The End of Summer: Book One in The Detective Bill Ross Crime Series

by Irving Munro

  “I would ask that you calm down please, Mr. McCord,” said Stan.

  It was like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a garden hose. There was no way Jim McCord was calming down.

  “Am I right in guessing Bill Andersen called you, Mr. McCord?” continued Stan.

  “So what if he has? He’s a good neighbor and his only interest was to let me know that some arrogant police department assholes were walking all over my property and scaring the crap out of everyone!”

  Jim McCord was running off at the mouth and Stan new instinctively why.

  “There is no need for that language, Mr. McCord and may I ask you sir, have you been drinking? If so, perhaps we leave this until morning. I’ll call you first thing. What is the best number to reach you on, Mr. McCord?”

  “Call me on my cell” said McCord. It took him three attempts to give Stan the correct cell number.

  “Call me at 7:30, no better make it 8:00,” slurred McCord. “You better have a good explanation for all of this or Bill Dunwoody will have your balls mounted on his wall!” Jim McCord hung up the phone.

  “Yep, McCord had been drinking,” muttered Stan Hardwick. “My balls are safe for another night.”

  ~

  The following morning on his way to the Hudson Bend office, Tommy stopped off at Rudy’s on FM620 for breakfast tacos. It was 6:30 and they had just opened for the morning rush. Rudy’s was Tommy’s favorite BBQ joint and although it was a chain, they had great food.

  The temperature was already seventy-nine and it would be close to one hundred by midday, typical late summer weather in Austin. By the end of September, it would be back down to the eighties.

  “Good morning, my Jedi Knight!” quipped Marie as Tommy walked into the office.

  “I guess you don’t want a breakfast taco then?” responded Tommy with a little smirk and twinkle in his eye.

  “You come bearing gifts, o’ great Jedi!” responded Marie as she knelt, adopting a groveling pose.

  “I have to ensure that my fellow warriors are well fed,” said Tommy and threw her a sausage, egg and cheese.

  “Thank you, o’ great knight!”

  Suddenly, Darth Vader aka Stan Hardwick burst into the room, “Cut the crap; let’s get to work,” bellowed Stan.

  “He obviously didn’t get any last night,” thought Marie.

  “Change of plan, Tommy,” said Stan. “I’ll take Jim and Mary McCord, you check out their son, Bobby. He lives in Oklahoma and played for the Sooners as a kid. Didn’t make it to the NFL but a pretty reasonable tight end, I understand. George, you and Marie canvas the neighbors as we discussed last night and let’s all get together back here at 6:30 tonight for a review of the day.”

  Chapter 5 - Neighborly love

  2005 - The Initial Investigation

  “Good morning, Mr. McCord,” said Stan. It was 8:00 a.m. on the dot when Stan called Jim McCord on his cell as he had requested.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hardwick,” said McCord, feeling decidedly shaky from a night of carousing in the Marriott Hotel bar in San Antonio.

  “You can call me Stan,”

  “And you can call me Jim. Sorry about last night, Stan, I had had a couple of cocktails as you had guessed and my mouth got away from me. It won’t happen again.”

  “So, Jim, what exactly did Bill Andersen tell you when he called?” asked Stan.

  “He told me that there had been a woman’s body discovered laying by my pool and that you guys were all over the place like flies on shit. Oh sorry, Stan, there goes my mouth again.”

  Stan was beginning to lose patience with Jim McCord.

  “Look, Jim. We’re just trying to get as much information gathered as we can on this. The faster we gather the data, the faster we can try to understand who this woman was and how she got into your backyard. Given that you are in Colorado, it’s unlikely that you put her there,” said Stan.

  “Oh, I’m not in Colorado, Stan. I’m down here in San Antonio attending a cyber-security conference at the Lockheed Martin facility.”

  Jim McCord’s words hit Stan in the chest like one of Lockheed Martin’s surface to air missiles! “You’re not in Colorado?” said Stan “You need to get up here to Austin. How quickly can you make that happen?”

