Magnolia

"Never mind that contraption Bill." I couldn't believe this newbie was actually trying to school me. "Let's just go inside and see what we have to work with here."

"Booties too Sarge." Bill exclaimed.

"What?" I have to admit I was a bit confused by what Bill just said.

"That's another thing we were taught at the academy. We need some booties so we don't leave stray shoe impressions at the scene."

"Right Bill. Good call. See if O'Malley has some of those disposable foot diapers we can wear."

O'Malley pointed to the box of shoe covers by the door and we grabbed a couple of pairs and went inside.

This place wasn't like any murder scene I'd ever been to. The place was immaculate. The Gash woman must have been one heck of a housekeeper. Still, I figured I'd use the time to teach the newbie how to look things over and bag trace evidence, even if I didn't see a damn thing out of place.

It took a few minutes looking for possible trace, but we finally made it up to the bathroom where the body was. Brain matter and blood spatter covered half the walls and the ceiling, and slumped in the tub was a half-naked woman with most of her head gone. Bill took one look and started to heave.

"You better not Bill," I warned. "You better not puke all over my crime scene. I told you to wait on dinner... didn't I?"

With that Bill was out of there in a flash. I checked my watch. Thirty minutes on the dot. Newbies are so predictable.

While Bill was out barfing up his dinner, I checked out the woman in the tub. There wasn't anything remarkable about her, except that most of her face was gone. I didn't figure her as much of a looker anyway. I figured that she probably tipped the scale at well over 200. She had some big tits, but the way she was slumped in the tub her midsection was still her most prominent feature. A typical overweight suburban housewife, I guess.

I didn't learn much from looking at our victim, but one thing I did know... O'Malley's assessment was spot on. This was the work of a shotgun blast. I hate working shotgun cases. There isn't much in the way of ballistics with buckshot, and we didn't have the shell casing. We really needed to get hold of the murder weapon. Maybe it would give us decent set of fingerprints to work from, and some blood spatter on the barrel would be a plus.

I'd just about finished my assessment when Bill wandered back in, fresh from puking his guts out. He stood there with his face still half green and plastered with the look of embarrassment as he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

"That your hanky, Bill?"

"No sir." He mumbled, still not wanting to look at the body.

"Don't tell me you found that in the house somewhere. Don't tell me you disturbed my crime scene."

"Relax Sarge. O'Malley gave it to me. Said he carries a few with him just for cases like this one."

"Well make sure you take that with you when we go. No sense in leaving any more DNA in this place than we need to."

Just as we were wrapping up with the dead woman in the bathroom, O'Malley poked his head in and smirked, "Hey, you two dicks about done in here?"

"It's okay Sarge. He doesn't think we are gay or anything." Bill spouted, acting as if he was stopping some inevitable fight between me and O'Malley. "Dick is short for detective." Bill added as if I were the rookie who needed things explained to me.

Again, I felt my eyes rolling over backwards in my head and I hated myself for it. "It's okay Bill. I know what dick is short for."

"Cold water, right Sarge?" Bill grinned from ear to ear while O'Malley laughed.

Fuck I'd been set up... And the between the two of them, they couldn't come up with anything better than a lame joke about a guy's dick shrinking in cold water.

My deadpan look at O'Malley abruptly ended his stupid chuckling and he changed the subject. "Seriously Sarge. You should come take a look at this. There's something I think will be of interest to you two dicks. The husband has some sort of weird shrine down in the basement."

We followed O'Malley down to the lower level and into what looked to be the guy's office. O'Malley was right. This place was some kind of a shrine. An ode to the commode as it were. There were toilets in every nook and cranny. There were photos of old toilets, a pair of bronze toilet bookends, even a shiny brass toilet on a stand that looked like some sort of a trophy. Either this guy was the shitter salesman of the century, or he had some weird toilet fetish.

I looked at the guy's computer. Even the screensaver was a commode. I nudged Bill and directed his attention to the desk... "Do you know the procedure for shutting one of these things down?" I asked Bill as I pointed to the computer. "You know, so we don't crash the hard thing-a-ma-jigger and ruin the data for the boys in forensics."

"I sure do Sarge. All you have to do is hit the..."

