No Remorse Page 7

  Jones and I left and headed back to the precinct.

  “You’re really doing a good job questioning everyone. You’re coming into your own quite nicely, kid,” Jones said.

  Chapter 11

  Fuck, fuck, and triple fuck!

  We were no closer to identifying a suspect after the four interviews than we were when we were called to the scene. We knew three of the four had cause, couldn’t say for sure about the fourth, and our last interview presented a jealous boyfriend as our fifth person of interest.

  “Let’s definitely go talk to the neighbor in the morning. We need to have pictures,” Jones said. “He said a cute red headed woman came over that morning. I’m wondering if the cutie we’re looking for is Sims, or if there’s another person we should be trying to find.”

  “Could she have gotten a dye job to change her hair color? You know women, especially models, do shit like that – change their hair color and nails and whatever else they can think of. And if Sims did go over, why did she tell us she only talked to him on the phone?” I was full of questions and not one answer.

  “I agree, but before we run over to see your good friend Mr. Buckley, let’s go back to the office and lay out a timeline and note as many significant details as we can remember from our interviews. We have to be missing something,” Jones replied. It was a really good idea. We needed to make sure we had our facts together and laid out in front of us.

  The past couple of days had been long and tiring. But yesterday paled in comparison to this day. It was already past five o’clock and we weren’t close to leaving.

  We went into the conference room where I pulled over the flip chart so we could begin the painful exercise of walking through the details of each interview.

  We started with Mrs. Dupree. We made sure to write down the comments from others about her. The neighbor referred to her as a brazen bitch. Larissa MacDonald said she and her son were cut from the same cloth and were anything but calm. But after talking with her, I was struggling to understand why she would kill her husband. What motive could she have had, other than the cheating which she’d known about for months? He was cheating on her and she knew it, thanks to her son. With her secretary no less. She knew about the baby and that Chase was the father, but hadn’t mentioned much else about him. We’d have to revisit and ask her about that detail. She didn’t appear to need money, but we’d have to dig into her financials to know if that could have been a motive or not.

  “I also want to ask her about the morning of the murder again. She said Effridge was sleeping next to her when she got up. I’m not so sure about that. If he was sleeping when she left, why were there two coffee cups in the kitchen? One of which had her name on it,” I said. “She said she left around seven to go home to get ready for work. She would need at least an hour to shower, do her hair, make-up, and get dressed, I would think. And then there’s the drive time. I think we need to find out her normal start time.”

  “It takes me an hour to get ready in the mornings and I don’t have hair.” Jones laughed. “I’d be willing to bet she didn’t kiss him good-bye like the loving wife she tried to portray herself as, either.”

  Next we moved on to Jonathan, Carlotta’s son. He hated Effridge. “He had plenty of reasons for murder. He hated this guy when he became seriously involved with his mother. Then Effridge stole his fiancé and got her pregnant. I think those two things, in his mind, became the number one and two reasons,” Jones said.

  “And Larissa made sure to mention his quick temper and violence toward her. Then Calhoun tossed in some information on McKenzie Sims and Effridge that I’m sure he was planning to use to win Larissa back.” I couldn’t help but wonder if his rage toward Larissa was just a result of jealousy. Or heart break. Or was he hell-bent on living up to his promise that if he couldn’t have her, no man would?

  I found myself alone to mull over the details of the last two interviews. Jones received a call from one of his brothers and he had to leave.

  The meeting with Larissa was almost too perfect. But what would she have to gain from Effridge’s untimely death? Was she the beneficiary of a life insurance policy? Was there something else that would drive her to kill the man she claimed she loved? Maybe she found out about Sims but didn’t disclose that fact.

  Then there was McKenzie Sims. A model who wasn’t in a great relationship, and loved the adoration and attention she received from Effridge. But she had a jealous boyfriend who had promised to kill her and the man she cheated with. Was it just a bluff? Was he just threatening her to control her? Or was he serious? Knowing that, Sims went out with Effridge again anyway, and was caught talking to him on the phone the morning he was murdered. Did she have anything to gain from the man’s death? Did her boyfriend fly off in a jealous rage and kill him?

  After spending a few hours listening to the interview recordings, making sure I hadn’t missed anything, I left the charts, recordings, and Jones’ notepad on my desk. If I didn’t get some sleep, the next day would become a blur despite the number of cups of coffee I’d consume.

  Chapter 12

  I woke early and while I sat at my desk waiting for Jones to arrive, I made a phone call to Buckley to confirm he was still going to be at home. I also started doing some digging on our loose cannon photographer, Billy. It didn’t take long for me to uncover his past. He was far from squeaky clean. He had a rap sheet as long as my arm, and it included convictions for things as simple as possession of a miniscule amount of weed to harassment to several assault charges. It would be logical to see how someone with his record and obvious temper could escalate to murder.

  Jones arrived, and I briefed him on my summation of the last two interviews.

  “Look at this. This is the record of Sims’ boyfriend, Billy. He’s no Boy Scout. He has quite a few assault charges that have been filed against him. A few by Sims,” I said.

