Once Bitten, Twice Dead Page 22

  Phil’s message was simply, “I have some news. Call me.” The message was dated yesterday.

  Over the phone now Phil said, “I recently re-read all the reports on that artist, Smith’s conviction in the Randall Procopius case. I’ve always felt he was railroaded.”

  Was this Phil again starting to criticize me? “You didn’t think he did it?”

  “It was just a feeling I had.”

  “Phil, I didn’t have a feeling—I had the evidence.”

  “I know. I know. I didn’t call you to rag at you. I think I may have some news that you’ll like.”

  “Please give me some news that I’ll like.”

  “Looking over all of the three cases you once had because as I just told you in my mind the Procopius case is still open, the profile for DNA that was left in each case matches.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the profiles for DNA found in all three cases is the same.”

  “So you’re saying that the same person was present in each of those cases?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. You, and myself, have always thought of these cases as separate from one another. This finding shows me that we could be dealing with a serial killer who has done all three murders. It’s just that no one noticed this pattern before because we’ve all been considering the cases as separate from one another.”

  I was taken aback. “You’re also implying, Phil, that the guy I conclusively put away for the Procopius murder did not do the crime. It was someone else, and that someone else did the other two killings.”

  “That’s my new finding. It’s a big breakthrough, gal, except that we have no one to match that DNA to. It definitely isn’t that Smith character—he’s just a wacky creepy guy who probably should have been convicted for messing around with those teen-age girls. If we find someone with that other particular DNA, we’ve solved all three cases.”

  “Phil, I’d like to believe you, but it’s incredible what you’re telling me. How could those three cases be connected? None of the three people knew each other, the killer’s MO is totally different in each, and there seems to be absolutely no connection between a butcher, a Wall Street mogul, and an actress/fashion designer.”

  “Believe me, Raven, I don’t see any connections among the three either.”

  “Thanks for contacting me, though. Maybe you’ve made a giant leap.”

  “I hope so. But still no killer.”

  “If it is one person who has done all three murders, I’ll gladly reverse my opinion on the Procopius case.”

  “And get that guy out of jail. Right now it doesn’t bother me that he’s in there for awhile for what he did to those girls.”

  “I agree.”

  “Raven we’ve made a jump, I think, but we not at the finish line yet.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “I will.”

  David had never been able to cozy up to Phil Petrosky, so I didn’t inform my husband that Phil was communicating with me about my old cases. It would be just another thing for David to get pissed off about. More things seemed to irritate David each day. He wasn’t the thoughtful kind person I had thought he was. However, lately I didn’t think I had been that easy to live with either. Running our own detective agency had put more pressure on us. It’s a lot more secure working for someone else. Everything now was on the shoulders of David and me. Our relationship was suffering—we were picking at each other more and more.

  One day last week we did have a talk, and each of us admitted our faults. That helped: the last couple of days I’ve felt closer to David. Life doesn’t always go smoothly—living well takes work.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  Despite some positive days, I had to admit that the personal relationship between David and me was going through a rough patch. However, our new detective agency was thriving.

  In particular younger people—college students—were coming to us with their travails. The reason was, as one student put it, “You guys are cheap, and we don’t have much money.”

  Of course to help the poorer person was David’s cup of tea. He always had a soft spot in his heart for the less privileged. “We have to help these people because if we don’t no one will,” he said. People only pay attention to the rich.”

  I didn’t speak up about some of these kids coming from very wealthy families. But in general I didn’t really agree with David. I was beginning to see that he would take an idea and exaggerate it. I kept recalling my mother’s favorite phrase, “One bitten, twice shy.” Some people react very extremely when something happens to them. David seemed to be that kind of person: his grandfather’s words about the rich, and that guy at the top of the hill who laughed at him seemed to form David’s attitude toward wealthy people. He never seemed to make any kind of compromise on that way of thinking. The other side of the coin, though, was that David had tremendous generosity toward people who truly needed help.

  The first college student who came to us was an energetic sophomore in engineering at Drexel University. Hugh Golden was so full of energy that during the interview he couldn’t sit still. He would get up and then pace up and down the room when he talked to us.

  Hugh has just experienced an unfortunate event. “My girlfriend had a horrible accident last week,” he said.

  “What happened?” Here was someone in trouble, and David was on instant alert.

  “We were water skiing, and on a sharp turn her rope broke. She slammed into a pier. I guess she hit her head because when we got to her a minute later she was already dead in the water.” I could tell by the expression on his face, that this boy was reliving the event, as he probably had done each day since it had happened.

  “It does sound like a most unfortunate incident, but why have you come to us?” I asked.

  “I’ve been water skiing for ten years now, and I’ve never seen one of those ropes break. After my sweetheart’s body was removed I examined the rope. It didn’t look like it was frayed; it looked like it was cut.”

  “Like someone did that intentionally?”

