The Burnt House

45

O LIVER POINTED OUT a sleek blonde in pasties and a rhinestone-studded thong, grinding away at a customer. “That’s her.”

Marge nodded. “Let’s do it.”

The two of them walked over to Patricia Childress a.k.a. Marina Alfonse and pulled her off the lap of a sweaty bald man in his late fifties. He was incensed but not as mad as she was. “What the fuck?”

Marge flashed her badge. “Police, Ms. Childress. You need to come with us.”

“I’m clean!” she cried. “I swear I’m clean!”

“We believe you,” Marge said. “We’re not from narcotics.”

“Homicide,” Oliver answered.

The owner of the club came rushing over and asked what was going on. Oliver showed him the shield and said, “Hello, Mr. Michelli, nice to see you again. We have a warrant for the arrest of Marina Alfonse-whose real name is Patricia Childress-”

“You!” Recognition of Oliver’s face in the dancer’s eyes. She had turned ashen. “I had nothing to do with it. It was all Ivan’s idea!”

Michelli said, “Can we do this in a more private place?” He regarded the confused look on the customer’s face. “You’ll get every penny back, sir.” To the cops, Michelli said, “This way.”

The detectives followed Michelli, guiding a furious dancer between them, until they stepped into the common makeup and dressing room. The owner waited until after Marge had Mirandized his dancer. Then he said, “You’re fired, Marina. Pack up your things and go.”

“But I swear I didn’t do anything, Mr. Michelli!” Patricia cried out.

Michelli glared at the dancer. “Get her out of here!”

By now, Patricia was sobbing. Her makeup was smeared, black streaks of mascara running tracks down her cheeks. She moved slowly, taking off her thong and her pasties until she was stark naked. With effort, she poured herself into her street clothes-a low-cut pink T-shirt, skintight jeans, spike-heel sandals, and a hooded sweater jacket. Since she was still wearing loads of cheap rhinestone jewelry around her neck and arms, she looked like a streetwalker. Patricia had stuffed her working clothes into a giant handbag and looped it over her shoulder. Tears were still washing her face. “It was all his idea.”

“You can tell us all about it at the station house.” Oliver grabbed one of Patricia’s arms and Marge grabbed the other. They led her out the back door, into the parking lot, and toward the unmarked car. Oliver let go of her arm to pull out the handcuffs. As soon as he did this, Marge turned Patricia until she was looking at the dancer’s back, pulling one of her arms behind her in anticipation of snapping on cuffs. That’s when something metallic winked at her.

It could have been the jewelry, but Marge didn’t stop to figure out what it was. She threw the woman down to the ground and pounced on top of her.

A.32 Smith & Wesson skittered out of Patricia’s hand, fell to the ground, and discharged, the bullet slicing through the car’s rear passenger tire. Immediately, the car sank off balance. Marge stared at the hapless vehicle.

What was it with her and flat tires at the most inconvenient times?

By now Marge was riding Patricia’s back and had yanked her arms around as Oliver clamped on the manacles.

“That was dumb.” He straightened up and picked up the dancer’s purse. “What else do you have in here, Patricia?”

“My name is Marina and I don’t have anything in there!”

“You have Mace.”

“A girl needs protection!”

“What the hell is this?” Carefully Oliver pulled out a leather sheath. Inside was a seven-inch boning knife. He handled it gingerly, knowing that he could be looking at a murder weapon. “A gun and a knife and Mace? Are you planning to take on some terrorists?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Lady, you just tried to shoot me!” Marge exclaimed.

“I wasn’t trying to shoot anyone,” Patricia yelled back. “If you wouldn’t have jumped me, the gun wouldn’t have gone off!”

“Oh my God!” Marge’s heart was beating like a hummingbird. She didn’t want to say anything she’d regret, so she kept silent.

Patricia was yelling. “I was just trying to get rid of the gun so I wouldn’t get into trouble.”

Marge got off the dancer’s back and jerked her to her feet. “Guess what, Patricia! It didn’t work!”

