Toxic Blonde

by David Stever

  TOXIC BLONDE

  DAVID STEVER

  Cinder Path Press, LLC

  Also by David Stever

  AUBURN RIDE

  TOXIC BLONDE

  Copyright © 2018 David Anthony Stever

  Cinder Path Press, LLC

  5319 Tarkington Pl.

  Columbia, MD 21044

  www.davidstever.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Toxic Blonde is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Brandi McCann/ebook-coverdesigns.com

  Cover Photograph: Remy Musser/Shutterstock

  ISBN: 978-09983371-2-8 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-09983371-3-5 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my parents,

  Evelyn and George Stever,

  with love

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ALSO BY DAVID STEVER

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  TOXIC BLONDE

  1

  Two people having sex make all kinds of different noises and I have listened to them all in my years of investigative eavesdropping. Giggles, laughs, cries, sighs, whispers, gasps, screams, moans, groans, and grunts. I waited until Wallace Forman let out one last grunt—to give him one last moment of pleasure—before I destroyed his day. I removed my earpiece and set it on the hotel bed and turned off the receiver. I left Room 302, walked the six feet to Room 304, and pounded on the door.

  “Mr. Forman?” Silence on the other side. I banged again.

  A few moments passed and the door opened a crack. A man peeked through as I held up my old police badge. He had on trousers and an undershirt. The security chain went taut.

  “What is it?”

  “We need to talk, Wallace.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know everything. You are Wallace Forman of Forman/Roberts Insurance and your friend in there is Brittany Grimes. You are sixty-three years old, married to Elizabeth. She hired me to help you out of this situation. How about I come in?”

  “No. Who are you?”

  “Right now I’m your best friend. Trust me.”

  I watched his eyes give me the once-over. “I’m calling the police.”

  “You can do that, but before you do, ask Brittany about Valerie Kinney and Marie Marshall.”

  “What?”

  “Valerie Kinney and Marie Marshall. Ask her.”

  He closed the door and their muffled voices went back and forth. I put my ear to the door but couldn’t decipher anything. Less than a minute went by and the door cracked again.

  “She doesn’t know what you’re talking about. We’re calling hotel security.”

  “In my hand are copies of two felony warrants she has outstanding. Los Angeles and Phoenix. Wanted for fraud and extortion.” The door closed and the voices went back and forth again. This time the door opened and he stepped into the hall.

  “Who are you again?”

  “Name’s Delarosa. Private investigator.” I held my identification in front of his face and then handed him the warrants. “She is Valerie Kinney on one, Marie Marshall on the other. Elizabeth hired me two weeks ago to follow you and investigate your friend.”

  His thin chest heaved hard with each breath. “Why should I believe you? Next you’re going to want money. This is a shakedown.”

  “Mr. Forman, the shakedown is tucked between the sheets in there. She’s a grifter, a con. How much did you give her in the past three months?” His brow furrowed and his eyes went to the floor. “Let’s go in.”

  “Elizabeth knows?”

  I nodded. “Your partner, too.”

  “Rick? Oh, Jesus.”

  “Why don’t we go in the room so we can talk this through and come to a resolution?”

  His hand shook as he opened the door. I followed him inside.

  Brittany was in the bed with a sheet pulled up to her neck. “Wally, you let him in?”

  “Everyone found out.”

  “What? Who is everyone?”

  “Elizabeth, Rick.”

  “Oh my God. So, so what? They’ll need to accept who we are and our relationship.”

  “It won’t be that easy.” He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. The color drained from his face. He shuffled a few steps to the bed and plopped down hard. His soft, doughy body was a rumpled lump on the corner of the bed. His faded white undershirt matched the gray of his hair, and his round belly bulged out on his lap.

  “File for divorce. End it, baby. That’s what we want, anyhow,” she said. He sat staring at the floor. “Wally?”

  “Why don’t you put your clothes on and I’ll tell you how this is going to go,” I said.

  “You’re going to tell us?” Brittany asked. “Why don’t you go to hell? Get out of our room. Wally, make him leave.” He was silent and probably in shock. “Wally?”

  Over the past two weeks, I observed and photographed Wallace and Brittany AKA Valerie AKA Marie checking in to motels and hotels, going to lunch and dinners, and walking the streets of the city. He moved around with Brittany on his arm and his chest puffed out with the bravado of a sixty-three year old man who is sleeping with a woman twenty-five years his junior. Now the realization of his embarrassing indiscretion crashed in on him.

  I focused on the felon in the bed. “Get dressed.”

  “How about you mind your own business and get out?”

  “Miss Grimes, or whoever you are, the sugar daddy well is dry from this point forward. You have two choices: deal with me, or I call the cops.” I stepped back and leaned against the hotel room door. I couldn’t chance her getting past me.

