Murder at Willow Slough
Read Murder at Willow Slough Online
Authors: Josh Thomas
Tags: #Detective, #Mystery, #Suspense, #M/M, #Reporter
MURDER AT WILLOW SLOUGH
Josh Thomas
Writers Club
Press New York Lincoln Shanghai
Murder at Willow Slough
All Rights Reserved © 2001, 2003 by Josh Thomas
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.
For information address: iUniverse 2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100 Lincoln, NE 68512
www.iuniverse.com
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 0-595-15686-X
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4134-3 (ebook)
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
To my late mother Betty Rees Moore, B.S. Pharm., Purdue University, 1961
Hail, Hail
slough \ ‘slü \ n (1): a large wet or marshy place;
SWAMP
(2): a small marshy place lying in a local depression (as on a prairie) (3): a state of moral degradation or spiritual dejection into which one sinks or from which one cannot free oneself
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
Writing is a solitary crime, but its perpetrators must have accomplices or we’ll be locked up. Jack Dawson was a great partner who helped create my venue. The maddeningly wonderful Bruce Tone made many helpful suggestions. Dick, Steve and Evie Moore believed in their kid Bro. Cincinnati’s remarkable Weyands—Bob, Peggy, Michael and Martha, the Condom Queen—took me into their family, which I’ll always cherish. Dave Kessler gave me a tip, from which I built a career. Dr. Steve and Kim Egger shared their expertise in the study of multiple murder. Homicide investigators in many departments and disciplines opened their cases to me and won my deepest respect. May they all find loving traces of themselves in this book.
There are three kinds of writers. Reporters are legal, as long as they stick to the facts. But a certain percentage, thankfully small, go bad and start committing columns, inflicting their opinions on people. The most dangerous of all become novelists. They’re power-mad, they want to control everything that happens in their depraved little worlds. Not only that, they make you pay for it.
Welcome, suckah, to my criminal world…
News
“Schmidgall’s dead.” Jamie leaned into his editor’s cubicle. “Press conference tomorrow in Chicago. Lawyer’s releasing the victim list. Can I go?”
“Sure. Clear the budget with Louie. AIDS?”
“He’s been bad, I knew it was coming.”
“How’d you hear?”
“Her paralegal just called me.”
“How do you feel?”
It took Jamie awhile to tune into his body. “Bad for Anna, that she has to go through it. Bad for Cznynowski’s sister, she always cries. The Gregorys will be overjoyed. Bad for the Weinsteins, but that’s just because they’re Jewish and middle class. I should feel the same way for everyone else, and I don’t, there are too many of them. So guilty, too, somewhere. Glad this phase is over.
“As for him, I know it’s wrong, but I almost liked him. What’s her phrase, ‘superficially charming’? So slightly sad. You don’t want anyone to die that way.” He snorted. “Unless it’s him. Especially him. Maybe the Red-Haired Boy will finally get his name back.”
“What’s the hook?”
“For the dailies, the list, ‘Schmidgall Speaks from the Grave.’ For us, for her, the message to the horse doctor.”
“Those phone lines’ll be burning up between Eastwood and Indianapolis.”
“Hope so. More phone records.”
“You want me to monitor TV, the Chicago station?”
“Tape it. They won’t have anything I don’t, but I’d like to see how they play it, after I write it up and get back home. I bet they give the victims five seconds total. We’ve got to do better than that, Case.”
“We will.” Casey double-clicked his Schmidgall folder to see what file photos he had.
“Would you call Rick while I’m gone? Just see how he’s doing.”
“Sure. Don’t worry.” Jamie left to inform the publisher. Casey already had a victims’ photo stack, laid out and ready to drop in on a page. But what he thought about was how scared Jamie was to leave his lover for 24 hours, even to chase the story of his career.
***
The news spread quickly, and people’s reactions, just like the victims, were all over the map. Sgt. Barry Hickman heard about it from his partner Bulldog Sauer in an empty school gym.
“Schmidgall’s dead,” Bulldog panted, dribbling, trying to drive past him.
Hickman threw his hip. “Good. Couldn’ta happened to a more deserving fella.”
“Anna’s gonna announce 21 names, have a big news conference tomorrow. You think we oughta go up there?” Bulldog darted past, if it could be called that, slow as he was. But compared to Hickman, he darted. Went in for a layup. Missed.
Hickman rebounded, headed back to the foul line. “For what? It’s a long drive. We know the names. That son of a bitch, what would we get out of it?”
Bulldog rubbed his shoulder. It had ached since he tackled that prisoner trying to escape at the courthouse. Maybe he was getting too old for this stuff. Hickman started down the lane, so Bulldog put his arms up. “See if she’s come up with any more evidence on Dr. Crum.”
