CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

“I appreciate your coming in, Chuck.” Stone nodded politely. He watched the primary suspect in his wife’s death take a seat. He’d learned that Chuck worked as a car salesman, and frequently moved from job to job.

Chuck coughed nervously. “Like I said, I want to cooperate any way I can to help find Adrienne’s killer.”

“That’s good to know.” Stone slid his chair closer to the desk. “Why don’t you begin by telling me about your relationship with your wife?”

Chuck gazed at him uneasily, then shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“Did she ever cheat on you?”

“No. Why would you ask that?”

“It’s my job to ask that,” Stone responded curtly, “and anything else that might help find her killer.”

Chuck sniffed. “I understand.”

Stone took a moment. “So you never suspected your wife of having an affair with another man?”

“Never,” he insisted. “We loved each other. She never would have slept with someone else.”

“And what if she had, Chuck? How would you have felt?”

Chuck’s eyes became slits. “How would anyone feel?” he snapped. “It would have hurt like hell!”

“Have you ever hit your wife?” Stone stared at him accusingly.

Chuck’s head tilted pensively. “No. Did someone say I had?”

“Why would you think that, Chuck?” Stone could see that he was becoming flustered. Perhaps feeling guilty on maybe more levels than one.

“Because this...friend...of Adrienne’s—Erica Flanagan—was always trying to stir up trouble between us,” Chuck claimed. “She hates me for some reason.”

“And what reason would that be?” Stone locked eyes with him.

Chuck shrugged. “Hell if I know. I think she was jealous that Adrienne had a man and she couldn’t seem to hold onto one.”

Stone suspected that he had to reach deep to come up with that one, doubting Murray believed it himself. He played along for now. “So you’re saying you actually think Erica would make such an accusation that you beat the hell out of your wife purely out of spite?”

Chuck shifted his gaze. “I wouldn’t put anything past that bitch.” He paused, turning back to Stone. “So, is that what this meeting is all about?”

“No,” Stone said tersely. “It’s about you, Chuck, and the brutal murder of your wife.”

Chuck twisted in the chair. “You think I killed Adrienne?”

“Did you?” Stone honed in on the husband’s face.

“No—I did not kill my wife!”

“Did you visit her at work on the day she was killed?”

“No!” Chuck insisted.

We’ll see about that, mused Stone skeptically. “Where were you between six-thirty and seven-thirty the night your wife died, Chuck?”

“At home.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone.”

“Not good enough, Chuck,” Stone snapped. “You’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that!”

Chuck put his hands to his head. “I can’t believe this! Why on earth would I kill my wife, then come to you to report her missing?”

“Maybe because you wanted to cover your ass.” Stone’s brow furrowed. “It wouldn’t be the first time a man killed his wife and tried to make it seem like someone else did it.”

Chuck lunged to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this anymore. Not without my lawyer!”

Stone stood up, making it clear that he was not intimidated by this show of indignation from the suspect. But he also wanted to keep the man talking, without violating his rights. “Sit down, Chuck. This is strictly informal,” he indicated.

Chuck glared at him for a long moment. “I don’t think so. Sounds more like you’ve got your mind made up and are way off base. Unless you’re arresting me here and now, I don’t think I have anything else to say to you, except through my attorney—!”

Stone held his disappointment in check. “If that’s the way you feel.” He sensed that he was looking at a guilty man in some respect. Perhaps Chuck Murray was only guilty of loving Adrienne too much when maybe it was not being reciprocated equally. But Stone somehow sensed it went deeper than that. Maybe to the point of wife battering and murder. “You’re free to go,” he told him. “But I suggest you get together with your lawyer quickly. You may need representation soon. And do us both a favor, Chuck—don’t try and leave the state.”

Chuck’s nostrils grew with ire and he stomped out.

* * *

Stone watched him disappear before Lieutenant Bruce Kramer came into the room. He had been observing the interrogation in another room through a one-way window.

Kramer was forty-eight and wide-bodied. Two inches shorter than Stone, he had a walnut complexion, shaved head, and thick mustache. “I’d say we probably have our man,” he said in a deep voice. “Or had him.”

“Murray definitely knows something he’s not saying,” Stone said positively, not willing to go beyond that for now. “But we don’t have enough yet to make an arrest.”

“Then get enough!” warned Kramer, his hard features crinkled. “If this man strangled and sliced up his wife, before tossing her into the lake like a rag doll, I don’t want him deciding he may as well add another woman or two to the list for the hell of it so long as he’s a free man. Do you understand what I’m saying, Palmer?”

