The Breeze

I could just tell he wanted to kick the door. Since we really didn't have any reason to do that, he successfully fought back the urge. Ruth knocked instead. At first there was no answer, she kept pounding until a voice came from inside. "Go away, I'm working." the voice actually sounded sleep drugged to me. Ruth pounded some more, finally Jake came to the door in his underwear. "This better be damned important," he said before he recognized the badges. "What the hell do you want?" he asked.

Eddie pushed past him so Ruth and I followed. "Jake Mcallister?" Ruth asked in an authoritative voice.

"Yeah so what? I ain't done nothing." he said.

"That's not what your P.O. said. He told me I could bring your ass in for violation, if I wanted." Ruth informed him.

"Okay I missed a couple of appointments with her. I have been busy working. You guys should cut an artist a little slack." he suggested.

"You were a con before you were an artist," Eddie said in his nasty tone.

Eddie opened his mouth to speak but Ruth cut him off. "Do you know this woman?" she asked showing Eddie a photograph of Katherine Peterson."

"Oh no you don't, I had nothing to do with that," he said showing his fright.

"Then you do know her?" Eddie asked.

"I seen her around a few times this spring. She came to all the shows. I thought she might buy something, but she never did. That's all I know about her." Jake said. I think everyone believed him, but the questions went on for a long time. Jake hadn't seen Kate for a month and then only at the shows in the park.

"Jake, if you are lying to us, you are going to do that time you have left." Eddie said. It looked as though they were finished.

"Jake, tell me something?" I demanded. "We are going to search her house this afternoon. What are you going to say, if we come up with your phone number in her address book." It was a bluff, but nobody knew it but me. Everybody thought I knew more than I was telling.

"She might have had my number. I gave her a card every time. I saw her." he said.

"Jake, did you ever have lunch with her. I mean they do have a food booth at those park things don't they?" I asked.

"I might have had a hot dog with her, I really don't know." he said looking guilty as hell.

"One more thing Jake, Kate was into screwing artists. Were you one of them?" I asked.

"Hell no, she was so skinny, it would have been like screwing a man." he said.

"If you weren't, then give me the names of a couple of artist who were. If you don't these two are going to run you through the mill." I said honestly.

"Man who the hell told you all this about Kate?" he asked.

"We ask the questions," Eddie snapped. "Name some names asshole."

"Okay, Mike Thomas and George Weaver are the only ones I know. There may have been others, but those are the only ones who would admit it." he said.

"You know that if they give us your name, we are going to be right back here." Ruth said.

"They won't, like I told you she was too damned skinny and stuck up for me," he said.

Eddie almost followed that one up but Ruth shook her head. It was something to come back at him with at a latter date. "Okay Jake, we will be going now, but don't be surprised if we show up again.

Once we were on the street Ruth said to Eddie, "We need to get him into interrogation. Let's see if we can get anything on him or the others before we wind his ass up."

We were in the car driving toward the beach when Ruth asked, "How did you know she was screwing the local artists?"

"I didn't, I suspected there was something more than Jake was telling. It was a guess pure and simple." I admitted.

"I don't believe him. He knows something he isn't telling us," Eddie snapped.

"You know at least as much as I do. I am going to be interested in seeing what art works Kate has in her house. I am especially going to enjoy going through the trash. I would really like to see the last four of five checks she wrote."

"I am finally ahead of you. She wrote only one check on the day of her death. It was to her bank for three hundred and fifty bucks cash. Nothing on the credit card." Ruth stated pleased with herself.

"And how much money did she have when you found the body?" I asked.

"About seventy bucks," she said.

"I'll bet you she wrote the check for cash to buy a painting or sculpture," I said.

"That seems pretty reasonable. The big question is who did she buy it from?" Eddie asked.

"I don't have a clue, but maybe we can find it in the house. You might want to canvas the galleries and gift shops. She might have bought it from one of them." I suggested.

"So how would that help us?" Ruth asked.

"I think our girl Kate liked a memory to go with her art. If she bought it from a gallery, she might have arranged the date to make the memory." I suggested.

"Let's have lunch and talk. We need to kill a couple of hours before the local cops meet us to serve the warrant." Ruth suggested.

