by Bill Capron
Maureen stood and walked behind the desk and sat in Morgan’s chair; her feet barely touched the floor. She put a hand on a drawer, looked up and asked, “Is this okay?”
He nodded; she searched the drawers. “Not much of him here.”
“He was getting out. The secretary keeps the business files for him.”
Maureen looked at her watch. “So, Mr. Kaye, how rich a woman was Mona Morgan going to be?”
“Robin figured thirty percent of his share of the business.”
Come on, I want a number. “How much is that?”
He remained evasive; “A large number. It’s very confidential.”
She shook her head. “I can keep a secret. How large? Ballpark it, Mr. Kaye.”
He gave up with a sigh. “If the sale goes through, she’ll be worth three million, maybe more.”
“Sounds like a motive, Mr. Kaye.”
“Of what?”
“Murder?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Not to me. Not for Robin.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be on the jury.” She dropped her card on the desk. “When Mr. Morgan shows up, have him call me.”
As she headed for the door, she stopped and faced the vice president. “What’s with all this loyalty crap, Mr. Kaye?”
He shrugged his shoulders again, but his answer belied any indifference the action might have conveyed; “I know the man. I even know the situation with Mona, I’ve been there. If I were Robin Morgan, I’d have fought her tooth and nail for the money because she didn’t deserve a cent. But I’m not him.”
She turned her eyes to the photograph. “Money’s not a motive, eh? What about assuaging the guilt of what might have been?”
He didn’t hide the anger. “Especially not for Rebecca. If she were alive she’d hate him for it, and he knows that.”
“Will the murder affect the sale of FindIt?”
Kaye frowned. “If Robin’s a suspect, yes it will. We’ve worked a long time to get to this point. Mona’s murder could not have come at a worse time.”
“I’m sure she feels the same way. Thank you, Mr. Kaye.” She closed the door softly, like on a church.
~ ~ ~
Maureen moved into the right lane before answering the cell phone; “McMartin.”
“Detective, it’s Simpson. Robin Morgan entered his townhouse five minutes ago. I’m on the way over with the search warrant.”
“I’ll see you there.”
They pulled into the parking lot together; the evidence van was right behind them. The two women made their way through a mist-like drizzle to the townhouse complex; Bobbins fell in step behind them.
The plainclothes cop met them when they entered the grounds. “Morgan’s been in there about ten minutes, ma’am.”
The cop pointed Bobbins to Morgan’s black truck.
Simpson handed the search warrant to the detective who put it in her coat pocket before she knocked on the door. It was opened by a tall man with brown hair and closely trimmed beard; he was wearing running shorts; the sweatshirt was soaked through from the tee shirt beneath.
“Can I help you?”
The detective answered with a question; “Are you Robin Morgan?”
“Yes.”
McMartin held up her badge. “We need to talk.”
Robin held the door open and directed the two women to a couch. He asked, “Can I get you some coffee? I brewed a pot.”
The detective said, “No, Mr. Morgan. Sit down, please.”
He took the chair catty cornered from them. “What’s the problem?”
The uniformed Simpson took over. “Mr. Morgan, we have bad news.” She waited, like she’d been taught. “You’re wife is dead. She’s been murdered.”
There was silence.
Simpson asked, “Mr. Morgan?”
He rubbed his beard at the lower lip line. “I don’t know what to say. Was she the woman in that motel in Gresham?”
She answered, “Yes.”
“Someone this morning, one of the runners, said I should be so lucky for it to be Mona.” He met the officer’s soft blue eyes. “I can’t believe it.”
There was a knock at the door. McMartin said, “I’ll get that.”
She spoke briefly to Bobbins; she said, “We need the key to your truck, Mr. Morgan.”
“Am I a suspect?” He lifted the keys off the coffee table. “Excuse me, that’s a stupid question. Of course I’m a suspect.”
When McMartin returned, Simpson said, “Detective McMartin is with Homicide. She is investigating your wife’s murder.”
