It Takes Two to Strangle (6 page)

“Not everyone eats as healthily as you, my friend. The lab techs will check under Lirim’s fingernails. If Jim’s skin is under there, we’ll have something.”

“Is anyone other than Jim on your radar?”

“There’s the daughter, of course,” Gerry said and straightened up. “Even though she and Lirim were barely on speaking terms, we’re pretty sure she’ll inherit whatever he had. We have an officer who used to be an accountant looking into Lirim’s finances. And then there’s Tobin Corb. He and his wife Angela have been traveling with Big Surf for about three years, mainly working the Hall of Mirrors and Funhouse. It turns out that Lirim was fooling around with Angela right around the time his wife died. Tobin found out and a couple of the other carnival workers heard Tobin threaten Lirim at the time.”

“Why didn’t Corb get another job and move away with his wife?” Damon asked.

“Beats me. Maybe he wanted to stay close so he could strangle Lirim in the middle of the night.”

“Good point,” Damon said. “Anybody else?”

“Someone who left Big Surf about six months ago after Lirim fired him for skipping work repeatedly. He threatened Lirim on his way out of town.” Gerry yawned. “We have all of the temporary workers coming in tomorrow. Not that I think there will be much there, but I’m determined to cast a wide enough net so that the fish I’m looking for is in it.”

That was why Gerry had been so successful throughout his career, Damon thought as he went to the kitchen to strain the spaghetti and take the bread from the oven. He’d work tirelessly to eliminate everyone associated with Lirim Jovanovic.

The men sat down to a carboholic’s delight. “I wonder if Jim will fire Victor now that Lirim’s gone,” Damon said.

“I would if I was him,” Gerry replied, swirling a forkful of spaghetti.

“That would seem to make Victor a less likely suspect. He would have to know what would happen to his job if he killed Lirim.”

“True,” Gerry responded, “but it still seems a little suspicious to me that Victor found the body in his bed before six in the morning.”

Damon thought for a moment. “Any chance they were sleeping with each other?”

“I doubt it. Margaret pressed that point with Victor and he almost choked he laughed so hard. He could have been overcompensating, but I doubt it. We asked a number of other carnival folks whether there could be anything sexual going on between Lirim and Victor and didn’t get a sense that there was.”

“Maybe they met in the early hours to do their cash skimming.”

“That’s what we figure. Of course, when I came to the fairgrounds to get the permits signed, they were in Lirim’s trailer alone with a stack of paperwork, so they may have been doing it in broad daylight. I gave a call over to the local office of the IRS and tipped them off that they should re-open their file on Victor.”

Damon stabbed and twirled a mass of spaghetti. “I don’t envy you, Gerry. But at least you have suspects. The opposite would be worse.”

Gerry paused as if deciding whether or not to say something. He took a large bite of garlic bread and chewed slowly. Damon waited. Finally Gerry said, “Damon, I’d like to talk to you about something confidential. I can talk technical aspects of the case with Margaret Hobbes, but it’s my first murder investigation and I need a set of ears to bounce something off of.”

Damon nodded, urging Gerry to continue.

“Margaret has a distinct opinion on this particular issue, and while I think she’s probably right, there’s something nagging at me. And I can’t talk to my wife about it. Trina doesn’t mind me being a police officer, but she gets nervous whenever I bring up anything related to dangerous activity.”

“Gerry. For God’s sake, what is it?”

He drummed his fingers on the table top. “The medical examiner will know for sure after the autopsy, but Damon, there were two different sets of strangulation marks.”

Damon took in the gravity of the statement. “What exactly do you mean?”

“I mean, and you can’t say a word of this to anyone, it looks like Lirim was strangled twice. Dr. Chu said there was definitely a rough-edged chain used. But there are also marks that look like they were made from a smooth cord or rope.”

Damon pursed his lips and blew out air. After a minute, he said, “So the killer goes in, sneaks up behind Lirim while he’s asleep, puts a chain around his neck and begins choking him. Lirim wakes up and starts trashing about. Maybe he gets hold of the chain and whips it out of reach or just holds on and won’t let go. But he’s too weak to fight back with vigor, so the killer grabs a cord and finishes the job.”