"Sure, is Edward still down here?" I asked.

"Strangest thing about that, he left last night. I plan to call him from inside the house." Ruth smiled as she spoke

"You are devious," I said meaning it.

"Remember that the next time you stand me up," she reminded me. Evidently she didn't care that Eddie knew about her affairs, or in this case lack of an affair.

"During lunch we made a lot of wild guesses and some pretty good ones, at least I thought so. After lunch Ruth and I walked to the deck to smoke over the dregs of our iced tea while Eddie glared at us. I kind of enjoyed his discomfort. We had gone outside to smoke. No one forced him to stand on the deck while we did.

"So do you think one of her former lovers offed her?" Ruth asked me.

"Do you?" I asked in return.

"Not likely, she was doing it for the fun of it. If it had been a former lover, he would not have had a one night stand in a cheap motel. He could have done her somewhere easier to get rid of the body. Whoever did her got his jollies from the killing, not the sex." Ruth guessed. "He didn't even try to hide the body."

"I agree, but we may never be able to establish a pattern in her actions. At least not one that will lead us in the right direction." I suggested. "I really wish she had neighbors. There is nothing better than one nosy neighbor."

"I agree, as a matter of fact we are contacting all her neighbors to find out when they last saw her. While we are at it, I think I will ask them a few questions about the boyfriends and of course hubby," Ruth stated.

"Have you heard about Edward's girlfriend situation yet?" I asked.

"The Winston PD is going to look at it for us. That is when they have time. When things stall here, I am going up to talk to his friends." Ruth admitted.

"Things are never going to stall with Johnny leading us down blind alleys," Eddie suggested.

"You really should be nicer to the citizenry, after all we solve most of the cases for you," I said. "Ruth, I just had a thought, did our boy take anything from her?"

"You mean like a souvenir?" she said.

"Caught me," I said. "Well did he?"

"Actually we never did find her wedding ring," she admitted. "That is just between you and me."

"Okay, I hate to ask the next question," I said.

"Don't, we are taking this one as a single case. At least for a while. The chief said give it a week then we start running the data base." she said.

"Oh no, not the dreaded data base," I laughed.

"I know, I want to solve this one before we get the FBI and every other person in the country with an initial in here." Ruth said.

"If you don't, you won't be running the investigation." I agreed.

"So what does the search warrant cover?" I asked.

"Any and all evidence which may lead to the identity of her killer." Ruth quoted.

"I suppose her husband's hair brush is high on the list?" I guessed.

"Yes, but it isn't likely to be of any use. The TV shows have it all wrong. DNA isn't quite as easy to come by as you might think." she informed me.

"But you did get some good DNA at the crime scene?' I asked.

"I'll let you know when we get the autopsy results this afternoon. We are going to want a blood sample from you by the way," Eddie informed me.

"No problem, why don't you give one too Eddie. She might have been a cop groupie as well as an artist groupie." I said.

"Funny," was his only comment.

Enough time passed so that we drove to the beach house to await the local cops. When they arrived it was in two cars two men to a car. Rather than pay for a lock, Ruth picked the front door lock. "You guys did tell the alarm company we were going into the house?" Ruth asked.

"Sure but they will probably send a car anyway. You can guess how their insurance company will be." the local Sergeant said.

"Search warrant, anybody home," Ruth shouted again when we were inside the house. "I guess not."

The search lasted three hours and turned up an address book and five painting which looked as though they might have been originals. "Any chance our boy did one of those?" Ruth asked me.

"About fifty fifty, I would guess."

"Me too," she said putting them by the door. "Eddie get a Polaroid of those paintings. I think we need to visit a couple of local artists." Ruth suggested.

"How about the address book? Is Mcallister in it?" I asked.

"Nope but the two names he gave us are. Along with about half a dozen other local numbers." Ruth said.

"You guys about through?" asked the local Sergeant.

"Unless Johnny has any suggestions," she said.

"Did you check the garbage and clone the computer hard drives?" I asked.

"Nothing in the garbage cans inside or out. It looks like hubby threw everything away." Eddie said less belligerently. "There is only a single laptop and yet we cloned it."