"Never mind the technology lesson." I interrupted Bill before he could give one of those old guys don't know shit about technology statements. "Just get it shut down and bagged so the lab can look it over. And don't touch anything you don't have to."

"Give me your pencil Sarge."

"My pencil? What for?"

That's the procedure. You use something like a pencil to hit the keys. That way you won't disturb any fingerprints. That's one of the first things they taught us back at the academy Sarge."

Bill poked a couple of keys with the butt end of my pencil, and the sound of a toilet flushing followed by what I could only assume was a turd gurgling down the drain came from the computer's speakers. Then the thing beeped a couple of times and went dark.

"Nice job Bill. Let's hope that flushing sound wasn't his file history going down the drain. Let's take a look in those desk drawers and see if there are any clues as to what this toilet thing is all about."

"Looks like it's about panties Sarge."

"What?"

"Yeah, there's a bunch of panties in this drawer. They look to be girl's panties Sarge."

"I think you just mean panties, don't you?" I looked at Bill like he was mistaken. "All panties are for girls."

"No sir. There are lace panties and mom panties. There are even granny panties, but these here are definitely girl panties. They all look to be brand new too. All but this one pair. This pair has something in it. I wonder if this toilet perv likes to wrap his thing in them and masturbate."

"Okay Bill. Enough speculation. As sick as that sounds, it's not a crime to wrap your thing in piece of cloth when you stroke it. Let's let the boys at the lab tell us what is or isn't in those underthings. Bag 'em up and let's see if we can find the murder weapon stashed in here somewhere."

We bagged what little we found in that office turned toilet shrine... which amounted to a computer and a bunch of girl's underpants. Then we snapped a bunch of photos of all the toilets, not because we needed them for evidence, but because no one down at the station would believe our story if we didn't.

With our work inside the house done, we headed back outside to look for shoe impressions. The outside of the home was almost as pristine as the inside and we didn't find a damn thing, other than my partner's spewed up dinner on the front lawn.

This wasn't the sort of murder case I'm used to seeing. We usually find a lot more evidence at one of these things. There was nothing here to suggest unlawful entry, and the place hadn't been ransacked either. All we had was a dead woman in a bathtub, and it looked a lot like this woman knew her assailant. My experience was telling me to play this one out, but my gut was telling me it was the husband three ways from Sunday.

Me, Bill and O'Malley, stood out in front of the place just shooting the shit. We were fresh out of witnesses and there just wasn't any more evidence to gather. At that point I figured it was okay to let Forensics go ahead bumble through the place and pull the body while the three of us compared notes.

Forensics made quick work of it. They had the body tagged and bagged before I could convince Bill to put his frigging cell phone in his pocket and leave it there long enough to complete a damn sentence. I have no idea what their hurry was, but forensics almost ran poor Bill over as they whisked out the front door with the gurney. I grabbed the coroner as he went by.

"What do you figure the time of death was on this one?" I probed, with my pencil and note pad at the ready.

"Liver temp has her T-O-D between eight and eight-thirty... My experience tells me that she died right about eight-fifteen... The temp in the house is stable and these time of death tables are pretty accurate."

What do you make of that Bill? Your witness must have been mistaken. She said she saw Mrs. Gash alive at eight-forty-five, right?"

"Yup, Mrs. Clayton was pretty sure it was after eight-forty-five when she saw Mrs. Gash taking out the trash." Bill replied, not looking up from his phone. "I have it in the notes I took here on my phone that she even pointed to her watch as she told me. Maybe her watch is wrong."

"Hey, O'Malley. Can you have one of your boys follow up on that time with Mrs. Clayton. Just have them check her watch. They don't need to raise a fucking stink about it. We may need more from her later, and we don't want her going all hostile on us."

"Sure thing Sarge." O'Malley agreed as he walked off to where some of his fellow officers had gathered.

I was so busy worrying about that time discrepancy that the Forensics guys almost got away without taking my final instructions. "Hey," I yelled out to the coroner. "Make sure you do a rape kit on this one. I want to know if this could have been an intruder, or god forbid a lover. And for heaven's sake let's make sure this woman really is Mrs. Gash. We damn sure don't want this to be another dead hooker like the one over in Raytown."

"Raytown?" Bill chirped. "I grew up in Raytown."

