“Sounds to me like you blabbed everything you know. The entire city will be dissecting our case over breakfast and the morning P.-I. tomorrow. Terrific!”
Detective Kramer could piss me off in less time than anyone I know. My ears were no longer glowing, but I had an idea my blood pressure was sneaking up.
“Look, Kramer,” I snapped back at him. “It wasn’t that kind of interview. You already know that Maxwell Cole is intimately involved with this case, that he’s the one who introduced Pete and Marcia years ago. He’s not going to be writing a story about this. His involvement here is strictly personal, not professional. I wanted some insight into their relationship, and Max gave it to me.”
When I realized I was defending Maxwell Cole in public, no one could have been more surprised than I was, including Captain Powell.
“Some relationship!” Kramer snorted. “That broad was screwing everything in pants and some that weren’t. What he writes about that isn’t going to help our case either. People will read about it and think her husband’s a hero, that we ought to give him a medal.”
Captain Powell was losing patience. “You do have a point, Detective Kramer,” he said placatingly. “But from what you’re telling us about the friendship between Cole and the Kelseys, it seems highly unlikely that Mr. Cole will put anything in his column that would in any way jeopardize the investigation. So are you two going to interview Kelsey now?”
“That was my plan,” I replied. “I don’t know about Detective Kramer. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I’m in,” Kramer said.
Powell turned to Kramer. “Oh, by the way, did you ever have a chance to tell Detective Beaumont about what the search warrant turned up this morning?”
With that one quiet question, Powell changed the entire tenor in the room, took me off the hot seat and put Detective Kramer there in my place. He was already squirming as he stammered his answer. “I tried, but like I said, I couldn’t raise him on the pager.”
“What?” I demanded, enjoying the idea that Powell’s knife could cut both ways. We’d been so busy discussing what I hadn’t told Kramer that no one had mentioned what he might not have told me.
“A casing,” Kramer replied sullenly. “A. 25 CCI-Blazer casing in the same underwear drawer where they found the gun.”
“That’s not all,” Captain Powell prompted. “Tell him the rest.”
“And a pair of trousers, blue with light blue piping.”
“Chambers’ uniform?”
Kramer nodded. “We’re pretty sure. Charlotte Chambers’ son is going to bring her down here this evening to see whether or not she can identify them.”
“Where were they?”
“Out in Mr. Clean’s garage. The trousers had been freshly laundered, and the shoes had been cleaned and polished. The lab’s checking the shoes especially for blood.”
“And then I have some additional news for both of you,” Powell put in. “The answer to the question of why there were two guns used instead of only one. The Browning jammed on that hollow-point ammo with only one shell expended, so the killer had to find himself another weapon. Chambers’. 38 was the only one available.”
Powell finished and was quiet while I assimilated what we’d learned. “It sounds like a pretty tight case,” I said at last.
“Tight!” Kramer yelped. “It’s not just tight, it’s foolproof, open and shut. Kelsey had motive and opportunity both, we found the murder weapon and some of the victim’s clothing in the man’s house, so will you tell me why the hell desertion is the only damn thing on his booking sheet?”
“Because that’s all we know for sure so far. How about if we go talk to the man and see if we can find out anything else.”
“Good idea,” Captain Powell said.
They brought Pete Kelsey/John David Madsen to one of the windowed interview rooms on the fifth floor. He was wearing jail-issue orange coveralls, matching slippers, and an air of stubborn determination.
“Good evening, Mr. Madsen,” I said cordially as he took a seat at the bare wooden table. “Is your attorney meeting you here?”
“I don’t have an attorney,” he answered, “and my name is Pete Kelsey. That’s what I want to be called.”
“But you have been read your rights, haven’t you, Mr. Madsen?” I continued, pointedly disregarding his wishes. I wanted to put the man on notice that this wasn’t a walk in the park and it was high time he paid attention.
“You know you have the right to counsel and if you can’t afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you?”
“I already know all that. Just tell me what you want to know.”
“How long have you known your wife was having an affair with Andrea Stovall?” I asked bluntly.
“It’s always been there, in the background. The security guard was a surprise, but I’ve known about Andrea from the beginning.”
“What changed?”
Kelsey/Madsen stared at me blankly. “What do you mean, what changed?”
“Just exactly that. Andrea tried to warn your wife that you were on a rampage because of something you’d been told. What did you know then, the night of the murder, that you didn’t know before?”
Kelsey hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t want all this to come out, to become so much public gossip.”
“What did you find out that night?” I insisted.
“That she was leaving me. After all these years, she had decided to go live with Andrea as soon as school got out.”
“How did you find that out?”
Suddenly a dam broke somewhere inside the man’s previously unflappable calm. He buried his face in his hands. “Oh God, I didn’t want any of this to come out. Why are you insisting on bringing it out? I knew it would hurt George and Belle and Erin if they ever found out the truth, and as long as Marcia kept her part of the bargain, it didn’t matter that much to me.”
“You still haven’t answered the question,” I insisted.
“A phone call,” he said.
“A phone call? You told us about some threatening calls, harassing calls.”
Kelsey shook his head. “I didn’t tell you about this one, because I hoped you’d never find out about it. The call came on Sunday night, quite a while after Marcia left.”
“Who was it?”
“A woman, I didn’t recognize the voice, laughing hysterically. She told me Marcia was going to run away with Andrea, but all the while she kept laughing and laughing, like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.”
“You’re sure you didn’t recognize the voice?”
“No. At first I thought it was Erin. I was afraid she was having car trouble and was calling for help, but it turned out not to be her at all.”
“So who was it?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say. Wouldn’t say, but what was scary was how much she knew, or seemed to know. She said Marcia wasn’t working at all, that she was at Andrea’s. She even told me where Andrea lived. In all the years, I’ve never known that, never wanted to. That’s not all, either. She said that Marcia was going to break her word to me, her promise, and go live with Andrea.”
Pete had said the words in a rush, and now he was silent.
“Did she tell you anything else?”
“No. She couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t? Why not?”
“Because she was laughing, Detective Beaumont, laughing hysterically! I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“What did you do after the phone call?”
“What do you think? I went to find them.”
