Lethal Invitation Page 6
Demetrius nodded, then answered with a smile of his own. “I suspected as much.” He turned to the youngster. “Tell me about yourself.”
Marcus shrugged. “Not much to tell. I came as a walk-on hoping the make the team. After three weeks I knew it was hopeless and was ready to quit school until Dr. Smallwood wrote me a note to come to his office.” He gestured toward the man in the chair. “He explained the importance of staying and getting an education. He agreed to help me stay focused.”
Demetrius nodded. “You made a good choice.” He pointed to the professor with his nose. “He’s going to be pretty busy this semester so he asked if I could be the help he promised. Would that be okay with you?”
Marcus glanced down at the man in the chair, cocking his head in thought. At length, he returned his gaze to his new mentor. “I’d be happy if you would.” He reached to firmly take the outstretched hand.
◆◆◆
The attractive waitress in the downtown deli smiled as the two detectives strolled through the door. Demetrius knew the smile wasn’t for him but for his partner, the youngest and still unmarried detective in the Violent Crimes division of the Tucson Police Department. The senior detective glanced toward the young man and was rewarded with a returned grin. Demetrius chuckled, then teasingly elbowed the younger man in the ribs.
“Good morning, Detective Crown.” She spoke to Demetrius but her full attention was on the partner.
“Good morning Doris,” he replied with a chortle. “You’ve met my fellow detective, Dan Robertson haven’t you.” He knew they had met because Dan had confided they were dating.
“Uh. Yes. We’ve met. Good to see you, Detective Robertson.” She was rewarded with a nod.
Demetrius waited for any conversation from the young couple, but when none came, he ordered. “If you can find the time I’ll have the special.”
“Yes, sir. Coming right up. And you, detective?” She focused on the handsome younger man.
“Same for me.”
The men took seats on opposite sides of a booth at the back of the small eatery with Demetrius facing away so Dan could sit to be able to watch the young woman. They talked pleasantly of sports and the weather, but after several minutes the conversation lagged. Dan seemed more interested in watching the waitress than any topic of conversation. He drummed his fingers as they waited for their meal. Demetrius enjoyed his partner’s grin as the waitress approached. He turned to glance over his shoulder to see her carrying a plate in each hand.
“Here you go, men. Enjoy.” She slid both plates to the table, one in front of each of the detectives. She lingered only slightly longer than necessary standing close to Dan.
Demetrius noticed the expression of delight on Dan’s face as he winked and smiled at his girlfriend. She strolled away with a smile of her own. The interaction caused Demetrius to reflect on his own courtship and marriage to Wanda almost twenty years earlier. There were nearly eight hundred students in the introductory class at the time and he was there because he needed one last sociology credit to graduate. He had noticed her early in the semester sitting quietly at the front, and was happily surprised to learn both she and he had a ten-minute walk in the same direction to their next classes. She was a sophomore on an academic scholarship so it only seemed natural for him to ask if he could study with her. After graduation, he declined a job offer in Boston so he could stay in Tucson. They were together at every opportunity. Eight months later he finished the police academy and started his new position with the Tucson Police Department, and four months later they were married.
He smiled as he thought of the wedding. Hers was a large but very close-knit family from the small farming town of Eloy, Arizona, between Tucson and Phoenix. The wedding was held in an out-of-the-way Baptist church there and the only white people in the room were Carl and Lucinda Smallwood.
Dan stared at him from across the table. “What’s up? You look like you’re a million miles away.”
Demetrius shook his head and shrugged. “To be honest, I was thinking of my courtship with Wanda and about my good friend Dr. Smallwood.” Demetrius turned his attention to the food, but couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness for Carl.
◆◆◆
Edward, wearing dark sunglasses against the afternoon sun, glanced nervously to each side of his car to make sure no one was approaching or watching. He was parked at the back of the lot for a small, family-owned grocery store on the east side of town far away from his apartment. Satisfied he was alone, he opened the small, weekly advertising and want-ad newsprint he had just picked up inside the store. He quickly searched the pages to determine the classification for firearms, then with a finger tracing the rows, he found 440-GUNS and AMMO. Of the thirty or so listings, five were for Glock pistols. Remembering what he had learned at the gun store, he read carefully through each ad and finally settled on his top choice, an individual selling because he lost his job and needed the money.
After another glance left and right, he pulled his phone from his pocket and punched the numbers.
“Hello,”
“Hi. I’m calling about your ad for the Glock.” He would have called it a pistol but he remembered the gun store visit. The salesman had not called it a gun, a firearm, a weapon or a pistol. It was simply a Glock. “Is it still for sale?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Would it be possible for me to take a look at it?”
“Sure. When would you like to come?”
Edward remembered the news coverage of the so-called Craigslist Killer a few years earlier. He would never go to someone’s house but at the same time, he didn’t want the meeting to be in a crowded place. “Can we meet somewhere more public?”
“Sure, wherever you say. I’m on the east side of town.”
Edward was encouraged. “Me too.” He quickly surveyed the parking lot. It would be perfect. The address was printed in large, black letters on the glass above the front doors. He read the address into his phone. “Can you meet me here?”
