Easy Prey

by Dan Ames

  Behind the desk was, I assumed, Mr. Gadlicke. He was also thin, with an enormous Adam’s apple, thinning, slicked back salt-and-pepper hair, thick glasses and he was dressed in a black suit with a thin black tie. He looked like an out-of-work undertaker from an Old West television show.

  “Mr. Rockne,” Gadlicke said.

  “Hello everybody,” I said.

  “Let me be brief,” Gadlicke said. “You’re here because the police are looking into the disappearance of my client, Mr. Barry Kemp. Mr. Kemp informed me that he had hired you to look into the murder of David Ingells, is that correct?”

  Gadlicke’s voice was harsh, as in a I-smoke-three-cartons-of-cigarettes-every-morning kind of harsh.

  “No, he did not hire me,” I said gently. “He said he wanted to hire me. But before we could draw up a contract someone made a meat salad out of him.”

  I looked around the room at the others, but they were all watching me, like I was an object of curiosity.

  “As his attorney, I am authorized to finalize that agreement,” Gadlicke continued. “Please consider yourself hired as of right now.”

  For a moment, I was at a loss of words. Gadlicke seemed to take it as a bargaining tactic.

  “At double your normal rate.” He flourished a batch of papers and one of the giant slabs of beef brought it to me. It did, in fact, show a contract with twice my normal fee, signed by Gadlicke, along with a check.

  It occurred to me to look at the walls to see Gadlicke’s diploma. I was curious where he’d gone to law school. I looked around, but the only thing framed on the wall was a horrible painting of George Washington.

  “That’s the normal ten percent you require up front, correct?” Gadlicke asked me. His eyes flicked over my shoulder to the painting, and I wondered if he was its creator.

  I nodded.

  “What–”

  “Your job,” he interrupted me, “is to do what Mr. Kemp originally asked, but I have one small addendum. In addition to finding out the killer of Mr. Ingells, I want you to locate Mr. Kemp. Please report back to me, here, in exactly 48 hours. And I should tell you, Mr. Rockne, I expect you to do a thoroughly satisfactory job. I don’t like to be disappointed.”

  “But–”

  My elbow was grabbed and I was pulled out of the office. The door shut quickly behind me.

  With Sasquatch behind me, I marched out of the office, down the stairs and out to my car.

  Huh, I thought.

  Ten percent down? I never asked for that, but it seemed like a good idea.

  Chapter Thirty

  Something was gnawing at me again, like a beaver attacking a sapling.

  I’d worked plenty of cases before, but this one was really getting under my skin, maybe because I knew Dave so well and he was a friend. Maybe my emotions were getting in the way of clear thinking.

  Or maybe I was just making a bunch of excuses for my lack of progress.

  Whatever the deal was, as I drove down Woodward Avenue, headed for the freeway back to Grosse Pointe, I knew I was missing something.

  I turned on the radio, plugged in my phone and listened to some Black Keys as I drove. Their driving beat blues music always put me into a cool groove.

  As I drove, I couldn’t get over the goofy meeting with Gadlicke.

  What the hell was that about? And did I really want to cash his check? Something told me that would be a really bad idea.

  The guy gave me the creeps and I had to believe he wasn’t Kemp’s real lawyer. I mean, Dave’s practice was highly successful. A good law firm would be essential. So why was Kemp working with a slimeball-looking guy like Gadlicke? And what was the deal with the hired muscle? Would a legit law firm need so much security?

  Suddenly, my mind ratcheted back to my meeting with Chi Chi. Holy shit.

  I turned off the music and speed dialed her.

  “What’s up, John?” she asked. “I’m playing cat-and-mouse with a Russian hacker. He’s good. But not good enough.”

  “Hey, something’s bothering me.”

  “Try an itch cream, that should help for that area.”

  “Funny. No, what were the names of the rooms in that sex chat room? I think I missed something.”

  I heard the tapping of keys.

  “Funny you should ask, I have something for you.”

  A car careened in front of me, driven by an old man whose head could barely be seen above the steering wheel. With a swerve around him, I gunned it onto the entrance ramp for the freeway.

  “Here they are,” she read. “Mrs. X’s. Swingers. Pegs. G-Master. G. Licky. TeamBottom. NoLimit.”

  “Yes!” I shouted inside the car. “G. Licky. Gladlicke. No way that’s a coincidence.”

  “Speaking of coincidences,” Chi Chi said. “I’ve got another one for you.”

  My mind was going full tilt and I barley heard her. If Gladlicke was tied to Judy Platkin, who was possibly tied to Dave, and Dave was connected to Kemp, who also was linked to Gladlicke…

  “I have two tidbits of information for you,” Chi Chi said, interrupting my internal brainstorm. “Number one, you asked me to look into pending lawsuits regarding Barry, or Bertram Kemp.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well, I didn’t find anything officially. However, you know what the dark web is, correct?”

  “Sure, it’s the part of the Internet not visible to the public. Like, websites that even the search engines don’t know about.”

  “Right, and do you know what the currency of the dark web is?”

  “I think I do but I can’t remember.”

  “It’s called Bitcoin,” Chi Chi said patiently.

