The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (17 page)

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” a voice called out from across the hall. “Come in, have a welcome
-to-Philadelphia drink.”

The voice belong
ed to one of the detectives in the Homicide section, a familiar area to Maude and Joe.

“Name
’s William Page, but my friends call me Bill. Don’t judge us all by that guy over there.” he said, extending his hand first to Maude then to Joe. “What’s your poison, soda or water?”

“Water’s fine,” both detectives said at the same time.

“Where you folks from?” Bill asked, pointing to a couple of chairs in his office, extending water bottles. “Have a seat, tell Uncle Bill your troubles,” he finished with a grin across his wide friendly face.

Bill was about sixty
-five,
Maude figured,
getting ready for retirement, no doubt. Not trying to make any points with anyone
. She thought he was kind of handsome, tall like her, but a little heavy around the middle. Not too bad though, brown eyes, wide mouth, small mustache, strong chin. She found her fingers were unconsciously smoothing the stubborn curls around her face, presenting a better picture of herself to this man.
Oh well,
she thought
, the minute I open my mouth it’s all over anyway. Men don’t seem to care for my type of woman; they’re looking for the quiet, submissive girl who doesn’t know enough to pull a grass burr out of her own foot. Has to have a man do it for her.

“Maude Rogers,” she said, sticking out her hand,
introducing herself. “And this is Joe Allen, my partner. We’re homicide detectives from Madison, Texas, looking for a man on the
Porcelain Wor
x sales staff. Need to ask him some questions about a case we’re working on back home.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss
or Mrs. Rogers,” Bill said, giving her an admiring glance.

Maude was a little flustered by Bill’s attention, but put it down to his natural friendliness to strangers. Still, she thought, it was nice to have a little male
appreciation now and then.

“Mrs.
Rogers, but you can call me Maude. Nice to meet you Bill.”

“Wonder if you could direct us,” Maude continued. “Was hoping to ask the sergeant over there
, but he was too busy to be bothered.”

“Yes
ma’am. I can do that. Matter of fact, I can show you if you like; I’m headed that way myself. Have to pick up a birthday cake for a party tonight. Store’s on the way. You could follow me.”

The little two-
seater was parked away from the Cop Shop, about a block down the street. By the time Maude and Joe got back to the car, she had smoked half of a cigarette, and was a little winded.

“Ever thin
k about quitting those things?” Joe asked, casually.

“
Ever think about shutting your trap?” she replied, looking his direction.

“You
’d have more breath if you quit,” he said, “might need it before Bill is through with you.” After that, Joe looked innocently around the city square, pretending an interest in any view that took his attention away from Maude’s face. His green eyes sparkled with amusement, knowing that Maude’s wrath would be coming back at him.

The police car Bill drove was a new model, without any dents or dings, a sleek blue vehicle that was easy to follow on the freeway going west.
They could have used a GPS direction finder, but with Bill leading it was a sure thing they would find the place. Joe had a real affinity for understanding electronics, and could no doubt have found where they were going, given enough time. They needed to hurry though and get the job done to catch their flight back in the evening.

Maude had no thought that the man they sought was in Philadelphia, She believed him to be nomadic, with a central home
base that he returned to when he felt the need to put in an appearance. That belief was based on his movements of late.

“I’m getting hungry, Maude.” Joe said, leaning over from the driver
’s side of the car. “Think we can get food on the way, maybe a burger?”

“Fine by me, l
et’s see where Bill drops off the freeway. Maybe there’s a fast food joint there somewhere, been a long time since last night’s dinner.” She was in agreement after listening to her stomach growl for the previous half hour. 

Bill pulled off the freeway at a gas station exit
, and stopped the car. He walked back to the two-seater, looked it over for a minute, then leaned into Maude’s window.

“Your department on a real tight budget?” he asked, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned.

“We figured we’d catch some flack about our choice of vehicles, but from everything we had heard, you men up here measure your cars by the size of certain parts of your body. Joe said the auto service didn’t have any limos to match his. Besides, this one works just fine.” Maude said, tilting her head back, looking into the warm brown eyes of Detective Bill Page.

“Maude Rogers, I think I like your style!” Bill said, laughing.
“This is where I get off the freeway. You stay on till the next exit, then go over the top, and follow that road for about two miles. You’ll run into
Porcelain Worx
. Not far off the freeway.”

As the Philadelphia police detective walked away, shaking his head, still laughing, Maude and Joe began looking around for a fast food place near their location. Down the service road a breakfast cafe and burger joint advertised its fare on a neon sign, and Joe started driving there, pressed on by hunger.

