Murder One

by William Bernhardt

  “Just give me a call when you’re ready to come over.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She pressed her firm body against him and gave him a long sweet kiss. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Ben watched as her black-clad figure moved away. It seemed as though the further she went, the sharper and more intensely her taste lingered on his lips.

  “So, kemo sabe. Hitting on women at funerals now?”

  Ben pivoted around. “Mike!” He reached out and clapped his friend’s arms. “When did you get back in town?”

  Major Mike Morelli grinned, then shoved his fists deep into the pockets of his unseasonable trenchcoat. “Just last night, as it happens.”

  “Was your mission a success? Did you catch the bad guy?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Yeah. You and Dudley Do-Right.”

  “But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Couldn’t stay out of trouble while I was gone, huh? Not even for a few weeks.”

  “So you’ve heard? Those clowns you work with at Tulsa P.D. actually arrested me.”

  “I’ve heard. Penelope gave me the full scoop last night when I got in.” He paused. “I’m sorry you had to endure that.”

  “You and me both. If I go my whole life without again experiencing delousing, that’ll be just fine.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help.”

  “I don’t think it was a coincidence. I think Matthews and his cronies waited until you went undercover to make their move.”

  “No doubt. I guess you’ve heard—Matthews has been suspended. I don’t know if he’ll ever work as a police officer again. Frank Bailey is being investigated by IA. They’ll come up with some kind of punishment for him, but the general feeling is that he was more a follower than a leader. And he did come clean at trial, more or less. That counts in his favor.”

  “I agree. I don’t want to see any more people hurt by this. They were all basically pawns in Andrea McNaughton’s revenge game. Like I was just telling Keri, I think we should put this behind us. Move on.”

  “Noble sentiments. And speaking of your client Keri …” He leaned in a little closer and winked. “I gather the relationship has moved somewhat beyond attorney-client.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “Oh, mainly that twenty-second smooch I just observed.” He jabbed Ben in the ribs. “You old chick magnet, you.”

  Ben pushed him away. “I want to make it clear that we didn’t let this thing develop until after the case was completed.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, maybe there were one or two slips. Three, actually. But still—”

  Mike held up his hands. “Relax, Ben. I’m certain that whatever you did, you did it in a morally responsible, hand-wringingly ethical manner.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means chill out. I’m your friend. And I’m glad to see you finally connecting with someone.”

  Ben tilted his head to one side. “I have to admit, I’m feeling a little guilty about the whole situation.”

  “What, because of the attorney-client thing?”

  “No. Because of her age. Which is roughly half mine.”

  “You’re exaggerating. Besides, she’s an adult and she can make choices for herself. You’re not breaking any laws.”

  “No, not quite.”

  “You’re probably the best thing that ever happened to that poor girl.”

  “Maybe, but still—”

  “My God, Ben. Are you totally incapable of being happy? You’ve got a good thing here. Don’t spoil it haranguing yourself because she’s younger than you.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Ben glanced up at the cloudless sky. It was fairly warm out, especially for this time of year in Oklahoma. “So when are we going to get together so I can hear about this archcriminal you tracked down? There’s a game on tonight.”

  “Sounds good. We can drink beer, swap stories, and you can pretend to understand football. Say, my place at eight?”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Ben glanced at his watch. “What are you doing now?”

  “Oh, work, what else? Now that I’m back, they’ve dragged me into the cleanup of this Joe McNaughton disaster. Well, triumph for you. Disaster for us.”

  “What’s left to do?”

  “For LaBelle, major damage control. When that verdict came down, he saw his reelection bid flittering away right before his eyes. He hasn’t decided whom to blame yet—the judge, the jury, you—but I can guarantee he’ll be on the evening news soon ranting about this miscarriage of justice.”

  “And for you?”

  “Well, we finally found the dive where Kirk Dalcanton lived after he moved away from his sister. Man, you thought the place where she lived was grim—you should see this hellhole. I didn’t think dives like this still existed in Tulsa.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  “Oh, everything. Look for any additional proof that he was the murderer. Catalog his belongings, which I guess are now his sister’s belongings, since she’s his only living relative. In fact, there’s some stuff you could take over to her. And judging by that last kiss, you’re going to be seeing her soon.”

