The House on Timber Lane, Robert F. Clifton [books to read as a couple TXT] 📗

logo that read, “Fabi Concrete Inc.”

Walking back to the front of the house he passed between several manicured hedges that were so large they hid most of the front door from sight. Wallace walked up on to the covered entrance and stopped. “Damn!”, he said out loud. Turning he hurried back to where Elaine stood.

“I need to use your telephone and I’m afraid, your house for a little while. I need a command post.”

“Did you find something?”

“I might have found Joan Applewhite”, he answered.

“Oh, Dear, where?”

“I can’t stop and talk right now Elaine. I need to use your telephone.”

Wallace dialed a number, heard the ringing on the other line and finally a man answered. “Hello?”

“Bill, Walley, what are you doing?”

“Trying to enjoy my day off.”

“That’s not going to happen. Who’s on duty?’

“Stiles.”

“Call him. Tell him to prepare a search warrant for 357 Timber Lane, Nautilus Beach, New Jersey. And to make sure the warrant includes house and grounds. Have him get it signed by a judge and bring it to me at Elaine’s house.”

“Does he know where she lives?”

“Tell him it’s right across the street from three fifty-seven.”

“Got it.”

“Good, get here as soon as you can.”

“Do you mind telling me what we’re doing?”

“Not at all. We’re looking for Joan Applewhite.”

“No shit?”

“Yep.”

Wallace got off of the telephone and reached for a cigarette.

“Knowing you, you’ll be wanting coffee. I’ll put the pot on”, said Elaine.

“Thank you. I’ll be outside having a smoke.” Thirty five minutes later Bill O’Neil parked his car in front of 368 Timber Lane. Wallace walked out to meet him.

“So what have we got, Cap?”

“A possible homicide. Have you heard from Stiles?”

“The last I heard was that he was heading for the country club. Seems that two county judges and their wives are attending a fashion show.”

“Alright let me show you what I’ve found.”

Together the two men crossed the street and after passing through the two high hedges that stood like sentinels guarding the place they walked up on to the tiled floor in front of the entrance. Wallace stood for a moment and then said, “Do you notice anything?”

“Nope. Not yet.” O’Neil answered.

“Look down.”

The lieutenant lowered his eyes. “Do you mean the shoes?”

“Yes, what do they tell you?”

“Other than someone left their shoes outside, nothing.”

“Try this. Joan Applewhite had a Japanese mother and was raised with Japanese customs. One of the customs is that when entering the home, one removes their shoes and places them with the toe of the shoes pointing out.”

“So?”

“So the position of her shoes meant that after putting them there, where you see them, she remained inside the house until something happened to her.”

“How can you be sure?”

“If there is a pair of soft slippers near the door inside, then I’m wrong. But, if there isn’t then we can assume that following tradition Joan came home, opened her front door, removed her shoes and placed them as you see them there. Then she reached in picked up the slippers put them on her feet and walked in. Had she left the house, her shoes wouldn’t be where they are and I’m betting the slippers are still on her feet.”

“Anything else?”, asked O’Neil.

“Oh yeah, follow me.”

Wallace left the front portico and after turning left walked past the tall hedge and garage and then headed for the back yard. O’Neil followed him. When they got to the place where concrete covered the ground Wallace stopped and pointed to it. “If I’m right. Joan Applewhite is buried right here”, he said.

“What makes you think so?”, asked O’Neil.

“Shortly after Lillian Gray died, the good doctor put this house up for sale. Elaine was the Realtor handling the sale. She took me on a tour of the place. At that time there was no concrete slab in the backyard. Now there’s this.”

“Interesting”, said O’Neil.

“Isn’t it. Come on. I could use a cup of coffee. Elaine put the pot on. We can watch for Stiles while we wait.”

As Wallace and O’Neil sat drinking coffee in Elaine Benson’s living room O’Neil asked, “Why would Gray kill the girl?”

“I haven’t determined why just yet. But, if I had to guess I’d say either they were having an affair and Joan Applewhite was putting the pressure on him, wanting to know when he was going to marry her, Or, and this is the theory I like best, he knew that she could testify that she saw him turn off the glucose I.V. in the hospital room.”

“It’s a damn shame that piece of evidence wasn’t presented at the trial”, said O’Neil.

“Well, it was a case of the necessity to protect the witness. I could have forced testimony, but Kaplan could have also countered that the witness was on the stand under duress. That would have nullified the evidence.”, Wallace explained.

Their conversation was interrupted when O’Neil said, “There’s Frank. He just pulled up out front.”

“Go find out if he’s got the warrant. I’ll be right out,”, said Wallace as he picked up the used coffee cups. He found Elaine in the kitchen. “Sorry to have to take over your house, but I need a place with a telephone, otherwise everyone listening to a police scanner will be down here getting in the way.”

“Don’t worry about it Robert.”

“Thank you”, said Wallace as he turned and left. Outside Wallace took the search warrant from Stiles, read it and satisfied that it was proper and correct, began walking across the street.

“Do you have a key?”, asked O’Neil.

“No. We’ll go in through the back door”, Wallace answered.

Arriving at the back entrance to the house Wallace removed the Colt Detective Special from his holster and using the butt of the revolver like a hammer broke a small glass window pane in the back door. Reaching in through the opening he unlocked the door and walked inside. The two other men followed him. They walked into the kitchen. There Wallace stopped and looked around. “Notice the smell?”, he asked.