DECKER WAS GRATEFUL that he had gone home instead of straight to work. It had forced him to shower, change, and eat and made him much more presentable for the long hours needed for the upcoming interviews. Patricia Childress a.k.a. Marina Alfonse had been charged with capital murder, ADW, weapons possession, as well as resisting arrest. She wasn’t going anywhere. Ivan Dresden was another story. He had been asked to come in voluntarily to answer a few routine questions about the Beemer, using the pretense that the police were planning to return it shortly.

Decker wanted to see whose story best fit the forensic facts. He figured that both of them were in on the crime. Whoever was deemed the more reliable would be tapped as the state’s witness against the other. It was possible that neither one would qualify, but he wouldn’t know that until he had heard both sides.

Since Oliver had dealt with Patricia before and since it was likely that Patricia favored men over women, he was elected the primary interviewer of the stripper. Decker would try his luck with Ivan Dresden. He was relieved when Dresden walked into the station house without his lawyer-not likely to remain that way once the questioning got started. It was Decker’s job to put Dresden in a talkative mood.

“Thanks so much for coming in, Mr. Dresden.” He did a quick once-over of his prey. The stockbroker had on a black muscle T, a pair of black jogging pants, and a sweat jacket. Athletic shoes on his feet. His hair was combed back and he was newly shaven. The man appeared comfortable and that was good. To make him even more comfortable, Decker had brought in two cups of coffee with packets of powder and sugar and laid them on the steel table: that along with three steel chairs composed the furniture in the room. He sat down, took a sip from one of the paper cups, then loosened his tie and tried to appear casual. “Just in case you want some coffee.”

“No.” Dresden was dour. “How long is this going to take?”

“How about some water?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know.” Decker grinned. “That’s a police technique we learn at the academy. Never answer questions.”

Dresden wasn’t biting. “When do I get my car back?”

“Aren’t you curious why we took it in the first place?”

Dresden said, “Is that also a technique? To answer a question with a question?”

“You caught me.” Decker pulled out a pad of paper and his pen. “We’re trying to rule out the possibility that you had anything to do with your wife’s disappearance. We checked your condo and that was clean. Next step was the car.”

“Then why did you bother with a warrant?” Dresden sulked. “Why not just ask me? You could have checked the car.”

Decker wrote as he spoke. “We just like to do everything by the book.”

“And what book is that? The comic book?” Dresden shook his head. “You said you had a few questions and then I’d get my car back. I came here without my lawyer. I’m trying to be cooperative, but everyone has a limit.”

“Then I’ll sum things up for you,” Decker said. “We talked to Jimbo Jim Franco at Jim’s upholstery. You had the entire car redone about a month after the crash. I’m curious about that.”

“First of all, I didn’t redo the entire car,” Dresden said. “I changed the carpets and the upholstery. Roseanne had some kind of whitey, creamy color that looked too feminine for my taste.” He looked down at the tabletop. “Also the car reminded me too much of Roseanne. I wanted to keep the car, but I didn’t want a ghost riding around with me. Plus, I sold my own car to pay some debts. So if that’s a crime, sue me.”

“The upholstery was cream but the carpets were black. Why replace black carpets with new black carpets?”

Dresden’s eyes shifted. “Didn’t Jimbo tell you the whole story?”

“Jimbo doesn’t talk a lot. Why don’t you tell me?”

An exasperated sigh and a glance at his watch. “How long is this going to take? Am I under arrest or something?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I mean I can just walk out right now, right?”

“You don’t want to do that, Ivan.” Decker leaned forward and pushed the coffee in front of him. “Just tell me about your car and we can all go home.”

Reluctantly Ivan picked up the coffee and began to dress it to his liking. It gave him something to do. “I loaned the car to someone who left it out in the rain with the top down. Everything got ruined. Moldy and wet and smelly. That’s why I had it done.”

“Who’d you loan it to?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does. We need names to verify your stories.”

Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “This was precisely why I didn’t want to come in here. Not only are you hounding me, you’re going to get someone else involved.”

“And you’d rather not get someone else involved?”

“I know why I’m here.” Dresden glared at Decker. “You think I hurt my wife.”

Decker said, “You sound outraged!”

“Of course I’m outraged. Not only did I lose my wife, but you idio-You people think I had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to her!”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know what happened to Roseanne!”