  “Absolutely. The strands looked like they were cut just enough so that eventually they would tear apart. I’m convinced someone was trying to harm Rita. I don’t think hitting the pier could have been forecasted, but that rope was cut in order to definitely injure my girlfriend, at least with whiplash of the neck, or a wrenched back.”

  “Who had access to the equipment?” David asked.

  “A couple of Rita’s girlfriends sometimes came along with us, and then there was my roommate, Martin Woodbridge, who usually was with us.”

  “Were those girlfriends and your roommate there that day?”

  “Martin was. In fact he was driving the boat.”

  “Did Woodbridge know Rita very well?”

  “They used to be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Really?” David caught the lightning in the air, the same time I did.

  “Yeah. When I began rooming with Martin, I had never met his girlfriend. But Rita was over at our place quite a lot, and so we did start talking to each other. I guess she got to like me because one night she boldly asked me out. I balked right away because I thought Martin and she were pretty serious with one another.

  “When I said that very thing to Rita, she downplayed it. “Oh no. Marty and I are just friends. I think of him like a brother.”

  So I went out on that date and many more after that. Rita and I became close.”

  “How did Martin feel about that?”

  “He wasn’t happy. He kept telling me that I had stolen his girlfriend. I protested that it had been her choice, but Martin wouldn’t listen to that. Martin loved Shakespeare, and he would get dramatic calling me Brutus all the time—‘You stabbed me to death like Brutus did to Caesar,’ he would say.”

  “Could Woodbridge have cut the rope?”

  “I did think about that, but I can’t imagine Martin harming anyone. If a bee would be buzzing around us and I wanted to swat i
t, Martin would stop my hand.” He would say something like, ‘It’s entitled to live Hugh, just like we are.’ One winter vacation I visited Martin at home with his dog. The dog injured his foot, and Martin was so caring of him, practically nursing him back to health himself. This is not a guy who wanted to inflict pain.”

  “Jealousy can transform people into something quite different than they usually are,” David said.

  “You may be right,” Golden said somberly. “Maybe that’s why I’m here with you two. Can you help me?”

  “Of course,” David said. “You say that rope was very strong?”

  “Like I said, I had never seen one break.”

  “Could it be cut with a knife?”

  “A sharp knife, yes.”

  “Can we get a look at Woodbridge’s things without him being there?”

  “Sure. We have different class schedules. Give me your cell phone number, and I can call you when Martin will be out for a couple of hours.”

  A day later we were in Hugh’s room. He had told us that Woodbridge was out playing touch football. “He’ll be gone until dinner time. His stuff is over on that side of the room, by the window.”

  “We’ll look it over carefully,” David said, “and then we’ll put everything back like we found it. He’ll never know anyone intruded on his things.”

  A few minutes later David pulled a small short knife from the zipper pocket of Woodbridge’s book bag. “I just might have something here,” he said. I thought he meant the knife itself, but David pointed to halfway down the serrated blade. I saw what looked like two tiny blue fibers caught on one of the edges. “Let’s get this knife to our old police lab in Philly, Raven,” David said as he slipped the knife into an evidence bag. “Do you know anyone there?”

  “I can contact Phil Petrosky.”

  David gave me a sideways look, but he didn’t say anything.

  Hugh gave us a piece of the original ski rope, and I took the knife and piece of rope to Petrosky. Two days later he told me there was a match, and wrote up a report. We went to the local police with our evidence, and accompanied them to arrest Martin Woodbridge.

  Of course he was surprised, but he didn’t resist. And as he was being led away he blurted out a confession: “It was just a prank. I wanted to scare her, upset her time with that damn Golden.”

  David responded, “This prank will cost you 10-15 years in jail for manslaughter.” Woodbridge hung his head as he was led out of his dorm room in handcuffs.

  Later Hugh Golden visited us at our office. “Thank you both,” he said. “I guess you never know what kind of person is living right next to you. But maybe now Rita’s soul can be still.”

  “Amen,” David said.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  I guessed that Hugh Golden had spread the word on the Drexel University campus because a week later another student from there appeared at our office. At first he seemed to be seeing us only so we could comfort him.

  “My dog died.”

  “This must be a very sad time for you,” I said, thinking of my dog, Damn.

  “It is very sad. Priscilla’s death was five days ago, and I’m still not recovered.”

  “How can we help you with this?”

  “I’m really here because I think a crime has been committed.”

  “Related to your dog??”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell us,” I said. David had always told me he didn’t like animals, so at the moment he was not giving this boy a very sympathetic look. I think he wished the kid would go away.

  “My name is Mike Miller, and you know my dog’s name. I live at home and commute to the campus. Well, about a week ago Priscilla wasn’t feeling well. When I walked her in the morning, she was slower, and by the evening when I came back from classes she could hardly move. When I got up the next morning to walk her again, she was dead by her food dish.

