Bob Moats - Jim Richards 01-03- 3 for Murder Box Set (49 page)

We sat in Trapper’s office. I asked how they knew to follow me to the Midnight Bar. I only talked on my cell phone. They couldn’t have bugged that.

“You went to Noreen’s office. They may have been watching that,” Trapper offered. “Cops are good at tailing people. They could have been watching you for days once they knew you were on the case. Bringing a woman out of that bar sent up flags.”

“Geez, I let myself be watched. Says a lot for my P.I. skills,” I lamented.

Trapper laughed. “You’ve been a P.I. for all of four months. You can’t expect to have the experience in that short of time. You learn as you go.”

“Well, from now on I’m going to be suspicious of everyone and everything,” I said.

Mark Benson popped his head in the door. “Any good cops still around this place?” he joked. He came in and sat. “I brought a steno to take Martin’s statements. I am so glad she was found.” He looked at me. “Thanks.” Then at Trapper. “She’s locked up for assaulting a cop? Good ploy. It will keep her away from the beast of Roseville until we get everything in writing. We can suppress her identity, make her a key witness under protection until we get Weston released. Then the cops will have to investigate to find the real murderer. I talked to Weston and convinced him to give his statements about his wife’s activities that may have involved officials.”  He looked at me. “You’ll have to make a statement as to how you found her and what transpired after you did. Glad neither of you were killed.”

“Thanks, I’m glad I wasn’t killed, too,” I said. “I’ll write up a statement and sign it here tomorrow with Trapper as witness. Right now I have another case I’m not looking forward to, but it has to be done.” I looked at Benson. “I may have a woman who will need a divorce lawyer or criminal lawyer if she murders her husband.”

Benson laughed and said, “Those cases are the hardest, telling a woman her husband is a louse. I don’t envy you. I’ll give her my best at taking him for everything,” he said.

I said good-bye to everyone and headed out. I called Buck and asked what he was up to. He said, not much. I said to meet me at the office, we had some surveillance to do. He said he’d be there. I was in a strange mood. I had been shot at today and I saved a man from prison, but I had mixed feelings. I needed to put up a tiny shell around my feelings to get through playing detective, not take cases so hard.

I drove back to my office and gathered my camera equipment as Buck strolled in. He asked what we were up to, and I said I wanted more proof of Ralph’s indiscretions, just to be iron clad in our accusations as to his screwing around. I sat at my desk, called the pool place, and asked for Ralph. He came on. I reminded him who I was, and said the committee was considering his request to join, but needed some proof he was a member of the B&D club in Pontiac. I apologized but said they have to be careful to qualify our members. He said, no problem, he could go get a receipt from the club tonight since he was going there anyway, and would have it for me in the morning. I said that would work.

I looked to Buck and said we needed to take a trip out to Pontiac. I packed the camera gear, and we went out to the car. I stopped and said I had to call Penny to explain why I wasn’t going to be home right away. He laughed and said something about being pussy whipped. I said it was too bad he didn’t have a pussy whipper. He looked at me funny like and then laughed out loud.

I went off to the side of the parking lot and called Penny. She answered saying “Perverts are Us. How may I screw you?”

“I certainly hope you looked at caller I.D. or I’ll be a little pissed,” I said.

“Oh, sweetie, you are my only pervert. What do you want? I’m in the middle of having great sex with Eric.”

“Are you going to start that again?” I demanded. “I just called to say Buck and I are going to a B&D club tonight, and I’ll be a little late.”

I could hear her breathing, then she said, “And I don’t get to go? You can take me to a strip club in Vegas but not a bondage club here? That is so wrong.”

“I’ll make it up to you. We’ll go to a strip club this weekend, and we’ll even take our big son with us.”

“I’m sure Buck will love that.” She laughed. “So, what’s up for tonight?”

“I’m on Elma Flagg’s case, and Buck and I are going to get some pictures of hubby in action. I’m going to fry him good so Elma can take him for everything.”

“Wow, you’re mean. I like that. I just may give up Eric for you.” I could tell she was smiling wide. She said to be careful and hung up.

Sometimes she drove me crazy, but I didn’t know what I would do without her. I went back to Buck. He was making little whipping noises. I looked at him and said to stop it or Penny and I wouldn’t take him to a strip club that weekend. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. I said to get in the car, and we drove out.

We got to Pontiac just before 6 p.m. I said Ralph would probably head over there after he closed up the pool store at 5:30, so we could wait here for him. I had checked my Palm TX map program for the address of the B&D club, and we were across the street from it. We sat waiting. After about ten minutes a Pontiac police cruiser pulled up next to us and rolled down his window asking what our business was.

I got out of the car, came around, showed him my I.D., and explained we were waiting for a stray husband to show up to get him on camera. I also told him about our finding out the club does front for sex. He said they were watching the club, too, which was why they kept an eye out for strangers in the area. I told him about Trapper and his connection with someone in the Pontiac police and what I knew from my case. He thanked me and said to be extra careful, the club had some powerful connections. I said I was just after a little fish and wouldn’t rattle any cages. I gave him my business card, and they drove off.

I got back in the car, looked at Buck and said this could be an interesting night.

