The Mystery of Jessica Benson

by Laurence, C. K.

  “She’s not a masseuse, she’s a trainer.” Karen shot back. “More like a physical therapist than a lap dancer, Will.”

  “Masseuse, trainer, lap dancer—yeah, yeah, yeah. With her looks, she probably does a lot more massaging than she does therapizing.” A leer punctuated his sentence.

  Karen smacked his arm and said, “Pig!”

  They nodded to their hosts, thanked them for their hospitality, and headed out and back to business.

  At Will’s insistence, they attempted a shortcut through the locker room to Luke Arnold’s office. They were stopped by two security men warning that no media people were allowed inside. A couple of months before there had been a controversy because of female reporters in the locker room. Some of the more ambitious media women, looking for exclusives, had walked into the shower area while the players were still showering. The entire team revolted, so the invasion of shemonsters was quashed. The vault of nudity would remain sacrosanct, and all reporters, regardless of gender, were required to wait in the media center for player interviews. Cops, however, had never been figured into the mix so the detectives’ gold shields gained them immediate admittance.

  Many of the guys were already gone, but several lingered — some clothed, some not. One or two of them wrapped towels around their hips in deference to Karen but most stayed defiantly naked. One of the nude players got into Karen’s face. “You lookin’ for some action, sweet cheeks?” he smirked.

  Karen was caught off guard but refused to be bested. She stared into his face and then let her eyes travel down the length of his body, then back to his face. She shrugged and said, “Gee, and I always thought big hands were the clue to big dicks. What a disappointment.” The player looked stunned for only a moment, then burst out laughing. “You okay, girl! You got da funk.”

  “Surely there must be a more unobtrusive route to Arnold’s office,” Karen complained to Will while trying to avoid eye contact with the remaining players.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re a real shrinking virgin, aren’t you doll?”

  “It’s violet...shrinking violet you ass. I hope the players aren’t as uncomfortable about this as I am.”

  “Aw, butch up.”

  Suddenly Karen froze. Kyle was coming out of the showers, a towel hung around his neck and he was fastening another around his hips. He flipped his head back, sweeping the wet hair out of his face. His intense blue eyes set on Karen’s and he, too, stopped short. Too quickly he said, “Uh, officers, I assume you’re here to see me?”

  “Never , pretty boy,” Will mocked. “You assume wrong, anyway. We’re just passing through for the view, so don’t give us a second thought. Carry on.”

  Kyle hesitated. “How about let’s not play games today, huh, Kaufman? I’m wiped out from the one I just played on the field. Just give me five minutes to get dressed, and I’ll meet you outside the door.”

  “No,” Karen protested. “Really, we’re not here for you this time. We need to see Luke Arnold and were told this was the quickest route to his office.”

  Will shot an icy glare at Karen. “He’s not entitled to a copy of our itinerary. Goddammit! Stop pandering to this asshole already.”

  Karen shook her head at him and muttered that they were wasting time and should get going. Will nodded grudgingly then turned toward Kyle, eyes blazing at the shaken player. He spat, “Don’t get too comfortable, hot shot. Your turn’ll be coming real soon. And I promise, you’ll know when we’re coming for you!” Kyle stood silently watching them leave, his jaw on the ground.

  Once out of the locker room Will stopped and reached for Karen’s arm. She turned to him as he hissed: “I’m warning you, don’t get too attached to that piece of shit. He’s guilty as they get and eventually I’m gonna take him down!”

  Luke Arnold was just unlocking the door to his office when the detectives arrived. His office was small, cluttered, and smelled of sour sweat. Pictures, most of them off kilter, of the security guard with various players and other celebrities lined the walls. Stacks of old newspapers rose from the floor. A few footballs filled a basket off to the side and a multi-line telephone sat on a cluttered desk.

  “Oh, detectives,” he said. “Um, you’re gonna have to hold on awhile. There are players still in the compound and the coach’s press conference is running late. You wanna just have a seat here and I’ll get back to you when I’ve got the hatches ‘battened down,’ as they say?” He peered nervously from Will to Karen and gave them a weak smile.

