The May Day Murders (23 page)

Granted, she had hardly known the guy
back at school—in fact the only time she could recall ever speaking
to Stanley at all had been the time he had asked her to Senior
Prom. She could still remember the incident quite well; only
because of the total shock she’d felt that Stanley Jenkins had
actually had the nerve to do it in the first place. Surely, she had
thought at the time, he simply had to have known that she would
turn him down. Not so much because of the obvious fact that he was
a certified nerd and an absolute zero in the popularity column at
school (although that certainly should have been enough) but
because everyone who was anyone at Smithtown High School had known
that she was going steady with John Flinders at the time and that
she most certainly would be going to prom with him…

Yet, Stanley Jenkins had nevertheless
asked her to prom anyway—the hapless loser.

Ann had been at the state basketball
finals the fateful day Stanley had made his ridiculous plunge into
no-man’s-land. She had been on the sidelines with the other
cheerleaders as they witnessed their beloved Trojans being totally
smeared by the Upper Arlington Golden Bears. Just after the Golden
Bears’ point guard had sunk yet another three-pointer, poor old
Stanley Jenkins suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. He had taken
Ann aside, sweat pouring out of his zit-laden face so bad that his
glasses were actually steaming up. Out of the clear blue, Stanley
had cleared his throat and abruptly made his pitch: “You want to go
to the prom with me?”

Ann was speechless at first. Besides
the fact that Senior Prom was the last thing on her mind at that
particular moment (the Trojans were definitely out of the running
now), Prom was still light years away! And now here was Stanley
Jenkins, nerd of the year, who she barely even knew, and never ever
socialized with, asking her for a date!

It had been nearly impossible keeping a
straight face but she had somehow managed to as she thanked Stanley
for asking then informed him that she going to the prom with John
Flinders.
(We are going steady, Stanley; even you should know
that!)
It was more than obvious that he was quite hurt and
embarrassed. Stanley’s face had turned beet red but he didn’t utter
a single word. He simply turned around and sauntered off into the
bleachers with his shoulders slumped, like he had just lost his
last friend in the world.

Ann had felt really sorry for him and
when one of the other cheerleaders asked her what Stanley had
wanted, she had fibbed that he had asked about an assignment that
their English class was working on. Yes, she had actually felt that
bad for poor Stanley.

Leave it to that crazy Roger Hagstrom
and the Smithtown P.D. to come up with something as far-fetched as
this, Ann thought. She tried to imagine what they might have dug up
on Stanley that could possibly point the finger at him of all
people. Even Sam had admitted they had no evidence, which didn’t
surprise her in the least. Her hunch was that they were beginning
to grab at straws now because they were too damn inept to find who
the true murderer was.

Christ! she thought. Was she ever glad
she was out of that stupid, narrow-minded town! You can have it,
Sam, with my blessing. And may you and Shelley-the-slut-Hatcher
live happily ever after!

Her thoughts suddenly turned to Jerry
Rankin. She didn’t want to admit it to herself but she already
missed him and it had been only twenty-four hours. In a way, she
wished that she hadn’t come on so strong with the “friendship” rap
to him. She realized now that she could have put a swift end to
everything had Jerry not been so understanding. Any other guy would
have backed off under similar circumstances, not wanting to
continue pursuing someone who had just basically confessed having
no intentions whatsoever of sleeping with them—which is what it all
really boiled down to. But Jerry Rankin was different—he could see
beyond the sexual aspect and respected her enough both as a woman
and a person to accept her terms.

If he could be here, right this very
moment, she just might have let him have his way with her. She knew
she wouldn’t feel that way tomorrow or the next day, but at this
very moment, yes. She could just picture Sam and the whore
together, rolling around in bed, and that image made her want to
somehow get even with him. She would allow Jerry to join her in the
tub and she would enjoy every wonderful second of it. The mere
thought of his trim, muscular body pressed hard against hers made
her skin suddenly tingle all over …

But Jerry wasn’t here. He was meeting
with one of his clients. He had offered to call her when he was
done, but she had told him not to bother—that she was going to turn
in early. She hadn’t slept very well the night before and she
needed to catch up so she wouldn’t be too tired to cook
tomorrow.

Ann reached for the soap, lathered her
hands and began washing herself. If Jerry were here, right this
moment, he could be doing this for her, she thought.

When was the last time she had made
love? she wondered. She thought back. It had been in April, with
Sam of course. It had been the night before she had caught him with
Shelley Hatcher, in fact. It had been wonderful …

Damn you, Sam!

CHAPTER 15

It was around 5:30 Monday afternoon
when the telephone rang in Sam Middleton’s office. Praying it
wasn’t McNary again, he picked up the phone.

“
Sam Middleton.”

“
I’m glad I caught you
before you split,” Roger Hagstom said. “How soon can you come down
to the station?”

“
I was just getting ready to
call it a day. What’s up?”

“
Your presence is being
requested here. Pronto, in fact.”

Sam was stunned. “Did I hear you say
what I think I heard you say?”

“
You heard me right, buddy.
Hold on a second …”

Sam could hear someone speaking in the
background.

“
Chief Thompson says he
hopes there’s no hard feelings.” Roger said.

“
Roger, what in the fuck is
going on?” Sam demanded, his sense of humor waning.

The detective laughed. “We hit pay
dirt, man! That’s what’s going on!”

“
You caught the murderer?”
Sam asked incredulously.

“
No, but we now sure as fuck
know who he is, without a doubt. Listen, get your ass down here and
I’ll tell you all about it.” Lowering his voice to a near whisper
he added, “The chief knows everything.”

“
Okay, I’ll be there in ten
minutes.”

Sam hated suspense and Roger knew it.
Swearing under his breath, he quickly put his papers in order and
left the office.