Hickman pulled up, a six-foot jumper, good. “There’s gonna be a mob at that press conference. She ain’t gonna want to talk to nobody. You think Jamie’s going?”
Bulldog chuckled, clutched the ball to his chest. “Maybe he’ll drive over from Columbus and we can all ride up together.”
“Just what I need, that fag in the car for five hours. You gonna play or stand there?”
Bulldog spun, twisted, got past. “I’ll tell him you said that.” Swish!
“Okay, I’ll go. As long as it’s just you and me. You keep your trap shut with him.” Hickman took the ball out, tried a three-point airball.
Bulldog retrieved it. “I might give him a call, just to let him know. If he doesn’t already. Nice shot, keep it up.”
Hickman heaved for breath, got back on defense. “He knows, Bulldog, don’t waste your dime. Call the lawyer instead. She’ll need somebody to take her to lunch afterwards. Maybe we can talk to her then.”
Bulldog headed for the baseline, Hickman followed. A bank shot rattled off the rim.“I’m gonna call Jamie anyway.You never know when we might need him. It won’t hurt to stay on his good side.”
Hickman tipped the ball off the glass and in. “I didn’t mean what I said. I just don’t wanna listen to him talk all that time. Yap yap yap, he never shuts up on that Gay rights crap.”
It wasn’t true, Hickman knew it wasn’t; but before Jamie, he’d never heard anybody yap for any length on that Gay rights crap—and four cold, Gay murder cases made him listen.
They weren’t Schmidgall victims; they were strangled, not stabbed, and they turned up after he was already in jail. But they were just as Gay and just as dead, and they didn’t deserve to wind up in Quincy County, Ohio.
Schmidgall had a partner; maybe more than one. But Bulldog and Hickman, try as they might, couldn’t prove it. No one could. Those four cold queers ate Hickman alive. He tried another three-pointer and cried, “Downtown!” He didn’t need a hot queer like Jamie feeding on him too.
***
“Schmidgall’s dead,”Richard Gregory said,cradling the phone. “That was Anna. She wants to know if we’ll go up there. She’s having a news conference tomorrow, would we like to represent the families?”
“He’s dead?” Betty Gregory put down her watering can, made the sign of the cross. “He’s really dead?”
Her surviving son came, put his arm around her. “Late last night.”
She stared at her shelf of African violets, fluffed one to encourage it. Billy always liked my violets. He loved purple.
“What should I tell her? You want to go? Are you up to it?”
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Those poor other boys. Their poor families. Finally. I can’t believe it.” She resumed pouring. “Did he suffer, did she say?”
“He had AIDS, Mom. That’s what got him.”
“Did he have a fever? Was he out of his mind? Was he in terrible pain?”
“She didn’t say any of that, now.”
“I hope he was so sick he begged God to let him die.”
“Mom, take it easy. Please?”
“Six months ago. I hope he begged God six months ago.”
***
“From Chicago, word that mass murderer Roger Schmidgall is dead at 41. That story, after this.” Sergeant Kent Kessler, Indiana State Police, turned up the radio in his cruiser.
***
“Roger’s dead.” She reached for the handkerchief she always kept in her pocket.
Her husband put down his newspaper, frowned. “I’m sorry. That’s too bad.”
He stood, came to her next to the dining room table. She leaned on it for support. He took her in his arms. “I just hope he didn’t suffer, that’s all. My poor son.”
“Well, it’s over now. It’s all over. There, there, let it out, dear.” She did, but only for a few seconds. “He had good in him, I know he did!” Then it was time to get lunch on the table. She went off to the kitchen, dispassionate again, dead still.
***
“Roger’s dead,” Randy said over the pay phone.
“Shit.”
“I’m sorry, Tom.”
“Well, that ought to make things easier on you, huh?” Asshole.
He thought about it. “Maybe. Still, it’s sad.”
“Tell me. You weren’t his lover for five years. His best friend for twenty.”
“You going to his funeral?”
“Are you out of your mind? It’ll be crawling with cops. Who else’d go? Cops and reporters, just what I need. Jamie Foster’ll lead the fucking delegation.”
“Roger’s mom and step-dad will be there, I guess. His sister.”
“No way I’m going.” “Me neither. Well, I thought you’d want to know. I’m sorry, Tommy.” “Yeah, I’ll call you later, Doc.” “Don’t call from home, though.” He hung up, glanced around him,
got back in his sports car. Decided to head for the ice cream store, buy the biggest sundae they had.
Schmidgall’s dead. Heh heh heh.