Mrs. Winslow's Daughter

"Absolutely, I want them to think I am a good guy, so that when I ask them later they will be inclined to help me all they can. However, I also what them as intimidated by you as possible," I admitted.

"Okay, but you may be surprised again," she said.

I almost asked her why, but decided to let her run her string instead.

When we arrived at the police station, I admit, I was a little surprised to find that she knew not only where the building was, but where the chief of detectives office was to be found. She walked right into his office without even bothering to knock.

"Mr. Sims, I think we need to talk," she said.

Sims stood, then looked past her to me. "Edgar what the hell are you doing here?" He asked it not at all unfriendly.

"Lawrence," I said extending my hand. I really hadn't expected to see him in the chief of D's chair. "What the hell are you doing in this one horsed town?"

"I moved over five years ago, when they made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"So Mr. Sims, it seems you know my consultant," Mrs. Winslow said. The bitch knew Sims and I had worked together. It was the real reason she had chosen me for her consultant.

"Yes Ma'am I do. Edgar taught me all I know about being a detective. If he had wanted, he could have had my job, or maybe the chief's. Edgar never took the Lieutenants test. He didn't want to sit behind a desk."

"Then you two should be able to work together," she said shortly.

"So Edgar, how did Mrs. Winslow get you out of the back woods?" he asked.

"She came with a suitcase filled with money. Oh yeah, did you ever try to say no to her?" I asked.

"Haven't had to yet," he replied ominously.

"Don't bother, she gets her way," I replied.

"So what can I do for you?" he asked.

"I need a copy of all the police reports and other documents on her daughter's murder. I want to see the evidence, and talk to all the officers involved."

"Is that all?" he snapped. His attitude had changed as I expected it to do.

"That should do it," I said.

"Well, I can't do that. The investigation is on going. I am not going to open my files to you," he said angrily.

"See, Mrs. Winslow I told you no one would give us those files. Now why don't you drive me home, I have things to do." I said gently.

"Is that all you are going to do? I mean this petty little official says no and you fold like an accordion. I thought I was hiring someone with guts," she said nastily.

"Well there is nothing I can do to force Sims to cooperate," I replied just as shortly.

"Let me give a lesson to the great detective," she said while opening her cell phone. She began punching numbers. I thought for a moment she would never stop. She actually smiled wickedly while she waited for someone to answer.

"Timothy, what took you so long? I told you I might need your help today," she held the phone just listening for a while. Then she launched a tirade against both Sims and me. When she finished, she listened again then asked, "Do you want to talk to the chief detective or not? Very well I will wait right here." She clicked the phone closed.

"I am expecting a call, if you don't mind we will wait here for it," she said haughtily.

"I have work to do, why don't you wait in the hall," Sims said angrily.

"Your call," she snapped.

I followed her into the hall. "Damn you played that a little strong. I sure as hell hope you have the juice to back it up?" I said as I watched any hope of Sims's cooperation go out the window.

Fifteen minutes later I heard the phone ring in Sims' office. I couldn't hear his words because he either didn't speak much, or kept his voice very low. When he opened the door, his attitude was considerably changed. He spoke to us in the hallway.

"Edgar, I will have the reports copied, you should be able to get them in an hour or so. You can call the lab anytime to get a viewing of the evidence. Go by the DA's office anytime you are ready, they will have a copy of their reports for you," he said in a too calm voice.

"Lawrence, you have to know I had nothing to do with this," I said hoping to get off his crap list.

"In a pig's ass," he said closing the door to his office.

When Mrs. Winslow and I were in the parking lot she said, "It doesn't look as though he was fooled by your ruse."

"Never expected him to be," I replied. "It's kind of like a dance. He leads for a while, then we lead. Now, exactly who did you call?"

"The chairman of the democratic party."

"How the hell could he get so much done so fast?" I asked.

"The mayor needs party money and endorsement to get reelected. So does the DA," she replied with a grin.

"You do have the juice," I admitted.

"If that was a compliment, then thank you," she replied.

"How about lunch while we wait for the copies?" I asked.

