Copyright © 2001 Guy Slaughter. All rights reserved. 

     "My turn," I said, breezing into the city room and plopping down at my computer. "I've got us one."

     "One what?" The rhythmic clicking of the keyboard at the workstation alongside mine didn't miss a beat.

     "Unsolved killing. An old murder."

     "Old means cold. Why'd you wait so long?"

     "I didn't know about it until today."

     "Ignorance is no excuse. Why today?"

     "The trial started. And they're trying the wrong guy."

     "Not likely. Seldom happens, but I'll listen."

     "Fair enough," I said. "Let's get our today copy written, and then I'll persuade you. No. I'll convince you."

     "Deal," he said.

     He's Harold "Handy" Carruthers, our crime-beat reporter, the best anywhere, with a gazillion snitches developed over the years, all eager to feed him information. We've been colleagues for a long time and partners on a lot of special projects. Usually they're his. Now I had one. I'm Sam Stillson, court reporter for the Chronicle. Running public records is my specialty.

     He finished writing first. "You're getting slow," he said. "I can remember when you wrote pretty fast for a J-school guy."

     "I'm done," I said. I flipped open my notebook. "Listen. The murderee was Diana Hunter, a waitress at Forbes' Food-and-Frolic. She was thirty-three, divorced, no children. She lived alone in a one-bedroom, third-floor apartment. Her once-a-week cleaning lady found her face down on the bedroom floor, wearing pajamas and a robe. It was the morning of December eighteen, last year. She'd been shot once in the head, around midnight, the coroner figures. Her bed was slept in."

     Handy looked mildly interested. "Okay."

     I went on. "The bedroom adjoins a living room.  A TV and a VCR were missing from it, nothing else. The living room door opens into a hallway that runs the length of the apartment building. The cleaning lady found the door unlocked when she came to work that morning. Within six feet of it there's a window onto a fire escape. It was open when investigators checked it.

     "Convenient," Handy said. "Where?"

     "Millborough. Crime-scene crews found fingerprints all over the window, the door and the table where the TV and VCR had been. Investigators got an instant fingerprint hit in the computer data base. They belong to a Melvin Hemphill, forty-three, of Millborough. His rap sheet lists a string of burglaries supporting a crack-coke habit."

     "He’s the mope on trial?"

     "Right. Murder in the perpetration of a felony. The DA's asking for life without parole. He decided against the death penalty to avoid tying his staff up with appeals for the next twenty years. The trial started this morning. It'll go to the jury Monday or Tuesday. Poor bastard's a cinch for conviction. He admitted the break-in the minute they picked him up. He showed police where he fenced the TV and the VCR. He even took them to the crack house where he blew the thirty-five bucks the loot brought."

     "But?"

     "But he says it was a clean sneak-in and carry-off. He says he was in and out in under two minutes. And he says he didn't hear anything, didn't see anyone, sure as hell didn't shoot anybody, never owned a gun, wouldn't know how to use it if he did."

     Handy nodded, looking pleased. "How about the bedroom door?"

     "Closed, the cleaning lady says. When she opened it from the living room side is when she found the body."

     "Fingerprints on the doorknob?"

     "Lots, inside and out. Mostly the victim's, also the cleaning lady's, but not Melvin's."

     "The gun?"

     "Never found."

     "The bullet?"

     "Twenty-two. Copper-clad hollow point."

     "Where in the head?"

     "Behind the right ear. From close up. The report says you could cover the powder burns with a dime."

     "Wow!" Handy's face wrinkled into a grin. "An execution-style killing of a bath robed  lady roused from her bed by a crack-smoking burglar? Who bothers to close the bedroom door on his way out? Without leaving prints on the knob or smearing those already there? Who then takes the time to gather the loot, to carry it out a window, to lug it down a fire escape, and to fence it? No way, partner!"

     "Like I told you. So do we chase it?"

     "Bet your butt, Sam. You've got us a good one."

     "I know," I said.

***

     Melvin Hemphill looked older than 43. I thought so when I first saw him in court as his trial began. I thought so again now, here in the jail-visitor's cubicle  where the guard had brought him to see Handy and me. His wrists were handcuffed behind him. He was nearly bald and the fringe of hair he had left was dirty white. He was tall and skinny, with stooped shoulders. The fluorescent-yellow fabric of his inmate coverall-jumper hung loose around him like the folds of a closed umbrella. His eyes were dull as he stared from Handy to me and back at Handy again.

