Death of an Escort

by Nathan Pennington

  Her eyes widened. "Is this about him?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know yet. But you know him?"

  She held up her hand and showed me a giant sparkling diamond ring. "He's my fiancé."

  I think my jaw dropped open.

  "Is something wrong, Mr. Crusafi?"

  "Ah, no ma'am," I said. I was still trying to fit that information in my mind. Is it legal to have two fiancées?

  "Is there anything else?" she asked.

  "He's your fiancé?"

  "Yes," she said.

  I sighed.

  "I must return to my students," she said.

  "Oh, one more thing," I said.

  She looked at me questioningly.

  This wasn't a comfortable thing to ask a sexy and attractive woman, especially a proper and composed one like this. "What are your views on pornography?"

  She didn't look shocked. She didn't look like anything. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Have you, um, acted in porn?" I asked. I had trouble keeping eye contact.

  "Goodbye," she said.

  "No," I said.

  "No?"

  "No," I said. "I need an answer."

  "Of course not," she said.

  "So, if you were to find yourself in a porn movie on the internet, that would be a shock?"

  "That is a stupid question," she said. "Of course it would. Wouldn't it shock you?"

  I nodded. "Indeed it would," I said.

  The second woman was named Jaycee Kirkwood. She was a fitness instructor, and she also worked out of her home. There was the start of a pattern here.

  I knocked on her front door. However, unlike Shellie, Jaycee wasn't living in an area that could be called residential/commercial. It was purely residential and firmly in the original part of town where the houses were older and boxy, and not very big.

  A young woman answered the door. She couldn't have been barely old enough to drink alcohol yet.

  "Is Jaycee available?" I asked.

  "I'm Jaycee," she said.

  Oh. Wow. And I thought Shellie was good looking. Jaycee looked hot like Shellie, but ten years younger. Like I said. Wow.

  But I was still married, so I quit looking at her chest and focused on her face again.

  "I'm a private investigator," I said.

  "You're a PI?" she said and smiled. It was a fantastic smile.

  Focus, I told myself. Focus.

  "Yes," I said. "And I have a question for you."

  "Like what?" She took a stick of gum out of her jean's pocket. She unwrapped it and put it in her mouth.

  "Do you know Mickey Richardson?"

  She blushed and broke eye contact. "Yeah," she said softly.

  "How do you know him?" I asked.

  "He's my fiancé," she said.

  Seriously? "I see," I said. "He's your fiancé?"

  "Uh-huh," she said.

  "One more question," I said.

  "Okay," she said and she looked at me again.

  Now I looked away. "What are your views on porn?"

  She giggled, but said nothing.

  "I'm serious," I said.

  "It's hard to talk about," she said. "But I don't pretend like most other woman. I like it. They do too, but they won't say they do."

  "Have you been in porn?"

  She inhaled sharply and put her hand to her mouth. "Not that I know of," she said talking between her fingers.

  Now that was an odd response. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Can you prove that you're a PI?" she asked.

  I gave her a business card.

  "Okay," she said. "But I want to be sure that this stays private. I think I may have been in some Girls Gone Wild DVD when I was on spring break several years ago, but I'm not sure. I don't remember much from that time."

  "Nothing recent?" I asked.

  "What does this have to do with Mickey?" she asked.

  And she wasn't as stupid as she looked and acted. "Nothing," I lied. "But if you'd answer the question, please."

  "No," she said. "Nothing recent."

  I thanked her and left. The last woman on my list lived way on the other side of town. She was in the newer area where the houses are five to ten years old. Everything was much bigger, and it's all vinyl sided and earth tones. More or less, all the houses looked identical in the newer section.

  This woman was named Morgan Kisenski. So far I'd been lucky and found everyone at home. I hoped my luck would hold with her.

  I walked up to her door. I knocked on the white, vinyl-clad screen door.

  No one came, but there was a small SUV in the driveway, so I figured someone had to be home.

  I rang the doorbell. After a bit, she came to the door in a robe. She was rubbing her eyes and looked like she'd gotten out of bed moments ago. She pulled the door open.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Did I wake you?"

  "You did," she said. The robe slipped open a little, and I saw why she was on Mickey Richardson's list. She had plump, firm ones like the other two did. But there was an almost trashy look about Morgan. Maybe it was her bleached, blond hair.