The fancy restaurant was a waste. Winslow had a salad and I had a roast-beef sandwich. We could have gotten the same things for five bucks. The bill in the Garden Restaurant was over twenty. Since it was her money, I didn't complain.

When we arrived in the police records section to pick up our copies, I knew from experience that some would be missing. I looked into the clerk's eyes. Since I knew how much juice we had, I was determined to get it all. "Could I see the original file? It looks as though some of the documents are missing," I said softly.

"They are all there," she replied cautiously.

"In that case, I would like to compare them to the file."

"Wait here, I will have to call my supervisor," she suggested.

"Okay, have her call the chief of detectives, tell her to remind him that I know what should be in a six month old murder file." I said.

"Maybe you are going to be worth the five hundred a day," Mrs. Winslow commented.

"Probably not," I replied.

When the clerk returned, she added another dozen or so pages to the pile. "That will be twenty-five dollars even," she said flatly.

I turned to Mrs. Winslow who paid the clerk in cash. I stuffed the papers into the manila envelope the clerk furnished for the twenty-five bucks. I didn't even look at them first.

"So where to now?" Mrs. Winslow asked.

"The DA's office to get his file," I replied.

"Isn't it just going to be the same?" she asked.

"It had better be," I replied.

"So you are just going to make sure no one is trying to short us?" she asked.

"Some of that, but the DA will have a few papers his office generated. He will probably have the coroner's report. The cop file may or may not have it," I replied.

I didn't bother to question the DA's clerk. I simply took the file for which Mrs. Winslow paid twenty-eight dollars.

"So now what?" Mrs. Winslow asked once we were in the parking lot.

"Now we go somewhere to read all this crap." I replied.

"Do we need to stay in town or can we do it at my house?" she asked.

"It is going to be mostly reading and making notes, so it doesn't matter where we are so long as there is a phone," I replied.

"In that case, let's go to my house."

Twenty-five minutes late she pulled the Trans Am into the circular drive of a very old colonial style house. I waited until she had stopped the car before I asked, "The family estate?"

"Hardly, my husband started life rather poor. He amassed a fortune in the chemical business. His first wife, was from the same environment as he. He moved on, to a more stylish house, and wife. Actually the stylish wife, bought the house," she said.

"That would be you?" I asked.

"One and the same, I come from a rather good family which had fallen on bad times. I had the class Robert needed to climb even higher on the ladder. It was a pretty good trade, I traded my name and upbringing for a ton of money. We both profited from the marriage," she informed me lightheartedly.

When I entered through the front door, I was surprised to find that the rather large room held only a very large spiraling stairway to the second floor. The stairs lead to a round hallway with several doors. Each door she informed me led to a bedroom and bath.

As she took the files from me she suggested, "Why don't you go on up and pick one. While you settle in, I'll fix us a drink."

"Make mine iced tea, I have rather a lot of detailed reading to do." I climbed the stairs, then just opened the first door I came upon. It led into a bedroom all pink and frilly. I decided to try another. The second was pretty neutral, nothing feminine or especially masculine about it. I put my bag on the double bed, then began to unpack.

No more than ten minutes later, I descended the stairs to the entrance room, the area was much too large to be called a hall. I enter one of the two opening on the opposite wall from the front door. I found myself in a very modern kitchen. It was about as out of place in the grand old house as I was.

I tried the opening beside it and found myself in a kind of den. Mrs. Winslow was seated at a library type table with the files unopened before her. Also on the table were two glasses. One obviously filled with iced tea, and the other with a similar colored liquid. From the way she sipped the second glass, I had to assume it was liquor of some kind.

"Maybe you should wait in another room," I suggested.

"Not bloody likely," she replied sharply. Her nerves were on edge just looking at the envelops.

"Suit yourself, but I smoke rather smelly cigars while I think," I replied.

"Is that all you were worried about. I have been known to smoke one myself on occasion," she replied as she moved to the rather large desk. From it she removed a wooden box. I found it to be a cigar box. Inside lay a handful of very large thick cigars.

"Thanks, but I prefer my own," I said as she extended the box to me.

