The call came in while my wife, Holly and I were having dinner with her sister and brother in law at The Casual Turnip, our favorite restaurant. A homicide detective’s job is almost always interesting, sometimes exciting, but then there are moments like this, when it becomes a pain in the tail. I was on call because the detective on the evening shift wasn’t available. Holly looked at me and knew. After 32 years of marriage, she easily reads my face. We were chatting over an after-dinner drink, waiting for dessert to arrive.

“Don’t say it Jack,” Holly said. “Ellen and Tom will drive me home. I’ll have the server put your tiramisu in a to go bag for you.”  

“Duty calls,” I said. I kissed Holly and headed for the crime scene. When I got to the coffee shop where the incident had occurred, two patrolmen brought me up to date. Two men, about the same age had been shot at close range. “The shooter probably knew these guys. As far as we can tell, Detective Laskey, nothing was taken,” Officer Bolton said.

“Any witnesses?”

He shook his head no. I walked over to the bodies and looked under each man’s sheet. Both had been shot at very close range in the chest, slightly to the left of the heart. They probably died instantly. One of the men, the taller of the two, was in a wheelchair when he was shot. The other man had been sitting at a table against the wall, having a cup of coffee. He was short, not more than 5’7”. The lab team was still dusting for prints and looking for anything that might give us a lead on who might have done this thing.

“We found two .38 shell casings on the floor. This guy wasn’t taking any chances,” one of the lab guys told me, “The ME will dig out the bullets, but I’m guessing it won’t help much. Unless he’s a complete dummy, the gun’s gone.”

I stroked my chin and read the statement the coffee shop owner gave. I turned to Officer Bolton and said, “The owner said he never saw either of these two guys in his place before tonight. This was a hit, but a pro wouldn’t take that kind of chance. Suppose he hits one guy and the other one gets away?”

“Right, or one of them is also armed and shoots the gunman first,” Officer Bolton added.

“Neither of these guys had a piece on him, though, right?” I asked.

“Actually, this one did.” The lab tech pointed to the wheelchair bound man and looked at his clipboard. “Mr. Lance Sheppard, 57, was carrying an NAA .22 Long Rifle Mini-Revolver.”

“No kidding? Maybe our shooter got lucky then,” I said. “The other guy, he have anything on him?”

“The little guy, Mr. Charles Thompson, 58, had a mini tape recorder in his pants pocket,” the lab tech said. “Nothing on it though. Never got a chance to turn it on I guess.” 

“So, they’re both waiting for somebody, same guy, probably. They don’t know the guy, but they’re expecting trouble.” What the hell do these men have in common, I wondered.

An hour later I was sitting in our kitchen in Fort Myers, nibbling on my dessert. It’s never as good when you eat it later, but I enjoyed it anyway. I had a hard time sleeping that night, typical whenever I get a new homicide to work. I’ve been a cop for almost 30 years now, the last nine as a homicide detective in Lee County, Florida. I love my work, but it’s a very stressful job. An unsolved murder is like a bad case of eczema, always itching in hard to reach spots. I’m convinced work stress is why I’m mostly bald. I thought about shaving my head, but I would hate the Kojak moniker my fellow detectives would pin on me.

Holly, who always waits up for me, went to bed as soon as I got home, knowing it would be a while before I could turn in. She knew better than to ask me about the case. It was too early for me to know much of anything.

 

The next morning, I got into the station house around 9:30. Ci-ci Bradley, who worked the four to midnight shift, was there. A young, good looking, African American woman, she was an up and comer, having been promoted to the detective squad a year ago at 33. Some of the guys bitched about her, saying she was only there because she was a minority. I knew better.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Waiting for you. It’s about time you got here, Laskey,” she said. Ci-ci is tall, with thin legs, but sturdy. She gets second and third looks wherever she goes. 

I laughed and pulled out a neatly wrapped buttered roll and handed it to her along with a decaf coffee I picked up for her, knowing she would be there even though she didn’t have to start until three o’clock. It’s the kind of thing a lot of complaining cops missed about Ci-ci. She was as determined as I was to solve every case. She eyed the roll. “You think this helps, I guess,” she said.

“What did you do last night?” I asked. “I had to skip dessert at the Casual Turnip because of you. I hope you were having a good time.”

“I was taking an exam remember?” I remembered. Ci-ci was a first-year law school student. She had to take a make-up test in contracts. The captain allowed it and I agreed to cover for her should something happen. 

“After the exam, I called in and heard about the double homicide. While you were sleepwalking through the murder scene, I visited Sheppard’s and Thompson’s wives. That was a treat.”

“You come in here this morning to give me a report?” I took a cinnamon bun out and took a bite.

“Why’d you stick me with the buttered roll?” Ci-ci asked. I handed her mine and took hers. She looked over toward the captain’s office. “We’re gonna get some heat on this one. Captain said one of the guys was a big shot. A financial planner who handled the mayor’s portfolio.”

I laughed. “Do you have a portfolio, Ci-ci?”