"Oh yeah, you were probably in diapers when that went down. There was this dead woman with her face gone and everyone thought it was the wife of the couple that lived there. The husband had disappeared and everyone figured him for it."

"Of course he did it. The husband always does it, right Sarge?"

"Like I said before. Don't ever bet on that. It'll get you in trouble. Anyway, we were chasing leads all over Raytown for months. My money was on the husband too. Then we discovered the wife was still alive."

"Still alive? No shit?"

"Yeah, it turned out the dead woman was a hooker the husband brought home while his wife was away on business. The wife came home early and caught them. In the end it was the wife that was the doer... and no one's seen the husband since. The official theory is she offed her old man too, but without a body that one went unsolved."

"Hey Bill, what's O'Malley doing with the sitter? He's supposed to leave interviews up to us homicide guys. You didn't ask him to talk to her, did you?"

"Wasn't me. I didn't say a word. Doesn't look like it's going to be a problem though. He's bringing her over to us. Man, she still looks completely out of it."

"Hey guys." O'Malley said as he put his arm around the sitter to comfort her. "Can she go in and get her clothes. She needs her ID and stuff for school tomorrow, and truth be known it's getting a little too chilly to be standing around in a swimsuit."

"Sorry O'Malley. No can do. We've still got and active crime scene here and we can't have a civilian going in and messing things up."

"How about if one of us goes in?" O'Malley asked. "Where is your stuff sweetie?"

"On top of the dryer in the laundry. It will be easy to find. It's the only stuff in there that is folded."

I knew it was against all regulations to remove stuff from a scene, but I felt for this girl. I reluctantly sent Bill in to fetch her clothes with strict instructions not talk to anyone, and to bring her stuff out in an evidence bag to make it look official.

Bill came back with the stack of neatly folded clothes in a bag like I asked, and handed it to the sitter. She quietly thanked us and just stood there. I asked her if she needed a ride, and she politely said no thank you, then slowly ambled down the street towards what I can only assume was her home. Poor girl. She was obviously still completely overwhelmed by what she saw.

As we watched the sitter turn the corner at the end of the street Bill quietly blurted, "She is a commando."

"For what she's been through I'd agree. She is taking this way better than most kids her age, but don't you mean she is a trooper?"

"Maybe..." Bill said as he pulled his phone from his pocket and started tapping on it. Then he flicked his finger up the screen a couple of times.

"Oh, I see. I should have said she goes commando, not is a commando. I only found a shirt, bra and a pair of jeans on the dryer. No underwear. That means she goes commando right?"

"And do you think that's relevant to our case, or do you youngsters just get off on that no underpants thing?"

"I was just saying that she goes commando is all. I guess I just found it interesting."

"Well, we don't have the luxury of making guesses in our business, and we shouldn't be postulating on what our witnesses do and don't wear. Postulating is just like making an assumption."

"I know what postulating means Sarge. I was just making conversation." Bill shrugged his shoulders as his phone buzzed in his hand.

"Hey, we got a hit on the husband's credit card. It was used at the Gas-N-Go up on North Avenue. You really should get yourself one of these smart phones Sarge."

"Never mind about that fancy gadget Bill. Let's just look at what this tells us."

"It tells us that the husband was getting gas at eight-thirty-eight, right Sarge?"

"Hmm, that time stamp seems off. What does it take to drive up to North Ave? Thirty-Five, forty-five minutes? Add the time it takes to pump the gas and that would mean if this Richard guy is the perp our time of death is lot closer to eight, or maybe eight-oh-five at the latest... But the Clayton woman saw our vic alive and well much closer to nine. Something doesn't add up here."

"So maybe Mrs. Clayton got it wrong, and the coroner is right. Maybe the husband got lucky and hit every light green on the way." Bill half mumbled as he continued to look at his smart phone. "No wait, it says there's a construction zone between here and North Ave. See look, right here on my phone's mapping app. No way he could get around that."

"Well he did it somehow. Maybe he drives a flying fucking Ferrari. At any rate, he's not at that gas station now. Let's hope that phone tracer comes back soon. That should give us an exact location on the guy."

"That phone thing could take a while Sarge. A judge has to sign off on that one, and they don't work all ours like we do."