“I believe you, Ivan.” Decker leaned in again. “I really do and that’s precisely why I insisted that we call you up and have you come in voluntarily. So you can explain the problem we have.” He paused, giving the words a chance to sink into Dresden’s brain. “We found stuff in the car, Ivan. We need some help with that.”

“What do you mean by stuff?” His eyes got big. “Oh shit! The cops planted drugs-”

“Not drugs, Ivan.” Decker shook his head in earnest. “No drugs whatsoever. We found blood, Ivan. Roseanne’s blood.”

Dresden went white. “What?”

“We found Roseanne’s blood in the car, Ivan.” Decker sincerely hoped that his words were the truth. He certainly didn’t want to deal with the possibility that the blood was from someone else. “Lots of blood, and that’s troubling. That’s why I brought you in. Out of respect. Because I believe you when you say you don’t know what happened to Roseanne. That’s why I have to hear your side of the story.”

Dresden’s eyes went from side to side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So let me explain the situation to you. We know that nothing bad happened to Roseanne in your condo. We searched it and it looked okay. So right away, we didn’t suspect that you did anything bad to her. Are you with me, buddy?”

Dresden nodded.

“But here’s the problem. Roseanne didn’t die in the crash, Ivan. Recovery has unearthed things or remains belonging to everyone involved in the crash except Roseanne. Nothing, nothing, puts Roseanne at the crash sight. And this is a problem for us. What happened to Roseanne? I assume because she’s your wife, it’s a problem for you, too. I mean not that you’re a ghoul, but you are entitled to insurance money once we clear up her disappearance.”

Decker waited for a response but nothing came.

“I’m sure you would like to put this entire episode behind you. And I’m trying to help you do that.”

“You’re not trying to help me. You’re trying to trap me to say something I shouldn’t say.”

“Then don’t talk for a moment and just listen. I’m thinking to myself that if nothing bad happened to Roseanne in the condo and Roseanne wasn’t in the crash, maybe…just maybe…something bad happened in her car. My detective and I were attacking the problem from every angle we could think of. We’ve been relentless: going back over our notes, knocking on door after door after door, reinterviewing witnesses.”

“What witnesses?”

“I’m getting to that. All I’m saying right now is we’ve been working nonstop on your wife’s disappearance and it finally paid off. We caught a break. On the day of the crash, the day that Roseanne disappeared, we found a witness who saw Roseanne’s car flying out of the condo parking structure at around sevenish in the morning.”

Dresden paled, but remained silent. Decker didn’t know how much longer he had before Dresden lawyered up. He tried not to sound too accusing, but the implication was clear.

“Ivan, this is the kicker. Roseanne wasn’t driving.” He didn’t know that for a fact, but Ivan didn’t have to know that, either. Decker leaned in close. “We did hard-nosed investigating, and we found out that you had the car reupholstered. No big deal concerning that. I accept your explanation. But just for the sake of completion, we learned that you told Jim Franco to throw away the original car mats from Roseanne’s BMW. I think the words you used were ‘to chuck them in the garbage.’ Do you remember telling Jim Franco that?”

“No.”

“Well, Jimbo remembers you telling him that. He’s willing to swear to it in court.”

Dresden was quiet.

Decker said, “Jimbo’s a businessman, Ivan. He doesn’t like to throw away money. So instead of chucking them, he cleaned them and sold them to someone on e-Bay. I think you know where this is leading.” Decker nodded. “We tracked that person down, found the carpets, and tested them for blood. They tested positive…very, very positive. Once the mats tested positive, that’s when we got a warrant for the car to see if it was just the mats were covered in blood or maybe there had been more blood where that came from. See, I really need to find out what happened to Roseanne. Taxpayers are giving me good money to do my job and I take it seriously. Now, I’m trying to get you out of this mess. So bear with me a moment, okay?”

Again, Dresden didn’t answer. Decker noticed his skin color had turned slightly green. He sipped coffee.

“The next step after we tested the mats was to test the car for blood. We stripped the car down and sprayed it with luminol and it lit up bright blue. That means forensics found lots of blood protein. We also found patterns-blood spurting, blood pooling, blood spraying.”