  “Let me think. Do I want to deliver to Keri her dead brother’s belongings? I think that’s a no.”

  “Come on, kemo sabe. It would save me a lot of time.”

  Ben frowned. “I’m entirely too soft. But I missed you, you big lug.”

  Mike fluttered his eyelashes. “I love it when you sweet-talk me.”

  Half an hour later, Mike parked his TransAm in front of a dilapidated flophouse just a few blocks from central downtown. Some parts of Tulsa’s downtown area had been refurbished in recent years, giving people more and more reason to venture northward, even during nonwork hours: Greenwood, the Brady, OSU-Tulsa, Gilcrease Museum. Almost every time Ben came downtown it seemed he discovered something new and charming. But there were also isolated pockets of the past, places where it seemed nothing had changed for decades—except maybe for the worse.

  Kirk’s apartment—his room, to be more accurate, was barely habitable. The two-story house was a faded grayish color, so ill-maintained and uncared for that as he looked at it, Ben wondered that it could even remain standing. This place could be a poster house for landlords everywhere: DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

  Kirk had the room at the top, a converted attic, which Mike informed Ben he had rented for a whopping twenty dollars a week. As Ben stepped through the creaking door, he was almost knocked over by the putrid odor that assaulted him.

  “How could anyone live here?”

  The tiny room was so cluttered with stuff the two men could barely get from one end of it to the other. Despite the haste of his move, Kirk seemed to have taken with him everything that was of the remotest importance to him.

  “Anyway,” Mike said, “you can see that most of this clutter is just personal junk. Not going to help us understand anything about the murder. Not worth anything to anyone, except maybe his sister. And in most cases, probably not her. But someone has to take it.”

  Ben pushed his way through the room. “Funny, isn’t it? Or not funny at all. Depressing. Some of this stuff must’ve been special to him. He may have used it, or looked at it, every day. But now he’s gone and—pow. One week later, it’ll all be on the scrap heap.”

  Ben saw some books, a few CDs. Kirk seemed to favor country-western, not exactly surprising for a boy from Stroud. Several Bibles, also not a gigantic surprise. Ben picked one up and found numerous passages underlined in red. In some cases, messages were scrawled in the margins, in what had to be Kirk’s handwriting.

  “Kirk was seriously into the Good Book,” Ben murmured.

  “No surprise there,” Mike replied. “Don’t get me wrong. The Bible’s a great read, especially the King James Version. But it’s also a standard volume in the library of virtually every psycho you’ll ever meet in this neck of t
he woods.”

  Ben kept sorting. He found a couple of magazines on tattooing and other means of “bodily enhancement.” “There are magazines about tattooing? Three different ones?”

  “Ben, there are magazines about everything. We live in the era of the niche audience.”

  “I guess so.” He was surprised that he found only one photograph, of Kirk’s sister, Keri. It had to be several years old; Keri looked thirteen at best. But it was lovingly framed, even cleaned, unlike everything else in the room.

  “He loved his sister so much,” Ben commented. “I can’t even conceive of devotion of that magnitude.”

  “Just as well you can’t,” Mike said. “Given what it led him to.”

  Ben continued looking. He realized this was not much different from sorting through a dead man’s pockets, but it was fascinating, all the same. After pushing aside some decorative brass doodads, he found a large cardboard box. “What on earth could this be?”

  He opened it up—and gasped.

  “What?” Mike said, whipping his head around. “What is it?”

  Ben stared into the box, his mouth open, his eyes wide. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” Mike repeated. He stumbled toward his friend, knocking over items right and left. He peered into the box. “Okay, so what? I don’t get it.”

  “No, you couldn’t. But I do.” Ben’s eyes seemed glassy and fixed. “Oh, my God. I do.”

  Mike grabbed his shoulders. “Would you stop that? Tell me what’s going on!”