  “We’ll just be taking up a minute of your time, Mr. Arnold, and since we’re here right now, how about let’s just get this over with. That way we’ll both be out of your way quickly and you can, ‘so to speak, batten the hatches down.’”

  Luke looked as though he had been stung by a wasp. “But, uh, I still have work to do here. I can’t just sit down and talk to you people. I told you when you called I have demands on my time around here after a game.”

  “We understand. We won’t be long,” Karen interrupted. “Just answer our questions and you can get back to work.” She knew they had an edge on him. He was distracted by his job and that was a plus. His guard was clearly down. “If you cooperate we can all get out of here a lot quicker.”

  Luke sputtered, but finally dropped into the chair behind his desk and mumbled something unintelligible.

  “What’s that you’re saying?” Will asked.

  “Nothing. Uh, I was just talking to myself, I guess. So I’m sitting down now and I’ll do whatever I can to cooperate.”

  “Good, good,” Will said. Then sarcastically, “Policemen are your friends. So, how about you tell me why you forgot to mention that you’d had an argument with the deceased the night before she got that way.”

  Luke’s eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat, and made a revolting noise through his nose. Then he shook his head as if clearing it and turned to the small refrigerator behind his desk. He grabbed a bottle of water, gulped half of it down, then set it on his desk. He hesitated again, picked the bottle back up and finished it. Finally, he asked if Karen and Will wanted water or soda. Both officers shook their heads.

  “Whew! You get right to the point, don’t you? Yeah, we had a disagreement, Jessica and me, so to speak, but it was no big deal or nothing. How’d you know about it anyway?”

  “We’re trained investigators. It’s what we do,” Will replied. He turned to Karen and said, “Maybe we ought to take him down to the station to finish our little talk. He’s asking too many questions and not supplying enough answers.”

  Karen nodded. Her reasoning might be different, but the bottom line was to somehow get to the truth. Will’s thrust was finding anything he could to destroy Kyle, and she felt sure that whatever they learned would clear him.

  “Hey, no. I’ll answer you whatever you want to know. It’s just that...”

  “It’s just that nothing,” Will snapped. “We questioned you once before and you failed to give complete disclosure. That doesn’t sit right with me and my partner and about now I got zero patience for your sputtering. So, what was the fight about?”

  Luke picked up a pen and started tapping it on his desk. He was making funny noises in his throat, not exactly choking, more like scratching. Finally he put the pen down and said, “Okay, okay!” and blurted out the exact story Kyle related to Karen the day before.

  “So you’re saying that Ms. DiAngelo and the deceased were doing the wild thing and you caught them. You don’t think that’s important enough to tell us, but you go and tell Sands and his buddy, who according to them knew nothing until they talked to you. Is that correct?”

  “Yes sir. Well, no sir. I didn’t go tell them. They came to me about it. But they were real shocked when I told them Jessica and Gloria were both lezzies!”

  “And what about Gloria,” Karen questioned. “Did you ever discuss this with her?”

  “No m’am. Her and me don’t get along so well.”

&
nbsp; “And it never occurred to you that this might be relevant to this case?” Will prompted. “That maybe you should have said something when we spoke to you the first time?”

  “Oh, God! I was real nervous that first time the cops, uh, detectives talked to me. This whole mess has me, you know, upside down all the time. I mean, I’m used to dealing with the players’ problems — drugs, driving drunk, beating up on their girlfriends and their wives — but, damn! None of them’s ever been charged with murder before.”

  “No one’s been charged with murder or anything else yet, Luke,” Karen said. “But if you want to help Kyle, you’ve got to tell us everything you know, not just what you think we need to hear. So let’s go over this again and make sure you haven’t forgotten anything else.”

  He blinked his eyes a couple of times and then nodded at her. “Well, I don’t know if this is anything, but, um, Tyrell Utley, uh, he was pretty friendly with Jessica too. I seen them hanging around here sometimes when Kyle wasn’t around.”

