A Bleak Prospect

by Wayne Zurl

  “This sandwich is cut. You’re welcome to half.”

  “At seventy-five an hour, I should be buying you lunch.”

  “I agree. Let’s save that for another time, too. Want any of this?”

  He shook his head. “I’m good. Gotta watch my girlish figure.”

  “Tell me about Rosanna’s business.” I took a big bite of sandwich.

  “She was no computer pro, but she did a pretty fair job of creating a system and keeping it private.”

  “Except from you.”

  He grinned. “Except from me. I sent all of her spreadsheets to your computer. You can look at them or print them and see a chronological history of her escort business. Interesting notes on some of her customers. No full names or addresses, but most have contact numbers and locations—probably prearranged meeting spots. And some even note a client’s pro-pen-sities.”

  I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. “Very good. You want that fulltime cop job?”

  “At seventy-five an hour?”

  “Hardly.” I walked over to the mini-fridge at the side of the room. “Want a bottle of water?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t take a cut in pay to carry a gun.”

  “For seventy-five an hour, I’d want you to drag a howitzer with you.”

  “So much for my po-leece career.”

  “You seem to fit in here. I might be calling you to handle more of our high-tech investigations. You up for that.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  I sat down and twisted the cap off a bottle of spring water. “Good. Now, before I spend lots of time trying to find something in her history files, is there a meeting noted for her approximate date of death?”

  “Got a last entry for a customer named Andy.”

  I placed the sandwich on the spread-out wrapper and stood to look at the screen. “Andy?”

  “Like in Jackson.”

  “Or Sipowicz.”

  “Who?”

  “That was part of your police entrance test. Minus one.” I pointed at the laptop. “Look at that, even a time and location. Now, I’ve just got to locate the mysterious Andy.”

  “How hard can that be?”

  “You have a computerized crystal ball?”

  Lonnie Ray and I walked out to the lobby where I wanted to hand out a few new assignments.

  “John, see what you can find on this phone number. It’s probably a prepaid cell, but you never know, so go through the motions. We’re looking for someone who calls himself Andy—no last name.” I handed him a sheet of paper with the phone number and location Rosanna listed on her computer. “Then check out the address. It might be where he met Rosanna. Probably something commercial, but who knows?”

  John looked at the paper. “That address looks familiar, Boss. Why do I know that? I think I’ve written it down before.”

  “Maybe you meet hookers there?”

  “I can’t afford hookers on what you pay me.”

  “Humpf. The 1600 block on McTeer is in county territory.”

  “Yeah, but I know the address. Lemme check out Soundex.”

  John tapped the keys, looking for inspiration from his computer.

  “Aha!” he said. “You’re losin’ it, Boss. You know this address like the bottom of your shoe.”

  Bettye smiled. At my side, Lonnie Ray said, “Huh?”

  “He means, like the back of my hand.”

  “Oh.”

  John cackled like the village idiot. “Or, Boss, maybe you just want us to think you don’t know this address.”

  “Will you stop acting, and tell me why I know the address?”

  “I think you’re the one acting, Boss.”

  “Don’t make me come over there, you Irish weasel. I’ll strangle you.”

  Bettye tossed her granny glasses onto her desktop and scowled at me. She was about to go into her den mother mode.

  “Just what are you two fussin’ about? John, tell him what he wants to know.”

  “He already knows, Sarge. This is his Academy Award performance. He’s a better actor than Awesome Wells.”

  I shook my head. “That’s Orson Wells, you nitwit. And if you don’t tell me, I’ll—”

  Bettye cut me short. “Sam…John is just about to tell you. Aren’t you, John.”

  Gallagher kept laughing. “1655 McTeer’s Station Pike is that cathouse, Boss. Tell me you didn’t remember.”

  “Any minute now, John Boy, and I’ll tell you, you’re fired.”

  “You couldn’t live without me, Boss.”

