by Bob Moats
“Jim, you’re going to have to toughen up a bit. First, she may be innocent, but after you get involved in a number of cases like this, you’ll find that she was probably just as cooperative as Blair was in the crime. She’s a big girl and knew what she was getting into.”
Gregory came over. “Trapper, are things so slow in Clinton Township, you got to come to my turf and stir up trouble?”
“Don’t look at me. I’m just an observer. Blame Richards here. It’s his case. So far I’m getting sick of Roseville.” He grinned.
“Well, this is going to piss off Lincoln one way or another. I look forward to booking that asshole kid of his. I hope Lincoln tries to start something with me. I’ve wanted to clean his clock for years. You guys going to lock up here?” he asked and then left after we said we’d take care of it.
“Jim, you are starting to get the swing of this business. Welcome to my world,” Trapper offered.
Trapper headed back to his boundaries, and I went back to my office. I wondered what Buck was up to. I hadn’t heard from him all day. I went in and called Benson’s office and after he came on I explained about the incident at Noreen’s office. His case with Weston was closed since I found the mystery woman, so there was no trial to go to. I asked if he ever did pro-bono work, and he said on rare occasions. I told him about Melody and her involvement in the con job Bruce was pulling. I said she was most likely guilty but I’d like to see the court go easy on her, if possible. Benson said he liked my compassion and would look into the case for me.
We finished and hung up. Then I got Frank Ropiello’s number and called him. I reminded him who I was and told him about catching Bruce Blair as his possible blackmailer. I asked if he could identify the person who took the money. I assumed it was Bruce. He said he could, so I gave him the number off the business card Gregory gave me. I told him to call and explain what I told him and see if they could get him in a line-up. He thanked me and hung up.
I had done my good deeds for the day and was wondering how Penny was doing. I decided to close up and go home, so I headed out and drove over to Jefferson and into the drive. Penny said they had a child psychologist on her show that day so I couldn’t see any surprises that Penny might throw at me. I was wrong. I got into the house and saw a child, about two years old staring at me from a crib in the middle of the family room. I just stood there hoping it would go away, but it was still watching me. Penny came into the room and said in a happy voice, welcome home, daddy.
“OK, did I miss something? Was I gone for a few years, and now I’m a father?”
Penny giggled, picked up the baby and brought it to me. I recoiled in fear. Penny said to stop that and act like a father.
I took the kid and said, “What do I do now, and where did this thing come from?”
“I kidnapped it from a playground,” she said.
I looked at her as if she was crazy. “What did you say?”
“Oh, grow up. I’m babysitting for one of the girls on my staff, Liz Davis. She needed a babysitter, and I thought it would be a great idea. Liz lives out this way in Harrison Township and dropped the baby off.”
I handed the kid back to her and said, “I hope the two of you are very happy together.”
“If you ever want to have sex with me again, you will play daddy for a couple of hours, at least till Liz comes to get the baby.”
I hemmed a bit and then said I would. She handed the baby back to me and said she had to go make us food for dinner. I went to the couch and yelled to Penny, “What is it? Boy or girl?”
Penny yelled back, “Her name is Diana. She’s my god-child.”
“Ah, I see. I guess. Where is the mother?”
“She’s at a Lamaze class for her second child. Her partner and she are going natural childbirth.”
“Her partner? As in husband or life partner?”
“Life partner, yes, Liz is gay.”
I looked at the child and said, “Boy, I hope you’re going to be strong. You’re going to need it.”
The baby goo’d and flashed her long eyelashes at me. I thought she was kind of cute. I bounced her on my knee, and she started laughing and giggling aloud. Penny peeked in and saw what I was doing, came over and kissed me on my bald head, then went back into the kitchen.
We ate dinner of tacos, and baby had something out of a jar, something that didn’t look very appetizing. After dinner I took the baby, went to the family room and put her on the couch next to me. She was waving her arms around and hitting my arm.
“Yep, she’s a female, already beating on a man,” I kidded.
Penny came out and sat on the other side of her. The baby crawled over and tried to latch on to one of Penny’s breasts. I said, “Hey, that’s mine. You get the bottle while you’re here.” I picked up her bottle and pulled her to me, laying her on her back, then inserted the nipple into her mouth. Penny sat and watched me with the child. She wished she was able to have children and wondered if we were too old to adopt. She knew at 60 we would be too old to take care of a child, and with her show and my out playing detective, it wouldn’t be fair to the baby. So she enjoyed the moment.
“I went through all this with my son. I’ve been there. Not that I want to do it again. I can’t change diapers, I have a low threshold for odors, I gag big time,” I warned. Penny laughed and said she’d take care of that end.