"Up to you," she replied taking one of the monsters for herself.

She removed a fancy lighter from the desk, then she lit the thick roll of tobacco. When she had it going, she handed me the lighter then moved an ashtray from the desk to the table.

Even with her skinny shriveled body, there was something marvelously sexy about her puffing on the fat cigar. I tried to ignore her as I returned my attention to the envelopes. I opened the cop envelope first. I removed the stack of papers. The reports were in chronological order except for the dozen extra pages. Those I put aside until last.

The patrolman's incident report pretty much followed the story Mrs. Winslow had told. Robin's body had been found by a young couple out for a nature walk. At least that was their story and they stuck to it.

According to his report the beat cop cordoned off the area, then called the detectives. The two detectives arrived half an hour later, followed shortly by the SI unit, then the coroner's office.

The patrolman held the couple who found the body, but did not write a report on their interview. That, I expected, was done by the detectives.

I went from the patrolman's reports to the first report filed by a Detective Riley. According to detective Riley's report one of those jogger's pouches was found on the body. In the pouch along with a couple of dollars was a card with Robin's name and address. The card was provided by the bag's manufacturer to be used as Identification in case of accidents. I expected they had falls and car accidents in mind when they included it. It was a hell of an idea, since joggers seldom carried their driver's license.

The detectives left the SI to search the scene while they went to Robin's home to notify the next of kin. Since the on scene investigation had taken so long, Tony, the no good bastard, was home at the time. The neighbors confirmed that he had arrived only moments ahead of the cops. Tony gave his whereabouts to the officers, who confirmed it with a call. Since the body appeared to have been sexually molested, at the time they accepted his alibi without further question.

After the initial interview with the husband, the two detectives began looking for someone who might have heard the shots. All the residents who lived near the area where questioned, as to noises or strangers. The results were that an old couple living about a hundred yards away from the crime scene had heard the shots at five twenty-five, but had not seen anything. Since there was a strip of trees between the crime scene and their house it seemed to be a plausible story. The time of death became five twenty-five on a Friday evening.

The SI report listed all the items taken into evidence. With one exception, they were the effects of the victim. The exception being two .380 shell casings found near the body. The .380 was a bit of a surprise. I would have expected either a .22 or a 9mm. The .22 was the gun of choice for a professional hit and the 9mm was by far the most popular weapon among the criminal element. A .38 wouldn't have been unusual, but the .380 was.

The coroner reported no sexual activity at all, yet the clothes were torn from Robin's body. Of the two slugs recovered one was in good shape but the second was mangled beyond identification. Everything else about the autopsy was normal. Descriptions of several interviews with neighbors proved almost useless. The investigation center around the no good bastard for a while, but had to move on when nothing showed up.

When the police packet was finished, I found I had only two notes. "Why the torn clothes and a simple notation .380."

"Well," Mrs. Winslow asked around the stub of her cigar.

"The cops seem to have done a respectable investigation. I don't know if they center in on the two oddities, but they covered all the standard things." I replied.

"What oddities?" she asked.

"Her torn clothes, and the pistol." I saw that she didn't understand. "If the body was found around six pm. the killer wasn't frightened off, so why would he tear her clothes if he didn't intent to molest her. It doesn't say so, but I'll bet the clothes were torn after she was dead. Why anyone would do that, I have no idea.

The second thing is the pistol. Hit men sometimes use .22 caliber pistols, but most people think bigger is better. I really would have expected a street weapon. Those are almost exclusively 9mm with some .38s."

"So what does it mean?" she asked.

"Damned if I know," I replied thoughtfully.

"So what do we do now?" she asked.

"We read the DA's file to see if they have anything else, then we sleep on it," I replied.

"For this I am paying you five hundred a day?" she asked sarcastically.

"If you say that one more time, I am going home. Lady, I can use the money, but I wasn't starving when I met you," I replied.

It took a moment for the fire to leave her eyes, when it did she said. "I'm sorry this is all so frustrating. I was hoping you could just look at the file and tell me who did it," she admitted.

