Second Hand Smoke: Blood on Wolfe's Words Read online

  The detective didn’t hide her disgust. “Yeah, right. You don’t need any such defense mechanism, do you, Jackson? A little harmless sex with someone who needs it. Serving the less fortunate.” She closed her notebook. “Before you go home today, you type me up a report, Officer. Don’t leave out a word. I want in on my desk when I get to the office.”

  Maureen got up and left; Bobbins said, “All right, Jackson, interview over.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Maureen McMartin leaned her back against the wet tree trunk, putting it between her and the crime scene. “Get over it,” she yelled to the wind. God damned men. Two husbands, and what did she know? They both had more in common with Jackson than any idealized man she might have in mind.

  What does Megan have to look forward to? Christ, what do I have to look forward to?

  It was hard enough being a mother, and now she was failing the thirteen year-old. They didn’t talk anymore. She used to be a good mom with a loving daughter, but her promotion widened the rift with the suddenly aloof girl. Still, the problems started before the new job. Meg grew breasts, and raised a wall between them. Maureen couldn’t help but connect the two serendipitous events.

  They were happy before that. There was never enough time, but they had a way of consuming it talking to each other. Then it had turned from talking to, to talking at, to talking by, to not talking. Maureen told herself she wasn’t the one who changed, but maybe she kept talking to the child as the young adult stopped listening. Now she juggled unsuccessfully the most satisfying job of her life with the competing needs of the floundering Meg.

  Standing fifty years of feminist progress on its head, Maureen McMartin believed she needed a husband. A girl needs a father, and a mother needs a husband. But between job and daughter, she had no time to find a man, and her track record was none too inspiring. She couldn’t afford to screw up again.

  Meg’s father, Ryan, a no account drunk, couldn’t keep his hands off their friends’ wives. She hadn’t seen him in six years. He could be dead for all she knew. Then there was Jason, married after a whirlwind four week courtship. He seduced her best friend at the wedding, and a week later the woman’s teenaged daughter. The marriage was shorter than the courtship.

  After the Jason debacle, Maureen withdrew from the dating scene. She finished her last year of college with the help of her parents and landed the job with the police department. In five years she made detective, getting the highest grades in her test group; about the time Meg’s grades fell through the floor.

  As if Maureen’s opinion of men wasn’t low enough, she was stuck with John James for a partner. She assumed it was a test on the order of Job and the locusts. James was fifty-one, flabby, lazy, wife at home with three kids, an incessant drinker, cadger of free meals, and an inveterate philanderer. She was always covering for him, and feeling bad about it. But Joan, his wife, she had to know. The appendicitis attack was Maureen’s first rest from him, and Mona Martin’s death was her first real case. A week in the hospital for Mr. James was high on her want list.

  Maureen McMartin was thirty-four years old and, per one of her superiors, much too pretty to deal with hopheads, pimps and murderers. Sexist? Probably, but it was a sexist world, and if a woman wanted to a cop, a real cop, she had to get by it. Maureen was good at that.

  That was what she wanted, to be accepted as a cop by other cops; but even if it didn’t happen, she couldn’t give up the first thing she’d really loved since soccer. So she put up with the John Jameses, the Mike Jacksons and the doubting superiors because being a cop was what she lived for. Maybe that’s what Meg saw, a woman more at home on the job than at home.

  “I’ll do better,” she whispered, but she hadn’t the slightest clue how.

  ~ ~ ~

  Armando Franconi cut a dapper figure in his thousand dollar suit and heavy gold jewelry. Much to Maureen’s chagrin, he always smelled better than she did, and he knew it. He was zipping up the body bag as she came back into the room.

  He turned a sad smile on her. “Detective McMartin. How nice to see you.”

  She rearranged herself under the scrutiny of a penetrating gaze taken by those who didn’t know him as sexual. It was more sartorial as he made mental notes about how badly others dressed.

  “Hi, Doctor. Any quick readings of what happened here?”