     "Sit down." Handy waved at the chair across the table from ours.  "We're with the Chronicle. No promises, but maybe we can help you. Tell us about the night of the killing."

     "Din't do it," Melvin mumbled, standing. "I only heisted some stuff. I din't kill nobody."

     "Did you know the lady?"

     "What lady?"

     "Diana Hunter. The lady they say you killed."

     Melvin shook his head. "An' I din't kill her, neither."

     "How did you happen to pick her apartment?"

     "It was closest."

     "Closest to what?"

     "The fire 'scape. I clumb up it an' through the winda an' the door was unlocked so I went in."

     "You'd been there before?"

     "Nuh uh. I seen the fire 'scape an' the winda  when I was out lookin', an' I come back an' clumb it that night."

     "Don't you want to sit down?" Handy  said.

     He shook his head again. "Hurts sittin' down with your hands in back."

     Handy looked at me. "Questions?"

     "No," I told him. "Well, sure. Lots of questions. But not for Melvin."

     "Agreed," Handy said.

     "Poor bastard," I said, on the way to the car.

     "You got that right," Handy said. "He's a cinch to spend most of the rest of his life in jail whether we bail him out of this one or not. My interest is in that un-caught killer out there."

     "Mine, too," I said. "Not to mention the thrill of the hunt."

***

     It was afternoon Monday before I got through my daily routine, ran some marriage and divorce records in the clerk's office, and made it back to the city room.

     "About time you showed up," Handy greeted me with a grin. "It's not just your writing. You're slowing down on your beat coverage, too."

     "Some of us have to visit places and check sources and run records and read reports," I defended myself. "We can't all sit around waiting for tips from snitches."

     "Friends," Handy corrected. "How about we start with the lady's husband?"

     "Ex-husband," I said. "I've been chasing his background all morning. Let's go see him. I'll tell you about him on the way."

     "Lead on,  McSam."

     We headed for the car. "His name's Cleveland Hunter," I said. "Age thirty-nine, of fourteen-twenty-four Drewry place, Millborough."

     "Hey, hey," Handy said. "You have been busy.

     "Damn right." I handed him my keys. "You drive and I'll read you my notes. Head for Millborough High School. It's on...."

     "I know where it is."

     In the car, I expanded my scribbled notes into a reasonably complete narrative. "Cleveland Hunter and Diana Slinski were married at City Hall on September fourth, three years ago," I recited. "Her first marriage, his third. They were divorced by Circuit Court decree December two years ago. Diana got the apartment and their furniture. Cleveland got stuck for court costs, attorney fees, her apartment rent, and four hundred a month in alimony."

     "What's he do?"

     "Teaches physics and algebra."

     "Aha. Does he own a gun?"

     "Not as a matter of record," I said. But why don't we ask him?"

***

     We found our man grading papers in a dingy office on the second floor of a dingy school building behind a dingy table littered with papers. From the waist up, I could see, he was prim and proper in a brown suit, brown shirt and brown necktie. His short brown hair was parted in the middle. Though the table hid his legs and feet from my view, I bet myself a quarter he was wearing brown socks and brown shoes.

     "Mr. Hunter?" Handy said, reaching across the table to proffer a hand. "I'm Handy Carruthers. This is my partner Sam Stillson. We're with the Chronicle. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

     Hunter rose, expressionless, his eyes scanning our faces. I leaned over the table and sneaked a peek, then covertly transferred a quarter from one of my pockets to another. He shook hands with each of us and sat down again.

     "Questions about what?"

     "We're doing a story on the murder trial of Melvin Hemphill. Ever hear of him?"

     "Of course." His face stayed expressionless. "He killed my wife."

     "Who says?"

     Cleveland Hunter shrugged. "The police, the lawyers, the investigators who questioned me."

     "Questioned you about what?"

     "About how long we'd been married. Was it a happy marriage. Why I divorced Diana. When I'd last seen her. Why I didn't go to her funeral. Who her friends were."

     "And what did you tell them?"

