Color of Murder

by John Foxjohn

  David rubbed his chin and his whiskers scratched. He wished he’d taken the time to shave before he came, but forgot to. “First thing in any homicide is to identify the body. Without witnesses or anything, it is hard to get anywhere without the ID. When you get it, start back-tracking the victim.” He frowned. “You say no one has reported anyone missing?”

  “No, and that is the first thing I checked.”

  “Do you have pictures of him?”

  Joe took out his pack of Redman and put a healthy glob in his mouth. “Yep,” he said through the tobacco.

  “You might make copies and have your deputies show it around.”

  David and Joe talked for several minutes. As David pulled out of the parking lot his car phone rang. He pulled to the side of the road. He didn’t like to talk on the thing while driving. When he picked it up, Melissa asked him where he was.

  His heart skipped a beat. Dang he hoped nothing happened while he was in Nacogdoches talking to the sheriff about a homicide that had nothing to do with him, his investigation, and he had no jurisdiction in to begin with. “Sheriff’s department. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I talked to one of Melanie Milam’s friends. The friend graduated from that college in Nacogdoches. She said that she and Melanie used to go to a night club there all the time called the Party Center.”

  David tapped on the wheel. His heart skipped a beat. Things in his mind clicked like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. “Hmm, that is interesting.”

  “You want me to come there and check it out?” Melissa asked.

  “What’s the address?” When she told him, he told her to meet him there. He whipped back into the sheriff’s department parking lot and asked Joe for one of the pictures of the murder victim. The sheriff asked him what was going on. He explained, and Joe handed him the picture. “You say your assistant is meeting you at the Party Center?”

  David told him yes and rolled his eyes when the sheriff told him he wanted to tag along, too.

  As Melissa hung up with David, she realized he had something different in his voice—an excitement she hadn’t heard in a while. He thought he had something. A tremendous investigator, he sometimes went away from the norm and followed his instincts. David’s instincts, or whatever they were, made him one of the best. Henry, David’s old partner, had told her once that David should go with his instincts because they never failed him.

  She hurried to her car and headed north. In a way, she wanted to get this case over with and get on with their careers. Get on with whatever the bureau had in store for the team. They hadn’t heard anything in a while about the new team, Houston or anything. The bureau had in the past assigned people to things and changed their minds.

  On the other hand, she got to work with David, spend a huge amount of time with him. It didn’t matter that they were working, as long as she could see him, be close. Maybe in the long run, it would be best if the bureau did split the team up—send her someplace away from David. As long as it wasn’t back to shuffling papers, she could learn to deal with it.

  When she found and pulled into the bar parking lot, David got out and so did his passenger. She groaned seeing the sheriff and his hungry wolf expression.

  When she got out, he said, “Howdy, darling,” in his East Texas drawl.

  She closed her jacket before replying. “Howdy, you horny old bastard.”

  David chuckled. “She has you down pat, Joe.”

  With a Texas-size grin, Joe removed his hat and wiped the hair that used to be there. “Damned if she don’t.”

  Melissa let it drop. Joe seemed like a nice guy and she knew David liked him. Besides, she believed he was harmless. If she came on to him he’d run like a scared rabbit. “What do you have?” she asked David.

  “A hunch. Melanie Milam spent a lot of time at this bar when she was in college. We think she might be in this area and she might pick someone up at a bar. Now, we have a dead male body turn up. A young male stabbed to death, but more than that, no one has reported anyone missing. That is the perfect way to disappear—a total stranger to her.”

  Joe nodded. “You know, you might have something there.”

  Although the front door to the club was open, no one appeared to be around. David yelled, “Anyone here?”

  Moments later a man with a frown came out of the back room. “We’re closed and I don’t want to buy anything.”

  Melissa stepped forward. “Good. We aren’t selling anything.” She flashed her badge and identified who they were.

  He stepped forward and looked at the badge for a long moment, glancing up at Melissa. “What’re you doing in my club?”

  Melissa put her badge case up. “If this is your club, we’re looking for you.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you. Now leave.”

  Joe stepped forward, caught Melissa’s arms and eased her back. He turned to David. “Would you two mind stepping out for a moment.”

  David nodded and strolled out the door. Melissa hesitated, but followed. When they closed the door, she put her hands on her hips. “Why’d we leave?”

  “This is one of those times when it is good to have local help. The sheriff can talk to him in ways we can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re only here for a short time. The sheriff is here for good, and he can put economic pressure on the owner that we can’t.”

  Unsure what David meant, she nodded because she didn’t want to pursue it any more at the moment. Then Joe opened the door and motioned them in. They found a cooperative owner. If she had the chance, she needed to ask the sheriff about their little conversation. She needed to file this tidbit of information away. In many ways, they were lucky to have David with them. Without the local help they’d received, she didn’t believe they would have come close to solving this case. The amount of help the locals gave them had everything to do with David. He talked to them and they treated him like a cop, not an interloping FBI agent.

  Inside, David showed the owner the picture of the dead male. The owner said he’d never seen him, but didn’t spend much time in the nightclub. They could show it to his bartenders—they were in his office. He told them in a sarcastic tone that they were having a meeting when they interrupted him.