  Before I could respond to that with another juvenile threat, Lonnie Ray spoke up. “There’s a cathouse in Prospect?”

  “Technically, it’s Maryville,” Bettye said. “But it’s only a hundred yards outside the Prospect line. Most deputies don’t like to answer calls there because they’re afraid who they’ll find inside. So, a Prospect officer usually takes the call.”

  “Oh.” Lonnie Ray dragged the word out.

  “They call it the Frenchman's Holler Social Club,” I said. “It’s a pretty upscale place—popular with the governing fathers of the county and those from its lesser political subdivisions.”

  “Sounds too rich for the likes of me,” Lonnie said.

  I couldn’t let that go. “Any guy who makes seventy-five bucks an hour could handle it.”

  With a Jack O’Lantern smile across the width of his face, John took another turn dumping on me.

  “The woman who runs the place is sweet on the Boss. Good-lookin’ girl, too. I mean good-lookin’.”

  “John,” Bettye said. “Stop teasing. Right now, young man.”

  He had no intention of stopping his performance. “She’s got a great name, huh, Boss? Especially for a madam.”

  I refused to acknowledge him.

  “Oh, come on,” Lonnie said. “You can’t leave me hangin’. What’s her name?”

  It was like those two were in cahoots.

  “Chastity Puryear,” I said.

  “A madam named Chastity? That’s cool.”

  I pointed at John. “Lonnie, you’re as bad as that Irish fool.”

  “For seventy-five an hour, I guess I should be at least that bad.”

  “You think?”

  I left the PD with Bettye calling the people who submitted job applications to find out if they were still interested, still in the military, and if so, were they low crawling through some filthy village in Afghanistan, drinking beer in Germany or cruising around the Arabian Sea.

  John was instructed to adjust his attitude and learn something about Andy’s phone number.

  Lonnie Ray said he knew a few tricks to get information some cell phone carriers were reluctant to provide without subpoenas. He offered to help John track down Andy and the rest of Rosanna Wakefield’s clientele.

  I suggested that he not let the pesky U.S. Constitution get in his way.

  When they finished all those chores, we still had to find out what made Toby L. Bowman tick.

  In the meantime, I planned on visiting the classiest madam in the Smokies and look for clues in the best little whorehouse in Tennessee.

  Chapter Seven

  The Frenchman’s Holler Social Club is housed in a large antebellum farm house that sits on acres of fallow land, long ago gone back to nature. The three story tan and brown and pale yellow structure was built by Mexican War veteran Barton Puryear, Miss Chastity’s ancestor. As the story goes, old Barton tried to make a go at farming, but because Tennessee soil (read red clay into that) can be no more than a hundred years away from turning into solid shale, he abandoned that pursuit and started distilling moonshine of a quality unequalled until the infamous Popcorn Sutton came on the scene in the 1970s. With the profits of his untaxed alcohol business burning a hole in the pocket of his overalls, Barton branched out to providing female companionship to the occupying troops during the Civil War.

  When Barton died, later generations of Puryears tried their hands at more legitimate enterprises, but ne
ver quite encountered success at the family homestead.

  Chastity Puryear hit two jackpots within a year’s time back in the 1980s. She inherited the ramshackle home and then when her stockbroker husband died unexpectedly, she collected a two-million-dollar life insurance premium.

  Two million bucks bought you a lot of top quality renovations back then, so she modernized the house, delved into family history and realized that the only success in the family came from running a whorehouse.

  Chastity has been doing a land office business ever since. The reason she remains un-incarcerated is because many of the county commissioners, local politicos, ranking members of the sheriff’s office and other notable residents call the Frenchman’s Holler Social Club their watering hole and home away from home.

  I pulled into the parking lot and found several of Chastity’s employees sitting on the porch, reading magazines and sipping delicate libations.

  As I trudged up the six steps, five pairs of eyes focused on me.

  A good-looking mulatto girl said, “Hello, Chief Jenkins. Are those county cops still afraid ta come here? They send you ta deal with us women of ill repute?”

