AND A TIME TO DIE Read online

  AND A TIME TO DIE

  WALTER ERICKSON

  1

  Murders and hot July weekends in Philadelphia go together, and this one was no exception. Neither the murder of a woman named Louise Driscoll, nor that of a low-level mobster named Tommy DeMarco meant anything to me at the time, which just goes to show how little we understand the workings of fate.

  It was already in the eighties when Buster and I got to the office. I hung up my jacket and took Buster’s harness off so he’d be more comfortable.

  I first met Buster two years ago when I decided to get a guide dog. I was given a choice of breeds, and chose Golden Retriever. We liked each other right off. He already had a name, so I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Buster he was, and Buster he will always be.

  I said, “Good boy,” and scratched his ears.

  Mondays seem to have a certain sameness to them. Buster and I spent the early part of the morning tracking down a man named Marcus Hopgood for a lawyer out in West Philly. Marcus was a reluctant alibi witness in a hit and run case. Witnesses agreed the vehicle was a dark blue Toyota Camry, but that was about all they agreed on. The cops arrested a guy and the guy’s lawyer discovered his client had an alibi. The lawyer knew the alibi’s name and address, but the alibi witness didn’t want to be found, didn’t want to get involved, even though the arrested guy was his cousin. That’s the way it is sometimes, which is where the Matthew J. Doyle Detective Agency comes in. We find people who don’t want to be found. We do a good job of it, too, even though we’re a small office. Besides Buster and me there’s my wife Kelley and a retired Homicide cop named Ed Westphal.

  Buster and I found Marcus living peacefully at a girlfriend’s house, a woman his family didn’t know about. Marcus cheerfully admitted she wasn’t the only woman his family didn’t know about. I said he had a civic duty to come forward, and I must’ve convinced him because he walked with me to the bus stop. We took a bus to the lawyer’s office, Marcus chatting amiably all the while. After I delivered him to my client I grabbed a bus back to center city. Just another routine day at the office.

  The phone rang while I was still scratching Buster’s ears.

  “Can I stop in and see you, Matt?” Cathy Cerullo said. “I have something needs doing.”

  I said, “Sure, Cathy,” and a few minutes later I heard a knock on the door. I called, “Come in,” and heard the door open and close.

  “Hi, Matt,” Cathy said, and pulled over the client chair. I deliberately move the chair away from the desk, because the sound of the chair being moved places the visitor in time and space. I don’t want to ask people where they are, I want to know where they are. When I judged she was seated and comfortable, I said, “What can I do for you, Cath?”

  Cathy Cerullo had a law practice in the building, and used us from time to time for investigative work. I liked Cathy, she was a no-nonsense woman.

  “I have a client in jail for murder,” she said. “Kid named Tomas Medalore. He says he didn’t do it. I need you to track down an alibi witness.”

  I always liked her voice. Low and husky, firm and full of timbre. I tend to place nice faces on nice voices. I caught a wisp of scent, pleasant and subtle. Since I lost my sight a couple of years ago, other senses have come to the fore. I can pick out individual odors in a perfume, like rose and orange and cinnamon, and myrrh if it’s prominent enough. I can tell if a perfume is musk-based, but when it isn’t I can’t tell if it’s based on civet or castor or something else. I’m sure Buster can, but so far we haven’t been able to talk to one another, not that I don’t spend a lot of time trying.

  “Everybody says they didn’t do it, Cath,” I smiled. “Are there any particulars I should know?”

  “Aren’t you curious who he’s accused of killing?” From the tone of voice I could tell she was quite pleased with herself.

  “Let me see,” I said, playing the game. “Somebody noteworthy.”

  “Not astonishingly noteworthy,” she laughed, “but it’s in the news. Louise Driscoll. Found her in a roach trap motel in West Philly called the Almiranta.”

  “Oh, yes. Kelley read it to me, right after she read me the funnies. Found your boy in her car, didn’t they?”

