by Bill Capron
Sunday was right about there being a motive, but it might not appear to be a motive at all; an unintended snub, clinical paranoia, even a job looked for but never offered. More than two hundred names, but only one with a motive to kill.
He closed his eyes and the image of Mona formed in his head. It was a naked Mona, the ministering angel who’d enslaved him with her wiles. You’re not the first man trapped by a temptress. You’re not the best. You’re not the smartest. And you’re … well, you’re not a lot of things.
He smelled a fleeting odor of the sex, a nasal memory, or maybe a final wafting scent making itself known before disappearing forever. It was unwelcome. His seduction was classic. The coquettish come on, the wild and athletic sex in his truck, her constant attention to his body. For a brief week he’d been a teenager.
Was it a man thing?
An image of Maureen McMartin replaced Mona. Why was she so down on men? Or was it him? There was no ring on her finger, but she mentioned a daughter in Carrie Robbins’s class. That would make her twelve years old, or thirteen. The detective was taking out a deep seated animosity out on him.
Chapter 11 - Sunday, June 25 - 5:00 am
Robin folded the spreadsheet in the door for Bob Sunday. He surveyed the weather. Stay or go? He stepped into the cold rain and jogged to the start under the seeming jumble of pillars where 405, 5 and 26 merged.
Carla had her knees pulled up to her chest as she rocked on a well muscled behind. She waved one arm and continued rocking. Peter, Canby and George acknowledged him with tentative waves.
Carla reached out and Robin pulled her upright. She held the hand longer than necessary, as if she were taking his pulse. She leaned in. “Glad you’re here.”
He looked at his watch. “I didn’t mean to be late, but that first step outside was a killer.”
She tilted her head up, a crooked smile on her lips. “You look ready.”
He turned her by the shoulders; he had the urge to pat her butt, but it passed. “So, let’s go. You set the pace.”
Carla sprinted then slowed, turned and ran backwards and spoke at him. “They’re saying such awful things about you.”
He shrugged.
“You’re getting skewered.”
He gave her a tight smile. “Not much I can do about that.”
She said, “Maybe you can sue them for slander.”
Canby, the ex-cop lawyer, answered, “Not a chance, Carla. They keep within the legal bounds, which, when it comes to the press, are pretty wide anyway.” He turned his attention to Robin. “But, make no mistake, they’ve got you down as guilty.”
Peter agreed; “On TV you can hear the tone, a sniggering look of disbelief they pass off as couched irony.”
George summed it up; “What do you expect? You’re rich, a winner in life’s lottery. Obviously, you stepped over peers and peons to get to the top, leaving your bloody footprints on their backs as you ground them down. You fit the template.”
Robin was skeptical; “Come on, George, nobody says that about me. I haven’t seen the coverage, but …”
George cut him off, “Take my advice then, and don’t watch it.” His anger was personal; he asked, “What do they call it when someone ascribes to you what they think of themselves?”
Carla mumbled, “Projection.”
“Yeah, that’s it, projection. That’s how most of those bloodthirsty bozos got to the top. They can’t imagine any other way for you to do it.”
Peter turned his head to the ex-priest. “Awfully cynical of you, George.”
George took in the city with a sweep of his hand. “There are hundreds of people in this town who’ve had their lives ruined by innuendo, rumor, or outright lies by newsmen. Getting the story is all that counts, no matter who is hurt along the way. They must have a name for people like me, you know, road kill or collateral damage. They never apologize, because they don’t look back. It too painful, even for heartless bastards.”
Robin patted his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, George. As soon as I’m free, we’ll cut off their balls, eh?”
Canby pulled up between George and Robin. “So are you here for the bon ami,” he looked skyward, “the sparkling weather, or is this another legal defense meeting? And if it’s legal defense, we expect an update.”
And he did. For three miles he ran through his meeting with Sunday, the mysterious yellow VW, the spreadsheet of names, the interruption by the detective, the current state of the FindIt sale, the session with Judy and his abortive run in with the reporter.