Dresden buried his head in his hands. “I’m feeling a little sick.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sickening. You feel light-headed?”

“A little.”

“Can I get a paper bag, some water, and some paper towels, please?” Decker asked the video camera. A minute later, the supplies were delivered. He told Ivan to breathe into the bag while Decker mopped up his brow. “Try to breathe slowly-”

“Just leave me alone for a few seconds, okay?”

Decker complied. After the minutes passed, Dresden raised his head. He looked pale and dank. Decker offered him water and the stockbroker eagerly drank it up. “How are you holding up?”

“I want to go home.”

“Just let me finish and then we can talk about that.”

“I still feel sick.”

“I’m sure you do. It’s nauseating to hear all this, but for your own protection, you should know what’s going on. I’m trying to clue you in so you know what we’re after, okay?” Dresden nodded, although his eyes looked a bit dazed. “We know that something bad happened in that car. We know that for sure. We know that because we found other things besides the blood.”

Dresden stared at him, sweat pouring down his brow. Decker offered him a paper towel.

“We found fingerprints, Ivan. Not just your normal fingerprints, because we know that you drive the car. We expected to find your fingerprints. But we found bloody fingerprints.”

Decker began to tick off his fingers.

“We’ve got witnesses that saw Roseanne’s car speeding away, we’ve got Roseanne’s blood all over her car, we’ve got fingerprints, and we have your stripper girlfriend, Marina Alfonse, in the next room who is talking as fast as a hurricane-”

“What?”

“She’s not feeling very kindly to you right now-”

“I don’t know what that bitch is saying, but she’s a pathological liar!” Dresden blurted out. “She’s been arrested for prostitution! She’s on drugs!”

Decker said, “You see, that’s precisely why I want to hear your side of what happened. Because what she’s been telling us isn’t good for you. So set the record straight and tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Ivan yelled out. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I do believe you, Ivan,” Decker said. “So let’s go back to my first couple of questions. Tell me why you got the car reupholstered.”

“I told you; because Marina left it out in the rain.”

“So you gave the car to Marina?”

“No, she took it…she…”

Decker said, “Ivan, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Suddenly Dresden’s eyes watered. He slumped in the chair and shook his head. The next time he spoke, his voice was soft and defeated.

“What’s the dif? You won’t believe me anyway.”

“Why don’t you start with the truth and let me decide. Despite what Marina’s been saying, I haven’t arrested you. I’m a fair guy. Help me out so I can help you out.”

Dresden took in a deep breath then let it out. “This is all I know, okay? And it isn’t much.”

Decker waved his hand, signaling for him to continue.

“After Roseanne died in the crash-”

“She didn’t die in the crash, Ivan.”

“I know, I know.” Dresden mopped up his sweaty face with the provided paper towels. He took another drink of water. “After I thought she died in the crash, I was a basket case, you know. Everything was like a blur. Especially…” He held up his hand and swallowed with difficulty. “Especially because Roseanne and I had just gotten into a big fight…well, not a big noisy fight. It was a silent fight…”

He buried his head in his hands, holding up a single finger indicating he needed a minute. Decker waited him out. Again, he lifted up his face.

“Roseanne wasn’t supposed to come back from San Jose until later in the afternoon. She called me the night before and left a message on the machine, telling me that…that she’d be home tomorrow around two. When I played back the message and heard it, I was with…” Another swallow. “I was…Marina was over the condo. We both heard the message, so Marina decided that rather than have me take her home…it was pretty late and she doesn’t live all that close…well, we decided that she should just sleep over and I’d take her home early the following morning.”

Decker nodded encouragingly. “Makes total sense.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But…” Dresden shook his head. “Roseanne must have changed her schedule and didn’t tell me about it. She came home at six-thirty in the morning and found us together.”

“Where?”

“In the condo.”

“I mean what room?”

“Oh…not in bed,” Dresden told him. “Thank God for that. I had to go into work early that morning…I told the police that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“So we were already dressed and I was making coffee when she came in. But then she saw Marina and saw that her hair was wet. Roseanne assumed the worst.”

