Murder at Midnight

by Kathi Daley

  Dad let out a long sigh. “I suppose I felt the same way when I was younger. I remember several arguments I had with Grandpa after he retired. He was my father and I loved him, but I didn’t appreciate the fact that he continued to provide me with little tidbits of information he was sure would help me do my job for years after he left the force. Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to me to be excluded from an investigation into the shooting of my own son. I may be retired, but I’m not senile, and I’m as physically fit as I ever was. When John counseled me to sit this one out I felt like an old man.”

  “I wouldn’t take it personally. The J team are close. They always have been. If you get with them one on one it’s great, but when they’re all together it’s hard to break through. Trust me, I know.”

  Dad looked at me. ‘Yeah, I guess you do understand. I was so happy to finally have a daughter after five sons, but I can see that being the youngest and the only girl was hard on you. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to try to smooth the way for you.”

  I shrugged. “That’s okay. Having to try to fight my way into the closely knit group the brothers presented has made me tough. Which brings me to the real reason I’m bothering you. I know you have something to offer to the investigation. So do I. I think we should work together if the boys won’t let us work with them.”

  Dad frowned. “I don’t know. While I agree you’ve grown up into a strong, capable woman, you’re still my little girl, and this case has already proven to be dangerous. Besides, you aren’t a cop.”

  “I know I’m your little girl and I know I’m not a cop—yet—but I’m smart and determined. I feel like there’s a reason, a higher reason, I was the one who found the body at the bottom of the bluff. It seems fate has determined I be involved. I want to do this. I’m going to do this. I think we’d make a good team if you’ll give me a chance.”

  Dad still hadn’t answered.

  “If Jason was able to talk to us I think he’d want us to work together,” I continued. “He told me just the other day that I had a good head on my shoulders and he was recommending me for the next class in the academy.”

  “He told me the same thing. He said you were bright and intuitive and had proved to him you had what it took to be a good cop.”

  In that instant, despite everything else that was going on, my heart was bursting with pride. Not only was Jason proud of me, but it seemed my dad was as well.

  “I’m going to call the resort to take a leave of absence,” I said. “Maybe a week. I think you know me well enough to be aware that whether we work as a team or not I’m going to figure this out. I’ll do it alone if I have to, but I think we’ll be stronger together.”

  “Okay,” Dad said.

  “Okay?”

  “We can work together if you think you can follow a simple set of rules.”

  “Okay. Anything.” I was so happy that my father finally saw me as a capable adult, not just his baby daughter, that I had to clasp my hands together to keep from applauding.

  “First, I call the shots. All of them. You aren’t to go off and do anything on your own without my knowledge and approval.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And we’re going to keep a low profile. We’ll work from the shadows, and any information we manage to get our hands on will come to us legally.”

  “Agreed again.”

  “Okay.” Dad pushed the file he’d been looking at across the desk to me. “This is everything I was able to discover about Clifford Cramer’s involvement in the deaths of his wife and Roxanne Bronwyn five years ago. I think the answer lies in these notes. I’m just not sure where. I suggest we begin by familiarizing ourselves with everything I knew back then.”

  I nodded, accepting a pad and pen so I could start taking notes.

  Once I was ready, Dad began to speak. “I was on my way home from a stakeout on another case when a call came over the radio that a woman living in the Aloha Heights neighborhood had heard a gunshot coming from the house next door. When I arrived there I found a woman, Roxanne Bronwyn, dead on a bedroom floor. She’d been shot. I went outside to take a look around, and that’s when I saw a man, later identified as Clifford Cramer, running from the grounds. I followed and managed to trap him on the bluff at Sunrise Beach. He seemed to panic when he realized there was no escape and jumped. As we both know, the rocks at the bottom of the bluff prevent a safe entry into the water even during high tide. I assumed the man had died as a result of his fall.”

  I had no idea if I should be writing anything down at that point, but I wanted my dad to see I was serious, so I jotted down Cramer’s name.

