The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (19 page)

“No,
Sweetheart,” he used the name slyly, “No one waiting; used to be till a few years back. I lost my wife in a car accident. Drunk driver hit her broadside. She never felt a thing, they told me. Hope that’s true.” he added wistfully.

“How
about another beer,” she asked, joining him on the sofa. There’s a little store out front of this place. With our thirsts, we may have to get a twelve pack.”

Ridge Roberts, as he was known to most everybody in the social scenes
, was a wealthy, civic minded man, extremely outgoing and generous with his contributions to causes for the less fortunate. He had moved to Phoenix eight years before and settled into one of the more affluent sections near Fountain Hills. With the money from his family’s estate to spend, only the best and the biggest house would do for him and his wife Barbara.

Their two children, a boy
of eight and a girl of six were beautiful progeny, their body structures and intelligence pleasing, their youthful repartee well accepted in social circles. Numerous play dates had been arranged by Barb and Ridge for their sweet babies, the best nannies chosen to accompany them and insure their safety during playtime with other children. Such actions reinforced the adage that money
does
buy happiness in all forms.

Several times a year, and lately much more often, Ridge had business trips that took him out of country, or at least that is what Barb knew, then she and the children would go to visit Grandmother Stanton in California for a few merry days.

To say that Barb made the best of the time alone is accurate, for she did so hate it when the house was quiet, and Ridge was not there to lighten her darker moods.

She had just returned from a trip to Grandmother’s
, only to find that Ridge was still out of country. Sometimes Barb had suspicious thoughts about his many trips, but when he returned from them, Ridge was always happy, and hugged her affectionately at the oddest times. She adored it when they made love and he squeezed her breasts tightly, sometimes so hard it hurt. Her girlfriends would give anything to have that kind of attention from their husbands.

Barb had met Ridge eight and a half years plus three days
earlier.  She would always remember the day and the hour he walked into her life. She had been shopping, of course, in a very nice store though really, if anyone had asked her, it wasn’t quite up to her standards. Chicago was wild and parties everywhere though she had to admit some were off- limits by her standards. There’s that word again, she thought, the last glass of wine making her titter, so many times it was unsuitable for her to attend certain functions that were below her standards.

There was a party at the frat house of one of her friends and she, of course, had been invited so a new frock had to be found.
Usually, her grandmother called the shops and the dresses arrived in smart boxes, then she would choose the right one for the social affair. But that day, Barb had decided to venture out and visit the quaint little shop surrounded by other less charming establishments.

“Wow, what a beautiful dress
,” the handsome young man had said. “I don’t know if it’s the fabric that is so stunning or if it’s you who shines with such radiance; if you’ll permit a stranger to comment.”

“Thank you, and yes”
, she had said, her knees all aquiver, “You may comment with similar admiration any time, Mr...?”

“Roberts, Ridge Roberts at your service
”, the handsome well-dressed man had said. Barb told him her name when she was finally in control of her emotions, but oh my, he had really made her heart race. Before the meeting was over, she had learned that his mother’s birthday was three days away, and he was in the shop to purchase a silk scarf for her. The sad story came out about his mother dying when he was little, and the sweet man always bought a new Hermes scarf and tied it to her headstone, every year on her birthday. Now a man like that, she thought back then, had standards. That’s why she married him. Of course she loved him too, but finding such quality in a man attracted her first.

Their wedding had been a fairy tale of gossamer and white tulle, with the bride looking just like an angel. Barb had to agree with the ones
who called her an angel. She just knew that her makeup and hair were styled so artfully that she had ethereal beauty. And her long white train with the tiny seed pearls glistening in the light was spectacular. Ridge said he thought he had never seen a dress so beautiful or a bride so exquisite.

Now some would say that Barb had bought a
pretty package without knowing exactly what was in it when none of Ridge’s relatives showed up for the wedding. There was no one to speak for or against him, just Ridge and the love in his eyes, but Barb knew that no matter what little sins he might have hidden under the tissue paper, she was happy.

If there were a few times that she wondered about his moods and sometimes he seemed to be somewhere else in his mind when he got back from a business trip, well, that was just Ridge needing quiet time. She never understood what he did
on those trips; in fact he had
forbidden
her to ask him about those trips.

On
ce Ridge came home and said he had an accident on the road in a taxi, and that’s where he got so much blood on his shirt, from the taxi. Barb just threw the shirt away and never thought much about it, or at least not very often. She had learned that it didn’t really pay to question him about his business or the quiet times he spent in the attic behind the locked door. He sometimes got very impatient with her when she asked too many questions.

There was one time he accidentally drew back his fist and hit her in the stomach, but he was so sorry after, and cried about it, holding her and
nuzzling against her-she had to forgive him. He promised that it would never happen again and it never did. Well, not very often.