We played with the child for a few more hours and then the doorbell rang. It was Liz. She came into the family room. I was on the ground with the baby on my belly, bouncing her.
Penny said, “Now you see what I go through every night.” She laughed and came to rescue the child. Liz thanked Penny and me for watching Diana. I said, no problem, just don’t let it happen again. Penny whacked me on the arm, and Liz laughed.
“I’ve heard all about you, Jim, Penny tells us all kinds of gory tales. Especially the ones with handcuffs.” She smiled.
“Someone is in trouble tonight,” I mumbled.
Liz thanked us again and went off after I put the crib in her car. I wondered where her partner was. Penny said she worked late nights and had to be back to her job. We went back into the house, and I said that we needed to discuss what tales she’s been telling at work, but later. We plopped down on the couch, and I told her about the councilman, the Dom pretending to be Elvira and then about Melody and her part in the thing along with bad boy Bruce and that I got Benson to try and help her. Penny kissed me on the cheek and said I was an old softy.
We watched TV for a while, drinking our beer, eating potato chips and smooching at every commercial. Life was good.
*
Chapter Twenty-four
Next morning Penny had left and I was just getting ready to go out the door to my office when the phone rang. It was Detective Gregory.
“Richards, we brought in Blair this morning. I thought you might want to be in on the interrogation and line-up.” I said I would like that, might hear something to help my case. He said they would have him in around 9:15, so be there. I hung up and drove over to Roseville precinct, feeling a little apprehensive about Lincoln being there. Maybe I should have called Trapper. No, I couldn’t depend on Trapper to always watch my back. I’d have to face him myself.
I got there and was directed to where they had the line-up. Gregory saw me and said to follow him. We went into the observation room, and I saw Frank Ropiello. He acknowledged me, and then Gregory explained what we were going to do. There was another man in the room in a fancy suit. I figured he was a lawyer. Gregory called through a microphone to bring the men in. Just as they were coming in, the observation room door opened and in walked Lincoln. He had no expression when he saw me, just went to the other side of the room. Gregory gave him a dirty look, like don’t screw around with my witness, as he moved over between Lincoln and Ropiello to where Ropiello couldn’t see Lincoln. The men were all lined up, and the lights were brought up on them. Ropiello just stood staring as he went from face to face.
“Take yo
ur time, Councilman Ropiello. Do you see the man who was threatening you with blackmail and taking money from you?” Gregory asked.
Ropiello looked hard and finally said it was number three, which happened to be Blair. “That man came to my office twice to take money from me and warn me not to talk or my unusual predilections would be all over the papers. I’ve already confessed to my wife about it. I was only there a couple of times, so I’m ready to be a witness.”
Gregory thanked Ropiello and told him they’d talk to him about what needed to be done, maybe they could just take his statement, and he might not have to testify as a protected witness. Ropiello thanked him and left, followed by Lincoln. I looked at Gregory and went out to see where Lincoln was going. He went the opposite way from Ropiello and down a hall. Gregory followed me out and said, “Now to roast the little dickhead.”
We went to a different side of the building, and Gregory pointed to a door saying that was where I should go. I went in and found Lincoln sitting quietly in a chair. Leaning up against the back wall was the same guy in the suit. He smiled at me and introduced himself at an assistant DA.
Lincoln didn’t look at me, but said, “I hear you’re responsible for Bruce being brought in.”
“I caught Melody in her little scam. Blair was a casualty of that. He’s a big boy and knew what he was doing was illegal. From what I hear she feared for her life from Blair if she didn’t go along with the scam. Not a good boy in there.”
“I didn’t raise him. That son of a bitch convict father of his screwed him over good. I can’t change him now.” He went silent, and I had nothing more to say.
If Lincoln didn’t care so much for step-boy, why was he here? Maybe to see if Blair would rat him out. I watched as Blair squirmed in his chair until Gregory came in. He gave Gregory a dirty look as the big man sat across from him. Gregory stared, Blair looked uncomfortable, then Gregory spoke.
“Bruce, this is the third time I’ve had a talk with you. Just can’t stay out of trouble, can you? Just get yourself in deeper don’t you?” he started.
Blair gave him a stupid expression and kept watching the door as if he were expecting Lincoln to come to his rescue.
“Bruce, we definitely got you for blackmailing a city official. You were picked out of the line-up as the blackmailer. We are going to be adding a murder charge to that, too. How’s that?”
Bruce went up to being alert now. “I had nothing to do with any murder! I didn’t kill the bitch. I don’t know who did!” he whined.
“Well, Bruce, let’s see, you were blackmailing Noreen Black’s clients, and I’ll bet she found out, so you had to silence her. Isn’t that the way it went down?”