  “They did, and he admits stealing it. But he was never in that motel room. He took a car from the parking lot, and by sheer bad luck he took hers.”

  “If he didn’t do it, the cops will clear him. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t all that eager to put innocent people in jail.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, “but they’ve got a young black male with a record who was in the victim’s car, and they don’t seem all that eager to let him go.”

  “Stealing cars is also a punishable offense,” I reminded her. “Who do you want me to find?”

  “Young black male named Youssef Paul. My client says Youssef was with him most of the night, was with him when he took Louise Driscoll’s car.”

  “Are the cops looking for Youssef?”

  “Of course they are, but Youssef doesn’t seem to want to be found. That’s why I want you to look for him. They stole the car but they didn’t commit murder. When they get the DNA back, my client will be shown to be innocent, but in the meantime he’s sitting in jail.”

  “DNA, huh? Semen?”

  “All over her.”

  “Any blood?”

  “Lots. Her throat was slashed.”

  I paused, letting that one sink in. Memories, memories. “They didn’t mention that in the paper,” I said finally.

  “They didn’t mention she was tied with venetian blind cord, either, or that she was spread-eagled, hands and feet tied to the corners of the bed.”

  “Sounds bad, Cath. Did she have duct tape over her mouth?”

  “Yes, she did, wrapped around her head. If not, I imagine someone would’ve heard her scream. Do you know something?”

  “No, just wondering. Why doesn’t your client just get the word out he wants Youssef to come in?”

  “He did, and it didn’t work. For all I know, Youssef is pissed his buddy gave his name to the cops. I just want to talk to him, convince him to give himself up voluntarily. They were both at that motel, they might have seen something.”

  “Did your client see anything?”

  “He says not. The police have questioned him several times. Maybe Youssef saw something. That’s why I want him to come in now, while he still has something to trade. Bring him in and I’ll plea bargain on the car. The longer he stays out the tougher it’ll be on both of them.”

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll send Kelley up as soon as she gets back. Should be before lunch.”

  “Good. Incidentally, Mrs. Latham would like to talk to you. Interested?”

  “I might be. Who’s Mrs. Latham?”

  “Louise Driscoll’s mother.”

  “I see. And how would Mrs. Latham know about me?”

  “I handled some legal matters for her a few years ago, back when I was working for that big four name law firm. She called this morning to ask if I knew anyone.”

  “What does she want done?”

  “She says she has information about her daughter’s death the police are disregarding, and wants to talk to someone about it. Let me call her, Matt. She needs to feel someone’s listening to her.”

  “That isn’t what we do, Cath. She’d be wasting her money.”

  “She has plenty of it to waste, and besides, there just might be something to it. There was another killing over the weekend, a Tommy DeMarco, and Mrs. Latham believes the murders of her daughter and Demarco are connected.”

  “All right,” I agreed. “Have her give me a call.”

  I heard her push the chair back, and I got up. “Always good to see yo
u, Matt,” she said, grabbing my extended hand. “Take care.”

  I heard the door close and the memories started. The worst thing about being blind is the memories, memories of when you weren’t.

  I’d first run across the name Louise Driscoll when I was with the Organized Crime Strike Force. Louise Driscoll was top-drawer society, first family of Philadelphia, that sort of thing. She was also a mafia hanger-on, had been since she was a teenager a good many years ago. She’d come to our attention when we were looking into the activities of one Augie Traffalone, but she herself didn’t seem to be involved with anything except Augie.

  Cathy’s description of the Driscoll killing made me uneasy. I called the Police Administration Building and asked for Frank Kopf. Using the phone turned out to be not as difficult as one might think. The numbers on the keypad are always in the same place, so finding the nine and going from there just became second nature. Remembering which letters went with which number took some time, but eventually that fell into place as well. They have phones with the numbers in Braille, but I don’t know Braille, and really don’t need it, at least not for making phone calls. I’ve thought about learning Braille, and maybe when I have some free time I will. Of course, dialing by touch only works on a standard phone. My cell phone has buttons so small I’d never be able to punch them in accurately by feel, but fortunately the phone company has a system where all you have to do is talk to the phone and it dials the number for you. Technology is wonderful, and I can’t begin to think where it all might end. I suppose I could use the cell phone for all my calls, but there’s something satisfyingly tactile about holding a people size handset to your ear and punching out the number.