“Nope, but that’s why I’m in law school.” She giggled. “Neither of the women had any idea why their husbands went clear cross town to a coffee shop they probably never heard of,” she said. “And these women did seem quite distraught. Mrs. Sheppard, the one whose husband was confined to a wheelchair, could hardly get a word out between sobs. I doubt if they were involved in any way, Jack.”

“Their alibis solid?”

“I think so, but maybe you can confirm them for me.” Ci-ci picked up her note pad. “Mrs. Sheppard said she was at Bonnie’s Salon in the mall getting her nails done. The other one was home, on the phone with her daughter.”  

“Will do. The two men might have known each other, or maybe they both knew the shooter,” I said. “Do the women happen to know each other?”

“Not according to them, no. They don’t hang out in the same zip code if you get my drift,” she said. “You think the husbands knew each other because they both came prepared?” She glanced at my report. “Here it is. One had a gun, the other a recorder.” She took a bite of the cinnamon roll and rolled her eyes with pleasure. “Oh, these damn things are so good. You trying to make me fat?”

I offered her the roll, but she just shook her head and grinned.

“That doesn’t mean they knew each other, but I’ll bet they both knew the guy who shot them.” I stood up and stretched my six-foot frame, still sleepy. “You get a warrant for the wives’ cell phones?” 

“Didn’t need to. Neither one blinked an eye. Just turned them over and signed the waivers so we could see their records.”

“Well, let’s see what that does for us,” I said. “Good work, rookie.”

“Up yours, old man,” she said. She smiled and got up to go. “Something tells me this is going to be a bitch to figure, Jack. Let me know if I can help.”

“Who else would I ask?”

Tony Pangallo, our captain, walked up to our desks. A big guy, he looked more like a pro wrestler than a cop. “You got a handle on this? The chief wants to hold a press conference this afternoon.”

“I shrugged and looked at Ci-ci. “Tell the chief to use boilerplate stuff. We need a few days,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, that will make him happy. Why don’t you tell the chief that, Laskey?” He walked away, shaking his head.

 

Not much happened at work over the next few days, but Holly ran into an unexpected problem. Her pap smear results were abnormal. Now we really had something to worry about. Her gynecologist said she was available to repeat the test in a week. I never have trouble focusing on an unresolved homicide, but this was going to be a battle. With our kids, both out of the house and living in other states, we’ve become closer than ever.  As usual, Holly put on a brave face for my sake.

Ci-ci and I waited for the ballistics report, the autopsies and the lab reports to come in. We caught a break when the cell phone company got us the data, calls, emails and texts from the wives and deceased men’s phones, sooner than expected. We asked for several years’ worth of material, usually more than enough. We worked backwards, quickly checking and cross-referencing phone calls.

It was quickly obvious that the couples didn’t know each other. We could probably rule out an affair between one of the husbands and wives too. And without a romantic angle, it was unlikely either of the women set up a hit. We couldn’t rule it out yet, of course. In fact, Mrs. Sheppard exchanged a ton of calls with a guy named William Davis. That might be something. Regardless, people decide to get rid of a spouse for reasons other than having a lover on the side, like money for one. Our investigation was just getting started.

While we waited for the rest of the reports, I paid a visit to the two women to follow up on a few things. I stopped at Mrs. Sylvia Thompson’s home first. The Thompsons lived in a gated community, a three-story townhome. I have to say the home was beautiful, like a Coastal Living magazine photo spread.  There were already flowers and fruit baskets on the hallway table and in the kitchen. The home was immaculate, not even a speck of dust as far as I could tell. Mrs. Thompson and a young woman, presumably her daughter, were sitting in the living room. I introduced myself.

“Detective Bradley was already here, Detective Laskey. Is there something else you need?” Mrs. Thompson asked.

“I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this. You have my deepest sympathy. I’m here to return your cell phone and I do have a few follow up questions for you.”

“How long will this take?” the younger woman asked.

“Not long. May I ask who you are?”

“Madison Thompson. I’m her daughter.” She pointed to Mrs. Thompson. “You want to know if we were on the phone when my father was killed?”

“We have the phone records. I know that. Where were you when it happened?”

“In my dorm.” Madison, who wanted to appear tough, broke down. She walked out of the room.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Thompson. This must be very hard on both of you. Do you have any other children?”

“No.”

I asked her a few routine questions before I came up with the one I needed to ask. “Did your husband have life insurance?”

“We knew you were going to ask that,” she said. Her eyes betrayed the anger she was trying to conceal. “Yes, he had life insurance. A lot of it. He believed in it. We were well to do before he died. Now I’m a millionaire ten times over.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” She reached into a bowl of licorice candy and took a piece. She was a petite woman almost frail looking. Her hair was an unnatural red, probably dyed too many times. “I might as well tell you this now. You’ll find out anyway. Last month Chuck took out another policy for five million. Does that make me a suspect?”

I reached for a piece of candy and stopped. “May I?” She nodded and I took one. “Certainly, the timing wasn’t ideal, considering what’s happened, but some coincidences are just that.”

She pulled out a tissue and dabbed tears from her eyes. “My husband was a very successful financial advisor, a meticulous man in everything he did. Everything had to be just so for him. As you can see by our home, nothing out of place, ever.” She tried a smile. “Are you going to ask me?”