  He took her elbow and guided her to the corner of the room. “Nothing special. She was killed by a single gunshot wound to the heart. She did most of her bleeding into the mattress.” He fiddled with the edge of his white silk shirt sleeve. “Damn, got blood on it. The department gives me flack if I turn in a cleaning bill, but what am I supposed to do?”

  The rhetorical question was at no one in particular. She ignored it.

  He returned to the subject. “He shot her using a pillow to muffle the sound.” His eyes scanned the room. “He must have brought it with him. Bobbins said they bagged the gun, a .38. That’s still a lot of noise.”

  “And?”

  “She’d recently had sex. There was dried semen on her stomach, and her right hand.”

  Bobbins stuck his head in their space. “Maureen, we got an ID on the gun. It’s registered to a Robin Morgan, the husband. Got an address in Washington.”

  Maureen called over her shoulder, “Officer Simpson.”

  The young patrolwoman crossed from the other side of the room. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Officer, get a call in to the Clark County Sheriff’s office. Tell them we need to question a Robin Morgan; Bobbins has the address. And officer, assuming he’s not there, check the DMV in Washington and get his license number. Let’s get an alert out on him right now. Ask Washington to do the same.”

  Simpson had done none of these things before, but she’d learned about them in her training, and she would get them done. She was that kind of a girl.

  The ME spoke again; “I could see this coming.”

  Maureen turned sharply. “What do you mean?” Then it struck her. “You know the woman.”

  “Yes, Detective, I know the woman,” he hesitated, “and her husband.”

  She pulled him to the small black table. “And you could see this coming. You mean that he murdered her?”

  Franconi shook his head and made a face. “No, of course not, I could imagine Mona getting killed in the sack. She’s laid half the men in Portland.”

  “Not you, I hope.” Franconi had a new bride. His first wife had died in an auto accident three years earlier. Maureen was the first cop on the scene. She remembered the anguish of the young doctor fatefully confronted by the death of his wife.

  He gave her a disapproving look. “Hey, Detective, don’t go getting judgmental on me, I was single. At the time, so was she. She wasn’t meant to be married, that’s all. I think Robin was her fourth husband, though he didn’t know that when he married her.”

  He considered his next words carefully; “She married men for their money. And she wasn’t very discrete. But how long can you hide multiple sex partners a week from even the most oblivious of husbands?”

  She scratched her lower lip. “I don’t know. It must be a strange world she ran in.” Her voice made it a question.

  He used his chin to point at the body bag. “Detective, there are strange people everywhere. Mona was, and don’t quote me on this, she was a classic nymphomaniac.”

  Maureen picked up the other thread. “You know the husband too.”

  The ME nodded.

  “Tell me about him, for the record.”

  She watched the pensive Franconi order his words before he spoke. “Not much to tell. Robin is prominent because he’s successful, but it isn’t his way. He’s a very private guy.”

  The detective motioned him on as she made notes.

  “I’ve known Robin Morgan since he moved to Washington. We live in La Center, ten miles north of Vancouver. We met running one day. We’ve been friends ever since. I sometimes crash in his townhouse at St. John’s landing when I’ve had a really long
shift.”

  Maureen called to Bobbins, “Get Officer Simpson in here,” and then returned to her notes.

  The ME waited for Maureen to return her attention to him. “My wife, Cathy, before she married me of course, thought he was the sexiest man alive.”

  Maureen made another note. “So why didn’t you warn him about Mona?”

  He shrugged finely tailored shoulders. “I would have, but I didn’t get a chance. One day he brought her home as his wife. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on. He asked her for a divorce. She said no, so he’s suing for one now.” He looked at the body bag; he said, “Robin Morgan wouldn’t do this.”

  Simpson interrupted, “You wanted me, Detective?”

  “Yes. Robin Morgan has a townhouse in Portland.” Franconi gave her the address. “Can you check on that yourself?”

  Simpson said “Yes,” and gave the detective two license numbers and vehicle descriptions before she left.

  The detective turned to the ME. “Tell me more about your Mr. Morgan.”

