The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

brick walkways and brick at the base of the structure. Maude had added a metal roof, gutters and a rainwater system for protection against the Texas droughts. The large water container behind her house supplied water to both her house and the rent house down the hill. A college student and her friend lived there at the time sharing the rent.
    Mary Ellen was an easy tenant, careful and respectful of others. What she did in the house was her business as long as she didn’t damage the building. When Maude drove up and parked her unmarked car, she noticed that Mary Ellen’s bike was not on the front porch. The bike was transportation from home to school and work. Maude figured the restaurant job was keeping her tenant busy after school. Smiling, she remembered being twenty years old with the world in her hands.
    The night was not over for her, there was still work to be done. She had to organize the evidence from both crime scenes and try to make some sense of it. The gin bottle called to her but for a while she held out, working through the need. She smoked her cigarettes one after the other, inhaling deeply trying to rid herself of the smell of death. A hot shower and strong soap hadn’t done it for her, but she knew that eventually, it would go away.
    The menthol from the muscle rub lotion served two purposes. It helped her sore knees , and quelled the lingering death odors. She had applied it liberally after her shower, wondering as always how the smell of decayed human flesh could stick to the pores of her body even after a vigorous washing.
    Frank Almondera had disappeared with no sign of him anywhere. CID had posted an all-points bulletin asking the public and law enforcement to call the Madison Police Department should anyone see the man. Almondera was a petty drug dealer, not someone she ‘liked’ for the killings. His modus operandi was too simple. Get the drugs. Sell the drugs. Maude had checked his file and couldn’t find a history of violence. She was beginning to think maybe Almondera might have been a victim as well. He had been scheduled for court but no one had seen him since he got out of jail on bond.
    The gin bottle won out and over the first two fingers Maude began putting it together. Whatever had happened to Almondera occurred at least two weeks earlier. The woman in his apartment was killed about six days ago. What had tied them together ? Thinking about the dead woman she picked up the phone and called the lab and asked to speak to the night supervisor. She was told that the prints of the two victims gave up nothing, no identifiers at all which could mean anything. Even dental records were run without any success.
    Maude Rogers was a persistent person who seldom gave up when the odds were against her even when the situation appeared to be hopeless. That night she worked until long after midnight then the gin called her again, burning its way to her stomach, blocking the memory of the horrors of the day.
    The next morning came with typical summer weather. A hot humid atmosphere had seeped into the house in spite of the artificial air that kept the temperature lowered with each cycle of the air conditioning unit. She slept fitfully until the alarm went off, tossing and turning, needing to go to the bathroom, but putting it off until the last minute. Her stomach felt queasy and her head seemed blown up three times its normal size. She got out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom, turned the light on then quickly turned it off after glancing into the mirror.
    The woman in the reflection was tall and thin with a mop of mostly gray curly hair that had never been obedient to the comb. The color and texture had been modified somewhat by one of the box colors from the shelves of the large grocery store. She needed a haircut and couldn’t decide about a new application.  Maybe she would let the color grow off to rat gray.
    “Not much of a choice ,” she said aloud. Her ears flapped a little but not