I played dumb. She expected me to ask her if she killed her husband. I never ask so early in an investigation. And nobody has ever said yes anyway. “Ask you what?”

“You know perfectly well, what. The answer is no.”

 

My visit with Lyndsey Sheppard was an eyeopener. She was younger, maybe 45, at least ten years younger than her late husband, and still quite pretty. She was a smoker who said she drank coffee all day long. Tall and dark-haired, you might expect her to be a bit rough around the edges from the looks of her. Her hair was dyed jet black and her fingernails were bright red with some kind of design on each one. But she was actually demure. She spoke softly. Unlike the Thompson’s upscale home, the Sheppard’s lived in a modest three-bedroom bungalow across the street from the middle school.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” She asked.

“That would be great. Milk or cream and two sugars, please. Tell me about your husband, Lance.”  I followed her into the kitchen.

“Lance was a postal worker before his accident. He was an active guy, we played golf together and went out on his brother’s boat a lot in the Gulf. One day he just up and decided to saw a limb off of the mahogany tree in our back yard,” Mrs. Sheppard said. “He was standing on the top rung of a fifteen-foot ladder when he fell backwards and landed on a boulder.” She shook her head. “He broke his back and landed in a wheelchair.” She paused. “That was three years ago. He was never the same after that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. She handed me the coffee mug and we sat at the kitchen table. The table was full of mail and at least a week’s worth of newspapers. I took a sip and waited. 

“He couldn’t work anymore, so he got on disability. He took to watching TV at all hours of the day and night, including soap operas.” She rolled her eyes.

I looked at my notes. “He drove to the coffee shop in his van. Specially equipped, right?”

“That’s right. When my parents died, I came into some money and bought that for him two Christmases ago.”

“Was he happy about that?”

“For a week maybe. Funny thing is he became more withdrawn after he got the van, didn’t go out much. He had already lost interest in me, but then he became very critical of me.”

Is this important, detective?”

“I don’t know to be honest. It’s too soon to know what is and what isn’t important.”  I took another sip. Even with the cream, the coffee was really hot.

“He criticized everything I did, the way I cooked, the way I cleaned the house, my friends and my one afternoon a week out with the girls.”  

I looked at her then, searching for the tell. When you do police work, it becomes second nature. She didn’t disappoint me. She looked away for the first time, staring at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers slippers she was wearing. “Who is William Davis?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “Bill’s a friend of mine. Why?”

“You and Mr. Davis text and talk on the phone a lot.”

“Of course, we do. We’re friends.”

“Mrs. Sheppard, may I call you Lyndsey?” I didn’t wait for a reply. “You and Mr. Davis talk at least five times a day, sometimes more. In my experience, that usually means something.”

She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “What does it mean? I’d really like to know.”

“It usually means that two people have crossed the line from friendship into something else, let’s say deeper.”

“You think I’m having an affair with Bill?”

I put the mug down on her coffee table. “If you are, it won’t be hard to prove.”

She began to cry. “Lance was just so hard to deal with. He never wanted to go out and he was irritable all the time. Being with Bill gave me the strength to do what I could to take care of Lance. I guess I’m a terrible person, huh.”

“Some people might say that, but they’re not in your shoes,” I said. “I’ll need to talk to Bill.”

“I don’t want to get him into any trouble. He’s married.”

Lyndsey didn’t seem to grasp my real concern. It hadn’t occurred to her, at least not yet, that her affair with Bill could be seen as a motive for her husband’s murder.

“On my way over here, I checked the nail salon. They confirmed you were there,” I said.

She snapped to attention. “Why did you do that? Oh, wait just a minute, Detective Laskey, or whatever your name is, I had nothing to do with my husband’s death. Neither did Bill Davis.”

“Okay, relax, Lyndsey. I believe you.” And as far as it went, I did believe her, or maybe I wanted to believe. She was charming, I had to give her that. I got a bit more information about her, learning she worked as a waitress in a chain restaurant downtown and that she’d been married to Lance for thirteen years, the second marriage for both.

On the way back to the station I considered what I knew so far. I thought it was a longshot that Sylvia Thompson had anything to do with her husband’s murder, life insurance aside. I was sure Ci-ci was right. The two women didn’t know each other. Mrs. Sheppard, though was a possible suspect, in spite of my instincts otherwise. I would have to interview Bill Davis to get a better sense of what they might be capable of. I knew from the texts that Davis had sworn his love for Lyndsey. He wrote some God-awful poetry to her and promised that when the time was right they’d be married.

Our shifts were structured to give us some overlap. Ci-ci got to the station just before her three o’clock shift started. I had another hour to go. She was working on a murder in what was left of the city’s rural area. A farmer’s wife was found shot to death in a barn. The husband seemed to have a solid alibi.

“How’s the Abbott case coming along,” I asked.

“Not well. Want the details?” She asked.

“Not right now. I spoke to the coffee shop wives today. Quite a contrast.” I reviewed what I learned and asked her if she had time to interview Bill Davis. He was a certified public accountant, a partner in his accounting firm. “They always work late.”

