The May Day Murders

by Scott Wittenburg

  The May Day Murders

  Scott Wittenburg

  The May Day Murders

  Scott Wittenburg

  CHAPTER 1

  Sam Middleton held the door open for his ex-wife and daughter before joining them as they descended the steps of the funeral home. Leaves of brilliant colors blew in every direction as they made their way across the parking lot to Ann’s white Toyota Camry. Sam stood and watched Ann search absentmindedly in her purse for the car keys-the tears welling up in her eyes for the third or fourth time that day.

  He glanced over at Amy, who seemed oblivious to her mother’s grief, and Sam silently wished that she would at least make an effort to console her. But Amy simply stood there apathetically and he was once again reminded of how dramatically his little girl had changed since the divorce last spring. She seemed almost a stranger now, no longer the sweet, freckle-faced little kid who was so considerate of others and nearly always obeyed her parents’ demands without question. Amy had since become defiant and selfish-seemingly overnight-and was so wrapped up in her own little world that it was downright scary. Through some force unknown to him, his little bundle of joy had evolved into a bitter, incorrigible young lady of fourteen-a keg of dynamite just waiting to blow up at the slightest provocation.

  Ann suddenly broke down and started weeping. Sam stepped over and put his arms around her comfortingly, feeling a little awkward as he did so.

  “Why, Sam?” she sobbed. “Why did Marsha have to die? She was so full of life-so happy! And now she’s…”

  “There now, dear,” he consoled. “Please don’t get yourself all worked up again.”

  “And so violently! Who in the world would want to do that to her? Marsha wouldn’t harm a fly. She was so… so kind. And Dave, and little Tommy… What will they do now?”

  Sam hugged her tightly, patted her back. “I don’t know, Ann. It’s certainly an awful situation. I guess they’ll just have to try to put all the pieces together and get on with their lives without her. Just like the rest of us will have to do.”

  She buried her face in his chest, and Sam’s heart bled for her. He had known that Ann was going to take it hard when he’d called to give her the grim news of Marsha Bradley’s murder, but he had never conceived that it would absolutely devastate her like this. She and Marsha had been best friends since grade school and had been practically joined at the hip in the years since. That was a lot of memories shared together; a lot of closeness. And for Marsha Bradley to die so abruptly like that-and in such a gruesome, hideous way…

  “I hope they find the bastard who did this to her and string him up by his balls!” Ann declared bitterly.

  She pulled away and faced Sam, her eyes moist with tears. “Do you know if they’ve found any clues yet?”

  Sam stared at her gaunt, lovely face and replied, “When I checked with Roger this morning, he told me that they still don’t have much to go on. Little Tommy is still in shock, and no one is going to interrogate him until he calms down. The shrink seems to think that could take awhile. And since Tommy is the only witness they know of so far, Roger doesn’t think that much of anything is going to break until they can question him. Poor kid. I guess he’s so traumatized over this that they’ve had to practically force him to eat, and he still hasn’t spoken a word to a soul. Not even to his father.”

  “Is Dave going to be able to handle all of this, you think? He looked absolutely awful in there.”

  Sam shook his head slowly. “He’s taking it pretty hard, no doubt. My guess is that once the shock has worn off, he’ll be out for blood. I just hope they find this asshole soon. The whole town’s pretty stirred up, as you can imagine. Probably already forming a lynch mob, as we speak,” he added with a wry grin.

  Ann managed a weak smile. “God, am I ever glad I don’t live in this little Peyton Place anymore!”

  Sam ignored her remark. “The police are advising everyone to be on the lookout for anything or anyone suspicious and recommending that parents set up a voluntary ten o’clock curfew for their kids.”

  “Are you covering the story, or is that a stupid question?” she asked.

  “Yes, to both,” Sam replied dryly.

  “Well, keep me informed. I want to know everything that happens, okay?”

  “Sure,” Sam nodded. He let go of her and turned to Amy. “Why so quiet, kiddo?”

  Amy shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing to say. I just want to go home,” she answered, her tone of voice bored.

