by Dale Mayer
“Well, that’s good,” she said. “So you’ve got your laptop, your phone, your purse, all your credit cards, and stuff like that. So you really just need clothing and personal items, right?”
“Right,” she said. “Especially considering I couldn’t even brush my teeth last night or this morning.”
Kai looked up and nodded in understanding. “So we need to hit a drugstore and a place to buy clothing.”
“What’s Tyson going to do while we’re roaming around in the malls?” she joked. “I highly doubt he wants to come with us.”
Kai smiled. “Tyson went with the guys.”
*
With the three of them on different corners of the property, Johan left the other two outside and approached Barlow’s house from the back. He’d already done a quick reconnaissance earlier and knew this was the best entrance. He made his way inside the house, popping the lock easily.
It was early morning, and nobody was out and about. It was a Sunday, so most people were asleep, but he could never assume that he hadn’t been seen, so he walked calmly and naturally, as if he were expected to be here.
Johan pulled on disposable gloves. Inside the house was nothing but silence. The man Barlow had lived alone per their research. He’d had a series of girlfriends, but apparently nothing lasting since Phyllis, which was close to twenty-four years ago now by Johan’s preliminary research. He quickly searched the main floor, went downstairs, but it was just a basement, empty except for weight equipment gathering dust in a corner. The other side held a kayak and a canoe, both shiny and clean, yet dusty. As if never used. He made his way now to the second floor. The spare room was empty but laid out in case somebody wanted to stay, including a robe across the bed. He frowned at that and stepped into the bathroom, wondering if that was the way he treated all his visitors or if somebody had been here recently. But the bathroom was completely clean, with no sign of water in the tub or shower. It looked like that’s how he left it for guests.
Heading into the master bedroom, he stopped to study the layout. A huge round bed was the centerpiece, so the guy had probably thought he was some kind of Don Juan. Even had thick red velvet bedding on top. Johan winced at the garishness of it all. “Hope that worked for you, buddy,” he muttered.
But considering Barlow hadn’t had a steady relationship in a long time, Johan didn’t think it could have. He wandered around the room, checking behind the pictures on the wall. He opened the dressers, seeing nothing but standard clothing and things he would expect to see in anybody’s room. In the closets were multiple suits, all high-end yet flashy, and almost as if someone had put every item of one outfit up together. The ties and shirts were with the suits, as if Barlow took everything off the hanger and got dressed, then put it in the laundry, and it all came back that way.
This bathroom looked a little more lived-in than the other one. Johan found shaving gear, some over-the-counter medication for headaches on a side counter, shampoo in the shower, toilet paper on the roll, and more stacked up behind it. So this was the bathroom that Barlow used the most.
Johan headed to the night table on what would be the spare side first and found it empty. He walked over to the other side, the one Barlow should have been using all the time, and found it empty as well. That surprised Johan. Where was his laptop? Where was Barlow’s e-reader? Where was the phone, the chargers, the simple things in life that made all the electronics work these days? It made no sense to have none of that here, unless there was another place he stored his electronics, or if somebody had come through and taken it all. Johan sent a quick message to Ice. Her response made the most sense. The cops had picked up the electronics.
He turned his attention to the bed, lifting the pillows. Then, on a whim, he flipped off the bedding, so he could see the sides of the mattresses, and then, on his knees, checked under the bed. Nothing. He lifted the top mattress, lifted the box spring, and bingo, an envelope was taped underneath.
He quickly detached the envelope, put the bed back together, so it looked the way it should, then headed back out to look for any electronics. But he couldn’t find anything.
Finally, back in the home office, where Barlow should have had a laptop on his desk, Johan stopped and looked at all the big portraits and heavy paintings on the walls. He quickly lifted several of them, looking for a safe, and found it in the wall behind the office desk. He removed the painting, standing it up on the floor, then quickly texted the two men outside about what he’d found. Even though he hadn’t had a chance to open the envelope yet, he wanted to try to crack the safe first.
Tyson texted back. I’m coming in. Galen will stay on guard.
Johan waited for Tyson to show up, pointing out the safe. Tyson’s eyebrows shot up, his hands already in gloves too. “That’s relatively new,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
“So, does that mean you want to take a crack at it first?”
“Oh, I so do,” Tyson said with a big grin. “May I?”
“Go for it,” Johan said. “I’ll go through this envelope while you do that. By the way, the cops have collected all the electronics.”
While Tyson worked on the safe, Johan turned and opened the envelope. What he pulled out made him whistle in surprise.
Distracted, Tyson turned, just in time to see photos of several men in tight grips, obviously making love. These were deeply sexual images in black and white. “Blackmail?” Tyson asked.
“Maybe,” Johan said. “Nothing else in here but the photos.”
“And they were taped under the bed?”
“Yes,” Johan said. “Not easily accessible but hidden for safekeeping.”
“Maybe you better turn this place over a little bit further and see if anything else like that is hanging around.”
“My vote is to check inside the safe first,” Johan said.
Just then, Tyson’s nimble fingers popped the combination lock, and the safe made a distinctive click. He reached over, dropped the lever, and opened the safe. Inside were stacks and stacks of money. They both whistled.