  Franconi shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “He’s forty-two, very tall, I think six-four, fit, good looking in a rough kind of way. Never been married before Mona, but he did have a long term relationship with a woman in San Francisco. She died in a car crash. He moved his business from California three years ago as it was starting to expand. It’s called FindIt.”

  She didn’t look up from her notes. “I’ve heard of that. Didn’t I read something about it being acquired?”

  He nodded though she didn’t see it. “Yes, probably. He’s in negotiations with a firm in Chicago. He wasn’t happy when the deal went public.” The ME paused in thought. “Who knows, might be Mona was responsible for that. The sale is pretty much all consuming, so I haven’t seen much of him over the last month.”

  Without stopping her writing, she commented, “I guess we could say this makes for one less distraction.”

  His response was icy; “Murder never makes for less distraction, Detective.”

  She raised her eyes. “Does her death save Mr. Morgan any money?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sure it does, community property being what it is. She was married to him for almost a year while the company soared in size.”

  She rapped her knuckles against the table. “Means and motive. That leaves opportunity. Not looking so good for your Mr. Morgan.”

  Franconi made a final pitch for his friend; “It’s not only my wife who thinks a lot of Robin Morgan, Maureen. I also think he’s a good guy. He’d give her the money and never look back. He wouldn’t kill her.”

  “That’s yet to be seen, Doctor.”

  She closed her notebook, nodded to the ME, and found her way back to Bobbins.

  ~ ~ ~

  A hulking patrolman filled the doorway. “Hey, Detective McMartin, you’ll never guess who I found in a VW van in the parking lot. Seems you blocked him in with your car.”

  She couldn’t quite contain her smile. “Thanks, Jeffers. You can deposit him there,” she pointed, “at the table.”

  Maureen ordered her thoughts about Bob Sunday, private investigator, and an ex-cop with an irrepressible sense of humor. She’d met him at a seminar he gave a year earlier, on how PI’s work with and around cops.

  Sunday was retired LAPD. He had worked ten years in Vice and the last six years in Homicide. Nowadays he was more a PI in name only, because he wasn’t working that hard at it, what with his pension and a wife in real estate. Sunday stood five-ten, gray hair, and black eyes; and he wore a perpetual impish look, like maybe he had an exploding cigar in his shirt pocket.

  Sunday was the only cop she knew who seemed totally untouched by stress. He told her that he didn’t take crime personally, that he left the job at the office. She couldn’t do the first, but after that discussion she did stop taking her gripes home to Meg. It was about the time they started growing apart. Maybe she’d missed the point.

  Maureen let out a sigh as she fell into the chair. “So what are you doing here, Bob?”

  He pulled a chewed stogie from his shirt pocket. “If I say I was looking for a place to enjoy a cigar without the anti-smoking Nazis getting all over my case, would you believe me?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, well you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  She put on a frown. “Come on, Bob. Skip the horse pucky and tell me what you’re doing here.”

  The elfin smile never left his face. “Hey, I’m working for a lawyer. He’d have to clear it.”

  Maureen called to Bobbins, “Jake, let me have your cell phone.” She handed it to Sunday. “So get it cleared. Now!”

  She listened to the ring, then the answer machine engaged. “Jesus, Bob, it’s not even six o’clock yet, who are you trying to kid. Call him at home. I know you have the number.”

  He searched through his wallet, found the card and entered the number. It was ten rings before the phone was picked up. “Hi, Viv, it’s Bob Sunday. I need to talk to Thom?”

  Sunday stood and walked to the far corner. He lowered his voice to a whisper. After five minutes, he closed the phone, motioned to Bobbins and tossed it to him.

  He lowered himself back into the chair. He rubbed his lips with the fingers of his left hand. “Thom said to give you whatever you want.”

  It irritated her that he was making her ask again, like he explained it at the seminar. “So, Bob, why are you here?”

  He shrugged, as if to say, hey, no big deal. “I was following the lady. Her husband’s looking for a divorce.”

  “How long have you been on her tail?”

  “Since an hour before she picked up the young executive type at the Marriott.”

  She asked for a license number. He checked his notes and wrote it down for her. He said the rental car was from Hertz.

