He returned to the monitors and tapped one. Shiny B stared at images of a partially-nude woman resisting the sexual advances of another. Then a man shot the aggressive one at point blank range. Shiny B squeezed his eyelids shut for a second and then peeled them open.
“This is the scene at a joint called the Blue Ember Club. Besides the murder, unscrupulous activities take place there, many of which you have firsthand experience.”
Shiny B moved closer. “Yeah, this place got a tidy operation, farmhands and all. They’re naked, so they can’t conceal merchandise, or waste any sticking to their clothes.”
Warner crossed his arms. “Riveting.”
“They cut and package for distribution.” He singled out the petite woman with the bad attitude. “Who’s that?”
“Marisol Schnecke. She owns the establishment, goes by the street name Missy.” Warner then posed, “Guess who she idolizes? Go ahead, take a stab.”
Get Your Freak On played instantly in the room. “Missy Elliot?”
“Nice one.”
Shiny B shifted his weight. “So, Missy got something to do with that horny chick getting shot?”
Warner flashed his fangs in a wide grin. “Suit up, Detective Shine. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
This go ‘round was different. Shiny B traveled through what he imagined was space and time. Truth be told, he hadn’t a clue when he entered the monitor for the Blue Ember Club. He simply ended up where he needed to be.
Today, Detective Benjamin Shine wore an ice-blue suit with a dotted necktie. He stood in the same interrogation room where he and Daniels had questioned the redhead madam and her junkie brother-in-law from the last case.
Daniels was looking at him curiously as other detectives and uniforms strolled in. “Sir, you all right?” Daniels patted him on the back a few times. “You look a little lost.”
Shine snapped out of a trance. “Uh yeah, thinking about this case, that’s all.”
“Chief Breedlove’s going to bring us up to speed before the Feds get here,” he stated while slipping past him, to the front of the assembly.
“The Feds?” Shine said undirected and tailed him, then caught glimpse of an older, Caucasian officer wearing a decorated jacket.
Breedlove walked in and rattled papers in his hand. “Alright, ladies.” He moved onward. “We got exactly two hours to organize our breadcrumbs.” The staff groaned, and he lifted his arm. “I know, and I don’t want to hear it. That means you cancel whatever else you got going on, get your asses in gear, and gather all the files on this X-ibit case. It’s going to be a looong day.”
Daniels angled his head toward Shine. “I put everything on your desk, sir.”
“Great, thank you.”
“Shine!” Breedlove circled his hand. “Come on up here and bring us up to date with what you got.”
His eyes widened and he took slow steps forward. At the frontline he turned and faced the officers. Daniels was the only person he remembered at the precinct from his previous teleportation through the red door.
“Well…” he exhaled, raised his fist to his mouth, and cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”
“Get on with it, Shine!” came from those waiting, along with a chuckle here and there.
The chief whispered in his ear, “Just start with what you know.”
Those words jogged Shine’s memory. Rule number six: use your knowledge, both as perp, player, and patrol. “Right, er… unscrupulous activities are going down at a place called the Blue Ember Club. Last night, the murder of a young woman gets us in with the DA for immediate search and seizure.”
Breedlove showered him with a shocked expression. “I’m always the last to know with you.” He elbowed Shine’s arm and asked, “When the hell did this come in?”
“Oh, uh, just now...”
“That’s something we can give the Feds.” He ordered everyone, “Well don’t just stand here holding your dicks. Get over to that club!”
While leaving the room, Daniels said to Shine, “You want to ride with me?”
He thought about the junky, brown 1982 Chevy Impala as he reached his desk and picked up the X-ibit files Daniels left for him. Riding was going to give him the chance to read up on everything before they got there.
“Yeah, let’s go with yours.” He then grabbed his gray wool blazer and followed his partner out the precinct.
