Trudi Baldwin - Sammy Dick, PI 02 - Acid Test for Yellow Flower

by Trudi Baldwin

  Luckily, the treadmill beside him had just emptied, so I jumped on it, slid my badge into the convenient spot for it, flung my towel over the front side bar and commenced my second run of the day. Without losing a beat or looking my way, he said, “Sammy, I haven’t seen you in a while.” He was barely breathing hard, even though he was flying on the treadmill with the incline jacked to max. Any faster and he would’ve shot out through the roof. At least he was sweating, making his beautifully defined biceps, forearms and upper chest glisten in a way that tantalized most women, including me, but I pretended to ignore how gorgeous he was.

  “Yeah, I’ve been a little stand-offish since you tricked me.” I jacked my incline to the max too and without any warm-up matched his pace.

  He smiled at that and retorted, “By ‘tricking you,’ as you put it, you’re referring to the time you declared your true feelings for me under pressure? Is that what you mean by a trick?”

  During our international real estate case that we worked for Kathy Keach, Mountain’s head got bashed. He’d temporarily lost consciousness with blood flowing everywhere from his head wound. When I’d finally reached him, he lay there lifelessly, in a pool of blood, while I hovered over him, gushing out my feelings and concern. Then he’d smiled and opened his eyes with a “gotcha” look. I’d been pissed off for several months.

  “What I’m referring to is a time when all four of us, Geo, Kathy, you and I, were thrust into a situation where any one of us could have been killed. All of our lives were on the line. That kind of situation tends to make emotions run high; emotions that might not be a true reflection of reality.”

  “Or, as is more often the case, a crisis situation reveals everyone’s true colors.” He began to lower his incline and slow the pace to bring his heart rate gradually down.

  To be honest with myself, I didn’t really know what to say to Mountain in response. A rare occasion for me. I wasn’t sure what my true colors were when it came to him. I watched him begin to towel himself down now that he’d reached a walking pace. Six foot four inches tall, with the sexiest, big brown eyes I’d ever seen, set in a manly, intelligent, kind face. His exotic French mixed background gave his skin the color of café au lait. A long-time friend of our family, Mountain now worked in the detective squad with my dad. Through the years, and especially now that I was attempting to make a go of the Dick Agency, Mountain had gotten me out of more scrapes than I’d care to own up to. Plus, he’d always supplied me with information and back-up, putting himself at risk, when the going got rough or when I was completely baffled by a case.

  I didn’t like to be beholden to anyone and especially not someone as handsome and kind as Mountain, but I somehow found myself involving him at some point in every case. If I ever married or even entertained the idea of a serious relationship, I pictured Mountain as the man for me, and so did everyone else in my family, but I was having too much fun being free and growing my fledgling business to settle down or get serious. So the problem became what to say or do with Mountain in the meantime? And, I guess the second question was, would I ever get serious?

  “Do you want to know the truth, Mountain?”

  “Maybe,” he said warily.

  “The truth is you’re the most awesome man I know, but my true colors, as you call them, are complex.” I avoided his eyes while I said this and concentrated on shutting down my own treadmill. My plan was to follow him around the gym to discuss my case with him and maybe coax him into a back-up role.

  “Well, my true colors are simple, Sammy. You are the most intriguing, exciting, attractive, sexy, exasperating, confusing, frustrating woman I know, and I am a patient man. I’ve seldom run to the very end of my patience, so I don’t know where it just peters out and there is no more left in me. Maybe we’ll discover the end of that road together and maybe we won’t.” With that mouthful said, he slapped his towel up around his shoulders and marched off to the weight room.

  I watched the full length of his V-form physique head away from me, the muscles clenching and unclenching in his calves, and debated following him. Damn, he was a good-looking man and also a good man, like my father.