“Wow, so he kept a ton of cash on hand. Why?” Johan asked.
“I’m not sure, but maybe some of this will help.” Tyson reached forward and pulled out several more envelopes and what looked like jewelry cases. As he opened the jewelry cases, he found very expensive pieces, with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Each was in a color-coordinated box, so red for the rubies, the emeralds were in a green box, and the box for the sapphires was blue. He put them back into the safe, and they pulled out a small book and another big envelope. They opened both and took a closer look.
“Same thing but different people in the photos,” Johan said.
“Definitely blackmail then,” Tyson said.
They spread the pictures out and took careful photographs of every one of them and then put the envelope back in the safe. The little book Johan held out and said, “This looks like his blackmail ledger.”
They shook their heads at the initials, but it seemed to be only four guys.
“Two men in each image, but is he blackmailing both of them?” Tyson asked.
“Maybe, but look at these prices. Five thousand a month from each of them, so he’s getting twenty grand a month.” Johan turned to look at the money in the safe. “You know that’s probably what all that cash is.”
“And the dates are for the last five years,” Tyson said. “I wonder if this is a new venture, or if the other ones just stopped paying?”
“It’s hard to say,” Johan noted. “Let’s take photos of the ledger, jewelry, the stash of cash, and then we’ll tell Levi, so that he can nicely give the information to the cops, so they come back and take another look.” Johan snorted. “You know what? In Africa the murderer would have taken this money and the jewels after killing Barlow, spoils of war and all that, saving the authorities from all that paperwork.”
“But we’re not in Africa,” Tyson cited. “But it does raise a good point. If the murderer was one of the
Johan nodded. “Maybe he doesn’t have your safe-cracking skills.” By the time they had taken the needed photographs and had noted the ranges of the consecutive serial numbers on the cash, and then replaced everything in the safe, the two men stood in the front hallway and surveyed the area. “Does it feel like we’re missing something?”
“Maybe,” Tyson agreed, “but I would suggest it’s probably at work, if something is missing.”
“Let’s go there next then.” Quickly Johan texted Galen that they were coming out.
Just as they were about to open the front door, Galen sent a warning. Somebody just pulled into the driveway. Go out the back.
Shit,” Johan said, as they strode as fast as they could to the kitchen and let themselves out.
With Galen keeping watch, telling them as somebody walked up to the front door with a key, Tyson and Johan were already over the fence and in the neighbor’s yard. They quickly regrouped a block away, and then, with Galen driving, they drove past the house so they could look at the vehicle.
“I wonder who that is,” Tyson said. Neither of them recognized the vehicle, but they were both busy taking photos of it so they could trace it later.
“No way to know right now,” Johan replied. “The thing is, we need a copy of the will or at least to find out who inherits.”
“And sometimes it’s not always about what somebody’ll get,” Tyson noted. “It can often be as much about what’s going to stop. The lawyers will have a will somewhere. Possibly life insurance too. Ice can look into that.”
“Meaning, the blackmail,” Johan noted.
“Yes, that’s quite possible,” Galen said.
“Let’s head back to the gals,” Tyson said. He checked his phone and snorted. “Apparently they’re at the mall.”
“Of course they are,” Johan said. “Joy doesn’t have any clothes.”
“They haven’t eaten either. They were going to go for brunch first. Shall we meet them?”
“Absolutely.” He quickly set up arrangements, and they headed straight to the restaurant.
Soon the two women wandered in, looking around. The men had arrived first and were already seated. Joy looked around and smiled when she saw Johan.
He got up, walked over, and gave her a gentle hug and a kiss on the forehead. “So how are you doing now?”
Chapter 14
Joy wrapped an arm around him, surprised at just how natural it felt. “After the cup of coffee?” she teased. “I feel much better. We went for a long walk because the malls weren’t open yet,” she said. “Then we were just thinking about stopping for brunch when you guys said you were done.”
He nodded and motioned toward the booth they had settled into at the back of the restaurant. They were all alone with nobody around them.
As soon as they were seated, Kai leaned forward expectantly. “And?”
“How do you know there’s an ‘and’ anyway?” Tyson asked.
She smiled. “I can see that you guys found something.”
“A safe with some naughty photos and a black book. More naughty photos taped under the bed,” he said.
Joy stared at them. “And what difference does that make?”
“The photos were of men with men,” Johan said in a low voice. “And I presume that they are of people who don’t want anyone to be aware of their sexual proclivities.”
“So blackmail?”
He nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking. But we don’t recognize the faces. Can you take a look?” Joy nodded, and he brought up several of the photos and enlarged them so she could see the faces.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know any of these men.”
He nodded. “We’re sending them to Levi, hoping he can ID them.”
“Barlow was well-paid by the company,” Joy said. “He wouldn’t need to blackmail anybody.”
“People blackmail for all kinds of reasons,” Kai said gently. “It’s not always about money. It’s often about revenge. It can be about power plays. Sometimes even for fun.”
“You guys don’t deal with very nice people,” Joy announced.
