The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (21 page)

Maude laughed out loud. It had been years since she heard that old retort. Only in a small town, she thought.

The lawyer’s office in Stillwater was part of a large three-story building near downtown. The structure had been there for a while, the architecture old fashioned, but classy.

“They better have an elevator in there
,” Maude grumbled. “I am
no
t climbing stairs even if I have to pay someone to carry me.”

The clock on the dash of the rental
car told her that three-thirty was just a few seconds away. Most lawyers made their money early in the day, but she hoped that Johnson and Grimble were still open for business. The name on the business card said George W. Grimble, a stuffed ivy-league shirt if his name fit his personality. Maude came prepared to do battle to get information, but she hoped for an easy victory.

The elevator was slow
, but at least it worked and was in good condition, the stainless steel shined to a high gloss, buttons cleaned of fingerprints. The cables jerked as it made it to the third floor, the shaft showing its age and use.

As she stepped off the elevator,
Maude saw the entrance to Johnson and Grimble Law Firm near the middle of the hallway. She looked for a bathroom nearby but the hall had no such convenience.

“Guess I’ll just have to hold it
,” Maude said to herself. “I’ll probably get bladder cancer from all the times I need to go pee and can’t. If I was a man I could have just hung it out at the old Dawson mansion. Sometimes it’s tough being a woman. Guess I could wear a skirt and hike it up when I needed to go, but I’d get caught. I can see the headlines
-“Madison, Texas detective, arrested in Oklahoma for indecent exposure”. That would be my luck for sure,
she thought, laughing for a minute at the idea.
 

The door was just ahead and Maude turned the handle, entering a receptionist’s office that smelled of burned popcorn. The woman behind the desk was in her forties, a little overblown
, with orange colored hair and bright-red lipstick.

Maude pulled her shield from her pocket and showed it to the woman who was busy picking out burned kernels from her bag of microwaved popcorn.

“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked without looking up, talking between bites of popcorn, chewing loudly each time she popped  a new kernel between her lips.

“No, no appointment. I need to ask Mr. George Grimble some questions abou
t a house he sold for a client. Won’t take much of his time.” Maude told the receptionist.

“He won’t see you without an appointment.” the woman told her disinterestedly.

“Would you pick up the phone and ask him please?” Maude said nicely.

“
Sure, but won’t do you any good,” the woman said, steadily pushing the popcorn into her mouth, occasionally choking on a tough piece.

“Mr. Grimble, this is Daisy,” she said, after picking up the cordless phone and clicking a number.
“There’s someone outside that wants to ask you some questions. She’s a detective. Oh...okay, I’ll send her in.”

“Well, you caught him in a rare mood!” Daisy said, finally looking up from the popcorn bag. “Go through the door and turn left.”

“Thank you Daisy and just so you know, you have a popcorn hull right up here,” she said, pointing to her two front teeth. “And your lipstick is greasy. Might want to take care of that.” Maude said, going through the door, chuckling to herself.

“I get’em
, don’t I,” she said aloud.

George Grimble was not at all what she expected.
She guessed his age to be around fifty years or so. He was about five-feet four and bald in  front, with a long length of dyed black hair plastered into a circle from the crown of his head to the comb-over that swooped down over his forehead before coming to roost above a very pink left ear. His glasses, small and round, sat on the end of a bulbous, overlarge nose.

Thinking that this was her day for clowns, Maude was ready to hear anything that might come out of Grimble’s mouth.
She hoped that at least some of her questions might be answered before leaving the office.

“Mr. Grimble,”
she said politely, “My name is Maude Rogers and I am a homicide detective from Madison, Texas, looking for a killer of women.”

“But what can I have to do with that,” the lawyer
asked, “I don’t practice criminal law.”

“No, but you sold a house some years back that I believe belonged to the man I am searching for.
The house was the Dawson place outside Cushing and the man lived there when he was a child. His name is Robert Dawson. Robert Elridge Dawson. Remember him?”

“Miss...Detective Rogers, I have to honor client privileges and can’t tell you anything. I wish I could help you
, but it is out of the question,” the lawyer sputtered, his glasses bouncing up and down.