When he arrived at the police station,
Sam noticed that nearly every police cruiser was parked outside,
prompting him to sense that what ever was going on was a big deal.
He parked the Cherokee and entered the station, feeling the
electricity of activity the moment he stepped up to the desk
sergeant.

“
Go on in,” Mark O’Brien
said, obviously expecting him.

Roger Hagstrom and the chief were
standing outside Thompson’s office as Roger spotted him and
gestured Sam over.

“
Hi Rog, Chief.”

“
Hello Sam,” Thompson said,
extending his hand. “I’m glad you could make it.”

Sam shook the black man’s hand and
glanced over at Roger imploringly.

“
Come on in,” the chief
said, holding his office door open.

“
Thanks,” Sam replied as he
followed Roger into the office. Roger showed him a chair across
from Thompson’s desk and Sam sat down.

“
You like some coffee?”
Roger asked, stepping over to the coffee machine.

“
Yes, thanks,” Sam
replied.

Chief Thompson sat down at his desk and
waited until everyone had his coffee before speaking.

“
I’m going to be up front
with you, Sam. Lieutenant Hagstrom has informed me that you’ve
already been shall we say, ‘enlightened’ on the Bradley murder
case, so I don’t feel any need to go over the background
information. Therefore, we’ll skip directly to the business at
hand.”

Sam felt like a school kid being
lectured to as he sat across the desk from the chief of police.
He’d never particularly liked Frank Thompson but had to admit that
he respected the man. He was scathingly blunt and had that kind of
authoritarian demeanor that demanded one’s attention whenever
caught in his presence.

“
Hagstrom tells me that you
have a fairly extensive background in photography,” Thompson
continued.

Sam nodded. “Yes, I guess you could say
that. Photography was my original career choice until I learned
that newspaper reporting paid better,” he replied
sarcastically.

Chief Thompson held up a transparent
plastic bag with a label marked “Evidence” stuck to it. “Then
perhaps you could tell me what you make of this.”

He handed the plastic bag over to Sam.
Inside the bag he saw a blank Polaroid print.

“
David Bradley’s housekeeper
found that print this morning in Tommy Bradley’s bedroom,” the
chief explained. “It had apparently fallen and wedged itself inside
one of Tommy’s toys and out of plain view. At any rate, Hagstrom’s
men somehow missed this during their investigation but fortunately
for us, the Bradley housekeeper’s eyesight is still in good working
order,” he added with a sardonic glance toward Roger.

Sam eyed the Polaroid. “Do you think
the murderer dropped this?”

Thompson grinned. “We know that the
murderer dropped it. In fact, we now know who the murderer
is—again, thanks to the Bradley’s housekeeper.”

Roger Hagstrom took over from there.
“Mary Willis, the housekeeper, wisely refrained from touching the
print and immediately called Dave Bradley to tell him what she’d
found. Dave then called me and I went over to check it out. And lo
and behold, we dusted for prints and actually got some. Our hunch
was right, Sam! We compared them against Stanley Jenkins’ prints
and they’re a match.”

“
Jesus!” Sam exclaimed. “So
Stanley really is Marsha’s murderer?”

Roger nodded. “Yup. We finally have the
hard evidence we need to charge him.”

“
But how did you get Stanley
Jenkins’ fingerprints?” Sam asked.

“
He’s got a police record,
remember? The Epson, Indiana P.D. had mugged and fingerprinted him
when he was booked on the arson charge at the college. We just
received his mug sheet from them earlier today.”

“
Wow, it’s still hard to
believe …”

Thompson declared, “You won’t think
it’s so unbelievable when you’ve heard what we’ve got on this guy
so far, Sam. I’ll let Hagstrom fill you in on that when we get
through here. But first of all, I want you to tell me exactly what
you see in that evidence bag. And please keep it in the bag, by the
way.”

Roger added, “Howard Dickson has
already looked the print over and all he could tell us was that
it’s a dud Polaroid. We’re hoping you can come up with a little
more than that.”

Sam winked at Roger as he pictured old
Howard Dickson, the semi-retired police photographer who was eighty
years old if he was a day with eyes pushing a hundred trying to
make sense of an “instant photograph” whose very existence he
probably resented in the first place. There were certain
limitations to belonging to the old school of photography, Sam
felt, which Howard doubtlessly belonged to. Howard still used an
old Graflex camera at crime scenes—the same one he’d owned since
the Great Depression.

“
I’ll see what I can do,”
Sam said as he brought the bagged photograph closer to his eyes to
examine it.

At first glance, the Polaroid indeed
appeared to be a “dud” as Howard Dickson had reported. The image
was basically all white and muddy grey near the bottom of the
square image frame where the rollers hadn’t evenly distributed the
developer as the print passed through them. It was a common
occurrence with instant cameras—the rollers got old with age and
eventually failed to compress the developer packet enough to
disperse the processing chemicals evenly throughout the exposed
latent image on the print. The result was a virtually white and/or
unevenly developed print with traces of the grayish colored
developer fluid appearing near the bottom under the transparent
Mylar covering.

“
Have you got a magnifying
glass handy?” Sam asked Chief Thompson.

Thompson opened one of his desk
drawers, brought out a magnifying glass and handed it over to
Sam.

Sam held the bagged print up closer to
the light and peered through the glass. The first thing he noticed
was a series of long, thin scratch marks that extended vertically
across the Mylar print window—no doubt caused by tiny burrs in the
metal pinch rollers of the camera. Then he noticed a small dark
area in the upper left hand corner of the image. He looked closer.
The dark area was actually the partial image of a ceiling light
fixture—a very unique light fixture. The edge of white that merged
with the image was fuzzy. Perhaps “out of focus” would be a more
appropriate term. Sam felt a sudden cold chill as the implications
behind this poorly executed Polaroid print raced through his
mind.