Fliers were printed up and placed beneath the doors of all rooms at the Flamingo, also posted on telephone poles and lampposts surrounding the motel, soliciting information abut anyone seen hovering suspiciously in the vicinity of the motel as far back as a week before the killings.
Six people responded to this solicitation. None was able to provide any information beyond the fact that they'd seen a man (described by some as ‘tall and thin,’ by others as ‘medium height and stocky’) either strolling by the motel at a suspiciously slow speed.
A thirty-two-year-old black man named Ralph ‘Snooky’ Vaughan, former employee of the Flamingo fired three months before for petty pilfering of soap, toilet tissue, and other room disposables, was interviewed by Detective Joe Burns for six hours. Vaughan had a criminal record for minor crimes going back to his early teenage years. A search of his room in a Gunktown rooming house produced a black raincoat and black fedora-style hat. Vaughan swore he'd been nowhere near the Flamingo Court since the day he was fired and had been engaged in a game of pick-up basketball on a housing project court the afternoon of the shootings. Nine witnesses verified his alibi. When his coat proved negative for powder burns, he was released.
Seven of Barbara Fulraine's former lovers were interviewed, culled from a list provided by her ex. Of the seven, five were married. All begged investigators not to leak their names.
Charles Maw was associate director of the Calista Repertory Theater Company. He stated that he had been a longtime friend of Barbara Fulraine, that they'd been lovers prior to her marriage, and had resumed their affair approximately six months after the Fulraine child was snatched.
Maw stated he had acted as intermediary in a bizarre encounter in connection with the earlier crime. According to his account, about a year and a half after the snatching, Mrs. Fulraine, desperate to find her daughter, was actively consulting gypsy fortune-tellers around town. One, a card reader who worked out of a storefront at Danvers and 36^th, told her that her child was dead and promised to provide information on the whereabouts of the body in exchange for $15,000 cash, $5,000 to be paid up front, the balance upon delivery of the girl's corpse.
A late night meeting was arranged. Charles Maw, acting for Mrs. Fulraine, placed the $10,000 final payment in a locker at the Central Bus Terminal, then followed a chain of complicated instructions that led him, in the style of a treasure hunt, from a public phone booth to a message secreted in the men's room of a Gunktown bar to another message hidden beneath a rock on the east bank of the Calista River. Finally, he was picked up by a van with blacked-out windows, driven around town for a while, then into a garage at an unknown location.
Here a man and two women, faces encased in stockings, pointed to a cardboard carton that, they said, contained the preserved remains of the Fulraine child. When Maw opened the carton, he found what he took to be the body of an infant, but the lighting was so dim, the odor so horrific, the corpse so wrinkled and distorted, he could not possibly identify it as Belle Fulraine. Nevertheless, intimidated by the people surrounding him, he handed over the key to the locker, at which point the three jumped into the van and sped off, leaving him alone with the pungent leathery remains.
When Maw picked up the carton and stumbled out of the garage, he found himself not two hundred yards from smelters with smokestacks bearing the words FULRAINE STEEL.
It had been a swindle, of course. The little body was that of a black male infant, preserved, according to experts, in a manner employed by Haitian voodoo practitioners. By the time police were brought in, the $10,000 was gone and the storefront card reader had disappeared. The incident marked the end of Charles Maw's affair with Barbara Fulraine and left him with badly shattered nerves.
It's a strange story and it fills me with pity. It hurts to think of Barbara stooping so low, then being taken in by such a transparent scam. That she was running around consulting with scummy fortune-tellers tells me how very desperate she must have been. As for Maw, he strikes me as a fool. What kind of friend was he not to have warned her off these con artists?"
The six other interviewed former lovers were a junior executive at Fulraine Steel; a star third baseman with the Calista Forgers; a cellist who played with the Calista Symphony; an orthopedic surgeon from the Lucinda Taft Medical Center; a professor of theology at Calista State University; and a mechanic who worked at British Motors in Van Buren Heights where he took care of Mrs. Fulraine's Jaguar coupe.
All spoke of her with affection and respect, not one expressing the slightest degree of ill will. The mechanic described her as ‘a gracious person’ whom it had been his ‘great privilege’ to know. The theologian said, ‘She was quite the finest woman I've ever known.’ The cellist said that making love with her was ‘akin to reveling in the music of the spheres.’ Charles Maw, the only one to make negative comments, described her as ‘a user who left many husks behind… and I count myself among them.’ But even he claimed he harbored no animus toward her. ‘With Barbara I had some of the most memorable and pleasureful experiences of my life.’
Gossip columnist Waldo Channing was interviewed by Mace Bartel. His comments, unlike those of the former lovers, were not respectful at alclass="underline"
Witness stated he was close friend and confidant of victim for many years. Witness stated victim was ‘splendid, exciting person of great passion and sensuality’ and ‘I was privy to all her secrets. There was nothing that happened in her life she did not reveal to me, knowing I would always hold her confidences.’
Witness stated that contrary to opinion commonly held in victim's circle, victim was not promiscuous. Witness stated, ‘She did not engage in serial affairs. She was a one-guy-at-a-time-type gal.’ Witness stated he and victim were in love, but ‘a physical affair between us was not to be. Our affair was far more sublime than that, what the French call “une affaire de coeur.”’
Witness stated he is certain victim Fulraine was not romantically involved with victim Jessup. Witness stated, ‘If she were she would certainly have told me about it. So, you see, it's simply impossible. There has to be another explanation.’ When told that investigators had proof that victims met numerous times at the Flamingo Court, witness became angry. ‘Impossible! Can't be true!’ When assured that it was, witness broke out in a sweat. Witness then asked for a glass of water and time-out ‘to collect my thoughts.’
When interview resumed, witness stated, ‘if you ask me, there was something fishy going on between Barbara and that shrink she was seeing.’ Asked to explain what he meant, witness stated, ‘That's my impression. I just don't trust the man. I think he's a total opportunist. Anyhow, I very much doubt she revealed to him the same intimate details of her life she shared with me. I'm sure she never shared those secrets with anyone else.’
Witness stated that now that victim is deceased, he feels free to reveal some of her confidences. Witness stated victim despised Jack Cody. Witness stated, ‘She thought him common, which of course he was. She told me the only reason she continued to see him was that they were into the same kind of sexual kinks and that made sex with him a lot of fun. She never believed for one instant that he could turn up her missing daughter, but still she pretended she did. She told me, “He thinks he's using me, Waldo, but really I'm using him.” She told me she was not afraid of Cody, that “he puts on a tough front, but he'd just a big pussy underneath.”’