  Sam went over and kissed his daughter on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “Look after your mother, okay, sweetie? This has been really tough on her, and she needs all the emotional support she can get right now. Think you can do that for your old man?”

  Amy remained expressionless and replied, “Okay, Dad.”

  Sam held her bright green eyes in his a moment and could feel the familiar pang of remorse gnaw at him-just as it always did whenever he was about to say goodbye to his estranged family. He missed them both more than he wanted to admit to himself. Amy, as if reading his mind, suddenly gave him a bear hug. “I miss you, Dad.”

  “I miss you too, honey.”

  Then, as quickly as it began, this rare, magical moment ended. “Can we go now, Mom?”

  Ann unlocked the car door. “We’re on our way.”

  As Amy walked around to the other side of the car, Sam stood and watched as Ann got in. “Be careful,” he said. “I’ll call you as soon as I learn anything.”

  Ann looked up at Sam and squinted from the glare of the sun coming from behind him. “Thanks, Sam. Take care of yourself.”

  He nodded and waited until Amy was inside, then said, “You two take care of each other, okay?”

  “We will, Dad. Bye.”

  Sam closed the door and stood by as Ann started the engine and backed the car out. He waved to them as they pulled away.

  As he sauntered across the lot toward his gray Grand Cherokee, Sam’s head was reeling from the events of the day. He reached the Jeep, climbed in and fired up the engine. He felt numb and more alone than he’d felt in a long time. Marsha Bradley’s rape, murder, and ensuing memorial service were agonizing enough. But seeing how hard Ann was taking it, then watching her drive away into the sunset along with his kid-leaving him here in this godforsaken town while they headed to a new city and a new life-was just about more than he could handle right now. Although Columbus was only a couple of hours away, it might as well be somewhere in China.

  Sam floored the accelerator and pulled into the alley, turned onto Grant Street and headed north. Traffic was light for a Saturday afternoon-but then it was always light in this little burg of 21,000. One of Smithtown’s few assets was its intrinsic charm; the rolling foothills that virtually surrounded the entire town, the fine old houses with their neatly manicured grounds, and the nearby state forest located to the west just outside the city limits. Otherwise, the town was a bust. An economically anemic place that was swiftly heading in the wrong direction as towns go. Shrinking instead of growing.

  Smithtown was comprised for the most part of white middle class folks, coexisting with a smattering of impoverished but determined southern Ohio hillbilly farmers. Minorities existed to a considerably lesser degree, with the Indian and Asian American professionals-mostly physicians-equaling, if not exceeding the town’s black population. Smithtown’s County Hospital seemed to draw immigrants in search of a place to practice medicine like a streetlight to moths.

  As he waited impatiently for a traffic light to change, Sam wondered for the umpteenth time why he remained in this depressing place. With the exception of his job as a reporter at the Smithtown Observer, there was virtually nothing else holding him here. Especially now that he’d spli
t up with Ann. Even his parents had moved on-happily retired and basking in the Florida sunshine.

  His game plan had fallen apart, he admitted to himself grimly. He had always had this crazy dream of being a novelist, and after having gotten his first bestseller published, moving his family to New England to spend the rest of his life writing novels in his den in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. Now, at forty, he no longer had a family to move anywhere and his “bestseller” was yet to be written, stalled on page sixty-three where it had lain dormant for months.

  Sam hung a right onto Court Street and heaved a long sigh. The divorce had been the beginning of his undoing, no doubt about it. He missed Ann and he missed his kid. His motivation to write was shot-his two greatest sources of inspiration now in a car heading north on Route 23 en route to Columbus… To a new city and a new life…

  One mistake was all it had taken to end their once happy marriage of seventeen years. He’d fucked-up royally by letting his dick do his thinking for him. One measly night in the sack with that beautiful young thing had blown everything all to hell. Had he seen the consequences beforehand, he would never have let it happen. But it was too late now. Ann had been relentlessly unforgiving and hadn’t budged an inch. She had surprised him. He had never realized that Ann was so strong-willed.

