FOLLOW THE LEADER Chapter 2

Chapter 2



The Schultzes held hands, terrified, as they huddled together on their sofa. Up to now, the news media had not presented the Death Valley murder scenes in vivid detail. There was always more on the Web for the ghouls. It would not be unusual for a bystander to take pictures of the body and later post them on the Internet. The morbidly curious could see a photo of a gashed neck in sickening, clinical detail.
         The Schultzes stayed away from all that. Stayed away from violent movies, as well. Now, here was a dead woman in front of their apartment house!  There was no escaping it.
         Detectives Olsen and Spears, better known in the Homicide Department as Slim and Shorty, introduced themselves.  Without asking, Spears, the short one, dragged two chairs out of the kitchen and placed them in front of the sofa.  The two detectives had agreed in advance to keep the focus on Schultz’s discovery of the body, not the body, itself.
         “Anyone else outside? A neighbor maybe?” asked Spears.
         “No.”
         “A passer-by?”
         Schultz hesitated.
         “He means like on the sidewalk, already,” said Mrs. Schultz. Shaking her head as if her husband was a cretin.
         Olsen associated her Jewish accent with Baltimore. He was pretty sure she was not from New York.
         “I know what the word means,” said Albert Schwartz. In a sulk, he moved away from his wife.
         “Did you see a car pull away, sir?” asked Spears.
         “No,” said Schultz.
         “Anyone on the sidewalk?”
         “That early? No. No one.”
         As he watched his partner work, Olsen had to admit that Spears was pretty good at asking questions or grilling a perp. Especially the latter, when Spears already knew the answers. He usually started with dumb queries. The suspect answered them easily, one after another, growing confident. Until he tripped himself up.
         No need for that here. Both detectives were sure beyond a doubt that the Schultzes had absolutely nothing to do with the mutilation and killing of the young woman.
         Much later in the investigation, the two cops would be proven wrong. This older couple would be connected in a way they never could have imagined.
         Schultz asked “Anything else, Detectives?”
         Spears shook his head. “Olsen?”
         Olsen turned his attention back to the old couple. He had been looking at their short Christmas tree’s crooked trunk.
         “Nothing at the moment,” said Olsen. “You have our cards.”
         They thanked the couple for their time and left.
The next order of business would be to interview all the neighbors who were close enough to see or hear something. That would take up the rest of their day.

Outside they saw that the body had been taken away. The small blue tent still hovered over the area. Sawhorses blocked the off the sidewalk on both sides. A uniformed cop stood in front of tent’s entrance. 
A small crowd of onlookers gawked at the tent from behind yellow crime tape, which ran along the sidewalk. Commuters. Neighbors. Even motorists who double-parked their cars so they could have a look.
         Olsen and Spears walked around the tent and scooted under the yellow tape.
         “Who was it?” a lady asked.
         “We don’t know,” said Olsen.
         Once inside the car Spears said, “That was some tree they had. Musta been the last one on the lot. And they were Jews. I’d put money on it.”
         “So? Maybe they had the Christmas spirit.”
         “Not.” sneered Spears.
         “Why did they buy it, then?”
         “So the neighbors wouldn’t come down on their asses.”
         Olsen shook his head.
         “We don’t know that,” he said.
         “Tf they were tryin’ to get into the Christmas spirit, they shoulda bought a better tree. That one’s a joke.”
         Olsen said nothing to that. He started the engine and drove the beige Crown Vic away from the scene.
         “What do you think?” asked Spears.
         “About the Schultzes?”
         Spears shook his head disgustedly.
         “The girl,” he said.
         “Copy cat. You?”

         “Gotta be,” said Spears.

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