by Frost, E J
There it is again: the need of the innocent to justify themselves. I don’t actually believe MacDonald had anything to do with Black’s death, but if this were a murder investigation, and if I was a homicide cop, my Spidey-sense would be tingling.
I note down the times while Emily watches, seemingly fascinated. She’s been such a good girl this morning, bubbly and chatty at breakfast as she wheedled her way into listening to my interviews, sweetly submissive since we’ve returned to the room, even getting permission before coming up on the couch to sit with me, although I haven’t put her in High Protocol.
“Recruitment sounds like a high-pressure job,” I observe, to give MacDonald an opening.
“It is. Long hours and a lot of travel. But it’s addictive. I got into it through a summer internship. I was in the mailroom, if you can believe it, but before the summer was out, I knew I wanted to be an executive recruiter. I changed my major, got a business degree, and got damn lucky when Bill hired me out of a call center. That was a sweat shop, let me tell you.”
I’m not interested in him telling me, not about that. Time to get him focused. “Mm-hmm. I understand that Mr. Black had a minor heart attack a few years ago. Were you aware of that?”
“Yes. He was off work for several weeks. Not that he stopped working. He wanted me to send him candidate profiles to look at while he was still in the hospital. Reggie put a stop to that, but she couldn’t get him to retire. None of us could.”
“Were you concerned about his health?”
“Not concerned, no. Bill seemed pretty healthy. But our travel schedule is no joke. Bill got bronchitis while we were in Hong Kong last year and it took him weeks to shake it. I think he had to go on three different courses of antibiotics. I remember lying in a hotel room in New York listening to him cough through the wall. He coughed all night. The kind of travel we do, it takes its toll. Great frequent flyer miles, though.”
“Yup, I appreciate those, too.” I chuckle, to play along and build rapport, before I throw in one of the hard questions. “Other than antibiotics, did you ever see Bill take any medications?”
“Sure. Bill took painkillers pretty frequently. Sitting in front of a computer, in airplane seats and conference rooms, running for taxis, it does a number on your back. I always drove when we traveled because Bill didn’t like driving when he was on Oxy.”
“What about non-prescription pills?”
“What, like drugs? Sure, Bill toked. It’s not illegal now, you know.”
I know. “Did Bill mention taking anything while you were in Mexico? Oxy or something he got on the boat?”
“Yes, actually. He said the cruise hadn’t been as relaxing as he’d hoped, which didn’t surprise me since he’d done four pitches in eight days. Not really a vacation, is it?”
“Not much of one,” I agree. “What did he say he’d taken?”
“I don’t think he said. Just that the cruise hadn’t been relaxing and he planned to spend his last two nights on the cruise really chilling out with a little pink friend. That’s what he called it, a pink friend.”
I note that. “Did you know what the pink friend was?”
“I assumed it was Opana, you know, oxymorphone? He said he wanted to relax.”
I write down both names. I’m going to need to brush up on my opiates to keep up with these Left Coasters.
“Where would he have gotten the pink friend? Did he have a prescription?”
“I doubt it. I mean, he was in Mexico. He could have gotten it on a street corner.”
Maybe, but could he have gotten it back on the boat? “Uh-huh. So, he said he wanted to spend the last two nights relaxing. Did he mention anything else he was going to do? Any other activities on the boat?”
“No, not really. I know there weren’t any other stops. The ship was sailing straight from Puerto Vallarta to L.A. There was a big dinner on board the last night. Bill said he was looking forward to that, and the food had been really good this time, a big improvement over the last time.”
“He’d been on this cruise before?” I ask. Mrs. Black didn’t mention that, and neither did the cruise people. I’ll have to ask them to check their records.
“Three, maybe four years ago. I only remember it because I prepared the presentation for his pitch to the cruise line, G and M. They were looking for a guy with a lot of landsat experience.”
“This cruise line is called Pink Pearl,” I tell him.
“Is it? Well, maybe they changed hands or rebranded or something. I’m sure it was the same cruise. Bill definitely mentioned how much the food had improved.”
“The cruise line, G and M, did they have any specialty?”
“What, like the Disney boat with Mickey Mouse running around? No, not that I remember. I didn’t do the research on that pitch. Bill’s other assistant did.”
“Was that Chrisjean Olsen?” I ask.
“No. Chris only came on board with us eighteen months ago. Before her there was Haley, and, before her, Melissa, who I think was Bill’s assistant at the time. It was a revolving door with him.”
Was it now? “Why’s that?”
“Bill had high standards. I’m not trying to be sexist here but women in this job?” He makes a soft huffing noise. Emily leans towards the phone with a frown. “You have to devote yourself to it. It’s your wife and your girlfriend and your best friend and your dog. Sometimes I travel three weeks out of four. Try doing that with kids. It just isn’t a job for someone who has a family. Really, I never understood how Reggie put up with it, but that woman’s a saint and a martyr.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers and try not to think about Mrs. Black. “I understand Chrisjean had to leave the trip because of a family emergency. Does that happen often?”