  Getting through to someone in the Roundhouse was always a chancy thing, but Frank was in. Frank was my last partner in Homicide, almost four years together, before I was detached to work with the Organized Crime Strike Force. Frank stopped into the hospital a couple of times to see me after I got shot, and he was one of the first to drop into the new office and wish me luck. I hadn’t spoken to or seen him in the two years since.

  “Hiya, Doyle,” he exclaimed, “what’s up? Long time no see!”

  Just hearing that raspy, too many cigarettes voice again after all this time filled me with pleasure. “Just wondering about the Driscoll killing, Frank,” I said. “I just got filled in on the details by the suspect’s lawyer. The M. O. seems too close for comfort. I was wondering if there was a spider.”

  Frank paused, as if considering his response. “Don’t let this go no further,” he said finally. “There was a spider stuffed in her vagina.”

  Just what I was afraid of. All I could say was, “Jesus.”

  “Jesus is right,” Frank sighed. “The sonofabitch is back.”

  “Who’s working it?”

  “Me, who else? Who else would be unlucky enough to get the bastard twice?”

  “My condolences, Frank. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  He said, “Take care, partner,” and we rang off.

  Venetian blind cord, duct tape over the mouth, throat slashed, semen on her body, a rubber spider stuffed in her vagina. Frank was right. The sonofabitch was back.

  Memories flooded in. Eight years ago. I saw that motel room again, smelled it again, the pictures and the smell flaring in my mind, so real I was there again. I’d been with the department twelve years, and had gotten to the point where I recognized quickly what I had. Which is why when Frank Kopf and I first saw Maggie Swain we knew we had something unusual.

  Frank and I had been partners for the better part of a year, and we got along fine, which isn’t always the case with partners. Frank was a big guy, running to fat, which he tried to keep under control by skipping lunch once a week. He was older and had more experience, having been with Philadelphia Homicide for seventeen years, but I was in no sense the junior man.

  We were working the graveyard, twelve to eight, Last Out we called it. In my experience bad things tend to happen after midnight, even on beautiful late spring nights like this one was. We were called to a motel just off I-95 in Port Richmond, a Philadelphia rowhouse neighborhood that had seen better days. The night manager said he had a dead woman in one of his units.

  When we got there a car from the 24th District was already there, lights blinking, door open, radio blaring, attracting attention for miles around. The motel was falling down, a one storey stucco job in desperate need of a coat of paint. According to the numbers on the doors, there were twelve units. The manager’s office was at one end, a neon arrow flashing Vacancy. At the other end, in front of unit number 10, lit by the light from the open door, stood an ambulance, the two-member emergency medical team sitting in the cab. Four civilian vehicles sat off to the side. A short distance away traffic on I-95 hummed incessantly, vehicles and drivers on the elevated highway a world away from the dark and gritty streets below. There’s no let up to the traffic, even at four o’clock in the morning.

  We introduced ourselves to the patrolman, a beefy old hand named Hogan. “Anybody go in or out of the other units?” Frank asked.

  “Not while I been here,” Hogan answered.

  “Go tell the manager not to let anyone else check in, and find out if any of the other units are occupied. When you’re finished with that, run those four tags, will you?”

  “Yes sir,” Hogan said, and left for the manager’s office.

  We walked over to the ambulance and introduced ourselves. “Whatta we have?” Frank said.

  “A bad one,” one of the medics replied. “Nothing we could do except wait around and take her back to the morgue. We called the medical examiner, should be here shortly.”

  “Were the room lights on when you got here?” Frank asked.

