The Not-dead, Dead Husband

The secretary behind the desk wasn't half bad. She was way too young for me, but that gets to be more the case every year. That's because I keep getting older but the secretaries seem to stay the same age. Just once, I'd like to walk into a lawyer's office and see a woman with big, heavy tits instead of small and perky tits and with an ass big enough I'd have something to hold on to.

She looked up from her computer screen, smiled, and asked how she could help me. I said I was Harry Meers and I had an appointment with Theodore Sanders. She tapped her keyboard a couple of times, then picked up the handset on her phone and punched a button under the keypad.

After a couple of seconds, she said, "Mr. Sanders, there's a Harry Meers here for your two o'clock appointment".

A couple of seconds later she said, "I'll tell him".

She put down the phone, then looked up at me, batted her eyelids, and said, "Mr. Sanders will be with you in just a minute."

After that, she stopped looking at me and started looking at her computer screen again. A little while later, the door behind her opened and a guy in a fitted black suit with a blue shirt and a red bow tie stepped out.

I could tell the guy was a pussy when I first saw him, and he confirmed that with his handshake. Shaking his hand was like holding a dead fish - cold and kinda clammy - and I've known women with a lot stronger grip.

"Mr. Meers, I appreciate the reasons Mrs. Wright hired you to look into this case, but I doubt you're going to find out anything more than we already know."

}{

That's what the woman who'd called my office phone had said this asshole was going to say. Her name was Theresa Wright and she was calling on behalf of her sister, Darlene Matthews, because Darlene was in jail and accused of murdering her husband.

Now, normally, I don't take cases from people accused of actual crimes. That's what the cops are for. I'd much rather follow some bastard and take a few pictures of him fucking his secretary or look for somebody who somebody else lost track of. I also know a lot of the local cops and they're good at what they do, so I figure if they haul you to jail and charge you, they've probably got your sorry ass down cold. This one sounded a little odd though. I told Theresa to come to my office and I'd see what I could do.

Theresa was one of those women you look at and wonder why they don't try to look like a woman. It wasn't that she was ugly or anything. She would probably have been about average if she'd done something with her short, brown hair and if she'd used even a little makeup. Her dress was too long and too loose to show me any figure she might have had. She sat down across from me and started to explain the situation.

"Mr. Meers, my sister is in jail and she's been accused of killing her husband. Darlene has always been a little wild, but she's not a killer. Like I told you, they don't even know for sure that Martin is dead. All they know is he's not at home and Darlene's the one who reported him missing five days ago."

She'd told me that on the phone, and that's what led me to ask her to my office. Having a body is pretty much a necessity in order to charge a person with murder. Since there was no dead Martin, the cops must have had some other really strong evidence.

When a person is reported missing and they suspect foul play, the first person who becomes what they call a "person of interest" is the person who made the report. People will do that because they think it takes them off the list of suspects. All it really does is tell the cops this is someone they should look at long and hard.

If that missing person is married and it looks like they might be dead instead of just missing, the prime suspect is always the spouse. That's because the statistics bear that out. Almost half of all murders of spouses are done by the other spouse. Usually it's the husband who kills the wife, but the other way around is pretty common too.

It usually isn't all that hard to find evidence proving one spouse killed the other because people don't understand all the tools the police have at their disposal today. Crime labs don't just match fingerprints and bullets like they used to. Today, they can identify the chemistry of metals, plastics, carpet fibers, and a shit load of other things, and DNA testing has pretty much eliminated any other method for proving who's who.

"OK, Theresa. If he's just missing, why do they think Martin's dead."

Theresa frowned.

"They found this stupid thing on his computer at work that said if he ever disappeared, they should arrest Darlene because she killed him."

"That's all?"

Theresa nodded.

"Well, that and the blood they say she tried to wash out of her living room rug."

OK, now we were getting to what made the cops think the guy was dead. They might not need a body if there was enough other evidence, and I knew the guys and girls down at the Crime Lab were pretty good at finding that other evidence.

I wanted to be honest with the woman.

