“Does Edgar know about George specifically?” I asked.
“No. At least I don’t think so. But, Edgar is aware of little these days except developing new drugs and making more money. Edgar and I don’t have kids. Edgar sees his company as his legacy, the thing the world will remember him by. He has little time or interest in anything else,” she said.
“Including you?” I said, guessing.
Claire smiled. “Including me. George, on the other hand, was different. He was very interested in me. Well, I should say me and my body. He made me feel sexy and alive, more so than I have in years. He was charming, handsome, hung, and very attentive to my needs. George made me feel like a teenager again. When I was with him, the rest of the world dropped away. Nothing and no one else matter. It was just us and our bodies,” she said. She sighed. “I’m really going to miss George. I hope you find who shot him.”
“Did George ever try to blackmail you?” I asked.
Claire’s brow furrowed. It was a real accomplishment in light of how much cosmetic work she had done to smooth the lines in her face.
“Blackmail me? What do you mean?” she asked.
Interesting. I knew Claire had made payments to George based on his notebook. She had made regular payments to him for almost a year. Then, they had stopped, only to be resumed about a month before George was killed. I wondered why Claire was being coy.
“There is some evidence George made his money by blackmailing women he slept with,” I said. “Are you saying George did not try to blackmail you?”
Claire looked at me intently. Then she sighed.
“Yes, George was blackmailing me,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone else knew about that. How do you know?”
I smiled.
“I’m a professional investigator,” I said. “Finding out things is what I do.”
“Does anyone else know?” she asked. To the degree it could show up on her plastic face, concern etched her face. “I wouldn’t want my husband to find out.”
I shook my head.
“As far as I’m aware, no one else knows of your relationship with George,” I said. Claire looked visibly relieved.
“My investigation has revealed you paid George for a time, stopped, and then resumed paying him a short while ago,” I said. “Why is that?”
Claire looked vaguely startled.
“Well, you certainly are thorough, aren’t you?” she said. Then, she took a deep breath and sighed heavily, which made her shirt stretch out like a balloon about to pop. I admired the tensile strength of her shirt’s fabric.
“Like I said, George was fun. I was initially upset and hurt when he first broached the subject of me paying him. But, my husband and I have plenty of money and I didn’t want Edgar to find out about me sleeping with George, so I went ahead and started paying him. I figured if I was going to pay him, I might as well get something out of it, so I continued to sleep with him,” she said. “After a while, I got sick of paying George off, so I stopped seeing him and paying him.”
“And how did George react to that?” I asked.
Claire shrugged. If she kept moving around like that, her breasts were going to put one of my eyes out.
“I had already paid him a bunch of money at that point, so we parted ways amiably,” she said. “About a month or so before he died, he called me again. Said he missed me. I missed him, too. Especially a certain part of him.” Claire said the last bit with a naughty smirk. It was not hard to figure out what part she was talking about.
“So, we started up again,” Claire said. “I made him a couple of payments again, too. Again, it’s not like I was lacking for money. Why not share the wealth a little with George?”
“Do you own a gun Claire?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She seemed a bit startled by the abrupt change of subject, and her sex kitten mask dropped away for a moment. That had been my intention. I wanted to see how she reacted to the question without me leading up to it.
“What about Edgar, does he have a gun?”
Claire shook her head no.
“He doesn’t have a gun either. Neither of us believes in guns. Guns are dangerous,” she said.
“Guns aren’t dangerous. People are dangerous,” I said.
“Do you have a gun Truman?” she asked.
I nodded.
She smiled. It contained the hint of a leer.
“Is it a big gun?” she asked.
I knew we weren’t talking about guns anymore. Claire’s startle was gone, and the sex kitten was back with a vengeance. With the way she changed emotions on a dime, I was beginning to wonder if Claire was schizophrenic.
“It’s not the size of the gun that matters,” I said. “It is the skill of the person who’s using it.”
“I bet you really know how to use yours,” she said.
How does one respond to that? So, I didn’t. I instead changed the subject and asked Claire some more questions. But, I did not learn anything more I thought was useful. I got up to leave.
Claire walked me to the front door. When we got there, Claire looked me up and down. I felt like a canary being surveyed by a cat. If it had not been beneath my dignity as a Hero to run, I would have done so.
“Are you married, Truman?” Claire asked.
“Yes,” I said, lying.
“Happily?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you cheat?” she asked. Claire was nothing if not direct.
“No,” I said.
Claire smiled at me. It was the smile of a predator.
“That’s a shame,” she said.
CHAPTER 17
I looked into Claire Morganthal’s alibi. It checked out. She had been at the charity event she said she had been at when she said she was there. Several people saw her there. I had no reason to believe her husband Edgar had anything to do with George’s death, but in the interest of being thorough, I checked into him as well. As Claire reported, he had been at work when George died.