  “Yes sir,” the medic answered. “Lights on, door open. We didn’t touch a thing, didn’t even go in the room. One look was enough to tell she wouldn’t be needing us.”

  We thanked them and headed for the open door. The stench of human waste filled the room. “The man was right,” I said. “This one’s real bad.”

  She lay on her back, naked, duct tape wrapped around her head a couple of times, covering her mouth.

  “Bastard made sure he didn’t tape up her nostrils,” Frank said. “Didn’t want her dying on him before he was ready for it.”

  Her legs were in the air, knees bent, in the ready for sex position, arms under her thighs like she was hugging herself. She was trussed up with venetian blind cord like a Thanksgiving turkey, tied so tight her knees touched her breasts. Her slashed throat was gaping wide. Even from the doorway I saw the edges were neat, like she’d been cut with a razor. Both she and the bed were covered with blood. She’d lost control of her bowels, probably at the moment of death, or maybe when she realized what was going to happen to her.

  What made the scene unusual was she had a fake rubber spider stuffed into her vagina.

  I went back to the car and got a consent to search form.

  “I told the manager about check-ins,” Hogan said, coming up to me. “There’s one other unit occupied. Want me to roust ‘em?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But if they come out, detain them and let me know.”

  I went into the office and the manager signed the consent to search form. If you don’t, you stand a good chance of some defense attorney getting all your evidence thrown out. I put the form back in the car and rejoined Frank in front of the unit. We walked into the room, careful where we stepped.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a pervert,” I said. “The backs of her thighs, her pubis and her buttocks are covered with semen. Doesn’t look like she let herself be tied up voluntarily. Hard to tell if he had sex first or killed her first. Maybe we got ourselves somebody enjoys sex with a corpse.”

  “She might not have any of it inside her,” Frank said. “He might have killed her and jacked off.”

  “Well, that’s been done before.”

  Frank sighed and said, “We’ll know soon enough. Let’s see what we
have, partner. I don’t see her pocketbook.”

  I went outside to the patrol car. “Call downtown and get a crime scene unit up here,” I said.

  “Yessir,” Hogan said. “Got them tags for you. The Buick’s registered to a Charles Luber, the Subaru next to it to Lois Vorse, and the Ford over in the corner to Aurelio Martinez. Aurelio’s the night manager. The Honda’s registered to a Maggie Swain.”

  I thanked him and went back to the room. When I walked in Frank was looking in her handbag.

  “Name’s Maggie Swain,” he said. “That’s what it says on her driver’s license. Maggie, not Margaret.”

  We had done all we could at the crime scene. The victim would be examined by the medical examiner and the room would be gone over by the crime scene unit. While waiting, we talked to the manager.

  “No sir,” Martinez said, shaking his head, “I didn’t notice anybody with her.” He was a dapper little man, shirt and tie, black hair, black mustache so thin it looked like he painted it on. His dark eyes danced from Frank to me and back to Frank again.

  “Did she just come in herself, get a room?” Frank asked.

  “Yes sir. Paid for it with a credit card.”

  We checked the register and saw she’d arrived at 12:15 a.m.

  “Charles Luber and Lois Vorse,” Frank said. “Are they together?”

  “A Charles Luber is in unit 5. I have no idea who Lois Vorse is. Unit 5 is the only other unit currently occupied.”

  “What time did Luber check in?”

  Martinez consulted the register. “Eleven thirty-five.”

  “We need names and addresses of everyone who was here tonight.”

  “Yes sir,” Martinez said. “There were eight in all, not including Mr. Luber and Miss Swain.”

  Stan Morwald and the crime scene people arrived. After the photographer shot Maggie Swain from every conceivable angle, Morwald put on a pair of latex gloves and removed the spider and placed it in a large, padded envelope, which he sealed, dated and initialed. The spider would be dusted for prints later, but I didn’t expect much to come of it, not unless our maniac was also an idiot.