by Uc Amalu, Jr
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jay walked through the station house doors and
spotted Ben sitting at his desk, the telephone glued to
his ear and a fed up look on his face. A small laugh
escaped him, he knew just how frustrating it was trying to
pry information from some uninterested receptionist or
witness over a phone. He continued across the room and
pulled the chair away from his desk, seating himself he
leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his
head.
"So you’ll fax me copies of the bar and restaurant tabs?"
Ben looked up from his papers and rolled his eyes at
Jay. "And they definitely stayed from the seventeenth to
the nineteenth? Can you fax me their check in and out
times also?"
Jay made the shape of an L with his finger and his
thumb and held it up to his forehead. Ben nodded his
head and continued with his phone call.
"Okay, okay… That would be appreci-ated. Thank you. Ok,
sure. Bye."
The receiver made a loud clunk when Ben slammed it
down on the cradle. His eyebrows raised and his lips
pursed with frustration. Just when he thought his people
skills were develop-ing for the better, he comes across
somebody who makes him want to scream abuse down
the phone line. He directed his attentions back over to
Jay and saw the amused look on his face.
"Don’t be a smart ass, Jayy or I just might send you
down to Bayside to have a nice little chat with her, I’m sure
there are no words to describe her lack of intelligence!"
"That helpful, eh?"
"Helpful! I’d be surprised if the woman even remembers
my name, let alone what I phoned her for."
"So what’s the deal with Bayside any-how? New lead?"
Jay asked.
"Nah, not really. Just covering all my bases, leaving no
stone unturned… you know the drill." Ben slipped the
sheets of paper into a cardboard jacket on his desk and
then returned to his conversation. "So, did you get
anywhere with our friends down at the Wellness Clinic?"
"I sure as hell did… I even got a name for our Jane Doe." A
proud grin tugged at Jay’s lips, the excitement bubbling
within him was about to explode.
"No kidding? Gees Jayy, that’s fantastic. So who was
she?"
"Twenty-one year old Kylie-Anne Saunders. No next of kin
known as yet, but now we have a name for her we can run
her details through the computers and see what we come
up with."
Jay pulled his notebook out and thumbed through it,
jogging his memory of all the details he’d written down.
"Apparently, she was a client of good old Dr. Sugars,
scheduled in for a scrape out next week, or so Marla told
me."
"And what did you think of her? Odd?"
"I believe we have found the Ice Queen of Showsdale! Cool
and collected but definitely not impenetrable."
"Don’t tell me you cracked her?" asked Ben, more
impressed with each detail Jay was feeding him.
"I wouldn’t say cracked, but melted for sure. A few more
visits and I am positive I could crack her, though." He said,
as if he was under the impression that Ben was offering
him a challenge. "Gotta take these things steady, steady,
catchy monkey," he went on.
"Kudos where they’re due Jayy. Well done," said Ben, his
hands clapping the air in mock applause.
Carrying on with the game of station house charades,
Jay leaned forward in his chair and took a bow. "Thank
you, thank you…"
"So what else did you get from them? Anything of value?"
"Basically they gave me a run down on their procedures,
yada, yada, yada…" Jay thumbed through his notebook
some more. "There is one thing Ben, I don’t know that it
means anything, so don’t go getting all flippity over it."
"What is it?" Ben interrupted him.
"It’s about Anna."
"Anna? What has she got to do with any of this?"
"Like I said, it’s probably nothing but being the thorough
detectives that we are…"
"For God’s sake, Jayy, would you just spit it out!"
"She was the counsellor for both vics."
Jay stared at Ben, waiting to gauge his reaction.
"And?"
"And she may have some vital informa-tion for us, she
was inside their heads, pokin’ around and listenin’ to their
dirty little secrets. If anyone knows about these girls, it’s
probably her."
"Bloody hell, Jay. She’s a counselor, not a psychiatrist."
"Yeah I know that. All I’m sayin’ is that she may know
something that could help us figure this whole mess out.
I figured you might wanna handle this one?"
Ben bit his lip and sucked air back through his teeth; he
picked up a pencil and began tapping it loudly against his
desk.
"Look, Ben, if you ain’t up to it…"
"No, I’ll do it. Just give me time to work out the best way
to approach her on this, would ya, Jay?"
"Sure thing buddy, just don’t leave it too long."