  “I can’t.” He pressed his fingers against his forehead. “My God, how could I be so stupid? How could I be so blind?”

  Mike was getting angry. “Would you please tell me what you’re talking about?”

  Ben ignored him. He pulled away, grabbed his coat, and headed toward the door. “I’m sorry, Mike. I have to go. There’s someone I have to talk to.” He rushed out the front door and started down the decaying staircase. “Now.”

  50

  IT WAS TAKING HER an inordinate amount of time to answer the door, Ben thought, as he paced back and forth in the narrow hallway. He knew she was home; he could hear noises inside. So why wasn’t she answering? The delay was only increasing his tension level. Because, of course, deep down, he didn’t really want that door to open. He dreaded the conversation he knew would follow. But there was no avoiding it.

  At last the apartment door opened, and a patch of disheveled platinum blond hair became visible through the opening. “Ben?”

  Ben peered through the chained gap, not sure what to say first. “I need to talk with you, Keri.”

  Keri licked her lips, then forced a smile. “Sure, honey. I want to see you, too. It’s just—I told you to call first. I want to look my best for you. Could you come back—”

  “We need to talk now.”

  “Couldn’t it wait until I’ve had a chance—”

  “No. Now.”

  With obvious reluctance, Keri slid the chain out of the lock and opened the door. Ben stepped inside. She was barely dressed, wearing only a T-shirt and panties, and the shirt was on backwards. Her near perfect figure was on display and impossible not to notice, but Ben tried to put it out of his mind.

  Ben glanced around the apartment, which was a mess. Books were off shelves, tables were cleared. Large cardboard boxes cluttered the room. “You’re moving.”

  The rise and fall of her chest did magnificent things to her near-transparent white T-shirt. “Yes, Ben, I am. You know this place is a dump. Now that the trial is over, I wanted someplace a little nicer—”

  “You’re leaving town, aren’t you?”

  She sighed. “Yes, Ben. For a while, anyway. I need to make a fresh start. Someplace where everyone doesn’t think of me as a former murder defendant.”

  “Were you planning to tell me?”

  “How can you say that? Of course I was. You know how … how I feel about you.” She reached out and twined her fingers around his. “Actually, I was hoping you might come with me.”

  Ben slapped her hand away. “Stop that.”

  Keri recoiled, staring deep into his eyes. “Ben, what’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Something about the case?” Deep creases crossed her brow. “They’re not going to try me again, are they?”

  “No, you’re off once and for all this time. Never in a million years could the D.A. get the appeals court to set aside an acquittal twice. Especially not after the case has gone to the jury.”

  “Then what?”

  Ben turned away. This was hard enough to do without having to stare at that magnificent figure, beautiful hair, deep blue eyes. “The police found the place where your brother was holed up. After he left here.”

  “I know.” She paused. “And?”

  “And I’ve been there.”

  “Ben … is there more to this? ’Cause I’m not really getting it …”

  “I had a lovely opportunity to sort through all his personal belongings. Everything he left behind.” He stopped and, unable to resist, he turned to face her. “Including his exercise equipment.”

  Keri’s eyebrows rose. “His …?”

  “You heard me. What is that, a Stairmaster or something? Whatever. The point is, Kirk had it. But you know what I think? I think it used to be in your apartment. You said in court you didn’t own anything like that and it was probably true—because it was Kirk’s. And he took it with him when he left. But it used to be in your apartment. It was there when you had the knock-down-drag-out with Andrea McNaughton. She fell back and hurt herself on it. Just like she said in court. Right?”

  Keri did not immediately answer.

  Ben’s teeth clenched tighter together. “Am I right?”

  She still did not reply.

  “I thought so. But what I don’t get is, why did Andrea ‘confess’ that she had invented that detail when I called her back to the stand? That was a critical moment in her testimony. After I showed she had lied once, it was all a downward spiral. The jury never believed her again. But it was true! You really did have exercise equipment in your apartment.”