“Perfect. I know the place well and it’s less than five minutes from my house. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“Great. What are you driving?”
“I’ll be in an older, blue Ford pickup. I’ll park at the far west side of the lot. It’s almost always empty and we can do our business in public and in private at the same time.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll meet you here.”
Edward carried the paper to the trash receptacle in front of the store, then ambled to the west side, leaving his car parked where it was so it couldn’t be identified.
Much faster than anticipated, an older, blue Ford truck pulled off the street and parked at the edge of the lot directly in front of Edward. Out stepped a tremendously tall, middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and longish hair under a dirty cap. He looked like a scarecrow.
“Howdy.” He extended his hand.
Edward reluctantly took it and cringed inwardly at the sandpaper feel and hard grip.
The gun instantly appeared, drawn from the back pocket of the man’s faded and ragged jeans. With flair, the clip was ejected as well as the bullet in the chamber. The man pocketed both before handing the Glock to the boy.
Edward was disappointed because the gun was scratched and appeared to have been used hard, but just as quickly decided it didn’t matter. He turned the gun over in his hands and noticed the serial number had been ground out leaving an ugly indentation on the underside of the barrel. He glanced up at the older man.
The gun owner chuckled nervously while shrugging. “I bought it that way about ten years ago from a guy I worked with. It doesn’t change the way it shoots.”
Edward nodded. “How much?”
“I’ll take two hundred dollars for it today.”
The boy felt the weight again and with it the feeling of power and control. It was an ugly gun, but only part of the ugliness stemmed from the scratches. Handing the gun back to the man, Edward pulled his wallet and extracted two cr
isp, hundred dollar bills, then traded them for the gun. With his other hand, he took the clip, putting it in one pocket and the Glock in the other.
With a nod, the tall, rough-looking man turned to leave. “Nice doing business with you.” He got in the truck and drove away, leaving Edward standing with a smug smile. It was only then the boy realized he had not gotten the extra bullet. He retrieved the clip and was relieved to see it full, the shining brass easily seen through the slots and the deadly nose of the top bullet peeping, one-eyed from its perch. He reverently rubbed the clip and could feel the remnants of gun oil on his thumb. With a glance toward the retreating truck, he touched the gun in his back pocket and jammed the clip into his front pocket, then strolled leisurely to his car. He mentally checked GUN and AMMO from his memorized list of tasks to do before November 6th, only three weeks away.
Chapter 8
The five-year-old white Ford Explorer rolled slowly forward into the garage until the windshield touched the hanging foam ball that told Demetrius he was in as far as possible. He opened the door and squeezed out to stand in the narrow space between the car and items in storage. They needed a larger garage, that was for sure. His car was newer so he got the garage while Wanda’s car was always parked on the street in front of the house. He felt a twinge of regret that he’d let her talk him into the garage privilege. He shook his head, then carefully leaned back into the car to retrieve a sack full of groceries his wife had asked him to get on his way home.
He glanced up as the door to the house opened wide. Wanda squinted into the glare of the sun coming through the open garage door. She gestured for him to enter the house.
“Hurry. We told him six-thirty and it’s already six o’clock.”
Demetrius carried the sack around the back of the car, then approached his wife as she stood on the landing. He climbed the five steps into the split level house, pushing the wall-mounted button to close the garage door as he followed her into the kitchen. After placing the sack on the counter, he surprised her with a bear hug, lifting her while kissing her throat and neck.
She giggled while pushing away. “We don’t have time for that now. He’ll be here any minute.”
He grinned as he released his grip and she slid till her feet touched the floor. She was still fun to tease even after almost twenty years of marriage, and with the introspection during today’s lunch, he’d thought about her all day.
“Okay. Are the kids home?”
“Tina’s doing homework in her room and Chalice should be home from volleyball practice any minute now.”
“What about Adam?”
“Still at football practice I guess. If he can’t find a ride, he’ll call and one of us can go pick him up.”
For the next thirty minutes, the couple shared in getting everything ready. The table was set, the food prepared, the kids all home and the family was ready. They rarely had guests, though Demetrius had expressed the desire many times to invite Carl and Lucinda over, but it would have been impossible for Carl to navigate the steps into the house, so no invitation had ever been extended.
At six-thirty, the doorbell rang. The man of the house strolled to the front door and flung it open. “Come in, Marcus. So glad you could make it.”
The blond-haired boy stood on the steps, smiling awkwardly, holding a thin, red cardboard box with a picture of a pie. He pushed it forward to Demetrius.
“What’s this?”
The boy shrugged. “I called my mom and told her you’d invited me over. She said I should take something, so I thought a pie would be good.”
“That’s perfect. Thanks. Now, come on in and let me introduce you to my family.”