"Theresa, this doesn't sound good for your sister. I don't know if I can help you."

She started to cry then.

"Mr. Meers, you just have to help us. The police think she did it, and Darlene told me her lawyer thinks she did. He didn't even try to get the judge to give her bail. He said she should plead guilty so she gets a shorter sentence."

That last sentence made me stop and think. Five days wasn't long enough for any lawyer worth a shit to tell his client to plead guilty. They'd have wanted to first get the client out of the tank and then go over every detail of the case to look for holes in the evidence. Only after that evidence was so tight there was no other way out would the lawyer advise a client to plead guilty.

There must be a lot more evidence than Theresa knew about. The police and the DA wouldn't tell her shit about the case since she wasn't directly involved, but they would have to share all they had with Darlene's lawyer. It seemed strange that a lawyer wouldn't tell Darlene what she was up against and that Darlene wouldn't tell her sister.

"Theresa, It sounds to me like the DA thinks he has an open and shut case. Are you sure that's all Darlene told you? If it is, it sounds to me like she needs a better lawyer."

Theresa sniffed and then blew her nose on a tissue.

"Yes, that's all she knows. She knows she needs a different lawyer, but she doesn't have enough money to do that. This one is a public defender."

Over the years, I've been stiffed a couple of times, and it looked like if I took this case, I'd probably get stiffed again. Yeah, I was probably adding to Theresa's troubles, but I didn't have any skin in the game except for my fee.

"I hate to bring this up, but if your sister doesn't have enough money to hire a lawyer, how is she going to pay me? I'm sure you understand that I can't work for free."

Theresa nodded.

"We know that. Madge said you'd be cheaper than a lawyer and she should know after you helped her get a divorce. She also said you'd help us because you're a nice guy."

Most of my advertising is word of mouth, and in this case I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"Madge? What's her last name?"

Theresa smiled.

"Freele. I work in the cafeteria at Memorial where Madge works."

I think I already told you about Madge. I was hoping all Madge told Theresa was that I'd helped her prove her husband was fucking their neighbor's nineteen year old daughter. Madge had paid me my regular fee and she'd been very appreciative...very, very appreciative... and she has this thing she does that...

Well, I should just stick to this case for now.

That changed my mind again. If Madge had recommended me, I couldn't very well just tell Theresa there was nothing I could do. I still wasn't very confident that I'd get paid. A hospital cafeteria worker wouldn't be bringing home a ton of money.

"OK, Theresa, tell you what I'll do. The police and the DA have to have more evidence or they wouldn't have charged your sister. Her lawyer should have all that information. You tell Darlene to tell her lawyer that she wants me to know all about the case. I'll go talk to her lawyer and find out what they're basing the charges on. Once I have that information, I'll tell you if I can help your sister or not."

}{

That's how I ended up in Theodore Sanders' office that afternoon. He offered me a chair, and then sat down.

"Mrs. Matthews has given me permission to share all the evidence the police have with you. I'm afraid it's very damning. Mr. Matthews has been missing for five days and when the officer went to speak with Mrs. Matthews he noticed part of her living room rug looked as if it had been recently cleaned. He notified his supervisor who obtained a search warrant and then sent a Crime Lab technician to investigate.

"The technician reported the strong smell of bleach when she cut a section out of a stain on the living room rug.. She was able to determine the stain was blood, but it had been degraded to the point the Crime Lab could not determine if it was human and there was no useable DNA. Mrs. Matthews denies she cleaned the carpet, but I don't see how anyone else would have done it."

He chuckled then.

"I haven't heard of any case where someone broke into a house and cleaned the rugs."

I stopped short of saying I hadn't heard of any fucking lawyer giving up on his client so soon either. I just said that seemed like pretty flimsy evidence. Theodore smiled.

"By itself, it is, but there are other factors. I have a copy of the police interrogation I'll give you as well as the information that will be submitted to the grand jury, but the long and short of it is Mrs. Matthews had a fight with her husband five days ago. The neighbor woman testified there was a lot of yelling and she thought she heard dishes breaking.