“That’s what Margaret thinks happened.”

“But you don’t.”

“Maybe,” Gerry replied. “I found two things in Lirim’s bedroom that could have been used. There was an electrical cord to the alarm clock and one to the bedside lamp. Forensics is taking a look at them. It’s also possible that there was another device with a cord and the killer took it and tossed it somewhere.”

“Either one of those sounds plausible to me,” said Damon. “But you still don’t believe it?”

“Margaret has worked six homicides over the past five years and it’s probably what happened, but I don’t have any proof so I just can’t let it rest.”

“How else could it have happened?” Damon asked.

“Two assailants,” Gerry said quickly. “One comes in with a garrote—either a chain or cord. And if there are two people, we can forget about the second instrument coming from the trailer itself. So one person comes in and strangles Lirim. He leaves thinking that Lirim’s dead, but he’s not. Later, the other person comes in, armed with their weapon, and this time chokes Lirim to death.”

Damon held up his fork. “Lirim would call the police after the first attempt.”

“Maybe not,” Gerry said. “Dr. Chu said that strangulation can lead to unconsciousness rather than death. So it’s possible that the first person rendered Lirim unconscious and ran out of the trailer without checking to make sure Lirim stopped breathing. He assumed that because Lirim stopped convulsing, he was dead.”

Damon picked up the thread. “Then the second person comes in and thinks he’s sleeping.”

“Exactly. He’s lying in bed and still breathing. And it’s dark so the second strangler doesn’t see any marks on Lirim’s neck. He does the deed and this time Lirim actually dies.”

“But it would be a pretty big coincidence if two people tried to kill Lirim on the same night by the same method.”

“I know. That’s what I keep coming back to and why Margaret didn’t want to give it a second thought after I raised it with her.”

“Can Dr. Chu tell how much time went by between the first strangulation and the second?”

“I asked her the exact same thing. She should be able to tell us the approximate time of death after the autopsy. As for which ligature was used first and how much time went by between them, it depends on how the autopsy comes out. Grace had never seen anything quite like this so she wasn’t sure.”

“How long will the autopsy take?”

“With lab tests, probably about a week for the preliminary results.”

“That seems like a long time to wait.”

“It is. According to Margaret, if you don’t solve a murder within the first few days while the trail is fresh, it gets exponentially harder. The chief said we need to move fast and get it done now.”

Damon and Gerry were silent for a minute, eating and thinking. “It could have been like Murder on the Orient Express,” Damon said.

“Is that a movie?” Gerry asked, interested.

“An Agatha Christie novel. A man gets killed on a train and it turns out he had kidnapped and killed a little girl. The dead man had twelve stab wounds, only some were right handed and others were left handed. Some were forceful blows while others just grazed the skin.” Damon closed his eyes and pictured the scene in his head. “In the end it turns out that all twelve people on the train knew the family of the kidnapped girl. They worked together and each stabbed the man once.”

Gerry converted the storyline into the murder at hand. “So maybe there are two killers as I suggested, but they came into Lirim’s trailer together and each one takes a turn strangling him with the rope or chain of his choice.” Gerry poured a glass of water from a pitcher. “So in that scenario, who do we think could be working in tandem?”

Damon thought about it. “There are two couples I can think of.”

“Clara Jovanovic and the boyfriend Jordan Hall are one,” Gerry said cutting in. “Tobin Corb and his wife Angela would be another.”

“Not the same two couples I had in mind,” Damon shot back. He uncapped another beer. Unlike Gerry, he wasn’t working after dinner. “I agree with Clara and Jordan. But I don’t know about the woman Lirim had an affair with and her husband. Why would the wife want to murder Lirim?”

“I don’t know,” Gerry admitted. “But they’re a couple and at least one of them has a strong motive. Who’s your other couple?”

“Jim Riley and Skipper.”

“You mean Spencer Boudreaux?” Gerry asked.