  I shrugged and stuck my hands in my pockets. “You know, I’ve been embarrassed twice today because I’ve forgotten something. Refresh my memory. Tell me your name, and I promise to remember it always.”

  A couple of the girls giggled. A brunette sitting next to the girl with the café au lait skin slapped her upper arm.

  “Don’t feel bad, Mr. Jenkins,” the mulatto said. “We’ve never been properly introduced. I’ve seen you on TV and never forget a good-lookin’ man.”

  I smiled. “You just made an old guy feel young again. But you didn’t tell me your name.”

  “No, I didn’t. Can I trust you with that information?”

  That sparked a few more giggles.

  I held my right hand over my heart. “You can. Discretion is my middle name.”

  “I believe you, sugar. Call me Ida Lou.”

  “Nice to meet you, miss.”

  A pretty blonde who looked no more than twenty sipped from a tall glass of something and spoke up. “It’s a little early for socializin’, Chief.”

  “It is, but I’m here on business. Is the CEO of this company around?”

  “Kinda thought ya might be lookin’ for Miss Chastity,” Ida Lou said. “Not sure where, but she’s inside.”

  “Thanks, ladies.” If I’d been wearing a cowboy hat, I would have tipped it. “Enjoy your drinks.”

  I opened the front door with a chorus of giggles behind me. They reminded me of a group of high school girls.

  I walked through a houseful of Victorian and Edwardian era antiques. Not seeing the subject of my search, I called out, “Chassy? Are you here?”

  I heard, “In the kitchen.”

  I found her removing an assortment of cocktail glasses from the dishwasher.

  From checking out her driver’s license information after we first met, I knew that she was fifty-four years old and coincidentally, five foot, four inches tall. I once described her in two words: indecently gorgeous. She had a face that always made me smile and a figure that would make a girl half her age jealous. Chastity’s uniform of the day was a white T-shirt more than a bit tighter than what’s currently in fashion tucked into cut off jeans that hugged her backside like Saran Wrap and a pair of pink old-fashioned boat sneakers.

  She removed the last two glasses from the machine, closed the door and stood straight. Her legs were tanned and looked strong.

  “Hello, Chassy.”

  “Oh, shoot, darlin’, ya shoulda called. I look a mess. Ya caught me without my makeup.”

  She spoke with the soft musical accent of the mountain folk.

  I shook my head. “You don’t need any makeup.”

  Her hair was the color of polished rust, and while she usually wears it down three inches below her shoulders, that morning she pulled it back in a ponytail. A few strands, broken loose at both sides, added to her casual beauty. Her bangs were pushed to the left.

  She stepped very close to me.

  “Aren’t you just the sweetest man?”

  I smiled again. “All part of the po-leece service.”

  She shook her head. “What must I do ta git you ta come an’ see me more often, Sam Jenkins?”

  “How about turn this place into an Italian restaurant and not get mad when I bring my wife?”

  She took a half step back, almost stomped her foot and put her hands on her hips, feigning an attitude. “You ask a lot from a girl.”

  From watching her little act, you wouldn’t need to be a trained observer to notice that Chastity decided not to wear a bra that morning. She didn’t need it anymore than she needed makeup.

  “I came to ask a big favor.”

  “So, this is business and not pleasure.”

  “No one said business has to be painful.”

  She took that half step forward again and touched a little crescent-shaped scar on my cheek, an inch below my left eye.

  “I’ve never noticed that b’fore.”

  “It gets lost in the wrinkles.”

  “And how’d ya git it?”

  “Someone I was arresting threw a screwdriver at me.”

  “Oh, Lord have mercy. What did ya do?”

  “Something appropriate to a guy who tried to poke out my eye.”

  “Oh, my. It looks old.”

  “It happened a long time ago.”

  She smiled again and gently slapped my chest with her right hand. “Long ago. Sounds like the last time I spent a romantic day with a good-lookin’ man.”