  “‘Hanging around’ doesn’t really tell us anything. Two people can talk...”

  “Oh, they weren’t just talking, m’am. One time when I was in real early, I saw her drop Tyrell in the parking lot by his car. And that smooch he gave her before she left, well, you don’t have to be a genius to know when people are getting it on, if you get what I’m saying here. Man oh man. I thought Utley had some set of balls — uh, ‘scuse me m’am. — what with the bad blood between him and Kyle on the field and all. And Jessica, well, she was just Jessica, I guess. I see a lot around this place and just keep my trap shut. My job is to watch out for the players and that’s what I do. Up till now that’s worked real good for me, and them.”

  After a short silence Will started up again. “Withholding information in a criminal case is an obstruction of justice, which is a crime itself. I’d hate to have to arrest a security guard for just doing his job. So let’s sum it all up now. You told Sands all about his girlfriend’s little romp with another woman but not until Benson was dead. Did you ever mention to him that you saw Utley snuggling up to Jessica?”

  Karen bristled at Will’s insistence on incriminating Kyle, and Luke was falling right into the trap.

  “No, uh, it never came up. I mean, him and James got real worked up about what I said about Jess and Gloria. Okay, I never saw Jessica arguing with Ty. I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? Finding out who had grief with her, so you can figure out ‘who did it,’ so to speak. Only times I saw them two together — Tyrell and Jess that is — they looked to be real friendly. Nope, no fights there.”

  Karen sat forward in her chair. “It’s certainly gallant of you to want to avoid causing any further problems for Kyle Sands, but anyone Jessica Benson was seeing, good or bad, could be a link to her murderer. “Does Utley know you saw him with Jessica?”

  “Oh, jeez, no! Tyrell, he has a whopping bad temper, so I try and just stay clear of him. I once had to bail him out on a DUI in the middle of the night, and he treated me like I was the one who arrested him. He cursed me all the way to his house. Uh, uh, I try to stay out of his way. You’re not going to tell him you heard this from me are you?”

  Will flashed a quick smile at the rattled security guard. “Nah, we’ll try to leave your name out of it. Just you better keep your ear to the ground, and if anything else should come up, or you remember anything you might have forgotten to tell us — again — give us a call. Here’s my card. Don’t lose it.”

  He nodded to Karen, indicating he was ready to leave.

  “By the way, Lucas” Karen spoke up. “Can you tell us where we might find Gloria?”

  “Uh, she split right after the game. Said she had some personal business to attend to. I don’t expect her to be back around here anymore today. You could maybe try her at home.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Will scoffed. “C’mon Karen, let’s get outta here.”

  She stood and followed her partner out of the office. “What about DiAngelo?”

  “DiAngelo can wait for now. We’ll deal with her tomorrow. The team doesn’t usually practice on Mondays, but Raymond told me he’d be working them some extra this week because of the run for the playoffs. I wanna talk to Utley, too. We might as well knock it off for today and catch everyone fresh tomorrow. That good for you?”

  “Sure. I could use a break. I’ll meet you at the station in the morning. Eight-ish okay?”

  “The Coach told me the team would be practicing by 6:30 in the a.m. I wanna get a jump on things.”

  “So do you want to just meet at the team’s complex early?”

  “Yeah, six-ish. That work for you?”

  “Whatever you say. You’re the lead detective.”

  “Good. You bring the coffee.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  K yle was in his room on the computer catching up on emails. His inbox was filled with notes from fans all over the country expressing support, as well as a smattering of cranks telling him to ‘confess,’ ‘surrender,’ and at least one calling him a fornicator and damning him to hell. The phone rang, interrupting the quiet. Kyle picked it up, still staring at his computer.

  “Kyle? It’s me. Karen.”

  “Hey you. I tried to call you earlier, but no answer.” “Out chasing bad guys, and now I want to be with you.

