Tropical Punch Killer Read online

  “Do you know if either one of those doors were unlocked this morning?”

  Warren shook his head, looking miserable. “No. I wasn’t paying attention. I was so spooked when Athena wasn’t in her room, I just started making phone calls and then went out looking for her. Detective, is my sister in trouble? Is she going to be like a fugitive now?” he asked, deeply troubled by the thought.

  “She’s not a fugitive right now, which is not to say that that won’t change at some point,” Chas was realistic. “We’re reviewing the evidence in the case, but as it stands now, we’ll be looking at your sister as a missing person.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Warren was visibly relieved. “What should I do?”

  “I’ll get a description from you as to what she was wearing when you last saw her, and what her travel bag looks like, then the best thing that you can do is to go home and wait to hear from us. If you have names of anyone who might know where she is, I’ll need those, but, aside from that, you’ve done everything that you can do,” Chas reassured the distraught sibling.

  “Okay,” Warren nodded, unhappily resigned to inaction for the moment.

  **

  “Hey Detective, how’s it going?” Ralph pushed his red and white baseball cap back on his head a bit. He leaned on the shovel he’d been using to dig up old fence posts.

  Chas had approached him at home this time, hoping to catch him off guard.

  “I need to ask you a few more questions regarding the Holman murders,” the detective replied, wasting no time with pleasantries.

  “Wow, that thing hasn’t been wrapped up yet?”

  “We’re getting close,” Chas watched him for a reaction.

  “That’s good. People in Calgon can feel safe again,” Ralph nodded. “But, I guess the public shouldn’t really have to worry. Usually people who commit murder are related in some way, right? Like it’s personal?”

  “Funny you should mention that,” Chas commented. “Didn’t you tell me last time that we spoke that you’d never been over to Chet Holman’s house other than one time, when you gave him a ride to work?”

  “Yes sir, I sure did,” Ralph agreed easily.

  “Care to revise that statement, Ralph?” Chas stared him down.

  Ralph’s grip on the shovel tightened enough that Chas saw the flesh of his fingers turn white. He’d unsnapped the holster on his weapon when he got out of the car, so he knew he could draw it quickly if he needed to.

  “You calling me a liar, Detective?” Ralph affected a confused and amused look, but his smile held no warmth, and his eyes darted about in a manner which gave him away.

  “Would it surprise you if I told you that your DNA was found at the crime scene?” Chas asked, nonchalantly resting his hand on his weapon.

  Ralph glanced from the weapon to the detective and licked his lips nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was the weak reply.

  “Mr. Moyer, you could be in serious trouble here,” Chas warned. “If there was ever a time for you to tell the truth, the time is now.”

  Ralph flung the shovel down, and shoved his hands in his pockets, head hanging.

  “I’m not a big time dealer,” he began. “I just make a little money on the side and I don’t know why you’re coming after me when there’s a murderer out there,” he muttered.

  “Were you at Chet Holman’s house that night?” Chas demanded.

  “Yeah, I was, but not for very long,” Ralph protested.

  “Long enough to kill them?”

  “No!” Ralph exclaimed, seeming horrified. “Geez, no! All I did was sell them a little weed, then I left, I swear.”

  “A witness saw you loitering outside their house in the middle of the night,” Chas stated calmly.

  “I was waiting for a ride. I’d been drinking, so I couldn’t drive,” Ralph explained. “You gotta believe me.”

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning,” Chas instructed.

  “Okay, so I was at Moe’s Bar, having some drinks, when Chet called and told me that he couldn’t sleep. He wanted me to bring him some weed so that he could chill out and go to sleep. So I got a guy to give me a ride home so I could get into my stash, and then he dropped me off at Chet’s place. I told him if he came back in half an hour, I’d give him a joint for his trouble.”

  “Who is the guy that gave you a ride?” Chas interrupted.

  “I don’t know. Some guy named Dave who drives a blue pickup truck with fast food wrappers all over the inside of it. It was nasty.”

  “Go on,” Chas prompted.

  “So, I get to Chet’s and he’s the only one up, so I go inside and sit on the couch and smoke a little weed with him,” Ralph continued.

  “When you smoked, did you share the same joint?”

  “No, we each had our own. He finished his, and I stubbed mine out and left it for him to finish later.”

  Chas thought for a moment, an idea occurring to him.

  “Describe the couch that you sat on,” he told Ralph.

  “Uh…it was brown. Not new, not old…I don’t know, man. It was a regular couch, what do you want me to say?”

  “Was there anything on it? Throw pillows, anything like that?”

  “Nope, just me. I was the only thing on it,” Ralph replied.

  “So you stubbed out your joint, and left it for Chet, then what?”

  “I went outside to wait for Dave.”

  “How long were you outside waiting for him?”

  “Seemed like forever…I don’t know. Half an hour, maybe?” Ralph guessed.

  “Did Chet go to bed when you left?”

  “No, he was still in his chair.”

  “Was anyone else in the house awake?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did you go directly home after Dave picked you up?”

