by Bob Moats
“Could you do me or what can you do for me?” I asked.
She said, “Either way, what would you like?”
“Well, I’d like world peace and a million dollars in my bank account, but I’m here to discuss Noreen Black or Noreen Weston, whichever you knew her as,” I said.
She took on a quick flash of sadness and asked me to follow her. She was all proper and refined as the Queen of the Dead should be until we got to the back room.
“OK, what do you want from me, cop?” she spit out.
“I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator hired by Noreen’s husband to find her killer. You know anything that could help?”
“I’m tired of talking to cops. I told them everything I knew about Noreen. She came in occasionally to get some paraphernalia for her place, and we would talk about business.” She turned away from me and looked distressed. Way too distressed for a casual acquaintance.
My tingle was buzzing, and I played a card. “You two were more than just business associates. How close were you to Noreen?”
She was silent, then, “I loved her. I’m not ashamed to say, she was a soul partner to me. We clicked. She tolerated her husband, but she was definitely not as straight as he would have liked it. We spent many evenings together.”
I was a bit taken back by her candor. Surprised that Dave never said anything, or maybe didn’t know.
“Noreen first came in here back when she went out on her own from Mistress Terry. I saw a young, innocent, yet determined, woman beginning her life as a real Dom. I got close to her, coached her, and loved her when she was willing.” She went silent again.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“A week before she…was killed,” she choked out. “If you find the bastard who did this, bring me his balls.”
“Do you know any of her clients? I’m trying to narrow it down.”
“She had a number of influential clients, most of whom wouldn’t want their kinks played out in public. If one of them found out about the others, it would be a disaster. I taught Noreen to be real careful of her client list, that it was precious, sacred. She wouldn’t let that information slip out no matter what. I think that is why she was killed.”
“Wouldn’t you be in the same danger she faced with your client list?” I asked.
“I’m constantly surrounded by my women, and I’m rarely alone. It would be a lot harder to get to me.” She smiled. “Noreen was alone out there. I didn’t like it and tried to convince her to join me, but she enjoyed the freedom.”
“Did you know she was starting to blackmail her clients?” I had to ask.
She gave me a dirty look like I had sworn at her, and said, “Noreen would never, ever do something like that.”
“I have a city official who claims she was doing just that to him, and now that she’s gone, someone else is continuing to blackmail him. I’m not trying to put a bad light on Noreen, but the evidence is out there.”
Elvira was quiet for a good long time. I said nothing.
“Did Noreen say anything about taking on an assistant or helper?” I asked.
“Yes, she did mention about a month ago that there was a young girl hanging around her business, and she was thinking of taking her in since her business was getting so hectic. I think she said her name was Melody. Yes, it was Melody Williams, she said. Noreen wanted to train her to be able to handle the overflow, and I told her to be careful who she trusted. This is a cut-throat business.” Elvira choked on that and began to tear up. I grabbed a tissue from her desk and gave it to her. She thanked me.
“I’m sure if Noreen was blackmailing any of her clients, she wouldn’t tell you. Do you think Noreen was capable of doing such a thing?”
“Noreen was competitive and determined to succeed. She was a kind person though. I don’t believe she would do such a thing.”
“Maybe someone who knew her clients might have used her business to do the blackmail. Would that be possible?”
“Of course, people don’t want their fetishes exposed to the world. We run a risky business of exposure which is why we have to guard our client’s anonymity, and they have to trust us. Anyone knowing Noreen’s business list could easily blackmail people.” She wiped her eyes and sat up tall, looking defiant. “I hope you find out who is doing this so I’ll know that my Noreen would never have stooped so low to blackmail her clients.”
I said that I was finished and thanked her. She stood and walked me towards the front door. She came out of the back room and assumed her Queen of the Dead posture. At the door she whispered to me to let her know what I found. I said I would. Then I asked one last question, if she knew a Ben Lincoln. She said she didn’t. I went out.
I sat in my car across the street from the store. I was thinking and watching to see if Lincoln would pop up. I wrote down all the information Elvira gave me. A new name in the case now, Melody Williams. I would need to find her. She could be the link to the blackmail and the murder. I thought about the videos that Noreen made of her sessions. Why, if she wasn’t blackmailing her clients, would she tape them? And where was the damn client list? I took out my phone and called Weston.
“Dave, a couple of questions, do you know a Melody Williams?” I asked when he came on. He said Noreen mentioned hiring an office girl, but didn’t say if she had or not. She said her name was Melody. I continued, “Do you know how to find this Melody?” He said no. “OK, one more question. I asked you to be totally honest with me when I agreed to take your case. The question is, did you know your wife was having an affair with a woman?”
