Scottsdale Heat: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 1)

by B A Trimmer

  OK, so Alex had something belonging to a couple of pissed-off guys. With that information, a few things fell into place, but still not enough for me to figure out what was going on. My problem was I had no idea what they were talking about. Alex had been selling things but I didn’t know what they could be. My only chance was to tell them what I knew.

  “He sold them,” I said. My head was still throbbing. It made it hard to think clearly. “He’s been selling them all week. He sold some at a place called Meyer’s Jewelry and then he sold some at the Tropical Paradise. That was three days ago.”

  “That is false!” Smith shouted. “Without help, he could not sell all of them. Without Reinhardt that would be impossible.”

  “I saw him,” I said. “He made a sale at Meyer’s Jewelry and then he went to the Tropical Paradise. He met Reinhardt there. They went into the back room of the art gallery there and didn’t come out for ten or fifteen minutes. After he left, two big guys in a black Lincoln began following him. They’ve been following him ever since.”

  “You lie!” Smith screamed. “You cannot have heard of the name of Albert Reinhardt until I mentioned it just now. You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”

  “It’s true,” I protested. “I did see Alex make a sale to Reinhardt.”

  “Lying whore!” Smith’s face turned red as his anger mounted. He stood up and threw his chair against the wall where it shattered with a loud crash. His chest heaved as he began to pace back and forth. He walked toward me and brought his arm up to backhand me, but for some reason didn’t. He then resumed pacing in front of the bed.

  After thirty seconds he stopped. He seemed to have made up his mind about something. He walked over to a metal cabinet next to the broken printing press, opened the door, and slowly pulled out a knife. It was almost a foot long and had a thin pointed tip. There were ink spots of various colors all along the blade and handle.

  Smith stared at the knife for a moment, then turned, and looked at me. His eyes were open wide with excitement. His lips were parted in a cruel smile.

  He walked over to where I was shackled to the bed. Bending down, he took the knife and lightly held it against my nose. He held his face less than three inches from mine. As he spoke, I felt his hot, foul breath against my face.

  “Listen carefully, bitch,” he said. “Your life depends on your next answer. If you do not speak truly, my brother will harshly use you for his enjoyment, and I will cut you. I have not yet decided in which order these things will occur. Although it is most likely Reinhardt would have called me if he had possession of my property, I must know for sure. If you have truly seen Alexander Sternwood with Albert Reinhardt, then you will be able to describe to me what Albert Reinhardt looks like, no?”

  For a moment I panicked. My head throbbed and my mind was blank. I couldn’t remember what Reinhardt looked like.

  Come on, Laura. You saw him just three days ago. What did he look like?

  “Answer me!” Smith screamed. As I watched, he took the knife and slashed it across the top of the mattress. A deep cut opened in the mattress, less than three inches from where I sat. Little black spots danced in front of my eyes as I stared down at the mattress, horrified with the knowledge the knife could just as easily slice open my leg. Smith took the knife and pressed it against my stomach. I shuddered and took a deep breath.

  “He’s a little shorter than you and thin. He’s about sixty years old and has an athletic body, like he runs a lot. He has short blonde hair and a gray beard and moustache. And he had bloodshot watery eyes, like he had allergies or was on drugs or something.”

  Smith’s eyes opened wide. He started yelling in to Jones in some language I didn’t understand. Jones stood up, waved his arms, and yelled back. This went on for a full three minutes. They looked like a married couple having a spat.

  It stopped as quickly as it had started. Jones turned and walked out of the room. Smith looked at me for a moment then spoke. “We will now visit the Iceman, Albert Reinhart. If what you say is true and he has my merchandise, then Reinhardt will answer to me and you will live. We may even release you, after you amuse us and my brother pays you back for what you did to him. If what you have said is false, then I will come back and deeply slit your belly. I will then watch with joy as you bleed to death in front of me.”

  Smith then stalked out of the room. I heard the front door of the office open and close. After a minute, the engine of the Chrysler turned over and then grew faint as the car pulled out of the lot.