The children were wonderful, so attentive to their mother, and if they didn’t seem close to their father, well, that was to be expected when a man had to travel as much as her Ridge. The boy, Jason seemed to be afraid of his father, of all things, never wanting to stay with him when Barb had to be away on a social engagement. He was such a mama’s baby and accident prone, always hurting himself and needing Mama to make it better.

Little Alyson was still very young and just as sweet as pie. Barb knew that she was lucky to have her perfect family.

Maintaining two lives was difficult for Ridge, wigs and makeup were plentiful, and offered great identity concealers, but his playtime had to be carefully managed because of Barbara and the children. His greatest desires were available to him as Ridge Roberts, wealthy Phoenix entrepreneur and family man.

Barbara had brought her own family wealth and position to their marriage and she had such style and grace, the first time he saw her he knew she would do perfectly. She was sometimes overly concerned with his travels, but a few lessons in
mind-your-own-business
made her lose interest. He came and went as he chose, sometimes for weeks at a time. While he was gone, the house would be closed down as Barb and the kids went to California to visit her grandmother. The children were home schooled and had no difficulty with the arrangements, often benefitting from the old lady’s influence. The fact that the old woman hated Ridge only made his life more pleasant.

The locals of Phoenix were too absorbed in their own philandering to be concerned with
the Robert’s household. The party society was always looking for the next high. Not to say they did anything illegal, but whatever the empty-headed decided to do, the cream of
that
society floated to the top just like a turd in a swimming pool.

Another function, an art show, some helpless brats in Uganda needing food or water wells that only ri
ch Americans could provide. The causes were multiple and boring, and the devil knew he hated all that nickel and dime sympathy!

The pills helped him maintain the married life and outward calm of Ridge Roberts, always two in the morning, two at lunch and two at night. Except when it was
his
time, when the urge was STRONG! Then the pills had to go back on the shelf.

Doctor J. E. Martin from Chicago, an MD specializing in psychoanalysis and dissociative identity disorder also known as DID,
had been an expert in the treatment. He had formulated a cocktail of pills used in the treatment of personality disorders. His research was on the cutting edge for curing those disorders where the source of complaint was early child/family abuse resulting in traumatic memory shift.

“With careful adherence to the proper dosage,” Doctor Martin
had advised, “you should be able to keep the condition at bay indefinitely. The medicine is cumulative, creating a barrier to personality crossover. I would be very interested in monitoring your case, if you would allow me.”

Doctor Martin had written the prescription with three refills after a thorough examination and
a promise from Robert Dawson to report to the psychiatry department head with an update every six months. If any difficulties were to occur in the future, Doctor Martin wanted to be informed immediately. The man wanted information about the Dawson family, and Robert had already given him enough of the truth to make a clinical diagnosis, but no more. Ridge remembered one trip to see the doc for a prescription renewal, when Bobby was the one who got interviewed because Robert had stepped out. The sniveling little fink wanted to tell ALL and Ridge had to jump in and push the kid back.

The notes to that cop in Chicago had been the kid’s doing, and he almost got them caught before Ridge put a stop to it and left the city.

He never let the kid out in Phoenix! Ha! They would all be having a crybaby party after Bobby was done with them. Robert would fall out! As it was anyway, the toilet salesman had to work the hardest of all of them, keeping Bobby out of trouble and covering for Ridge. Still, Ridge did have all the fun, and it was going to stay that way. He did all the dirty work too. Like with the curious doc, and all the others that needed hushing!

R
ight, the two sickies had better play ball or he’d know why!

Taking a detour to Mehan, Oklahoma was necessary
, although Maude believed it would be a useless trip. Robert Dawson was too smart to have screwed up by giving away real information in his personnel file. The best they could hope for was someone in the small town might remember the man after so many years. The greater chance was that Dawson had lied about his residence when he was hired by
Porcelain Worx
and had never lived in or near Mehan. It was a process of elimination, determining truth from lies that sent her on the trip.

Maude had to rent a car in Stillwater where the neares
t airport was located, and the trip brought back some old memories from her youth.

She had gone to her mother’s sister in Cushing, Oklahoma after graduation from high school. The change of scenery away from her old man was necessary even though he had moved out of the house some time before. She was dead-set on leaving, on trying to forge a new life for herself. Leaving her mother and brother were difficult, but she didn’t trust the old man to stay away. Maude believed she would kill him if he so much as touched her.

Eighteen years old and freshly graduated from high school in Madison, Maude was green and easily impressed with the size and scope of the university at Stillwater, Oklahoma. The school had been much smaller back then and placed more emphasis on helping individual students than growing large classrooms. There was a bus that carried her back and forth from school to her aunt’s hous
e, and for  the weekend she was allowed to drive the old Chevy that Aunt Margaret used for work. 