“Mr. Grimble, there are dead women around central and south Texas that might take umbrage against your refusal to help find their killer.
Now that I think of it, attorney-client privileges don’t have to do with public record. I haven’t seen the recorded sale in the clerk’s office, but I’ll bet Robert Dawson was the seller of that property. Of course I can go to the county building and find out these things tomorrow, but you will be saving me some valuable time if you help me today.”

George Grimble
was indeed a small, ugly man. All his life he had yearned to be taller with more hair, but of course, that would never happen; however, he also yearned for tall, slender women whose height made him
feel
like a bigger man. Maude Rogers cut a striking pose leaning over his desk, her curly hair and blue eyes complementing long legs encased in black polyester slacks.

Grimble’s
eyes reluctantly left her legs and returned to the white polo shirt Maude wore under a hound’s-tooth print blazer. The wiry strength of the woman pleased him immensely. He wanted her to like him.

“Detective, I can tell you that Robert Dawson was still a young man when his parents had their unfortunate death in the mountains of Colorado
, and the memories of his life within the house seemed to make him even sadder after his parents died. I did handle the sale for him after he moved away. I don’t recall where he moved but we can look in the files. I see nothing wrong with giving you an address.” George was on a roll, hoping that Maude appreciated his careful consideration of a client’s interests while at the same time, helping the police to solve a crime.

Maude was astounded! She didn’t have to get rough with the man. He was actually helping her locate Dawson. Immediately she began to wonder what the lawyer was up to. Maude’s experience with attorneys was blighted by the rude
, irascible behavior she had encountered from scum-bag ambulance chasers in both Chicago and Madison. She waited to see what Grimble would do or say to indicate his intentions.

When nothing more was forthcoming from the man, Maude thanked him for his help and waited for the receptionist to bring the information from the archived files. Each move she made seemed to
get a response from the lawyer: a smile, a nod, once, even a wink. She sat down in the chair across from him and crossed her legs, wanting a cigarette.

The lawyer continued looking her up and down with approval.
Keeping quiet in tense situations had always been difficult for her, and now Maude found herself wanting to hum, or sing, or do something foolish while she waited in discomfort for the paperwork. Instead she turned her head once and caught George Grimble looking at her with unconcealed desire. Maude was flabbergasted.

Here I am in the middle of a mu
rder investigation and I have an ugly, bald little man sniffing at the crotch of my jeans. Will this day never end?
She asked herself. Unfortunately, her need for the information the man had was greater than her desire to ‘bust him out’, so she squirmed under his gaze, and gave him a toothy smile.

Within minutes the receptionist entered the office and gave the attorney a page from a thin file that she kept in her hands. Maude took out her notebook and wrote down a place in Arizona that Dawson had listed as his home address, hoping that she and Joe had caught a break. She was sweating under the collar of her polo shirt from the rapt gaze of George Grimble
and wasted no time getting out of the office once she had what she needed. Grimble was trying to get her attention as she scooted through the door but Maude ignored his request for her to stay and talk. With not even a by-your-leave, she quickly vacated the building.

The toilet salesman couldn’t get the kid under control at the drive
-in restaurant. For a while it was touch and go. It took Ridge to do it, just like always. Dawson couldn’t tie his shoes without help. The trick was, don’t let them see you looking worried. Draws their attention. That old woman was smart, he’d give her credit. Found them after all his careful planning. He wondered what gave them away.

The guy with the dark skin and curly hair in the bitch
’s’ rent house. What a ride he was. Personally Ridge preferred real women but any old port in a storm he always said!

Standing in the doorway, looking
her
in the face, thinking about cutting her nosey nose off, stuffing it in her big mouth. He had been calm, acted upset at being questioned. What an act! Told her what she wanted to hear. He made it up as he went. Thought she would trap him. Stupid cop. Knew what he’d do with her when the time came.

Bobby screamed out for anyone to hear. “No! Don’t hurt Mama. Go away.”

“Shut up you sniveling whiner. I’m in charge here!” Ridge was adamant. The kid had to go.

It was that way since he was fifteen, a big gawky teenager with acne and bottle
-thick glasses. No personality. The kid had needed a woman. He had imaginary girlfriends, sure, but he needed the real thing. Laying down on the levee by the river one day, crying like a two year old,  screaming, wanting to be big and good-looking, not such a putz. Got up and went home, pulled off his clothes in front of the mirror. Wanted to look like his daddy. Wanted to be a stud like the old man! Ha!