“Yeah, smells familiar”, said Stiles.

“That’s the smell of Mr. Clean. Whoever used it used a lot”, Wallace mentioned.

Wallace looked at the floor, then the counter tops and cabinets. “All right you two. What do you see?”, he asked.

“Everything looks natural to me”, said Stiles.

“How about you Bill?”, asked The Captain.

“Nothing seems to be out-of-place”, O’Neil answered.

“The two of you look, but you don’t see. Look at the knife block on the counter top. One of the knives is missing. The chef’s knife is not there”, said Wallace.

“Frank, go over to Mrs. Benson’s and ask her if she has a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. If she does, bring it to me. If she doesn’t, call in for a radio car to pick one up and bring it out here.”

“Ten minutes later Stiles returned with the peroxide and handed the bottle to Wallace who removed the cap and filled it with the solution. As the two men watched the police Captain tossed the contents of the bottle cap on to the kitchen floor. The three men then stood and watched as a hundred tiny drops of foam formed on the linoleum .

“I’ll be damned. What’s causing that?”, asked Stiles.

“Blood. What you are seeing is a chemical reaction caused by the peroxide coming in contact with an enzyme in blood called catalse. The reason the peroxide foams is that there are two hundred thousand reactions per second.”

“Where in hell did you learn that technique?”, asked O’Neil.

“An old police Captain of Detectives taught me that trick many years ago. OK, now we’ve got blood and we can consider that it is probably human blood. So now we have a mistake that the killer made. He didn’t clean all the blood off of the floor. Now, let’s look at something else.” Wallace walked across the floor and knelt down. At the place where the linoleum touched the baseboard of the wall he poured the peroxide in the minute space. Instantly, foam formed. Rising, he said, “Just as I thought. If the killer had to clean this floor then it shows that there must have been a lot of blood on the floor. What happened was some of it ran into this crevice. He either didn’t think about it and if he did he would have had to rip up the floor covering. OK. Frank, I want you to find Mr. Fabi. When you do bring him here.”

“Yes sir, but where do I find him?”

“Look in the yellow pages under concrete. If you still need an address go to the traffic division. They have to have at least a hundred traffic tickets made out to him. He’s been involved in a hell of a lot of accidents. He’s a terrible driver.”

“Yes sir.”

“And, call in and tell headquarters I need two uniformed officers here.”

“Will do.”

“Bill, I want you to go next door. See the property owners. Just tell them that the backyard here is a crime scene and that we might have to move heavy equipment on the edge of their ground. And, tell them that if there is any damage the city and county will cover the cost of repair. Meanwhile, after the uniformed officers get here I’ll call in. I want I.D. people at this place.”

Twenty minutes later Lieutenant O’Neil walked into the kitchen. "The uniformed men are here. I placed one out front and one here at the back door. I told them no one is to enter without my or your orders. I also took care of next door. They have no problem with crossing their property with men or equipment. While I was there I called out the rest of our squad. I assigned two men to watch Doctor Gray, one at his house the other at his office. I figure sooner or later he’ll get the word that we’re here. I figured he might run.”

“Good thinking Bill”, said Wallace just as Detective Stiles walked in.”

“Captain, here’s Mr. Fabi.”

“Mr. Fabi. I’m sorry to bother you sir but I have to ask you some questions. It shouldn’t take very long.”

“Am I in trouble?…Do I need a lawyer?”, asked Fabi.

“You’re not in trouble with the police, unless you lie to us. The only trouble you may be in is with code enforcement. You neglected to get a work permit for the concrete work you did here”, said Wallace.

“Permits? Code enforcement is a pain in the ass. When a customer wants a job done they want it done as soon as possible. Filing for a permit means waiting until someone in that office gets off of there ass makes it out and issues it. It could and often does take weeks. I can’t wait weeks.”

“I understand…My first question is when did you do the work here?”

“I don’t know, two, three or four months ago.”

“How about five or six months ago?”

“It could have been.”

“And, who hired you?”

“Doctor Gray.”

“How did he pay you, check or cash?"

“Check.”

“Very good. Bill, make a note of that. Check Gray’s checking account. Mr. Fabi what bank do you use?”, asked Wallace.

“First Federal, down on Bay Ave.”

“Thank you. I only have a couple of more questions. That concrete out there in the backyard, did you use re-bar?”

“No. I didn’t think it was necessary since it wasn’t going to hold too much weight, maybe a portable grill and a couple of lawn chairs. Besides Doctor Gray said to keep the job as inexpensive as possible.”

“I see. What kind of equipment will I need to break it and move it?”

“A few men with sledge hammers and a couple of wheelbarrows. My crew can do it if you want.”

“Excellent, have them here at eight tomorrow morning.”

“Eight o’clock, no problem.”

“Thank you Mr. Fabi you’ve been very helpful. I’ll have Detective Stiles take you home.”, said Wallace as he shook hands with the man.

“After Fabi left Wallace turned to O’Neil and said, “Let’s get everything and everyone in place for tomorrow. Keep the surveillance on Gray. While the crime scene technicians are working inside, we’ll supervise the crew outside…With a little luck we’ll find Joan Applewhite.”

“See you then”, said O’Neil.

“Wait, one