The eatery had several tables and chairs, an order bar, and an outside drive up where mush-mouthed voices could be heard asking consumers for their orders. Choosing to eat in the building rather than struggling with a dripping burger in the small two-seater, the two detectives sat down inside after placing their order. Outside the building a parking lot with several shade trees overshadowed cars whose occupants dipped fries in catsup and slurped sodas out of Styrofoam containers. Joe sat at the table, drumming his fingers on the surface, taking the occasional drink from his cup

“Maude, what are we going to do if we don’t find him out here?”

“I don’t know. Keep on till we get a lead. The only thing we can do.” she answered, keeping her eyes on the parking lot watching several cars depart, their occupants dropping trash from the car windows into a receptacle at the end of the parking lot.

“Good to see Philly residents appreciate the
ir clean roadways,” Maude said. “I’m going to step outside and smoke one while we’re waiting.”

The building was fairly new,
plastered in brown and cranberry colors, with lots of glass and aluminum, catering to the more youthful crowd. A playground was attached to the rear of the building, tempting parents to give their small children permission to run up plastic stairs that led to long winding tubular slides. The squeals from the kid’s area were reminders of days and years gone by, back when Maude was younger, when life was less complicated.

The high red roof on the playground was connected to the outside screened
-in walls with bright colored beams, the safety of the children a must for the construction design. Maude walked around the property, smoking and thinking, finally returning to the entrance where she saw through the window that her food was on the table. Pitching her cigarette into a butt can, she headed toward her burger and fries to eat and contemplate the upcoming few hours.

He was frantic, his hands shaking, the acid in his belly sending burning signals through his esophagus, a side effect of the tomatoes he had just consumed and the panic in his chest, his scarred and damaged intestinal tract reacting to stress. The visor in the rent car was pulled all the way down, but he felt her eyes searching for him, knowing too much
.

She was here, walked by him sitting alone in the car, but did not s
ee him! His hair was blonde now- a short crew-cut, glasses covered his eyes, set low on the bridge of his nose. But she would know him if she saw. Must get away.

“Mother, how did you find me?” he asked, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
“You weren’t supposed to find me! You’ve ruined everything now! I can’t go back, can’t finish. I am so angry with you!”

He talked to himself more now, the weight of his work heavy, so much to do. Mother
had found him, found his place, his identity. She would keep worming around until she knew it all, the things he had done, wetting himself, messing himself. His head would hurt when she hit him with the balled up fist one, two, three times. His tummy would puff up with blue colors, the poop in his pajamas all red; the screams coming during the night when the pain was worse. Bobby began to cry, great tears falling from his eyes, his nose running snot, tiny again.

The renta
l car was dark brown, hard to remember; it blended into the traffic within the parking lot. When the tears stopped, the blonde man with the dark glasses in the driver’s seat of the sedan started the engine, gathered his food remains, and drove from the fast food restaurant, dropping his trash in the receptacle before leaving. He was calmed once again, and knew now what he must do.

The
factory was easy to find, close to the freeway as Bill Page had said.
The place was huge
, Maude thought, covering what appeared to be acres of ground with buildings, trucks, and parking lots for cars and other vehicles. On the back side of the property was a railroad spur built for loading shipments of sinks, showers, and toilets going out of town, out of state, connecting to the main freight and passenger rails that sometimes moved with great speed through the less desirous neighborhoods of Pennsylvania.

The entry to the main building had a giant sign over the door
displaying the letters
, Porcelain Worx , Established 1948.
The two detectives walked through the huge doors onto a large open floor of heavily shined tiles. Replicas of toilets and sinks dated from 1948 through the rest of the century and into the next were placed in strategic spots around an atrium. Fountains flowed from porcelain sinks and even from one bidet, the overflowing waters bubbling into a porcelain floor drain, where it recirculated to do it all again. Maude thought it all too bizarre for her tastes. Joe stared a minute, then turned his eyes to the large black porcelain counter where a very attractive woman sat busy behind a computer screen.

She was a redhead with brown eyes
. Sitting in an ergonomically designed office chair, her attention was on the two detectives, who as far as she knew, could be potential buyers. Maude decided to cut to the chase and showed her identification, asking to see the personnel manager. She realized a corporation of that size would have a human relations department, but she hoped to see someone who oversaw the whole section. They were directed by the receptionist to have a seat in the section of chairs near the atrium, where they could listen to the sound of bubbling toilet water and admire all manner of porcelain products while they waited.