  “Two days later I came across a missing persons report for Anastasia Cramer,” Dad continued “The Cramers lived two doors down from Roxanne Bronwyn. Mrs. Cramer’s sister had reported her missing the day before the shooting at the Bronwyn house when she failed to show up for a family reunion. I suspected her disappearance could be related to the death of Roxanne Bronwyn, so I went over to the Cramer home to look around. At that time I hadn’t yet identified the man on the bluff as Clifford Cramer. In fact, I had no idea who he was. It was only after I arrived at the Cramer home and saw a photo of him that I was able to put two and two together.”

  I jotted down both women’s names.

  “Now that I realized the missing person had been married to the man who’d jumped from the bluff I began a thorough investigation.” Dad sat back in his chair. “I managed to find a trace of blood on the lanai. I had a sample tested and learned the blood matched that of the female homeowner. An interview with the neighbor who’d called in the sound of the gunshot revealed that Mr. Cramer and Ms. Bronwyn had been having an affair. I assumed Mrs. Cramer had found out her husband was sleeping with their neighbor, confronted him, and, in an ensuing struggle, she was killed. I also assumed that for whatever reason, Mr. Cramer killed Roxanne Bronwyn the next day and fled the scene before jumping to his death. Neither of the Cramers’ bodies were ever found.”

  “Until Tuesday,” I supplied.

  “Exactly. The fact that both bodies had been frozen came as quite a shock. It made me wonder if Mr. Cramer was responsible for either death or if there was another party who killed both women and Mr. Cramer just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when I witnessed him fleeing from the Bronwyn estate.”

  “If Cramer hadn’t killed Roxanne Bronwyn, why did he run from you? And, more importantly, why did he jump to what he had to know would most likely be his death?”

  “I don’t know. What I suspect is that everything that happened back then—and everything that has happened in the past couple of days—is linked, including Jason being shot. I intend to find out who shot my son and bring them to justice, no matter what my sons think of my ability to do so.”

  “I’m totally in.”

  Dad smiled. “I’m meeting the guys for lunch.” I knew my dad was referring to three other retired HPD officers he regularly hung out with. “You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever been out to lunch with just my dad. He understandably had more in common with my brothers than with me, so I suppose it wasn’t surprising he spent more one-on-one time with them than he ever did with me. Not that I was complaining. Exactly. I’d enjoyed quite a few mother/daughter shopping trips when I lived at home, and Mom and I still grabbed lunch together from time to time even now that I was out on my own. But lunch with my dad? Priceless!

  “I’d love to,” I finally answered in as neutral a tone of voice as I could muster, even though what I really wanted to do was jump up, raise my arms in the air, and shout hallelujah.

  “Great. Run and get your things. We need to be at Callahan’s in thirty minutes.”

  Callahan’s was a bar that, while technically open to the public, was generally the type of establishment where men in blue and their guests could meet in a relaxed atmosphere. I’d always wanted to go there but had never been invited. Somehow, today felt like a rite of passage
for me.

  My dad and his three friends still referred to one another by their last names even though they were all civilians now. Thomas, Woodson, and McCarthy had all been to my parents’ house on many occasions, so while I hadn’t seen them in a while, I knew them fairly well.

  “You remember my daughter, Lani,” Dad said when we approached the table where the men were already sitting.

  “Of course; how you doing, sweetheart?” Woodson asked.

  “Okay, considering.”

  “I’m so sorry about Jason,” Thomas said to my dad. “How’s he doing?”

  “Still unconscious but stabilized,” Dad answered as he pulled a chair over for me.

  “Every cop knows it could happen, but when it does it’s still a shock,” McCarthy said, sympathy in his voice.

  “The boy is strong, like his old man,” Thomas said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “Let us know if there’s anything we can do,” Woodson offered.

  “The reason I asked Lani to come to lunch with us today is because we’ve decided to team up to look in to the shooting and we could use your help,” Dad informed the others.