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t ask me how but I found myself inside Barry Kemp’s private email and I found some bitcoin transactions,” she said, her voice the picture of innocence. “Fairly large payments mostly around $10,000 or so.”

  “Payments to Kemp or from him?”

  “To him.”

  “Okay. So somebody was paying him for something and doing it with bitcoin through the dark web.”

  “Right.”

  I ran that through my brain.

  “While I was in there, I found some messages from his Webmaster,” she said. “At least, I thought it was his Webmaster.”

  “You mean, for his medical website?”

  “Yes, that’s what I initially thought. But then I realized it wasn’t for his medical site.”

  Something clicked into place.

  “It was for the sex chat room,” I said.

  “Exactly. And it wasn’t a Webmaster,” she said.

  Another tumbler clicked into place.

  “The G-Master room on the sex site,” I said, practically shouting.

  “You got it,” she said. And then her voice became almost somber. “But I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

  Dread filled my stomach.

  “The G-Master’s messages came from a personal account,” she explained. “I was able to trace it to a person.

  “Who?” I asked, but I felt like I already knew the answer.

  “Dave Ingells.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  As much as I tried, as an objective professional investigator, I just couldn’t wrap my brain around Dave being involved in some sort of online sex club, most likely with a physical counterpart somewhere in downtown Detroit.

  It was ridiculous.

  Out of the question.

  Preposterous.

  But still…

  Anna had told me about the rumor of Dave porking Judy Platkin. Yes, I believe ‘porking’ was the exact word she used.

  Anna.

  My plan had been to go back to the office, but now, I wanted to go home and talk to my wife. Who had told her that rumor? How long ago? Where? I vaguely remembered her mentioning a friend named Fran, but I think Fran had just been the host of the gathering.

  I kicked myself for not being more aggressive in following up with her on the
rumor, but as I thought back to it, she had claimed nothing else. That’s all she knew. And frankly, I thought the idea was so ludicrous that I had at least partially dismissed it from any serious consideration.

  Until now.

  Now, everything had changed.

  When I got home, I grabbed a beer from the fridge, saw Anna and the girls in the family room watching a movie. Something with a princess because I could see some former well-known actress dressed in glitter with a magic wand.

  After hugs and a quick chat about school, I nodded Anna toward the living room.

  “Thank you,” she said. “God that movie was boring.” She took a drink of my beer and handed it back to me.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  I flopped onto the couch and she stood, stretching.

  “This case has really taken some weird turns, especially with regard to Judy Platkin,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow and sat on the edge of the couch, took another drink of my beer.

  “Really? Like how?”

  “Let’s just say she’s been linked to some weird stuff, and possibly Dave, too,” I said. “Which is why I wanted to ask you about that rumor. Where did you hear it? And who said it?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember. It was just a bunch of women sitting around shooting the breeze. There have always been rumors about Judy.”

  “Wait, go back. So the rumor started in a group setting?”

  Anna closed her eyes and sighed. “I think so. I don’t know.”

  “I should hypnotize you,” I said and then glanced back at the room where the girls were watching their movie. “And then have my way with you.”

  “Plus, there was wine involved,” she said, ignoring me.

  “A-ha, now we’re getting somewhere.” Anna always had a busy social calendar full of get-togethers over coffee, lunch, dinner or drinks. Narrowing it down to a wine outing was a good first step.

  “For real, John? I don’t remember who said it. I think it was at Fran’s house, but I can’t be sure.”

  I thought about my options. They weren’t all that great.

  “Mom! You’re missing a good part!” one of the girls called out. Anna stood up. “Oh gosh, some Mom jobs are worse than others.”

  She left me there and I pulled out my cell phone, tapped on Nate’s contact icon.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “What are you doing?”

  “On my way home, about two blocks from your house. Are you drinking a beer?” he asked, apparently able to hear with supernatural ability the little drink I took while he was answering.

  “Yeah, why?”

  I waited, but didn’t hear an answer, and then suddenly there were lights in my driveway. Back into the kitchen I went, set my empty beer on the counter and grabbed two more. Nate appeared on the porch and I opened the door.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Cheers,” I replied.

  Knowing my friend, I grabbed a big bowl and dumped a bunch of potato chips into it.

  We each took up a spot at the kitchen table. Nate drank half his beer in one gulp. I went and grabbed him another one.

  “Got some news for you on that floater,” Nate said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  I took a peek toward the family room to make sure the girls weren’t listening. Anna hated when I talked shop and the girls could hear. Especially when it was graphic.

  “Had AIDS,” Nate said. “Remember the serial killer I told you about? Turns out all of his victims had some kind of blood disease. Which makes perfect sense since some of them were hookers. Detroit hookers are crawling with HIV. Everyone knows that. That’s why they’re such easy prey.”

  “So you don’t think it’s a coincidence? That they all have some kind of disease? Seems like if you rounded up all of the prostitutes and homeless people in Detroit, there’d be a pretty high number of them infected with something.”

  “Maybe,” Nate admitted. “But there’s something there, I know it.”

  I hadn’t really called Nate to talk about his case. I was more interested in laying out where I was. It was a lot of evidence and I wanted to spitball some theories.

