“We’d go over to their house. They have this great TV and sound system downstairs and a dish. We’d watch football and hoops.” Swenson said.
“And she’d feed us.” Hong looked like he appreciated that more than the skinny Swenson.
“She even bought beer.”
“In the summer she’d let us use the pool like anytime, like for parties.”
“Last summer she and a couple of her friends joined us. We had some girls with us and they just hung out. She was easy to talk to.” Swenson’s voice was quiet and thoughtful as he reminisced.
“Her friends, too?” Tony knew they would be talking to the friends later. He paid close attention.
“Yeah. Sure. There was this one woman, lemme see, Roxie. Right, Swennie?”
“She was a babe.” Tony noticed a little blush creep up Swenson’s neck.
“And this other woman, Erika, she was kind of like…”
“Also a babe.”
“A small lady, but not like a midget.”
“Not everything’s small.” Hong shot a frown toward Swenson.
“Okay…Sean.” Something was going on between them that Tony couldn’t get a handle on. Why did he call him Sean?Some roommate thing? He was glad they’d opened the door about the friends. He thought he remembered Mae talking about them. The husband definitely had. He decided to nudge a little.
“Sure, I get you. Mrs. Fredrickson was kind of a babe, too.” Swenson screwed up his face at that, and Hong rolled his eyes again. “What?”
“She was Scotty’s mom, dude.”
“Moms can not be babes. Major foul. Hit the escape button.” Tony thought of some of the pictures he’d seen in the house. Deanna had been a very attractive woman, definitely a babe in some of those pictures. Then he remembered her sightless surprised eyes, the knife in her chest, and the blood pooled on the floor. Too bad she hadn’t had an escape button then.
“This is so bogus. I mean, I just saw her last Friday.” Hong stared out a dirty window toward the street.
“At the house? At the Fredrickson’s?”
“Naw. She and her friend, uh…Karen. They stopped in to see if Scotty was here. Me and Sean were just hanging out, you know. Neat lady. This all sucks so bad.”
“Sorry. Hey, either of you have a cell number for Sean? I still have to talk to him.”
“Not me.” Swenson shrugged. That surprised Tony. A roommate didn’t have his cell number? Maybe they didn’t get along.
“I do somewhere,” Hong said and headed off to his room.
Tony made a note of Stuckey’s number and rose to leave. He told the young men that he’d probably need to talk to them again, that he’d enjoyed meeting them. Actually he had, he realized. Nice kids, in school, out of trouble and on their way somewhere in life. He’d seen too many young people headed in the opposite direction-down instead of up. Even in the midst of the tragedy that had been Deanna Fredrickson he felt some bit of hope. Now if their alibis willjust check out…
On the way to his car he veered to the house next door and rang the bell. A striking young woman-thin, blonde and smiling, finally answered it.
“Erin?” Tony asked tentatively.
“Do I know you?” She wide-eyed the badge he held up. Confused, maybe a little worried. The smile faded.
“Did you have a fight with your boyfriend Monday morning? Out here on the porch or in the yard?”
“Did someone complain?” Erin looked up and down the street.
“Do you remember what time it was?”
“Why?” She crossed her arms across her chest and cocked her head to the side.
Tony rubbed his face with one hand. “Erin, at some point one of us is going to have to answer a question instead of asking one. Did you know that?”
“What’s going on here?”
“See what I mean?” Tony had his charming smile working. The girl was disarmed.
“Why do the police care if Gregg and I had a fight?”
Tony was determined to keep up with her. “Did I say the police cared if you had a fight?”
“Am I in some kind of trouble?” Erin frowned.
“If you ask me one more question I’ll arrest you for blatant curiosity. Would you like that?”
“There’s no such thing…is there?” Tony laughed out loud. She still didn’t get it.
“What time Monday morning did you throw Gregg out?”
“8:30? Maybe 9:00?”
“You’re not sure?”
“What business is it of yours?” Erin shot back petulantly.
“What if I told you it would provide an alibi for a suspect in a murder investigation?”
“An alibi? What did Gregg do? Is he in jail or something?”
“Did I say this was about Gregg?”
“Who’s alibi? What murder?”
“What time, Erin?” Tony barked. Enough was enough. He needed to get things moving.
“8:30!”
“Thank you. Now see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I am so confused.”
“I believe you. Thanks.” Tony walked away, leaving the girl shaking her head on the steps. He couldn’t resist, turned, and said over his shoulder, “If you’re on the outs with Gregg the guy next door, David, he thinks you’re hot.”
“Is he the big guy or the red head?” she called after him. He chuckled all the way to the car and halfway back to the station.
Chapter 6
Scott Fredrickson Sr. sat on the edge of the bed, wearing the same crumpled slacks and dress shirt. He had what looked like two day’s growth of beard and a lifetime left of sadness on his face. Ray had gotten a call from Ted Lipka en route. Fredrickson’s plane had been held hostage on the Phoenix airport tarmac by a warning light in the cockpit that took over five hours to be resolved. Alibi confirmed.
That could be worth a cussin’, Ray thought, and it explained the odd, brutally late arrival time. Scott Fredrickson didn’t drive the knife into his wife’s heart. Ray had to keep open the possibility that he could have paid someone to have it done, but the more he heard from the distraught man the less he believed it could have happened that way.
Chilled refreshing October air was locked out of the hotel room. It was stuffy and close. It smelled of fear and sweat. Fredrickson shrugged when Carol asked if she could record the session. He signed off on his right to counsel and had yet to hesitate answering their questions in any manner.
They revisited the conversation of the early morning hours outside the house. Deanna had, in his words, been a saint. She volunteered for the hospital and for the food bank. She had a strong loving relationship with both children. She had a group of friends, lifelong friends. They laughed and teased and supported each other through good times and bad.
“Who would want to kill Deanna?” Scott asked. “Why?”
Ray suggested they take a short break. He needed to think. He needed some fresh, crisp air.
He needed a motive.
It was time to start asking some hard questions. Carol joined him on the small balcony and lit a cigarette. Ray caught a whiff of the smoke and even after fifteen years had the urge to ask for one.
“You think he can handle what’s next?” Carol said, blowing a huge plume of smoke and frost fog into the breeze. She had been on the job for almost twenty years. Her jacket chronicled her years on patrol, a long stint in sex crimes, and now almost five years in the CAP Homicide Unit. She had some commendations in there along with a pair of reprimands. She was tough. Ray was glad she was along for this interview and knew what she meant. Some hard questions were coming.
Sometimes Ray felt like they were piling on, and this one was just getting started.
“Was your wife having an affair, Mr. Fredrickson?” Scott pursed his lips, gazed off to a bare spot on the wall for a long minute.
“No.” It came out as a simple statement of fact.
“Are you?” Scott’s head swiveled toward Ray. Even reddened his eyes were brilliant blue.
“No.” There was no evasion to the question there.
Carol took a turn. “Were you and your wife having any financial difficulties?”