by David Archer
“Um,” she said, “a little…”
“Well, five minutes in that place, and you'd know a lot more than you ever want to! It's a fantasy club where people go to play those kind of games. They showed me rooms for spanking fantasies, master and slave stuff, even rooms full of dolls and toys and little girl clothes, and I don't even want to think about what goes on in there! It was all I could do not to come running out of there with my hands in the air, screaming bloody murder!”
Indie sat perfectly still for about three seconds, and then burst out laughing. “Omigod,” she said between gasps for breath, “as tough as you are, I can't believe something like kinky sex could make you panic and want to run! Sam, have you led that sheltered a life? I learned about all that stuff in college! You can't be a college student today without running across people who are into some kinks now and then!”
Sam glared at her. “It's not funny, Indie,” Sam said, but that only made her laugh harder. Sam sat back in frustration and waited for her to run down. It took a couple of minutes, but finally she cleared her throat and said, “Okay, I'm good, now. So, what else happened?”
Sam looked at her, embarrassed to admit that he'd been so uncomfortable, but finally he just blurted out, “One of the rooms they showed me wasn't empty; Rogers was in there, naked as a newborn and down on all fours wearing a dog collar, while some woman was using a stick to whip his ass and telling him he was a bad dog!”
That set off another round of uncontrollable laughter that was so bad she almost fell off the chair and onto the floor. Sam just sat there and waited for her to get done again. It took another couple of minutes before she managed to talk.
“Well, I guess we know why he isn't into the wife, anymore,” she said, and then had to stifle another chuckle or two.
Sam nodded weakly. “Maybe; if she isn't into his games, that might explain it. But there's something else that's really bothering me, and I don't have a clue what it means.”
She sobered instantly; Indie knew him well and could tell when Sam was getting his teeth into something. “Spit it out, Sam,” she said.
Sam gathered his thoughts for a moment, then said, “Remember a couple weeks ago, that guy in the road that got killed?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Pretty hard to forget.”
Sam looked her dead in the eye so she'd know he was being very serious. “I saw that guy's face, and you know I have a very good memory. When I saw Rogers's face up close like that, and he was looking scared because we'd walked in on his kinky game, it hit me why he looks so familiar; it was the exact same face I saw get blown off that man in the road.”
Indie sat there in silence.
“What?” Sam said.
“Sam, you only saw that guy for a second before he got shot. Maybe there were some similarities, but it can't possibly be the same guy, he was dead.”
Sam shook his head. “One of the things you learn as a cop is how to take in all the evidence and embed it in your mind. After a while, you get to the point that everything you see, everything you hear, it all gets embedded in your memory, and when you need it, you can call it up and look it over again. Seeing Rogers with that same expression on his face, that 'oh, crap, I'm caught' look, I suddenly saw the dead guy's face in my mind, and it was exactly the same.”
Indie sat there for another moment. “Okay, well, I know you well enough to know you wouldn't say it unless you were certain, but I can't figure any way it fits in, can you?”
“Nope. Not a clue.”
“Okay. Then we keep it in mind, but unless we see how it figures into Rogers's problems with his wife or the case, we just go on, right?” Sam nodded. “Good. Now, while I was waiting for you at the limo, I had Herman do a little research and send it to my phone. He found something interesting, and it does seem to fit in now that I know what you found inside. I was thinking about the name of that club, Roseblood, and I decided to see what he might find. Roseblood was the name of a famous Cherokee Indian girl who was forced into prostitution, but learned to use her charms to free herself. Apparently she was considered one of the most beautiful women who ever lived, and would give her clients any fantasy they desired, as long as they gave her whatever she asked in return. Eventually she was free and built herself a nice little empire by teaching other women to do the same.”
Sam shook his head. “Well, I don't know what they charge for membership, but I'm sure it would have been pretty well up there.” He sighed. “I guess we've gotten to the bottom of our client's case, though. If Rogers wants to be a pooch, maybe she can buy him a doghouse and collar and save her marriage, assuming she'd want to. We'll talk to her tomorrow; I know we've burnt through the retainer, so get her bill ready when you get a minute.”
She nodded. “Okay. Now, what do we do about Jack?” she asked, but Sam's phone rang at that moment. He glanced at it and saw that it was Karen Parks calling.
“Any news?” he asked instantly.
“Not the best. Ballistics says that’s definitely the murder weapon. The problem is, the prints on the gun don't match up to your suspect, but they don't match Jack Wilson, either. We're still looking for the killer, Sam.”
Sam sighed. “What does Hobson say?”
“He isn't going to back off of Wilson, not as long as he's got the witness statement that she heard them fighting just before Hernandez was killed.”
“Even if that witness is on her way to a nuthouse?” Sam asked incredulously. “He's got to know it's a weak case at best. What the hell is his problem?”
Karen coughed softly. “I never said this,” she said, “but Hobson—he's a pretty well-known racist. Your client is black, and to Hobson, that makes him guilty.”
“Sheesh. That guy shouldn't even be allowed on the force. Doesn’t the chief watch the news?”
“Okay, well,” Karen said, “I'll keep my ears open. Let me know if you come up with anything, too, okay?”