  ~

  While Stan was having his call with Jim McCord, in the adjoining office Tommy, made the call to his son in Oklahoma.

  “Hi, is this Bobby McCord? This is Deputy Tommy Ross from the Travis County Police Department in Austin.”

  “Yes, I’m Bobby McCord. What’s happened? Is my mom and dad OK?”

  “Your parents are fine, sir, but there has been a situation. We have found a body on your parent’s property and we are trying to identify her,” responded Tommy.

  “A woman’s body?” exclaimed Bobby.

  “Yes, she appears to be in her early twenties. About your age, Mr. McCord.”

  “Are you trying to suggest that I had something to do with this?” yelled Bobby McCord.

  “No, sorry, Mr. McCord, I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. Simply that she is a young woman about your age and discovered on your parent’s property.”

  Tommy realized that he had made a rookie mistake. There had been no reason to mention that the body was a woman and it had been wrong to draw the age comparison.

  “OK,” said Bobby, calming down. “Has my dad been contacted? My mom will be a basket case when she finds out. I better get on a plane and get down there.”

  Bobby McCord was now engaged and trying to help. Tommy sensed it was about supporting his parents not about trying to protect his ass. Tommy thought he might like to meet Bobby McCord sometime. He seemed like a stand-up guy.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, Mr. McCord. My supervisor, Detective Stan Hardwick, is talking with your mom and dad as we speak. Tell me, when were you last down here in Austin?”

  “My wife, Crystal and I were down there over Labor Day weekend with some of our friends. The six of us stayed at dad’s place for the week and hung out on the lake.”

  “I see. Exactly when did you leave and return to Oklahoma?” replied Tommy.

  “We left on Friday morning to fly back. I had a cleaning company come in after we left and they finished their job on Monday night,” said Bobby.

  “That would be Monday of this week. The 12th, is that right?” asked Tommy.

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Bobby.

  “Don’t worry, Bobby, we will get this sorted out. I suggest that you wait a couple of hours before calling your mom and dad. Detective Hardwick will have briefed them by then,” suggested Tommy.

  “They will be beside themselves, Oh my God, what a mess,” said Bobby as he hung up the phone.

  ~

  Detectives George Turner and Marie Mason were doing the door to door. They were an odd couple. George was well over six feet tall and skinny as a beanpole and Marie five four when standing on a rock.

  They got the normal responses. Didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything. Don’t really know the McCord’s that well. There was the occasional ghoul who tried to get more information. Was the woman shot? Had she been assaulted? They had done the rounds of the neighborhood in a systematic manner, starting with Bill and Ethel Andersen and going around counterclockwise. The last call of the day was to the home of Harvey and Dawn Cohen, the neighbors on the adjoining property to the McCord’s.

  They rang the bell and immediately, they could hear the barking of what sounded like one of those small toy dogs that young ladies seem to favor. A few minutes later, a woman appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in a shimmering translucent pool wrap. The light coming through the house back lit her profile and provided the complete outline of her stunning figure. She was a hair under six feet tall with long black hair. She cradled a shih tsu with a pink bow on top of its head in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

  “Can I help you?” slurred the woman.

  George Turner was doing his best impr
ession of a fair ground clown’s face like the one you throw balls into and win a stuffed koala. Marie Mason, confident as ever, took charge.

  “Mrs. Dawn Cohen, is it? I am Detective Marie Mason of the Travis County Police Department and this is my colleague, Detective George Turner. May we come in for a few minutes to talk to you about what happened last night at the McCord residence?”

  “Of course, anything I can do to help officers. Come on in,” said Dawn as she staggered slightly allowing them to enter her home.

  Marie was not convinced that the mutt with the pink bow was in agreement with her owner that they should enter.. Marie didn’t like toy dogs and she hated shih tsus the most.

  Dawn laid back on the pure white overstuffed sectional as Marie and George sat in a pair of fake Louis the Fourteenth chairs.

  “Is your husband home, Mrs. Cohen?” asked Marie.