  Keri’s eyes slowly rose to meet his. “It’s true, Ben. My parents bought that thing for Kirk, back when they were still in our hair. I think they saw it on some infomercial and thought it would be good for him.”

  “So why did Andrea lie about it?”

  Keri hesitated.

  Another voice shattered the silence. “I can explain that.”

  Ben whirled around. His lips parted, stunned.

  Andrea McNaughton was standing in the rear of the apartment.

  “So,” Andrea said, “Encyclopedia Brown finally figured a thing or two out, huh?” She crossed the room, passing Ben nonchalantly, and positioned herself on the lumpy couch. “Very impressive.”

  Keri glared at her. “Shut up, Andrea.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way.”

  “I said, shut up!”

  “Keri—”

  “Listen to me!” Veins became visible on Keri’s porcelain white neck. “I’m still his client. Anything I say to him is protected by that privilege deal. He can’t repeat it, and even if he did, the cops couldn’t use it. But you’re not his client. Anything you say he can repeat all over town. So keep your lip zipped.”

  Ben stared at them both, his face transfixed by the dawning horror. “You did it together.” He backed away from them. “You were both in on it together.”

  Keri rolled her eyes. “Took you long enough, didn’t it?”

  “I—I should’ve seen—”

  “Yeah, you should’ve. But you didn’t. Like most men, your mind was somewhere else whenever I was around.” Keri laughed shrill and brittle. “You probably said a million times, one petite nineteen-year-old girl wouldn’t have enough strength to pull off this crime. And you were right. But two women working together—that’s another thing altogether.”

  “But you two hate ea
ch other.”

  “Do we?” Keri smiled and then, touching her fingers to her lips, blew Andrea a kiss. “Men are so easily deceived.”

  “But, all those fights—I saw them—”

  “Staged. That time Andrea came to your office because she supposedly wanted to tell Christina something? Wrong. She came to stage a fight. For your benefit.”

  “That can’t be.” Ben struggled to make sense of it all. “I saw the way you two went at each other. That was real.”

  “Sure it was, Ben. Just like professional wrestling.” She laughed, then leaned toward Andrea. “The truth of the matter is, we’re very close, aren’t we, dear?” Andrea pressed close to her, and the two women locked lips for a deep and passionate kiss.

  Ben braced himself against the wall. The room seemed to be moving, revolving around him. “But—why?”

  Keri broke off the kiss and started to answer, but Andrea threw a sofa pillow at her. “Keep those pert little lips closed.”

  “He can’t do anything about it, Andrea. He’s sworn to secrecy. Besides the case is over. I can’t be retried, and the cops will never admit they made a mistake and go after someone else. Right, Ben?” She grinned. “It’s over.”

  “I asked you a question,” Ben said, his voice hollow. “Why?”

  “I’m afraid the answer to that question is all too pedestrian. Money. Joe had a lot of it, remember?”

  “But Andrea was already married to him.”

  “He wasn’t sharing.”

  “She could divorce him. By law, the money would be half hers.”

  “Actually, no. The money was in a trust fund from his grandparents, remember? And Joe was the beneficiary. So the money went to him and him alone. In the event of a divorce, she would get nothing. There was a time when Joe shared the loot with his beloved, but after things got frosty between them, he stopped. So what could she do? Divorce wouldn’t help her get her hands on the goodies. But if Joe died, and Andrea was the beneficiary of his will, which she was, the proceeds of the trust fund would go to her. So he had to die.”

  “And you helped?”

  “Strange world, isn’t it? Who would’ve ever thought the two of us would get together? When Andrea came to my apartment that night, she was ready to tear my eyes out, just like she said. We had a bit of a tussle. Not quite as violent as she described it, but it was still a major league turn-on. Rolling around on the floor, our bodies pressed together. I thought she was hot, and I guess she felt the same way about me. Ten minutes after she arrived, we were making out like nobody’s business. And when that was finished, we talked. To make a long story short, we realized we had a lot in common. Like for instance, that we’d both be better off if Joe McNaughton was dead.”