Way more than just a simple assumption, Decker thought. “What happened next?”

“The marriage was over anyway,” Dresden said. “But I didn’t want it to end…I didn’t want her having ammunition against me in divorce court, actually. And if that sounds bad, well, she wasn’t the saint that everyone says she was. She was fucking around on me just as much as I was screwing around on her.”

“I know that,” Decker said. “So what did Roseanne do when she saw you two together…and Marina’s wet hair?”

“She made some little snide comment about how she hoped I liked my whore because I was going to need a place to stay very soon.” He shook his head. “I went nuts. I grabbed her. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was angry. Like I said, she was fucking around, too.”

“I understand. She got your goat.”

“Man, did she ever, the little bitch! So I grabbed her and shook her hard and said something like, ‘Talk about whores.’” His eyes welled up. “I don’t remember what happened after that. My recollections get a little fuzzy. I was furious and she was furious. I remember that we tussled. I think I must have pushed her. Her purse fell to the ground and opened up…that must have been when her phone dropped out. I don’t remember if she said anything to me…maybe she whispered ‘bastard.’ But as soon as she was free, she picked up her purse and stormed out of the condo.”

He was breathing hard.

“I was so mad I was shaking. I wanted to kill her!”

He looked at Decker.

“But I didn’t. I remember Marina telling me to calm down and that she’d handle it. Then she picked up her own purse and left. I sat down on the couch, waiting for Marina to come back. I was trying to get a grip on myself. A few minutes passed, a few more passed. I suddenly realized that my shirt buttons had popped off and there were scratch marks on my chest. Roseanne must have attacked me with her nails and that’s why I pushed her…to get her off of me.”

Decker nodded. He had taken two confessions in two days. His hand was going to fall off soon from writing so much. “You pushed her to get her off, not to hurt her.”

“No, not to hurt her.” He glared at Decker. “And I didn’t hurt her. She was fine when she left. I mean she was mad but she wasn’t hurt. I went into the bedroom to change my shirt. I was starting to focus on what happened. Then I realized that about a half hour had passed and neither one of the bitches had come back. After I changed my shirt, I put on my suit jacket and decided to go to work. I looked around the condo’s parking lot before I left. There was no sign of Marina or Roseanne or Roseanne’s car.”

He shrugged.

“I went to work. About a half hour later I heard about the crash. I think a coworker told me. I don’t remember too clearly. I went numb when I heard the news! I wasn’t sure where Roseanne was. I didn’t think automatically that she was on the flight, but I wasn’t sure.”

Decker said, “So what did you do?”

“I tried calling Roseanne, of course. I must have called her about twenty times in a row until finally I get this incoming call from Marina, who’s calling me to tell me how sorry she was. I asked her what she meant.”

He swallowed again.

“At the time, I wasn’t thinking that Roseanne had been on the plane, only that it was a WestAir crash and maybe she needed me for support.”

“You honestly thought that?”

“She was still my wife.” He drank more water. “I really don’t know what I was thinking! But then Marina told me that Roseanne was on the plane. I felt faint. I asked her how she knew that. She said that she had talked to Roseanne in the condo parking lot…that they agreed to talk later, woman-to-woman, but that Roseanne couldn’t talk at the moment because she had to catch the flight that crashed…”

Again, he buried his head. Decker waited for him to resurface.

“I blacked out. When I came to I was sick, I was confused, I was…it didn’t make any sense to me. If Roseanne was going back to San Jose right away, why would she go home first? But then I thought about the fight and maybe that was why…”

More tears.

“I was too stunned to question Marina’s story. On some level, it made sense. I couldn’t get hold of Roseanne and now Marina was telling me she was on that plane.”

Tears ran down his face.

“I was in a stupor for a long time afterward. I didn’t go to work, I didn’t go out, I didn’t call anyone, and I didn’t answer any calls. I drank a lot because I was a wreck.” He shook his head. “I was a zombie.”

“I’m sure you were,” Decker said. “And I feel very bad for you. But we still have the car problem, Ivan. How did Roseanne’s blood get all over the car?”

“I don’t know!” Dresden protested. “I don’t have any idea.”