“And how do you know that?” Ci-ci asked.

“My sister-in-law is a CPA, never home before eight.”

Pangallo walked out of his office and came to see us. “Well?”

I spread my hands and handed him my notes on my interviews with Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Sheppard. He read through them quickly. “So, we got love and money as motives. Don’t ignore Sylvia Thompson. As Deep Throat once said, ‘Follow the money.’” He walked back to his office.

“That man’s a genius, you know that? A genius,” Ci-ci said.

“Definitely. Can you pay a visit to William Davis?” I asked.

“Yeah, I can go see the stud-muffin accountant. Maybe he can prepare my tax return.”

 

By Friday afternoon, I was exhausted. Holly’s test was scheduled for Monday. We’d have to wait at least a week for the results.  The coffee shop murder case wasn’t promising. Ci-ci’s interview with Bill Davis was interesting, she said, but not really helpful. “He copped to the affair right away. He sounded more like a guy in church, confessing to a priest.”“What did he say?”

“You’re gonna love this. He told me that Mr. Sheppard’s death was the worst thing that could happen to him. Mrs. Sheppard was already pressing him to get a divorce.”

“You mean he didn’t want to marry Lyndsey Sheppard? He texted her, said he loved her more than frozen Snickers bars and sports cars. She was a gift from the stars, better than nicotine and tars.”

We laughed hard, which got us a dirty look from Pangallo. “I read that too,” Ci-ci said. “You made up the part about the nicotine.” Ci-ci had recently quit smoking and missed it. “He’s afraid Mrs. Sheppard will go to his wife.”

“She might. Does our accountant strike you as the type who’d have the balls to execute somebody?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” Ci-ci said.

“That probably lets him off the hook, but I’m not sure about her. She doesn’t strike me as the type either, though.”

 

I spent the better part of Saturday washing my Sonata and then Holly’s Mustang. A very patriotic woman, she insists on American cars. On Sunday, courtesy of Captain Pangallo, we went to the Buccaneers’ game. They were playing the New York Jets, my favorite team. I grew up in Queens. He had season tickets. He knew about my worries over Holly and I think that’s why he gave us the tickets. It was a perfect way to take our minds off our worries about Holly’s health.                       

During halftime, I talked a little about the case with Holly. She always asks good questions. “Have you looked for a connection between the two men who were shot?”  

“We haven’t found anything, not yet.” I took a bite out of a hotdog.

Holly wiped a bit of mustard from my cheek. “What if someone wanted to put these two very different men together? Why do you suppose he would do that?”

I turned that one over a few times. “So, maybe the shooter knew them, but they didn’t know each other? It’s possible. I can see where the financial guy could piss off an unhappy client enough to get shot, but a retired and disabled postal worker?”

“Maybe one of them was just collateral damage,” she said. It was a beautiful fall day. I took another bite and watched the game. The Jets won and we went home happy.

 

On Monday morning, I took another look at Ci-ci’s report on her session with Bill Davis. He was obviously worried about his wife. He didn’t want her to know what he’d been doing. Maybe there was a financial angle. As I read the report, I noticed that Davis had gone out of his way to point out that his was a small, but successful firm. Bottom line was he probably had enough discretionary income to invest some of it. If I could connect him with Thompson, I might have a perfecta. Did Bill Davis decide to kill two birds with one stone? Settle a score with Charles Thompson and get Lyndsey Sheppard’s husband out of the way?

I picked up the phone and called Davis. “Mr. Davis, this is Detective Jack Laskey of the Williamson County Sherriff’s office.”

“What’s this about? I already talked to Detective Palmer.”

“I know that and we appreciate your cooperation. I have a question for you. Do you use the services of a financial planner?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It may have some bearing on our case,” I said.

“I don’t see how, but I work with the top firm in Florida, Yearly and Yearly. They’re rock stars.”

I contacted someone at Yearly and Yearly. They confirmed Davis was a client, another dead end. This case was now literally beginning to make my skin itch. Captain Pangallo came over to my desk. “You and Parker have an appointment at three o’clock with the mayor. She’s pissed. She wants a damn explanation for why this case hasn’t broken yet. The chief will be there too.”

I stood up to face him, which meant looking up because Pangallo is really tall. “Why is this case so important? Did the mayor actually have her portfolio with Thompson? Is she losing money or something?”

Captain Pangallo laughed. “You won’t believe it, but it turns out it’s the other guy, Lance Sheppard. He was her second cousin.”

“They were close?”

“I doubt it. We only found out about it Friday afternoon. The mayor’s secretary told me she has a 94-year-old grandmother who calls, demanding answers, every day.”

The mayor listened without saying a word when Ci-ci and I brought her up to date. There wasn’t much to tell, other than we felt we could safely rule out the spouses and that we couldn’t find a link between the two couples. We decided to leave out Lyndsey Sheppard’s affair since it didn’t look like Bill Davis was our guy. Who knows what revenge our mayor might take on poor Mrs. Sheppard if she knew about the affair? But the mayor surprised us.