“No! Melody was supplying me with names of people she recognized coming into the office, and she told me what to do for getting the money out of them. Maybe Melody killed Black. I didn’t!”
“Did Melody have access to Black’s client list?”
“Hell, no. Black didn’t share that list with anyone. We don’t even know where she hid it. We looked after work hours. She didn’t have it in her office. I even broke into her house one afternoon to see if I could find it. Melody also heard Black mention she had a storage unit. I went there and found some videos and stuff that I thought would help us. They didn’t do us any good, though.”
Now I knew who the mystery intruder was at Weston’s house and at the storage unit.
He continued, “So Melody said we would just work on the clients she knew. Before long we’d have a good base built up.”
I was starting to wonder if Trapper was right about feeling sorry for people. If Bruce was too stupid to lie, maybe Melody wasn’t all that innocent. I had better have a talk with Benson to get his take.
“When did you start blackmailing clients?”
“Just after Melody started working there. We thought it would be a quick buck. About two weeks later, Black was dead. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I swear!”
“Did you tell those people you were blackmailing that Black was involved in the scam?”
“We didn’t say she was. I guess people just assumed she was behind it.”
“Didn’t you even think someone might have wanted her dead rather than being blackmailed and exposed?”
“No, we didn’t think that.”
“You know all the people you were scamming. I want a list of their names. Just maybe we can find someone in that list that might have killed Black. That would get you off the hook for the actual deed, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, I can do that! I’ll give you what you want.”
“Tell me, Bruce, it was your idea to blackmail the clients, wasn’t it?”
“Hell, no! Melody met me one night after she got off work and told me how we could make a lot of money if we played our cards right. I went along, I thought it would work. We hadn’t counted on Black getting iced,” he lamented.
“Where were you the night she was iced?”
“I was at a bachelor party for a buddy, I got plenty of witnesses. I’ll give you plenty of names.” He smirked.
“OK, Bruce, we got you for blackmail and fraud, you better hope we don’t take you down for murder,” Gregory said as he stood then went out.
Lincoln was quiet then stood. He looked at me but said nothing and went out. I could swear I saw a little sadness in his eyes. I didn’t want to start feeling sorry for him now. Gregory popped his head in the door and asked if I wanted to go watch him question Melody. I did. We went to a different room. I was followed by the suit, and I stood looking at Melody sitting quietly at the table. Lincoln walked in and stood at the back of the room, didn’t say a word.
Gregory walked in and sat, opening up a folder. “Melody, I’ve talked to Bruce, and he had some interesting things to say.”
I could see her eyes perk up. Gregory was going to play her against Bruce.
“Bruce forced me to do the blackmail. He threatened me if I didn’t help, he would hurt me,” she whined.
“Well, Melody, Bruce said it was your idea to do the blackmailing. Is he lying?”
“Of course he’s lying. Look at his record. He’s a con man from way back.”
“Where did you two meet, when you first got together?”
“I met him at a party one of my girlfriends was throwing. I didn’t know anything about him at the time, but he was a good talker. We started seeing each other after that.”
“How long before you started working for Noreen Weston?”
“About two months.”
“Enough time to realize he was a trouble maker. Did you take into account his criminal past when you decided to start blackmailing people?”
“I knew he had a checkered past, but he came up with the idea to do the scam after I told him about my job. I didn’t like it, but he kept at me about how much money we could make. Then he started threatening me if I didn’t help.”
“Why didn’t you just leave him?”
“He wouldn’t let me go. He’d just find me. I feared him.”
“Did Bruce do the killing of Noreen or was that your doing.”
She looked shocked and cried, “I didn’t have anything to do with her murder! Bruce didn’t either. He was too stupid to do something on his own.” That statement made me think.
“Then who did it, Melody?”
“I have no idea. I was with girlfriends that night while Bruce was at a bachelor party. I can prove it.”
“If you want to cover your ass, Melody, I’d recommend you give us a list of the people you blackmailed. We may be able to sort out a killer in the bunch. How many people did you scam?”
“We had about six people involved. I’ll give you a list if it will help.”
“Didn’t you think maybe one of the people who feared they would be exposed might want to kill the person they thought was blackmailing them?”
She was quiet for a bit then softly said, “No.”
“Well, even if you didn’t do the kill, you are just as responsible
for her death, so I’d think about that. Maybe you can get some retribution by helping us catch the real killer.” He tossed her a pad and pencil and told her to start writing names and anything she knew about the people they blackmailed. She started writing on the pad, and I started thinking about calling Benson and talking to him about this.
*
Chapter Twenty-five
Lincoln was the first to leave the room, followed by the suit. I stood for a minute till Gregory walked in.