The detective took over. “We need to get our people inside to search the premises.” She fingered the folded sheet in her pocket. “Is that all right?”
Morgan leaned towards her, shielding the intensity of his black eyes. “Of course it’s all right, Detective McMartin.” He said her name like he was committing it to memory.
She returned with two evidence men in plastic booties and rubber gloves. The detective also put on booties. She said, “Officer Simpson will stay with you while I get this started. I’ll have questions when I get back.”
Morgan saw the man vacuuming his truck from the front window. He turned to Simpson. “Officer, the news report said Mona was shot?”
Simpson was evasive; “We have to wait for the detective, Mr. Morgan.”
He ignored her; “Did she die instantly?”
The officer felt compelled to answer; “Yes, I think so.”
“Thank you, officer.” He folded his hands and closed his eyes.
When the detective got back, he asked, “Is there any chance I can take a shower, Detective. I ran fourteen miles this morning and I don’t smell so good.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan, but right now your body is evidence.” She asked, “Do you own a gun, Mr. Morgan?”
He pushed his gaze back to the parking lot. “Yes, my pistol is strapped under the passenger’s seat of the truck. Your people have probably already found it.”
As if on cue, Bobbins stuck his big head in the door.
She said, “Jake, Mr. Morgan says he has a pistol strapped under the passenger seat. Did you find it?”
“No, Detective, the holster was empty.”
Again to Morgan, “Was that the Smith & Wesson .38 registered in Oregon?”
Morgan’s eyes widened. “Yes, and it’s also registered in Washington.”
McMartin scanned his face. “It was the gun found at the motel, Mr. Morgan.”
He turned his hands palms up. “I don’t know what to say, Detective.”
The detective pulled on her lower lip with her teeth. “Then I recommend you find the words soon, Mr. Morgan.” To Bobbins, “What else did you find, Jake?”
He held up a bag with a gold piece in it. “It’s an earring, Mo. It matches the one in the dead woman’s ear. It was in the glove box. We got two feathers from under the front seat.”
Confusion marked Robin’s voice; “Feathers?”
McMartin turned unsympathetic eyes on her suspect. “Yes, feathers, Mr. Morgan. Your wife’s killer muffled the gun with a pillow. The feathers were all over the place.”
She waited for him to protest his innocence, but he let the silence grow.
She asked, “Don’t you have anything to say, Mr. Morgan?”
He shook his head. “No, Detective, I’m not done feeling sorry for Mona yet.”
Simpson broke in; “I understand. We’ve got a few things to talk about, Mr. Morgan. We’ll be back in a bit.”
The patrolwoman pulled the surprised detective with her.
When they got outside the front door Maureen turned on the younger woman. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Simpson?”
The officer was up to the challenge. “I’m sorry, Detective, but we told him his wife was murdered. I think he deserves some space.”
“Some space!” Maureen lowered her voice to a hiss. “He killed her, Simpson. He doesn’t deserve space.”
&n
bsp; Simpson’s spunk wasn’t skin deep. “You don’t know that. Didn’t you tell me we can’t jump to conclusions?”
Maureen got in Simpson’s face. “Yes, at least not until the facts are in. Well, the facts are in!”
The uniformed cop held her ground.
Maureen put her hand on the doorknob. “I’m sure!”
Simpson covered her hand. “No you’re not. You’re pissed that he might match the perfect guy label everyone’s put on him.”
“Sunday said you’d fall under his spell,” she blurted; she regretted the words as soon as they passed her lips.
Simpson leaned her head to look in the window; Maureen followed suit. “Does he look stupid to you?”
Maureen saw where this was leading. “No, of course not.”
She didn’t rub it in. “Me neither. I think he’s sad, like he said.”
The detective relented. She used the officer’s first name for the first time; “Okay, Diane, you win, we’ll give him a little space. Let’s go visit Mr. Bobbins.”
The three of them gathered outside the truck, as oblivious to the drizzle as any Southern Californian might be to the sun.
Maureen asked, “Jake, what else you got?”