"After about an hour, the neighbor said things got very quiet. A little later, she said she saw Mrs. Matthews open her garage door and back her car out onto the street. She was gone until about eight the next morning, the same time Mrs. Matthews called 911 to report her husband missing.

"Once the crime lab had identified the blood under the carpet, they examined Mrs. Matthews car and found an area in the trunk that looked as if it had been cleaned in the last few days. That area also tested positive for blood, but as with the carpet, the blood was degraded by bleach to the point there was no DNA available for testing.

"The Crime Lab technicians also found some hair in the trunk, hair that did have DNA. That DNA matched the DNA they got from Mr. Matthew's comb in the Matthew's bathroom.

"The most damning evidence is the insurance policy on Mr. Matthews because it provides Mrs. Matthews a motive for killing her husband. The policy was for two million dollars and Mrs. Matthews is the sole beneficiary.

"So you see, what the District Attorney believes is Mrs. Matthews killed her husband, put him in her car trunk, and took him someplace, and the insurance was her motive. Mrs. Matthews agrees the domestic dispute did occur, but says she spent the night in a motel and continues to deny any involvement in Mr. Matthews' disappearance. She also denies knowing about the insurance policy.

"Considering the evidence, I am inclined to agree with the District Attorney. I have advised Mrs. Matthews to plead guilty to the charge of voluntary manslaughter in order to avoid a life sentence. The District Attorney has agreed with that plea if Mrs. Matthews will reveal what she did with Mr. Matthews. So far, she has said she can't tell them because she doesn't know where he is."

He smiled then, more of a smirk, really.

"She seems to have trust in you for some reason. Maybe after you do your own investigation, she'll listen to you."

As I walked past the secretary on my way out, she smiled and said, "Have a nice day". I didn't reply because I was pissed. I was pissed for several reasons.

I was pissed at getting involved in something that seemed to already be a done deal, and I was pissed because Darlene's lawyer seemed pretty pleased with himself for basically putting her in a prison cell and locking the door. It also pissed me off that he thought it was funny that Darlene should trust me. My clients always trust me because I tell them the truth and prove that's what it is.

When I got back to my office/apartment, it was almost time for dinner, so I tossed a frozen pizza in my microwave oven, poured myself two fingers of Glenfiddich, lit a cigarette, and when the pizza was done, started reading the police and Crime Lab reports.

The police report was pretty standard stuff. The officer who responded to the call had noticed the bleach smell and had notified his supervisor. The supervisor got a search warrant for the house and car and then sent two more officers and a team of technicians from the Crime Lab. While the officers and techs were going through the house, Darlene was taken to the station for interrogation.

Just as her lawyer had said, during the interrogation, Darlene denied knowing where her husband was. When the Crime Scene techs notified the detectives about what they'd found, they questioned her about the rug and her car trunk, and Darlene denied that too. She didn't know how her husband's hairs got in her car trunk either.

They questioned her for an hour before she said she thought she should have a lawyer before she answered any more questions, so the detectives arrested her for murder and booked her.

Once the second pair of officers finished going through the house with the Crime Lab techs, they talked to the next door neighbor. That neighbor, a Miss Elizabeth Brown, told the officers she'd heard her neighbors fighting in the past few months, and on the night in question they'd been louder than usual. She also said she'd never seen Mrs. Matthews drive away after a fight before that night.

The Crime Lab report was more interesting and made me think the DA was rushing things quite a bit.

The Crime Lab technician hadn't actually identified the stain under the carpet and in Darlene's car trunk as blood. The technician had tested some samples and they tested positive for blood by using a phenolphthalein test, but she put in her report that several things can exhibit the same positive test. Other than those two suspicious things, the techs hadn't found anything in the house except a couple of broken plates on the floor. Darlene's fingerprints were on the plates but there was no blood on them.

The samples from the living room and car trunk were taken to the Crime Lab for further analysis. The technician who did that analysis reported there was a stain on each that appeared to be blood, but there was not enough to test positive for blood and DNA.