  Of the six bartenders, the first four looked at the picture and shook their heads—the fifth one looked at it and glanced up. “This is Jimmy Lawson.”

  “Are you sure?” David asked.

  “Yep. We went to high school together. He comes in here all the time.”

  Melissa snatched her spiral notebook and pen out. “How do you spell his name?”

  When he spelled it for her, she asked, “When did you see him in here last?”

  The bartender pulled on his nose a couple of times before answering. “Three or four days ago. Maybe five. I can’t remember the exact date but I talked to him for a few minutes when we were slow and he said he was leaving the next day to go to work.”

  “Did he leave by himself?” Melissa asked.

  The bartender shrugged. “I don’t know. I got busy and didn’t see him again.”

  “Where did he work?” David asked.

  “Offshore.”

  Joe removed his hat and patted his leg with it. “She found a perfect one.”

  Melissa and the bartender looked at Joe with confused expressions, but David, lips thinned, nodded, thanked the bartender and owner, spun and marched out the door.

  Outside, David stopped, examining vehicles in the parking lot. Melissa put her hands on hips. “Okay I missed something in there. What?”

  “You being from up north and everything probably don’t know what working off-shore means, but this dead guy works on an oil rig in the gulf. He works two weeks and is off two weeks. No one would miss him for the two weeks he is supposed to be gone on the oil rig.”

  Melissa’s eyes widened but she didn’t say anything because David didn’t. He stood with his hands on hips looking at the parking lot and she wonder
ed why. Odors from nearby restaurants made her stomach rumble. She hoped they’d take a break soon, but lunch might be out of the question. David had a hunter’s scent and might not stop to eat.

  When he strode toward his car without saying anything, she followed, and stopped and tilted her head when he passed by his car. “David. Where’re you going?”

  He didn’t respond, but stopped, hands on hips, at a car that looked similar to the one Melanie Milam owned. Melissa glanced at the license plate. “Looks the same but it isn’t. Has different plates.”

  Shock registered across her face when he bent and peeled off a piece of tape.

  “I be damned,” Joe said.

  David tapped on his lips for several long moments. Melissa wanted to say something, know what went on in his mind at times like this. She knew that tapping mannerism meant he was deep in thought—but about what?

  At last, David turned to face them. “We have hunted her like a normal civilian. Looking at things a normal person would do if they ran and that is why she disappeared. She isn’t a cop, but she married one—listened to no telling how many stories. This is an old trick with the tape.”

  Joe turned his head, spit a glob of tobacco, and pushed his hat back. “What do we do now?”

  “I’m calling the Nacogdoches police chief and getting them involved. Melissa, get the other agents here. Joe, can you find out where this Lawson lived?”

  Without saying anything, Melissa hurried to the bar and Joe reached for the walkie-talkie in his coat pocket, but David caught his arm. “Not over the radio. She might have a scanner.”

  He nodded and mumbled he hadn’t thought about that. While Joe walked toward the bar too, David used his car phone to call the chief. After the chief told him he’d send some people and cooperate with them, David hung up and waited for everyone to arrive.

  As an experienced investigator, he ran through his actions since taking control of the investigation. He believed they neared the end of it, but couldn’t help seeing all of his mistakes—mistakes veteran investigators shouldn’t make. At first, he let his emotions and desire for revenge get in his way. His friendship with Justin clouded his objectivity.

  But more than that, his big title, new job, and new working environment contributed to his mistakes. Somewhere along the line, he forgot that he simply needed to investigate a murder. No matter how Milam set it up, the smoke thrown up, false trails, and who died, the crime was murder.

  People died—he’d have to live with that—Morgan died—because of his mistakes.

  He spun when someone tapped on his shoulder, and Melissa stared with a concerned expression.

  “Team’s on the way. They should be here in fifteen minutes.” She tilted her head. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay. Let’s finish this.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Three hours later, all agents, Joe, and several NPD detectives and patrolmen milled about in a brick house on Pearl Street. The rear of the house gave them an unobstructed view of the garage apartment. The owners of the house rented the apartment to the dead man, and they hadn’t spoken with him since he paid his rent a couple of weeks before. They told David the apartment had no other entrance besides the stairs they could see.

  David, not wanting civilians in the area, got them a motel room.

  As David looked out the window, someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, a salesman hawking encyclopedias gave him a big smile and a brochure and started into his sales pitch before David could say anything.

  When he finished, David smiled. “Come in, please.” He stepped aside and the man entered, but all the law enforcement people in the house stopped him as if he’d run into an invisible wall.

  Edging to the door, the salesman held up one hand, palm toward them, and put his briefcase in front of him. “I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t want to. If it’s all the same to y’all, I’ll leave.”

  Melvin stepped in front of the door to stop his retreat.

  The salesman bumped into Melvin, jerked his head around, then back to David. “I ain’t done anything wrong.”

  David motioned to the dining room table. “Have a seat for a moment.” When the man hesitated, David motioned to the table again. “Have a seat, please.”