Bobbins consulted his little red notebook. “The murderer used this truck. There was the missing gun. The earring was wrapped in a Kleenex. And there were the feathers. Lots of fingerprints in the vehicle. We’ll compare them to his.”
Officer Simpson recalled Sunday’s remark about evidence; “Is that all?”
Bobbins got defensive; “Is that all! It’s not planted, if that’s what you’re getting at. And the PI said there was a black truck at the scene. This truck.”
Maureen kicked her brain back into gear. “Jake, let’s not go drawing any conclusions yet. Collect the evidence. Okay?” That goes for you too.
The black man calmed down. “Sorry, Mo. Don’t want to miss anything?”
“Yeah.” Maureen grabbed Simpson’s elbow and pushed her to the townhouse. “All right, I was doing the same thing. I’ve got my head back on straight. Let’s go collect evidence.”
After they were seated again, McMartin asked, “Do you think you can answer a few questions now, Mr. Morgan?”
The voice was controlled; “Yes.”
“How about first you tell us where you were last night.”
The officer pulled out her spiral notebook.
“I had supper with friends at eight in Vancouver and got to the townhouse about nine-thirty. I had a beer, read a book, fell asleep.” He gave them Canby’s and Peter’s phone numbers.
“Why did you spend the night in Portland?”
He tugged at his sweatshirt as evidence. “I had a training run with my marathon group. I ran, had breakfast, and drove back here. After that, I was meeting with my lawyer.”
Simpson said, “The pavement under your truck looked dry?” She made it a question.
He explained, “I took my other truck, it’s the blue Toyota parked next to the one your guys are going over.”
The detective’s look rebuked her partner; she should have swept the lot for the black truck despite the neighbor’s statement.
McMartin asked, “Is there a gun in that truck too?”
“No, it’s my Oregon truck. I use it in the city.”
“I take it we have that key?”
He nodded.
The detective went out again and spoke to Bobbins.
When she returned she continued, “Why are you meeting with your lawyer, Mr. Morgan?”
“I’m getting a divorce.” He paused. “That is, I was.”
“Why the divorce?” she asked, as if she didn’t know.
Morgan almost smiled, but it was a sad smile. “My wife didn’t take her wedding vows very seriously.”
Push him a little, make him lie. “I take it this was going to cost you a few dollars?”
He looked her in the eyes, read her thoughts. “You’re playing with me, Detective. You’ve been on this for five hours. You know all about me, and probably Mona too.” He said without rancor, “My wife was hooked on sex; with anyone but me.” He ignored the question of money.
The detective put an incredulous edge on her voice; “And you didn’t want her dead?”
He was matter of fact; “Sex isn’t worth dying for.”
McMartin felt like she was on the defensive; she wanted to knock him down a peg. “You were seen, Mr. Morgan, by your own detective, Bob Sunday.”
Morgan’s face clouded. “Seen where?”
She leveled the accusation; “At the motel where your wife was murdered.”
Suddenly he was interrogating her; “You mean Bob Sunday identified me?”
How is he doing this? She backtracked to safer ground, the truth; “He identified the truck, and a man in a parka.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“So says you.”
He repeated, “It wasn’t me. No matter what your evidence says, it wasn’t me.”
She held her hands out, palms up. “I need some proof of that, Mr. Morgan. An alibi, someone you were sleeping with. Proof.”
With a tone of resignation, “Come on, if I had an alibi we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d tell you to leave, but I can’t do that, can I?”
She felt the search warrant’s edge against her breast. She shook her head. “No, Mr. Morgan, you can’t do that.” She nodded to the officer.
Simpson pulled a card from her pocket. “Mr. Morgan, I must inform you that you have the right to …”
Chapter 4 - Thursday, June 22 - 10:30 am
It was a joke, like an out of body experience, but too real to be a movie, and too surreal to be his life. He focused on his nervous hands and returned with a jolt to the here and now.