“You got it. I'll keep working.” The call ended, Sam looked at Indie and shook his head. “The prints don't match Nadine. We're back to square one.”
Indie bit her bottom lip for a moment, then looked at Sam. “Maybe not,” she said. “I was a little nervous about telling you, but Mom called while I was picking up the car a while ago.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, Lord, don't tell me Beauregard has decided to weigh in on this case.” He sighed once again. “What does he say?”
“Um—he says you need to look at how the cases you're working on are related to each other. She said he wouldn't tell her what that means, but he made her promise to deliver the message.”
Sam's eyebrows scrunched down in the center. “The cases are related to each other?”
“That's what he said. You know how Beauregard is, he always claims he only knows part of it, but not enough to give the answer.”
“How in the world can they be related? We know that Nadine was behind the hateful letters, whether she killed Max or not. And I don't see how Daniel Rogers could be connected, he's just a weirdo who likes to get his bottom spanked.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “I'm not buying it. Maybe we've finally found the time Beauregard will be wrong. Whoever killed Max Hernandez has to be associated with Animal Partners, and there's just no connection between them and Daniel Rogers or that crazy kink club. I just can't see any way to tie them together.”
Indie nodded. “Well, I just promised Mom I would give you the message. I even told her it didn't make any sense, but you know her, she swears by Beauregard.”
Sam looked at his wife. “You know what? This is making my head hurt. We've got a whole evening free, all to ourselves. What do you say we go have some dinner and just enjoy the peace and quiet for tonight?”
“I thought you'd never ask,” Indie said with a smile. “You want to shower first, or…”
Sam grinned. “I'll go for the 'or,' since you gave me a choice.”
11
Sam woke like a shot the next morning, because Indie had gotten up e
arly then snuck back into the bedroom, set a cup of coffee on his nightstand and then smacked his rear end as hard as she could before running back into the kitchen. Sam came up off the bed and caught her in front of the dishwasher.
“That,” Sam said sternly, “will be the only time you ever do that.”
Indie giggled, so Sam spun her around and returned the favor before stomping down the hall to take his shower. When he came back out a few minutes later, dressed and with coffee in hand, Indie was on the phone.
“Okay,” Sam heard her say, “we'll see you then.” She hung up and turned to face him. “Sorry about that, but after your experience yesterday, I just couldn't resist. I won't do that again.”
“Darn right, you won't,” Sam said, but she could hear the playfulness in his growl.
“Okay, Mrs. Rogers will be here in an hour. I didn't give her any information, just said you needed to talk to her about the case. Oh, and I did your hours, and her bill is on your desk out in the office. You've got about eighteen hundred coming.”
“Good, we can use it! Let's get the office tidied up a bit before she gets here.”
“Already did,” Indie said. “That only took me a few minutes, while the coffee was brewing.”
She quickly heated them up some frozen breakfast burritos, and they had a hasty meal before going out to the office. Mrs. Rogers drove up only a few minutes after they got there.
Indie met her at the door and seated her at Sam's desk, then asked if she wanted coffee or anything, but she declined.
“I just want to know what's going on,” she said nervously, so Sam cut to the chase.
“Mrs. Rogers,” Sam said as gently as he could, “I'm afraid I found that your husband has gotten into some things that may be upsetting to you. Have you ever heard of a place called Roseblood?”
Sam was surprised when she nodded. “Yes, that's the club that bought his family's old estate. I don't know much about them, I'm afraid.”
“Well, they are a very private club that caters to some very specific needs of their members. In this case, I'm afraid your husband has been going there to…” Sam swallowed. “He goes there to explore a fantasy about being treated like a dog, and getting spanked or whipped.”
She froze solid, and didn't even blink. For a second, Sam wondered if he'd given her a stroke, but then she took a deep breath.
“Oh, my god,” she said. “Oh, no. I've been worried he might go mad, but nothing like this ever even crossed my mind!”
Sam squinted. “Why did you think he might go mad, Mrs. Rogers?”
She looked at Sam as if he should already know the answer. “Well, his brother. His twin brother went crazy when they were boys, and was institutionalized for trying to kill Daniel when they were fifteen.”
Something went click in Sam's head, and his heart started pounding. “Were they fraternal twins, or identical?” Sam asked her.
“Oh, they were identical, that's why I was worried about it affecting him, too. I never met Jared, that was the twin's name, because he died from some kind of accident at the institution a few years after he was put there. Daniel never talks about him, but his mother has mentioned him a few times.” She looked at Sam, as if about to share a secret. “I think she has a few issues, too, because she's apparently never accepted his death. She still talks about him as if he's alive, and even used to talk about going to visit him sometimes.”
Sam let all of this roll through his mind, and then heard himself say, “Okay, that's fine. Now, I've still got a few things to look into, if that's okay, and we'll have your bill for you in a couple of days. I hope this information helps you in some way, and if I get anything else, I'll call you right away.”
She thanked him profusely and then left, and Indie came to sit on the edge of his desk.
“Twin brother, huh? You get the feeling the twin wasn't dead, after all?”
