Chapter 12

I woke early and while I sat at my desk waiting for Jones to arrive, I made a phone call to Buckley to confirm he was still going to be at home. I also started doing some digging on our loose cannon photographer, Billy. It didn’t take long for me to uncover his past. He was far from squeaky clean. He had a rap sheet as long as my arm, and it included convictions for things as simple as possession of a miniscule amount of weed to harassment to several assault charges. It would be logical to see how someone with his record and obvious temper could escalate to murder.

Jones arrived, and I briefed him on my summation of the last two interviews.

“Look at this. This is the record of Sims’ boyfriend, Billy. He’s no Boy Scout. He has quite a few assault charges that have been filed against him. A few by Sims,” I said.

Jones studied the papers I handed him. “Most are women. This guy has some serious issues. Either he’s way too jealous for his own good, or he’s just an angry man.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. We should check to see if the couple of guys on here are tied to any of the women in any way. We need to talk to this guy, Billy, too.”

I let Jones know Buckley was waiting for us. We gathered our pictures we planned to show him and stuffed them into a manila folder before we left the building.

*****

We parked in the nearest parking space, down the street from the apartment building. As we approached, we were met by Buckley sitting on the steps.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said as he stretched out an arm to shake our hands.

“Good morning,” we replied in unison. I hated when we said the exact same thing at the exact same time. That was so couple-like, and it made me sick. We took turns shaking Buckley’s hand.

“Come on up.” He waved his arm through the air, making the ‘follow-me’ motion with his hand.

After we made the quiet climb, except for the creaking wooden steps and Buckley gasping for air, we waited a few minutes once we reached the third floor for him to catch his breath. His face was red and he was leaning all his weight against the door after he closed it. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was going to just pass out. Jones and I stood watching, waiting, and wondering.

There was a peculiarly strong urine odor in his apartment. I didn’t see a cat, but the smell made me think of my aunt’s house. She had three cats and three pungent litter boxes. She was older and no longer able to move around as easily as she had been, and the litter boxes were left unattended until someone went to visit and gave her a hand.

Buckley’s couch was covered in clothes. They were unfolded and piled high. It wasn’t obvious if they were clean or dirty. Maybe that’s where the unsavory smell is coming from, I thought. The carpet hadn’t been vacuumed in what seemed like forever. He wasn’t a hoarder like I’d seen on television, but he was definitely not a clean person.

After several minutes Buckley stood upright, took in a huge breath of air, and then exhaled before walking into the kitchen.

“I’m not as young as I think sometimes. Those stairs are going to be the death of me. Can I get you guys anything to drink?”

“No, sir, I’m fine,” I replied. I really wanted to just get this photo line-up in front of him so we could get back to work. I was half afraid to drink out of a glass of his anyway. He had dirty dishes piled in and around the sink. I envisioned the glass he’d pull out of the cupboard being covered in smudge marks and grime.

“I’m good, too, thanks,” Jones said.

“We brought the photos.” Jones pulled them out of the folder and set them in the least messy space on the table. There was definitely no cleaning lady that came in here, and Buckley wasn’t picking up any of the slack. He had a lot of crumbs on the table cloth, and a couple dirty plates with food-encrusted forks, chipped figurines, and a bouquet of dead flowers were also on the table.

“Let’s see what we have here.” Buckley pulled out a chair from the table, sat his body down with a groan, and then picked up the pictures.

“Just let us know if you recognize anyone,” Jones instructed.

He flipped through, studying the faces of each person. When he reached the picture of McKenzie Sims, he sighed. “She was in the apartment on the day Effridge was killed, but she’s not the cutie I was referring to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I wouldn’t forget her.”

“Do you remember what time it was when you saw this woman?” I pointed at the picture of Sims.

“Well,” his eyes roamed the room. “The she-devil left at seven-fifteen, then about fifteen or twenty minutes later, her son showed up. The husband and son argued and cursed each other something terrible before he left. This girl,” Buckley paused. He held the picture of Sims in his hand. “She came by around nine or so.”

“After Sims, that’s when the cutie came in?” Jones asked. My head was swimming, trying to get the times right. It seemed like Buckley was contradicting himself from the day before.

“Yeah, I saw her coming down the steps as I was on my way up to my apartment just before noon, or was it when I was leaving? Anyway, she was in a hurry. I didn’t think much about it at the time because she was over a couple of times before that day.” He flipped through the pictures again until he reached the one of Larissa MacDonald. He held it up in his hand. “She was here, too. Now that I think of it, the cutie and her …”

“They what, Mr. Buckley?” Jones asked.

“They looked very similar. Maybe I’m getting them all confused.”

I wrote on Sims’ picture and had Buckley sign it as witness to her being in the building. Then I had him do the same with MacDonald’s picture. Our timeline was narrowing. We were finally making some progress. We had a positive identification of the last known person in the apartment before Effridge was found, or so we thought.

Sims conveniently left out of her accounting of her mornings details that she stopped by. Yet, she told us Billy was by her side the entire time. Was she covering for him, or using him as a cover for herself?

“Can you describe this cute girl? Hair color, tall, thin? Anything will help,” I said.

“She’s tall, and she’s thin; nicely shaped, too. And she has long reddish-blonde hair. I’m not the kind of guy who likes red heads, but she was a real doll, that one.”

“Did you get a really good look at her face? Do you think you’d recognize her if we found a picture of her?” Jones asked.

“I’d like to think I would.” I could see the distress on Buckley’s face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were elsewhere. He wasn’t sure anymore.

“Hmm,” Jones murmured as he wrote on his notepad.

“Thank you for your time today, Mr. Buckley,” I said. We gathered our things and left. It was a relief to get outside into the fresh air. But my hopes of getting a good lead on the mystery woman had been dashed.