◆◆◆
An uneventful week had passed. Edward sat at poolside in the growing darkness of the Arizona Fall. The rain of the morning had passed, although the clouds lingered making for a beautiful sunset with purple and crimson lighting up the clouds high in the sky. He couldn’t actually see the sun as it set because the pool was surrounded on all sides by the two-story apartment complex. He supposed it might be worth a walk to the parking lot to see the actual sunset, then just as quickly decided not to. He’d been sitting there for the past two hours speedreading a library book on police work. The reading had two purposes. First, to fulfill an assignment from Dr. Milligan, and second, to see if he could glean any information to help him plan the perfect murder. As the light faded, he closed the book and felt an overwhelming power in his chest at the realization he held another’s life in his hands. Most of the items on his mental checklist had been resolved. He had the gun and the date, he knew Dr. Smallwood taught a night class on Tuesday nights, and he knew from following the past two weeks which roads the man took in his van to drive home. Only two dilemmas were left to be worked out for the perfect crime. One was how to prove he was somewhere else. The target date of November 6th was less than two weeks away. Somehow he had to have something in place.
Leaning back on the pool chair, he contemplated possibilities, but none were foolproof. As he relaxed on the poolside chair, his eyes closed and within a few minutes he drifted off to sleep in the pleasant twilight. The book slipped from his grip to land spine up, bent pages down on the roughened concrete at poolside. Jerking awake, he reached for the book, but the small paper placed between the pages at checkout fluttered to the deck. Reaching for it, he noticed the date and time stamped there. He blinked, instantly awake and focused. He remembered the visit to the main library on the University of Arizona campus a week earlier. He had found the book, then on the ground floor, he’d given the lady his student ID card which she scanned along with the barcode on the book. The small printer rolled the paper showing exactly what book he had checked out, as well as the date and time. Perfect!
◆◆◆
Demetrius dropped two quarters in the Coke machine in the hall of the Violent Crimes Division office complex before trudging toward his office. He sat in the office chair, popped the tab and took a long, cold swallow. He rarely drank soda, but today he needed a caffeine pick-me-up because he was frustrated that every time it seemed he was making progress, he was met with another dead end.
He sat in the leather chair, but before he could take another sip, the Lieutenant stormed in without knocking. The man’s face was red with pursed lips and squinted eyes.
“Crown, I just came from a meeting with the Chief and the Mayor. They’re not happy and that means I’m not happy. The Chamber of Commerce and the Office of Tourism have been getting event cancellations because people are saying Tucson is not safe. They’re screaming at the Mayor, the Mayor is screaming at the Chief, the Chief’s screaming at me so I’m screaming at you. If you don’t make some noticeable progress soon, I’m going to put someone else on the case. You got that?” He folded his arms and glared.
The big detective’s jaw clenched and he could feel the beating of the veins at his temples. It took all his restraint not to reach across the desk and grab the little pipsqueak by the neck and shake him. Here was a man who’d been only slightly better than a mediocre cop, had probably never solved a real case in all his time on the force, but had reached his position by schmoozing rather than capability. Not a single detective in the building liked the man and it was demanded practice to never call him by name, only ‘the Lieutenant.’ Fighting the urge to do some physical damage, Demetrius blinked and breathed. Through gritted teeth, he whispered, “Yes, sir.”
The Lieutenant stretched to his full height, pointed and shook a skinny finger toward Demetrius. “You just remember that.” He turned, leaving the room the same way he entered.
The detective watched him go. Without realizing it, he crushed the can in his right hand causing the cool liquid to escape from the opening and run down his fingers to his desk. At the sensation, Demetrius jumped from his chair and savagely opened his top desk drawer for the stash of spare napkins he kept there. He quickly mopped the spill, then threw the can and the sopping paper towels into the metal can at the side of his desk. H
e glared toward the door and the empty hallway beyond, growling to the empty room.
“I’ll get him. These things take time, but sooner or later I’ll find his mistake and get the killer soon enough.” He glanced to where the Lieutenant had disappeared. “In the meantime, you just stay out of my way you worthless jerk.”
◆◆◆
Edward sat in his room with the door closed and his full attention on his computer screen. The last barrier he had to overcome was how to silence the Glock when he pulled the trigger. For the last hour he’d been watching YouTube videos on how to silence or suppress gun noise. One option was to buy a factory-made silencer, but that was quite obviously out of the question.
Another was to buy an attachment for an oil filter to fit on the barrel. The videos he watched were incredible. It really was a silencer, but here again, to buy one would start a paper trail leading directly back to him, something he could not do. Several videos talked of soda bottles but from what he saw, they weren’t very effective. He sat up at the video options displayed on the screen.
A pillow? Someone was using a pillow as a suppressor? He clicked the play button and watched in surprise and admiration as the narrator explained how the dead air spaces in the pillow trapped much of the expanding gas and therefore the sound. It wasn’t a silencer, but it changed the report to something more akin to a car door slamming than a gunshot. It was exactly what he needed.
◆◆◆
Marcus and Demetrius met for their weekly breakfast at seven o’clock on Halloween morning. When Dr. Smallwood had mentored Demetrius so many years earlier, he’d suggested a weekly breakfast meeting as a good chance for them to get better acquainted. Demetrius suggested the same to Marcus so the pair met every Monday in a small diner four blocks from Campus.