“Oh thank you, you and Mrs. Caliber, and I swear I won’t let you down.”
“You’ve already proven yourself, Rayne. Gail wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.”
Velma stood up and offered her hand in congratulations.
“Welcome aboard.”
Rayne studied her carefully as she took her hand.
“Velma, I know we’ve had our differences, but I hope we can put them behind us?”
“Of course we can, in fact, why not come to dinner with Chris and me? It’ll be my treat?”
Rayne grinned.
“I accept.”
When the meeting ended, everyone walked out to the reception area, where Chris, Rayne, and Velma walked onto the elevator.
Rayne stood on her toes and kissed Chris on the cheek, as she rested her hand on his chest.
“I just want to thank you again for saving my life.”
And as Chris smiled back at Rayne, Velma’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Jake pointed at the elevator after the doors closed.
“That triangle there could be trouble.”
Kelli disagreed.
“Rayne was just being nice, and Chris would never cheat on Velma.”
Jake shrugged.
“I’m just saying.”
A few minutes later, Maggie stepped onto the elevator with Gail, and the two women wished everyone a good night.
When the doors closed, Maggie fanned herself.
“Oh my God, but that is one good looking man.”
Gail slapped her playfully on the arm.
“You stay away from my son, you old cougar.”
Maggie laughed.
“I wasn’t talking about your son; I was talking about Jake. Is he really in his eighties?”
“You’re not serious, Jake Caliber?”
“I think he’s hot, so sue me.”
Gail was left speechless, and when the elevator doors opened, she stayed inside until the sound of her phone roused her and she stepped out.
After answering the call, she said, “Yes, that would be nice. We’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
“Who was that?”
“Jake, he wants to take us to dinner.”
Maggie smiled, took out a compact from her purse, and put on fresh lipstick.
After the old man joined them in the lobby, they were about to head out, when Tommy Delaney walked in with O’Reilly standing beside him in her uniform.
“Tommy, Shea, are you two here to see Jakey?”
Delaney shook his head sadly and spoke to Gail.
“This is about Selina Clayton. You filed a report a few weeks ago stating that she had been threatened in writing?”
“Yes, but that investigation went nowhere,” Gail said. “Why do you ask, Tommy, has something happened to her?”
“Mrs. Caliber, I’m so sorry, but Selina Clayton was murdered. Her body was discovered in an alley behind a midtown bar.”
The news staggered Gail and the old man steadied her by putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Do you have a suspect?” Jake asked.
“No sir, but... O’Reilly, show him the photo.”
O’Reilly handed Jake a computer tablet with a photo on the screen.
“It’s not pretty to look at,” she said, “and the words are transcribed beneath the photo.”
The photo showed Selina Clayton face down and nude. Her body was laying among garbage, with tiny words carved into her back that looked like bloody hieroglyphics.
CALIBER WHORE!
B IS FOR BITCH!
THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST TO DIE!
Jake handed the tablet back to O’Reilly and looked at Gail and Maggie with a grim expression.
“You girls will have to eat without me; I’ve got work to do.”
CALIBER DETECTIVE AGENCY - DECEPTION
By
REMINGTON KANE
CHAPTER 1
Kelli Ross stepped off the elevator as she arrived for work at the Caliber Detective Agency.
As she was putting her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk, she heard the rustling of a newspaper come from behind the door to the inner office.
She smiled. The old man was in early.
Kelli started the coffeemaker, and once it had completed brewing, she poured the strong dark liquid into a white china mug.
She was just about to carry it inside to the old man when the elevator chimed and Maggie Keegan walked off holding two Styrofoam cups.
“Hello,” Kelli said, as she eyed the cups.
“Hi, Kelli, I see you start early.”
“And so do you, is one of those coffees for Mr. Caliber?”
“Yes, and I take it that cup is for him as well?”
Kelli nodded.
Maggie looked down at the cups in her hand.
“I... just came to visit with him.”
“Really?”
“Yes, why, is that not allowed?”
“There’s no rule against it, it’s just never been done. I think most of the people that work downstairs are intimidated by him.”
Maggie grinned.
“Oh, they are, believe me, but I’ll come back at another time. I wouldn’t want to step on any toes.”
“You mean the coffee? Don’t be silly, and why don’t you bring this in to him? I think he’d like that.”
Maggie smiled, placed her cups upon the desk, and reached for the mug that Kelli was holding.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not, and let me pour you a mug for yourself. How do you take it?”
“Black, with two sugars.”
Kelli prepared the coffee, handed it to Maggie, and opened the door to the office.
“Good morning, Mr. Caliber, you have a visitor, sir.”
“A what?”
“A visitor, it’s Maggie Keegan.”
The old man dropped his feet off the edge of the desk and stood.
“Now isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”
Kelli went back into the outer office, closing the door as she left.
“I’ll see you two later.”
The younger Jake walked off the elevator just as Kelli returned to her desk.