Joe sat for a moment then retur
ned to the front reception area and spoke for a short time to the redhead who smiled a lot, obviously flirting with the detective. Maude watched all that from her chair, then lit one of her unfiltereds causing the redhead to take her eyes off Joe and look with horror at the curling smoke in the otherwise sterile room. When it was time to shake the ashes off the cigarette, Maude thought for a minute how appropriate it would be to drop them in one of the bubbling toilets.

Instead, she walked over to the coffee area located near the front reception desk and picked up a used cup that someone had left
behind. She doused her ashes there and continued to smoke, leaning against the coffee bar, helping herself to some of the coffee that came in little tubs, ready to be placed in a machine that added water, producing a small cup of brew. The coffee was particularly good even though there wasn’t much of it in the cup. She decided that when she got back home, one of her stops was going to be the big box store where they sold the machine. It would be a welcome change from burned coffee at the Cop Shop.

Looking down at her watch for the tenth time produced greater ire in her than the ninth time had done. She knew what the slow
-no was all about, knew how it was done in big business. Make the person wait long enough and they give up and leave. Of course, they didn’t know Maude Rogers. Without delaying any longer, she strode to the black shiny counter where the redhead worked, pulled her shield again, and spoke very softly.

“Young lady,” she said, “If I don’t get someone out here to talk to me within the next five minutes, I will be leaving, but I will be back with a search warrant for a person I believe works for this establishment. At that time, there will be several deputies who show up, marching into offices right and left, disturbing the
toilet and dishwashing business so bad it’ll take a week to get things settled down again. How do you think Mr. Worxslaven will like having a week of production shut down because you didn’t put enough importance on a genuine police detective’s request for an audience? Now, I’m going to go back and sit down for four minutes, and if no one shows up, then I,
and
that handsome detective you’ve been mooning over, will be out the door.”

The poor girl had
obviously been given instructions on how to handle nosey people who had no intention of buying. Maude suspected that supervisors routinely coached all front desk people regarding visitors. The receptionist had no clout to push for a meeting, but it wasn’t beneath a good cop to use a little fear tactic now and then. She hoped their trip had not been a bust. Without corroboration from the corporation’s personnel files, the detectives had no way to find the suspect or to know his identity. Maude believed she could positively identify the killer if she saw his picture.

Her butt was getting numb from sitting. It had been another three minutes and she was about to get up and gi
ve Joe heads up that it was time to go. A door opened near the receptionist’s post and a short, dumpy woman with nondescript gray hair stepped forward, motioning for Maude to go with her.

Following the woman down the hallway with Joe by her side Maude felt some h
ope where before she had none.
Her thoughts wandered as she watched the dumpy woman’s butt cheeks waddling in front of her,  curious for a minute if her own skinny butt cheeks waddled. Men would find that attractive, she thought, probably Bill Page liked a good waddle. Wait a minute, she thought, why am I thinking of men right now? One minute I’m being hopeful we might have caught a break with this perp, the next I’m thinking of butt waddling. Maybe I’m sick, maybe brain cancer.

“
In here,” the woman said unsmilingly. She opened a door and indicated three seats and a computer, taking the ergonomic chair near the large lighted screen for herself. Wasting not a minute of her time, the woman tapped on the keys of the unit, bringing up a company logo and the place for a password and login.

“Who do you want to know about?” she asked.

The name tag on the woman stated that she was Dora Appleton, HR Specialist, the haughtiness of the woman indicating that her tenure with the corporation had been lengthy.

Maude thought for a minute, letting the woman sit and stew.

“Why, everyone, Miss Appleton.”

The HR specialist sputtered for a minute.
”You can’t mean every employee!”

“Yes
ma’am, I believe she does,” Joe said in agreement with Maude.

Maude decided to stop being
difficult and toned her request down a little.

“Miss Appleton if you would just shoot
us a list of all employees and their pictures, we’ll look them over and hopefully find the one we are searching for. Does that seem more doable? Truth is we think we’re looking for a man, but with cosmetic surgery availability, it’s difficult to be certain.”

The list that spit out from the printer had
over fifteen hundred names, from the oldest board member to the lowliest janitor; all were there, with pictures for most. Approximately thirty percent of employees did not have a photo on file; the rest of the photos were of both genders. Joe took half the list and Maude took the others. They had both seen the man at Mary Ellen’s and felt confident they could identify him from a picture.

The conference room
where they eventually settled with the load of personnel files was bigger than Maude’s whole house. A long table in the middle of the room, surrounded by comfortable chairs, was the place the board of the corporation met to discuss business. Dora provided bottled water and coffee for the detectives, but told them that under no circumstances was smoking allowed. The remark received a grumbling assent from Maude who had considered lighting one of her unfiltereds.

