The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (6 page)

The sound of the 911 helicopter
was growing louder as Maude rose up from the flat roof and returned to her partner. The large gash on Joe’s head had stopped bleeding, but appeared to need stitches.

“I’m sorry about your first day, Joe.” Maude said. “Let’s hope it gets better tomorrow”.

“There isn’t enough room on the bird for all of us,” she told him. He shot her a glance of concern. “Don’t worry,” she told him, “I won’t be going back down the tunnel. My back and my elbows couldn’t handle another trip.”

While the lab tech was getting his equipment from the copter, Maude watched the EMT’s load
her partner on the chopper. She saw that his eyes were closed, and hoped he would be alright. She liked the young man for his fortitude and unusually good nature. Waving a cheerful goodbye, Maude turned and followed the technician who was looking for clues that could identify the attacker. She pointed to the faint shoe prints and nodded, even though the circulation of the blade on the helicopter had disturbed the placement of evidence on the roof, including the dust that outlined the shoeprints.

The top of the building was a rectangle, with large air conditioning units and boilers placed in several spots around the flat
roof. Maude couldn’t see anything noteworthy about the building, couldn’t figure why anyone would be up there in the heat, hiding out; she hated the place. Joe had said he found some white powder in a bag in the crawlspace. She didn’t see it on her way out of the tunnel so he must have taken it with him to the roof and now it had disappeared.

T
he one piece of real evidence that had been found was taken by Joe’s attacker or blown off the roof by the copter blades rotations. Maude’s brain was working overtime and coming up with nothing. All they had to show for the day’s work was her bump on the head and Joe’s injury.

She called in to the shop and asked for an officer to search
the street around the building. Hopefully, the bag of white powder had fallen from the roof and was still intact.

The tech was finished with his printing and photos, happy that he found one thumb print on the door. Maude hoped it wasn’t Joe’s.

“Let’s go,” she said to the tech. “I’ll drop you off downtown. See if you can get that print traced before quitting time.”

The door to the stairs was squeaky like everything else in the building.
“Wait, just a minute, I need to check something,” she said, hurrying to the landing of the fifth floor.

Apartment 509 was still taped and locked
; she hadn’t had time to get to her re-inspection of the inside before the long trip to the roof. Maude pulled her master key and removed the yellow tape as she turned the key in the big lock. The door swung open as she turned the knob. A close up look at the hinges on the door showed that they had been recently oiled. When she first found the door open and discovered the body, something had seemed different about the ease of entry into the room, as though the scene had been set for them to find. Maybe it was the murderer who oiled the hinges.

She ca
lled the tech to print the wood and the metal on the door. The lab man moved to comply and powdered the metal hinge on the door and anywhere there was wood near the hinges. He found one clear print near the bottom. Whoever had held the container of oil in one hand had needed to hold the door with the other hand to keep it from moving as he completed the job. Maude felt like shouting.
At last,
something in their favor. The killer might have slipped up!
She wanted to find the man and kick his butt even if it made her knees hurt for a week. Some things were worth a little pain.

The scene in 509
had been familiar in its torture and death, but different because of the killer’s motive. Maude believed his fun had been in the duplication, and that worried her. She was thinking ahead to the next one. And there would be a next if she didn’t stop him. Chicago had taught her about his kind; the string of murders and mutilations had taught her how much the psycho loved killing.

She had fifteen years
at the police department there, a solid career, making more money than she did now in the smaller city but it got to be too much. She had begun to feel a kinship with the victim’s families, to feel their disappointment when the leads ran out and she couldn’t bring the case to a righteous close.

Maude had talked to the police shrink who was related to her Chicago partner, outside the
Cop Shop, away from the male detectives who might have overheard. The doctor reassured her that it was common for people to identify with the victims of violent crimes but working in a police environment didn’t allow for such empathy.

The doctor’s
suggestion had been that Maude leave Chicago and find another job, possibly away from police work, but since that option was out of the question, then a change of scenery might be the next best choice. Maude’s love for police work was too all encompassing for her to leave it for another career. It was then that she went back to Madison, Texas. She had some trouble getting work at the Police Department, but in the end, they hired her a week after she moved back into her mother’s house.

The serial killer who had terrorized Chicago on Maude’s last watch was never caught. Four young women were slaughtered over a period of six months, their hearts cut away and removed from their bodies. Later, a local Chicago steak house owner opened one of four unfamiliar boxes delivered to his kitchen. His staff called for an ambulance and the police at the sight of the human heart, frozen in a bagful of blood. The bag was labeled with the victim’s name and the date of her death.

I
nspectors of the other three boxes reported their contents to be identical in details. The packing boxes were plain cardboard with no prints or identifying marks on any surface inside the boxers. The delivery of the boxes had been pre-arranged by phone, the payment charged in the name of the first victim then paid for by cash sent in the mail. The shipping company had been very conscientious, delivering the frozen contents that were packed in dry ice directly to the address, without delay. The restaurant owner had to be hospitalized after he opened the box. His own heart took an unexpected dive and he fell to the floor.