After kissing him hello, Kelli filled him in on his grandfather’s visitor.
“Maggie, hmm, you know, she ain’t bad looking for a woman her age.”
“She’s lovely, and your grandfather seems to like her.”
“I guess I’ll stay out here with you for a while and let things develop in there.”
“Do you think they’ll start dating?”
Jake smiled.
“Now wouldn’t that be something?”
***
Inside the office, Maggie filled the old man in on her latest insurance investigation.
“It’s a two-million-dollar life insurance policy on a decedent who died only seven months after the policy took effect.”
“Who gets the dough, a spouse?”
“Yes, a man named Curtis Willoughby.”
“Does it look suspicious?”
“The amount is suspicious, because the Willoughbys never earned more than thirty thousand a year, and the policy payments weren’t cheap. Mrs. Willoughby was sixty-eight and reportedly, a heavy drinker.”
“The husband gets all the money?”
“He would, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Mrs. Willoughby has an estranged daughter who is insisting that the dead woman isn’t her mother. She claims that her mother had a very distinctive burn mark on the back of her left hand, and the body in the morgue doesn’t have it.”
“So I take it you’re waiting for the DNA to come back?”
“You got it.”
“The insurance company was smart to have you look into it.”
Maggie sighed.
“The insurance company wanted Rayne Carver to look into this, but they settled for me.”
“Rayne’s reputation is tough to bea
t; it’s why I moved her up here to work on Red Cases.”
Maggie stood.
“Well, thanks to DNA, this one should be a slam dunk.”
“I took a look at your file, Maggie. You’re as good as Rayne is, don’t sell yourself short.”
Maggie stood.
“With that vote of confidence ringing in my ears, I think I’ll go downstairs and get to work.”
The old man sent her a smile.
“Don’t be a stranger, Maggie.”
“I won’t, and I’ll let you know how the case turns out.”
“I hope you do better than we are so far, there are still no leads on who killed Selina Clayton.”
“I know, and Gail is taking her death hard. It’s almost as if she blames herself for what happened.”
“The B-Girls were all her idea. We fought about it and I finally gave in, because I agreed that Caliber Investigations was hers to run the way she wanted.”
“Still, it’s not her fault that a madman is targeting the girls.”
“Of course not, and I’ll have a talk with her later... after Selina Clayton’s funeral.”
“That’s right, that’s today, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, the cops finally released her body. I’ll be going to the funeral with Gail and the boys.”
“Good, I think she’ll need your support.”
They grew silent and gazed at each other, but before the silence could grow awkward, Maggie gestured at the door.
“I’d best get going.”
“Go get ‘em, doll.”
Maggie laughed.
“You too, handsome.”
CHAPTER 2
Chris and Velma had just entered the Caliber building when a red sports car pulled up in front.
Rayne Carver was in the passenger seat, and after giving the young man driving the car a hot kiss, she got out.
“Looks like somebody’s got a new boyfriend,” Velma said.
“Yeah.”
“Has she stopped hitting on you?”
“She was never serious about that, and she knows we’re together.”
“Oh, she was serious, but I’m glad to see that she’s moved on.”
Rayne entered the lobby and gave them a smile. She was dressed in black, as were Chris and Velma, in preparation of attending Selina Clayton’s funeral.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning to you too,” Velma said. “And just who was the stud in the Ferrari?”
“Oh, that’s a new friend.”
“I see.”
Chris pushed the call button on the elevator, as outside a horn blew.
Rayne giggled.
“He has trouble saying goodbye, you two go up and I’ll be along shortly.”
“We have a meeting this morning,” Chris reminded her.
Rayne said nothing in return, as she was already headed out the door. Before stepping on the elevator, Chris and Velma watched her lean back into the car for another kiss.
Velma grinned.
“Oh yeah, I’d say she’s moved on.”
Chris said nothing, but he mashed the elevator button for the third floor with a little more force than was needed.
***
The man who murdered Selina Clayton was headed south of the Caliber building, and in the process of dumping his second victim’s body.
Shannon McKeown, like Selina Clayton before her, was tortured, murdered, and then mutilated by words carved into her flesh. However, while the first few cuts resembled letters, his message had soon devolved into slash marks, as his rage had gotten the better of him. Still, he reasoned, they would tie this body to the first victim, Selina Clayton, and the four he planned to follow.
The killer was driving a green garbage truck much like the one that regularly serviced the alley he was backing into, but this truck was stolen solely for transporting a victim.
After looking around and seeing no prying eyes, the man moved aside bags of trash and lifted the dead woman from the back of the truck, to dump her unceremoniously onto the ground. He was at the rear of a popular bar that closed hours earlier, near a door that was the employee entrance, a door now blocked by Shannon McKeown’s body.
With his grisly task done, the man left the scene as quickly as possible, and as he motored away, he giggled, and paid no attention to the shambling figure drifting along the sidewalk.