  Jeez, I hate it when this happens.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and my whole body began to shake. At times like this, I think I should work in a beauty salon or maybe at the library. I’d be good at that stuff. Nobody at the library threatens to gut you like a fish if you tell them they owe a three-dollar fine for an overdue book.

  ~~~~

  It took me almost five minutes before I could think again. When my heart had slowed to a fast trot, I looked down at the handcuff locked to my wrist. Out of desperation, I yanked hard to see if I could pull my hand out. I was rewarded with a bolt of pain as the cuff bit into my wrist.

  It reminded me of a Stephen King novel I had once read. It was about a woman who was also handcuffed to a bed. As I recalled, before she could slip the cuff off, she had to slice off part of her thumb with a piece of broken glass. I hoped I could get myself free without having to resort to that.

  By lifting the mattress, I could see the other end of the cuff was securely attached to the bed frame. I swung my legs around and stood up. I wrestled off the mattress and took a good look at the frame. Disappointment hit me, as I saw the frame was a solid piece of welded iron. It didn’t have an opening, a gap, or any way to simply unbolt it. The bed frame itself was too big and heavy to just drag it out of the building.

  OK, let’s go to plan B.

  My problem was I didn’t have a plan B. I didn’t know how long they would be gone. If they decided I knew too much, they might come back and finish me off before finding Reinhardt. Thinking about that made my heart kick back into high gear again.

  I looked around the room. If I could find a metal bar, maybe I could pry the cuff off the bed. The bar would have to be thin enough to get between the cuff and the frame, but strong enough not to bend when I put my weight behind it.

  I pulled the bed across the concrete floor toward the old printing press. As soon as the heavy bed started moving, it made a deafening screeching sound. Ignoring the noise, I scanned the broken machinery, hoping to find some sort of metal rod. I spotted one piece that might work, but it was securely bolted to the body of the press.

  I then tugged the bed to the metal cabinet Smith had gotten the knife from. I opened the cabinet door and looked in. There were old cans of ink and some wooden sticks, but nothing useful. In frustration I turned and screamed:

  “Damn it! Give me a freaking break!”

  As I yelled, my eyes glanced to a stack of shelves on the far wall. Sitting on the uppermost shelve, next several old cans of ink, was my purse.

  I stopped breathing. My mind was racing. Jones had taken my purse and tossed to Smith. Had Smith gone through it? I couldn’t remember. Why had he put it there? Was there still anything in it I could use?

  Well, only one way to find out.

  Once again, I pulled the screeching bed across the concrete. Sweat was running into my eyes and I was close to exhaustion by the time I had crossed the twenty yards to the shelf. I reached up to get the purse, but was two feet short. I grabbed the bed with my cuffed hand and lifted it, but still couldn’t get it high enough to grab the strap of the purse.

  I looked around for anything that could help. On the floor, twenty feet to my left, I spotted a wooden paint stirring stick. I tugged the bed over to the stick, picked it up, and then drug the bed back to the shelf.

  Holding the paint stick, I stretched my arm to its limit. By using only the handcuff chained to my wrist, I pulled the bed several inches off the floor.
The cuff dug into my wrist and the pain was intense. I took a deep breath and held it.

  With one last jab, I hooked the strap of my purse with the stick. I gave the strap a yank and it tumbled off the shelf. I caught my purse, one-handed, before it hit the floor.

  Panting and drenched with sweat I sat down hard on the edge of the bed frame, clutching my purse to my chest. With my whole body shaking, I opened my purse and peered in.

  When I saw what was inside, I began to giggle. The giggles rose until they became full blown laughter. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe and tears rolled down my face. So OK, maybe I was a little hysterical.

  Gradually I calmed down, tears still streaming down my face. Inside the purse were my Baby Glock and my cell phone.

  I pulled out the gun and felt the weight of it in my hand. I held the gun with my shackled left hand while I chambered a round with my right. I switched the gun to my right hand and carefully aimed at the chain stretched tight between the cuffs. I angled the gun so I wouldn’t shoot either my hand or the bed. After all of this, I didn’t want the bullet ricocheting back and hitting me. With a deafening Booom! I yanked my arm up. I was free.

  With a handcuff still attached to my wrist, I got up and crossed the room to the door leading out to the offices. I opened the door a crack and then eased it open, the Glock following my every movement. Nobody was in sight. I peered out of one of the grimy windows to see if anyone was waiting for me in the dirt parking lot. Of course, if there were anybody there, the gunshot would have alerted them to my escape. Well, I thought, it’s tough luck to anybody who gets in my way right now. I’m in a real bitchzilla kind of mood.