  “Naw, I had the munchies really bad, so I had him stop by the convenience store on my way home. The one on Harrison and Catalpa Street. I got corn chips, a candy bar and a forty-two ounce soda. Are you gonna bust me for selling Chet a joint?” Ralph worried.

  “Selling a joint may be the least of your worries. Don’t leave town,” Chas cautioned. “I’ll probably have more questions for you later.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Ralph shook his head.

  “You can either agree not to leave town or I can put you in a holding cell for selling marijuana,” Chas said reasonably.

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” Ralph muttered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  Chas’ interview with Ralph Moyer had been surprising. He hadn’t expected him to confess to dealing drugs, and since he had, if he was eventually convicted of murder, it would make the charges worse, because two federal crimes may have been committed. His story had sounded plausible though, and fit in entirely with the time frame that Alma had provided. A quick trip to the convenience store had confirmed his presence there at four o’clock on the morning of the murders. Footage showed that there was no blood on his clothing and his behavior was the mellow, slow-moving type that one might expect from a happily stoned man. While it was true that Ralph may have used the trip to the convenience store to establish an alibi, the thought that he then went back and committed the murders seemed unlikely. Unless…he was just acting stoned for the sake of the surveillance footage, in order to more firmly establish his alibi.

  Frustrated, Chas drove toward Greg McGinty’s apartment. At this point, the evidence pointed pretty heavily toward Ralph Moyer, but the detective wanted to be thorough, so he was determined to interview the man whom Chooch Graham had said he’d stayed with on the night of the murder.

  Chas rapped on Greg McGinty’s door three separate times before he heard movement within the apartment. McGinty flung the door open, a sour expression on his face, and by the smell of him, he’d had quite an alcohol-steeped experience the night before.

  “Greg McGinty?” Chas asked, flashing his badge.

 
“Yeah? Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” the man yawned and scrubbed a work-roughened hand over his face.

  “Step outside, please,” Chas replied. It wasn’t a question.

  “Oh geez, seriously? What now?” Greg groused, but did as he’d been instructed to do. He leaned against the chipped stucco wall next to his door.

  “I need to ask you a few questions about Tucker Graham.”

  “I don’t know nothing about that raunchy dude,” Greg sighed.

  “Yeah? The way he tells it, you’re buddies,” Chas commented.

  “Heck no. We work together, and sometimes we get drunk together, but that louse owes me money,” Greg grumbled.

  “You two have a framing job out in Copeland County last week?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Where were you on the night of the twelfth?

  “The twelfth…lemme see,” Greg closed his eyes. “Hang on, lemme look,” he pulled his phone out of the back pocket of a pair of filthy sweatpants. “I’m not great with dates,” he muttered, scrolling through his phone.

  “I was in a hotel over in Copeland County on the twelfth,” he announced, when he found the date on his calendar. “The framing job started the next day, so I wanted to be close to the site.”

  “And Tucker stayed with you?” Chas confirmed.

  “Heck no, Chooch didn’t stay with me. I had more pleasing company in my room that night,” he leered.

  “Chooch says he did stay with you.”

  “Then he’s lying. There was two beds in the room and he asked if he could stay, but I wasn’t about to let him after he stuck me with the bill at the bar. Besides, I needed privacy, if you know what I mean,” Greg’s grin was vile.

  “What time did you start your work day, the next day, at the job in Copeland?”

  “Well, I was there at six o’clock sharp, like I was supposed to be. Chooch didn’t come in until after ten.”

  “Can you describe his behavior when he arrived at the work site? Was he acting in an unusual manner?” Chas probed.

  “Hard to say. Chooch is always pretty squirrely,” Greg shrugged.

  “Did he say where he had stayed the night before?”

  “Nah. He has a habit of getting drunk and just knocking on doors of random people that he knew, until he found someone who’d let him crash on their couch.”

  “He doesn’t go home?”

  “He ain’t got a home. Stays in abandoned camper sometimes, but he thinks it’s haunted.”

  “Does he ever stay with his mother?” Chas asked, thinking.

  “Sometimes, but she usually throws him out, and if he’s been drinking, he doesn’t get past the doorstep.”

  “Have you ever heard Chooch talk about Leslie Holman?”

  “Oh yeah, he had it bad for that chick. Talked about all the things he’d like to do to her. Chet threw him out on his hind end a couple weeks ago, cuz he went over to see Leslie when Chet wasn’t home and he just up and kissed her, out of the blue. She cracked him a good one in the face and Chet came home and threw him over their fence. There was a hole in the leg of his pants cuz it got caught on the chain link at the top,” Greg laughed. “That boy just ain’t got no brains.”

  “Chooch told you that story?” Chas clarified.

  “Yeah, but who knows if it’s true or not. You can’t believe anything that old degenerate says.”

  The detective asked a few follow-up questions, then left Greg to sleep off his hangover. There were a couple of stops that he had to make on his way back to the office.

  The Holmans’ property was still barricaded by yellow police tape, in case investigators needed to go back in, so Chas parked at the curb and walked up the driveway and over to the chain link fence that bordered the right side of the lot. He followed the fencing from where it ended at the street, and got about half the distance of the depth of the lot when he spotted a light blue scrap of fabric fluttering from the top of a rough-edged wire.

