‘Chief, can you come up here for a minute …?’
Chief Potter called out, ‘Right away,’ and followed the voice upstairs in the house where the first homicide in Monroe in twenty years had taken place. From the anxious sound of his officer’s voice, Lou felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe someone had found something they could use to identify the killer. Lou had plenty of experience with crime over his long career in the police department, and he’d seen his share of blood and battery. But murder was something foreign to him. He was trying not to show how out of his depth he felt to the victim’s distraught husband and father.
‘Where are you, Tyrell?’ he called out.
The sergeant stuck his head out of one of the doors down the hallway. ‘In here,’ he said.
Lou walked to the room where Tyrell Watkins was waiting. He walked in and looked around. The room was painted white, but the ceiling was a pale blue, with fluffy white clouds and a couple of kites painted on it. All the furniture in the room was white – the crib, the dresser, the changing table. A bright yellow rug, hooked in a Mother Goose pattern, covered the shiny pine floorboards in the middle of the room. An unopened package of newborn diapers sat on the changing table.
‘I’m guessing she was pregnant,’ said Tyrell.
Lou pressed his lips together sadly and nodded. ‘Oh God,’ he said.
Lou knew who Jennifer Hubbell was. She and her sister had grown up in Monroe. Jennifer had gone away to college in Boston and had lived there ever since – until three weeks ago. But Lou hadn’t recognized her when he saw the body. Of course, even if he saw her every day, he wouldn’t have known her. The slim, fully clad body had been sprawled on the floor between the dining room and the kitchen. The walls were spattered with red, as if someone had dropped a brick into a bucket of scarlet paint. She’d been beaten mercilessly about the head with the fireplace poker. Lou had seen people who had gone through windshields who weren’t that badly broken up. But he never would have known by looking at her that she was pregnant.
‘It might have been wishful thinking,’ Tyrell suggested.
Lou shook his head. ‘No. I’m betting on your first guess.’
Tyrell Watkins folded his arms across his broad chest. ‘Maybe he didn’t want a baby.’
Lou knew whom his officer was referring to. Ron Hubbell had found his wife’s body when he got home, so he said, from work. It had been his frantic call to 911 which had summoned them. Even without a lot of hands-on experience, Lou knew that their prime suspect was the husband. Add to that the time-honored maxim, known to all cops – whether homicide was routine or foreign to them – that the one who finds the body is most likely the killer, and he knew he had to bear down on Ron Hubbard about his story. But he wasn’t looking forward to it. ‘I’m going to see if the doc is finished with him yet,’ said Lou. ‘Anything else of interest up here?’
Lou saw a strange expression cross Tyrell’s broad, dark, even-featured face. ‘What?’ he said.
Tyrell narrowed his eyes as if he was about to speak, and then he shook his head slightly. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We’re still looking.’
‘Well, keep after it,’ said Lou. He returned to the stairwell, ducked his head, and went back down to the first floor. At the foot of the stairs he encountered Gwendolyn Holmes, the local MD, who was pulling on her coat, preparing to leave.
‘Oh, Chief Potter,’ she said.
‘Dr Holmes. Can I talk to him now?’
Gwendolyn Holmes glanced over her shoulder. ‘I wish you wouldn’t. He is really in rough shape. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
Lou Potter shook his head grimly. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Well, I gave him a sedative. Jennifer’s father is being stoic, although he looks like a stroke waiting to happen. Anyway, the husband may not be able to answer your questions. Don’t expect too much of him.’
Lou Potter nodded and walked into the living room. Two technicians from the county were quietly dusting the overturned furniture for fingerprints, and a yellow tape sectioned off the room which was considered to be the crime scene. There was a cop taking photographs all around where the body had been. Lou went the long way around into the kitchen, where the two men huddled. One light burned over the sink.
In the midst of the commotion in his house, Ron Hubbell sat in a chair, his elbows resting on the kitchen table, his head in his hands. His tie was askew and the white shirt that he wore was splotched with scarlet. Even from across the room, Lou could see that his body was shaking. His father-in-law stood at the sink, staring out into a pitch-black backyard. Lou knew the girl’s father. Jake Smith owned the only hotel in town, the Endicott, where the Policeman’s Ball was held every year. And, of course, Lou remembered him from that business about the other daughter. The one who fell in the shower and cracked her head. Jake Smith was so red in the face that Lou could see why Dr Holmes was worried about him. Lou dreaded this interview. Taking a deep breath, he approached the grieving men.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘We need to ask Mr Hubbell some questions.’ Lou did not say: you’re a suspect in the murder of your wife. Right now he was the only suspect. But, Ron Hubbell looked up at Lou with such total despair and grief in his eyes that Lou was tempted to just squeeze the man’s hands, turn around and walk out. Lou may not have had a lot of experience with murder, but he knew people. This man was totally devastated.