  Jones studied the papers I handed him. “Most are women. This guy has some serious issues. Either he’s way too jealous for his own good, or he’s just an angry man.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, too. We should check to see if the couple of guys on here are tied to any of the women in any way. We need to talk to this guy, Billy, too.”

  I let Jones know Buckley was waiting for us. We gathered our pictures we planned to show him and stuffed them into a manila folder before we left the building.

  *****

  We parked in the nearest parking space, down the street from the apartment building. As we approached, we were met by Buckley sitting on the steps.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said as he stretched out an arm to shake our hands.

  “Good morning,” we replied in unison. I hated when we said the exact same thing at the exact same time. That was so couple-like, and it made me sick. We took turns shaking Buckley’s hand.

  “Come on up.” He waved his arm through the air, making the ‘follow-me’ motion with his hand.

  After we made the quiet climb, except for the creaking wooden steps and Buckley gasping for air, we waited a few minutes once we reached the third floor for him to catch his breath. His face was red and he was leaning all his weight against the door after he closed it. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was going to just pass out. Jones and I stood watching, waiting, and wondering.

  There was a peculiarly strong urine odor in his apartment. I didn’t see a cat, but the smell made me think of my aunt’s house. She had three cats and three pungent litter boxes. She was older and no longer able to move around as easily as she had been, and the litter boxes were left unattended until someone went to visit and gave her a hand.

  Buckley’s couch was covered in clothes. They were unfolded and piled high. It wasn’t obvious if they were clean or dirty. Maybe that’s where the unsavory smell is coming from, I thought. The carpet hadn’t been vacuumed in what seemed like forever. He wasn’t a hoarder like I’d seen on television, but he was definitely not a clean person.

  A
fter several minutes Buckley stood upright, took in a huge breath of air, and then exhaled before walking into the kitchen.

  “I’m not as young as I think sometimes. Those stairs are going to be the death of me. Can I get you guys anything to drink?”

  “No, sir, I’m fine,” I replied. I really wanted to just get this photo line-up in front of him so we could get back to work. I was half afraid to drink out of a glass of his anyway. He had dirty dishes piled in and around the sink. I envisioned the glass he’d pull out of the cupboard being covered in smudge marks and grime.

  “I’m good, too, thanks,” Jones said.

  “We brought the photos.” Jones pulled them out of the folder and set them in the least messy space on the table. There was definitely no cleaning lady that came in here, and Buckley wasn’t picking up any of the slack. He had a lot of crumbs on the table cloth, and a couple dirty plates with food-encrusted forks, chipped figurines, and a bouquet of dead flowers were also on the table.

  “Let’s see what we have here.” Buckley pulled out a chair from the table, sat his body down with a groan, and then picked up the pictures.

  “Just let us know if you recognize anyone,” Jones instructed.

  He flipped through, studying the faces of each person. When he reached the picture of McKenzie Sims, he sighed. “She was in the apartment on the day Effridge was killed, but she’s not the cutie I was referring to.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I wouldn’t forget her.”

  “Do you remember what time it was when you saw this woman?” I pointed at the picture of Sims.

  “Well,” his eyes roamed the room. “The she-devil left at seven-fifteen, then about fifteen or twenty minutes later, her son showed up. The husband and son argued and cursed each other something terrible before he left. This girl,” Buckley paused. He held the picture of Sims in his hand. “She came by around nine or so.”

  “After Sims, that’s when the cutie came in?” Jones asked. My head was swimming, trying to get the times right. It seemed like Buckley was contradicting himself from the day before.

  “Yeah, I saw her coming down the steps as I was on my way up to my apartment just before noon, or was it when I was leaving? Anyway, she was in a hurry. I didn’t think much about it at the time because she was over a couple of times before that day.” He flipped through the pictures again until he reached the one of Larissa MacDonald. He held it up in his hand. “She was here, too. Now that I think of it, the cutie and her …”

  “They what, Mr. Buckley?” Jones asked.

  “They looked very similar. Maybe I’m getting them all confused.”

  I wrote on Sims’ picture and had Buckley sign it as witness to her being in the building. Then I had him do the same with MacDonald’s picture. Our timeline was narrowing. We were finally making some progress. We had a positive identification of the last known person in the apartment before Effridge was found, or so we thought.

  Sims conveniently left out of her accounting of her mornings details that she stopped by. Yet, she told us Billy was by her side the entire time. Was she covering for him, or using him as a cover for herself?

  “Can you describe this cute girl? Hair color, tall, thin? Anything will help,” I said.

  “She’s tall, and she’s thin; nicely shaped, too. And she has long reddish-blonde hair. I’m not the kind of guy who likes red heads, but she was a real doll, that one.”

  “Did you get a really good look at her face? Do you think you’d recognize her if we found a picture of her?” Jones asked.

  “I’d like to think I would.” I could see the distress on Buckley’s face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were elsewhere. He wasn’t sure anymore.

  “Hmm,” Jones murmured as he wrote on his notepad.

  “Thank you for your time today, Mr. Buckley,” I said. We gathered our things and left. It was a relief to get outside into the fresh air. But my hopes of getting a good lead on the mystery woman had been dashed.

  Chapter 13

  “Detectives, good to see you again.” Skip had called and asked us to stop by the lab.