“Yeah. Chris’s daughter’s a diabetic. She doesn’t manage her illness very well. She had some kind of emergency, and Chris had to fly home early. This isn’t the first time, either. About six months ago, Bill called me on the way to the airport, told me to grab my passport and a change of clothes, and jump the next flight to Hong Kong. Chris had to turn around at the airport. Bill was furious. I thought he was going to fire her after that, but they patched it up.”
I note this all down, my pen scrawling across the pages. “Did he say anything about firing her after she left this time?”
“Yeah. He was pretty pissed. But that was Bill. He’d flare and blow off steam and then he’d be fine a few days later. He was a great guy to work for. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“Thank you, Jay. You’ve been a great help. Good luck with your promotion.”
He chuckles a little. “I’ve got big shoes to fill, but thanks. I hope the cruise company figures this out. It’s weird, food poisoning when Bill said how good the food was.”
“That’s why I’m investigating. We don’t want anyone else getting sick. Thanks again.”
After I wrap up the call, I sit back on the couch and hold my arm out to Emily. She snatches up my notepad and holds it against my chest as she snuggles to my side. “What were the clues, Daddy? Other than he’s a sexist pig.”
I chuckle and kiss her forehead. “You tell me, baby doll. What were the clues?”
“I’m not the PI, but the pink friend thing seems big.”
“It’s security consultant, and I think so, too. Except that the staff doctor told me that brick is usually yellow or white. Maybe they added some food coloring. Anyway, everything he said corroborates what Mrs. Black told me. Black took drugs to relax. He had a high stress job and maybe living a double life was stressful for him, too. He used marijuana and opiates to relax. Maybe he took the brick by mistake, thinking it was an opiate.”
“That would be awful. If he died because he took the wrong drug.”
“Yeah.” I stroke her hair. “Emily, you don’t use, do you?”
“Nothing stronger than Advil, Daddy,” she says.
“Good girl.” I take the notebook from her and read over th
e pages. “If Olsen left the cruise on Tuesday, and MacDonald flew back on Friday, Black was alone from Friday afternoon through Sunday on the boat. I’ve got to establish a timeline of what he did those last two days.”
Emily nestles into me and looks on as I flip the pages. “How will you do that?”
“Interviews with the ship staff. It’s the same personnel on our cruise as the one Black took. Hopefully, they’ll remember him. There’s CCTV footage from public areas on the ship that the cruise people are getting for me, which could help establish when he was out of his cabin, but there aren’t any cameras in the rooms, so if he stayed in his cabin the whole time, figuring out what he was doing is going to be a ball-ache.”
Emily nods against my shoulder. “Mr. MacDonald thought he might have gotten the drugs when he was off the ship. Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know. The cruise people say their security is super-tight, but they hired me because they’re afraid their own people might have breached it. While I’m on the boat, I’ll test it.”
“How, Daddy?”
“Well, one thing I’m going to do is pick up some brick while we’re in Cabo and try to get it back on the boat. That’ll be a good test of their security.”
“Won’t you get arrested if you’re caught? Or at least thrown off the ship?” She looks up at me with an anxious, little frown.
“No, sweetie. Captain Lopez knows what’s going on. They tell me she’s a veteran of nineteen years and totally reliable. She’ll step in if the security people catch the drugs. If they don’t, that might help me figure out whether the security people are in on it.”
“Wow,” Emily says.
I tap the tip of her nose with my notebook. “Wow, what?”
“This is so cool. It’s just like Magnum PI.”
Grinning, I shake my head at her and banish her to the bathroom before Chrisjean Olsen shows up.
* * *
In her four-inch stilettos, Chrisjean Olsen is taller than I am. Her crested Afro gives her another two inches, and I run my hand over my crew-cut self-consciously after I shake her hand and show her into the suite, not used to dealing with women I have to look up to.
She sits across from me on the couch, which at least eliminates her height advantage, declines coffee, tea, or water, and spreads her knees. She’s not showing me anything other than the inseam of her dark blue capri pants, but the pose catches at me. It’s a very masculine position. After being around Emily, who automatically goes into submissive postures when she’s with me, it’s jarring.
Not much else about Chrisjean Olsen is masculine, though. She’s got a fantastic rack, a double-D cup at a guess, that she carries well on her long, lean frame. Her bare arms swell with muscle at the shoulders. She’s not above showing off her assets, and her sleeveless, wrap top emphasizes each dip and curve. She doesn’t shove her tits under my nose, which gains her points, but I’m glad Emily isn’t in the room.
Olsen purses her full lips, glossed a vibrant purple, before she says, “I know you’ve spoken with Reggie and Jay. Did they tell you Bill and I were lovers? Because we weren’t.”
“No?” I ask neutrally.
“No. Check with the cruise company. We had separate cabins. We weren’t sleeping together.”
Emily and I have separate cabins, and we’re damn sure sleeping together, but I nod.
“Are you married?” I ask. She’s wearing a couple of rings, including a silver band on her left ring finger, but that might not mean anything.
“Civil union,” she says.
Ah, Black was the wrong gender for her to sleep with. “I understand you have a daughter with diabetes who became ill while you were on the cruise, which was why you had to leave early. I hope she’s okay.”