The picture was on the dresser in the old man’s room
; the picture with the white, captain’s hat on his dark hair; him leaning against the mast of the sixty-foot Hunter. Handsome man. Bobby wanted to be like him, loving all the ladies except his wife. Lots of muscle, working out did that.

Bobby knew about his daddy’s women. Saw him one day
, top down on the car, big-breasted woman, rubbing herself all over him. Bobby was at a stoplight on his bicycle, Daddy was waiting for the light to change. Bobby hid behind another car and listened to the old man talking to the woman.

“
Elridge, Sweetie, where we going?” she had asked, running her hands through her blond hair.

“You’ve been a bad gir
l. It’s straight to bed for you,” his daddy had told the woman, fondling her, not caring who saw.

The woman giggled as they drove off from the light, neither of them noticing the hungry-eyed boy behind the thick glasses and acne. Bobby had slipped and fallen from his bicycle onto the sidewalk
next to the street. All he could do then was lay there and cry.

The kid had
put the picture of the old man on the dresser and stood beside it, the mirror reflecting the failure that lived in the boy’s skin. He pumped up his right arm, looking for the rise of a muscle, hating that there was nothing but fat meat. The boy stood there, wanting to be what the old man was, knowing it was never going to happen. But he wanted it so bad, so bad he’d do anything to make it happen.

“
You can be like him. Better than him.” the voice was strong. Tough.

“What? Who said that?” Bobby’s crying stopped.

“How can I be like him?” he asked.

“Let me out. I’m coming out” the voice
had commanded, hurting Bobby’s throat.

Suddenly the fifteen
-year old boy stood taller. Running his hand through his dark hair he pushed it back from his forehead and removed the thick glasses, disdainfully pitching them into the trash can. Without hesitation the boy went into the bathroom, pulled out the box of contacts that had never been worn and placed a pair in his eyes as if it were a familiar task.

Inside the closet a stylish
new red shirt laid next to new basketball shoes. The boy pulled those from the closet and returned to the mirror, still naked. He looked into the reflection and smirked at the image there. A loud peal of laughter sprang from the boy’s mouth as he yelled, “I’m free!”

Ridge remembered it well. What a great day it had been to be free of the sniveling kid
after living for years in his worthless hide. Getting laid had been Ridge’s first goal. He knew Elridge got his share of women. He would follow his old man’s example. Take what he wanted and never mind the rest. Nothing was too good for Ridge... Roberts. Yeah, Ridge Roberts. The old man would die if he heard it. The joke was on him.

The first girl the boy met thought she was seeing Bobby
, and was prepared to diss him if he looked at her, but something had changed. The boy was taller and better looking with nice eyes. His hair was different too, and even the acne was less noticeable. The girl called him Bobby, but he didn’t act like Bobby, for the next thing she knew, he had his arm around her.

Definitely
, he was not Bobby. The boy hurt her a little when he took her under the football bleachers, but she liked his roughness. Afterward she wondered just who he was, and hoped she would see him again.

That year Bobby moved to a new school at his request. He liked the idea of public school better than the private academy
, more good-looking girls in public school.

The old lady never hit the boy again, even though sometimes he wished
she would still hug him. The girls he forced to have sex with him often forgave his behavior when he showed special attention to their breasts, nuzzling them until the girls moaned with pleasure against him.

No one knew Ridge
, except Bobby. It was a secret they both kept protected from everyone, especially family.

When Bobby was twenty and needed a cover for Ridge’s extracurricular and sometimes violent activities, Robert Dawson, the last personality of the trio was invented by the other two. It was mandatory that a calm presence with no wants or desires other than to be successful also lived in the body. Dawson applied for a job
in a shoe store and worked there until his parents died.

He was immediately
hired by
Porcelain Worx
after convincing them he had the ability to sell a product. He also knew how to keep the kid under control by selling him on being calm instead of crying or whining when he got upset. Dawson didn’t have any real thoughts, it was just the part of Bobby that functioned under pressure and knew how to get along with people. Dawson was a hollow man.