Maude and her partner had caught the case
from the beginning. He was the lead detective and before it was over had a bullet in his brain for the trouble. She was removed from the case because her boss thought she wasn’t a safe bet. After the transport of the frozen hearts the FBI took the case away from the police department but they never found the guy either.

Maude’s work had always been exemplary, but she was a woman, no longer young. Madison was no different from any number of cities that still held bias against women in control positions. It was okay to wear a uniform and write parking tickets if you were female but not okay to work in homicide.

Now this
; a new monster was frightening the young women of Madison. It
was
Chicago all over again and Maude had a really bad feeling that history was repeating itself.

The trip to her house seemed longer than usual
, and Maude’s butt was dragging by the time she got parked in the driveway. She had made a trip by the hospital to see about her partner but staff there told her Joe had been released after the doc had put in a few stitches. Sitting in her car at the end of the long day’s activities she was overwhelmed with exhaustion.

She leaned her head forward against the steering wheel just for a minute feeling so tired she couldn’t get out of the car and go inside.
The night had cooled and a light breeze was blowing leaves across the yard. She could see them in the security light that shone from the porch. Her renter’s car was parked down the hill in the driveway, but Maude couldn’t see if a bike was on the porch.

Time had passed quickly during the last week and it occurred to her that Mary Ellen hadn’t been around at night. She hoped her renter wasn’t in some kind of trouble or fighting with her roommate. Maude really liked the girl and would hate it if her sunny disposition was lost because of grief or tension. 

She fell asleep against the steering wheel, the bone tiredness knocking her out while she was thinking about Mary Ellen. She jerked awake unaware of how long she had been sleeping. The numbness in her arms was painful and she rubbed her fingers together to force blood into them. Her neck was stiff from the steering wheel’s hard plastic and her numb fingers went automatically there to ease the pain. It was during those ministrations that she became aware of differences in the yard. She could no longer see leaves blowing for darkness had set in without the light from the security fixture on the porch. She thought maybe the light bulb had burned out but that made no sense. Only a few days earlier she had stood on a chair and changed the bulb.

The
security light on Mary Ann’s porch was also out for she could no longer see the driveway down the hill. The flashlight on her belt had dead batteries after the long trip through the crawl space and was useless. Now the yard was dark, with the pathway to her front door hidden. Her gut told her that something had happened during the time she had sat in the car asleep and it gave her the creeps.

The recent case was setting her nerves on edge, she thought. Bulbs go bad and that’s probably what happened. She made a mental note to go back to the hardware store and complain about shoddy merchandise.
She started her car and turned the headlights on, their high beams lighting everything about the front of her house. She blinked a couple of times, adjusting to the light, discovering that her porch had an item on it that wasn’t there when she first parked her car.

Without further hesitation she called
the sheriff’s dispatch and reported suspicious activity at her residence and to please send a patrol car as soon as possible. Dispatch said there was a vehicle within a half-mile of her and she should just sit tight. As an afterthought she called her new partner and asked him to come out to her house.

For someone else sitting still
might have been easy, but it was out of the question for Maude. Opening the door of her car she simultaneously pulled her weapon and walked to the back of the vehicle, feeling her way where trees shadowed the yard. The street in front of her property suddenly lit up like daylight, when not only one car, but three showed up, and armed officers jumped out with lights and weapons pulled, yelling “Put the gun down, put the gun down!”

She stopped in her tracks and raised her hands, the large
weapon in her right hand slowly falling onto the grass. She hoped there was no accidental firing to explain.

“Hey,” she said, her voice squeaking a little with so many guns pointed at her backside, “
It’s me. I called you!”

After what seemed a long time Maude heard one of the
deputies ask for her identification. She indicated her shirt pocket where she kept her detective shield. One of the men, Officer J. Benworth reached around her after warning her to keep her hands up. He pulled her identification then immediately apologized.

“Sorry.
I didn’t know it was you, Detective Rogers.”

“Can I put my hands down now?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, sure. What’s going on out here? You’re a long way from downtown.”

“My house security light went out while I was resting in my car. When I turned the headlights on and looked it over, I saw something on my porch that wasn’t there when I drove up. Seemed
like a good time to call it in.” She tried to be as brief as possible, knowing that tomorrow the boys downtown were going to have a chuckle over Detective Rogers sleeping in her car and God knows what else.

“Listen, Officer Benworth, I need to see what’s in that package
, so let’s get on with it.”

While w
alking toward the house she could the see the white box on the front porch with its bright red ribbon tied around it, the scarlet threads appearing a darker red in the harsh lights from the police vehicles. She felt a shiver run down her arms.

“Do you want the bomb squad?” Benworth asked.

“Sure, call them out. Not nearly enough guns here.” she said.