Olsen tips her head. “She is, thank you. Did Jay tell you Bill threatened to fire me if I left? He did. Bill threatened to fire me about once a month. It didn’t mean anything. That was just Bill’s way of venting. He was very happy with me.” Her black eyes flicker. “With my job performance.”
With more than her job performance, obviously, but they weren’t lovers. Despite her bulldog approach, I don’t think Olsen’s lying. “I understand you and Bill pitched to several telecommunication companies while you were in Mexico. How did those go?”
She leans forward and clasps her hands between her knees. “Why? Are you looking to poach our clients?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” Her dark pink tongue flicks out between those bright purple lips. “They went pretty well. Of the three Bill and I pitched together, we won two. Those bastards from KornFerry beat us out on the other one. Jay’s still waiting to hear on the pitch that he and Bill did together. I think that one’s iffy, personally.”
“Uh-huh. Mrs. Black mentioned that you went on this cruise with Mr. Black because you had contacts with the Mexican companies. Is that right?”
“Is that what she said?” Olsen sits back and crosses her legs, right ankle over left knee.
“Is she wrong?”
“No, Central America’s my market. But if you’re working for Pink Pearl, then you know that’s not why I was on that cruise, Mr. Logan.”
She stares straight at me. An alpha stare. And I realize that I’ve made the mistake I told Emily not to make. I didn’t come into this interview with a blank slate. I came into it with a fundamental assumption: that Bill Black was a top.
But looking at the woman across from me, I realize he wasn’t.
“You were Black’s top,” I say.
She nods. “For the past two years.”
“But you weren’t lovers,” I phrase it as a statement, but one she needs to confirm.
“No. I told you.”
She did, but not having sex with your bottom is still a tough concept for me. Still, unlike Reggie Black, she’s not behaving in any way like a widow, which makes it more feasible they weren’t romantically involved. “Without sticking my nose where it’s not wanted, if you told Mrs. Black that, it might give her some relief. She’s grieving not just because she lost her husband, but because she thinks he was cheating on her.”
“Your nose isn’t wanted there. What Bill and I did outside work hours was nobody’s business but ours. Bill never cheated on his wife that I know of, but if she thinks that little of the man she was married to, that’s her problem.”
That sounds like a justification to me. I’m sure the dynamics of being Black’s top, when both were married to other people, and when they were employer and employee, must have required a lot of justification. But she’s right, it’s none of my business. “Getting back to the cruise, were you and Bill active on the boat?”
“Active? Do you mean, did we scene?”
“Yes.”
“We did,” she confirms.
“Were the scenes public?”
“No. I don’t know if you know anything about the ship, but there are public and private dungeons.”
I nod. I’ve studied the boat’s layout.
“We used private dungeons several nights. The nights we didn’t have pitches the next day. Doing scenes was exhausting for Bill. He did it to release tension after a pitch, not when we were getting ready for one. When we were prepping, he was all business.”
“What scenes did you do?”
“How does that have one damn thing to do with Bill getting food poisoning?”
I scratch under my chin with my pen. “I’m not convinced he got food poisoning. I’m investigating a number of avenues.”
“Such as?”
“Can we continue going through your time on the cruise? I don’t want to color your recollections.”
“Okay, but I want to know at the end of the interview.”
“Agreed,” I say. “So, what scenes did you do?”
“Sensory deprivation and whipping. That was Bill’s thing. The last night before I left, we did cock-and-ball torture as well. It was a very intense scene but we’d had a very bad day with those KornFerry dickheads
gloating all over us.”
“Uh-huh. Was it just you and Bill during these scenes, or were there other participants?”
“On that last night, another couple participated.”
“Do you remember their names?”
She shrugs. “Sar and Rod. I remember because Bill and I laughed about the guy’s name. I don’t know if those were their real names.”
“Last names?”
“They didn’t say.”
I make notes. The cruise line should have records. “How did you meet Sar and Rod?”
“They were seated at our table for the first formal dinner. Bill got talking with them. He had the most amazing knack for getting people to talk to him. He got the whole story of their lives before the crème brûlée arrived.”
I think of my little girl, sitting in the bathroom, who has the same knack. Maybe it’s a submissive thing.
“Did you arrange to scene with them, or did they just show up while you were doing the scene?”
“Bill arranged it. In the private rooms, you have to. People can’t just wander in and out.”
Which leads me to a question Olsen is not going to like. “Do you know if Bill did scenes with Sar and Rod, or anyone else, after you left the boat?”
She gives me a long, cold stare. “Why?” she asks flatly.
That’s not a no.
“I’m trying to reconstruct his last days on the cruise. If he was with someone, I need to talk with them.”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but, yes, I think he did. Bill was, well, the power exchange between us was challenging. He was a difficult, willful sub. I’d planned . . . hmm, it doesn’t matter what I’d planned when he got back, now, does it?”
No, but that she’d clearly planned to punish him tells me a lot. “Did you see him after he got back?”
She shakes her head. “He checked in with me at six the way he was supposed to, but he had plans with Reggie, so the next time I’d have seen him, outside of work, was our usual Tuesday night play session.”