  “No, he is gone in Vegas at some orthodontist convention. He left Sunday night and will be back on Friday. It’s just Rita and me I’m afraid. We’ve been left all on our own, haven’t we snookums.” She kissed the mutt right on its nose.

  Marie almost sent the morning’s egg and sausage taco all over the white sectional but caught it in the nick of time.

  “Did you hear anything or see anything last night?” said George, seeing that Marie was not quite ready to lead the questioning again.

  “No, nothing officer. Rita and I had gone to bed about eight and I heard nothing. The first time I heard about the commotion was this morning when I went to get my nails done and Miss Loo told me all about it,” said Dawn already bored with the conversation and thinking about refilling her glass of Riesling.

  “The commotion,” thought Marie. She wanted to slap Dawn, but thankfully resisted the temptation.

  For the next ten minutes, the interview of Dawn Cohen followed along the same path as the others in the neighborhood. She hadn’t seen or heard anything and didn’t know the McCord’s that well.

  “Harvey and I have our own lives and our own circle of friends. We do not have much in common with the McCord’s and their group,” continued Dawn.

  There was something about the way that Dawn Cohen talked about Jim and Mary McCord that both George and Marie picked up on. As they walked back to the car, George was the first to bring it up.

  “It was like she was over stressing that they had absolutely no contact with the McCord’s. Like they were a different social class or something,” said George.

  “She has something to hide, that one. I can feel it. I can taste it. She knows something for sure. She also makes my skin crawl but that might be just me. I hate trophy wives and Dawn Cohen is a prime example,” said Marie as George drove the car back to Hudson Bend.

  Chapter 6 - San Antonio

  2005 - The Initial Investigation

  It was raining when Jim McCord arrived at the Hudson Bend Office a quarter before noon. Celia showed McCord into the conference room and offered him a cup of coffee that he declined. He took off his leather jacket, draped it over a chair and as it began to drip water on the floor, he took off his glasses and used a Kleenex to dry them off. Jim McCord hated the rain. He loved the snow and cold of Colorado but wet days in Austin were not his favorite.

  Stan had Celia bring in some sandwiches and as they sat across from one another in the small conference room, the sound of the traffic on 620 reverberated around the room.

  “So what do you do for a living, Jim, and why were you in San Antonio?” asked Stan.

  “I am an expert in cyber security,” replied McCord pumping out his chest, full of his own importance. “I work for the federal government investigating military contractors to ensure that they are compliant with current standards.”

  Stan Hardwick watched as Jim McCord ran his hand over his beard. He’s doing this for effect, like some kind of visiting professor, thought Stan. Or else he has some mayo from his sandwich stuck in the beard and is trying to wipe it off. Stan chuckled a little at the sight as Jim McCord continued.

  “I flew into San Antonio from Durango on Sunday night for the compliance review and I fly back tomorrow. Mary and I will set out next Saturday morning to drive back to Austin. We are generally back in Austin by now, however the conference in San Antonio changed our plans somewhat.”

  “So how the heck did a woman’s body get on my property?” asked McCord, trying to move the conversation forward.

  “If we knew that, we might be able to find out who killed her,” retorted Stan. What did McCord think they were, the fucking A-Team?

  “When was the last time you were in your home on Braker Lane, Jim?” asked Stan.

  “We left the evening of Memorial Day and drove to Pagosa,” replied McCord.

  “So, that would have been May 26th. And you haven’t been back since?”

  “That’s right, Stan. Bill and Ethel keep a watch on the place and my son uses it for vacation once a year,” replied Jim.

  “So do Bill and Ethel have a key to your home? I would like to take a look around the inside of the house if I can. I don’t think that the killer went inside, but I would like to check it out and make sure.”

  “Not a problem, Stan. I could come with you right now if you would like and let you look around. No need to trouble Bill and Ethel.”

  Stan pulled in closer to the table, lowered his voice and made sure that Jim McCord knew that this was a murder investigation and that the two off them were not going to saunter off to his home for a couple of cold ones.