  “I’m not surprised you’re planning to investigate, but I kind of thought you’d ask your sons to help out,” McCarthy commented.

  When I noticed Dad wince I wanted to kick McCarthy beneath the table, but I controlled myself.

  “The boys are looking in to things from one angle, but Lani and I are taking a different approach,” Dad explained.

  “You sure about this?” Thomas asked.

  Dad smiled at me. “I’m sure. Lani has a lot to offer. Now, would you like to help?”

  All three nodded. We paused to order before we got into the strategy session. I chose a brisket sandwich that looked absolutely fantastic and Dad ordered a slice of pizza. He took a few minutes to catch everyone up. He explained where we’d found Mr. Cramer’s body and his wife’s arm, and that both bodies had been frozen for an unknown amount of time before ending up in the water. Then Dad reviewed the events of five years before. I could see the guys were hooked once the case was presented.

  “So, where do we start?” McCarthy asked.

  “What about the information you gathered five years ago?” I suggested to my dad. “The witness statements. Any physical evidence. I think if we have a clear picture of the case you were building back then we’ll find a clear place to jump into the current investigation.”

  The others agreed that was a good idea and my dad took out the file he’d brought with him. He began with the first witness he spoke to.

  “I first interviewed the woman who reported hearing the gunshot that killed Roxanne Bronwyn. Edwina Hatfield lived in the house between Bronwyn and the Cramers. While the homes in the community were built on large lots, resulting in a good degree of privacy, I still figured if there was something going on between the two households she would be the one most likely to know about it.”

  I wrote her name down on my list.

  “Ms. Hatfield informed me that she wasn’t surprised to hear there had been problems between Roxanne Bronwyn and the Cramers,” Dad continued. “She said Bronwyn had a lot of men and seemed to have made a lifestyle out of partying. She tended to play her men against one another and, in Ms. Hatfield’s opinion, one of them probably had had enough of her cheating and teasing and took matters into their own hands. Ms. Hatfield also told me that she wasn’t surprised to find Clifford Cramer had been seen running from the scene. Apparently, he’d cheated on his wife with many different women during their marriage, and given his proximity to Ms. Bronwyn, it seemed only a matter of time until they hooked up. She didn’t know why Cramer would kill either her or his wife, and she didn’t believe Anastasia Cramer would care that her husband had been having an affair with their neighbor because the two seemed to have an understanding between them.”

  “So Clifford Cramer cheated on his wife all the time and it was Ms. Hatfield’s opinion that his wife knew and didn’t care?” I clarified.

  “Exactly. Ms. Hatfield indicated that the Cramer marriage had more to do with money than love, and as long as he provided her with the lifestyle she craved, she didn’t care who he slept with outside the marital bed.”

  “Now that’s my kind of marriage,” Thomas chuckled. I knew he was a playboy who’d never married or had children. He was well into his sixties now, but he still maintained his reputation for being a ladies’ man.

  “Problem is, you don’t have any money,” McCarthy countered. “I think to have a trophy wife who cares only for your money you need to have some.”

  “Might have been able to afford a trophy wife if you’d laid off the ponies,” Woodson added.

  “So if it’s true the Cramers had an open marriage, perhaps the theory that Mrs. Cramer confronted her husband about his affair and he killed her during the struggle that occurred as a result is less than believable,” I commented, attempting to get the conversation back on track.

  “In retrospect, I can see my assumption may have been inaccurate,” my dad admitted. “It was a theory that made sense despite what Ms. Hatfield said, but now that it appears both Mr. and Mrs. Cramer’s bodies have been frozen for five years, I’m beginning to think the person who killed Mrs. Cramer and Ms. Bronwyn may have been someone else entirely. That’s something we’ll need to figure out as we work on this.”

  I couldn’t quite suppress the grin that crossed my face as I jotted down a few more notes. I’d never thought I cared all that much about my dad’s approval, but I was wrong. “Okay, who else did you talk to?” I asked before the guys could start bantering again.