He glanced at his jalopy in the parking lot and remembered the navigation system with programmed destinations. Then, he thought about Natasha after having seen her picture on his bureau again—he and her, sitting on the ledge of the water fountain in front of Cohen & Cohen Insurance Underwriters.
At that moment, he wished he’d gotten her home phone number. Her work and his Purgatory-possessed car were currently the only ways he could get in touch with her. He wanted to speak to her, needed to see her again—to feel her body pressed against his, and to savor her wet, salty love. The memory of them in her office came back to him, stroking the smooth skin of her tanned pussy until his fingertips reached an aisle of straight, silky hairs. Her slick wetness greeted his tongue and her clit had hardened between his lips.
He killed that fantasy quick. The last time he got hyped up over his dick, Warner punished him severely. For the time being, Natasha was going to have to be put on the back burner.
Daniels settled behind the wheel as Shine got in the passenger’s seat then sped off. Shine opened a folder and read the Intel on the drug from the DA’s report. The narcotic was a derivative of MDMA, AKA ecstasy. It delivered a heightened sex drive to users by raising the chemicals in the brain that balanced self-restraint. The sensations users experienced were driven to dangerous levels. The only release came from acting out their impulses. Within the last six months alone, there was a twenty percent increase in unnatural deaths, rape, battery, indecent exposure, and sexual harassment charges.
The next pages were from the Chief Health and Medical Officer. There was an alarming hike in abortions and the number of patients being treated for sexually transmitted diseases in the district, the most serious being those who’d contracted the HIV virus.
Shine flipped to the coroner’s report on the latest overdose victims, self-asphyxiation and damage to internal organs from insertion of foreign objects. Reading that last part, he made a gagging sound and slapped the file closed.
Daniels faced him while stopped at a traffic light. “Some crazy shit, right?”
“Sho’ nuff!”
“If you let this case get to you, you’ll never get laid again.”
He thought that statement may be truer than Daniels would ever know, if Shiny B couldn’t figure out how Shine fucked up his relationship with Natasha.
“Well, I don’t see myself having that problem,” he joked.
Daniels accelerated through the intersection, saying, “Reynolds, lucky bastard, pulling that guy over for speeding last night like he did, only to find a stiff in the back of the truck.”
“Oh, uh, yeah, how about that?” Shine flashed a perplexed look at him. “What’s her story anyway?”
“Well, the victim’s been identified as Karen Holt. Tynard Simmons was operating the pickup and claims Holt’s boyfriend attacked her at the club and fled.” Daniels took a theatrical pause to turn the steering wheel with one hand then continued, “By the time the bouncers alerted the owner to what was going down, Holt was already shot. Simmons says he was taking her to the hospital but didn’t want to get blood on his seats, so he put her in the rear.”
“Yeah, right…”
Daniels shook his head with a smirk. “Dumb ass was going the opposite direction. Reynolds figured out where Simmons was headed. Ryder Park was only a mile away, nice ravine there for dumping. A quick autopsy later, coroner determined she used X-ibit shortly before. More than likely, the boyfriend’s hopped up on it too, if there is a boyfriend.”
Shine shifted and faced him. “So what do you think the Feds want with an ordinary narcotics investi
gation? Homicide seems to have everything under control, and we got probable cause to search the club.”
“Beats the hell out of me.” He glanced at him. “I get officials are bent out of shape over the stats, going by those reports, but since when does FBI play politics over what goes down in the inner city?”
Shine chuckled quietly, undirected, and smirked. “Man, if there’s anything I know, it’s that everybody’s a politician, one way or another.”
Chapter Three
By the time the detectives arrived the street was stark of any spectators. The sight of two police vehicles parked in front of the Blue Ember Club wasn’t all that interesting in the city. Shiny B slipped out of Detective Shine’s skin for a moment. He noticed the absence of G’s who’d normally have the corners infested. Police come around and you could hear a pin drop. Shiny B had always relied on those tips from his gang brothers. Somehow, they knew beforehand when to split.