  "I'm sorry," I said again.

  "It's okay," she said. "I need to start getting ready for work."

  "You work second shift?" I asked.

  "Sort of," she said. "I work at a gentlemen's club."

  And that was it. She was a stripper.

  "I'm a private investigator," I said. I gave her a business card. She looked like she was having trouble reading it.

  "So?"

  "I have two questions, if you don't mind?"

  "I'm awake now. Go ahead," she said.

  She hadn't noticed her robe had opened up yet. She wasn't exposed or anything, but it was a very good bit of skin she was showing. Maybe she knew it and didn't care.

  "Are you engaged?"

  She frowned. "No." She said it like I was crazy and stupid at the same time.

  "So, you don't know Mickey Richardson?"

  She smirked. "Yeah, I know him. What about him?"

  Chapter 7

  "How do you know him?" I asked.

  "We date," she said. Again she smirked. "Kind of a dumbass."

  "It's none of my business," I said. "But if that's the case, why do you date him?"

  "'Cause he's a dumbass with money," she said.

  "What are your views on porn?"

  "I don't have any," she said.

  "Have you been in porn?"

  "Yeah," she said again like I was stupid for not realizing the obvious.

  "With Mickey?"

  She frowned. "No. What's Mickey got to do with it?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I'm trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together."

  "I hate puzzles," she said.

  Perhaps blond really was the color of her hair. "So, what porn were you in?" Oddly enough, I didn't have a problem looking her in the eye when I asked that question. Something was different about her.

  "Webcam," she said. "I do shows on SteamyCamLive.com. You should check it out. I use the name Trixie21."

  "Ah, okay," I said. No, I wasn't going to. I like my women without fifteen STDs, thank you. "So, you haven't been in any voyeur porn?"

  "What?"

  Yep, blond was her real hair color. "Have you heard of TrueVoyeurLive.com?"

  "No," she said.

  I thanked her and left.

  Back at my office, I sat in my chair to think a moment. Here Mickey had multiple fiancées. I had no idea how many of the other models on the porn site were his supposed fiancées, but it was a fair guess to say that many of them where.

  It was also pretty obvious what he was doing. He ran or had a part in this site. It was also pretty obvious that the women on this porn site didn't know it. He'd picked out very attractive women, and he somehow got them on camera.

  Risky. It was also illegal, and I was willing to guess it was also very lucrative.

  But, did any of it have anything to do with Kelly Brandt's death/suicide?

  And t
hat was what I had to figure out.

  I picked up my phone and called Brass Works Wholesale.

  "Mickey Richardson, please?" I said.

  "Mr. Richardson is out of the office," the receptionist said.

  "And when will he return?"

  "Not for several days. He's out of town. Shall I take a message for him?"

  I hung up. I didn't really like that receptionist. So, Mickey was unavailable.

  I decided that the most logical thing would to be to go back to the motel where Kelly died. I hadn't been looking in that room for some kind of evidence of videotaping last time I was there.

  However, the fact that Kelly was videoed while having sex and the fact that there was a video taken of her the night she died, it was reasonable to think video was shot in that motel room.

  I was going to look and see if I could confirm that. With any luck, the moron who'd let me try out my brass knuckles on the side of his head wouldn't be there. Or that maid that I'd stiffed.

  Didn't matter really. I wasn't afraid of them. I headed down to the motel.

  I parked where I did last time, but instead of going in, I decided to walk around the building this time. There was no apparent reason to, but I felt like it. So I did.

  The front two sides of the building were ugly, but they didn't even begin to compare to the back two sides. Decrepit could describe it. Nasty also fit.

  Unpainted, and rotten wood was exposed back there. An alley ran along the back. It was mud. I'm not sure if the sun ever touched it. It looked like it was permanently mucky. It was really gross.

  A filthy old man was huddled up against the side of the building. He was sitting in the ooze.

  I could hear him. He was talking or humming to himself. I tried to walk around him.

  "Hey! You!" he called out.

  I looked at him. He held a hand out and beckoned me. His hand trembled and shook, and all the veins and bones were visible through his white, sickly skin.

  I took several steps towards him, and in my pocket I clutched at my brass knuckles. In no way should I be afraid of a homeless man in an alley, but he gave me a very unsettled feeling.

  "Yes?" I asked.