     "That we stayed married for fifteen months because it takes forever to get anything through the courts. That it was not a happy marriage. That I moved out after just seven weeks. That our lifestyles aren't ... weren't compatible. That I hadn't seen Diana since the divorce. That I didn't go to her funeral because I didn't want to. And that her friends are animals."

     "Animals?" Handy queried.

     "Animals."  Cleveland Hunter's face suddenly showed  emotion. He looked like a man who’d just burped bile and was swallowing it again. "They are rude and unmannered parasites, all of them."

     "Where did you meet them?"

     His face went serene again. I decided he was used to hiding his feelings. "In our apartment. They would come there. In bunches, they would come. No. In herds, they would come, in flocks, in packs, in prides, in pods."

     "Why let them in if you didn't want them there?"

     "I had no choice. My wife invited  them. And they would stay. For days, they would stay. Until the food and the wine and the other benefits ran out, they would stay."  

     Handy's mental wheels turned for a moment.  "How did you meet Diana?"

     Cleveland Hunter fixed his gaze on Handy’s face. "At Forbes' Food-and-Frolic. I went there, she worked there. Why?"

     "We’re trying to understand your relationship," Handy said.

     "Our relationship was ... is none of your business. I have a life to live and papers to grade. My former wife is deceased. The man who killed her is on trial. That's the story."  He stood up again. "Good day."

     "Two final questions," Handy said. "Then we'll leave you alone. Can you think of any reason why one of her friends would want her dead?"

     The face stayed blank. "I don't think the burglar was one of her friends."

     "The burglar didn’t kill her," Handy said.

     The eyes flickered. He said, "Really?"

     "You don't seem surprised," I said.

     The eyes swung to me. "I'm very surprised."

     "Can you think of a reason any of her friends would want her dead?" Handy pressed.

     He shook his head. "No logical reason. She provided them an anchorage, a harbor. Our ... her apartment was their haven. It was a retreat for easy sex, for something free to eat, to drink,  to smoke,  to sniff, to shoot into a vein. One of her friends intentionally killing her would be like the hummingbird smashing the sugar-water feeder."

     "How about an illogical reason? Unintentionally?"

     He nodded. "That's different. Her friends are volatile. They're creatures of emotion and impulse, not of reason and planning."

     "This wasn't a crime of passion, though," Handy said. "It was cold-blooded, premeditated murder by someone she knew. Does that make any sense at all?"

     "No. None. Good day, gentlemen." He went back to grading papers. We let him.

***

     The noises and the smells told me even before I opened the door that Forbes' Food-and-Frolic was a sleaze-joint. Inside, it was jammed and it was jumping. Choking smoke filled the air. Not all of it came from tobacco. There were a score or so of tables. Each was occupied by a foursome, a five some, a  six some. Most  were sitting around the tables. A few were atop the tables. A crowded bar ran the full width of the room at the far end of the building. We found a vacant spot at it.

     "What's yer pleasure?" a bartender asked from behind the counter. He was short, bald, gold-toothed, aproned with a towel.

     "Drafts," Handy said. "A pair, please." He fumbled a five-dollar-bill onto the bar top.

     "Here ya be, gents," the bartender said, sliding two dripping mugs in front of us and picking up the bill. "From around here?"

     "Passing through," Handy said. "Looking for an old friend. Diana Hunter."

     "Dunno the name," the barman said, laying down a wet wad of change. "Holler when yer empty."

     We sipped our beer and looked around. It was hard to tell the clientele from the personnel. I tried for a while, gave up. I finished my brew, decided I'd had enough of the noise and the pollution, and headed out. Handy followed.

     The air outside, despite exhaust fumes, horns and sirens, was a relief to the nose and to the ears.

     "Good Lord," I said, climbing behind the wheel of my car. "That's frolicking?"

     "Whatever turns you on," Handy said.

     "It looked like Mardi Gras time at Sodom and Gomorrah."

     "An apt analogy," Handy said. "How'd you like a herd or a flock or a pride or a pod of those animals infesting your pad?"

     "Invited by your wife for indefinite  stays," I said. "Oyvay. No wonder poor old Cleveland hastened to end the marriage."

     "But why did he start it?" Handy's wheels were turning again. He was nodding to himself. "Why would any man marry a woman he met in a place like that?"

     "He had to be awfully hard up."

     "Nuh uh. He had to be looking for exactly what he found."