  I didn’t know what tomorrow held, for either of us, but I did know that today I had a stalled case with only a few more days to solve it. I strode after his retreating form into the free weights room. He was barely speaking to me, but I followed him through his routine anyway. Wherever he was lifting, I’d find some weights nearby and lift too. I couldn’t lift as much as he was able to hoist up, but I was able to match him pound for pound as a percent of body weight. We were both strong, healthy and in good shape. Not only did this give us pleasure and protect us in our jobs, but it caused a magnetic bonding between us even beyond the nearly irresistible attraction we already possessed, for better or for worse, for each other.

  When I finally got him to speak a little and explained my current case to him, predictably, the first thing that popped out of his mouth was, “Let the police handle it. It’s too dangerous for you and everyone else involved. I mean it, Sammy.” He’d said it rather too curtly for my taste, but I proceeded.

  To appease him, I conceded, “I am considering involving the police (namely him, but I didn’t want to get into technicalities). Along those lines, what would it take to search someone’s locker or, better yet, take someone in for questioning?”

  “A lot more than you’ve got so far, Sammy, which appears to be one hundred percent ungrounded speculation. And further, you don’t even have a single, solid suspect using your infamous intuition.”

  The sarcastic remark about my ‘infamous intuition’ was a bit on the harsh side, but I thought it prudent to ignore that too. I had a case to solve and big money to be made. I pressed on.

  “So, if I do get solid evidence and a solid suspect, would you be interested in getting involved and backing me up if need be?”

  “Obviously, Gloria Strumheinnie has hired you to keep this under wraps and away from the press, a highly questionable position to begin with, but the answer, Sammy, as usual, is yes. If you need me, yes, I’ll be there and with my true colors showing.”

  I was getting sick of the true colors metaphor. I decided to try and trump him, though. Maybe I could put an end to it. “My true colors always show too, Mountain, I just carry around a larger crayon box than you do.” With that retort, I slapped my own towel around my shoulders, spun on my heel and exited Pure Fitness making sure to sway my hips as much as possible during my exit.

  I glanced back just once to see a huge barbell suspended over his head and Mountain standing there watching me go, a look of utter exasperation contorting his handsome face.

  Chapter Twelve – Report to Gloria

  After leaving Mountain and the gym, I decided to text an update to Gloria, rather than call her. A chicken-shit move at best. Since my worst fears had been realized, i.e. I had nothing, nada, zilch to report to Glory, I wanted to avoid revealing my empty hand. Maybe the case would break open in the meantime if I delayed as long as possible?

  My text, delivered in several parts read like this:

  Can’t visit until Friday at 4 PM.

  Getting very close.

  Invited to a party tomorrow with key suspects.

  See you Friday, with solid evidence. No worries.

  Then my worser than worst fears were realized, Glory phoned right back. I debated not answering, but it was obvious I was near my phone. I was forced to pick up.

  “Hi Gloria, how are you?” A lame beginning to what promised to be an even lamer conversation.

  “It sounds like you haven’t made any progress at all and you’re just putting off the inevitable, when you have to drive back up here and report that to me.”

  Hmm … an insightful lady. She hadn’t become a multi-millionaire by exercising her stupidity. What to say?

  Go on the offensive. “Gloria, how many employees, total, work at your lotions factory?”

  Slightly taken aback by being asked a question, ra
ther than given an answer, as I’m sure she was used to, she ruminated for a beat and played along.

  “Over one thousand two hundred employees.”

  “Right,” I said, “And Geo and I have successfully narrowed that huge field down to just seven possible suspects. I’d call that startling progress in a mere three days. Wouldn’t you?”

  She neatly sidestepped my question, honing in on the heart of everything that was hopelessly flawed with our progress so far. “Thoroughly investigating seven suspects could take months to complete. We don’t have months, Sammy. We have days, as in yesterday. We needed the culprit identified yesterday.”

  Picky, picky, picky. When in doubt use empathy. Not one of my signature strengths, but I was getting desperate, so I decided to give it a try.