"Let me think just one more minute before we leave. Kate wasn't expecting to get iced, so she had no reason to hide anything. She might not have wanted hubby to know about the other men. Actually my whole theory depends on it. So is there anything that she might have had laying around that would connect her to an itinerary for Friday?" I asked.

"We are still working on the theory that she had a planned date for midnight?" Ruth asked.

"The only person who believes she checked into a motel for any other reason is that idiot husband of hers." I repeated.

"You know, I write myself notes of things to do, before I leave home. I wonder," Ruth said as she returned to the kitchen. She found the blank notepad in the built in desk drawer. I think maybe I should let the SBI lab take a look at this." she said.

"I can get it done for you right now," the Wilmington Sergeant suggested. Our lab is first rate." he said.

"Then let's do it." Ruth suggested.

I took a good look around before leaving the room. There appeared to be nothing special about the upscale kitchen. "I suppose you looked in the refrigerator?" I asked.

"Sure," Eddie said. Not much in it though.

I opened the door, just to make sure. Sure as hell there was nothing in the refrigerator worth mentioning. I checked the freezer and found it just as empty. I found a box of frozen green beans and nothing else except Ice trays. I picked up the beans more to handle them than to look at them. I noticed the box end was bent. Probably dropped, I thought. I opened the box anyway. To my surprise the Green bean box was filled with computer disks. No one was looking, I was tempted to put them back. Instead I said, "Ruth, you might want to take a look at Kate's dinner plans."

"My God, this just gets more and more weird," she said.

"So what could be on those disks, What was it Kate had to hide in the freezer," she asked.

"Got me, but you could use her computer, we can find out," I suggested.

"There is no computer in the house that can open those old disk," the Wilmington sergeant advised us. "We have about twenty of them at the station though."

"Okay, I get the point you are curious. Let's go to your station, so you can see what we have," Ruth said with a smile.

I followed along behind the Detectives car, which followed one of the Wilmington patrol cars. The drive took about fifteen minutes. It actually took longer to go from the parking lot to the crime lab.

"John," the Sergeant said to the lab attendant. "We need a little interdepartmental cooperation here."

"Really," the slightly oriental looking man asked.

"Yes we need you to take a look at a couple of things for us." Ruth stated flatly.

"What kind of things," John Woo asked.

"This pad for one thing. I would like to know what the last note said," Ruth suggested.

Woo took the pad to first a desk lamp, then to an ultra violate lamp. "The last message was a grocery list." he said firmly.

"That's strange, there was very little food in the house. What items are on the list?" Ruth asked.

"Let's see, rice, beans, flour and cheese," he said.

"That is a recipe," Ruth said.

"Could be," Woo admitted. "Hell it could be anything those are just the words on the paper."

"Okay try the disks," Ruth said handing him the six computer disks.

The technician put one of the disks into the computer. I watched as he punched keys seemly just random keystrokes. The screen magically changed for one thing to another. When the thing finally settled down he said. "This one is a word processes program. It is titled, 'Things'."

"Can you open it?" Eddie asked.

" Can try," he said while punching more keys and doing this and that to the computer. "Sorry it has some kind of password program in it. To open it you are going to have to put it in a computer with the same program and then give it the password."

"So we can't get into the file?" Ruth asked.

"I can't but the FBI can," John Woo said. "They have all the hardware and software to crack any code. Woo tried several more disks but could open none of them.

"So what do you think Johnny?" Ruth asked.

"Too much secrecy for a lovers list. I hope it is also too many disks to be a list of lovers. My guess it that it is something from her husband's office. It might still be a motive for murder though. Then again she might not have known the disks were in the green beans," I suggested.

"Another question within a question. Don't you have any answers?" Eddie asked.

"Sure either her husband killed her or a one night stand. That is my personal opinion." I said.

"All opinions are personal," John Woo said. Everybody turned to look at him. He simply smiled, then turned back to his work.

Outside in the parking lot I said, "Well guys you have lots of leads to follow and I have to get some sleep. Tell me if there is anything else I can do for you."