Jake Smith turned away from the sink and came and stood behind the chair where Ron sat, putting his large, worn hands on his son-in-law’s shoulders. ‘Can’t you see he’s too upset to talk,’ he said grimly. He held onto Ron’s shoulders like a man trying to hold down a tent in a tornado.
Lou ignored the father’s anger. What else could you do in a situation like this but be angry? ‘Ron,’ Lou said. ‘I’ve got to get some information so we can find out who did this.’
Ron wiped his eyes and tried to inhale a deep breath. Lou wondered what he had been like before the sedation, if this was afterward. Lou pulled out a chair and it scraped across the wooden floor. He faced the weeping man and took out his pad and pen. ‘Now Ron,’ he asked, ‘how long were you and Jennifer married?’
Ron glanced up at the wall clock, as if he were trying to figure it out to the minute. ‘Today was our anniversary – one year.’
Lou winced. He hated to bring up the next subject. ‘And she was expecting a baby.’
Ron nodded, and did not seem surprised that he knew. ‘She was five months’ pregnant. The baby was due …’ He dissolved into sobs again.
‘It’s all right son, we can figure it out,’ said Lou.
‘April,’ Ron whispered.
‘OK,’ said Lou. ‘When was the last time you saw your wife alive?’
‘This morning,’ Ron whispered. ‘Before I left for work. Oh my God, was that only this morning?’ he cried.
Lou cleared his throat and looked down at his pad. ‘We know she went to the supermarket and the dry cleaner’s. We found her packages, still out on the table.’
‘She was on her way to the doctor’s,’ said Ron. He opened his hand and revealed a crumpled piece of paper in it. ‘To get this,’ he said. ‘I found it on the refrigerator, under a magnet.’
Lou frowned, took the paper from him, and flattened it out. On the paper was a black and white image that resembled the shadowy arc of a windshield wiper. Inside the grainy arc it looked like a fish in a fishbowl. They hadn’t had these when Hattie was pregnant, but Lou’s daughter had showed him one when she was having her first. Lou realized what it was. ‘The baby,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘My grandchild,’ said Jake. ‘They killed my child and my grandchild.’
The atmosphere in the room was tense, and Jake Smith looked as if he was about to throw a punch at the nearest target. ‘I need to talk to Mr Hubbell alone,’ Lou said firmly. Lou indicated that Ken McCarthy should escort the father from the room.
Reluctantly, looking back at his son-in-law, Jake accompanied the officer out.
‘OK Ron,’ said Lou, in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘I need to know. Were there any problems between you and Jennifer? Money problems or … uh … sexual problems of any sort?’
Ron did not protest. He just shook his head. ‘None. None at all. We were so happy. We were looking forward to being parents.’
‘Your wife was …’ He looked at his notes. ‘Thirty years old?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did she have any other children? Previous marriages?’
‘No. None,’ he said. ‘Neither one.’
‘What about you? Ever married before?’
Ron nodded. ‘Once.’
‘Divorced?’ Lou asked bluntly.
Ron nodded.
‘Any children?’
‘She didn’t want children,’ said Ron bleakly.
Lou nodded. ‘I’ll need her name and address.’
Ron did not appear to hear him.
‘I’m just looking at my notes here, Ron. I mean. This seems odd … I mean, Jennifer comes back here to live after being away for … how long?’
‘Twelve … thirteen years,’ said Ron, with a sob.
‘Thirteen years later she comes back, and in three weeks, she’s murdered.’
Ron buried his head in his hands. ‘We should never have come here,’ he moaned.’
‘Why do you say that, Ron?’ Lou doggedly continued. ‘Did Jennifer have any enemies? Was there anybody in town that she was wary of … or didn’t want to see? Did she ever say anything to you?’
Ron started to protest and then he stopped, and his eyes widened.
‘Did you think of something?’ Lou asked.
‘Yes,’ said Ron. ‘There is someone.’
At that moment, Officer Ken McCarthy appeared in the doorway, shepherding a very pregnant woman with a dazed expression in her eyes.
‘Who’s this?’ the chief demanded.
Tyrell Watkins came up behind them and entered the kitchen, looking anxiously at the chief. ‘This is the Hubbell’s houseguest,’ Tyrell said. ‘Miss Dena Russell. She just got home.’
Dena looked at Ron in bewilderment. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What happened to Jennifer?’
Ron was looking at her now as if the sight of her face was reviving a nightmare. ‘Miss Russell was staying with the Hubbells,’ said Tyrell, his gaze locked on the chief’s. ‘She had some problems with her boyfriend the other night. Mr Brian Riley.’
A hot flush flooded Lou’s body, pulsing at his pressure points. He knew exactly why Tyrell’s eyes were wide in his mocha-colored face. With difficulty, Lou managed not to betray his own feelings to the people in the room.
‘Come in, Miss Russell,’ he drawled. ‘We’ll need to talk to you.’