I moved on to looking into other of George’s lovers. My next appointment with one of them was with Theresa Whitworth. Her name was the last one entered in the notebook I had photographed at George’s. I was tempted to call it a book of shame, but George had not been the slightest bit ashamed of what he did. If Claire Morganthal was any indication, the women were not ashamed either.
I found out how wrong I was when I interviewed Mrs. Whitworth in her palatial home. She and her husband James had an estate right outside of Astor City. I was rapidly learning it paid to marry an older, wealthy man. If I ever got tired of detecting and of women, perhaps I would try being a sugar baby to an older gentleman myself.
“I can’t believe I let myself get involved with George and that he’s dead,” Mrs. Whitworth said as tears streamed down her face. “What would James say if he found out?”
Theresa was in her late 20s, brunette, petite, and athletic looking. Theresa’s slightly longer than shoulder length hair was pulled back into a pony-tail. She looked like someone who might have been on a cheerleading squad not too many years ago. She had a pretty, almost elfin, face that looked slightly vacant when at rest. I got the feeling her mind was largely vacant, too. The home we sat in together was a testament to how far you could go in life if you leveraged your tight body and pretty face to marry well.
Theresa was sitting on the sofa in the living room. I was sitting in a leather armchair across from her. From the heavy and stylish furniture we sat on to the fresh exotic flowers that were spread about the room, everything in the room screamed “money.” I included Theresa in that. Though she was casually dressed as she was about to go to the gym, her workout outfit looked like it cost more than my car.
Theresa’s husband James was at work, which was why she agreed to see me when she did as she wanted to keep her relationship with George a secret. Theresa had initially been reluctant to talk to me. But, I had threatened to expose her relationship with George to her husband, and Theresa had been more f
orthcoming since then.
James was a partner at one of the major law firms in Astor City. There were pictures of him and Theresa together scattered throughout the living room. James looked to be in his sixties or maybe very early seventies. Theresa was James’ third wife. Based on the pictures of James’ children with his first two wives I also saw in the living room, some of James’ kids were older than Theresa. Apparently, each new Mrs. Whitworth was younger than the preceding one. If James and Theresa ever divorced, the fourth Mrs. Whitworth might be an infant.
“How long were you and George involved?” I asked.
Theresa wiped her eyes with a tissue.
“I first met him at Zenith Fitness nine months ago. George seemed like such a nice man, and we would chat whenever we’d say hello to each other at the gym. George was so cute and young. I love my husband, but he’s much older than I,” she said with a half-shrug. The shrug all but said, “You know how it is.” I did. I was discovering the seriousness with which people took their marital vows was not what it once was. Perhaps it never had been.
Theresa wiped her nose. There was a certain affectation to her crying, as if she was always constantly aware of how she looked.
“George and I started seeing each other maybe a month after we first met,” she said.
“And when did George first demand money from you?”
“A few weeks after we were first together. At first I thought he was kidding,” she said. “Then he showed me video of us together. I guess George was a Meta, and he used his powers to record the two of us together.” She said the word “Meta” in a hushed tone like it was dirty word, as though if she said it too loudly, the Devil himself would appear. I wondered how she would react if I made all the water in the flower vases around us start to boil. Cross herself and call an exorcist, maybe. Theresa was young, and seemed younger. I suspected she did not have much experience dealing with Metahumans.
“If George had shown that video to my husband, James would have divorced me for sure. I love James and the life we have together. I couldn’t let that happen,” she said. I wondered what Theresa would miss more: her husband, or the lifestyle his money afforded her. Maybe Glenn’s cynicism was rubbing off on me.
“How much money did you pay George?” I already knew from George’s records, but it was good to test a suspect from time to time to see if she would tell you the truth.
“All together, about fifty thousand dollars,” she said. That matched the numbers from George’s records. If I had not already known the figure, I might have whistled. Sleeping with a pretty woman and getting paid for it was evidently nice work if you could get it.
“When is the last time you saw George?” I asked. Theresa blushed, looking even younger than her years.
“A few days before he was shot,” she said. “We slept together then. Even after I started paying him, George and I never stopped sleeping together.” I guess my surprise must have registered on my face as Theresa looked a bit defensive. “I was going to have to pay him anyway,” she said in a rush of words. “I might as well have continued to get something out of the deal. Plus, uh, George was really good in bed.” Theresa’s blush deepened. “If anything, the fact George was taking money from me made our time together hotter. The tension really spiced things up between the two of us.”
I was starting to wonder if George’s sizeable penis had superpowers as well. Perhaps the ability to hypnotize women. George had extorted money from both Claire Morganthal and Theresa, and yet both had continued to sleep with him.
“Did you have anything to do with George’s shooting?” I asked. I watched Theresa’s reaction to the question closely.
“Of course not!” she said. Her wounded indignation seemed genuine, but who the hell knew for sure. I was so used to getting lied to I was starting to think everyone was lying. I wondered if that was why voters distrusted politicians.
