Color of Murder

by John Foxjohn

  In the third wing, she found what she looked for. Not only was the room empty, she knew a female lived there. She went in, closed the door and locked it behind her. She needed an hour only. If her luck held out that long, she’d look different.

  It took her longer than she expected, but an hour and half later, with everything cleaned up, she slipped out of the room. She didn’t believe anyone would ever know she’d used the apartment.

  In the hall, she breathed a relieved sigh and strolled away from the room, now with black hair and black eyebrows. Looking in the mirror when she finished, she couldn’t believe how much the coloring had changed her appearance.

  Checking her wallet, she counted her money and grimaced at the thirty-two dollars. She didn’t think she would need much, but had to eat. Glancing at her watch, she needed to kill a couple of hours, but didn’t want to go back to her car. She walked the block to the Hot Biscuit. When she had partied in Nacogdoches, she and her friends came to the restaurant after the Party Center closed.

  While she ate and drank coffee, killing time until dark, she figured she’d made only one mistake—not making sure she’d killed Joe Don. What got Mason on her so quick, she didn’t know. When she talked to Cosby in the store, he said they thought Joe Don would make it. If Joe Don had talked then, Cosby would’ve known it. She had hurried to the bank and Mason had rushed out. He already knew, but how?

  She’d spent her entire life in East Texas with nothing and no prospects of getting anything. She wanted to go places, do things, have things, not live from paycheck to paycheck. Her life after marriage revolved around clipping coupons out of circulars because she’d married a cop. She hadn’t realized how little the job paid. After she married, she had less than she had before.

  Attempting to talk Justin into getting a different job didn’t get her anywhere. He wouldn’t consider leaving law enforcement. After the first couple of years, she gave up trying, and then Peterson somehow got elected sheriff and for the first time, she had seen a way out.

  When she left the Hot Biscuit, she walked to the Party Center. When she entered, several people waited at a counter before they entered the bar. Behind the counter, a man younger than her with muscles on top of muscles checked ID’s as country music drifted from the back.

  Fear surged through her. She fought down the urge to leave. If they ID’d her and recognized the name on her driver’s license, her life was over. If she left, she had nowhere to go and no means to hide. She needed to take the chance with the ID. Even if he did see her name, he probably wouldn’t recognize it.

  Almost trembling, she waited her turn and gave her most dazzling smile, but he waved her on. She didn’t know whether to take that as an insult or not, but shrugged. What did it matter, she knew what she had—the right bait to catch the right fish.

  * * * *

  Like a puff of smoke, Melanie Milam had disappeared and it didn’t make David happy. They spent several hours interviewing family and friends, neighbors, but no one confessed to seeing her or knowing her whereabouts. David contacted the phone company and had traps placed on all immediate family and friends’ phones. All law enforcement agencies in the area were looking for her car. Lufkin police patrolled all businesses checking for the vehicle but came up blank.

  After he decided they’d done all they could for the time being, he called John in Houston. When John advised he had the statement from Hensley and the Houston field office had supplied people to guard him, David told him to come to Lufkin. When John arrived, Melissa gave David a hint that they hadn’t eaten and they went to a small café.

  Sitting in the back by themselves, Melissa asked, “How did you figure out Melanie Milam was involved?”

  David took a drink of his coffee before answering. “Something bothered me for a while, but I couldn’t figure out what. When I started the paperwork on Mor—”

  He took a deep breath. He had never called the dead agent by his first name, and now, he had trouble using his last name—too impersonal. He hadn’t liked him and he would have probably had to fire him from the team, but he owed the agent for saving his life.

  “When I started the paperwork on Dennis, it hit me.”

  “What hit you?” Melvin asked.

  “I have a friend in Houston who owns a large insurance company. He tried to get me to quit Houston PD and work for him. He told me that when he hired a new agent, he looked for two things. They had to believe in the concept of life insurance. He didn’t think people could sell it if they didn’t believe in it.”

  David stopped as the waitress came and refilled their drinks. When she left, Melissa prompted David to continue.

  “But more important, he also didn’t want the new agent he hired to have life insurance.”

  John shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “On the surface it may not, but when you look at the way insurance works, it does. When an insurance agent sells a policy to someone, that agent gets a commission from the sale. The owner of the agency also makes money from that sale. People pay on insurance every month, and every time they do, that agent who sold the policy gets some money and the owner of the agency gets some.”

  “Ah, I see,” Andy said. “The agent and the owner continue to make money off the policy as long as payments are made.”

  The waitress delivered their salads and David took a bite and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Exactly. Now, if he hires an agent without insurance, the first person they sell insurance to is?”

  “Themselves,” Melissa finished for him. “It would make sense for new agents to sell themselves life insurance because they would continue to make money on it as long as they had it, making it cheap. Even if they already had insurance, they could drop it and sell one to themselves.”