"Mrs. Winslow, it doesn't work that way. The cops are not idiots, no matter what you think. They have had six months to work on this. Maybe a fresh mind can find a lead, but even that isn't very likely."

"So what are we going to do tomorrow?" she asked more subdued.

"We are going to talk to the detectives, and the coroner. After that, I don't know, but I will think of something," I replied.

The autopsy photos were in the DA packet as I had expected. They were pretty gruesome but they always are. I looked at the color photos for any indication of bruising on Robin's body. The only marks of any kind were the two small holes in her skull. The photos only confirmed my opinion that her clothes were torn after her death.

Once the heart stops pumping the body no longer bruises. There surely would have been bruises from the ripping of her bra if nothing else. I didn't know from personal experience, but I had it on a good authority that it takes a great deal of force to rip a bra. I imagined the same would be true for the waist band of her shorts.

I hadn't allowed Mrs. Winslow to see the autopsy photos. The shots didn't ruin my dinner, but they would definitely ruin hers.

Mrs. Winslow was exiled to the kitchen while I reviewed the photos. When I finished, I wandered into the kitchen. She was up to her elbows in dinner. At the very moment I walked in she was washing ingredients for a salad.

"I would have thought with the size of this place you would have at least a cook," I replied.

"I actually have a staff of three, but I sent them all on vacation until further notice. I don't want anyone distracting us," she replied.

Since I had no idea how distracting a staff of three could be, I said nothing. Instead I asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Get the hell out of my kitchen," she suggested with a smile.

I poured myself a fresh glass of iced tea then returned to what I then knew was the library. I returned to the crime scene photos which I had passed over at the time of the initial reading. I went through them carefully but saw nothing. I almost picked up the dozen pages which had been left out of the original offering. I decided again to leave them until after dinner. Something about them was important. I had emerged myself in the mundane facts so that I would be ready to understand the significance of those pages. There was also some significance in the fact that the cops wanted to hide them from me.

Dinner was a rather nice steak complete with baked potato and salad. I ate with relish while Mrs. Winslow picked at hers. Almost all of hers went into the garbage.

"Do you think there is any chance I will ever know who killed Robin?" she asked.

"Damn you are direct," I replied.

"I don't know any other way. My daddy taught me to talk straight and carry the bigger stick," she said with a sad smile.

I nodded at the good advice, then said, "Odds are about one in four that you will find out who did it. However the odds that we can prove it from the evidence are about one in a hundred."

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"A crime committed outside like this one is a bitch for physical evidence. There is no DNA, no blood and no prints. The only possibility is that there may be a pistol around to match. The odds of that are pretty long though."

"Why," she asked.

"This wasn't a random killing. The person who killed your daughter wasn't some wacko who might hang on to the gun. It was a planned execution, anyone who ever watched TV knows that the cops can match up the pistol. It probably went right into the lake."

"Couldn't it be recovered from the lake?" she asked.

"Possibly and it might even have a serial number. That would be a very expensive, and time consuming project. One not likely to end in success. I would say this though, judging from the fact that it was a .380, the odds are better that it was bought by the killer in a gun store. That isn't the kind of pistol you buy on the street corner. It still might have been stolen somewhere, but I kind of feel that it wasn't."

"Then tomorrow, we hire a dive team to search that fucking lake," she said angrily.

"I really wish we had the manpower to search the files for sales of .380s in the last year or so. We are going to be talking to a lot of people, it would be nice to have a list to cross-check."

"Mr. Taft, do you have any idea how much money I have?" she asked seriously.

"No Ma'am," I replied honestly.

"Money I can get my hands on immediately equals probably two million, money I could get in two weeks probably come to another ten. Give me six months and I could raise more than the gross national product of some countries. You just tell me what you want and I'll get it for you. I even thought about offering a million dollar reward, but the DA talked me out of it. He said there was only one person who knew who killed my daughter and no reward would make him tell."

"He is right, this wasn't a robbery where some kid will brag to a friend. Your daughter's murder has assassination written all over it. However, if you can use your money to get information, then it is better than any reward."