Murder by Tradition Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by Katherine V. Forrest

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Copyright © 1991 by Katherine V. Forrest

  Spinsters Ink

  P.O. Box 242

  Midway, FL 32343

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published by Naiad Press 1991

  First Spinsters Ink Edition 2013

  Spinsters Ink eBook released 2013

  Cover Designer: Judith Fellows

  ISBN 13: 978-1-935226-62-8

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Books by Katherine V. Forrest

  Curious Wine

  An Emergence of Green

  Daughters of a Coral Dawn

  Kate Delafield Series:

  Amateur City

  Murder at the Nightwood Bar

  The Beverly Malibu

  Liberty Square

  Apparition Alley

  Acknowledgments

  To Detective Supervisor Mary F. Otterson, Madison, WI. For the incalculable value of her advice, her patient communication of the realities of police work. For her precious friendship over the years. For her own integrity which more than anything has given me Kate’s reality, has helped me understand the essential truth of Kate Delafield. And especially for giving me the truth of this case to see and understand, and a love for a young man whom I never met but will always mourn.

  To Gretchen Hayward, senior prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office, Dane County, Wisconsin, for her real life example and practicing belief in the ideal of equal justice for all Americans.

  To Jo Wegner, blood spatter expert for the State of Wisconsin. In memoriam. I am grateful that she saw the manuscript of this novel, and knew that our hour together gave me the authenticity for the character of Charlotte Mead.

  To the Third Street Writers Group, respected and highly talented colleagues who have become, over the years, my trusted friends:

  Gerald Citrin, Montserrat Fontes, Janet Gregory, Jeffrey N. McMahan, Karen Sandler; and newcomer Vicki P. McConnell.

  Added thanks to Jeff and Gerry for vital moral support.

  To Michael Nava for advice on several legal intricacies, and for his honest friendship and the inspiration of his own work.

  To Barbara Grier, an editor’s editor, for her advice, for her clear perception of this novel and all my work.

  To the real Teddie Crawford

  And his own Kate Delafield:

  To Ivan

  and

  To Mary

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Detective Kate Delafield drove down Third Street, past five black-and-whites clustered beside an expanse of yellow police tape fluttering in a mild breeze. She parked the Plymouth around the corner on Harper Avenue. Detective Ed Taylor, yawning audibly, climbed out of the car and stretched; he knew from many past investigations how deliberately she preferred to approach a crime scene. Pulling her notebook from her shoulderbag, Kate recorded the date, Feb. 4, 1989, the time, 7:35 a.m., and the temperature, approximately fifty-five degrees in the city of Los Angeles. She strode back around the corner, Taylor dawdling in her wake.

  At this early hour on a Saturday morning, auto traffic moved smoothly along Third Street, slowing only momentarily at the site of the police activity. The block was devoid of pedestrians. She walked past a liquor store occupying the corner of Harper, its vertical neon sign reflecting down the two intersecting streets. Then came Indigo Restaurant, Minassian Rug Company, a Christian Science Reading Room, John Atchison Beauty Shop, a laundry. Then Tradition.

  The mid-block restaurant, its taped-off perimeter patrolled by Felix Knapp and Chris Hollings, was scarcely wider than a storefront. Kate nodded to the two officers, pleased with the positioning of police tape which would help to keep media coverage well back from the crime scene.

  Taylor ducked under the tape; Kate moved past it and looked in the window of the adjacent business, Andria’s Hole in the Wall—a contemporary clothing shop with garments in its window that she would not wear to a Halloween party. Next came Mariana Custom Cleaners. Then a small office building, and on the corner of Sweetzer Avenue, a mini-mall with a half-dozen shops. Across the street a 7-Eleven dominated a matching mini-mall. The next building was Taj Soundworks, then a vacant storefront, a shop called Objects, Pacific Printing, Classy Nail, a yoga center, and Banner Packing.

  After recording all of this in her notebook, Kate walked back to Tradition and past the tape to study the restaurant.

  White shutters decorated the lower half of the front window, tapestry curtains the top half. A small puff-shaped canopy, dark blue, sheltered a door, the window in the door decorated by tapestry matching the curtain in the larger window.

  Sergeant Fred Hansen, with Taylor beside him smothering another yawn, stood sentry in the doorway, watching her, one hand resting on his gun belt, the other clutching a clipboard.

  She nodded. “Morning, Fred.”

  Hansen returned her nod. “How are you, Kate?” Somberly, he consulted his clipboard. “Victim’s Edward Ashwell Crawford, white male, goes by Teddie, T-e-d-d-i-e, according to his partner.” He gestured behind him. “Nice little neighborhood restaurant with takeout, catering, too.” His stolid expression softened. “Nice little business. Wouldn’t mind having it myself.” The softness was replaced by impassiveness. “Except for what’s in the kitchen. Real scenic in there. His partner slid all over the place getting to the victim to see if he was still alive.”

