Free The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) by Linda L. Dunlap Page B

wagon. It wouldn’t be the first time for it. She also needed to go and see the coroner about the cause of death.
    The Homicide detail had four detectives for the investigation of all suspicious, accidental, and family violence cases of serious bodily injury or death. You never knew when the bodily injury would become a cause of death.
    Along with Maude, there were t hree men assigned to the section: Lyman Eberhart, a tall man with a bald pate and very dark skin, Alfred Wheeler a short, rotund Irishman who was Eberhart’s partner, and now, Joe Allen.
    Wheeler was a whiner, a fact well known by all the detectives and officers alike within the building. He was raised in California but leaned heavily on his ethnicity when work was passed out, often complaining about his assignments. He could always find a way to bring his Irish in as a reason it was unfair.
    Secretly everyone called him Fat Frieda. Wheeler had once made a crucial error and admitted to a man in personnel that his mother had named him Alfred instead of Frieda as she had intended had he been a girl.
    One day a street cop had seen Wheeler buying two hotdogs and a sub sandwich for lunch. The cop told his buddies, “If no homicide cases get solved today, it’s Fat Frieda’s fault for eating so much he couldn’t get off his ass to investigate.”
    Alfred’s partner was loyal enough to never employ the name but he never objected when som eone else did; so the name stuck.
    Joe Allen, t he other man assigned to Homicide hadn’t made it to his desk yet. Maude thought maybe the Boss had some info so before looking at the rest of the reports on her desk she did the obligatory two fingered knock on the glass door and went into the office. She told him she still had to write up the events of the day before. She said she had met her new partner and he seemed a little green, but okay.
    “ Where is he?” She asked “Did I scare him off?”
    “ No, he’s down at Personnel fixing his papers for the new assignment, should be here by about ten. Tell me more about Saturday night. Are we finding out anything about this guy?”
    Lieutenant Patterson was one of those supervisors who liked to remain in the loop , but not close enough for the loop to become a noose and be hung by it. As long as Maude and his other detectives did their jobs he left them alone.
    She was very careful of her wording because one slip about Chicago would be enough for Patterson to give the case to the Feds believing it to be in everyone’s best interest. She explained about the box with the breast tissue that probably came from the crime scene at East Avenue but said they would wait for the lab to compare tissue samples with both of the victims. She rushed through the part about someone turning off her security light, not wanting to bring his attention to the possibility that the killer might know her from an earlier time.
    She spoke of the man at her rent house and of the follow-up that was in process . Quickly, before he had time to digest all of what she had just said, Maude said that she had to get cracking because of the heavy workload that she and Joe were looking at. She told him she was starting to feel overworked like Fat Frieda.
    After L ieutenant Patterson ran her out of his office, Maude went immediately to see Alice for any news from Interpol but there was nothing yet. She called the Medical Examiner’s office and made an appointment to be there by eleven o’clock trusting that Joe would be back by then. The next thing she did was to call and set an appointment to interview Betty Ann Davis about her brother’s death.
    It was going to be a very busy day. So far Maude was feeling good, no aches and pains that a few ibupro fen couldn’t fix. Lately she had begun wondering if gastric cancer could be caused by the anti-inflammatories. Often as not, two of the pills were part of her breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
    While she waited for Alice to talk to her, Maude looked down and caught