Chapter 11
Ed decided to talk to Bynum's wife. He knew that it would be risky, but he had a strange feeling about the way the investigation was going. Either every detective had suddenly come down with a terminal case of dumb or someone was trying to cover something up. Ed knew that he would have been fired, in his day, for conducting an investigation the way this one was being conducted. He drove to a phone booth and found the Bynum address.
Bynum's house was in an upscale section of town and Ed figured that the house would sell on today's market for at least $1,500,000. The driveway up to the house was over 200 feet long. Ed parked in front of the house and got out of his car.
Ed walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. After a minute or so a Hispanic maid answered the door. Ed showed his badge and asked to see Mrs. Bynum. The maid asked Ed to wait in the hall and went to get Mrs. Bynum.
A pretty woman about 40 came from a room at the rear of the house. She was dressed in a pants suit that Ed could see cost more than he made in a month. Her hair looked like she had just come from a beauty parlor and her makeup was flawless. She approached Ed with a look of consternation on her face.
"I just talked to you detectives about 2 hours ago," she snapped.
"Mrs. Bynum, My name is Ed Harold. I'm a private investigator. This is a little delicate, can we go somewhere private?" he said.
Mrs. Bynum looked at him for a minute and Ed saw that she was unsure whether to take him further into the house. Ed pulled his ID and showed her that he was a private detective. She turned without a word and walked into what Ed saw was a library. She motioned for him to sit in a chair in front of a large desk and she sat at the desk. Ed noticed that she didn't seem broke up at the loss of her husband.
"Mrs. Bynum," Ed started, feeling his way as he talked, "This is hard for me to say, so I am just going to say it as best I can. Your husband hired me to follow you and see if you were running around on him."
Ed saw her face get red and he was afraid that he had made a mistake.
"That bastard," she said loudly, "he ran around on me since the day we got married and he has the gall to hire someone to follow me? I hope he rots in hell."
"I didn't have a chance to do any work on this, because he was killed a few hours after I left his office," Ed said.
"Well, what's the purpose of this visit?" she asked.
Ed pulled out $200 that he had stuck in his jacket and handed it to Mrs., Bynum, and "This is the retainer that your husband gave me. Since no work was done, I feel that I owe this money to you."
She made no move to take the money from him, "Keep the money, I want nothing of his. The bastard was never a husband while we were married. I know now, that he only married me because he knew that I would inherit my father's estate. Money was his God. Well, I hope he has plenty of money where ever he is now."
She rose, indicating that the interview was over and Ed thanked her and followed her to the front door. At the front door she turned to him and looked at him for a minute.
"I'm sorry that I was so short with you," she said. "My marriage was a farce from the start. I am sure that you can see that I am a little bitter about the whole thing. I even had his body cremated and told them to throw his ashes in the garbage can."
She opened the door and Ed said goodbye and went to his car. Ed drove out of the driveway and headed for his apartment. He tried to figure out if Mrs. Bynum could have been the one to kill her husband. He dismissed that idea. If she had killed him she wouldn't tell people how much she hated him. Ed suddenly remembered that she told him that George Bynum had been cremated. Ed almost hit the car in front of his. Why would the detectives release the body and allow his body to be cremated while the investigation was still going on? Did Mrs. Bynum have enough power to put pressure on the investigation? Ed was sure that she had not killed George Bynum, so what would be her motive in stopping the investigation? Several cars were honking at him, and the squealing of tires, made him realize that he had just run a red light. Ed pulled over to collect his thoughts.
Ed sat with the engine off trying to make sense of what he had learned today. Nothing that he had learned made any sense! This was the sloppiest investigation that he had ever seen. Someone should have blown the whistle on this investigation by now. Where were the newspapers? There was nothing in the papers about the murder. Ed was more confused than when he had left his apartment in the morning. He decided that he had to talk to Mrs. Bynum one more time. He knew that it would be dangerous, but he had to find out if she was sitting on this investigation.
Ed started the car and headed for his apartment. He continued to sort out the information that he had learned today. He was afraid to contact his friends on the police force any more; he was not sure who he could trust.