  “Great,” muttered Taylor. He unbuttoned his plaid jacket, tugged on its sleeves, shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Kate recognized Taylor’s fidgeting as preparation, a bracing for what awaited them. “Anything else?” she said to Hansen with a brusqueness that came out of her own tension, a familiar tightening inside her, a necessary girding.

  Hansen shook his head. “The partner’s too freaked out, couldn’t get much out of him.” He gestured to a black-and-white parked off to the side of the yellow police tape; a figure sat in the rear, his bowed head in his hands. “Pierce and Swenson, Foster and Deems are canvassing but everything on the street’s closed except the 7-Eleven. There’s an alley behind the restaurant, we’re working the neighborhood over there. The victim’s been dead a few hours, I’d say. Some of the mess is drying.”

  “Thanks, Fred,” Kate said.

  Hansen opened the door of Tradition.

  A counter with an old-fashioned ornate cash register occupied the front of the long room. A refrigerator display case along the adjacent wall was empty of its usual contents, but ne
at tags in script lettering announced what had been planned for the case: lemon pasta with herbs, grape leaves, chicken breasts dijon, shrimp salad, vegetable bouquet.

  Visible in the murky depths of the room were eight small tables on a faded Oriental carpet, with tablecloths and delicate wrought iron chairs with tapestry-covered seats. On the walls three impressionist prints of nature scenes seemed dream-like in the shadows.

  Taylor, glancing around, scratched the bald spot at the back of his head, pulling his lank blond hair back over it. “Very frou-frou,” he pronounced.

  Kate liked the place, its gentility amid the prosaic commerce of the street. She suspected that it attracted loyal customers who appreciated the unpretentious charm. She moved to the counter and stooped down to read a card in a small wicker basket.

  TRADITION

  Catering for the Discriminating

  She stood up straight. Squaring her shoulders, she walked toward the doorway behind the counter. Standing on the threshold she took in the scene in one encompassing glance that included the ceiling, then carefully focused her gaze.

  The kitchen was compact, with a double stainless steel sink and Formica-topped counters, a built-in refrigerator—all surrounding a large table for food preparation. Immaculate, Kate thought. She would trust anything prepared in here. She lowered her gaze slightly, examining the room in patterned sections like a camera lens. The cabinet and walls were pristine white, except for a considerable area near the sink where a design of bright red arcs and splatters extended several feet high on the wall. Low on the wall was a smear of red as if a hand had swiped at the stain.

  “This guy can’t have an ounce left in him,” Taylor grunted from behind her in the doorway.

  She lowered her gaze to the polished tile floor. Blood had pooled into the channels between the white tiles for several feet around the body of Edward Ashwell Crawford. Other individual puddles and trails of blood defiled the floor, as well as bloody footsteps, several of them skid marks where someone had slid through the gore. The dead man’s black pants clung wetly to his legs. Patches of white skin were visible through a torn and shredded shirt fouled crimson and plastered to his body; only from a portion of the collar could Kate tell that the shirt had been white. Teddie Crawford’s arms were crossed over himself as if to staunch the blood draining from his body. His dull brown stare was fixed on the ceiling.

  “Swiss cheese,” Taylor said. “Somebody turned him into fucking Swiss cheese.”

  “You never realize how much blood the body holds,” Kate murmured.

  “One hell of a good-looking young guy,” Taylor offered.

  Wondering how he could tell, Kate looked more closely at the body. The head lay in a pool of blood, and the tousled hair, dark and thick, was saturated with it; the face, bleached out, was measled with red droplets. Even so, the head and its features were finely made. Long eyelashes thickly fringed the staring dark eyes, the nose was patrician, the mouth, even in the slackness of death, was sensuous, the torso slender and well-formed. The bloodied hand nearest to Kate had long tapered fingers. In a scene of such carnage, she was amazed at Taylor’s perception. “Yes,” she agreed. “Very good-looking.”

  And gay. She sensed it with gut-deep certainty.

  She craned her body over the threshold, studying the dead man’s hand which was nearest to her; it was turned palm down, the little finger angled unnaturally. She needed to get more information from this room, and quickly. She said impatiently, “Not a damn thing we can do till the coroner and the technicians get here. We can’t even go in.”

  Taylor pointed at the maelstrom of blood and bloody footprints. “How can anybody mess this up?”

  “Let’s not make it worse,” Kate said flatly. As the D-3 on this case, she was in charge; essential crime-scene decisions were hers. “We need Shapiro and Napoleon Carter here before anybody else goes in.”

  “See that?” Taylor was pointing to the table.

  A piece of glass glittered under the fluorescent light; a powdery residue coated its surface.

  “Coke,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Probably.”