  “I know how anxious you are, Gloria, and I assure you, I share in your anxiety (no lie there). Further, I can assure you I also share in your fervent desire to bring this investigation to a quick and very private close (no lie there either), but you have to admit we’ve made amazing progress (just a teensy weensy bit of a lie there). Here’s the deal: I’m invited to a party tomorrow night where all the suspects (I hoped) will be in one place, drinking and doing who knows what, but loosening up their tongues, I’m sure. In their inebriated state, I plan to lure them into revealing too much and we discover the culprit. I have a question for you, though, Gloria, when I do identify the vermin who is infesting your nest, what is your plan for him or her?”

  I figured she’d like the nice touch about the vermin and the nest. Plus, I threw the ball back in her court by ending on a question. I waited to see what she’d say.

  “Fire their ass on the spot!” is what she said.

  “Alrighty then,” I said, trying to digest all the implications. First of all, I wasn’t sure firing someone was going to solve it, but secondly, I had a nasty feeling that her vehement response was really aimed at me and the Dick Agency just as much, if not more, than it was aimed at the vermin. I quickly decided it would be a good time to exit the conversation.

  “I’ve got to go, Gloria. Geo just returned home, and I want to find out where his investigations have led him today. Maybe he’s narrowed the field down to fewer than seven. See you Friday at four.” I clicked off and felt truly disheartened.

  I was lying about Geo being home. I was sitting in the garage, the Mazda turned off, and no one home but me. As usual nowadays, Geo had texted me earlier saying he’d made minimal progress and was spending the night with Little Miss Kathy Keach. I had no idea where Delilah was. Come to think of it, she’d mentioned some kind of research in the ASU West library, so she was gone too.

  I opened the garage door that led into the kitchen. Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. Snack leaped toward me in happy greeting, smiling his doggy smile, wagging his tail, and licking the back of my hand affectionately. I bent down and gave him a kiss on the top of his head, ruffled his shaggy neck, then headed out to the backyard to throw him a few balls.

  At least somebody in this world appreciates me I thought as I threw balls to all the corners of the yard, just the way Snack likes it. An apricot moon as big as our downtown skyline was rising up over the city. I could see it through the trees and the roofs of the houses behind mine from where I sat on the back patio. Things weren’t all bad. I began to look forward with renewed hope and anticipation to the BYOE Hump Day Party tomorrow, where all would be revealed, I assured myself, and went to bed early.

  Chapter Thirteen – Arrival of the Virgin Instrument

  Wednesday shot by rapidly. I spent it much as usual listening to the thunk, whir, thunk, whir of the capping machine and blasting through the doors of Distribution to deposit my loads of Yellow Flower bottles. On and on.

  We all ate lunch at Arby’s and I tried one of their new healthy, wheat bread turkey sandwiches. Pretty good.

  Mostly all of us just waited for the day to end, so we could bop on over to the Bring Your Own Everything Hump Day Party. At lunch, Hayden the Hipster gave out his address as a reminder. Apparently, nearly everyone, except me, had been to his house in days past and they all seemed eager to go again. The party started at eight.

  When I got home from work, lo and behold, my supposed partner, Geo, was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open and he wasn’t even working on his school work, he was working on the case.

  I tried as hard as I could not to blurt out something like Will wonders never cease?

  Then I blurted out, “Will wonders never cease? It’s my partner, home to help out on one of the largest cases of our short careers.”

  “Your career, Sammy. My part-time job—as originally agreed when we set up this arrangement in the first place.”

  He was right, of course, but his correction still stung nonetheless. I was temporarily at a loss for words and decided to just ignore the sting and get down to business. Another painful subject.

  I quickly brought Geo up to speed on what I’d learned, which was nothing, nada, zilch, so that was a short conversation. Then I described my meeting with Sally Snort and my phone call with Gloria. Both were of interest to Geo; he listened intently. A good sign that he was still engaged in the case.

  “I have two items to contribute,” Geo said when I’d finished talking.

  My main thought was Yay!