  “If that’s true, the men in this area are lacking in the brain department.”

  “Sam, darlin’, I may be in the business, but I’ve never practiced the trade…if you unnerstand what I’m sayin’.”

  “Perfectly.”

  “But for you, sugar, I’d make an exception.”

  What would the average middle-aged man say to that?

  “I’d better ask that favor soon, or I’ll have to run away and take a cold shower.”

  She slapped my chest again. “I don’t know why I like ya so much. Ya frustrate the hell outta me.” She took an exaggerated deep breath. “Oh, all right, go ahead, and ask your favor.”

  I told Chastity a little about our first murder, and that we suspected it was committed by the Riverside Strangler.

  “So far we’ve determined that the victim did practice the trade in this area and seems to have an extensive client list. I want to show you her picture and ask if you’ve ever seen her or know the name Rosanna Wakefield.”

  I handed her the snapshot that Iris Wakefield had given me.

  Chastity nodded. “Yes, I‘ve seen her. Come over here, and sit down, Sammy.”

  We sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

  “You’ve got good taste. What are you having?”

  “I picked up a bottle of something they haven’t made in almost twenty years. Knowing ya drink scotch, I saved it for ya.”

  “What an honor. You either think I’m nice or a drunk.”

  She laughed and touched my cheek as she stood up. “Stick around, darlin’, while I git the bottle.”

  Chassy disappeared for a moment and came back carrying a square, squat bottle. She placed it on the table and fetched two small glasses from a kitchen cabinet.

  “It’s still early, so I thought a liqueur would be appropriate.”

  I read the label aloud. “Lochan Ore, by the Chivas Brothers. Is it sweet?”

  “Not as sweet as you, baby.” She cracked the seal and poured two shots. “Here’s to ya.”

  We touched glasses, and I sipped mine. Chassy waited to see my reaction. “Very nice. Thanks.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “Mmm. Tell me how you know Rosanna Wakefield.”

  “She asked me for a job.”

  It pays to know
the right people and ask the right questions.

  “And?”

  “And she didn’t call herself Wakefield. Said her name was Rosanna Mistral or some such theatrical nonsense.”

  “How long did she work here?”

  Chassy took a tiny sip of her liqueur and gently set her glass back on the table. “One night.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Oh, she was pretty enough and attracted the boys, but I caught her poppin’ some kinda pills. This is not that kinda establishment, Sammy. I told her ta pack up right then and there.”

  “When was that?”

  “Couple years ago. She was over eighteen, but not by much.”

  “Never saw her again?”

  “Nosir.”

  “I had a guy hack into her computer to find her business files. She went private into the escort market.”

  Chassy made a face. “Huh. Outcall girls.”

  She made it sound like call girls were on a par with lepers.

  “Right. One interesting thing was a notation for the day she disappeared. She scheduled a meeting with a customer she called Andy. The location she listed was here.”

  “Here as in this house?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Not in here she didn’t.”

  “Were you here four nights ago?”

  “I was.”

  “Did you see a Rosanna who might have changed her appearance in the last two years?”

  “No. I do not let just anybody wander in and out of here and set up shop. I hope you don’t think so.”

  It sounded like Chassy was losing patience with me. I finished my drink.

  “Want a refill?”

  I smiled. “Sure. Can I try it with a little ice?”

  Chassy wrinkled up her nose and frowned, as if I suggested putting ketchup on prime rib.

  She snatched my glass, walked to the freezer and picked out a single ice cube. Back at the table, she half filled the half-round footed glass and pushed it toward me.

  “Andy?” I said.

  She shrugged, and I thought how attractive the T-shirt looked on her. “Maybe. I can’t think of one right off hand, but I’ll ask the girls if someone might use that as a nickname.”

  “Thanks. How about your parking lot? Do people use it as a meeting place?”

  “I hope not—and not without my permission.”