“What about Bill Davis” She asked. “You check him out?”

Ci-ci and I exchanged sideways glances. “He’s in the clear,” Ci-ci said.

The mayor nodded. “That bitch, Lyndsey. I wouldn’t put a thing past her. Don’t be too quick to rule her out. I hear she’s gonna get a sweet little life insurance payoff now that Lance is gone.”

“Mayor Shorter, we looked into that,” I said. “But the life insurance company reported that she will only get $25,000.”

“You don’t think people will kill for just $25,000, Detective Laskey? It’s been known to happen.”

I didn’t respond. It was clear to me that the mayor wanted it to be Lyndsey Sheppard. But I knew it wasn’t Lyndsey. After the meeting, Ci-ci and I got together with the captain. “You guys did all right in there, considering. I probably won’t hear from Mayor Shorter or the chief for a few days now. We’re missing something. What is it?”

“I think we need to go back over the cell phone records. There’s a connection somewhere. We just have to find it,” I said, doubting my own words.

“We should send it to the State crime lab. Let the IT guys do their voodoo,” Ci-ci said. Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement, the FDLE, has plenty of resources including sophisticated software that might be able to discover patterns we couldn’t find with our resources.

“Do that,” Pangallo said.

Three days later I got a call from a FDLE guy. “Not much to tell you, but I did find one thing that might be of interest,” he said. “Both women had texts with very similar language, or repetitive words.”

“Like what?”

“Well, phrases really, like, ‘You can’t take care of anybody if you don’t take care of yourself’ and ‘Be the captain of your own ship’ and then there’s this one. ‘John 16:16 I am with you only a little while longer.’ Now that one is a bit strange, right?”

“And the same guy was corresponding with both of them?” I asked.

“Sure sounds like it, but we’re checking on that. The phone numbers are not the same. I’ll bet it’s the same guy, but he didn’t use the same phone for both women. His pattern though, was the same with both ladies. There would be a brief call, maybe five minutes and then later that day an exchange of texts. And the calls were always one way, from him to them.”

“Were you able to document any face-to-face meetings?” I asked.

“Pretty sure, yeah. Maybe I should just send you what I have that links our mystery man to each woman.”

“Can you ID the guy by name?” I asked.

“Working on it.”

Ten minutes later I had an email from the FDLE with what I was looking for. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions; we’d been wrong before. When Ci-ci got to work I was leaning back in my chair hands folded behind my head, thinking. She misread me though. “You solved our double homicide?” She asked.

“Thanks to your FDLE suggestion we may have our first solid lead.” I handed her the material and said, “Take thirty minutes to go over these. We can talk when you’re finished.”

In just ten minutes, Ci-ci had seen enough. “Has to be him, whoever he is. Does the TBI have a name for us?”

“They’re working on it. Even when we find out who it is, we have a lot of work to do. This guy is clever. His relationships with Lyndsey Sheppard and Sylvia Thompson go back a while, at least three years, according to the FDLE guy.”

“Yeah, according to the texts, it looks like he works out with Sylvia and eats lunch with that Lyndsey chick.”

“That’s what we know from the texts, but if it’s the same guy, obviously he’s cautious,” I said. 

“You’re wondering why he used different phones to communicate with them?”

“Exactly. That’s what I was thinking about when you walked in. And then there’s this. There’s isn’t a shred of evidence that either relationship was romantic. Pure friendship. What’s his motive?”

“I would say money, but I can’t imagine both women decided to pay him to knock off their husbands in some grand conspiracy,” Ci-ci said.

“It would make for a great 48 Hours show.”

“That’s your dream isn’t it? To be the detective at the center of a 48 Hours episode.”

 

A week went by and we heard nothing from the FDLE. Holly had her re-test and we waited. Finally, I called the guy who had done the initial research. He apologized, telling me the case fell through the cracks. Another two days went by before he finally called me.  “Your guy’s name is Corbo, Daniel T. Corbo. He lives in a condo in the Buckingham area.” He gave me his address and other essentials. Corbo was 55, and single, never married. He was retired from AT&T, having taken a good package, the kind I’d love to have, but probably never will. Obviously, he was sophisticated about cell phone usage.

Ci-ci and I had agreed not to contact the two widows until we knew who this mystery man was. Unlikely though it was, if they were in any way involved in a plot to kill their husbands, there was no sense in tipping them off. One thing we noticed was that since the murders there had been no contact from Corbo to the women. Sylvia Thompson texted him a week to the day after her husband’s death, briefly describing what happened to Charles and how devastating it was for her. He never responded, which given the nature of all the other exchanges between them, seemed odd.

We did a thorough background check and decided to have him followed for a few days before we approached him. The officers assigned saw nothing remarkable, other than a couple of appointments to a doctor’s office and a trip to the hospital’s outpatient department one afternoon. Ci-ci and I spent a lot of time discussing the best way to approach the subject. We couldn’t realistically consider him a suspect yet. Yes, we now had a link between Corbo and the widows, but that didn’t prove a thing. We found nothing in their exchanges, mostly texts and a few voice mails, that would even remotely suggest a conspiracy.