The only positive test the Crime lab made was on the hair samples. They were a DNA match to the hair samples from the comb in the Matthews master bath.

They were able to lift multiple fingerprints from all over the house, and most matched Darlene's prints. The rest were matched to prints in the Tennessee Ten Print Unit database as belonging to Martin Matthews. He'd been fingerprinted when he joined the Air Force when he was nineteen.

As I poured myself another two fingers of Glenfiddich, I was thinking there wasn't much in either report that proved Darlene killed her husband, and as for the insurance, she'd have to wait seven years unless his body turned up. If she killed him for the insurance, it would have made more sense to kill him in a way he'd be found but the death would look like an accident or like somebody else had killed him. She'd still have been caught, but it was a more logical approach to getting the insurance money.

Any decent lawyer could have shot the case so full of holes the DA would have been embarrassed to take it to trial. I was coming to the conclusion that Theodore Sanders wasn't much of a fucking lawyer. I don't trust people with a name like Theodore who just have to use a full first name like Theodore anyway. They're usually fucking assholes.

I know most of the police captains and a lot of the officers in the Nashville PD because sometimes I uncover evidence about crimes in the process of tracking down someone. This didn't seem like something they'd stake their reputation on. I thought Roger Ames, the Captain of the precinct where Darlene lived, might have some more information. He'd know as much about the case as the officers and detectives because he would have approved the reports.

When I called Roger the next morning, he sighed.

"Harry, don't tell me you shot somebody again."

I won't go into why he'd have thought that, but I assured him I hadn't.

"No, Roger, it's nothing like that. What do you know about the Darlene Matthews case?"

There was a pause before he answered. That told me Roger was deciding how much he could tell me.

"Why do you want to know, Harry?"

"Well, I sorta got hired by her sister to look into it. From what I know so far from talking with her lawyer, the case looks pretty skimpy. I mean, without a body, why do you think he's dead?"

There was another pause, and I didn't really understand why.

"Harry uh...I really can't tell you more than her lawyer already told you. You know that."

"Yeah, but it just seems like you're going out on a limb here. I don't think you're the kind of guy who'd do something like that."

I could tell from his voice that Roger was getting uneasy about our conversation.

"We have a pretty solid case, but if you don't believe me, maybe you should investigate the couple a little. I think you'll figure out why things went the way they did. Harry, I gotta go now."

Roger hadn't given me anything except a hint, but knowing Roger as well as I do, that hint and how fast he ended our call was enough to tell me there was something going on he didn't agree with. He'd told me to investigate the couple, but since the Nashville PD had already done the investigation into Darlene and I had the results, what he was really telling me was to take a close look at Martin. To do that, I started by calling Theresa and asking her to come to my office again.

When she showed up that afternoon, nothing much about her had changed. The dress was different, but that's all. I offered her a cup of coffee, but she said no.

"No, but thank you. My husband and I are Mormons and we don't drink coffee."

I filed that information away and then started trying to find out more about Martin.

"Tell me about your sister and her husband -- did they get along, what was Martin like, things like that. Are they Mormons too?"

Theresa shook her head.

"Darlene used to be, but after she left home when she was nineteen...well, she got kind of wild. She started dressing to attract attention and she started going out with men who weren't Mormons. When she married Martin, our mother about had heart failure. He didn't go to church, any church, and they got married by a judge instead of in a church with a pastor. Our father refused to let him in their house. Darlene could go to visit, but not Martin."

Well, that told me there were at least two other people who should have been questioned about Martin's disappearance, but according to the police reports, neither Darlene's mother or father had been.

"Theresa, did you tell this to the police?"

"No. They've never talked to me."

I was starting to see what Roger had been hinting at, and what it looked like was somebody above him had told him to stop the investigation and go with what he had. Roger wouldn't have done that unless the orders came from pretty high up, and not even then unless his job was in danger. I still didn't understand why that would be, but I couldn't really blame Roger. He had four kids and two of them were in college and the other two were in high school and headed for college.