Tyson chuckled. “No, we don’t,” he said. “We often see the dregs of the dregs, but that doesn’t mean we have to be pulled into it with them.”
“No,” Kai said. “Taking the high road isn’t always that easy though.”
“Very true. And Barlow was getting five thousand a month from four different people,” Johan said. “A lot of cash was inside that safe.”
“What?” Joy cried out. “Five thousand dollars a month? From each?” The three men nodded. She sank back, looked over at Kai, and said, “I’m in the wrong business.”
Kai chuckled. “Of course it’s lucrative, and, in this case, instead of charging them hundreds of thousands of dollars, he kept bleeding them for a little bit every month, but then it never ends.”
“Well, it’s ended now,” Joy said. “Do you think that’s what happened?”
“It’s a very viable possibility,” Johan said. “That’s one of the reasons for sending the information to Levi. Then we can have him contact the detective to say that he ‘heard rumors’”—a phrase he put in air quotes—“so they could come and check out the house.”
“And, of course, we can’t just hand over the information, can we?”
“Not without having interfered with the police investigation,” Johan said cheerfully.
Joy rolled her eyes at him. “Which is what you just did.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, innocent like.
“If we could identify these men,” Joy said, “you’d have four suspects.”
“We also don’t know if anybody else is being blackmailed,” Johan said. “We have four people, but we don’t know if it’s all four men in these photos or if Barlow has other photos somewhere.”
“You mean, like at his office?” Joy said.
“Yeah.”
“Any idea how many men are on the board?” Galen asked Joy.
“Not sure,” she said. “I’m sure their financial IPOs would tell us.”
Tyson was already looking it up. “Looks like six board members.”
“And Barlow is one of them?”
He nodded. “So five others.”
“One’s a woman,” Tyson said. “I’m looking for images right now.” He whistled silently and then stopped when the waitress came over with a coffeepot and filled everybody’s cups and handed out menus. He waited until she was gone, then he brought up a face. As they all looked at it, eyebrows shot up as they recognized the guy from one of the photos.
“Barlow was blackmailing board members?” Kai asked.
“Looks like one at least.”
“It depends. Remember. We don’t have the photos matched to the notations in the ledger book yet,” Johan said.
“Just a second, we’ll see who else is on the board.” Tyson waited for a photo to load. “So it looks like the two men in the photos under the bed are both board members,” he said. “I can’t find the other two men.”
“That would make Barlow happy, wouldn’t it?” Johan said. “He’s being chased out of his company, so he gets back at them.”
Joy shook her head. “He sits there, day in and day out, knowing that he’s the one bleeding them dry. Do you think they knew?”
“Probably not right away,” Johan said. “The question is, what changed and how?”
“Well, what changed was me,” Joy said, “but I didn’t have anything to do with the blackmail.”
“No,” Kai interrupted, “but I wonder if what you started made him feel like he needed to move something or to change something. What if it made him a little more insecure? Maybe he upped the amounts of the blackmail or something.”
“Maybe he didn’t change anything,” Johan said. “Maybe somehow somebody finally found out what he was doing?”
“Until we know more, it’ll be hard to say,” Kai said.
“And who was the man who went to the house?” Johan asked.
“Levi’s checking the license plate with the DMV,” Galen said. “I’m waiting to hear back.” Just then his phone buzzed. Snatching it up, he looked and said, “Ricardo Wimberly.”
“Any relationship to Barlow?” Tyson asked.
“Well, you would think so, but who knows?” Galen said. “Let me bring up the image.” He brought up the DMV photo, but nobody recognized him from the photo. Galen held it up so they could take a good second look, but everybody shook their heads. Then he stopped. “It’s an old ugly photo of the IT guy. And the guy I saw skulking around in the shadows a few days ago.”
Joy asked to hold it for a moment. She studied it for a few minutes. “I think you’re right,” she said. “I think maybe he works in the IT department,” she replied, “but I’m not sure about that.”
“Well, I can check to see if he works at the company,” Tyson said, immediately tapping away on his phone too. “I like that he works in the IT department. Would explain so much. Like the security cards, the hacking, even the inventory numbers …”
Joy was amazed at how much they could do just while sitting here having coffee.
“Did I hear someone say he had keys to Barlow’s house?” Kai asked.
Galen said, “Yeah. That means that he was either a friend, family, or maybe a lover.”
“Oh, I hadn’t considered that maybe he was gay too,” Joy said, and she frowned. “Maybe that’s why Barlow doesn’t have any long-term relationships?”
“It’s possible.” Johan looked at Joy. “Maybe that’s what broke up him and Phyllis?”
“Maybe,” Joy said. “But then I’d really be thinking that she was the one blackmailing him instead.”
At that, there was silence, as everybody contemplated what Joy said. They thought about the story Phyllis had told Joy and where Phyllis was currently working.
“You know what? That’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Johan said. “Any idea what her lifestyle is like?”
“No,” Joy said. “She doesn’t dress fancy and doesn’t wear any accessories that I would consider expensive. I don’t know what she drives or where she lives because she’s never opened up about it.”
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