  Are you alone?”

  “Yeah. The other girls already left.”

  Karen giggled. “You didn’t look much like you were in

  condition for anything but sleep when I last saw you.” “Not my finest moment, huh?”

  “Looked pretty fine to me. Really though, is it okay to

  come by?”

  “Stop asking goofy questions and get over here. I’ll call

  the front desk and let them know to send you right up.” “I’m on my way.”

  Karen arrived at the Blue Diamond fifteen minutes after they hung up. She started to go inside when a crowd over by what appeared to be a tennis demonstration toward the beach caught her eye. She was taken by the grace and ease of the tennis pro as he moved with a sixtyish woman, actually making her look much younger by his instruction. Karen asked the parking attendant what was going on and he explained that was the Diamonds' new resident pro. He had just moved down from Atlanta and they had been lucky to get him. Kyle Sands knew him and had been able to convince him to join the staff, along with a top salary. Kevin Zimmaro, handsome and well cut, was on a temporary court that had been set up in clear view of both Diamonds, and the beach as a promotion to introduce him. The woman he was working with just happened to be his mom, Vicki, who, in the attendant’s words, “Don’t look to be old enough to be no grown man’s mama.” He went on to say that it was working out well for the Diamonds because the media was hanging out day and night trying to catch Kyle Sands coming in or going out. Although they hadn’t been able to find him yet, Zimmaro was getting the best coverage a new tennis pro could ever hope for. Karen laughed, told him she’d be staying awhile, would he please park her car below, then headed inside. The concierge waved to her and said, “He’s waiting.” The penthouse elevator glided up in seconds and when the door whooshed open, Kyle was standing there.

  He smiled his sweet half smile and she melted into his arms. After the door closed the two were quiet for a moment, content to savor one another’s warmth. Suddenly he tightened his grasp on her, pulling her so close they were nearly one and kissed her with a deep, searing hunger.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Get me to your bed.” He answered by kissing her more deeply. When the kiss finally ended, he looked down at her flushed face and said, “I’ve been thinking about this since I saw you this afternoon. I’m not sure I can make it to the bedroom. Sofa’s closer.”

  “Sofa, bed. Just let’s get out of our clothes fast and into each other.” They made love in the living room, the shower, and even messed around a little on the kitchen table after a couple of bologna sandwiches. Now they cuddled, exhausted in his bed.

  “I’m an
old man, Karen. I hope you’re not expecting that kind of cosmic energy out of me all the time.” She laughed and told him she would, adding that she hoped he would always love her this thoroughly, as she would him.

  He hugged her to him, not wanting the moment to end. But he knew they had to get back to earth and into the dirt, so he finally brought himself to ask, “How was your visit with Luke? Did he confirm what I told you?”

  “He did, almost to the word, including the lurid details of the scene he’d witnessed between the women.” “I know what you mean. It’s almost as though he gets off talking about it. Keeps claiming it embarrasses him, but you can’t shut him up.”

  “There’s more, though,” Karen said. “It wasn’t just Jessica and Gloria.”

  “A third person? No, he would have told me if there

  were three of them. I’m sure of that.”

  “Uh, uh, it was just the two of them that time, although

  Arnold does seem to be peeping out of windows and through

  doorways more than most. He is so weird, Kyle. He gives me the

  creeps. Watching people and filing the information away for

  whatever gets his nut. Anyway, it seems he also saw Utley with

  Jessica on more than one occasion.”

  “Utley? Son of a bitch! Luke caught him screwing her,

  too?”

  “Not screwing, just ‘making out.’ He saw her drop Utley

  off at the complex early one morning as though they’d spent the

  night together, and I gather he witnessed other intimate

  rendezvous between the two. Naturally, he never said anything

  to either of them about it.”

  “Sounds like he’s working at single-handedly nailing my

  coffin shut. I’d have thought when James and I paid him that

  visit he would’ve spit this out. Maybe he needs a reminder from

  us that we don’t want anything else held back.”