The figure was covered in rags and reeked of his own urine and feces, and he made his home in the alley where the killer just disposed of his victim.
***
John Byrd had been a somebody once, but that was before the drugs and alcohol ruined his mind, now he shambled along the city’s streets as little more than a ghost, a figure of pity and derision.
When he saw the naked, violated body of the once lovely Shannon, his warped brain couldn’t quite comprehend that she was dead, and so he spoke to her.
“Hey, you can’t just sleep out here in the alley or they’ll call the cops on you.”
He received no answer of course, and yet, his imagination was as warped as the rest of his mental faculties, and so John imagined a response.
“Sure, I got a place, and it’d be nice to have company.”
He grabbed Shannon’s cold right hand and began dragging her through the filth of the alley, and the blood and fluids seeping from her wounds left a streak of gore in their wake.
When John reached the opposite end of the alley, he flipped back a layer of green garbage bags. The layers of plastic were the door of his cardboard home. The structure was the size of a large closet and covered with hundreds of plastic bags in various sizes and colors.
John built it weeks earlier and had gone unmolested by the property owners because a legal battle raged in the courts concerning who would receive the vacant building in a divorce.
At night, the sounds from the nearby bar soothed John, as some remnant of his former self recalled the days of laughter, of music, of a time when he played jazz piano in the city’s clubs and nightspots, of a time when he was happy.
The body of Shannon McKeown disappeared inside the cardboard palace of John Byrd, and when the rain began falling minutes later, it washed away all traces of her passing.
***
The old man gazed about the room and saw five amused faces staring back at him, as Jake, Kelli, Rayne, Chris, and Velma studied him.
“What are you all staring at?”
Chris smiled.
“We heard about your visitor this morning; it looks like you’ve still got it, Granddad.”
“You people have dirty minds; Maggie was just being friendly.”
“I think it’s sweet that she likes you, and I hope it turns into something,” Kelli said.
The old man blew a cloud of cigar smoke into the air, and then pointed at Jake.
“What’s the latest on the B-Girl case?”
Jake sighed.
“We got nothing. The cops are running point on this of course, and Tommy is doing everything he can, but so far every lead has been a bust, like those letters mentioning Selina. We’re still hoping that the killer goes after one of the decoys the cops have out at night.”
“What have you been doing?”
“We’ve all been doing follow-up on the leads the cops develop and I’ll say this, they’re not dogging it. Tommy’s got as many people on this as he can spare, including Shea O’Reilly.”
“All right, it looks like for now we’ll just have to wait for something to break. Kelli, are there any new cases?”
“Yes sir, but I scheduled the meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“Any idea what it’s about?”
“There are two clients actually, and they say that their lives are being threatened.”
“I think that they should have come in today if that’s true.”
“They said there was no hurry and that they wouldn’t be in danger until two days from now.”
“How the hell would they know that?”
“I asked th
e same question, in a nicer way of course, and they said that they would explain when they met with you.”
The old man blew more smoke.
“It sounds like a doozy, and tomorrow would be better anyway. I doubt any of us will feel like working after this funeral.”
“Mother is probably waiting for us downstairs,” Chris said.
The old man crushed out the cigar, stood, and grabbed his fedora.
“Let’s go say goodbye to one of our own.”
CHAPTER 3
The hundred-year-old brick church in Queens, New York was filled to capacity as the family and friends of Selina Clayton gathered to say their final farewells.
The old man’s white hair looked all the more radiant in contrast with the black suit and trench coat he wore, as he escorted Gail inside the church with the other attendees from Caliber following behind.
As they stood in the aisles talking, a woman called the old man by name, and when he turned to face her, she slapped him. The woman then spoke, as a hush fell over the church.
“I’m Selina’s mother, Simone, and I blame you for her death. I told her for years that that job was beneath her and that it just wasn’t right to go around flaunting her body to tempt men into breaking their vows. I used to think that you were a man to look up to, but you’re just another fool who will use anyone to make a buck.”
The old man gazed about with an uncharacteristic look of dismay on his face. He then locked eyes with Simone Clayton.
“You have my deepest sympathy for your loss. I’m sorry that my presence here has upset you. I’ll be leaving now.”
As he turned to leave, Gail spoke up.
“Wait! Mrs. Clayton, my father-in-law has always been vehemently against the B-Girl service. I’m the one who is responsible for its creation. If there’s any blame to be placed on anyone other than your daughter’s murderer, then let it fall on my head.”
Simone Clayton moved within inches of Gail and looked her up and down with disgust.
“I can understand a dinosaur like Jake Caliber treating women like bait, but another woman? You don’t have any daughters, do you?”
“I... I, no, only sons.”
“I knew it, because if you had one, the last thing you would do is dangle her in front of any man with a working libido. Now get out of here, all of you, and let us mourn in peace.”
Caliber Detective Agency Box Set 2 Page 8