Canby grinned. “I like that, second hand smoke.”
“What’s that?” Robin asked.
“Second hand smoke. You know, you called the killer smoke, and he’s killing you second hand.” He pointed a finger at the billboard a hundred yards ahead; “Second hand smoke, it kills.”
Peter asked, “Why does this detective have it in for you? When I see her on TV, she looks so nice.”
Robin said, “Hey, I think she’s nice too.”
Peter laughed. “You could try hating her.”
He defended her; “She’s doing her job.”
Peter held up his hands in mock resignation. “Hey, you guys dating or something?”
“So,” Carla bumped up against him, “that better not be true. Don’t forget the rest of us guys. We still got hopes, you know.”
He gave her a playful push.
Carla bounced off Peter and said, “So, how’s that summer project in Corvallis doing?”
Peter rocked his hand.
Carla veered back to Robin. With a coquettish voice, she asked, “So, Robin, are we on that spreadsheet?”
He winked. “Of course, all of you.”
She asked, “And, how many check marks do we have?”
He grinned. “Why all of them,” then gave his best suspicious look, “for all of you, but none of you owns a yellow VW, right?”
A chorus of nervous yeahs followed.
Canby changed the topic; “Any new ideas on motive?”
Robin used his fingers to squeeze streams of water from his hair, as if he were clearing his mind. “No, and it’s driving me up the wall. I’ve been thinking about what Carla said, that maybe there is no motive.”
Peter put a prissy look on, like he’d sucked a lemon. “I thought we discarded that idea. There’s always a reason. Especially when you consider someone spent hundreds of hours watching you and Mona, killing Mona, and then setting you up. That doesn’t happen for no reason.”
When Robin shook his head, water flew in a downward spiral. “I didn’t mean no reason like that. I meant no reason directly concerned with me. Maybe a reason connected only to the killer.”
Carla blurted, “Hey, that’s what I was getting at. You’re the actor in some crazy play, but you don’t know you’re in it.”
Robin was silent for a hundred yards before responding; “No, Carla, that makes me the pawn for some nutcase with no more connection than coincidence and serendipity.”
She hunched her shoulders. “Yeah, well it doesn’t seem so far fetched to me. Who else but a nutcase would hatch this scheme?”
From Peter, “She has you there.”
George was unconvinced. “It’s a little too Twilight Zone for me.”
“Me too,” Robin added.
Carla turned and ran backwards; she poked a finger; “Wait and see; I have a feeling about this.”
He hooked his right hand around her waist and spun her forward. “You keep thinking.”
George cut in, “Hey, guys, it’s my turnoff. I’ll see you Wednesday morning.”
Robin reached out and touched Carla’s cheek. “Thanks.”
He turned right and called, “George, I’m behind you.”
~ ~ ~
Robin stripped down inside the front door and dried himself with the towel; he noted the flashing light of the answer machine. The soft soprano of Officer Simpson asked him to come to the station to discuss loose ends. He called and they agreed on nine.
He waited five minutes at the front desk before Simpson showed. She was dressed in loose fitting beige slacks and white silk blouse. He followed her up the stairs forcing his eyes from the swaying hips, but they were at the same level, so he let it be. At the top of the stairs she turned right into a comfortable conference room with four stuffed chairs around an oak table. One of the chairs was occupied by the Sunday Oregonian.
Simpson pulled out a chair for him and took a seat catty corner to his right; she sat very straight. He smelled her perfume; she was too young for him, but there was no law against looking; yet.
“The detective will be along shortly, Mr. Morgan.”
He nodded.
When the silence got uncomfortable, the pretty cop asked, “So how was the morning run? It’s too wet for me.”
He ignored the implication of her knowledge. “It was soggy. Are you a runner?”
She rearranged herself in the chair. “Off and on. More for weight control than anything else.”
He chuckled. “Weight’s a problem?”