"Okay, call in an automatic APB for any location that card gets used, and let's hope we get lucky enough that the guy uses it again before he's long gone."

"Already done Sarge. I just used my..." Bill's voice trailed off like he knew damn well how sick I was hearing how well that damn gadget worked.

"Good work Bill." I begrudgingly threw the kid a bone. "In the meantime, let's make sure all of the evidence we gathered from this fast driving clown's toilet shrine was properly tagged and bagged. Then we can head back to the precinct."

When we got back to the precinct things were unusually quiet, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to show Bill the ins and outs of compiling a homicide report. All he wanted to do was talk about his damn smart phone. He kept saying he had this app that did all the work. Then while he was trying to show me how he could print a report directly from his phone, the damn thing bleeped. It seems we got another hit on Richard's credit card.

"That card hit is just up the road at the Boogie Bare." I pointed out looking over Bill's shoulder at the address. "I suppose we could be there before any patrol. Let's go pick him up."

"Nope... No need Sarge. A couple of uniforms just brought the guy in on that APB I issued. Says right here he's waiting for us down in Interrogation room three."

"Well I'll be damned. Looks like we just got our first break in this case Bill."

On the way down to Interrogation, I schooled bill on the finer points of getting information out of a perp. I didn't want Bill going off half cocked and have our suspect clam up, or even worse, lawyer up. We were short on evidence on this particular murder, and we needed information from this clown more than anything. I advised Bill to observe and learn on this one.

We got to Interrogation three and opened the door. The room was empty. Now either Bill's fancy phone was wrong about the card hit, or we were dealing with the best escape artist that ever lived. I checked the duty log and found that the perp had been moved to Interrogation four... something about a foul odor that the guy swears wasn't him. To me this whole case was starting to stink.

Sure enough, there was our perp, looking pitiful, sitting in room four. I sat across the table from him, and Bill stood by the door with his arms folded trying to look tough. I don't know if that was Bill's attempt at being the bad cop, but I guess that could work.

With Bill guarding the door, questioning this clown was going to be up to me. We needed answers, so I wasted no time starting in on this guy.

"You Richard?" I asked. "Richard Gash?"

No man. That ain't me. My name's Domino.

"That your last name is it?"

"Nope."

"You got a last name Domino?"

"Nope. Changed my name to Domino when my asshole old man disowned me... and I done it all legal and stuff too, so you can't do nothin' about it."

"Says on your ID your last name is Noone."

"So well, it ain't... This bitch down at the DMV says I can't get no license if I don't put something on the form where it said last name, so I wrote NONE. Bitch types Noone into the computer. I was there to get me a license, not argue with some fat heifer in a bouffant. So now my license says Noone. But that ain't right, It's just Domino. That's it. No last name."

"So, mister Domino. Do you usually do business with stolen credit cards?"

"What! I didn't steal that card. Richard gave it to me."

"He did huh? Do people have a habit of giving you their credit cards?

"No, not usually, but Richard did. We're in business together."

"Business eh, what exactly do you do in this business?" I was skeptical.

"I move product for Richard."

"What? Crank, meth, smack, dope? Come on, out with it."

"No guys. It ain't nothin' like that. We don't deal in no narcotics. We sell toilets. One's that can actually flush a crap. They are the old ones made before all that low flow bullshit. Richard sells them to people that want a toilet that actually flushes. I use my van to deliver those reconditioned toilets to the job sites."

"So you haul around a few old crappers... That's your only line of work?"

"Yeah it is right now. But it ain't a bad gig, and they ain't just old toilets. They are clean and everything. Me and Richard nabbed them from that big housing project re-mod down on 5th.

"So you two steal materials from the projects for a living?"

"No man. They was just gonna toss 'em you know. They was old and stuff, but Richard fixes them up like brand-new. He even puts 'em in a box so they look like they're fresh from the improvement store. Wait, I ain't supposed to tell anyone that part. Can we get that new box thing taken off the record?"

It looked to me like this Domino character had a mouth that he just couldn't keep shut. He just ratted his partner out for selling illegal shitters. With any luck we'd be able to solve this case just by interrogating one guy. I needed to corner this guy and hit him hard about the credit card... then just let him blab.