Sex, Love and Murder

by Sandy Semerad

  I pulled down his boxers and watched the way his hard, sleek body rebounded against his belly. It made me want to taste every inch of him.

  He took off my underpants then and ran his hands down my thighs, forcing them open. “You first, Baby,” he said.

  My sensitivity to his touch was unbelievable, almost more than I could stand as he stroked and kissed my legs, building anticipation before sinking his tongue into my curly patch.

  I heard myself gasp, asking for more. I arched up toward him, then reached through my thighs, forcing his tongue to masterfully coax from me a crescendo of shivering contractions.

  “I love being able to please you,” he whispered as he rose up to look at me.

  “Now it’s my turn to please you,” I said in a throaty tone that surprised me. I explored his body with my mouth as he watched me through half-closed eyes. He moaned when I ran my tongue up the underbelly of his sex and tasted the nectar leaking from the tip.

  “Oh, Baby, that’s great,” he sighed while cupping my face. “But I don’t want to come like that. I want to be inside you when I come.”

  He straddled me and reached inside the nightstand drawer for a condom. “You’d feel safer if I used this, wouldn’t you?” he whispered, tearing open the transparent wrapping. I laughed and opened my hand to show him the Beaver Pleaser. He laughed with me until passion took control of us again.

  I loved the way he closed his eyes and grimaced from the rush my body gave him as he entered me. I drew my legs up, deepening his thrust. “Lilah, I’ve waited so long for you,” he said, his voice thick with desire.

  As if punctuating his declaration of love, he rolled his hips, heightening the sensation. “I love you, Lilah,” he whispered.

  We seemed to move together in a fluid dance until his thrusts became more intense and I felt him thicken inside me. His face contorted in passion as his mouth stretched thin over clenched teeth. Feeling his climax near, I pulled him deeper inside me and met his swift hunches.

  There were sparks to every corner of my being. I moaned, and he groaned as his body jerked back from the force of his pleasure. God, how my body milked him.

  Neither of us spoke for several moments. I wondered if he felt as I did, weightless in a perfect union where body, mind and spirit blend together.

  “You’ve left me speechless,” he whispered, as he shifted to his side to face me.

  I smiled and kissed him. “Me, too.”

  His eyes glistened. “That was the greatest experience of my life, Lilah.”

  “You’re a terrific lover, Jay.”

  “We’re terrific together.” His fingers, so masterful in lovemaking, now felt like feathers stroking my arm. I reveled in his touch and tried to brush aside the secrets I’d concealed from him. All the while knowing his best friend was in danger. Should I have warned Jay? Perhaps. But my instincts told me to wait until after I’d found the diary.

  The diary. I could almost hear Martha’s voice, “Find it before four days pass.” Tomorrow, I knew, was the fourth day.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Monday, February 13

  Dan Duffy awoke in the early morning hours to see a man wearing a surgical mask and white lab coat. In the dim shadows, he assumed the man shining the pinpoint light at the IV valve was a doctor. Dan recognized the large, hypodermic needle and shivered with a cold sweat.

  “No,” he said hoarsely, sensing his imminent death, as a plastic gloved hand covered his dry mouth. Dan reached for the needle trying to stop the lethal injection. To prevent a scene, the bogus physician stuffed a cellophane wad in Dan’s throat and held his arms against the hospital bed. Although weak, Dan kicked and jerked from side to side. But no one heard his struggle to live, not even the policeman stationed outside the room.

  Moments later, Dan saw himself speeding through a tunnel toward a snow-white crystal bridge. He had the sensation of traveling too fast on a motorcycle but he rode no vehicle. His spirit flew on its own, cold and light. After crossing the bridge, white figures in the clouds greeted him.

  “How do I get home?” Dan asked them. A moment later, he saw his father, Tom Duffy who appeared translucent.

  He gestured to Dan as if to say, “Come with me, son. I was murdered, too.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “Dad says it’s thirty degrees in Baltimore and dropping,” Jay said to me, flipping the mouthpiece of his portable phone above his head while talking to me but still listening to his father.