She blushed. “Well, you know, the pounds never seem to go to the right place.”
“Wait a few years.” He squeezed the flesh at his side. “New places show up.”
“I can wait.” More silence. Say something less inane. “So, how’s freedom treating you?”
He rubbed his lower lip. Stop making her nervous. “It’s okay. A day in jail can really change your perspective.”
He picked up a pencil from the table, twisted it in his fingers and bent it until it started to crack. “People in jail are like this pencil, ready to break. I’m not strong enough.”
She said, “That’s not what the guard said.”
He brought the feeling of the moment to his mind. “That was a single act of courage, but I can’t make a life of it. I don’t want to be that person.”
From the door, “Then you shouldn’t have killed your wife, Mr. Morgan.” The detective took the open chair opposite him. To Simpson she said, “He doesn’t need your sympathy. Save it for the victim.”
Robin felt compelled to respond; “I am a victim, detective.”
Maureen slid the paper between them, headlines up. “Not if you read this.”
He didn’t look at it but instead kept his gaze on her. “I don’t read that crap. They don’t know diddly about me, and they never will.”
“Sure, everybody’s wrong, and you’re right.” She was sarcastic. “Is that what you mean?”
He looked first to the sympathetic Diane Simpson, and then returned his gaze to McMartin. “I know. If I killed her, I know. If I didn’t, I know.” He pointed his index finger at her, like a gun. “No one else knows anything. They all have opinions, but you don’t need to know anything to have an opinion. So, yes, I don’t care if a million people think I’m guilty, it doesn’t change what is.”
Weakly, “Opinions or not, you’re famous.” She tapped his picture.
He stared at the likeness. He looked like a criminal. He brought his eyes back to her. “I was already more famous than I ever wanted to be.”
She leaned into the table. “Come Monday morning you’re going to be above the fold in USA Today. They’ll follow you all the way to prison.”
His voice went cold; “So is this why you called me in, to bait me?” He swayed toward her. “Right now, Detective McMartin, you hold all the aces. Bait away.”
Officer Simpson cut off the detective’s angry response; “Mr. Morgan, we’re not here to bait; we have a few questions.”
The two drew back into their chairs, like people who’d been too bold. The passion dissipated as quickly as it had risen.
They asked their questions, and he answered those he could, but he didn’t know much about Mona.
When they finished, he said, “You know more about my wife than I do. What don’t I know?”
Simpson looked to the detective who shrugged. “I’ll give you the short version. Your lawyer will have the report from the DA shortly.” She stared at him with a naive directness. “Mona McCoy, her real name, was born in Arkansas forty-four years ago.” He started to protest, but she held up her hand; “A very well preserved forty-four. She didn’t graduate from high school, ran away with a door to door salesman at the age of sixteen; must be an Arkansas thing. Well, the authorities thought she ran away to escape the ardent attentions of her father; another Arkansas thing. She married the salesman who died a year later when their single wide burnt to the ground. The fire was suspicious, but they couldn’t prove a thing. She used the insurance money to move to California where she married four more times, each time to a wealthy sucker.”
“Like me.”
She shook her head ever so slightly. “No, probably not like you.” She blushed before continuing; “Mona divorced them all, but the settlements weren’t huge. Seems they were less generous than you were intending to be. She’d spend the money in a couple years, and back for another husband. The modus operandi was always the same; seduce them, marry them, ignore them and go somewhere else for sex, until they sued for divorce.”
Robin averted his eyes. “I was easy pickings.”
They didn’t respond as he mulled over what he’d heard. “She couldn’t help herself.”
Maureen answered, “No, she couldn’t. It was a disease, not something to die for.”
He looked up. “I agree.”
The detective’s anger was spent. “You got anything you’d like to tell us?”
“Do you want to hear?”
The two cops in unison, “Sure.”