"Yeah, I understand." Ben threw his pencil down and
shook his head, not looking forward to the task he had
been set. "I’ll drop in and see her tonight, how’s that
sound?"
Jay understood what he was asking him to do and he
knew it was not an easy thing to expect of him, but he
was a detective and his personal life had to come second
when he was working in that capacity. "Great! Glad we
have that sorted.
‚Getting back to the Ice Queen and Dr. Sours," Jay
steered the conversation back to the Wellness Clinic, "I
have to agree with ya, I think they’re hiding something."
"Any ideas on what?"
"No, but I am sure as hell that whatever it is, it runs deep.
I do know that the good Doctor is cracking under the
strain of questioning though. She lost her composure
during question-ing and basically ordered Marla to tell me
whatever I wanted to hear. By the time I had finished down
there today, I got the feeling that Marla wanted to spill her
guts big time. Wouldn’t be surprised if I get a phone call
soon." Jay threw his notebook on the desk. "But time
will tell I guess."
"I guess," sighed Ben, his mind still preoccupied with
Anna.
"How bout you? How was your visit to the number
cruncher’s? I bet that was a barrel of laughs?"
Ben was a million miles away; Jay knew what he was
thinking. "Earth to Ben, come in Ben…"
"Huh, what? Sorry Jay, where were we?"
"Focus man," said Jay, wondering whether it would have
been better to have kept his mouth shut and spoken with
Anna himself. No, that would have felt like he was going
behind Ben’s back. At least this way the cards were all on
the table and they both knew what was going on. They
were a team and needed to work together if these
murders were ever going to be solved. He trusted Ben and
knew that he would do his job, he was an A class detective
/>
and Jay knew that he would take it all in his stride. The
timing was pretty crappy, with Anna wanting the divorce
and all. Unfortunately homicide causes inconvenience and
there was nothing could be done about it. The cold, hard
fact was that Ben needed to pull himself together and get
on with his job. And his life, Jay thought.
"Yeah, the accountants," Ben switched back on. "It turns
out that Tessa was having an affair with Laura Beaumont’s
husband, Donald."
"Wow, did ya get the juice?" Jay’s enthusiasm peaked.
"Not much juice to it, really. Laura found out about the
affair, confronted her husband, he ended it and life goes
on!"
"Do either of them look good for her murder?"
"I’m pretty confident Laura had no part in anything, but
her husband I’m not so certain about. The way he came
barging in here earlier screaming and jumping up and
down at me about upsetting his wife with my questions?
He’s got a pretty good temper on him."
"Gees, what a hero. First he screws around on his wife and
then he jumps down your throat for causing her
problems! What a chump."
"They’ve both got a fairly rock solid alibi though. They were
at an accountancy conference in Bayside. If you can take
notice of the nitwit I was on the phone to just before, they
were there all weekend. She’s supposed to be faxing me
receipts of their room and restaurant charges."
"So, where does that leave us?"
Ben shrugged his shoulders and began toying with his
pencil again. "Right back where we started, I guess."
"We seem to be great at working out who didn’t kill em,"
Jay said.
"Yeah, now all we gotta do is rule out the other ninty-nine
point nine percent of the population and we’ll have our
killer."
"That’s if he doesn’t die of old age first!" cried Jay. "He
could end up like the zodiac killer… a mystery forever."
"We’ll find our killer, Jayy. We just got to keep digging,"
Ben tried injecting some positivity into the topic.
"Digging? I’ll be a damn archaeologist by the time we dig
this bugger up."
Ben was unable to hold his laughter back.
"What’s so funny?" Jay asked, staring quizzically at Ben.
"I just had a really amusing mental image of us at the age
of sixty with a pick axe and shovel, fossicking around in a
bare stretch of desert." A broad grin was plastered over
Ben’s face.
Jay soon joined in laughing and their frustrations were
overridden with a new zest for the case.
"Augie send you that report yet?" asked Ben.
"Yup, still waiting on the tox and trace results to come in,
but so far it’s looking nearly identical to Tessa Hunt."
"Was he able to determine the weapon used to mutilate
her?"
"Not a hundred percent, sure. But he’s betting on a
surgical instrument of some description, possibly a
scalpel."
"Oh great, our perp is graduating to better and sharper
instruments. Just what we need to hear."
"What are ya talkin’ about?" asked Jay.
"Well, Tessa was cut up with some sort of serrated blade,
the patterns indicated that. There were ridges present on
all the incisions they weren’t smooth and clean."