     "You lost me," I said, starting. "Where to?"

     "First to the office to pick up my car, and then home. Figure on spending tomorrow in the courthouse. You've got more records to run."

     "Goody," I said. "What kind of records?"

     "Divorces and/or deaths. I'm not sure which. Maybe both. You're looking for what happened to Old Cleveland's first two wives."

     "Aha. You think he...."

     "Don't you?"

     "Damn right," I said

***

     It was afternoon before I got back to the city room. Handy was punching his computer keyboard. "Eureka?" he asked, not looking up.

     "No Eureka," I said. "Maybe a small Aha! The first two wives died unnatural deaths, but neither involved Cleveland. One was a hit-run auto accident and the other was suicide."

     "When?" Handy stopped typing and swung around to ogle me.

     I flipped through my notebook. "Number one on August eighteen of ... uh ... nineteen eighty. She was twenty-three. They'd been married just over a year. The second died on ... uh ... July fourteen, nineteen eighty-seven. She was  twenty nine. They'd been married thirteen months."

     "Quite a pattern. How far did you check?"

     "Come on," I said, stung. "All the way. From death certificates to coroners' reports to grand-jury records."

     "No offense," Handy said. "I just wanted to know whether anybody accused Old Cleveland of helping speed the departures of his ladies."

     "Negative. The inquest transcripts reported him out of town in both instances."

     "Out of town? A teacher?"

     "Local school vacations, both times. He was working toward his masters at State University the summer of eighty, and taking advanced graduate courses there in eighty-seven."

     "A two-hour drive," Handy said. "Do-able. Any alibi witnesses?"

     "None needed. Coroners' verdicts called the first death accidental and the second self-induced by a voluntary overdose of Demerol. Neither case went to the grand jury."

     "Lucky Old Cleveland. You have today stuff to write?"

     "Couple  stories," I said. "Routines. Won't take long. Why?"

     "I want to talk to Old Melvin again, but first I need to make some phone calls, maybe establish motive."

     "I'll hurry," I said. "But why Melvin?"

     Handy, already punching numbers into his telephone, didn't answer.

     I went to work poking my daily copy into the computer. When I finished, I looked over at Handy. He was staring fixedly at me. The glazed-over look in his eyes said he wasn't seeing me.

     I held up my right hand in his line of sight. "Listen to me," I said. "When I snap my fingers, you will awaken rested and refreshed. You will have no memory of this conversation and you will suffer no discomfort of any kind." I snapped my fingers.

     Handy grinned. "I was out of it, wasn't I? I was thinking about Old Cleveland. His ten-forty forms list substantial increases in interest income for both nineteen eighty-one and nineteen eighty-eight. And his school payroll records show he bumped his withholding up for this year."

     "His ten-forty forms?" I stared at him aghast. "You've got snitches in the IRS?"

     "Certainly not." He looked indignant. "You know federal tax people aren't friendly."

     "Then where'd you get those numbers?"

     "Downstate."

     "Of course," I said, nodding to myself and marveling anew at the sources this man had developed over the years. "From the State Revenue Department." I knew the IRS swaps  tax-return information with states that levy income taxes. It's their version of a reciprocal-aid plan and it does help trip up tax cheaters. "You've got  snitches there! And in the schools office here?"

     "Friends," Handy corrected. "Now we need to pin down where the money came from that Old Cleveland invested in interest-earning assets each time one of his ladies demised."

     "Should be obvious," I said. "Life-insurance policies!"

     "Good man. But how do we document which insurance companies paid him how much money?"

     "We don't have to," I said, deciding to show my own skills at thinking things through. "Not all of them, anyway. We're only chasing the most recent murder, so it's only the most recent insurance payoff we need establish as a motive. The others are redundant."

     "Good thinking. But how do you track down an insurance payoff?"

     I thought about that. Nothing came to mind.

     Handy held up a hand. "Exactly. You don't. Not without subpoena powers. So why don't we have a friend who has subpoena powers do it for us?"

     I saw where he was coming from. "A snitch," I said. "A cop or a deputy DA who can arrange access to bank records. He checks the accounts of Cleveland Hunter for deposit of an insurance-company check settling such-and-such a death-benefit as the beneficiary of one Diana Hunter, deceased."