“
Caught me just in time,” she mumbled aloud.

The files
had limited information on them due to privacy issues in the workplace-a priority in all businesses. After the picture was the name, length of time the individual had worked for the corporation, and the list of assignments including the current job location of the employee. The files were in alphabetical order, the individual folders neat and orderly. The enormous amount of names was overwhelming until they divided them and began the long, arduous task of identification,

Maude had the M through Z
files spread out, peering at the pictures through her reading glasses. Each photo was scrutinized carefully, for Maude knew that the killer was too smart to have presented himself undisguised that night at Mary Ellen’s door. Female employees were considered because of the many possibilities for deception by someone intent on fooling the world. Maude was convinced the perp was a male, yet to the rest of the society, he may have been appearing as a female. It could have happened.

After
three hours, she had three possibilities set aside for more consideration, one female and two males. Joe said he had four to be looked at, all males. Maude had the sketch that was done by the police artist, its generic qualities due to the semi-darkness that night. What Maude remembered was the arrogant attitude and longish dark hair. His eyes had appeared dark but she hadn’t been suspicious enough to make certain while she spoke with him. Hindsight being perfect vision, Maude later saw clearly that she was played.

Joe got
up and got coffee for them both, the flavorful brew made from the little tubs. Even more, Maude was determined to get one of those coffee brewers. Maybe the Cop Shop would buy them.
Never happen, she thought.

Lunch time had been over for a
long time but she still felt bloated from the fast food. She felt the onset of gas in her stomach after sitting for a long time in the same spot with the addition of several cups of strong coffee
. I hope it doesn’t embarrass me
, she thought.

Random thoughts raced through
her brain when she gave them free reign, as now when the critical process was at hand. To sit and stare with concentration often made for a wrong identification. A clear mind, a quick glance was her best way for finding the right person among the others.

Lining all the pictures in
careful rows, spending very little time with singular photos, the two detectives looked them over singularly then chose four each from the line-up. Even if they were sure of one, they had to choose three others that could be the man. First, Maude left the room and Joe chose the ones that he believed could be the killer, wrote their names on paper and covered it with his hands when Maude returned. Then it was her turn to choose four and write them on paper. Next they compared their choices. Of the four names chosen by each detective, they had to choose two each out of the lot. They ran through the process again, only that time they each chose only one photo each. When the comparison was over they had both decided upon the same one.

The man in the picture
was very young with longish dark hair, acne, and thick glasses. The name on the folder was Robert Elridge Dawson, an employee of the company for the past twenty-one years, his current assignment listed as the southern and central states as well as some freelancing in the northern Rocky Mountains. A bell dinged in Maude’s head for a minute, some memory that scattered when she tried to reclaim it.

She turned the photograph over
. It was old, dated twenty years earlier with no current pictures available. Maude grimaced, knowing how that happened. Each time Human Resources would ask the employee for an updated picture, Dawson managed to be out of town or ill, any excuse to avoid altering his personnel file. Like a liar that constantly has to remember what he said the last time, the criminal was always on guard to avoid detection.

The address in the file would be an old one also, but it was a start. Maude just had to get it out of Dora without the time consuming request for a search warrant of the personnel file. That was definitely the place for Joe, handsome detective with the flashing green eyes.
Only Dora would not be the target. The redhead in the lobby would secure what they needed from her access to files.

Joe smiled a little when Maude told him his next assignment
, and she could understand the magic that the young man might work on an admiring female. She had no doubts about his work as a detective, he was learning fast, but his ability to finesse information was about to be tested.

Without any further ado, Joe left the conference room
with the picture, and was gone for about fifteen minutes before returning with a small slip of paper, a lipstick smudge on his collar, and a grin etched on his face.

“
Joe,” Maude said, “I should be ashamed for encouraging your disrespect for women, but somehow I don’t think I have to worry.”

“No
ma’am, it’s all in the job,” he replied, his green eyes dancing in the light. 

“What time does she get off?” Maude asked.

“Too late, we’ll be gone by then.” Joe said regretfully. “She is really very nice, pretty too.”

The address was old, never having been updated either, but the starting spot for them was in Oklahoma, just outside
the town of Mehan, a township in the middle of nowhere. Maude believed the address might have been one of the many locations used by the killer but it was their hope that someone would remember him. She noted from the sales territory assigned to Dawson that he had plenty of reason to be in both Chicago and Texas over the last several years.