  The joke was on him…

  Sam shut his eyes for a moment in an effort to exorcise these nagging thoughts. When he opened them again, he focused on the road and thought about the matter at hand: Marsha Bradley’s murder.

  Once he arrived at the Observer, Sam resolved, he was going to research each and every minuscule detail the police had logged thus far concerning the case, as well any background info he could find on Marsha and Doctor David Bradley for the article he was writing for Monday’s paper. He needed to call Roger and set up a time that he could visit the Bradley residence and take some shots for the article, just in case he needed them. Roger would question this, and probably laugh in Sam’s face as he proceeded to ask Sam why in the fuck he wanted to take more pictures of the murder scene. Sam would then reply flippantly that it might add interest to the article, and Roger would know better, but say no more about it.

  Smithtown Police Detective Roger Hagstrom was Sam’s best friend and had been for practically four decades. He’d been with the Smithtown P.D. for twenty years, and was one hell of a good cop-when he was sober, that is. Roger had a serious drinking problem and many were the times that Sam had had to bail him out of the fixes he’d often gotten himself into. His hangovers were legendary and he frequently missed entire days of work as a result of them. Sometimes he’d even get himself blasted while on duty, which never failed to create some major problems.

  But the Smithtown Police Department was very small-only fifteen officers and patrolmen in total-and they needed Roger Hagstrom badly enough to overlook his shortcomings. Besides that, Roger Hagstrom was second in command, so they more or less had to. His only superior, Chief Frank Thompson, admired and respected Roger’s skills as a detective and tolerated his tardiness and occasional inebriation on the job up to a point; his only stipulation being that Roger not make the chief’s special leniency toward him public knowledge.

  Sam often tagged along with Roger on his assignments. It wasn’t a particularly unusual situation-cops and journalists frequently worked closely together to a degree, especially in a little town like Smithtown. What made Sam and Roger’s relationship unique was the way in which they complemented each other. They were a good team and often aided one another in achieving their respective goals.

  Besides the benefits attained from their working relationship, Sam had another reason for occasionally joining forces with his friend: it was interesting as hell. Murder cases were few and far between in Smithtown, but there were plenty of other crimes going on all the time: dope deals gone bad, burglaries, armed robberies, bar stabbings and shootings. A pretty lively town for its size, crime-wise. The faltering economy seemed to have a lot to do with it.

  Sam pulled into the parking lot of the Observer and shut off the ignition. The parking lot was as desolate as he’d suspected it would be; the Observer had no Sunday paper and everyone had already cleared out for the day. He got out and walked over to the side entrance of the massive stone columned building and entered. He turned right and made a beeline through the ornate lobby to the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.

  When he reached his floor, Sam strode past the reception desk to the editorial offices. His office was located at the far end on the left, near the coffee machine. He cued up a pot on the Bun-O-Matic and checked to be sure that there was some milk in the tiny refrigerator beside it before entering his office and switching on the overhead lights.

  Sam stepped over to the window behind his desk and opened the blinds, staring out at the view outside. Directly below him he could see downtown Smithtown; five square blocks or so of dead or dying businesses that were slowly but surely being strangled by the slumping economy. Further north, beyond the railroad tracks, was the Hilltop section of town where the majority of Smithtown’s less unfortunate resided. It sprawled either way for a few miles, bounded by the Scioto River to the west and a range of foothills to the east. It was early October and autumn was already making its debut in southern Ohio. The trees were flecked in bright shades of reds and yellows, making the view even more impressive than usual. In another week or two, Sam thought, the hills would look as though they were on fire as fall peaked-out.

  Sam turned around, rolled his swivel chair out from under his desk and sat down. The large oak desk was in its usual disarray, littered with files, sections of last week’s papers and no fewer than three used coffee mugs strewn randomly around a black plastic ashtray in bad need of emptying. He tidied up the papers a bit and carried the dirty coffee mugs out to the sink by the coffee machine. When he returned, Sam switched on the computer, located the police file on Marsha Bradley in a drawer and pulled out its contents.