“He doesn’t own a gun,” Ci-ci said. “At least he’s never bought one retail. He lives alone, so if he says he was home the night of the murders, in the absence of any evidence, it will stand up.”

“I changed my mind. I think it’s time we talk to the wives again. Let’s see whether they can shed any light on this guy Corbo, that might help us figure this out,” I said.

Ci-ci agreed. “I doubt there’s any sort of collusion here, but we need to know everything we can about Corbo before we show our hand.” She suggested that she meet with Mrs. Sheppard. “Let me see if I can discern the source of her magical spell over you.”

 

The next morning, I made an appointment to see Sylvia Thompson again. The first thing I noticed was that the house, which was impeccably neat the last time I visited, had not been picked up for a while. Items of clothing hung over the back of the couch and love seat. Cookie and candy wrappers sat on the coffee table, as did empty and half-filled glasses.    

“Any luck finding the jerk who killed my husband?” She asked. “You’ll have to forgive the mess.” Her television was on, one of the cable news networks.

“Frankly, this has been a difficult case, Mrs. Thompson. How are you doing?”

“Ha! How am I doing? She took a teabag from her cup and carefully placed it in a butterfly shaped teabag holder. She didn’t offer me anything. “It’s funny, you know? I complained constantly about my husband, mostly behind his back. How he was controlling, Mr. OCD about everything, leaving me a to do list every morning. Boy, he got mad if I didn’t complete his damn list.”

“And now?” I asked knowing the answer.

She took a sip of tea. “He kept me organized, something I’ve never been good at. I miss the structure. I married him because I needed structure. He gave me that.”

“I understand. Mrs. Thompson, do you know a man named Daniel Corbo?”

“Danny? Yes, I do. Haven’t heard from him lately. What’s he been up to?”   

“How do you know him?”

“I met him at the Y, about five years ago. Why?”

“You’re certain you never met Mrs. Sheppard?”

“Absolutely. What’s going on? What does Danny, of all people, have to do with this?” She reached for her TV remote and turned the TV off. 

“Maybe nothing, but he happens to know Mrs. Sheppard too. We don’t think that’s a coincidence. What we’re trying to understand is what motive he might have to do harm to your husband.”

She stared at me for a moment, lifted her tea cup and put it down without drinking. “I assume you got this from our phone records.”

I nodded.

“Detective Laskey, the only thing I really know about him is that until recently, we worked out together, walking next to each other on our treadmills and talking to pass the time.”

“What did you talk about?”

“The usual, the weather, the holidays, mostly the mundane details of our lives. He could be very insightful, actually.”

“Did you ever talk to him about your marriage?”

“Well, never the intimate details, but sure.”

“Did you complain about your husband, like you did earlier with me?”

“Listen, detective, I loved my husband. All wives complain about their husbands. It’s a part of marriage. I’m sure your wife complains about you, you know.”

I laughed. “No doubt. What I’m wondering is whether Mr. Corbo might have misinterpreted your complaints as an opportunity to become romantically involved with you.”

Sylvia Thompson really laughed. “You are way off here, detective. Danny’s just not built that way. I don’t mean he doesn’t like girls, he does. He’s just a little bit intimidated by them, I think.”  

“I see.” We chatted for a while longer. Sylvia Thompson never really got close to Danny Corbo, but she admired his ability to see problems for what they were. His suggestions were often useful. And, he never made the mistake of being critical of Mr. Thompson. She told me they had a cup of coffee once, but never had lunch together even though he (timidly) suggested it once.

“I think he was a lonely guy, but maybe he liked it that way. What he isn’t is a cold-blooded murderer,” she said.  

Back at the station that afternoon I waited for Ci-ci to return from her interview with Lyndsey Sheppard. She came in carrying two cups of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. Mine was chocolate chip, my favorite. “Well, I see why Mrs. Sheppard’s really got a hold on you,” she said, smiling.

“Tell me.”

“She’s a charmer when she wants to be. I was getting interested myself.”

I almost spit out my ice cream from laughing. She enjoyed that. “I saw her first,” I said. “So, what does she have to say about this guy Corbo?”

“Tell me about your meeting with Mrs. Thompson first.”

I walked her through the fine points, but I was eager to hear what she learned from Mrs. Sheppard.      

Ci-ci finished her Rocky Road while she looked at her notes. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “I thought you quit,” I said.

“It’ll be Ash Wednesday in four months. I’ll give them up for Lent.” She lit a match.

“My meeting with Mrs. Sheppard was interesting. She met this Corbo guy at the restaurant where she works. He used to come in every Thursday for a late lunch around two o’clock when it wasn’t busy. She told me she hasn’t seen him since the murder.”

“Like with Sylvia Thompson.”

“Just like her. And there’s more along the same lines. Would it surprise you to know that Mrs. Sheppard complained about her husband too?”

“Really?”

“Yes, how he was lazy, lousy in bed, even before the accident, always -let me give you the exactquote here- ‘bitching at me, bitching and cursing me because he was in a damn wheelchair and I wasn’t.’ Her exact words.”

