. In another week you can probably have Fiala back. Meanwhile, you’re doin’ great on your own. Keep at it.”

  A great cheerleader. At least he was finally out of Bragg’s doghouse, something to be thankful for.

  Bragg’s phone rang. He listened for a moment. “A call for you, Al.”

  “I’ll take it at my desk.”

  The woman’s voice said, “Hi, this is Bonnie.”

  He thought for a moment. “Bonnie?”

  “Yeah, Bonnie Graves, remember?”

  The picture of the well-built blonde sipping vodka and tonic flashed into his mind. “That Bonnie. Of course.”

  “You told me to call if I remembered anything?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, when you showed me that list of names, I thought one looked a little familiar but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say anything at the time. Wasn’t there a Gibson on the list?”

  Maharos sat up sharply and pressed the receiver to his ear. With his free hand, he reached behind to the pocket of his jacket hanging over the back of his chair and brought out his list of homicide victims. He had gone over the names so many times, he was sure he remembered them all. He wanted to be certain. Yes, there it was in the column of April 7th homicides. Henry Gibson; gunshot victim; jurisdiction, Stark County Sheriff’s office.

  Bonnie Graves was saying, “First I thought the name was familiar because I had read about it in the newspapers, you know, like that other guy whose name I told you looked familiar?”

  “George Horner?”

  “Yeah, Horner. But no, I hadn’t read anything about Gibson. Then, after I got home, I looked through a list I had kept of people who sent me condolence letters after Marlon died last March. I meant to answer them and thank the people who wrote. I never did, but I kept the list. Anyway, there was one from this guy named Hank Gibson. I don’t even know how Marlon knew him. I thought he might be one of the guys Marlon worked with at the clothing store or maybe one of his bookies. I don’t know if he’s any relation to the Gibson you have on your list but I thought maybe I should tell you.”

  Maharos said, “Do you have the letter?”

  “No. I threw it away. I didn’t want to keep those things. They just made me feel sad.”

  “Do you have Gibson’s address?”

  “Yeah, it’s right here on the list. Sterling Wholesale Hardware Co., 2337 Henry Street, Canton, Ohio. Funny, I didn’t know Marlon even knew anyone from Canton. Shows you how little you can know about people you spend most of your life with.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember what the letter said? Like, how he knew Marlon?”

  “No. I got a lot of letters from people who said they read about Marlon in the papers. Many of them were people I didn’t know. Some said they had been Marlon’s customers. Some were, you know, bookies. They really miss him.”

  Maharos said, “What’s the name of the clothing store where Marlon worked? I may want to do some checking.”

  “Simpson’s Men’s Wear. It’s on Market Street in Akron.”

  “Bonnie, do me a favor?”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “Don’t say anything to anyone about my investigation— either our conversation the other day or today. If the newspapers get hold of this they’ll make a big story out of it. Whoever killed your husband probably thinks the police have given up looking. We want him or her to keep thinking that.”

  “I understand. I won’t say a word,” said Bonnie.

  Maharos’ first call was to the Stark County Sheriff’s Office in Canton. Deputy Sheriff Karen Vandergrift told him that Henry Gibson’s murder and robbery was still unsolved. There were no suspects, they were open to suggestions from him, and he was welcome to look at their file. Gibson, she said, had been a salesman for a wholesale hardware company in Canton. It was the same Gibson.

  The 40-mile drive to Canton took him an hour. Thirty minutes after he sat down with Henry Gibson’s file, Maharos knew he had filled another gap in his hunt; he had located an April victim of the serial murderer who deposited his kill along isolated stretches of northeast Ohio country roads.

  Maharos now had an important new lead: Henry Gibson had known Marlon Graves. For the first time since he started the investigation, he had two victims who knew each other. Although the link between the two murdered men was still unknown, it now appeared that the killings might not have been random. It opened up the possibility that all of the victims were in some way related to the killer.

  The bad news was that if Gibson’s murder was one of the series, the theory that the killer struck on alternate months, went out the window. Gibson had died on April 7th. Maharos now could account for similarly patterned slayings on the seventh of January (Frank Burnstein), March (Marlon Graves), April (Henry Gibson), May (George Horner) and June (Noah Hamberger). Was February 7th omitted for a reason, or had Maharos overlooked someone?

  It was now June 17th. What would happen on the 7th of July, and the 7th of August, and the next month? Could he look forward, each time the calendar clocked a “7”, to another corpse with bullet holes in the neck and between the shoulder blades, lying on some dirt road? More important, could he act promptly enough to prevent another
death?

  With Henry Gibson’s file in front of him, Maharos was staring at the ceiling when Karen Vandergrift came in the file room. Her tan, sharply creased uniform slacks did not hide a good figure. She said, “What’s up there, spiders?”

  Maharos grinned. “Thinking. That’s how I think.”

  “Think about any way to find out who killed Gibson? We sure haven’t.”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  Vandergrift flattened her palms on the table, leaned forward, her face a foot away from his. “You serious?”

  Her light blue eyes were wide open. Her face framed by honey-colored bangs.

  Maharos briefly told her where his inquiry had led, starting with Horner as his index case. When he had finished, Vandergrift said, “Sounds like you’re on to something. I think we’d better talk this over with my boss.”

  Sheriff Sherman McAllister sat with his hands folded across his stomach as he listened, unsmiling, to Maharos. His wire-framed glasses, perched on a thin nose gave him a professorial look. When Maharos finished, McAllister turned to Vandergrift. “Who did the autopsy on Gibson?”

  “Dr. Hanson, at the Stark County Medical Examiner’s morgue.”

  He asked Maharos, “Where was the autopsy done on the male nurse?”

  “Burnstein’s autopsy was done by the Stark County Medical Examiner’s office too.” Maharos could see where McAllister’s questions were leading. If the same medical examiner had performed the two autopsies, why weren’t the similarities in wound sites recognized?

  McAllister picked up the phone on his desk and spoke to his secretary. “Get me Dr. Harry Hanson in the Medical Examiner’s office.”

  While they waited, McAllister asked Maharos, “Are you working this case by yourself?”

  “Yeah. I had a partner but we were short-handed and he was taken off for another investigation.”

  McAllister turned to Vandergrift. “You’re not working anything special at the moment, are you?”