“You say that when you went out to the parking lot that morning, Roseanne’s car was gone.”

“Yes.”

“So how’d you get it back?”

Dresden furrowed his brow, trying to bring back the memory. “I think…I…oh, wait. Okay. This is what happened. A few days later, or maybe it was just a day later-it was after the airport reopened-Marina came back with Roseanne’s car, saying that she picked it up at the airport for me. She said she didn’t want me to have to think about something so trivial, so she did me the favor.”

“How’d she get the keys to the car, Ivan?”

“I don’t know how she got the keys unless she took them from Roseanne.”

Bingo, Decker thought.

“But why would I think that? I was still thinking that Roseanne died in flight 1324.”

“So she brought you the car a few days later?”

“No…No…wait…” He thought a few moments. “Okay, this is what happened. Marina said she had the car. Then she asked if she could borrow it for a while. At first, I told her no, that it would be a very bad idea for her to drive it. You know, that it would look weird for my girlfriend to be driving my wife’s car a few days after she died. That’s when she told me that she had actually picked up the car from the airport after the crash and that it smelled funky…that some old food had been left inside and she wanted to take it to the car wash or have it professionally cleaned or something like that. I think I asked her where the car was now and she told me it was at her apartment. So I told her return it to me as soon as it was clean. I also told her that we shouldn’t see each other right after Roseanne died. Man, did she get pissed! It wasn’t like I was planning to dump her. I just needed some time to myself.”

“Totally understandable. So what did she say to you when you wanted to cool it for a while?”

“I don’t remember the exact words, just that she was going on and on about how she was going to tell everyone about the affair and that I wasn’t worth her time and that she was going to ruin me. I finally shut her up by promising her some insurance money once the whole thing was settled.”

“And calmed her down?”

“A little. I don’t know. I don’t remember anything too well.” He rubbed his forehead. “I think it took about a month for her to finally bring me back the car. It reeked of mold. I asked her what the hell happened. She told me she was really sorry, but she left it out in the rain with the top down. But then she handed me twenty-five hundred bucks in cash and told me to get the car reupholstered the way I liked. She gave me Jim Franco’s name and told me that he’d do a great job and after all I’d been through didn’t I deserve a little something for me?”

“You weren’t suspicious?”

“Man, those days were such a haze. I had taken a leave of absence for a month and I wasn’t doing anything except drinking…smoking, if you get my drift.”

“Got it.”

“So Marina gives me twenty-five big ones and tells me to clean up Roseanne’s Beemer, I figured that the bitch actually had a good idea. So that’s what I did. I changed the car inside and out…it was a real mess…and that’s the last I thought about it. Then you guys started sniffing around, telling me that Roseanne didn’t die in the crash. The second the police got involved, I knew Roseanne’s father-in-law must have said something. The man absolutely hates my guts. That’s okay. I don’t like him, either. So I wasn’t concerned because why should I be nervous? I didn’t do anything wrong…I mean, I cheated on my wife, but she cheated on me. I certainly didn’t hurt her. Even after that lady detective found the phone, I still figure so what? It’s only a phone.”

“Why didn’t you just give it to the police instead of destroying it?”

“Because, I don’t know…I was shocked to see it. Like I told you, it must have fallen out of Roseanne’s purse when I pushed her. You guys were already on my case. I wasn’t going to admit to a bad fight on the morning she died. You can understand that.”

“I do.”

“Anyway, when the search of the condo came up dry for you, I thought, ‘Finally, that’s that!’ Then you started in on my car…I called my lawyer up as soon as you executed the warrant to search my car. He asked me if I had anything to worry about and I told him no, I didn’t. So he told me not to say anything if the police ask me questions, and that I should call him if things got hairy. When you called me up, saying that there were just a few questions you needed to ask, I figured why should I pay that jerk two-fifty an hour just to answer a few questions?”

A moment of silence.

“I probably should have called him up.” He paused. “But I didn’t do anything. Why do I need a lawyer? I don’t know what happened to Roseanne!”

“She was murdered in her car.”

“I wasn’t there. I didn’t run after her. Marina ran after her. Why don’t you ask her what happened? She may actually have an answer for you!”