“Did you sense any remorse about her husband’s passing?” I asked.

“Like Mrs. Thompson you mean? It was weird really. At one point after bitching about him, she said she felt like she didn’t have a purpose anymore. She said, ‘I hated being trapped with Lance, but now, I’ve got too much time on my hands. It’s like I lost my purpose in life.’”

“You got better details than I did,” I said.

“I always get better details. I have my own form of magic.”

“Was there a possible romantic angle between Corbo and Lyndsey?”

“I asked. She laughed, just like your lady did. She said, and I’m quoting again, ‘That man never even looked at my legs or my ass.’”

“She sounded a hell of lot more refined when I spoke to her,” I said.

“Of course, you’re a man.”

“Maybe this guy Corbo doesn’t look that promising after all. He doesn’t have a record, doesn’t own a gun and he doesn’t seem to have a motive.”   

“One other thing this Lyndsey chick agreed with Mrs. Thompson on; he seemed like a loner,” Ci-ci said.

I shrugged and reached for one of Ci-ci’s cigarettes. She snatched them away. “That’s what I should be doing whenever you reach for one,” I said. “You know what? Unless he’s some kind of crazy, either a sociopath, psychopath or something, he’s not our guy.”

“Only one way to find out. Let’s introduce ourselves to Danny Corbo.”

 

Two patrolmen picked up Danny Corbo, telling him we needed his help to solve a double homicide. According to one of the officers, Corbo just said, “Okay, let’s go.” He didn’t ask any questions, raising our suspicions immediately. Most people would ask, “What murders?”

Corbo walked into the interview room dressed in jeans and a plaid button-down shirt. He had a Ft. Myers Miracle cap on his head. He took his jacket off and sat down. Ci-ci decided to observe from behind the privacy glass. “Mr. Corbo, I’m Detective Laskey. I’d like to ask you some questions about a double homicide.” I waited for him to say something, but he just gave me a blank stare. “You knew the victims’ wives, Lyndsey Sheppard and Sylvia Thompson.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Do you acknowledge that you know these women?” 

“Sure.”

“How do you know them,” I asked.

“Lyndsey is my waitress where I eat lunch. I know Sylvia from the Y.”

“Were you romantically involved with either one, or both of them?”

“I wish.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend, Danny?”

“I’ve had a lot of girlfriends, but I don’t have one right now. Is that what we’re here to talk about, detective?”

“For the moment. Which one turns you on more, Mrs. Thompson or Mrs. Sheppard?” It was a calculated risk on my part.  

“Well, Lyndsey, I guess, but I like them both.”

“Did you ever meet either Mrs. Sheppard’s or Mrs. Thompson’s husband?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. He asked for a cup of coffee, which Ci-ci brought in. Corbo noticed Ci-ci’s good looks. “I do remember seeing Lyndsey’s husband once, though. He came into the restaurant one day.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“No, he just came rolling in on his wheelchair and said something like, ‘I need some damn money Lyndsey. You forgot to leave it for me again, damn it.’ He was really loud, man. He was mean.”

“Did that upset you?” I asked.

“It upset everybody in the restaurant,” he said. He sipped some coffee. “I thought you guys needed my help. I don’t know anything about this.”

I stood and leaned over the table toward Corbo. “You do know that Lance Sheppard, Lyndsey Sheppard’s husband and Charles Thompson, Sylvia Thompson’s husbands were shot to death, don’t you?”

“I think I heard that, yeah, but I don’t know why you’re talking to me about it.”

“Just be a little bit patient,” I said. “Where were you on the night of the shootings?”

“Home, watching television.”

“You remember the date the shootings occurred?”

“No, not really.”

“Well then, how do you know you were home watching television that night?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I do every night, I guess.” He started drumming on the table with his fingers. He saw me staring and he stopped.   

“What were you watching?”

“I don’t remember. I might have been asleep in front of the TV.”

“You own a gun, Danny?”

He hesitated, seeming to process the question. “Not anymore. I owned one a few years ago, but I sold it at a gun show in Tampa.”

“You have a receipt?”

He shifted in his seat now. “I don’t think so. I don’t keep things like that.”

“That’s okay, the dealer you sold it to will have a record of his purchase,” I said. “What kind of gun was it?” It was unlikely, of course that we’d find a dealer if there was one. I wanted Corbo off balance.

“A pistol.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“No.” He removed his ball cap and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Where and when did you buy the gun?”

“I bought it from a guy I met at the Ybor City”

I wrote down his answer, deliberately taking my time. “Really? How did you meet this guy then?”

“Like I said, at the festival. We got to talking and he mentioned he had a gun for sale.”

“What did it cost?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Let’s talk about the bullets then. What caliber were they?”

“I never bought bullets. I never used the gun.”

“Why did you buy the gun then?

“I don’t know. It was a spur of the moment thing.” I could see he was getting frustrated.

Again, I took extra time writing down what he told me. Now I wanted to give him a moment to relax. He drank more coffee. “Danny, have you ever been to Virgil’s Coffee Shop?”

“Never heard of it.” He pulled his smart phone from his pocket, checked it and set it on the table.