  ~~~~

  I walked outside, first to the parking lot, and then out to the street. I half walked, half ran a block to the west, then a block to the south. I crossed the street and went over the embankment. This put me on the north bank of the Salt River. I walked west a half a mile, following the river along a city maintenance path, until I came to the Scottsdale Road Bridge. I was about to climb the embankment up to the road, when I noticed I was still holding the Glock. I ejected the round from the chamber and reloaded it back in the magazine. I then slipped the gun back in my purse.

  I climbed the slope to Scottsdale Road and began walking north. I opened the cell phone and called Sophie. She answered on the second ring.

  “Sophie,” I said. “You’re not going to believe the shitty day I’m having.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In south Scottsdale, about five miles south of the office. Can you come get me?”

  “Yeah, but you’ll owe me.”

  “I always owe you. OK, I’ll meet you . . .”

  My voice trailed as I looked around. OK, so where was I? Then I saw it, less than a quarter a mile up the road.

  “I’ll meet you at Jeannie’s Cabaret. And, umm, would you bring a handcuff key?”

  ~~~~

  I walked into the club and collapsed on a seat at the bar. For some reason, the handcuff and chain dangling from my wrist wasn’t getting a lot of attention. I suppose the people here sort of expected to see things like that.

  I had been there about five minutes, when I got a call on my cell phone from Suzie Lu. One of her graduate students had cracked the password and she had my file open. She’d be home all afternoon and I could stop by and pick it up any time. I told her I’d stop by later in the afternoon.

  ~~~~

  I was still at the bar and working hard on a Chivas when I saw Sophie walk in. She took three steps into the club then stopped. She opened her mouth and stared at the stage. Two women, a blonde and a brunette, had come out a few minutes earlier and were dancing on the main stage next to the brass pole.

  After briefly looking at the women on the stage, Sophie’s eyes slowly went from table to table and then from man to man. I saw her eyes linger on a couple of younger guys next to the main sage. After the song ended, Sophie turned and walked over to where I was sitting at the bar. As she sat, I saw her face had the pink glow she always gets when she starts thinking about men.

  “This is the most amazing place,” Sophie said. “There are fifty men in here who are ripe for the plucking. Those naked women did all the work of getting them hot and ready. All I need to do is to pick one out.”

  “Haven’t you ever been in a strip club before?” I asked.

  “First time ever, I swear.” Sophie said. “I knew they stripped, but I never thought about what else happens strip clubs. Now I’m in a room full of horny men, it’s got me all horny too. I’m thinking I gotta find me a man to use hard and nasty. You know, I can already feel the pressure building. I gotta relieve the pressure soon or the results won’t be pretty.”

  “Well, go pick out a man,” I said. But give me the handcuff key and drop me off at my apartment first?”

  TEN

  Sophie dropped me off at my apartment building then took off to find a man. I first looked to make sure the two creeps who had just grabbed me weren’t anywhere around. I then took the stairs, two at a time, to the second floor. I walked down the hall and knocked on the door to Suzie Lu’s apartment. The door opened and Suzie let me in.

  Today she was dressed in a short red silk robe with black fishnet stockings and red spike heel boots. I walked in and looked around, but I didn’t see any naked men chained to the wall.

  Suzie led me to a desk in a corner of the living room. On the desk she had three computer monitors lined up in a row, looking like something from a science fiction movie.