  Wally finally spoke up, “Do as he says.”

  Her face flushed. “I don’t believe this.” She looked at me. “Are you going to leave?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, I see. You want a peek, is that it? You want a free show? Okay, here you go.” She threw off the sheet and hopped out of the bed. She thrust her arms in the air and twirled around. “Take a picture, you pervert.”

  “Stop it, Brittany,” Wally snapped at her.

  She had an extra fifteen middle-age pounds around her waist and hips and her pancake breasts were past their perky prime.

  “Fine.” She scooped up her clothes, stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  He stood and pulled on a shirt. “Not my finest moment, huh? Deep down, I knew it would not last. I knew…I
knew she wanted money…I liked it…made me feel like a man again.”

  “It happens,” I said. “We lose our minds when a female shows a little attention.”

  “I thought…” He sat back down on the bed. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.”

  The bathroom door flung open and Brittany came out. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her purse and faced me. “Move out of our way.”

  I pulled a check and a sheet of paper from my pocket. “This is made out to you in the amount of ten thousand dollars. A little generous if you ask me, but it’s from Elizabeth Forman.” I held up the one-sheet contract and a pen. “If you take the money, you agree to leave Port City and never return. You also agree to cease all contact with Wallace and his firm. Forever.”

  She contemplated the offer for all of three seconds, huffed, grabbed the contract and pen from my hand, scribbled a signature, crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it across the room. I gave her the check and she split. She never once looked at Wallace.

  I picked up the wad of paper and made an effort at smoothing it out. I took my transmitter—a bug—from behind the headboard where I placed it earlier in the day when the lovebirds went to lunch.

  “You were listening?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Photographs and recordings go a long way in a divorce settlement.”

  “How did you get in our room?”

  “Cash in the hand is still king, Mr. Forman. Gather your things. I’m next door in 302.”

  I went to my room and tucked the transmitter and receiver into my attaché. Wallace walked in after a minute and appeared to be half the man who I had watched parade around town with his mistress on his arm.

  “You get off doing this? Listening, watching; destroying people’s lives?”

  I faced him and was six inches taller, with a lot more muscle. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

  He sat down on the bed with his chin on his chest. “Now what?”

  “You go back, ask for forgiveness. Tell them you temporarily lost your mind.”

  “Easy for you to say. What about the pictures and recordings?”

  “They belong to your wife, but I think she wants this behind you. I’ve been at this work a long time and have seen many men in the same spot you’re in now. You’re not the first, won’t be the last. You’ll be fine.” I opened the door and he stood.

  He had tears in his eyes.

  “What a fool I am. She didn’t even say anything. I trusted her.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Love can be cruel, Wallace. Love can be cruel.”

  ***

  I called Jim Rosswell, my attorney friend, the one who funnels me business, and told him the Forman job was done.

  “How’d he take it?”

  “Humiliated. He’ll get over it.”

  “Yep, we all do. Come by my office tomorrow at one. I have another job for you.”

  “What?”

  “What you’re good at. Cheating spouses.”

  “Jim, c’mon…”

  “Be here at one. Trust me, nice price tag.” He hung up.

  Cheating spouse cases are routine, boring, and never pleasant. I peek into people’s lives when they are less than their best and it is always two people doing something they should not, and that never leads to a happily ever after.

  But in the words of a wise old private eye somewhere:

  Infidelity pays the bills.

  2

  “Want some lunch?” Katie asked.

  “Yes, thank you. Any excuse to get out of this store-room.” The least favorite part of my duties as half-owner of McNally’s Irish Pub: inventory. My partner, Mike as in Mike McNally, took care of the front of the house while I tended to the back. That was our deal, unless a PI job came my way, and that well has been dry for a while, except for last two weeks of tailing a philandering husband.

  The twelve cases of liquor will have to wait to be opened, sorted, counted, and logged into our new computerized inventory tracking system. The old fashioned way of paper and pencil was fine by me, but our new hire, Katie Pitts—our part-time bartender, bookkeeper, waitress, my research assistant, and apprentice private investigator—insisted we upgrade to the modern era and arranged for a restaurant point-of-sale computer system. When it was first installed, it took me ten minutes to figure out how to sell a guy a draft beer.

  Katie set a fancy-looking sandwich in front of me as I slid into my office/booth in the rear of the bar.

  “What’s this?”

  “Gourmet grilled cheese,” she said, with her hands on her hips.

  “Kind of fancy for us.”

  “No. Artisan bread with cheddar cheese and sliced apple. We need to upgrade this menu if we expect to compete with other places in town. We can’t keep serving hot dogs and wings.”

  “We’re a bar. People come in here wanting to drink beer and eat bar food.”

  She sat opposite me and leveled her blue eyes. “We upgrade the menu, we upgrade the clientele.”