  Sam felt a cold chill run down his spine as he stared incredulously at the eight-by-ten glossy photograph on top. It was an image of Marsha Bradley lying nude on her living room floor, face-up, her eyes frozen in a hideous expression of terror. A narrow red welt running across the width of her neck where she had been strangled to death was crisply rendered in the photo, as were her breasts with the words “May Day”-one word per breast-meticulously inscribed in red lipstick by her murderer. And, as if all of this wasn’t appalling enough, Marsha’s assailant had then proceeded to cram the lipstick vial into her vagina; its end barely visible between her splayed legs.

  The autopsy performed on Marsha’s body had determined that this final gruesome act had been performed after her assailant had strangled her to death. No weapon had been found at the scene, but the coroner’s hunch was that Marsha had most likely been strangled with a lamp cord or similar object. Prior to her murder, the victim had been raped and sodomized, and her assailant’s semen and hair samples had been sent to a lab, pending analysis.

  Sam laid the photograph aside and studied the police report. The victim, Marsha Lynn Bradley, nee Stilson, had been a white female, 5’6”, 118 pounds, brown eyes, thirty-nine years old. Her husband, Doctor David Lee Bradley, had discovered her body on the night of October 8, at 9:47 P.M. The victim’s son, Tommy, age five, had been present in the house when the body was discovered, locked in his bedroom closet. The child had been in a state of severe shock and literally unable to speak when police arrived at the scene. There had been no signs of physical trauma to the child.

  Preliminary investigation revealed no apparent signs of forced entry and nothing had been stolen. Odder still was the fact that there had been no signs of a struggle at the scene. The entire house had been searched and dusted for fingerprints and it was later determined that none of the prints found belonged to anyone other than the victim, her immediate family and Mary Willis, the housekeeper. The lipstick vial was confirmed to have belonged to the victim. No usable prints had been fo
und on it.

  The victim’s husband had been questioned. Doctor David Bradley had reportedly been at a friend’s house, Matt Timmonds, helping him install drywall in his garage. David Bradley had left his house at around six-thirty P. M, shortly after dinner, and had remained at the Timmonds’ residence until he had returned home and discovered his wife’s body. Bradley’s alibi was corroborated after an interrogation of Matt Timmonds. David Bradley, at least at this point of the case, was not being considered a suspect in the murder.

  Sam glanced down at the right-hand margin near the bottom of the report and saw Roger Hagstrom’s barely legible scrawl: “No clues, no leads.” He could almost read his friend’s frustration in the bold pen strokes.

  Sam had been out of town the night that Marsha had been murdered. He’d driven to Huntington, West Virginia to interview a disc jockey that worked at one of the town’s rock radio stations for an article regarding the recent format change of Smithtown’s only radio station from rock to country music. When he arrived back in Smithtown shortly after midnight, Sam had played back the message Roger had left on his answering machine advising him to get in touch with him ASAP-that something “really big” had happened. Sam had promptly called the police department to learn that Roger was at the Bradley home investigating a murder. Sam had arrived at the Bradley’s just as they were wheeling Marsha’s body out.

  Roger Hagstrom had been sober and in rare form when Sam had gotten there. He’d never seen his friend as exasperated and stressed-out over a case in all the time he’d known him. Roger had later confided that he felt particularly uneasy about the murder and that he had a gut feeling that Marsha’s assailant was going to be tough to nab. Besides the fact that the police had so little to go on, his bet was that the murderer wasn’t a local man. He based this on what he already knew about Marsha Bradley. She had been an extraordinarily friendly, easy-going woman who was well-liked by everyone in town who had known her, and odds were that she had no enemies capable of disliking her enough to commit such a heinous assault. Her rape and murder, in fact, appeared to have been premeditated-well thought out in advance and executed without a hitch. Of course, Roger had gone on to say, someone local may have done it-nothing was impossible-but the odds were stacked against this. He conceded that until there was some kind of motive established, the murderer could theoretically have been just about anyone.