He went silent for a bit, then I heard him sigh. “I sort of knew she was. She never came out and admitted it, but she spent a lot of time with a Dom named Elvira, and she always came home looking like a woman does when she’s fucking around. I didn’t push it. Maybe I should have, but what would that do? She’d get all pissed at me and maybe even leave me. I didn’t want that.”
“OK, thanks for the honesty. Now, do not, I repeat, do not, tell anyone about Melody. You hear?” I ordered.
“I won’t,” he said. I said I’d let him know what I found and hung up.
Now to go on a hunt for the missing link.
*
Chapter Twenty-two
I went back to my office. No beauties in the lobby. Oh, well. I checked my answering machine. Nothing. I just hate days where you have no mail, email, messages or visitors. Just makes you feel so lonely. I sat at my desk, took out the area phone book and looked under Williams. Of course there would be a dozen or so. I checked the areas they lived in and wrote down the numbers for the ones in Roseville. I’d start with those. I was beginning to feel that some cases could be a lot of nothing, just checking facts and spending time on the phone. It wasn’t this way in the mystery novels I read. Well, maybe the “in Death” books where Eve Dallas was always running around interviewing suspects and digging through tons of possibles. Of course, she had super computers to gather the facts for her. I was born too early.
After about an hour of calling names and getting nowhere, I dialed a number in Sterling Heights, and a woman answered.
“May I speak to Melody, please?” I asked.
“She’s not here right now. May I take a message?” the person asked.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“She went to work. She didn’t say when she would be back.” The woman seemed pleasant, so I pushed on.
“Has she started her job with Noreen Black?”
“I think she mentioned that name, but I couldn’t be sure. It’s in some office on Gratiot, in Roseville, a small consulting firm she said.”
“Are you related to Melody?” I asked.
“I’m her sister. Just who are you, may I ask?”
“I’m sorry, how impolite of me. I’m with an agency that does background checks of prospective hires for employers. We make sure the people they’re thinking of hiring are who they say they are. I hope you understand?”
“Oh, yes, I do. I’ve worked with a few people who should have been checked. They turned out to be not so nice people and messed over my employer. Do you have any questions I may answer about Melody, if I can do that?”
“Sure. Your name is?”
“Barbra, like in Streisand, and everyone calls me Babs, too,” she replied.
“Well, Babs, what is your sister like as a person?”
“Very dependable, she never misses work, and always on time.”
“Does she have any boyfriends or a fiancé?”
“Uh, she has a boyfriend who I don’t think is good for her. She deserves better, but that’s my opinion.”
“What is this boyfriend’s name, in case we have to check him?”
“I wish someone would check him. His name is Bruce Blair, and he lives in Roseville. His step-father is a cop from what I hear.”
I felt a chill. “You don’t know the cop’s name, by chance?”
“I don’t remember. It was some president’s name, I think.”
“Lincoln?”
“Yes, I think that was it. Abe Lincoln.”
“Well, thank you for your time, Babs, I’ll check back and talk to Melody later.” I hung up and was amazed at how deep this was getting.
I would need to set up a timeline board to keep track of all the goings on. I went to my ample closet and pulled out the self-standing dry erase board I had been saving for just this occasion. I started writing all the characters’ names and drawing lines to connect them and events. I taped a picture of Noreen in the center to keep my focus and stood back to examine the thing. The whole thing looked cock-eyed to me but made a bit more sense than trying to keep it all in my head.
The door opened, and Trapper popped his head in. “Ah, the crime board. Helps you stay organized, doesn’t it?” He grinned.
He sat in the client’s chair and put his feet up on my desk. I gave him a dirty look and took one foot down.
“So what’s going on, and how is Bruce Blair hooked into it?” he said looking at my board.
I asked, “Do you know Bruce Blair?”
“Yep, a little con man who has crossed my path a few times. Is he really related to Lincoln?” Looking at my lines.
“Yeah, Lincoln’s step-son.”
“Wow, that’s interesting. When we nabbed him he used his real father’s info, never mentioned Lincoln. Hmm, Lincoln and Bruce both turn up in this case. Interesting. So what have you found out so far?”
I filled him in on all the details from the last time I saw him, and he just sat bobbling his head.
I finished and then asked him if he ever ran the plate from the car in the surveillance videos at the storage. He said he hadn’t because he assumed they were from Lincoln. I asked if he could and took out the paper I had the plate number written on. He took my desk phone, called his precinct, and talked to someone in the system. He waited while they ran them and then he hung up.
He looked at me, smiled, and said, “The plates are registered to Bruce Blair. Now isn’t that sweet?”