  “First of all, even though I’m only part-time,” Geo let that clause hang in the air for a beat or two. Then he continued, “I’ve spent a lot of hours combing through the files and records Gloria has given us. The records sent to her are the ones deemed significant enough to send a copy to the boss, so I don’t see every little quality-related, financial or HR-related transaction, only the ones deemed significant enough to report to the owner. This is good and bad. Good, in that, I don’t have to comb through boxes and boxes of information looking for anything that may be of significance, but bad in that if someone in the chain of command were trying to hide something, it may not be here, or if something seemed insignificant at the time, but, now in hindsight, appears significant, it wouldn’t be in Gloria’s files either. That being said, the records Gloria gave you are full of interesting and perhaps significant transactions that may or may not have bearing on our case.”

  Did I dare to hope that Geo had uncovered something that might swing our case wide open?

  “I have found several related transactions that may or may not be significant for our case.”

  I’d learned long ago not to prod Geo as he methodically, step by laborious step, unveiled his findings for me. If I prodded him, he’d shut down completely. I’d finally come up with a method grounded in severe self-discipline to prevent me from prodding Geo—I’d picture a zipper across my mouth and while he methodically revealed his findings I’d remain completely quiet and chant to myself Zip it. Zip it. Zip it, Sammy. Zip it. Zip it. Zip it, Sammy. Over and over.

  I was studiously chanting this to myself now, rather than scream out, “Get to the fucking findings, Geo. Now!” which I’d done on numerous occasions in the past, when things had not gone well at all, so I chanted and listened with a fake look of calm attentiveness plastered on my face. Luckily, Snack had bounced in and placed his head on my thigh. I stroked his head in rhythm to my chanting. Snack liked that a lot, so at least some good was emerging from my rigorous application of self-discipline.

  Geo continued in his plodding, mechanical, detailed, chant, chant, chant manner. Snack was in seventh heaven, I was petting him so much. When Snack is deeply happy, he makes these little crooning grunt noises. Snack was now making his crooning grunt noises at an alarming pace like someone in the throes of sex and now on the brink of a wild climax.

  Geo stopped his droning and asked with concern in his voice, “What’s wrong with Snack? He sounds like he’s sick or something.”

  “No, no, please continue with the details of how you arrived at your findings. That’s just Snack’s happy sound. He’s glad we’re both home and he’s getting attention.”

  “His happy sound
sounds a little like a porno sound.”

  “How would you know?” I asked, as a slight blush rose up Geo’s neck.

  “I’m just sayin’ …” Geo added as the blush climbed higher.

  “Well, who says that porno sounds and happy sounds are mutually exclusive?” I asked, to see if I could get Geo to blush further. I could.

  Geo took in a breath of air and moved on, “Moving back onto topic, as I was combing through the HR transaction file, I came across some more paperwork related to Ancient Annie, as you’ve dubbed her. I’d already told you how they let her go for a year, when they doubled the size of the teams for remaining supervisors to cut back on salary costs, and how Annie was forced to resort to food stamps, etc., during that bad year.”

  By now, I was chanting blah, blah, blah to myself and Snack was nearly howling in ecstasy.

  “Yes, Geo, I remember that excellent finding on your part.”

  “Well, guess who took over the Yellow Flower line?”

  “I have one thousand two-hundred guesses since that’s how many people work at the plant, so let’s see, do you have all night?”

  “Actually,” Geo corrected me, “they were forced to lay-off one third of the entire workforce, so to be perfectly accurate, Sammy, you have eight hundred people to choose from, not one thousand two-hundred.”

  By now Snack had nearly flown off the planet, I was stroking his head so fast and furiously. “Oh, good. That’s a huge help, Geo. Let me start guessing.”

  “I’ll save you the trouble, Sammy.”

  I burrowed down into my deepest Zen regions, like a bear hibernating in darkest December, muttering Zip it. Zip it. Zip it to myself, “That would save us a lot of time, Geo. I think that’s another excellent idea on your part. So let’s spare me the guessing part and you just tell me, okay, who took over Ancient Annie’s spot?”