  “That won’t be possible I’m afraid. Your property is now a crime scene. I will let you know when we can let you gain access again but it might be several days.

  Jack’s eyes narrowed as Stan leaned back in his chair and said, “I think that will do it for today Jim. Thanks a lot for coming up from San Antonio. I’ll be back in touch with you as we continue the investigation. It’s still raining cats and dogs out there, so be safe on your drive back.”

  After Jim McCord had left to drive back to San Antonio, Stan felt that there was more going on with McCord than met the eye but felt it unlikely that he had anything to do with the murder. Why would he go to such an elaborate effort to stage a body in his own backyard?

  Stan was convinced Jim McCord had nothing to do with the murder but was equally convinced he was hiding something. He was sure of it. Stan pushed the thought to the back of his mind and headed off to the evening briefing.

  ~

  Jim McCord was not a happy man as he made the drive back to San Antonio. “Shit, shit, shit. A fucking body in my yard! Either someone is trying to fuck with me, or worse still, frame me for murder! That bitch Dawn Cohen better keep her mouth shut!”

  Chapter 7 - Rohypnol

  The Initial Investigation

  They were all together again in the conference room. Stan kicked off the evening briefing. “OK, team. What do we know?”

  Tommy was first up. He cleared his throat, took out his notes and began.

  “I talked with Bobby McCord’s and he seemed like an honest guy. He, his wife and two other couples stayed at the house a couple of weeks ago. They must’ve had a great time, as he paid for a cleaning crew to come in for a couple of days and clean the place from top to bottom. A week later, we find the body. So, if anyone had been in the house, we might be able to see where they walked on the carpet if the cleaners vacuumed it thoroughly.”

  “Good job, Tommy,” responded Stan. “I’ll go over and get the house key from the Andersen’s and take a look inside tomorrow. Marie, did the house to house reveal anything?”

  “Nothing!” replied Marie. “No one saw anything, no one heard anything. That said I want to do a follow-up with Dawn Cohen. She was being a little shifty with me. There might be something there, maybe not, but I want to give it another go.”

  “OK, Marie. Take George with you,” replied Stan.

  Feeling somewhat disappointed, Marie agreed to take George. She would have loved to give that bitch Cohen a going over on her own. “Calm down, Ma
rie,” she said to herself as she walked out of the briefing room with the rest of the team.

  ~

  Sven Stevenson had delivered his written autopsy results late Thursday night and Stan had read them in bed before dozing off. Stan’s wife, Doreen, was used to this nightly ritual. She had an eye mask and earplugs so that she could sleep while Stan did what he needed to do.

  It was confirmed that Reese had been suffocated and the toxicology showed that there had been drugs in her system. There was evidence of several different varieties including Rohypnol. Rohypnol is usually dissolved in drinks but it can also be injected. Stan thought it was likely that the killer had sedated the dead girl by injecting her with the drug based on examination of her arm.

  Sven had concluded that she had been injected several times over an extended period. The killer could have had her in his control for many days. What was also disturbing were the internal injuries. She had been brutally raped and sodomized. In addition to external tearing, there was internal tearing in both the vagina and anus. Sven was of the opinion that “various items” might have been used to penetrate her. He also noted that she would have been in considerable pain as the internal injuries were horrendous.

  She had also been completely cleaned. Not just washed, cleaned. The killer had used some sort of bleach mixture before applying significant quantities of Chloe perfume.

  Sven also noted that her facial make up looked like it had been professionally applied. The final comment in the report significantly added to the mystery. Sven speculated that her facial features were almost certainly Eastern European.

  ~

  The following morning, Stan picked up the keys for the McCord place from Ethel Andersen. He arrived at the house, took a deep breath and opened the front door. He put on a set of blue medical shoe covers along with a pair of latex gloves and stepped inside.

  There was a tiled hallway leading to the main living room that had a deep tufted beige carpet. It was obvious that the place had been thoroughly cleaned. The telltale marks left by the vacuum cleaner on the tufted carpet were still clearly visible.