  Wondering why Mr. Cascio had called so early in the morning, I stepped out of the shower and tucked a towel around my breast.

  “I wouldn’t tell him this,” Jay said, after his father said good-bye. “But I think Dad watches the Weather Channel too often. He’s beginning to sound like a meteorologist.”

  I laughed with Jay while I towel-dried my hair.

  Jay kissed the back of my neck. “But he’s right. It’s going to be chilly in Balto today. Wouldn’t you rather stay warm with me?”

  I turned to face him, my damp hair dangling over my face. “Very tempting.” I observed how Jay’s excitement winged his boxers out. “Unfortunately, I have a scheduled flight and work to do. But I’ll be back before midnight. Do you think you can wait?”

  “It won’t be easy,” he sighed, fingering my damp hair as I kissed him. “I’m not gonna have good sense today.” He wrapped his arm around me.

  I curled my lips up in a seductive pout, then let my towel fall to the floor. “Maybe I have time for a quickie.”

  “Don’t like quickies,” he mumbled. “I like to take my time.”

  “You mean you’re turning me down?” He unbuttoned his boxers. “Oh no. I’m not strong enough for that.”

  I gently pushed him toward the padded toilet seat, flipping the lid down first.

  “Are you sure you want to do it here?” he whispered.

  I unwrapped the Beaver Pleaser, then slid it over him before easing myself over him. “Yes, I want to take you here.” I planted a hard kiss, thinking how wonderful it was to feel in control of this beautiful, sensitive man.

  He grabbed me and thrust himself inside until we both came. “Lilah. You’re driving me nuts.” I wanted to enjoy the afterglow, but I worried about the time. When I tried to rise from him, he stopped me. “I need to hold you for a minute. As I said, I don’t like quickies.”

  I must have looked confused.

  “It means more when I can take my time,” he whispered as he kissed me again. “For me, it’s the difference between making love and just plain sex.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  New Orleans Airport

  Fantasizing about Jay, I found a seat between two business-suited men and waited for my boarding call. Too hot, I slipped out of my red blazer and laid it across the coat on my arm.

  I thought of my busy schedule and for some reason, checked my purse to make sure Dan’s address book and journal were still inside.

  As I took them out to study them again, I noticed a soldier in army fatigues and black boots sitting across from me, staring with icy blue eyes from over the top of his newspaper. There was something about his eyes, the way he stared and his shaved head that made him appear threatening. When he continued to stare at me, I put the address book and journal back inside my purse for safe keeping and decided to stare back at him until his eyes returned to his newspaper.

  For some reason, I thought of Angela then. I wanted to make sure she was alright, but as I started to call her my cell phone, it rang.

  “Lilah, I hate to be the bearer of bad news...” Billy Joe’s warm, familiar voice greeted me.

  “Is Angela all right?”

  “She’s fine, Honey. When I left the house, she and Melissa were still sawing logs. Melissa was thirty minutes past her curfew last night and I gave ’em hell...”

  I heard my flight number called and knew I’d be boarding soon. “Is that the bad news?”

  “No.” Billy Joe paused.

  I sensed something was terribly
wrong. “What is it?”

  “Dan Duffy died at Charity Hospital early this morning.”

  “Oh, no. That can’t be. He was getting better. Even Natasha said so.” I gripped Dan’s address book and journal. Jay, I knew, would be devastated.

  “He was until his heart stopped,” Billy Joe said. “Personally, I think it didn’t stop on its own. We won’t know for sure until we get the autopsy report. The officer on watch said a doctor entered the room around the suspected time of death but nobody’s been able to identify him. He’s not part of the hospital staff. Natasha says the whole hospital’s in an uproar over this.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Soon after Lilah left for the airport, Jay’s father called him again, “I almost forgot to tell you, our conductor made some changes in the music for this afternoon’s benefit at the Cathedral.” Jay and Manny were scheduled to play with the New Orleans Concert Ensemble at two, a charitable event expected to bring in several thousand dollars.