"Just what we need, a killer who is stepping up his game
and two cops who can’t even catch him in his infancy!"
Jay scoffed. He yawned and stretched out his arms
before slapping them down on his desk. "So how was
your head this morning?"
"Not too bad actually. I was expecting far worse. How
about yours?"
"I sure didn’t feel like no blooming flower in spring time,
I’ll tell ya that much," a smile appeared on Jay’s face.
"So what are you smiling for?" asked Ben, his eyes
lighting up.
"Remember that cute waitress?"
Ben nodded. "No way! You didn’t? Again?"
"I sure as shit did, buddy." Jay’s boast echoed through
the station house.
"You charmer. How did you manage that? Last I saw of her,
she called you an asshole and stormed off."
"This boy just got the moves," purred Jay, using his best
homeboy accent. "Trouble is…"
"What?" Ben asked a little too quickly.
"Well… I think I might actually like this chick."
"Really? And how did you come to that conclusion?"
"I didn’t ask her what her name was."
"And that means you like her? How?" Ben seemed
confused as to his logic.
"Ya see, if I really don’t care to much about a broad, I’ll ask
for her name and number so I can call on her again,
y’know. As a casual fling, something to fall back on."
"Go on" said Ben, his interest mounting.
"But with the ones I really like, I don’t get the details off
em. That way I can’t use em. Do ya see what I’m
sayin ,Ben?"
"Sorta."
"Bugger ya man, I care about em enough to not wanna
use em for sex is what I’m getting’ at!" Jay looked away
from Ben, embarrassed about putting his feelings on
display like that.
"Oh, yeah. Now I understand." Ben stared at the floor for a
second before asking, "So what are you going to do about
it?"
"What do ya think I’m gonna do about it?"
"Buy her some flowers and go see her?"
"Not likely," cried Jay. "I’m gonna head back to Bluey’s
and show her what she’s missin’. That’s what I’m gonna
do."
"Great," said Ben. "I’m not entirely certain that your
approach will be a success. But then I didn’t think you
would have gotten her into bed last night either, after the
way you had insulted her to begin with. I wish you the
best of luck with that little endeavour Jayy. Go get em
tiger!"
Jay smirked a little and shot a playful wink Ben’s way.
"Thanks buddy. Trust me, when she sees me walk into
Bluey’s tonight, it’ll knock her socks off."
"I’m sure it will be." Ben said, looking as though he was
trying his best to hold back his laughter. "I can just
imagine the reception you are going to get from a woman
you insulted, picked up, slept with and the left this
morning without so much as asking for her name, let
alone her number! I think you’re on a winner there Jay,
good luck."
"It’s in the bag, Benny boy!" Jay chuffed.
Rising from his chair, Ben stretched out his arms and
said, "It’s been a long day, think I’ll get going."
"You ok, Ben?" Jay asked. "I didn’t mean to be to heavy
with you before… about Anna, I mean."
"Yeah, I’m fine. Just a lot going on you know. I’ll get to
Anna, just trust me on this one alright, Jayy?"
"Sure thing," he smiled at him and leaned forward in his
chair.
"You heading off to Bluey’s then?"
"Pretty soon, just got a phone call or two to make, then
I’m outta here. See ya tomorrow then?"
"You can count
on it." Ben waved and walked out the door.
Jay watched him leave the room and head down the
hallway. When he was out of sight he turned and picked
up the phone.
"Yeah, patch me through to Intel would ya?"
"Hey Paula, how are ya, darl? It’s Jayy. Listen, I need you
to run a check for me. It’s a hush job and I need you to go
as deep and as far back as you can. If it’s hidden, find it, if
it’s sealed… unseal it. You catch my drift?"
He looked behind him again to make sure that Ben was
nowhere around. He didn’t want him coming back in,
right in the middle of his probing around. Satisfied that
the coast was clear, he returned to his phone call.
"The name’s Jameson, Anna." Jay spelled the surname
out so as there were no mistakes. "That’s right, no I. If you
find any-thing, anything at all call me on my mobile would
ya, darl? Yeah, yeah… I owe ya one. Understood. Now
remember, this is just between you and me, right? You’re
a real sweetheart, Paula, thanks. When can ya have that for
me? Excellent, talk to ya then."
Jay replaced the phone on the cradle and flopped back
in his chair, his gut telling him he was onto something.