Daniels and Shine stepped out the vehicle and approached a pair of uniformed officers already speaking to Missy. She had a gorilla of a guy standing behind her, so Shine advised them to continue inside.
Biggie escorted Missy through the doors, and Shine took the opportunity to check her up and down. She wore business attire, which was quite the opposite of the getup he saw her wearing the night before on the monitor. He knew she had a slamming body underneath that costume.
Maybe it was the longing for Natasha that made him want to catch a whiff of Ms. Schnecke’s hair. The heels on her boots made her tall enough for him to lean forward without being noticeable. Once Biggie showed the others where the supposed conflict took place between Holt and her unknown boyfriend, he made his move.
Missy turned her head unexpectedly and Shine placed his palm on her back. “Ms. Schnecke, can you tell me where you were during all this?”
He smiled at her as if nothing was going on, but he could tell she wasn’t entirely comfortable with his close proximity to her.
“I’ll show you.” She led him and Daniels through the dance area and into the rear hall, while Biggie stayed with the others and answered their questions.
Shine eyed her round ass, her cheeks juggling against the seat of her pants. He still couldn’t shake being horny as hell, no matter how hard he tried.
They followed her into a large room with filing cabinets, long tables with stools, and a small kitchenette area cluttered with containers from take-out.
“This is where all the workers hang out for dinner during their shift,” Missy announced, “take their breaks and stuff.” She pointed to her office door. “I was in my office when Tynard Simmons notified me of the attack.”
Daniels asked what position Karen Holt, the vic, held at the club.
“She switched between tending the bar and clean-up duties, like most of my staff.”
Shine glanced at the leftover mess to his side. “Looks like you got to write somebody up.”
The three of them went inside the office, as she replied, “Well, nothing like a murder to get everybody off their game, Detective.”
Daniels responded, “We understand that. You claim you were here?”
“That’s right,” she replied by the door. “This is where I handle the finance and accounting for the business.”
Daniels contemplated that with the music and noise in the club, she probably wouldn’t have heard anything in particular. On the desk, there were empty money counters and disconnected surveillance monitors on top of filing cabinets. “Do these work?” He inspected wires strewn about near the screens.
“No, I’ve been waiting a week for the repair man to show up.” She sauntered over to Shine, who was grazing his hand along her desk. “I was on the phone when Biggie, that’s James Freehold out front, came in and told me there was a situation.”
“Who called you?” Shine asked.
Her eyes blinked quickly a few times as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, what does that have to do with this?”
Shine had a good handle on what was going on behind the scenes, what others didn’t know. He was determined to find the source of X-ibit. “Well, Ms. Schnecke, it all depends on who you were speaking to.”
“My investor,” she answered indignantly. “Why?”
Daniels replied, “We take it you have all the proper agreements in place with your investor.”
She faced him. “Absolutely. My lawyer handles all that for me.”
By the time she looked at Shine again, he was by her chair. He pulled the desk drawers open, and she shot over to his side. He held his palm out at her and Daniels charged near, saying, “We’re going to need you to stand back here, miss.” He directed her away and stood guard over her.
Shine searched a couple of long, narrow drawers up top, only papers. A brass tag from the furniture manufacturer caught his attention. He went into a larger compartment on the right and found Missy’s briefcase, then investigated an identical drawer on the left, which only housed a pair of shoes, pantyhose, and a cosmetics bag.
He glanced up at her. “All clear.” He moved toward Daniels and said, “I think we can wrap it up here for the moment.” He then extended his hand to Missy. “Miss Schnecke, thanks very much.” He shook her hand and added, “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
She smiled. “You know where to find me, detective.” Daniels and Shine were exiting the staff’s lounge when they heard her say, “By the way, I hope you get the bastard who did this.”
They glanced back, to find her leaning against the doorway of her office.
“Karen didn’t deserve to go out like that,” she said. Daniels nodded but Shine simply left without any acknowledgement. It seemed this Purgatory thing had its privileges—he knew she was guilty as sin.