Robin Morgan was alone in the dirty gray twelve by twelve room seated on a steel chair at a steel table across from two only slightly more comfortable chairs. There were more chairs against the walls on his right and left. The overhead lights were hot. Dried salt showed white on the backs of his hands. He needed fresh underwear, deodorant.
He knew there were people on the other side of the mirrored wall. He wasn’t sure whether he should acknowledge their presence; and then suddenly it was as if they weren’t there. He became himself again. He doodled on a pad as he focused on an all too possible future.
Mona held onto a piece of him, but it had nothing to do with love. It was that, for one week, he was committed to her, heart and soul. But he knew within days he’d made a mistake; and when the dark cloud of Mona lifted, he was his same old self; sort of.
He’d thought himself immune to the Monas of the world; not in a ‘I’m too good to be blinded by sex’ way, but more in a ‘I never go overboard on anything’ way. Robin did not live life at the extremes. Nothing good happened on the bleeding edge; proof? Mona.
Mona was a woman without the baggage of history. She barely remembered her past, much less the last person she had sex with. She traveled life’s road, stopping briefly to join with another body, driven by something deeper even than hormones; but she had a survival instinct that latched her onto the meaty meal of Robin Morgan. He had since learned she’d done it three times before, but that was academic now.
Robin didn’t blame Mona. That would be like blaming the cat for scratching the furniture, or slugs for eating your flowers. Mona was missing some part of the brain that regulated sexual activity; and his stupidity was not her fault. In a hormone driven euphoric daze he made her his wife; was it time now for payback?
He wondered if, when Mona saw death coming, she was afraid. He felt for her as he would any animal; he did not want her to suffer. But, yes, the Mona he knew would be afraid. He pulled his eyelids down with his fingers, erasing the image of her fear and whispered a sad, “Mona.”
McMartin opened the door. “We’re ready for the line up now, Mr. Morgan.”
He walked into a room where the detective positioned him on a yellow painted line. Five other men, all about the
same size and coloring, toed the line. When she left the room, he waited. After a couple minutes they were asked to turn left and right, step forward and back; and after, the others exited to freedom as Robin returned to his cell.
~ ~ ~
Bobbins came into the room. “Mr. Morgan, we need full prints of both hands.”
When he finished Robin wiped the solvent with a paper towel. McMartin and Simpson entered and took the two chairs across from him. The patrolwoman was wearing street clothes. She gave him a tight smile.
“You can start the tape, Officer.” The detective read his Miranda rights for the second time. At the end she asked, “Do you understand that, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes.” Robin slid his chair on the clouded gray tile floor.
Simpson winced at the scraping sound.
He said, “Sorry.”
Robin put both elbows on the table. He gave his full attention to the detective. He looked more interested than intimidated, like he was taking a college oral exam. He said he’d forgo a lawyer for the time being.
McMartin’s first question was direct; “Did you kill your wife, Mr. Morgan?”
His answer was as direct, without inflection; “No, I did not.”
The detective interlaced her fingers. “You don’t seem particularly concerned.”
There was an underlying tone; “I am sadder than you could imagine.”
She shook her head once, curtly. “I don’t mean about the death, Mr. Morgan. I mean you seem unconcerned that you are here, that the evidence has your name written all over it.”
He pointed a finger at her. “I’m innocent. This might sound naive to you, but I believe the truth will set me free. I trust you’ll be a good cop, Detective McMartin.”
McMartin blushed a little under his dark stare. “We’ll see about that.” She shuffled some notes to the top. “First we’re going to walk through the last day with you, in detail, right up until this morning. Then we’ll work on how we might corroborate of your story.”
And that was what they did. McMartin and Simpson listened to Robin’s recitation of the last twenty-four hours. They interrupted for clarifications, spellings, addresses, and phone numbers.
Simpson made notes in her neat script, her hand never rushing or scribbling. Every so often she boxed an observation. In one box she wrote, “He’s telling the truth. If he killed her, it’s a minor variation of this story.” A later box noted, “He’s making me believe in him.”