“Need to make a call?”

“No.”

I nodded and pulled out my cellphone. “Excuse me for a moment, Danny.” I dialed one of his numbers. Not a working number. I tried the second one, same result. “You change your cell phone numbers recently, Danny?”

“Yeah, not too long ago. I was getting a lot of marketing calls,” he said.

“They are a pain,” I said. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.” I went out into the hall where Captain Pangallo and Ci-ci were standing. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I’m a bit surprised he admitted to owning a gun,” Ci-ci said. “Maybe he’s afraid we already knew about it somehow.” She grinned. “His memory isn’t too good, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “What else?”

“I think you should push him a little on his relationship with Lyndsey. Did you see how his face changed when he said her name?”

“He’s definitely our guy,” Pangallo said. “I think he wants to confess.”

I walked back into the room and sat down opposite Corbo. “I’m just wondering, Danny, just between you and me. Are you in love with Lyndsey Sheppard?” He looked at me, opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “It would be perfectly understandable, Danny. I have a little thing for her myself.”

“Maybe. I mean I used to, I guess.”

“What happened?”

He shifted in his chair then. His entire demeanor changed. “Listen,” he said. “I’m dying. I have pancreatic cancer, less than three months to live.”

“Is that right? Sorry to hear that. When did you find out?” I asked.

“Two months ago. Dr. Groat told me.”

Right away, that didn’t sound right. He looked a lot healthier than a guy with only a month to live. “There’s nothing they can do for you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Corbo said.

“Sometimes doctors make mistakes.”

“Not this time.”

“Danny, I need to use the restroom. I’ll be back in a few minutes and we can wrap this thing up. Your time is precious now and I don’t want to waste it.” I stepped outside again and asked Ci-ci to get Dr. Groat on the phone. He was a well-known internist in town. She was already on it.

I actually relieved myself and then went into the kitchen to get a cup of fresh coffee for Corbo. Back in the interview room, I sat down and asked him, “When you learned you were dying, is that when you stopped being in love with Lyndsey?”

“It’s not like you think. I mean she’s married, you know. I’m very fond of her, that’s all.”

“Yes, but when you heard her husband died, did that give you hope for the two of you?”

“You’re twisting this, detective. It wasn’t like that.” He raised his voice a little. “Like I said, I’m dying so it doesn’t matter.”

Ci-ci stepped into the room. “Mr. Corbo, I just spoke with Dr. Groat. Do you know what he told me?”

  Corbo didn’t answer her right away. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling now. He put his head down on the table.

  “Mr. Corbo? Talk to us,” Ci-ci said.

“I was just trying to help my friends. I called the husbands and told them I had dirt on their wives and I was willing to sell it to them. They never knew what hit them. The coffee shop is small. I just walked in and started shooting.”

“That was your entire plan?” I asked.

"I thought I was dying, that’s what Dr. Groat told me, but the radiologist made a mistake. I found out I wasn’t dying after I shot those men.”

 “Why did you shoot them, Danny?” Ci-ci asked.

  “I don’t have many friends. Sylvia and Lyndsey were my two best friends. Their husbands didn’t treat them right.  They treated these wonderful ladies like shit. I figured I was dying, so why not set my friends free? I listened to them, their problems, for years, how unhappy they were, trapped in marriages with men they didn’t love.”

 “Unhappy people can get divorced today. Did either of them ever say they wanted a divorce?” Ci-ci asked.

“Not in so many words. Anyway, Sylvia’s not the kind of woman who could live without the things money makes possible. Her husband was a bully, held his money over her head. A real jerk if you ask me,” he said. He was agitated now, twitching a little and fighting back tears.  

“What about Lyndsey?” I asked.

“Lyndsey is a very loyal woman. She would have been stuck taking care of that asshole, Lance for years, while her beauty faded. I hated that for her. He didn’t appreciate what he had.” He reached for his ballcap and put it on. “I know this will sound horrible, but it’s true. Some people are inconvenient. They don’t fit your life anymore, but you’re stuck with them. Lyndsey and Sylvia deserved a chance to live a good life. They were always nice to me, so I took care of it for them.”

 “And you think they’re happy now? Is that it?” Ci-ci asked.

“Aren’t they?”

 

 A week later Danny Corbo plead guilty to second degree murder. He was sentenced to two life terms without hope of parole. Two men died needlessly because Danny Corbo was naïve enough to assume that one side of a story was sufficient to make a sound judgment. Maybe Sylvia Thompson was right. Women complain about their husbands just to blow off steam. But they picked the wrong guy and it cost their husbands their lives. We solved this double homicide, but it still haunts me.

Sylvia Thompson hired a housekeeper and a personal coach to keep her house and her life in order. Lyndsey Sheppard broke up with Bill Davis and kept her job at the restaurant. Two months later, she was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. It wasn’t a misdiagnosis. Ci-ci spent some time with her and quit smoking, this time for good.

Holly’s second pap smear revealed she was fine. We celebrated the good news by having dinner at the Casual Turnip again. I stayed for dessert. I had the tiramisu.