*

Chapter Ten

About fifteen minutes later Ralph drove up and parked in a no parking zone, dumb shit. I took out my HP M22 pocket camera and put it in my shirt pocket. I said to Buck, let’s roll. We got out of the car and went across the street as Ralph was walking up to the entrance.

“Ralph! Hold up,” I yelled, he turned with a stunned look not expecting someone to call his name in this neighborhood. He saw Buck and me, and got a smile on his face.

“What are you two doing here?” he asked.

“Well, this sounded like a great place on your recommendation, so we decided to check it out for our club’s future activities.” He bought it. This guy was really stupid.

He said to come on in, and we did. The lobby was ornate with gaudy wallpaper and antique furniture. We went up to a desk with a woman seated at it, dressed in leather so tight it made her breasts pop up like grapefruit. Ralph showed his card, and she checked it against her book. She smiled and asked if Buck and I had cards. Ralph said he invited us in to look the place over. She smiled again and gave us cards that said we were guests and that we were limited to basic functions of the club as printed on the back of the cards. I looked and there wasn’t much there. I didn’t care.

Ralph asked if Wendy was available and was told she was free. He motioned to us, and we followed. We went into a small room, and after a few minutes an attractive woman came in and seemed a bit surprised by all of us in the room. I said to ignore us as we were just observing. She said, no problem, and went to Ralph. She must have known him as she started to undress herself. She looked at us, and I said we liked to watch. She said, whatever, and proceeded to undress Ralph. I had my pocket camera in hand and was quietly snapping pictures as they did their business. I looked at Buck, and he was just drooling. I had enough watching and had plenty of pictures to provide to any lawyer. We excused ourselves and went out quickly. We went out the front door and were heading to my car just as the same patrol car came around. He stopped and asked if I caught my little fish.

I said, “Hook, line and leather whips.” I showed him the preview pictures on my camera, and he said to have Trapper send them to Detective Lawson, his buddy in Pontiac. They must have checked after I mentioned Trapper. I said I would. He thanked me and drove off.

Buck and I got back in the car and headed towards Fraser. Buck was still a bit charged up from watching the Dominatrix work over Ralph.

“Let’s go to a strip club tonight,” he requested.

“Buck, Penny would be crushed if we went on our own. She wants to go, too, and I said we’d set aside the time this weekend. Go home and work the steam out exercising,” I said. “You know you can go by yourself if you really want to. I don’t have to hold your hand.”

“It wouldn’t be as much fun without my posse with me,” he lamented.

“Two more days, and we’ll all ride out for action.” I smiled. “OK?”

He said that would have to work, and we pulled into my office parking lot and went up to my office. I sat at the desk and fired up my computer as I pulled the SD card from my camera. I inserted it into the card reader and opened up the folder containing the pictures I took of Ralph. I copied them over to the computer and brought up the print program so I could make prints of them to show Elma. I ran off a copy of each picture, handing them to Buck as they came out. He sat snickering at them.

“You get them wet with drool, and you’re going to pay for the paper,” I joked.

“Elma’s not going to like these,” he said quietly.

“I know, Buck, but it has to be done, and there are still the deaths of his last two wives. I don’t want Elma to end up on a slab in the morgue,” I cautioned. “We get her away from him now, and it cuts his funds off. He’d have no reason to harm her.”

“Or all the more reason to,” Buck warned.

“Yeah, I had that in mind, too. We may have to lean on Ralphy boy a little, just to warn him what may happen to him should anything happen to Elma.”

Buck grinned. “Can I beat on him a little?”

“We’ll see,” I said with a smile. “Now go home so I can go see Penny and take out my frustrations on her.”

Buck got up and said he’d see me bright and early. After we all got back from Vegas, Buck went back to his job as security, watching cars. One day he had a run in with one of the owners of the security company and told him politely to shove his head up his ass. Buck quit. He didn’t really need the job, it was just a bit of extra cash to spend on his classic cars that he restored. Buck was retired and on a nice pension from General Motors before they had money problems, so Buck had an income allowing him to bug me now. I had no problem with that. He was a big help to me, and he was scary looking. Great for intimidating suspects.

Buck said his good-byes and left. I just sat for a bit staring at the pictures that would either bring Elma’s world crashing down or give her relief. I’d find out in the morning. I closed up the office, putting the pictures in my folder, and went out to my car. I drove home and found Penny in the kitchen trying to bake, I think. There was smoke everywhere. I thought the house was burning down at first.

“What in the world are you doing?” I asked, choking from the smoke.

“I was trying to bake cookies, but now we have charcoal briquettes for the grill.” She looked so sad it broke my heart.

“I don’t expect you to be a great cookie maker, I usually don’t eat them anyway,” I said, trying to comfort her. She dropped her head on my chest as we stood in the smoky room. “Let’s open up some windows and go out to the backyard for a while.”

“I’m supposed to have a baker on the show tomorrow, and I wanted to be able to say I could bake. I guess I won’t say anything about my abilities to make hockey pucks.”

We sat on the picnic table watching the smoke slowly stream out the windows, and I said to her, “What to see some dirty pictures?”

She looked at me strangely as I showed her the photos I took of Ralph. I had blurred out anything obscene on the pictures with the computer so as not to offend Elma. Penny turned the pictures this way and that and was studying them. 

“Are you learning anything?” I asked.