“OK, we now know Brucie is definitely involved with this. He’s boyfriend to Melody, and she was working for Noreen,” I said as I drew more lines on my board. “I think it’s getting narrowed down. Melody and Bruce, or just Bruce, conspire to blackmail Noreen’s clients using her name and then probably Noreen finds out, so they, or he, kills her. They, or he, keep blackmailing the clients, and then step-daddy Lincoln finds out step-boy is involved in the murder, takes over the case and tries to cover up. I wonder if he’s getting a cut of the money, too.”
“Lots of lines crossing over each other, but it’s coming together,” Trapper said as I stepped back to look at the mess.
“But if Lincoln is going around trying to find the list, how did they know who to blackmail? If Melody worked there long enough to recognize a few clients, they could start with that. But why would they need the list? Is Lincoln trying to protect someone he knows on that list before it gets out? Way too many questions and not enough answers.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of detecting. You never get answers right off, or they wouldn’t need us.” Trapper smiled.
“OK, this case isn’t in your jurisdiction so you can’t pull Bruce in, and I don’t dare go to Lincoln to ask him to pull him in. So I got to skate around the whole thing on thin ice, especially if Bruce is living with Lincoln. I wonder where Melody goes during the day when she says she is going to work. Maybe I need to go check out Noreen’s office again. Care to join me?”
“What the hell, I’m not chasing crime in my town.” He laughed. “May as well go invade someone else’s town.”
We headed out in our own cars, in case Trapper got a call to duty, and drove over to Noreen’s office. I parked across the street, and Trapper pulled in behind me. We walked up to the office and were surprised to find it open. We walked in and found a smallish blond girl behind the desk. She smiled and welcomed us. I looked around and saw that it was a lot cleaner than the last time I was in there. I reached in my pocket and turned on the record button on my Palm just in case. I walked up to the desk and asked to see Mistress Black. The girl smiled and said Mistress Black was out of town for a week, but she could schedule an appointment if we liked. I asked her name. She said Melody and held out two three-by-five cards for us. She said to put our names and information and a little detail of the domination we desired.
I put the cards back on the table and asked, “Where might Mistress Black be at?”
“Oh, I’m not at liberty to say. It’s confidential.” She smiled.
I looked at Trapper and asked if he knew anyone in fraud or vice in Roseville. He said he did. I looked at Melody and said, “Melody, Noreen is dead, but I’m sure you know that. I’m a private investigator, this gentleman is a police lieutenant, and we find it a bit odd that you didn’t know your employer is deceased. You are either naïve, stupid, or you killed Noreen. Which is it?”
She had a panicked look on her face. “I didn’t want to do this, but he said I’d die if I didn’t keep up with the con.”
“Who, Melody? Who warned you?” Trapper asked.
“My boyfriend, Bruce Blair. He said we should continue taking new clients to blackmail them since we didn’t have Noreen’s list.” She started to tear up. “I said it was too risky, too soon after her death.”
“Melody, who killed Noreen?” I asked.
She gave me a pained look and said, “I don’t know. I came here to work the other day and Bruce’s stepfather was here. He told me what happened to Noreen, and I went to Bruce and told him. Bruce was already blackmailing a couple of clients, and he didn’t want to lose the con. I had a key to the office so we got in and cleaned it up, figuring the cops were done with it, so we could keep taking clients.”
I took Trapper aside and said, “We can keep this away from Lincoln if you can get your vice friends to take this. It’s fraud and blackmail, but nothing towards Lincoln’s case of murder.”
Trapper agreed, stepped out the front door, got on his cell phone, and made a few calls.
“Melody, how long did you think you could get away with this?” I asked her.
“I didn’t think we could, but Bruce insisted we do it. I’m honestly afraid of him. He’s nuts. I wish I never met him.”
“Melody, we are having vice come in and arrest you. It will hopefully keep you safe for now and away from Lincoln who may be involved in ways I don’t want to say right now. You will have to cooperate with the officers and let them know everything you know. Understand?” She nodded her head and started crying harder. I felt so sorry for her.
*
Chapter Twenty-three
Trapper came back in and said he had a friend on his way. He told his friend to keep it on the quiet and not let Lincoln in on it. His friend was not a fan of Lincoln and agreed. About ten minutes later an unmarked car and a patrol car pulled up. Trapper’s friend entered, and I was introduced to Detective Sergeant Mike Gregory. We shook hands, and I
filled him in on what was going on, all the way back to Noreen’s death, which he knew about. Trapper explained that we needed to keep Melody out of Lincoln’s hands. This had nothing to do directly with the murder, just an after effect of it. Gregory agreed and liked the premise of our plot.
Gregory went to Melody and read her the Miranda rights, explaining it to her. She was looking so wretched, I hated doing this to her, but it was for the best. Gregory sat and asked her a number of questions then called for a warrant on Blair. That ought to piss off Lincoln. They took Melody into custody, and I said to Trapper that I felt sorry for the girl, being dragged into this.
