Innocent Victim (eBook)

Chapter Two

The dispatcher’s voice blasted into my patrol car. “Any car. Code twenty-nine, possible thirty. Nineteen thirty-three Lakeshore Drive.” As always, the dispatcher’s voice was calm and controlled. I grabbed the mike and responded, “Makarios here. I’ll take it. I’m on Lakeshore just past the country club headed into Lakeside.” I had just driven past the entrance to the Country Club Golf Course, thinking of the last time I had played golf.

“Copy, Lieutenant. You got it.” She gave me all the information she had. She told me a woman had called, given her address and reported a death. The dispatcher added that the woman sounded panicky, almost hysterical. The woman had blurted out: ‘She’s dead…strangled… there’s a cord around...’. Then she repeated the address and hung up. The caller didn’t give her name.

I said, “OK, got it. Send me some backup and notify forensics. I can be there in ten.” I hit the switch for the patrol car’s blue grill lights. I felt my excitement ramp up. ‘Thirty’ is police code for homicide. In the three and a half years that I had been a member of the Muskegon Police Department, I had handled four homicides. Three simple shootings and one stabbing. In every one of those cases we had the perp in custody within hours. I wondered what this one would turn out to be.

For late September it had been a beautiful day. Just a few minutes before the dispatcher’s call, I dropped my partner, Detective Sergeant Sean Dunphy, at his house in Bluffton, an area of the city near Lake Michigan. Sean and I had arrested a suspected child molester several days before and we spent most of this Friday interviewing the suspect’s neighbors and friends. I drove past the abandoned car ferry docks and the Milwaukee Clipper restoration site. This was where, in a small inlet just east of the docks, my dad established his first boat yard back in nineteen fifty-six. I came into the little business section of Lakeside and went past the theater and the drugstore and looked left, toward Muskegon Lake, the gateway to Lake Michigan for the port of Muskegon.

A little over a hundred years ago, the city of nearly forty thousand souls had been the primary lumber port on the Great Lakes. It boomed again during World War II and was still home to half a dozen major manufacturing companies. But its largest attraction was as a tourist center and the mecca for fisherman seeking the huge salmon that had been introduced into Lake Michigan to combat the lamprey eel infestation. Muskegon was home port for well over a thousand fishing boats and pleasure craft.

Traffic was picking up. I tapped the siren and quickly moved around a pickup that swerved abruptly toward the curb. The bed of the truck was full of teenagers. I hoped I hadn’t scared the kid who was driving. They were probably headed somewhere for a burger before tonight’s big game with Bay City, I thought. In the three years that I went to Muskegon Senior High School I never got to go to pregame parties like that because I was on the football team. The kids were dressed in T-shirts and light sweaters. Late September weather in Michigan wasn’t usually this nice. This year September was all warm days and cool nights with no hint of frost. I really wanted it to continue but the forecasters were saying we were in for a change soon.

I punched Sean’s speed dial number on my cell phone and, when he didn’t pick up, gave him the address for the call and told him to meet me there ASAP. Lakeshore Drive led toward an area of large older houses that overlooked Muskegon Lake from across a wide, tree-lined street. During my school years, this was a high-class neighborhood and I had attended several boy-girl parties in a couple of the big houses. At that time this was a wealthier part of the city and a few of my classmates had lived up here. I’ve always thought it’s a shame that many of these old places were remodeled and converted into apartments or low traffic businesses during the years I was away. But then, a lot of things changed in Muskegon in those almost fifteen years.