  When he sat, David pulled out a chair across from him, sat, and flashed his badge, identifying himself. As the salesman’s pancake eyes stared at him, David said, “I know you haven’t done anything, but you might be able to help us.”

  When the man pointed to his own chest in a silent question, David continued. “We have a slight problem. We believe there is a killer holed up in the apartment behind this house. Our problem is, we don’t know for sure and need to find out.”

  The salesman’s eyes grew larger and he found his voice. “I’m not going to find out for you!”

  David chuckled. “We don’t need you to do anything but let us use your brochures and sales case. We’ll do the rest. What’s your name?”

  “Herman Choate.” He reached down, jerked the case up, and slid it across the table. “You want it, you can have it.”

  “Think this will work?” Joe asked.

  David rubbed his mouth. “Not sure, but I think we need to try. Have to find out if she is in that apartment.”

  Melissa, who sat by the rear window, rose. “I’ll do it.”

  David shook his head. “Can’t. You, Andy, and me interviewed her. She’ll recognize us.”

  Melissa sat again. “I forgot about that. Who then?”

  David examined the group and his gaze lingered on Melvin. “You feel like acting like a salesman?”

  “I guess I can. What do you want me to do?”

  “If she is as smart as we think, she isn’t going to answer that door,” Andy said.

  David removed his suit coat and laid it over the back of a chair. “Don’t think she will, either. I want Melvin to go out the front, get in his car and pull up to the apartment. Take the case and brochure and knock on the door a couple of times. If she doesn’t answer, he can put the brochure in the door. She may open up to see what he left when he leaves. If she does, we’ll know.”

  Melvin nodded and moved toward the door, but Joe stopped him. “No door to door salesman dresses as well as he is.”

  Melvin took his suit coat and tie off and asked one of the detectives if he could borrow his coat. With the detective’s nondescript winter coat, Melvin looked average. He smiled and saluted them, heading out the door.

  Melvin pulled up, trudged up the steps and rapped on the door. He waited a minute and rapped again. When no one answered, he opened the screen door and wedged the brochure in.

  Minutes later, Melvin returned as everyone found some place to look out. Five minutes later, a dark-haired woman cracked the door open. Stuck her head out, looked in all directions, bent to pick up the brochure that fell when she opened the door, and ducked inside.

  “David—that’s not Melanie Milam,” Andy said.

  * * * *

  Three days had passed since Melanie Milam had dumped the body and moved into his apartment. She hadn’t left the apartment or even gone outside. She spent her time with the TV and radio on, listening to the news, but no one reported finding the body. As long as they didn’t find it, she was okay. If they found it, she would have to run again.

  She’d need to anyway in a week or so when the guy was due back from his job. People may come to visit, see his truck and think something was wrong when he didn’t answer the door.

  The first time the phone rang it scared her to death, and she didn’t answer it. It rang a couple of more times and she did answer. The first, a woman had the wrong number, and the second one asked to leave a message for Gerry. She took it and wondered if that was the dead guy. He’d told her his name but she couldn’t remember it. Didn’t matter anyway.

  The knock on the door scared her worse than the phone, and she didn’t dare answer it. She crept to the window and peeked out, but couldn’t see who had knocked. A
fter the second knock, something scraped in the door and a man she didn’t know got in his car and backed out.

  Slumping with frightened fatigue, Melanie took several deep breaths. She’d held her breath the entire time the man knocked. What had he put in the door? It might be important and she had to open the door, but would do it fast.

  She grabbed the paper and locked the door. When she sat on the sofa and looked at it, she balled it up and threw it across the room. All that for a salesman, but it was a relief and convinced her more that she had to get out of there. The problem was, she had no money besides what the guy had in his wallet, which wasn’t much. She remembered all the money he’d spent in the bar trying to get her drunk so he could screw her.

  Melanie wished she’d let him take her home sooner. She’d searched the apartment, but found nothing besides the fifty-six dollars in his wallet. He had an ATM card, but she didn’t know his password and couldn’t get the money he had in the bank. She didn’t want to try cashing a check.

  The knife was the only weapon she had. She hadn’t thought to get Justin’s pistol. She did remember the rifle but thought it too big to carry around and left it. The truck driver in the bar sounded better all the time. At least he would have gotten her out of the state.

  Without money, she didn’t know how she could escape. With the pistol, she could rob some place, but no one would turn any money over to her with a knife. The idiot that picked her up in the bar didn’t have one weapon in the place.

  * * * *

  “That’s her,” Melissa said. “She dyed her hair and made a few changes, but I got a good look at her face.”

  “Are we going in?” William Teal, a NPD detective, asked.

  David tapped on his lip for a long moment without speaking. He sighed. “Too dangerous. We don’t know if she is armed or with what. Far as we know, Lawson may have had automatic weapons up there. If he did, the first ones through that door die.”

  He paced for a moment. “We need to figure out a way to get her out of there, or wait till she moves and follow. Get her away from the public. She won’t just kill people in her way. She’ll kill anyone she thinks she needs to.”