After living with her aunt for the first two years of school, Maude
had gone for a long weekend with friends at the end of the semester and came home to find a multitude of cousins in the house. They were busy surveying her aunt’s Faberge eggs displayed on a what-not shelf, discussing the possibility of selling all the property and furniture together. They intended to take anything valuable with them and were packing boxes for the trip. Maude was stunned, first because there was a big group that she didn’t know and second, because she couldn’t find her aunt in the mix of people.

A
cousin, (she found out later she was related to all of the fortune seekers there) told her that Margaret, Maude’s aunt, died two days earlier, and they had been unaware there was anyone to notify. It must have happened just after Maude left. The family lawyer had found out about Aunt Margaret’s death from a client at the city hospital, and had called Margaret’s eldest daughter. Poor Grace was not notified because the families didn’t mix much and no one knew or cared where she lived. The cousins told Maude they were sorry, but she would have to get in touch with her mother.

Maude always believed that her cussing had started then, even though her old man had received his share that one time when she threatened to kill him if he ever touched her aga
in. Not waiting for anyone to explain how all the people in the house were related, Maude went to her bedroom, packed all the items she had brought with her from Madison, and gave her relatives the three fingered salute as she left the house.

She took her two suitcases
in a cab to the cheapest motel in town where she stayed for a few days through the grief and loss. Grace flew in from Madison for the funeral and bunked with Maude in the small room, each trying to give the other comfort. It was a sad time for them.

T
he job on the university campus paid Maude a small stipend, but not enough money for housing. The want ads in the local paper offered students part-time work through a credited program that offered tax credits to employers who hired students. Maude found the list and began looking for part-time work to help with expenses. The determination to finish school forced her to search for work that paid a decent salary.

Memory
loss in her later years worried Maude and made her suffer sometimes; not being able to recall names or small incidents that were so important when they happened years ago was frustrating. To her best recollection, the ad she had applied for said,

Nanny
: evenings and weekends. Live on property. Benefits: $100 weekly. Close to University. Telephone to apply.

Maude had called and interviewed the same evening with a delicate blond
e woman
who seemed very distracted as though it was not her first time to search for someone to watch her child. The money was very good, more than Maude had hoped to earn working part-time and going to school. The woman’s name escaped her memory, though the house and property were still vivid in Maude’s mind. The place had been huge with marble tile squares in the main entry, and outside, a large portico that sheltered a set of double doors and wide steps that led from the circle drive to the covered area.

The woman told
Maude that her job would be to care for one boy who had just had his third birthday- a sweetheart of a boy who cried a lot, and needed constant reassurance. The child was accident-prone, something was always hurting on his body, but the mother reassured her he would outgrow his carelessness.

Maude wondered what happened to the kid
after she left. The job lasted three months; until she became afraid for the boy’s aches and pains. She believed the injuries might have come from his parents and had spoken about it to a friend in one of her criminal justice classes, but he told her to back off. The family was very wealthy and carried a boatload of influence. Her suspicion of child abuse would be ignored. She had felt bad in the years that followed about taking her friend’s advice.

Maude
had given her notice to the family, and to her shame, quickly forgot about the little boy in her amorous feelings for Paul Rogers, whom she met the very next day.
Their whirlwind courtship and marriage erased all thoughts from her mind except the man in her life.

She
had finished her schooling there at the university even after she found out Paul was dead. The army benefit to wives and children of dead soldiers was a joke, but Maude had received a real surprise after she was married. Her aunt Margaret had a put some money aside, not a big bundle, but several thousand dollars, and she left it to Maude. The relatives were of course furious, but since the account was in a local bank where Maude was the named beneficiary, there was nothing they could do about it except carp to one another.

Maude took a moment to gaze off into the tall brown gr
ass that grew along the roadway and into the fields, delaying the memory that finally took her. The dive was deep, into a place she had been avoiding, the hurt still there.

She had found out
about the pregnancy three months into her marriage to Paul, and even though the news was overwhelming, she was happy. When Paul died she held onto her sanity by thinking about the baby, planning how she would tell him about his soldier father. A few weeks later, he too was gone. The doctors couldn’t explain why the fetus stopped growing within her womb; they expressed sadness and went about their business. She carried the baby for a week without a fetal heartbeat when they took him from her, leaving her empty, with another hole in her heart.

School was all she had left
, and in the middle of her junior year, she changed her major from business to criminal justice. Why it took so long to realize what she needed to do was a mystery. Because her old man had abused her for years and got away with it until she stood up to him, Maude knew that she wanted to help other people who were unable to help themselves. If that meant chasing killers to give a family closure and get justice for the dead, then so be it.