  “A party that got out of hand,” Taylor said. “Way out of hand.”

  “Maybe,” Kate said, staring at the dead man’s fixed gaze, knowing she was being irrational as she hoped that this beautiful young gay man had not lost his life in a party that had gotten “out of hand.”

  Chapter Two

  “My whole life’s in that place,” sobbed Francisco Caldera. “It’s gone, it’s nothing without Teddie…”

  The rail-thin Latino was slumped sideways in the back seat of a black-and-white, feet dangling out of its open door, arms crossed in a clutching of his own body. Kate stood beside the squad car with Taylor.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” she asked. With difficulty she kept her gaze focused on the grief-ravaged young face turned up to hers. After a single glance at Taylor, he had not taken his eyes off her. Even the knowledge that this man was a suspect, that killers often exhibited as much or more grief as anyone else, did not diminish an almost compelling need to soothe him, to stroke his thin, fine-textured dark hair.

  “Last night,” he said, brushing away tears. “We closed up at eleven.”

  “Was that as usual?”

  He shook his head. “Big catering job tonight. We made marinades, sauces…” He lifted a hand, dropped it into his lap in a gesture of futility. He wore a white cotton jacket over a lime green shirt; his pants were gray and voluminous.

  Kate asked, “Who left first?”

  Briefly he closed his eyes. Moisture glistened on his dark lashes. “He did. Gloria picked him up.” At Kate’s questioning look he added, “Gloria Gomez. His roommate. They have an apartment over on Crescent Heights.”

  A female roommate. Kate felt no shift in her certainty that Teddie Crawford was a gay man. And that Francisco Caldera was a gay man also. Possibly the female roommate was a lesbian. She said, “Where did they say they were going?”

  “Malone’s. A bar in West Hollywood.” He added in bitter self-reproach, “He wanted me to go. But me, I had to get some sleep. I go to that bar with him, he might be alive…”

  Kate thought about Joe D’Amico at the crime lab and his constant gossip about the gay bars in West Hollywood and Silverlake; she didn’t recognize the name of this one. Could it be new? Or perhaps not a gay bar? She asked casually, “Does Malone’s have a particular clientele?”

  “A mix. Gloria likes it. She was seeing some new guy she wanted Teddie to meet.”

  So Gloria Gomez apparently was heterosexual. And Malone’s Bar attracted an assortment of sexual orientation and ethnicity, judging by Gloria Gomez’s affection for it.

  “This Gloria,” Taylor said. “How’d she get along with Teddie?”

  “Like he was her brother. Everybody loved Teddie.”

  “Somebody didn’t. Tell us what happened to him last night.”

  Warily eying Taylor, Caldera shook his head. “After he left here—I don’t have clue.”

  Kate observed Taylor with weary annoyance. His knee-jerk behavior toward men in any way distinct from himself was always heavy-handed assertion of authority. Francisco Caldera might have been born and bred in middle-class American culture, but he was Latino, and that was all Taylor saw.

  Taylor said, “You actually see Gloria Gomez pick him up?”

  “She honked from the alley. She drives a Honda Civic, I know the horn.”

  Hitching her pants to put a foot up on the floor of the squad car, Kate leaned over to be closer to Francisco Caldera, a hand not quite touching him. She said gently, “Tell us when you got here this morning and what you saw.”

  “I came in the place about seven o’clock—” His dark eyes awash and fixed on Kate, again he crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to control his shudders.

  “Which door?” Taylor was busy writing.

  “Through the alley door like always. I saw Teddie…lying there. I had to s
ee if…I ran to him, I slipped all over the place…”

  He lowered his head and sobbed. He pointed a tremulous finger at his white Nikes. “It’s Teddie’s bl…it’s Teddie’s bloo—” He dissolved into gulping sobs.

  Taylor asked, “Did you touch him?”

  “I don’t remember, sir.” The voice sounded as if it were bubbling up through water.

  “Turn him over?”

  Caldera shook his bowed head. “I was so scared, I got to the phone and then the police came.”

  “Why were you scared?”

  Taylor’s voice was mild, but Caldera jerked his head up. “I never saw anybody dead before. It was Teddie. My friend, the best friend I ever—” Another paroxysm of tears.

  Taylor said, “You knew why this happened to him, that’s why you were scared, right?”

  Jabbing tears off his cheeks with his fingers, Caldera stared at him. “Man, what are you talking about?”

  Taylor, Kate conceded, was asking good questions. But she entered the conversation. “What can you tell us about his associates?”

  “He knew everybody. All up and down the block. Everybody in the neighborhood where he lived. Everybody.”

  “His family,” Kate said, “what do you know about them?”

  He slumped further down in the seat, a hand across his eyes. “Joe and Margaret will just…” He shook his head.

  “Joe and Margaret,” Taylor said, writing in his notebook.