  “We don’t need to upgrade the clientele. Cops and firefighters suit us fine.”

  “There are thousands of people in this city who should know about us. We’re a cool bar and we’re missing out on a lot of business.” She got up from the booth. “Eat the sandwich.” She went back to the kitchen and her food experiments.

  I took a bite as Mike walked over with a beer for me. “Did she make you one of those? Out of this world, right?”

  “Are you buying in to this new menu and all these new plans to attract more customers?”

  “She’s right. We haven’t changed the menu since we opened. I’ve been frying the same chicken wings for six years. Maybe we should upgrade? Advertise some more. This place is a ghost town some nights. Happy hour crowd, then nothing.”

  I ate half the sandwich, and as much as I did not want to admit, it was delicious. “Who’s going to cook if she’s not here?”

  “Me and Carlos, as long as the dish is not too complicated.”

  Katie returned to the booth and sat. “Liked it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did, but we’re not a gourmet joint,” I said.

  “C’mon, Johnny? There’s incredible potential here.”

  Mike jumped in. “Here’s the deal. I like the idea of a new look, changing a few things, liven it up. Why don’t you put together some type of formal presentation and we’ll decide?”

  Katie turned to me.

  “Seems reasonable,” I said.

  “Yes! I’m stoked. Thank you. This place will be so bangin’ you’ll be amazed. I’ll start as soon as I get back from my vacation.”

  “Vacation?” I finished off the sandwich.

  “Yes. My trip to San Juan. In five days.”

  “I don’t remember anything about a vacation. Mike, do you remember anything about Katie going on vacation?”

  “Don’t leave me shorthanded for a week.” He pointed to her. “Make sure your shifts are covered.” Mike lumbered to the bar. “I have a restaurant to clean.”

  “Are you happy now?” I washed down the sandwich with my beer.

  “Yes. But there’s something else I want to ask you.”

  I peered at her over the lip of the bottle.

  “I want to learn to shoot,” she said.

  “Not this again.”

  “Johnny, please…you said you would teach me.”

  “Those cases of liquor won’t count themselves.” I left the booth and she followed me to the storeroom.

  “Why not? I want to learn. I should learn. Then I can get my carry permit.”

  I still see her duct-taped to a folding chair, sitting in the center aisle of a warehouse, wearing nothing but her underwear. Distressed, tired, panicked, but tough and resilient. Two maintenance workers abducted her after she played tennis and held her for ransom. Her father hired me to find her and bring her home—which I did. A few days later, she talked her way into working for us in the bar, and doing investigativ
e background research for me. Even though she never stops talking, we love having her around. And not just for her tall, shapely body, long mane of blonde hair, and killer eyes—she just grew on us. Call it paternal. She is smart, resourceful, mature beyond her years, plus she knows how to work the damn computer.

  “I told you I would teach you. I think everyone should learn how to handle a gun. But a conceal and carry permit is not necessary.”

  “So, you don’t want me to be able to defend myself.”

  “Of course I do.” I grabbed my box cutter and sliced off the top of the first carton. I recorded the count on the inventory sheet. She huffed and leaned in the doorway with her lips in a pout and her arms folded across her chest. I cocked an eyebrow. “That won’t work.”

  “I want my PI license and having a permit is essential to my job.”

  “Nice try.” The alarm on my cell phone chirped. “I have an appointment with Jim in thirty minutes.”

  “Does he have another job?”

  “Yep.”

  “When were you going to tell me? I’ll grab my notebook.”

  “No. I’m going. You finish this inventory and clean the kitchen before Mike gets his Irish up. We’ll meet later this afternoon. And…and, when you come back from your trip, I’ll take you to the range.”

  She threw a hug around me. I’m too easy.

  3

  The twenty-minute drive to Jim Rosswell’s office took forty minutes in stop-and-go traffic. The offices of Rosswell-Ward, Attorneys at Law, were on the fourteenth floor of a twenty-five story modern glass and steel building that hovered over the Port City harbor. I parked in the building’s underground lot. The elevator opened to his suite and Jim’s assistant, Patty, ushered me back.

  Rosswell-Ward is best described as a boutique firm catering to a roster of well-heeled entrepreneurs. Jim Rosswell made a small fortune taking companies public, becoming one of the country’s foremost legal experts in IPO offerings and SEC regulations—and how to skirt them. Now, fifteen years later, Jim limits his personal practice to a select few clients. Most of the work he parcels out to me are background investigations of prospective corporate executives. Tedious and routine, but I can bill what I want. In the world of six-figure employment contracts, a few thousand on a background check is a nominal cost for a company, and easy paydays for me. The business climate in Port City enjoyed a steady growth over the past decade, due to our working harbor and the ancillary businesses it spawns. The major transportation companies in the country all maintain a presence in the city. So, Jim, and his reputation, are good for my business.