  “I can’t believe that guy. The last time we did a benefit, he wanted me to play things I hadn’t even rehearsed.”

  “I noticed you took some liberties with the chords.” Manny laughed and told Jay about the changes.

  “Good grief. It’ll take me a couple of hours to run through them so I don’t make a complete fool of myself,” Jay sighed. “My mind’s already blown as it is.”

  “Why is your mind blown? Would it have anything to do with Lilah?”

  Jay didn’t want to share such intimate feelings with his father. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

  “Your mother and I think she’s very special.”

  “Yes, she is,” Jay said, cringing at the thought of her climbing down into the damp, murky hideout at Loch Raven.

  “Tell you what, after the concert why don’t we go for a swim at the Athletic Club, and then maybe your mother can join us for dinner. My treat,” Manny offered.

  Jay agreed although he knew his father and mother would ask questions about Lilah he wasn’t prepared to answer.

  After saying good-bye to Manny for the second time that morning, Jay tried to focus on the concert a few hours away. He jumped in the shower and as the warm water soothed him, he softly hummed a Beethoven theme.

  With Beethoven ringing in his ears and the water pouring over his head, Jay didn’t hear the telephone.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  From the Baltimore airport I caught a cab to Little Italy where John Gable grew up with Stan Gambrini and his wife Rose. I snapped several shots of the unimpressive stone row house that used to belong to the Gambrini family.

  A voice behind me asked, “Why ya taking them pictures?”

  I turned to look at the elderly, white-haired man. “I’m doing an article on the Vice President. By any chance, did you know Stan, Rose or John Gambrini, now John Gable, when they lived here?”

  “Wish I did,” he said. “Says here, Gable is the second most popular man in the world.” He slapped the front page of his USA Today.

  I scanned the article.

  “The Pope’s number one,” the man added.

  I snapped one last picture, then jumped back in the cab. The driver, Nick, greeted me with a scowl. “Did you know there’s a dude following us?” Nick was staring in his rearview mirror.

  I turned around to see and noticed the same skin head who had stared at me at the New Orleans airport. He was riding in the taxi behind us. Nick combed back his brown ducktail while glancing over his shoulder at me. “Don’t turn around and gawk at him, Miss. Trust me. I know about these things.” He smiled, his brown eyes dancing. “Are you in trouble with the government?”

  “Not that I know of.” I knew I needed to play it cool, but I was nervous. My palms were perspiring even in the thirty-degree weather. “Do you think I’m being followed because of the article I’m writing on the Vice President?”

  Nick stared in his rearview again. “Hey, in this job nothing surprises me. The guy I see, in that cab behind us, is a kooky-looking military dude.”

  I figured I had no choice but to trust Nick. “He appears to be the same man who eyeballed me at the New Orleans airport. Can we lose him?”

  “You betcha,” Nick said, plopping a bebop hat on his head. “This is what we’ll do. I’ll drop you off at my sister’s beauty shop. When you get out, hand me a few dollars, like you’re paying me.” Nick paused as if he thought I needed time to digest his instructions. “You go inside and tell Ellen that Nick said you could use the bathroom. Now, the bathroom has two doors.” Nick held up two fingers. “Don’t go out the one you came in. Go out the door that leads down the hall. You’ll pass the sun bed rooms. At the end of the hall is the back door to Ellen’s shop. I’ll meet you there in five minutes. I’ll do some fancy twists and turns in case the dude follows me. But he’ll probably wait for you. And if he asks Ellen anything, she’ll act goofy like she don’t know nothing. And don’t worry. Not many know Ellen has a back door in her shop.”

  I figured Nick’s plan was a long shot but either I trusted the cabby or risked God only knows what from a terrorist-looking skin head.