  Taking out his phone, Chas took pictures of the fabric, both close up and at a distance to establish location. There was also a tiny dark patch just below the wire that would need to be sampled, and he texted the department’s blood specialist, with an urgent request. After taking the photos, and marking the location with a scrap of police tape, he secured the cloth in an evidence bag, and headed back to his car.

  Marcella Graham’s house was small, and time-worn, but clean, both inside and out. The sharp-featured woman answered the door with a pleasant demeanor, which was unexpected, given the fact that she had birthed someone like Chooch.

  “Yes?” she asked, one hand holding onto the door for support, the other grasping a hankie in the pocket of her housecoat.

  “Mrs. Graham?”

  “Yep, that’s me, what can I do for you, young man?” she smiled.

  “Ma’am, I’m Detective Chas Beckett with the Calgon Police Department. I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes.”

  “Oh, surely,” Marcella nodded. “But you’re gonna have to come in, so I can sit. I can’t stand for long periods of time. Bum leg, you know,” she glanced down at her legs, one of which was pretty profoundly swollen.

  “Certainly, not a problem,” Chas agreed, following Chooch’s mom into her house.

  “Now then,” Marcella sank into a rocker with faded mauve cushions. “What shall we talk about?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about the Holmans…” Chas began.

  “Such a shame,” she shook her head sadly. “They were family you know.”

  “Yes ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss. I wanted to ask you about the night of the…incidents. Did your son Tucker happen to be here with you that night?”

  Marcella’s sweet expression transformed in a heartbeat.

  “Let me tell you about what Tucker did that night,” she made a face. “That boy has a tendency to drink, just like his late father, and when he drinks, he gets downright stupid sometimes. Well, he’d been drinking that night, again, and he had the gall to come knocking on my door in the middle of the night, whoopin’ and hollerin’ and wantin’ a place to sleep. Goodness only knows what my neighbors thought,” Marcella was clearly embarrassed.

  “Did you let him in?”

  “No sir, I did not. I will not have drunkards in my home,” Marcella pressed her lips firmly together. “And that darned fool kept banging on the door and rattling my trash cans. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t.”

  “What time did all of this take place?”

  “I want to say it was around five o’clock, because after he left, I got up and made myself a cup of tea, and the sun came up maybe an hour later.”

  “Have you talked to Tucker since then?”

  “No sir, he usually gets mad and stays away when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

  “Do you know where he went that night?”

  “I sure don’t. Don’t care either, as long as it wasn’t in my house.”

  “Does he have any places that he typically goes when you turn him away?”

  “His no-good father had a dump of a cabin over in Copeland County. He sometimes holes up there, or he stays in the haunted camper. The boy just ain’t right, Detective. I hate to say that about my own flesh and blood, but it’s the truth,” Marcella dropped her gaze.

  “Can you tell me where the cabin in Copeland County is located?”

  “Well, there ain’t an address, cuz it’s in the middle of nowhere, but if you got a map, I can show you,” she offered.

  Chas knelt by Marcella’s chair and pulled up a map on his phone. Marcella put on a pair of reading glasses that had been resting on the table next to her and showed him the location of the late Mr. Graham’s cabin.

  “Thank you very much,” Chas slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood. “One last question…has your trash been collected since the murders took place?”

  Marcella shook her head. “No sir, I’m by myself usually and I don’t generally make much trash, so I only put it out every coup
le of weeks or so,” she shrugged.

  “May I look in your trash cans?” Chas requested.

  Chooch’s mother stared at him, then licked her lips and swallowed hard, tears welling. “My boy’s in trouble, ain’t he?” she whispered.

  “It’s my job to follow every potential lead, ma’am,” Chas skillfully evaded the question, but Marcella knew.

  “I understand,” she nodded, looking past him and out the window, lower lip trembling. “Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna tell him.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Graham,” Chas said quietly, and let himself out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  * * *

  Fiona woke with a start, sitting ramrod-straight in her bed, clutching the covers. This was it. Today was the day. She’d done all of Tim’s campaign work for him, had attended every pancake breakfast, craft fair and farmer’s market, working the crowds with skill and enthusiasm, and today would show whether or not her efforts had been in vain. She had no idea whether or not a candidate whom no one had ever seen or spoken with could actually win an election, but she had knocked herself out trying. There was only one last thing she had left to do. Vote.

  The adrenaline flowed, making her hands shake as she brushed her teeth and readied herself for the day. When it came to putting on her liquid eyeliner, she didn’t even bother to make the attempt. Her usually hearty appetite was nonexistent, and, against her own better judgment, she skipped breakfast. By the time Tim’s car pulled into her driveway for the trip to work, she could barely contain her anxiety and excitement.

  “Good morning,” she said, a bit too brightly. She hadn’t been talking to her boss much these days, but today was a very special day.

  “Contradiction of terms,” Tim muttered, staring straight ahead and pulling out of the drive.

  “Aren’t you the least bit excited about today?” Fiona practically bounced in her seat, her stomach in knots.