It was just past four thirty and the early dusk made seeing the house numbers difficult, but I looked for the stenciled numbers on the curb and soon found the house I was looking for. It was a big Georgian style set well back from the street in the block between Cascade and Piedmont streets. There were two cars in the double width driveway that led to a detached two car garage at the back of the lot. An older Honda Civic was parked next to a red ’01 Ford Mustang convertible. I pulled in and parked behind the Mustang. The front door of the house was wide open and lights blazed from both the upper and lower floors. A woman stood on the wide covered porch that ran across the front and down the west side of the house. I heard the siren of my backup coming down Lakeshore. I knew the protocol was that I should wait for them but the woman was waving frantically. I got out of the car and ran across the lawn, loosening my Glock in its holster and pulling my badge from my belt as I ran. I took the steps two at a time and winced as stabbing pains ran up my left leg. I shrugged them off and found myself facing a short, middle-aged woman dressed in a dark skirt and blouse. She had a pale yellow sweater thrown over her shoulders and held a wadded up handkerchief in her hand. Her eyes were red and swollen and her tears had made faint streaks through the light coating of makeup on her cheeks. I showed her my badge. She barely glanced at it, looked up at me through tear-filled eyes and pointed to the open door of the house. She choked, took a deep breath and stammered, “Maddy’s in there…on the floor…in the studio…the door on the right.”

The patrol car skidded to a stop in front of the house, its siren dying to a low growl, and two patrolmen got out and ran to the porch. I told the first one to check the outside of the building and motioned for the other to come with me. I noted a small sign at the side of the entrance that read ‘Jennifer Clayton’ with the words ‘Piano Instruction’. I stepped through the big front door and moved quickly toward the door the woman indicated.

I looked down the hall and saw that five doors opened into it. There were two on either side and one at the far end marked ‘Private’. They were all closed. I pointed toward the doors and told Winters, the cop who had come in with me, “Check those out.” Then I turned and opened the first door on the right side of the hallway. It was marked ‘Studio’.

The studio was dark and in the square of light provided by the open door, I could see a woman sprawled on the floor in front of a white baby grand piano. A length of cord was wrapped around her neck. The young woman must have been very pretty before she was killed. She looked like she was probably in her early to mid-twenties with a good figure and a head of curly blonde hair cut short. Now, in death, with her face a choleric purple, her eyes bulging and her swollen tongue protruding between her even white teeth, she was not attractive at all. She lay on her back with one leg drawn up over the other. Her white blouse was pulled loose from the waistband of her grey slacks and she had kicked off her left shoe. There was a smear of blood on her cheek and I saw that her right earring had been torn from the lobe of her ear.

The overturned piano bench bore mute witness to the brief struggle the girl must have made. The piano was angled in the corner of the room between two large bay windows. Several pages of sheet music rested on the rack of the piano and a few more were lying on the floor. A small tape recorder was on the floor near the overturned bench. A standing floor lamp had also been knocked over. The studio lights were off and the meager amount of light filtering through the wide bay window, half covered by a heavy drape, was barely enough for me to continue my examination of the crime scene so I righted the floor lamp and switched it on.

I knelt beside the girl and reached down to touch her throat for a pulse and then realized there was no need. Her skin was cool but she had not been dead very long. I started to get up and then reached out again and gently closed the girl’s staring eyes. I wondered if she had seen her killer.

I stood and looked around the studio. Other than the overturned bench and scattered sheet music nothing else looked out of place. I walked down the room toward the door at the far end. The studio was painted a light shade of green from the white ceiling down to the ash colored wainscoting. The carpet also stopped at the point where I could see a wall was removed to make one room out of what had probably been a living room and a dining room. Just past that point was a glass paned door that opened onto the side porch. I walked to it and saw that it was not locked. In that end of the room the floor was hardwood and the color of the painted walls was different, more blue–green. The wainscoting, although grey, did not match either. Neither did the drapes. A settee, five chairs and five music stands were the only other items at that end of the studio. A short stack of folding chairs was shoved against the wall under the window. I opened the door to the hallway and found myself near the closed door at the end; the one marked ‘Private’.

Two forensic technicians came through the door from the porch and I went back up the hall and met them at the studio door. I knew both of the techs. Shirley Roberts and Jake Dahlgren. Both were long time law enforcement types. Now getting closer to retirement, they collected evidence for the lab,...