Maude waited
for the men with the detectors and the iron suits to show up and test for explosives before she looked in the box. Joe, her partner, arrived soon after and the two of them went together to make sure Mary Ellen was alright for they knew that the girl might have been caught up in the drama. A polite knock on the door of the rent house produced a grumpy man who appeared to be on the plus side of forty. He opened the door a crack, peering outside through bleary, sleep filled eyes.

“I’m
Maude Rogers, Mary Ellen’s landlord. Tell me your name then ask Mary Ellen to come to the door.”

“
She isn’t here, she’s working late tonight at The Plaza,” the man said stumbling over his words at the sight of the officers standing behind Maude. “My name is Chris Cole, and I’m a friend of Mary Ellen’s. What’s wrong? I haven’t done anything.”

“What
do
you do, Mr. Cole?” she asked.

“Mostly I go to school, but I work as a courier to help pay for my tuition
. To pay for my rent I cook and keep the house clean.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be a full
-time student Mr. Cole?” Maude asked.

“Why are you
asking me all these questions? It’s
my
business.” Cole said, with an edge to his voice.

“
You may be right, but Mr. Cole, you don’t have a lease on this house and if you want to continue living here you will answer the questions. What school do you attend?” Maude continued unfazed by the man’s objections.

Cole
named off a local community college and showed his school identification, his eyes no longer bleary but watchful. He said he had changed careers a couple of years back and the extra education was necessary. He said that staying there had been Mary Ellen’s idea and she didn’t tell him he needed to be on the lease.

“Were you out tonight?” Maude asked,
a little less harshly. “Did you see anyone else around?”

“No, I
was asleep,” he said angrily, “and unless you intend to arrest me for something, I’m going back to bed,” the man said as he began closing the door. Maude put her foot out, catching the wooden door with her shoe.

“Mr. Cole, if I have any more questions
I’ll call you to come downtown. See that you’re available.” she added, moving her foot out of the doorway.

The man nodded assent with
his eyes on the floor. A moment later he slammed the door.

She
made careful notes, determined to call her renter at the Plaza Restaurant where she had a second job. Mr. Chris Cole must require fancy foods and strong house cleaning products if Mary Ellen needed to work two jobs to keep him happy. Maude knew the young woman was in nursing school and also worked in the school dispensary as her first job so she couldn’t have a very large income. Unable to change her first impression of the man, Maude decided she didn’t like Mary Ellen’s new friend. She wrote down in her book to check him out later.

The bomb squad arrived. T
wo men began setting up the robotic equipment and the yard was quickly cleared of personnel as the bomb team did their thing with the package on the porch. After a short time, she heard one of them gagging, calling her.

“Detective, you need to see this. It
isn’t a bomb,” the officer said, over his distress.

“Best be gloved up
ma’am.”

The white box with its pretty ribbon was open, revealing a grisly secret inside. Maude recoiled when she saw it.
Missing flesh and nipple from one of the women in either Apartment 507 or 509 lay in the box, nestled in red paper, the garish brightness making the contents appear even more obscene. The skin had dried but enough moisture remained in the tissue to produce the foul odor of decayed flesh.

Maude called the lab and told them to hustle out to her house, giving the address and directions. The box in all its white innocence was protected till the lab techs got there and could record any data. She didn’t expect them to find any clues left by the perpetrator. The sick
scum was also slick and he wasn’t going to make a petty mistake like leaving his prints. The memory of Chicago was still fresh in Maude’s mind after thinking about it earlier in the day. She felt a flutter in her chest, a small jab that made her guts watery, wondering if it was possible. Had the madman from the Windy City found his way to Madison? After eight years, his trail was as cold as it ever would be. He had gotten away with it. The horrible murders of the four young single women in Chicago still burned Maude, as she remembered the pity she had felt for their families. Now she wondered if he had come crawling out from under his rock with a new game and wanted his old playmate.

She was sick at the thought, overcome with hatred for th
e cowardly scum whom she believed should suffer quick justice for his crimes, without ever having the benefit of panels of decent men and women to decide his fate. There were times Maude regretted the oaths she had taken to protect and serve.

She would have expected a gleeful note with the box, a joyous description of the acts of murder and savagery, but there was nothing other than the box and the bright red gift paper under its foul contents.
The police officers finally left after they had searched her yard and the lots surrounding her, looking for suspicious persons that might have been seen or heard by residents. They took her statement, noting that she was a detective with the Madison police department, assigned to the Homicide Division.

The team of techs took the box away to the crime lab where the breast tissue and the container would be analyzed, searching for clues that might help in finding the killer of the two young women on
East Avenue. Maude reminded them to take the bulb from her security light and check it for prints also. When all the law enforcement personnel had departed, Maude dropped into her recliner and fell asleep where she dreamed of a man with blood on his hands, laughing at her and intermittently calling her name, telling her it was Chicago all over again and he was back.