  Nick gunned the motor. “You got sumpin’ on that Gable guy.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  St. Louis Cathedral

  After the Conductor directed the finale of Beethoven’s Pathetique, he motioned for the twenty-member ensemble to stand for applause. Manny leaned over and whispered to his son who stood by the large pipe organ.

  “Beethoven would have liked your interpretation,” Manny said.

  “Beethoven was deaf,” Jay retorted.

  Manny laughed. “He would have liked your embellishments had he heard them.”

  Jay smiled and patted his father’s back. “I doubt it. Beethoven never liked anybody’s playing. But I appreciate the vote of confidence, Dad. I had a good role model.”

  It had been a well-received performance. Many of those in attendance came up afterwards to show appreciation and the conductor seemed pleased.

  Out of courtesy, Jay and Manny waited for the last of the audience to file out, while chatting with fans and the other musicians until a tour of the St. Louis Cathedral began.

  Two delivery men distracted the guide during his brief description of one of New Orleans’ most notable landmarks. They were struggling to carry an enormous grandfather clock, wrapped in a plastic blanket.

  “We got orders to take this upstairs,” the taller of the two men said, as he lowered the heavy clock on to the carpet.

  “Orders from whom?” the tour guide asked.

  “John Gable, Vice President of the United States. That’s who. He’s donating it to the church.”

  Audible gasps came from the tour group. Jay and his father looked at each other in surprise.

  The guide excused himself from the group of attentive listeners, then gestured for the men to follow. He directed them up a back stairwell leading to the balcony.

  Jay saw how clumsily the men moved with the bulky object and wondered why they were not using a dolly. “Can I help?” he asked, bolting from the crowd of onlookers. Not waiting for a reply, Jay gripped his hands on the wood below the eagle. He and the two men managed to maneuver the cumbersome clock up the stairs. They positioned it near a large column, then removed the plastic covering. Looking at the clock, Jay noticed the image of George Washington in the clock’s face and admired the solid gold eagle on top.

  “Biggest grandfather clock I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  “Don’t know about the biggest but it’s the heaviest,” the tall delivery man said. Jay noticed the man’s skin was darker than the mahogany wood.

  “Hope we didn’t break anythin’. I heard somethin’ rattlin’ around,” the short stocky man said.

  The taller man nudged his partner. “Course, we didn’t. We was very careful, just like we was told to be.”

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Loch Raven Reservoir

  It was 3:25 p.m.
when Nick’s odometer registered one point two miles from the Loch Raven entrance at Dulaney Valley Road. I hoped Jay was right about the distance.

  Glancing again at Dan’s drawing of the hideout, I looked to my left and saw a wooded area. To my right was the reservoir containing Baltimore’s water supply.

  “Wait here, Nick. I’ll be right back.”

  Nick grinned. “Anything you say, Miss. You got me for the day. I must say, you’re the most interestin’ fare I’ve had in weeks.”

  “Thank you, Nick. I was impressed with the way you lost that guy who was tailing us. You’re very clever. Hopefully, I won’t be long,” I said, hopping out of the cab.

  While Nick parked on the roadside to wait, I walked up an incline. Not seeing a path, I hiked deeper into the wooded area which eventually led me to a clearing of several large oak trees like the one in Dan’s journal, except these trees had already shed their leaves. I rested against a white boulder and tried to remember what Jay said: The two friends had carved their initials into the bark of their hideout.

  Shivering cold, I inspected each tree. Many had grainy wood and exposed roots, but no initials. The freezing weather and my intolerance to it, almost made me give up until I spotted a huge lifeless oak standing alone in the thin winter sunlight. When I examined its trunk, sure enough, I saw a roughly carved D D and below it, J C.

  Using my large bag as a broom, I brushed away the dead leaves and tugged at the roots until the plywood lid gave way. I lost my balance, then, and the lid popped me on the head giving me a gash below my hairline.

  I was bleeding, but with the pressure of time bearing down, I couldn’t spare a moment to inspect my wound. My instincts told me to hurry as I climbed down into the cave.