Daniels and Shine returned to the precinct. FBI agents were crawling all over the place, digging through mounds of paperwork. Chief Breedlove took a moment to step aside and order Shine and his partner to stake out the club later that night. There simply wasn’t anything to suggest otherwise to what Marisol Schnecke and James Freehold stated, supporting Tynard Simmons’ claim that the victim was done in by a boyfriend. If the Blue Ember Club had a spring of the drug X-ibit, found in Ms. Holt’s system during the preliminary autopsy, they needed hard evidence.
Daniels finished scraping files together for an agent, then found Shine seated behind the desk. He walked over and watched him Google furniture manufacturers. “What’s that for?”
“I’m searching the model of Schnecke’s desk.” He scrolled through a list of hits. “I saw a maker’s tag and want to check out where it came from.”
“Why?”
Shine clicked on a link then finally looked up at him. “That desk was huge, but the drawers were practically empty, only some personal belongings.”
Daniels leaned over his shoulders to view the screen. “And she did seem kind of territorial.”
“So, what did she really have in there? What couldn’t we see?” He accessed the contact page and wrote down the physical address. “Kristoff and Son…” He finished writing and tore the page from the notepad. “Only a mile from the club.”
“Nice!” Daniels moved toward his work area. “Let’s pay ’em a visit.” He picked up his jacket from the chair. “Want me to drive?”
“Nah, I’ll take this one.”
Shine escorted Daniels into the lot. He then enjoyed the surprised expression on his partner’s face when they got into the Chevy Impala. He put the key in the ignition and the dashboard illuminated with blue. He then selected a Hip Hop playlist on the iPod inserted in the media center. Daniels chuckled, bopping his head, and grinned at him.
Shine activated the dual-exhaust, then pumped the gas a few times to show off the engine’s horsepower. “Yeah,” he crooned. “That’s why I keep the alarm on.”
Twenty minutes later, they arrived and parked in front of the store. The windows gave them a view of all the bedroom, dining room, and living room sets showcased. The officers got out and Shine op
ened the door first. A few customers glanced their way when they entered, then resumed perusing the furniture.
An elderly, Caucasian man with ill-fitting pants and suspenders stepped from behind a counter. “Afternoon,” he greeted while shuffling toward them. “Anything I can help you with today?”
They displayed their badges, and Daniels asked, “Are you the owner?”
“Yes, sir, I am.” He turned and waved his hand for them to follow. “Let’s talk in here.”
He took them past the counter, and into a rear workshop with a small office. There, he closed the door to muffle the sound of an electric saw coming from far back.
“I’m Eli Kristoff,” he stated pleasantly, “this here shop been in my family for fifty years, and just like the old man passed it off to me, I’ll give it to my boy, probably a heck of a lot sooner than I’d like.” He chuckled, then moseyed over to a desk and faced them. “So, what can I do you for, officers?”
Daniels answered, “We were wondering about the model of a specific desk you may have supplied for a local business.”
“Well, you got a number for me?”
Shine reached into his pocket. He hadn’t told his partner that the serial was a clue, a lead in the investigation gifted from Warner. He retrieved and opened the note. “D-E-D-23854171.” Warner and his fucked-up sense of humor. “It’s pretty big, deep drawers, nice wood.”
“All our furniture’s made with the finest quality supplies, real craftsmanship passed down for generations.” He looked directly at Daniels. “Not enough young people learning trades nowadays. Everything’s mobile or hands free, nothing rooted, stationary, hands-on anymore.”
Daniels nodded politely. “You do custom work, like secret drawers, hidden compartments?”
“If you want it, we can make it.”
Shine asked, “Did someone by the name Marisol Schnecke order one of these within the last year or two? It would’ve been for a place called the Blue Ember Club?”
Blue Door (The Colored Doors Series) Page 2