  “My dad told me to get an autopsy done because we will probably get another dog and we want to know what went wrong so we could prevent it in the future, he said. My whole family was shocked by the results: it appeared that Priscilla had been poisoned.”

  David and I proceeded in a similar way to our most recent case with Hugh Golden. It was all about opportunity and motive.

  “Who had access to Priscilla’s food?” I asked.

  “My whole family, of course—I have two younger sisters besides my parents and myself. But my mother was practically the social chairman of the neighborhood. She constantly invites people over, and also my dad has beer parties with some of the guys, watching sports events. Oh, yeah, there’s also his weekly poker club. So really our whole neighborhood had constant access to our house. Anyone within a five mile radius of where we live could have poisoned Priscilla.”

  “Let’s take another path,” David said. “You’ve told us Priscilla was very friendly and never came close to biting or even growling at anyone, so possibly your dog was killed to get back at you.”

  “Actually I never even thought of that.”

  “You also said that the autopsy showed there was a large amount of poison in Priscilla’s system, so the poisoning wasn’t gradual, wasn’t done over a long period of time. It probably was done close to the time, a week ago, when you saw Priscilla starting to slow down.”

  “I think you’d be right about that.”

  “Now think for a minute, what in the last few weeks has happened to you that was different from past months?”

  “It was just an ordinary time. I can’t think of anything unusual that’s happened lately. I got some better grades on a couple of school tests, but that’s all.”

  Right then I thought about our previous case involving girlfriends and boyfriends, so I asked, “Do you have a girlfriend, Mike?”

  “Well, I had one, but I don’t anymore.”

  Was this another “accidental” tragedy? I thought. As it turned out, not quite, but it had turned into one.

  “A couple of months ago I broke up with her.”

  “How long had you gone out with her?”

  “Over a year.”

  “Was she upset?”

  “Not at all, and that upset me—she seemed almost glad. But her mother was pissed.”

  “Her mother?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Paris always thought I was the perfect person for her daughter, Colleen. She constantly praised me in Colleen’s presence, mostly embarrassing Colleen. Colleen told me that her mother said to her that when I became an engineer I could provide well for her for the rest of her life. But Colleen and I were never quite as serious with each other as her mother wanted us to be.”

  “Did Colleen’s mother say anything to you about the breakup?”

  “Diane called me the next day and talked to me for an hour on the phone trying to get me to change my mind.”

  “I think it’s time we talked with Mrs. Paris,” David said.

  A stout woman wearing a one-piece housedress answered the door. She could have been the cleaning lady, but she was missing the mop and pail.

  “Mrs. Paris?”

  “Yes, I’m Diane Paris. Are you selling something?”

  “We’re not selling anything, Mrs. Paris. We want to talk to you about your daughter.”

  “My daughter? Colleen isn’t here right now.”

  “We don’t want to talk to her, just about her.”

  “You’re talking like she’s done something bad. I don’t think she’s ever done anything bad.”

  “The perfect daughter?” David offered.

  “Just about,” Mrs. Paris answered. She didn’t seem to be kidding.

  “How about Mike Miller?” I asked. “How do you feel about him?”

  “He’s not even worth talking about. He jilted my daughter. She was crushed.”

  “Are you sure she was?”

  “How would you feel? “You go out with a boy for a long time and you think he’s going to marry you, and just out of nowhere he pushes you off the ranch.”

  While Mrs.
Paris talked to us standing there on her porch without inviting us in, she had the gross habit of every now and then scratching her behind. I was glad we weren’t on national TV.

  “May we come in?” David asked.

  “You still haven’t told me what you want.”

  David became more insistent. “If you let us in, we’ll tell you.”

  “No, you tell me first.” Scratch. Scratch.

  David told it to her straight: “We’re private detectives, Mrs. Paris, and Mike Miller has come to us because he suspects you of poisoning his dog.”

  “That mutt. They all fawned over that creature like she was human. It was sickening. I’m not going to stand here and talk about a dog. Good-bye.” And she shut the door on us without another scratch.

  No cooperation from Diane, but her daughter Colleen was much more helpful. Just as we were going back to our car, she drove up behind us. We explained why we were there, and she said, “Let’s go around to the patio in back. I saw you coming back from the house. My mother is very difficult to deal with—I’ve been tolerating her for years, and I’m still not used to it.”

  We got settled under a large umbrella, and actually Colleen brought us out some lemonade. She seemed the exact opposite of her mother.

  “We want to ask you about Mike Miller and his breaking up with you,” I said.

  “Yeah, that happened.”

  “Your mother said you were devastated by it.”

  “Not really.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Mike was a nice guy, and all that, but we didn’t have a very strong bond. My mother was always telling me I should marry him, but she’s said that about every guy I’ve gone out with since I graduated from high school. Sometimes I think she wants this marriage so she can quit feeling responsible for me.”