  “What do you have for us?” I was hoping he had something to help us take strides in this case.

  “No smoking gun, but I have this.” He held up a photograph of a partial shoe print.

  “I don’t know how much that’s going to help, honestly,” I said. “It seems like people were running in and out of that apartment all morning.”

  “If I tell you the size and brand, will that help any? Maybe not right away, but once you get ready to get a search warrant you’ll know what you’re looking for.”

  “That’s true,” Jones said. “So, what are we looking at?”

  “This, my friends, is a size eleven man’s shoe. And the pattern you see is from the New Balance brand of sneaker.”

  Jones was taking notes. “That helps a lot, actually. We have five persons of interest and two of them are men.”

  I turned and looked at Jones. “We have to get this Billy guy in for questioning. I want him to come into the station. Can you stay on him?”

  “Sure thing. I’ll keep you posted,” Jones said. He took the picture in his hands and studied it again. “Is that print in blood?”

  “Yep, it sure is.”

  “When was this picture taken?” Jones asked.

  “Friday. Why?” Skip asked.

  “I don’t remember seeing a shoeprint. I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “A couple other things, my friends. The bullet size is that of a .22-caliber handgun, but I already told you that. Nothing crazy, but effective. He took one in the chest that lodged in a rib, then another in the head. The apartment was pretty clean. I sent someone back over to do some more looking around while it’s still considered a crime scene – I heard you both went back, too. The bullet casings were missing, so my guess is the shooter picked them up before they left. That’s probably when the shoe-print was made. The fingerprints we found belonged to Effridge, Dupree, Calhoun, MacDonald, and one mystery person. We were able to match Dupree, Calhoun, and MacDonald’s since they were fingerprinted for their jobs.” Skip took a step toward us. “The DNA on the cups matched Dupree and Effridge. No surprise there. And I did some research on that hair you guys brought in. It doesn’t match to Effridge, and isn’t the color of or a match to Dupree. By the way, Dupree is a dye job. But that hair came from someone with light red hair.”

  Skip paused briefly before he continued. “We were able to pull a DNA sample, and you won’t believe who it matched.”

  “McKenzie Sims?” I asked.

  “Nope. Where’d you say you found that hair?” Skip asked.

  “In the bedroom. In the bed,” Jones said.

  “Hmm, well, the DNA matches some guy named Billy Clark.”

  “What the hell?” I scoffed.

  “I take it you haven’t come across him yet?” Skip asked.

  “No, but the neighbor just tried to describe a woman who was there that morning. A red head.”

  “So, here’s what’s confusing me right now. We have a shoe-print from a man’s size eleven sneaker, a blonde hair, and a red hair,” I said.

  “Sounds like you guys have your work cut out for yourselves. With any luck, the owner of that shoe-print has red hair.”

  “Good talk, Skip. We’ll be in touch.” Jones and I left and went back to the station.

  After making a telephone call and checking with a very annoyed Jonathan, he said his shoe size was a thirteen, and he assured us New Balances would never be on his feet. He was a Nike guy. I wasn’t surprised at his shoe size since he was a runner. I also wasn’t surprised by his scoff at the thought of wearing New Balance sneakers.

  That left one male person of interest. Billy. He wasn’t making this easy. Jones had called him to see if he’d come in and talk to us. His reply was he’d think about it. The plan was to give him twenty-four hours of thinking time before we pressed him to come in, or we’d go to him. With this
new information, it was more critical to have a face-to-face.

  Chapter 14

  “I’m a busy guy, gentlemen. I don’t have a lot of time to waste today. Please, ask your questions so we can get this over with,” Billy said. He seemed completely annoyed by the fact that we wanted to talk to him. He came into the station like a cyclone. His arms were flapping around like a bird trying to take flight, and he was boisterous when he asked to talk to Jones. We got him moved into room one rather quickly before he changed his mind.

  My initial assessment of Billy was unfavorable. He was an arrogant little asshole. He was five-foot-eight on a good day, and his shoe size looked to be no more than a child’s size six. If he hadn’t immediately just rubbed me the wrong way with his smart-assed comment when he walked through the doors of the station, I could have told him to leave and not wasted my time. But fuck him and his shitty attitude. I was going to see this interview through and hopefully piss him off for being such a jerk.

  “You know why you’re here, right?” Jones asked. He must have seen the steam rising from my collar and jumped in to get us started.

  “No. As a matter of fact, I don’t. Please, Officer, tell me. Why am I here?”

  Fucking jerk. “We’re detectives.” Clark rolled his eyes, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders at my correction. “We’re investigating the murder of Professor Chase Effridge. Did you know him?” I blurted out before Jones could reply.

  “Yeah, I know him. I didn’t kill him, but I’m not sorry he’s dead, either. Why are you talking to me?”

  “Your name came up in our conversation with your girlfriend,” I said.

  “And?” His smugness was relentless, and unsettling. I guess I could see his aggravation since he was claiming his innocence, but I had yet to meet someone who was guilty just flat-out admit they did something.

  “She mentioned you had a pretty quick temper and that you were suspicious of her relationship with Effridge,” Jones said, calmly.