Stone held his gaze respectfully. “Yeah I think I do.” All too well. He either brought in Chuck for Adrienne Murray’s murder or someone else—and soon. Otherwise my ass is grass and I’m looking at the lawnmower.

Stone felt the pressure and wouldn’t buckle under. After receiving several commendations over the years for excellent and professional work, he wasn’t about to mess things up now. Not if he could help it.

Detective Chang walked into the room. The look on his face told Stone that he wouldn’t like what he had to say.

“The body of a prostitute named Penelope Grijalva was found this afternoon in an apartment on Broadway.” Chang glanced at a paper in his hand. “She’d been rotting there for a few days, till the stench became more than the neighbors could handle. The preliminary report is that she was strangled, raped, and cut up badly, much like Adrienne Murray—”

Stone and Kramer looked at each other, and then read the report.

“You think this could have been done by the same person?” Kramer asked Stone bluntly.

Stone hated to think that they had a serial killer on their hands, because it went against the grain—especially if Chuck Murray had killed his wife. It didn’t figure that he would exhibit the same rage against other women with whom he didn’t have the same vested interest. But the similarities could hardly be overlooked and were ominous to say the least.

“It’s too early to tell,” Stone responded as his way of saying he needed more time to work with. But he had a feeling there wouldn’t be any.

“Better get Murray back in here!” ordered Kramer, brows stitched. “And have him bring his lawyer along. Something tells me he’s going to need good representation.”

Stone had an APB put out on Chuck Murray. He had a bad feeling that if Murray was the one they were looking for, he wasn’t in this alone. Only Stone wasn’t sure where else to point the finger at the moment.

* * *

In bed that night, Stone tried sleeping but found himself unable to. Too many thoughts were drifting in and out of his head. Chuck Murray had been arrested without incident, still claiming innocence. He was later released when it became clear that they just didn’t have enough to hold him.

There appeared to be no connection between Penelope Grijalva and Adrienne Murray, aside from the similarities of their deaths. Like Adrienne, Penelope had apparently had sex with her killer, albeit Stone suspected it may have been voluntarily in Grijalva’s case. At least initially. DNA tests would show if the same man had intercourse with both women.

Joyce, sensing he was awake, wrapped her arms around him. “What is it, Stone?”

“I’m not sure,” he yawned miserably. “Someone is out there killing young women and I don’t know who the hell I should be looking for.”

She kissed his bare shoulder. “It’ll work itself out, honey,” she said in a motherly tone. “It always does.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. The problem was that if it didn’t soon, there would be more victims. More lives shattered.

Could Chuck have snapped after killing his wife? Stone wondered. Could he have set his sights on other young women who reminded him of her?

Stone contemplated if Chuck Murray was in cahoots with someone else. Or was he, like his wife, an innocent victim of tragic circumstances and bizarre coincidences?

Trouble is, I don’t believe in coincidences. Most things that happened were not by pure chance, but by design. Meaning these women were likely killed by the same person who knew exactly what he was doing.

There was no reason to believe he planned to stop any time soon. Unless caught or killed first.

Stone turned to his wife and pressed his lips against the warmth of her bosom. She was wearing Dolce and Gabbana perfume and it was invigorating. He kissed her naked skin, feeling her nipples harden.

Lowering himself down her stomach with kisses, Stone moved down further till he was between Joyce’s legs. He started kissing her there, then licking, aroused by her taste and her reaction to him.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she gushed, grabbing onto his head and holding it firmly in place while he brought her to orgasm, her body shaking wildly and breath quickened.

Stone felt the surge within about to explode, but contained it till he could get inside his wife’s body. Moving back up her, he planted kisses everywhere before reaching her mouth. She attacked his lips feverishly.

“Make love to me, Stone,” she uttered.

Stone could barely hold back, so strong his desire. Once he entered Joyce, he came almost instantly, but continued to propel himself into her for the joy of being intimate with the woman he loved.

Joyce clung to him, wrapping her legs around his buttocks, making love to him as their damp bodies tingled with mutual satisfaction and the muted sounds of sex rang in Stone’s ears.

After Joyce climaxed a second time, Stone pulled himself out of her and lay next to her as they held each other. He felt temporary relief from the stresses of the job and satisfaction in knowing that Joyce was always there for him, no matter what.