  With his mouth full, David only nodded. He swallowed, drank from his coffee. They remained quiet while they ate. David needed to talk to them, but he didn’t want food to get in the way of the conversation. When everyone had finished, the table clear, David advised the waitress they didn’t need anything else. When she gave him the bill, he looked from agent to agent. “I need to talk to you about this investigation. “From the beginning, I screwed it all up.”

  Melissa shook her head. “David, we helped. We’re as much to blame as you are.”

  “I know, but I am in charge. Besides, I am the experienced one.”

  Andy asked, “What’d you do wrong?”

  “First thing, I tried to play chess when the game was checkers. In other words, I out-smarted myself. I tried to find complex solutions when the answers were simple. When we first started this, I told all of you that murders follow the SMR pattern—sex, money, or revenge.”

  He took a breath and looked out the window of the restaurant for a moment. It wasn’t easy for him to admit he had screwed up. He leaned back in his seat. “I also told you that ninety-nine percent of all homicides are committed by family and friends. I let the smoke screen thrown up take me away from that. Good investigators start close to the victim and work out.”

  “David, we did look at Melanie Milam,” Melvin said.

  “Melvin, we looked at her, but we didn’t investigate her and we should have. That is where I screwed up.”

  John held his hands out to the side. “But David—I—messed it—up. You—told me to—check it.”

  David nodded and looked at Melissa. “I want all of you to keep this in mind. If you stay in the bureau long enough, one day you will be supervisors. Leaders don’t tell their people to do things and forget it. Supervisors need to check and make sure their people do the job right. All of you are new to this type of investigation. My job was to supervise, but teach, also. I didn’t do either well.”

  Moments passed before anyone said anything. Andy broke the silence. “This followed the SMR pattern—money.”

  David nodded. “Green money. What the old timers call the color of murder.”

  * * * *

  Melanie Milam didn’t have the luck
she had hoped for. Several men bought her drinks and danced with her, but most were college boys and that wasn’t what she needed. Another was married and she couldn’t use him. The last one to come by showed some possibilities. He bought her a drink and they danced a couple of times. He said he drove a truck cross-country.

  At least that would get her out of Texas. He returned and they had another dance. When she sat down, she had to come on to him. A tap on her shoulder interrupted her and another man asked her to dance. One more and she would devote her time to the truck driver.

  When she sat down again, he asked if he could buy her a drink. She looked around and her truck driver was dancing with someone else. She shrugged.

  After he sat, they began talking and it didn’t take long to realize this was the one she had hoped to find. He worked offshore—two weeks at work and two weeks off, and had to return to work the next afternoon. More important, he had his own place and lived alone.

  She devoted her attention and charms to him and an hour later, she let him talk her into going to his place. She acted tipsy and he put his arm around her to help her to his truck. Before they left, she gave him the key to her car and asked him to get her suitcase.

  She watched as he approached the car and retrieved the suitcase, and breathed a relieved sigh when the FBI didn’t swoop down on him.

  He lived about ten blocks from the nightclub in a two-story garage apartment. A driveway led beside a brick home to the rear and allowed access to the apartment. That was even better than she had hoped.

  Inside the apartment, he was all over her, feeling, kissing, and attempting to undress her. Still acting tipsy, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Be patient darling, I need to go to the bathroom, first.”

  “There she is,” he pointed to a closed door. “Hurry, though.”

  She gave him her sexiest smile, walked in, and closed the door. Minutes later, she returned, but now he lay on the bed, night light on and that was all. Buck naked, he showed all his excitement. She walked to the edge of the bed and unbuttoned her blouse, letting it fall to the floor. She attempted to reach her back to undo her bra but couldn’t seem to reach it.

  With a big grin, he motioned her to come to him. “I’ll get it for you.”

  She swayed on her feet and playfully motioned for him to come to her. As he rose, she stepped back and when he came after her, she lunged, thrusting with all her might. The Buck knife went in to the hilt.

  Breath swooshed out and his mouth formed a large O as he grabbed with both hands for his stomach. She thrust again, and this time the knife blade entered between two ribs and pierced his heart.

  Without uttering a word, he fell forward. She stepped out of the way and he hit the floor like a fishing sinker.

  After putting her blouse on, she went into the kitchen to see if he had any food. She lucked out, he did. She poured a glass of coke and made a sandwich. She ate and walked into the bedroom, turning the lights on, but he hadn’t moved. She checked his pulse, not about to make the same mistake she had with Joe Don.

  Satisfied, she looked around. She needed to get the body out of there. It would start stinking, but she couldn’t carry him down the steps, and if she tried, someone might see her.

  She went to the window and raised it. A smile broke on her face. Her luck had held. In the back, the apartment butted close to woods and no houses or anyone around.

  She opened the window all the way, pulled the curtains back, and dragged the body to the window. It still took her thirty tiring minutes to get him high enough, and when he fell out the window, she dropped to the floor, breathing hard.

  Loading the body in the back of his truck proved easier than throwing him out the window—although she wished she could’ve dropped him from the window into the truck bed. She found a tarp behind the truck seat and covered him, and placed the spare tire on the tarp to make sure it didn’t blow out.