  “Well, I’ve got some news, too.” I laid it all out for him. The chat room, Kemp’s disappearance and possible link to Dave. It took me quite awhile and by the time I was done, both of our beers were empty, a problem I resolved with two fresh ones.

  “The way you described the murder victim at Barry Kemp’s, that sounds like how some of these serial killer victims were murdered.”

  “I thought about that, but that seems like a stretch. I’ll mention it to Ellen, maybe she can pull some forensics for comparison.”

  “Keep me posted,” Nate said, with a seriousness I understood. This was a good story and would generate a lot of clicks on his websites.

  There was a pause and then we both started tossing out some theories, fueled in no small part by the alcohol.

  “Maybe Dave and Barry were partners,” Nate said. “A lover’s spat.”

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  Nate rolled his eyes. I was breaking the rules of a brainstorming session.

  “Try this,” I said. “I don’t think Dave was cheating on his wife, but I’ll throw out this scenario just for laughs. Dave and Judy are having an affair. Barry finds out, tries to blackmail him.”

  “So how does Dave end up dead?” Nate asked. “With Dave dead, Barry doesn’t get paid.”

  Nate held up a finger. “Judy Platkin’s husband finds out she’s sleeping with Kemp and/or Dave. He gets jealous and kills Dave.”

  I shook my head. “Judy’s separated. The husband lives in Houston now, probably driven out by the rumors.”

  Nate shoveled some potato chips into his mouth and still tried to talk. “How have I never heard of this Gadlicke character? He sounds like a hoot. And Carrot Top? That’s awesome.”

  “A really skinny Carrot Top,” I corrected. “And yeah, I want to find out who that was, goddamnit.”

  Nate pushed away the bowl of chips. It was empty. He chugged the rest of his beer and let out a long belch, mercifully he lowered the volume on it so the girls didn’t hear.

  “You know what I think?” he said.

  “No, I’m still reeling from your belch’s blowback.”

  He pointed a thick finger at me.

  “If you find out who was banging Judy Platkin, you find out who killed Dave.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sleep was one of my most favorite things in the world. Sleep and pillows. I loved pillows. I need at least four. One for my head, one between my legs, one to hug and one just in case I lose one over the side of the bed.

  I used to have a dog that would spend ten minutes arranging its blanket before it would finally flop down and go to sleep. Its name was Charlie. Sometimes when I’m arranging my pillows, Anna will say, ‘All set Charlie’?

  Anyway, I was deep into a dream where Judy Platkin was making a porn movie and I was the director, telling her to do the scene again because I didn’t feel she was properly motivated, when my cell phone buzzed on the night table.

  Anna’s elbow found its way into my side, with a fair amount of force.

  My eyes creaked open and the porn set disappeared. I was in my bedroom. My phone was ringing.

  After some fumbling around, knocking my Kindle onto the ground, I finally was able to grab the phone.

  I swiped to answer, without looking at the caller.

  “Help, John!” a voice screamed at me from the phone. “He’s drunk and he’s going to kill me!”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. Carrie Barnes, wife of Adam Barnes, the violent drunk.

  “Okay, what–”

  But the call had ended.

  Shit.

  I swung my feet out of bed, threw on some clothes and ran out to the car. The thought occurred to me to call 911, but I hesitated. Carrie had called me, probably because she didn’
t want the embarrassment of having half a dozen Grosse Pointe cops putting on a light show in her driveway.

  My gun was still locked in my safe at the office, which after some thought, I decided might be for the best. I didn’t want to shoot Adam Barnes, but I realized I might be in for some sort of violent confrontation.

  Shit.

  It was still completely dark outside and I banged the back door open, lumbered down the back steps and got into my car.

  A better option than calling the police would be to send Ellen a quick text that I was going to Carrie Barnes’s house for an emergency. I had no idea if she would be awake or not, but at least someone would know where I was.

  I threw the car into gear and backed out of the driveway, swung onto Kercheval and headed toward the Barnes house.

  Driving and texting wasn’t too dangerous because there wasn’t anyone on the roads. With cell phone in hand I began thumbing a text to Ellen.

  I was halfway through it when I heard a squeal of tires, followed by a loud crash and I was instantly thrown forward and my air bag exploded. The phone flew from my hand and my car veered off and hit the curb and somehow I managed to slam on the brakes to avoid driving into someone’s picture window.

  What happened? I was in a fog. Did I hit somebody? I hadn’t even seen another car on the road, then again it was still pitch black.

  My head snapped around and I saw a man with a gun outside my door lifting his arm to shoot. I threw myself down toward the passenger’s footspace and clawed at the door handle as a series of insanely loud explosions rattled my already foggy brain. I felt a searing pain and then the door opened and I spilled out onto someone’s grass but I instinctively rolled back under the car just in case the shooter was coming around.

  Goddamnit, I thought. Why didn’t I carry a gun at all times? I thought briefly of Anna and the girls still back at home in bed. And I wondered if the shooter was coming around now to finish me off.

  I squirmed and looked under the car, trying to see if a pair of feet was circling around either side. I shimmied again, further under the car, and in a panic, desperately tried to see where the gunman was.