I returned home to get a few hour sleep before the game. That night at the game Ruth and Bunny both showed but not together. Ruth took me outside for a talk. Things had been popping according to her. The autopsy showed what everyone expected. Katherine Sims died from multiple stab wounds several of which could have been the fatal wound. Her toxicology screen showed traces of alcohol, but no illegal drugs. The medical examiner did remove samples of semen hair and fibers from her body. She also had skin and blood under her nails. It appeared that she had marked our man. I explained to Ruth that the marks might be on his back. According to the old woman next door, they had a pretty loud sexual encounter before the killer did her.

Ruth left after twenty minutes, I returned to the game. I was up a few bucks but the night was very young. Bunny came to the game around ten. The game had dwindled some but was still going strong. "Do you want to talk to me?" I asked.

"Actually I want to play cards," she said.

"Sit down then, we could use some fresh money in the game," one of the regulars said.

By midnight he was sorry he had said it. She had a good deal of the money on the table. She didn't have mine but she had some of about everyone else. After two am. the game came down to three of us. Bunny, Poppa and me, we all were pretty good players. Poppa was the weakest. When he realized he was over matched he gave up. He was still a winner but considerably less than he would have been without Bunny in the game.

"Where did you learn to play poker?" He asked her.

"In college, I liked hanging around the boys dorm. That's about all they did." she said with a not so shy smile.

"Well, you learned pretty good," Poppa said moving to sit at the bar.

"Do you really want to play two handed?" I asked.

'"Sure if I win the motel, you won't lose it in court." she said.

"No, but for me the results will be the same." I said.

"I don't know, I doubt Edward Peterson will give you a job. I would though." she said.

"What am I going to do with a law practice?" I asked.

"You can hire me," she said with a grin.

Fortunately it didn't come to that. She quit when she began to lose. She actually won the same amount of hands, there just was no money in her pots when she won. I was able to take money from her. Her winnings shrunk to less than two hundred so she quit.

"So you are a better poker player than me. I am still a better lawyer than you." she said with a fake pout.

Everyone else had gone, so she, Poppa and I watched the sun come up. "You know I am going to regret this around three this afternoon," she said.

"I don't doubt that. Most of us can't miss a whole nights sleep. I mean at least not after we reach a certain age." I said.

"What the hell are you talking about. I am at least ten year younger than you." she informed me in a mock huff.

"I guess you are at that," I admitted. "Why don't we all go down to Poppa's for breakfast."

"You know it may be the only way I can get my money back,' he said with a grin.

"You didn't lose anything tonight," I informed him.

"No but I could have shared some of the others money with you. I guess it was worth it though. Bunny here is a good player. I would just as soon this be her last game." Poppa said with a smile.

"Not a chance," Bunny replied. "I am going to leave earlier next time."

Each of us drove a different car to the restaurant. The day shift people were all busy preparing for the days crowd when we arrived. The three of us sat in a booth while the day shift people fixed breakfast for us. Bunny bypassed the eggs and bacon for fruit and cereal. I was not really surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if Bunny dieted continually.

After breakfast Bunny and I walked to the parking lot. "Johnny you may have to start taking this lawsuit thing seriously." she said. "I took a look at your papers last night before I came to the game. You are required to give him the name of your attorney, so that a deposition can be arranged. So give me a dollar," she demanded.

"Why should I give you a dollar?' I asked with a smile.

"So that I can represent you," she explained.

"I don't need a lawyer. The cops are going to find out who did it. When they do, Peterson is going to find that Kate opened the door for her attacker." I said.

"In the meantime you have to comply with the court orders. If you don't comply they are going to hold you in contempt."

"I can't afford an attorney, I am going to ignore his whole thing until Ruth breaks this." I said.

"I am going to have to write to the judge requesting a delay until that happens. Look I'll tell you what, You pay me just for the time it takes to write that letter. If it is successful, you shouldn't need me afterward." she suggested.

"So how much to write the letter?' I asked.

"That's not the best way to do this. give me two hundred and I'll let you know when it is gone." she demanded.

"Why so much?" I asked.

"Because Peterson is going to be sending more crap along. Most of it you can ignore, but some of it is going to have to be answered. If I am your attorney, he sends it to me and I will decide what you need to answer."