“I don’t know his full name. Lirim and Jim just call him Skipper.”

“That’s Spencer. Is it the meal ticket comment Jim Riley made that makes you think he’s a killer?”

“Probably not,” Damon admitted. “But remember, I also saw him arguing with Lirim the night before the murder.”

“True. Okay, let’s say we add them to the list of suspect pairs. But a murderous duo seems far-fetched. How often do two people conspire to kill someone.” Gerry shifted in his seat. “Then again, my theory is based on two people separately trying to kill the same man on the same night by the same method.”

Damon laughed. “Did you ask Skipper what he was arguing about with Lirim?”

“I did,” Gerry said. “He said it was about his pay. The workers get paid every Wednesday, shortly after the prior week’s fair closes. Skipper said last week he worked more hours than Victor paid him for and that’s what he took up with Lirim.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Honestly, I just couldn’t tell. I sprang the question on him so he would have to be quick on his feet to come up with a response that sounded so reasonable.”

Damon rose and cleared the table. Gerry stood up to help, but Damon waved him back down. “Relax, Gerry. You’ve been working your tail off all day.”

“Actually, I need to head out now. We’re meeting back at police headquarters soon to compare notes.” Gerry thanked Damon profusely for the dinner and his insight and headed out into the soggy evening air.

Chapter 6

The next morning was the Fourth of July. Damon hadn’t thought about the upcoming party at the Hollydale picnic facility in days. And he woke with the feeling that he had endured some fantastically horrid dreams during his hours of fitful sleep. Thankfully, he couldn’t recall them with any specificity, though he had the sense that chains and cords played a prominent role.

As Gerry was leaving the previous night, he had told Damon the police would scour the fairgrounds for discarded implements of death once the rain subsided. If the killers had any sense, Damon thought, they would have destroyed the ligatures or at least disposed of them far away from the fairgrounds. Then again, other than Lirim, the carnival workers slept four to a trailer. A prolonged absence in the middle of the night might have been noticed. A killer could have slipped back into his or her trailer and hid the ligatures with the intent of disposing of them first thing in the morning. But by the time he woke up, if the police had already arrived, there would be no time to get rid of them.

And the carnival workers didn’t have their own cars. Heavy-duty work trucks stocked with electrical supplies and huge transport tractor-trailers stood on the periphery of the grounds. The only other vehicles Big Surf brought to Arlington were the trailers.

Clara, on the other hand, could have parked on a residential street and walked to the collection of trailers. If that happened, the ligature or ligatures used would be long gone.

Gerry had informed Damon the previous evening that the last time anyone saw Lirim alive, other than the killer, was just after midnight. A half dozen of the younger traveling employees and a handful of the temporary workers set up a crude bonfire in a pit they had dug themselves about seventy feet from Lirim’s trailer. They were drinking from a thirty-pack of Natural Light and horsing around. The police received numerous matching accounts of Lirim emerging from his trailer in a gray t-shirt, blue boxers and dirty socks, holding a liquor bottle in one hand and demanding that the kids shut down the party. And they did. Within fifteen minutes they put out the fire and dispersed.

Nobody else in the carnival caravan admitted to being outside after that time. So the murder occurred between twelve fifteen and five forty-five when Victor discovered Lirim’s dead body. The drink in Lirim’s hand could have put him into a particularly deep sleep, facilitating a strangulation with little resistance.

Damon decided to check in with Cynthia at her salon, in case anyone asked her, as the citizens association vice president, about the fair. It was early, but Cynthia’s buzzed with energy. Mrs. Chenworth was holding court, with her bulk wedged into a cashmere-colored styling chair, though no stylist was attempting to tame the masses of thick brown curls swarming about the trunk of her neck. Cynthia was leaning against a Formica countertop. In contrast to Mrs. Chenworth, she looked borderline malnourished. Stringy blond hair fell flat along Cynthia’s gaunt cheeks. A single patron sat in a Carolina blue pedicure chair, her toes being attended to by a fifty-year-old redhead.