Theresa told me she had been at a dinner party with her husband at the home of one of his law partners when George was shot. Theresa made me swear to be discreet before she gave me the partner’s name and telephone number. Theresa also told me neither she nor her husband owned a gun.
“Do you know who might be involved with George’s shooting?” I asked.
Theresa shook her head. Her ponytail looked like a horse tail swatting away flies.
“It was probably one of those sluts George was sleeping with,” she said. “George told me about them. He liked me, and he would talk to me about his life. Some of the women he slept with were real pieces of work. If you’re willing to sleep around on your husband, what else are you capable of?”
The irony of her statement seemed to be lost on her.
CHAPTER 18
Drowning in breasts was not nearly as fun as you would think. Whether it was water or breast tissue, if it meant you could not breathe, you were just as dead either way.
Claire Morganthal’s breasts were getting bigger and bigger, expanding on her chest like dough containing too much yeast. They enveloped me, trapping me between the two of them. They wedged me up against the wall of the room. They pushed against my face, smothering me. I was having difficulty breathing. I struggled to get my gun out of its holster, thinking I would shoot her breasts and pop them like balloons. But, the pressure of her ever-expanding breast tissue was too great. I could barely move, much less draw my weapon. Claire’s maniacal laughter filled my ears.
“Oh, now you want to pull your gun out,” she said, cackling. She laughed and laughed and laughed while I vainly struggled between her cleavage. Suddenly, her laugh started to sound like a telephone ringing.
I think it was the ringing that did it. I snapped awake. I was in bed at home. My bed linens were twisted around me, making it hard for me to move. I pushed my bedsheet out of my mouth with my tongue. Claire’s appearance clearly had made a real impression on my subconscious.
Some superhero you are, Truman, I thought as I struggled to free myself from the confines of the sheets. The next supervillain you fight should bring some bed linens with him.
My cell phone was on the nightstand. It was still ringing. I finally managed to free my arm. I answered the phone.
“Truman, this is Glenn,” came the voice of Detective Pearson.
“John Glenn?” I said. “I’m a huge fan, Senator. But, I thought you were dead.”
“Stop screwing around Truman,” Glenn snarled. “This is serious. David Hoff is dead.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“At Mr. Hoff’s office,” he said.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said.
I got up and glanced at the clock. It was shortly after 2 a.m. the day after I had spoken to Theresa Whitworth. I hastily got dressed.
Due to its size, Astor City never really completely slept. But, the traffic was much lighter in the wee hours of the morning than usually. I broke the speed limit and ran a few red lights driving to David’s trailer office. I got there in well under an hour.
The area around David’s office trailer was lit up with the flashing blue lights of cop cars. I have always thought a crime scene in the middle of the night looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno. I showed the cop guarding the entrance to the chain-link fence my private detective’s license and told him Detective Pearson was expecting me. The cop waved me through.
Déjà vu all over again, I thought as I made my way to David’s trailer. First George Chase, now David Hoff. I was starting to feel like the Angel of Death. If I spoke to you, you died shortly thereafter.
Glenn was inside David’s trailer. So was David. Or, what was left of David once he had shuffled off his mortal coil as Shakespeare put it. David’s body was seated behind the desk of his chair. A bullet hole was in the center of his forehead. A surprisingly small amount of coagulated blood ran from the hole down David’s forehead and down the side of his nose. There was a slight look of surprise on David’s fleshy, ash grey face. It was as if the afterlife was not as he expected it to be. Life on
this side of the grave was rarely as one expected it to be either.
Glenn was standing by the desk, watching as two technicians worked on and examined David and his desk. Glenn spotted me and waved me over. He held up two thin gloves for me to put on. He had similar gloves on himself.
“I’m not going to touch anything,” I said in protest. My professional pride was slightly wounded.
“Humor me,” Glenn said. I took the gloves and put them on.
“So, what’s the scoop?” I asked.
“Single shot to the forehead, as you can see,” Glenn said. “No exit wound. Bullet probably rattled around in Mr. Hoff’s head, scrambling his brains but good.”
Careful to not touch anything and to stay out of the technicians’ way, I got closer to David’s body to examine the bullet wound more closely.
“Looks like the kind of hole a .45 caliber bullet would make,” I concluded. “The same caliber bullet that killed George Chase.”
“That’s what it looks like to me, too,” Glenn said. “We won’t know for sure until we extract the bullet and compare it to the slugs from Mr. Chase. How much do you want to bet the bullet in Mr. Hoff here was fired from the same gun that shot Mr. Chase?”
I shook my head.
“No bet,” I said. “I talk to David about George, and then David gets shot shortly thereafter by what appears to be the same caliber bullet that killed George. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Glenn said. “Not when it comes to murders.”
“Me neither,” I said.
I looked around the office a bit. It looked the way it did when I had last seen David. Nothing appeared out of place.
“Doesn’t look like there was any kind of struggle,” I said.
Glenn nodded his head in agreement. He walked to the front of the desk.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 1): Superhero Detective For Hire Page 11