     "You got it. Only don't use the word snitch. We need a friend to run that kind of a search. Now let's go see Old Melvin again."

     "He was convicted, you know. Jury recommended life without parole. Sentencing's next month."

***

     Melvin Hemphill seemed even skinnier this time.

     "Thanks, Waldo," Handy told the guard. "Could you move his handcuffs around to the front? So he can sit down comfortably?"

     "Sorry, Handy. Can't. Regulations." He left.

     Handy shrugged at Melvin. "I tried. About the cuffs, I mean. You want to sit down anyway?"

     Melvin shook his head. "Whatcha want?"

     "Want to talk to you. No promises, but maybe we can still get you out of this mess."

     "Din't do it," Melvin said. "I din't kill nobody."

     "But you burgled the dead lady's apartment the night she was shot. Why?"

     "It's what I do."

     "I meant why there? Why that particular place?"

     Melvin shrugged. "It looked easy pickin's."

     "The window alongside the fire escape was unlocked and so was the door to the apartment. An open invitation. You know who unlocked them?"

     "No. An' I din't kill nobody."

     "You said you spotted the fire escape and the window earlier that day when you were out looking. Were you with somebody when you spotted it?"

     Melvin stared at the floor for a moment, his brow furrowed. Then he nodded again.

     "Were you in a car? With someone who drove you there? And parked, so you could look around? Maybe showed you the fire escape?"

     "He din't needa show me. I seen it while we was sittin' there smokin'."

     "Was it someone you knew?"

     Melvin nodded. "Sorta... He gimme a break. I was goin' through his place an' I heard him come home and I tried ta split but he grabbed me an' I figgered I was back in the slam but he tole me he wasn't gonna  turn me in an' he gimme ten bucks."

     "And then he took you for a ride and he parked the car and that's when you spotted the fire escape?"

     Melvin nodded.

     "What was his name?"

     "He never tol' me."

     "You'd know him if you saw him again?"

     Melvin nodded.

     "You could take us to his place? Where he came home and caught you?"

     Melvin nodded.

     "We'll be in touch," Handy said. He stood up, went to the door, and called in the guard.

***

     My story ran page one, bannered, the day they set aside Melvin Hemphill's conviction, cut him loose, and filed formal charges against High School Teacher Cleveland Hunter for the premeditated murder of his heavily insured former wife.

     I was interested in Handy's sidebar that ran below the fold. He wrote it as a feature story about the "dogged determination" of Det. Lt. Norman Carr, the homicide cop who early on had testified for the state in Hemphill's murder trial, then changed his mind and presented the new evidence that overturned his former testimony and Hemphill's conviction. I was especially intrigued by the stream-of-consciousness thought processes Handy attributed to Carr in the story.

     A woman hearing noises in the night doesn't put on a robe before she opens   her bedroom door to see if there's a stranger invading her living room, Det. Lt. Norman Carr reasoned. And having discovered an intruder,  she doesn't turn her back on him, allow herself to be shot behind the ear without a struggle, then close the bedroom door again before falling dead to the floor.

          Therefore, Lt. Carr told himself, Diana Hunter must have been killed by someone with access to her apartment, someone she allowed into her bedroom, someone careful enough to shut the bedroom door after her shooting without leaving his prints or smudging hers, someone who profited from her death, and someone clever enough to set up a crack head-burglar as a fall guy.

          Thus convinced by his own logic to look further for the murderer, Lt. Carr began the tedious tour of record-checking and fact-finding that is the backbone of solid, routine police work.

             His efforts, as careful analysis and long hours usually do, resulted in exposing the actual killer and exonerating an innocent man....

      "Won't this embarrass Carr?" I asked Handy, jabbing my finger at the story. "He may be reliable as a snitch, ordinarily, but in this case he screwed up by hanging the killing on the burglar in the first place. He knows that better than anybody. He also knows it was you who told him why he should reopen the case, why he should check the ex-husband's bank account, and what to look for."  

     "The lieutenant's not a snitch," he told me. "He's a friend. And if he's sure that nobody else will ever know differently, why shouldn't he just enjoy being regarded as a hero."

     "I suppose," I said. "And we did need him to run the bank records for us, so...."

     "So we helped each other out and everybody benefited," Handy grinned. "Isn't that what friends are for?"

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