  Five minutes later, she headed out of town. North of Nacogdoches she found a farm-to-market road that turned into dirt. In the light of the moon, she opened the tailgate and dragged the body into the woods. She didn’t have a shovel, but covered the body with leaves.

  Undetected, she headed to her new home.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Gone—vanished—disappeared. That’s the only words I have to describe it,” David said on the phone. He sat in his room with the other agents and talked to Beeker. In the midst of the most massive manhunt in East Texas history, no one had a clue where she had gone.

  Three days had passed and fourteen hundred and thirty-two calls came in reporting sightings of Melanie Milam. People had seen her in Houston, Shreveport, Louisiana, Longview, Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Tyler, and just about every place in between.

  They didn’t have the manpower to check all of them, just the ones that sounded halfway credible. When they checked them, they weren’t credible at all.

  After David hung up, he rubbed his tired eyes. They were using every resource at their disposal, but everyone would drop if he kept up this pace. He glanced around at the agents. Melvin sat straight, eyes dropping and beside him, John had his eyes open but his body sagged on the sofa.

  He stood and clapped his hands. Eyes popped open and chins snapped up. “Get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  Andy heaved himself up. “Is there any other kind?”

  When the agents plodded out, he attempted to complete paperwork, but his eyes didn’t cooperate and he had to stop. He leaned his head back to rest a moment.

  He woke up the next morning with an ache in his back and crick in his neck. After a hot shower, he felt better and had just finished dressing when someone knocked. He let Melissa in and had her call the others while he made coffee.

  Sipping their coffee, the agents sat around and discussed where Melanie Milam might have gone. The men all gave their ideas, but they were as good as the ones that David could come up with—which meant she would be behind bars now if she had done any of those things. David turned to Melissa. “If you were in her place, what would you do?”

  She smoothed a strand of stray hair from her eyes and frowned. “I guess I would try to fake some ID’s and get out of here.”

  David rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You’re thinking like an FBI agent. Try thinking like a young woman on the run from us.”

  Melissa tapped on her cheek for several moments and then frowned. “If I was in her place I wouldn’t do any of the things we have come up with. She needs to hide and with someone who doesn’t know who she is because she can’t trust anyone. She can’t go to family and friends. If she had, we would’ve caught her. The likelihood is she doesn’t have that much money and fake IDs cost a lot of money.”

  “Then what would you do?” Melvin asked.

  “She has one asset we haven’t considered and if I was in her place, I’d use it.”

  David nodded several times and took a deep breath. That had not occurred to him and it should have.

  “What?” John asked.

  Melissa chuckled when Andy rolled his eyes. “John—women have certain powers over men. She uses it right and they will do what she wants.”

  David let the banter go back and forth for a minute before he broke it up. “How would you find him?”

  “In a bar, of course. That is a man’s meat market.”

  David believed she had something. That made sense and nothing else they’d tried had worked out. He tapped on the table. “But not in Lufkin.”

  Melissa shook her head. “Nope. All the cops here know her. She would need to get out of Lufkin. I’d bet money she left town.”

  Andy leaned back and crossed his knee. “I agree with what you’re saying to a point. The question is, how did she get away in her car? And why hasn’t anyone found the car?”

  David got up and poured another cup of coffee. He sat when no one else wanted any. He took a sip and pointed the cup at Melissa. “I agree, too. But I don’t think she would take a chance on seducing a man
and having him recognize her and turn her in.”

  As the agents debated this, David reached for the phone, dialed the Nacogdoches police department and asked if they had any reports of missing men. When they told him they didn’t, he called the sheriff’s department and asked to speak to Joe.

  “Nope. No missing men,” Joe said. David held on while the sheriff talked to someone in his office. A couple of minutes later, Joe came back on. “What we do have is a damn homicide. I wish you could take a few minutes and come up here and give me some advice.”

  David started to tell him he didn’t have the time, but that wasn’t the truth. He had the time. He wasn’t doing anything else. Besides, he would be twenty miles and a phone call away in case something turned up.

  “Okay. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  David hung up on Joe when the sheriff asked him to bring Melissa, too.

  He rubbed his hands together. “I’m driving to Nacogdoches. While I am gone, start with Milam’s friends again and see if you can come up with something. This time, plug in Nacogdoches and see what they say about it.”

  David found Joe behind his desk, grumpy and swimming in papers. David sat across from him. “Whatcha got on this homicide?”

  Joe leaned back and scratched. “White male in his early thirties. Found yesterday by a couple of kids riding dirt bikes in the county. Someone stabbed him twice and dumped the body. Covered it with leaves. Buck-naked and no ID or anything. We haven’t identified him, either.”

  “You have a time of death yet?”

  Joe shook his head. “Just a guess from the coroner. Autopsy isn’t complete yet. Doc said anytime from forty-eight to seventy-two hours, but that is a guess.”

  Joe propped his boots on his desk. “This is where we need your help. What’s next?”