“Oh, one of them's dead, all right, but it wasn't as long ago as she's been told. He died two weeks ago, on a road not all that far from where his mother lives. What bothers me is why this woman doesn't know that. Didn't the cops ever identify the body?”
Indie shrugged, but said, “I'll find out. Give me a little time to get into the right databases.”
“Okay. I'm gonna go see Momma Rogers again. Something isn’t adding up, and you know how I hate that!”
“Yeah,” she said, “about the way I hate a toothache!”
Sam headed out the door and got into the Corvette, then drove back out to the cottage where Rogers's mother lived. He was almost there when Indie called.
“Get this,” she said. “John Doe's body was never identified, because his fingerprints were not on file. They didn't bother to check dental records or DNA, because they didn't have a missing person report that matched, so with no one to claim the body, he was buried in the local potter's field with no headstone.”
A potter's field was what cemeteries called the plots they donated to the homeless and indigent; it came from the Bible, for that was the name of the field that Judas bought with the silver he was paid for betraying Jesus. He killed himself there, and it became known as the place to bury the poor who had no grave of their own.
“Wow,” Sam said. “What a world we live in. Okay, check one more thing for me…”
Sam told her what he wanted to know, and she said she'd get right on it.
Rogers's mother seemed surprised to see Sam again, and a bit nervous, but she let him in.
“Ma'am, I just learned about your son's twin brother, and I'd like to know more about him. Can you fill me in?”
“Oh,” she said, “why, yes, I suppose so. Jared and Daniel were identical twins, you know, so identical that we couldn't ever tell them apart. I used to dress them differently, put one in red and one in blue, that sort of thing, so I'd know which was which, but the scamps would sometimes switch on me, playing games. They were wonderful boys, just mischievous, you know? At least, until they got older.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
She looked a bit sad, then, as if what she was about to say would somehow hurt her. “When they got into their teens,” she said, “they just seemed to grow apart. They'd always been close, up to then, but suddenly one of them was the good student, and the other wouldn't even try. Daniel was always the good one, though Jared would always claim that it was him, and Daniel was just blaming him for the stuff he was doing. There were problems at school, things like Jared trying to touch some of the girls inappropriately and such; I got called in more than once. Jared always swore that it wasn't him, but the girls were sure because of what he was wearing. Then, when they were fourteen, we came home one day to find our dog dead on the front porch. He'd been gutted and hung up from the awning, it was horrible. Daniel swore that Jared did it, and I found a bloody knife hidden in one of Jared's desk drawers. That was almost the last straw, but Jared swore he'd behave, so we didn't do anything about it.” She let out a long sigh.
“Then, a year later, the boys got into an argument. Jared attacked Daniel with a hunting knife, and almost stabbed him, but Daniel managed to fight him off, and he ran. Daniel chased him, and by the time I got there, Jared was down on the ground, bleeding from his head. Daniel said he'd fallen and hit his head on a rock, and we couldn't wake him. An ambulance came, and they took him to the hospital. He was in a coma for about three days, and when he woke up he couldn't even remember what had happened. He had some brain damage, the doctors said, and pretty serious memory loss, but the worst part was his anger. He'd get so frustrated at not being able to remember things, he'd just explode for no reason at all, and we finally had to agree to put him in a special hospital. I used to go and visit him, but it always seemed to upset him, so finally I stopped going except for once or twice a year.”
Sam felt sorry for her, but he needed answers, and this was no time to play nice. He asked the question he had prepared in his head before he got there. “How long ago was it that he died, Mrs. Rogers?” Sam asked, and she looked
at him strangely.
“Died?” she asked in surprise. “Why, he didn't die; in fact, he was released a couple of months ago. He'd been undergoing some experimental treatments and they'd been very successful, so the hospital released him. He showed up here to visit, and we had a wonderful time!”
12
Sam was taken aback, positive that his hearing had somehow failed him. He knew what she'd said, though, even if he found it impossible to believe. “He's alive?” Sam asked. “Genevieve said Daniel told her he died in an accident in the institution.”
She waved a hand in disgust. “That one,” she said, dismissing her daughter-in-law as if she were no one important. “Why, yes, of course he's alive! He came by when he was released, and we had a terrific visit, and I called Daniel to let him know so he could come and see him, too. Jared stayed here for about a month, and then decided he wanted to get out and be on his own.”
“Daniel knew he was here?” Sam asked, and she lowered her eyes.
“I just said that, didn't I? In fact, to be honest, that was when he told Genevieve that he was going to Hawaii, but he was really right here, visiting with us. The two of them were getting along so well, and it felt so good to have them both here with me again. They'd go out and spend the day together out in one of the suburbs, and come back with dinner for all of us. It was a wonderful time.”
“So what happened? How did it end?”
“Jared decided he wanted a life of his own, you know. They went out one night and talked, and Daniel gave him some money and helped him find a job doing some kind of writing—he was always good at that sort of thing—and he went out to California. He calls now and then, just to let me know he's okay.”
Sam sat there for a few moments, trying to figure it all out. There was no doubt in his mind that one of the twins was dead, but which one? Sam decided it was time to play his ace in the hole.