Chapter 5

After a good night’s sleep, the next person on my list to talk with was Jonathan Calhoun, Carlotta’s son.

It didn’t take too long to convince him it was in his best interests to come in and give a statement after we told him we had already talked to his mother. He seemed more upset by that fact than anything.

Jones and I were talking about how we wanted to approach this guy. Jones had suggested just getting him to talk and see what he had to say, but if he slipped and insinuated he could have possibly done it, begin to put the pressure on. We both resumed the paperwork on our desks while we waited for Calhoun to come in.

Calhoun arrived at the station at noon, just as he promised he would. I liked that. I really didn’t want to chase this guy down, especially if he had nothing to hide; like he claimed.

“I’m looking for Detective Oliver.” He wasn’t a friendly sort of guy. Prompt, and abrasive. Can’t win them all, I guess.

“I’m Oliver.” I rose from my seat and walked over. I extended my hand to him, but he looked at it like I was a leper covered in oozing sores. Haughty fucks made me sick, and this guy was getting under my skin already. “We’re going to go into room number two.” I pointed at the door. He looked at me over his shoulder like he was sizing me up. He must have stood around five-foot-ten or so and was thinly-built, like a runner. He didn’t compare to my six-foot-five. Hesitantly, he put his feet to work and walked over to the door.

I tapped Jones’ shoulder to let him know it was time to get this interview underway. He appeared to have been deep in thought as he stared at his monitor. He jumped at my touch, and nodded his acknowledgement. He stood up, grabbed a notepad and pen, and followed me into the room.

No sooner did we get in the room than Calhoun spun on his heels to face us both and started blathering. “Look, fellas, we can make this really simple, short, and sweet. I have nothing to say, nothing to talk about.”

“It’s your right not to talk to us, but you aren’t under arrest. We aren’t charging you with anything. We’re just trying to get some information on your stepfather so we have a better idea where to look or who to investigate further.”

“He was no stepfather to me and I’d appreciate if you never use that reference again,” he spat angrily. “I’ll tell you this much, Effridge was a louse. He got what he had coming to him. He treated my mother horribly. She didn’t deserve any of the shenanigans he pulled with her.”

“As I told you on the phone, we did have a lengthy discussion with your mother yesterday. We just really want to hear your story today. Will you talk to us? It’s all unofficial.” I pulled the recording device from my pocket and set it on the table.

“Are you going to record this?”

“I am. We take notes, but the recordings work better to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, fine. Let’s just get this over with quickly; I don’t have all day.”

I gestured for him to take a seat, the same seat his mother occupied the day before.

“Can I get you anything before we begin? A bottle of water?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” He tugged at his sleeves, pulling them farther down his slender arms. He raised his eyes to meet mine. “Where do you want me to begin? What exactly do you want me to tell you?”

“Let’s begin with the elephant in the room,” I said.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“How old is your mother, Mr. Calhoun?”

“She’s sixty. I don’t see the relevance in that question.”

“And Effridge, how old was he?” He pulled his lips tight before I had the name completely out of my mouth. I could tell he hated this man.

“That prick was thirty-five.”

“That’s a pretty big age difference, wouldn’t you say? Twenty-five years’ difference to be exact. How did you feel about that?” My line of questioning was intended to find out how deeply his anger toward Effridge ran.

“I hated it! I hated him, too. I thought Effridge was using my mother. He was with her for whatever he could get from her.”

I pounced on him. “And that made you want to kill him, didn’t it?” I asked.

Calhoun shoved his chair back as he stood. He hovered over Jones and me as we sat in our chairs, unaffected by him, and watched him huff in air and poke out his chest. “I may have wanted him dead, but I didn’t kill the fucking guy!” he said.

“Please, Mr. Calhoun, have a seat,” Jones said calmly as he shrugged his shoulders. “Forgive my partner. He’s new.” Jones bumped my knee with his and signaled with his glance for me not to get bent out of shape by his comments. “We just want to try to understand who could have possibly killed your stepfather … I mean, Professor Effridge.”

“Yeah, my bad. Let me ask another question; if I may.” I took a breath while I waited for him to protest. When he didn’t, I continued. “Effridge, he couldn’t get everything he wanted from your mother, right?”

“No. No, he couldn’t.” His eyes shifted from looking at me to staring off into a corner opposite where he sat. I got the feeling there was possibly something Calhoun was hiding. His breathing was not even. Or maybe he was still pissed off that I’d asked him about killing Effridge.

“So, Mr. Calhoun, now that we have addressed the age difference, tell us a little about your relationship with Effridge while he was just dating your mother. Did you despise him then?” I asked.

“Indeed, I did. I just thought Mother would come to her senses and move on from him. I had no idea she was falling in love with the schmuck.” He didn’t have many favorable adjectives to describe Effridge. I chuckled inside, concentrating desperately to keep a smile from appearing on my face.

“When Effridge proposed to your mother, or, let me rephrase that, when you found out the two of them were planning to marry, how did you react?”

“I was enraged. I felt like he was preying on my mother and knew he had hit pay dirt. When he and Mother met, she was fifty and he was twenty-five. Tell me, Detectives, what good reason would a twenty-five-year-old man get involved with a fifty-year-old woman other than financial security? And she had fallen madly head-over-heels in love with that buffoon. He wasn’t more than a child himself.”

“Did you feel threatened by him?”

“That moron? Not one bit,” he spat out. “He was just a couple years older than me. I was so disappointed in Mother. It would have been different if he were forty or forty-five. But twenty-five? It was ridiculous to me. I told her exactly how I felt about the whole situation. She ignored me and, in her mind, had reconciled that I just needed time to come around.”

“Did you ever ‘come around’?”

“I most certainly did not.”

“How mad did it make you? Those two being a couple?”

“I was livid! I could have killed him for poisoning her mind.” His words abruptly stopped and his hand flew up to his mouth. Slowly he slid his fingers down until his hand rested on the table. “I didn’t kill him, though. But I’d like to shake the hand of and buy a beer for the person who did.”

Jones jotted down a few notes in the notepad. I looked over and noticed he was tallying the adjectives used. Prick, schmuck, user, moron, and buffoon. The words on the page tickled me. But this guy had more to tell. The feeling I got from his mother paled in comparison to the feeling that was radiating off of him.

“Are we almost done here?”

“No, Mr. Calhoun. Not quite. I have a few more questions for you.”

“For Christ’s sake, please hurry up. I have somewhere to be.”