She became a
little tougher with each of her life’s tragedies, and grew more resilient to the pain of loss, but sometimes her mind played tricks, and made her believe she would wake one morning and find it all had been put back right; her husband and their child would be there.

After graduation,
Maude went to work for a small town police department in Oklahoma and tried to forget her problems, sometimes managing to lose them in the sins of the world. The town was a particularly fight-prone place, recently turning from dry to wet after the city elections. Disturbances broke out all over town as liquor was legally available to anyone over twenty-one. The boys at the Cop Shop told the rookie that the town would settle down after people got their exuberance under control and figured out that money spent on court costs and fines could buy a lot more legal beer.

Five years later Maude took a break from law enforcement, returned to Madison and invested her savings in the house
for sale down the hill from her family home. Her mother collected the rent from the tenant who continued living in the house and forwarded a check to Maude each month.

Still a young woman in her twenties, Maude decided to go to the west coast for a while. Free love was the rage in California and the beaches were cold and clear. Working for a while picking fruit, trying to clear her mind of the sad stories from the street and her own sad tale, Maude harvested grapes
, then worked in a coffee house serving hot and cold liquids to heavy-eyed poets in love with their own slick rhymes of war and death. She slung hash in a seaside diner and learned to pick a guitar by practicing between the breakfast and lunch run. She drank cheap gin, smoked unfiltered cigarettes and marijuana, but avoided psychedelic drugs. She was afraid of their long aftertaste. She practiced free-love as the hippies taught, marched in protests and sit-ins, sang patriotic songs for the men who had lost their lives in battle, and finally decided that it wasn’t working.

One morning she woke up hung
over in a small room in San Francisco, looked out the window at the sun rising with its pink and orange beauty against the blue California sky and asked herself (and anyone else that was listening), “What am I doing here?”

That was her last day on the West Coast. She was thirty three years old and knew that her last few years had been lost in a smoke
-filled fog. Hopping a bus to Texas with her one bag of dirty clothes in tow, a tougher Maude Rogers realized that she wasn’t hurting anymore. 

No one would hire her for police work because of the hiatus in her work record
, and the fact that she had spent six years on the West Coast working at menial jobs. Madison had a mayor at the time who had attended the University of Oklahoma with Maude, a friend and confidante and a sincerely interested person who had tried back then to help her fellow student sort out the enormous grief of losing husband and child. When the Mayor found out that Maude was looking for work in Madison, she hired her as an assistant, a kind of catch-all position that proved to be lifesaving for the Mayor and cathartic for Maude.

After two years of non
-eventful work assisting the mayor, Maude became interested in getting back into law enforcement. She began practicing the skills she set aside many years before. At first she couldn’t fire her weapon and hit the target at all, but she gradually got it back, relearning how to pepper the center ring with each pull of the trigger. The gym offered a place to vent her hostilities and frustration, working muscles that had become soft with so much time away.

One Thursday morning during the new mayoral campaign, Maude was assigned to arrange safe transportation for the entire city council to meet at the end of Bright Street, a low
-rent section of the city. Bright Street was in the works for gentrification, making the old look new without destroying the culture of the area. The concept was still new in that part of Texas, although some citizens had already remodeled one rundown area of town, reaping large financial rewards soon afterward.

Mayor Denise Royal was a forward thinker, able to see the big picture when improvements were suggested for the city
. She often stirred conflicting emotions within the population. The citizenry of Madison had considered the cost of improvements for Bright Street and some rejected the project altogether. There was one in particular who didn’t want to see change in his neighborhood. His name was Sam Williams, a fifty-something white male with a balding pate and slightly bucked teeth.

He heard the Mayor was on her way to his neighborhood and thought he would greet her with
his
idea of gentrification-an old gun freshly oiled with new ammo. The rifle was a Remington M700, bolt-action, with a telescopic sight, designed to be accurate for civilian or military use. Sam believed it was his right to own guns and even fire them on occasion if the cause was just. He hated that prissy little woman mayor who was trying to raise his taxes and make it impossible to continue living in his own neighborhood, although his intention that day was to try and scare her away from Bright Street. That was the story he told to police after his arrest.

The Mayor’s entourage had just extricated themselves from the police vans that Maude had set up for their travel. Stretching muscles that had begun cramping from the ride across town and shielding their eyes blinded by the late July sun
, the various council members were wishing they were back in the air-conditioned offices of City Hall. The feisty mayor was enthralled by her chance to do a good thing for the neighborhood of Bright Street, to help the poor by providing improved city services and better roads. The only way it could be done was by encouraging entrepreneurs to purchase available real estate on Bright Street and rehab it for sale to upwardly mobile men and women of Madison.