  Suzie took two disks out of her purse and handed one to me. “This is your original, I didn’t know if you wanted it back or not.” She held up the other disk. “This one has the unlocked file on it. Turns out the encryption software they used on it is an old Department of Defense program. I had a graduate student download the code breaker program from an encryption group bulletin board. It took the program about a minute to find the password for your file. With the password, I opened the file and then saved it as a clean copy on this disk.”

  Suzie took the disk and slid it into her computer. The computer whirred and the little light on the front blinked. As we waited for the file to open, I asked her a question that had been bugging me since the day before.

  “Did that guy yesterday really give you a hundred dollars an hour just so you’d smack his ass with a paddle?”

  “Well sure, but it’s not just the spanking the guys are paying for. Most of these guys want the complete fantasy. I do the Cruel Teacher and the Bad Student, the Naughty Nurse and the Helpless Patient, the Sadistic Prison Guard and the Shackled Inmate, almost anything. It sometimes gets into some pretty involved role-playing, but I don’t mind. The guys appreciate having someone who understands their needs. Besides, I make more from being Mistress McNasty than I do being a tenured university professor. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  Don’t you worry the University will find out about it and get upset?” I asked.

  “Not really. The Chairman of the Board of Regents has a weekly appointment with me. He goes for the Stern Mother and the Naughty Boy fantasy, that one’s very popular.” She leaned over and said in a confidential tone; “Personally, I think he was weaned a little too early.” Then she shrugged her shoulders, as if to say what are you going to do?

  As Suzie was talking, I was watching a small digital timer sitting on her desk. It was in the shape of a chicken and was in the process of counting down to zero.

  Three seconds, two, one, zero.

  At zero, the timer started to cluck. It was as if the chicken had just laid an especially large egg. Suzie reached over with her slender fingers and lightly touched the reset button. The timer went back to fifteen minutes and started counting down again.

  “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment,” Suzie said. Her voice was so quiet she was almost whispering.

  She walked over to a bedroom door, slipped off her robe, and hung it on a peg by the door. Underne
ath the robe, she was wearing a black lace and red satin Merry Widow bustier complete with a black G-string and red garters. The breast cups of the corset looked like two big red pointy ice cream cones. Suzie had transformed herself into Asian Dominatrix Madonna.

  A large sliding bolt was used as the lock on the bedroom door. With some effort, Suzie slid the bolt to unlock the door. It slid open with a loud metallic Snap!

  “I got the loudest bolt I could find,” Suzie turned and said to me with a grin. “The guys are usually blindfolded and I like them to know I’m coming in. Waiting for the sound of the door to be unbolted really drives them crazy.”

  She went in and closed the door.

  Curiosity overcame my better judgment. I got up and stood close to the bedroom door. I couldn’t hear anything from the inside but muffled talking. The room must be pretty well soundproofed. Annoyed, I pressed my ear to the door.

  “You filthy pervert,” I heard Suzie say in a soft but menacing voice. “You’ve been touching yourself again while I’ve been gone, haven’t you?” There was the muffled sound of a strenuous protest. He must have been gagged.

  “How dare you lie to me!” Suzie shouted. I’ll show you what happens to naughty little boys who touch themselves without permission and then lie to their Mommy!”

  There was a whoosh, followed by the loud slap of leather smacking against bare flesh. This was followed by a muffled moan.

  “That was for touching yourself,” Suzie said. “This is for lying to Mommy.”

  Whoosh-Slap!

  Whoosh-Slap!

  Whoosh-Slap!

  With each stroke, his moans became louder and more urgent until they became one long muffled cry, begging for mercy. This went on for two or three long minutes. The man’s screams then trailed off into a series of sobs and moaning.

  I heard approaching footsteps and I backed away from the door. Suzie came out and slid the bolt home. On another peg on the wall there was a small red towel. Suzie took the towel and dabbed sweat from her neck and forehead. She then hung the towel back on the peg and put her robe on.