  The PI checked his notes again. “He left at one o’clock. Then a Dominoes’ pizza guy showed up. She paid him at the door.”

  The detective waited. Sunday stayed mute. “Let’s go, Bob. Stop making me pull teeth. We both know I’m going to get it all. So spill it.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with you female cops, no fun.”

  She dismissed him with a flip of the wrist.

  “Okay, this truck showed up.”

  She found the piece of paper from Simpson. “License plate?”

  He shook his head. “Couldn’t see it. The back of the vehicle was covered in mud.”

  She scanned the notes. “Nissan truck, four wheel, black?”

  She heard the reticence. “Yeah. The driver was wearing a hooded jacket, one of those all weather things. I couldn’t see him at all.”

  “Was it the husband, Robin Morgan?”

  Immediate, “No.”

  She leaned forward, pointing an index finger at him. “No, like in definitely no?”

  For the third time in an hour, a man shifted nervously under her gaze. “I don’t believe he murdered his wife, Detective. In fact, I’m certain he didn’t. So definitely no. Could I prove it wasn’t him? No again.”

  What’s going on here? “Are you friends?”

  He made a circular motion with his right hand. “Hey, I play poker at his house once a month, and we golf every other week. He plays good poker and lousy golf, and yeah, we’re friends. I like the guy. He wouldn’t kill his wife. She didn’t mean that much to him. He’d already written her off.”

  She didn’t believe it. “And all the money she was going to cost him?”

  He laughed out loud. “Hey, Detective, Robin Morgan wouldn’t kill her for that. He wouldn’t kill her if she was getting every last penny he had.”

  Officer Simpson came in the door. “There wasn’t anyone at the townhouse. I took it upon myself, using your name, to get someone posted to watch the place. You’re going to get some flak. I had to get nasty.”

  Maureen nodded her okay.

  “One of the neighbors said he left a half hour before I got there.”

  “Good work, Simpso
n.” She made a decision. “Tell your captain I want you assigned to me until further notice. Thank you, Officer.”

  Diane Simpson wiped any hint of a smile off her face, but inside she was grinning.

  Sunday said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  His smile took the edge off the words; “She’s not the hard boiled cop you are, McMartin. She’s the kind of naive fluff that falls hard for the Robin Morgan type. It’s too bad he didn’t remain the impenetrable fortress, because then none of this would have happened.”

  She controlled the exasperation. “You’re a big help, Bob. You know where the station is. I’ll have someone ready to take your statement.” To his back she continued, “I don’t understand you guys all sticking together. This woman is dead, murdered. Doesn’t anybody care?”

  The PI turned and pointed a finger at her. “Some people aren’t meant for living. Mona Morgan was one of them.”

  Maureen leaned back in the chair until her head rested against the wall. Who was this poor schmo, Robin Morgan? She thought about her second marriage. She could have killed Jason if only she’d had a gun. Now it looked like Robin Morgan was going to pay big time for the mistake of marriage, the loyalties of male bonding aside.

  Chapter 1 - Wednesday, June 21 - 2:00 pm

  Robin Morgan interrupted Donald King, CEO of King, Inc, described indulgently on the company’s website as ‘the multi-talented leader of the large publicly traded Chicago based worldwide consulting conglomerate’. “So what do you want, Don?” He smiled as King flinched at his use of the short version of his name, what with ‘Don’ King carrying too much bad baggage for a multi-talented leader. “Your people have been talking to us for months, and now they send you in like the bad cop to squeeze a last drop of blood from us.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically, as if he were confused.

  King displayed a belligerence of youth undulled by experience; “I want a guarantee you’ll be engaged, Robin, completely, for the first year.”

  Robin voiced his incredulity; “Why, Don? I’m less than half time in the business right now. If it wasn’t for slaving over this buyout, I’d be down to one day a week.” He motioned with his head at his two executives. “Dick and Kathy are growing the business. It’s them you’re buying.” He folded his hands on the table. “Don, it’s them you want to nail down with a contract.” He looked at Dick for support. “Not me.”