  “At the time of Ms. Bronwyn’s death, the house on the other side of Ms. Hatfield’s home was occupied by a man named Chester Black, who has since passed away. He was nearly deaf and hadn’t heard the gunshot, but he did confirm what Ms. Hatfield reported about Ms. Bronwyn’s partying and multitudes of men. Most of what he reported confirmed what others had told me, but he provided one piece of unique information: Ms. Bronwyn had been married at one point, and while her husband had moved out years before, he was fairly sure the couple had never divorced. As it turned out, Mr. Black was correct. When Roxanne Bronwyn died her entire estate, worth several million dollars, was left to her ex, Phillip Orson, who lived in California.”

  “Wow; even I would tie the knot for several million dollars,” Thomas admitted.

  “Like you could get someone worth several million dollars,” Woodson countered. “Now, if I’d met the woman before she was murdered she may have been convinced to hang up her welcome sign once and for all.”

  I rolled my eyes. Woodson had been married four times that I knew of and hadn’t been able to hang on to any of his wives. Why he thought a woman like Roxanne Bronwyn would want anything to do with the scrawniest cop I’d ever met was beyond me.

  I sat forward just a bit and once again tried to get things back on track. “So, if it turns out Clifford Cramer didn’t kill Ms. Bronwyn, do you think Orson might have?”

  “Possibly,” my dad answered. “He had an alibi and there was no evidence that would demonstrate he’d really been on the island at the time of Ms. Bronwyn’s death. I was sure Cramer was guilty. Why else would he jump to his death? But if it turns out he wasn’t responsible for Ms. Bronwyn’s death, I think we should take a closer look at her husband’s movements at the time of the shooting.”

  “Do you know where he is now?” I asked.

  “Actually, he moved to the island and is living in the house he inherited from his wife.” Dad tossed a file folder to the three men. “There are witness statements from ten other people in this file, though none seemed relevant at the time. I think we should read them over and come up with a short list of people to reinterview. As I said, Mr. Black has passed on, but Ms. Hatfield still lives in the same home, and it won’t be too hard to determine the current location of any others we feel might provide the most relevant information.”

  “Maybe we should divide up the
list of people to interview between us. It’ll go faster,” I suggested.

  There was a murmur of agreement around the table. The five of us discussed the various names in the file and after a bit of back and forth we decided who would be worth talking to.

  “Lani and I will talk to Edwina Hatfield, Phillip Orson, and Craig Newton,” Dad announced. “The three of you can take Darlene Porter, Carrie Silverton, and Veronica Quinn.”

  “I’ll take Veronica,” Thomas offered. Quinn had been Anastasia Cramer’s personal trainer and there was a photo of the tall, buxom blonde attached to the file.

  “Okay.” Dad nodded. “Who wants Carrie Silverton? She was Anastasia Cramer’s hairdresser and still works at the salon over at the mall.”

  “Woodson can’t take lead on that one, considering he’s gone bald.” McCarthy snickered. “I’ll take that one.”

  “And finally,” Dad said, “Darlene Porter was Clifford Cramer’s masseuse.

  Woodson raised his hand. “That has me written all over it.”

  “Okay. Can you all meet back here tomorrow?” Dad asked.

  The Three Stooges, as I was beginning to think of them, agreed they could, and the conversation changed to golf. I tuned out, trying to process everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Talk about a roller-coaster ride.

  Chapter 6

  Dad had called ahead, so Edwina Hatfield was waiting for us when we arrived. She led us through her gorgeous home out onto a shady lanai that overlooked her pool and garden. She had freshly squeezed lemonade and three frosty glasses waiting in the refrigerator of the outdoor kitchen. We accepted her offer of the beverage, which was delicious.

  “Thank you for agreeing to speak with us,” Dad started off.

  “Of course. I always wondered whatever happened to Clifford and Anastasia. To think they’ve been in cold storage for the past five years; it’s almost unimaginable.”