For the second time that day he recounted his story, carefully noting their reactions to Sunday being followed, the yellow VW, the list of names, his discussions of motives with the runners and his lawyer. They listened intently, took no notes, nodded at the appropriate times. For one brief moment he thought he read uncertainty on the detective’s pretty face, then doubt, and finally skepticism.
Maureen cut to the core; “So the upshot of all this investigation is that no one had a motive to kill your wife.”
He argued, “Yes, you’re right. No one had an obvious motive; except me.”
Maureen answered, “The problem, Mr. Morgan, assuming that you are not the killer, is that he will be very hard to find.”
His voice went dead; “And you’re not going to pursue it, right?”
Maureen nodded. “Right. We have a perp with means, motive and opportunity, and no alibi. They’d laugh us off the force if we spent five minutes on this fabrication.”
Simpson smoothed the sharp edge of McMartin’s last word; “This story, it’s not enough; not even close.”
“So it’s up to me?’
The cops were unresponsive.
He spoke to himself; “What if Carla’s right? What if there is no motive other than my being the object of a crazy man’s games?”
The detective tapped the table with her finger nail. “If that’s true, you’re dead meat.”
For the first time she let a ray of empathy shine through the anger she felt. “Good luck, Mr. Morgan. You’re going to need it.”
~ ~ ~
Robin Morgan wasn’t a negative guy, but the meeting with the cops sapped him. He was really alone, and despite the motion of the last two days, he’d learned nothing of note, except maybe Sunday’s stealthy follower, and the yellow VW. What scared him the most was that he might learn everything there was to know, and it wouldn’t be enough.
A man assaulted him through Mona; the killer was the first assailant; but now the force of the media, unlimited and unbridled, had reduced to dust the man he was. Robin Morgan was defenseless.
You’re not the first one this has ever happened to. You read about stories like this all the time. George said it this morning, innocence wasn’t the issue.
A thought niggled in his brain. You’re not the first! Robin’s feet moved a little quicker. He turned left up Broadway to the deli across from the Symphony. He rummaged through the newspaper pile until he found the USA
Today from Friday. There was a six paragraph article on page four; his parents would see it; he should call them.
He read the column five times, each more slowly than the last; it cued a thought. He teased at it; another time in USA Today, a visual picture of the words ‘Cover Story’. That would make it Tucson where Robin owned another townhouse. What did he remember? Something happened in Tucson, and it made the front page of the national newspaper.
It came to him in dribs and drabs; a year earlier, a trial of a prominent man, or rich, or both, for murder. He had a recollection of the story, no, more the feeling. The man’s motive was shaky, but not the evidence. The man turned down a plea bargain; the media said ‘he doth protest too much,’ but what are you to do when you’re innocent?
No! That’s too fuzzy. But it struck a chord.
~ ~ ~
Robin rocked nervously on his heals as the waitress took his ten dollars and logged him on. He ordered a large mocha, gave the girl a five and told her to keep the change. She looked at him like he was crazy; the drink was five-fifty; he gave her two bucks more.
He turned his attention to the screen. His fingers wouldn’t work; he was afraid. He should have gone back to the townhouse, but he couldn’t wait. Instead he ran the three blocks to the Coffee Net Connection.
You’re not the first. It was a half thought, incomplete, hanging by a thread to Carla’s outrageous intuition. Control yourself. You don’t even know what it is you’re looking for. If you find it, it may be nothing.
He searched for the Arizona Star, got into their archiving system and queried on the keyword ‘murder’. There were more than a hundred headlines for the last two years, but he quickly found the one he was looking for; Real Estate Developer Found Guilty, dated March 5th. He clicked on the headline and the story filled the screen. He read through it twice and printed the six pages.
Don Johnson was a wealthy developer who won a court battle to build homes in the lower Catalinas, over the objections of neighbors, environmentalists and governments; a tone of venom against the cactus killer permeated the article. The court costs almost broke him, but when the final hurdle was cleared, the hundred view lots were snatched up in weeks. His total take after taxes would exceed fifteen million.