  "This is my space. Don't come back here," he said. He whistled as he talked. Air leaked out around missing teeth.

  "Right," I said. "I saw the signs, but I didn't pay attention to them."

  "Signs?" he asked.

  "The ones that said this is your space," I said. I pointed up the alley at nothing. "See?"

  "The aliens put them there," he said.

  "I thought so. It looked like their handwriting."

  "They don't have hands," he said.

  "The one I saw did," I said.

  He looked shocked, but I'd had enough messing around with him. I started to move away.

  "Wait!" he said. "I need help."

  I turned around. "What?"

  "Do you have any Republic Credits?"

  I put my hand to my chin as if I was thinking. "I don't think so. I got rid of my last ones yesterday."

  "How do you buy food?" he asked.

  "I don't. I don't eat. They have poisoned everything. You can't be too careful," I said.

  His eyes widened. "I know. Do you know what I saw?"

  I sighed. It was sort of fun playing with him, but I didn't really have time for this. I shrugged.

  "A midget. Several days ago. She went up the side of the building." He pointed up the exterior wall he was sitting against. "She was wearing a jet pack."

  "A female midget with a jet back?" I asked.

  "I think so," he said. "In the night." He said it as if it had some great significance.

  I turned and walked away.

  "Hey! You!"

  But I kept walking around to the front. Once I was back on the pavement, I stomped my shoes to get the muck out of them. It splattered all over as I stomped about, and some little splatters got on my pants.

  Inside, there was a woman behind the counter. The fat man wasn't there.

  "Thirty dollars a night," she said.

  Was that what they trained them to say here? No hello or hi. Just blurt out the rate?

  "Thirty a night," she repeated.

  "I need to see room two fourteen," I said.

  Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"

  "Room two fourteen," I said.

  She looked at the computer screen and clicked the mouse some. "It's booked," she said. "But I have others on the second floor."

  "No," I said. "I need to see the inside of two fourteen."

  "You can't," she said.

  It was déjà vu. I was feeling an urge to give her the brass knuckles on the side of her head.

  "Are there people in it right now?"

  "I don't know," she said.

  "Can you find out?"

  "No," she said.

  "I think you can," I said. I really didn't like this place. If only someone would hire me to do a simple stakeout job, I'd jump at it right now. Seriously, this dealing with people thing, it wasn't what I was cut out for.

  "I'm a private investigator," I said. I took out a business card. It was the same one I'd been taking out all day.

  "So? You're not a cop," she said.

  "What's your problem? You're a nobody. Make like what, eight bucks an hour?" I asked.

  "I'm the owner," she said.

  "Right," I said. "And my uncle is Santa Claus."

  She hacked a smoker's cough. "I'm tired of this," she said. "Get a room or get out. And yes, I'm the owner."

  "Okay," I said. "So you're the owner. How would you feel if there was illegal activity going on in one of your rooms?"

  "Happens all the time," she said.

  Come to think of it, I had walked right into that one. "I mean something that could get you in trouble. Really in trouble."

  "Like what?"

  "A hidden camera," I said. "In room two fourteen."

  "How would that get me in trouble?" she asked.

  "Invasion of privacy leading to lawsuits," I said. I was making this stuff up.

  "And how would you know about this?" she asked.

  "I don't for sure. I'm guessing."

  She looked disgusted, but she picked up a phone and muttered something into it. A maid came to the hall door. She asked her to take me up to room 214 and if no one was there, to let me in.

  "But keep an eye on him, and bring him down here when you're done," she said.

  I was taken up to the room. No one was in it. The maid let me in, and she followed me around. Everywhere.

  I didn't know exactly where to look or what to look for. That made finding whatever it was I was looking for much harder. If I'd seen some of the video, I'd know what vantage point to look from, high or low.

  But I was still guessing about the video being taken in this room. I didn't know for sure.

  Nothing seemed to be what I was looking for.

  Nothing looked like it had been mounted on the walls or anything like that.

  But, I didn't know where it would have been put. Heck, I didn't even know what kind of camera had been used.

  I turned to the maid. "Did you work Saturday night?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "And this was the room where the suicide happened, right?"

  She stared at me, but said nothing.

  "If you worked Saturday night, you must know about that," I said.

  She nodded. "We were told not to say anything about it."

  "Was there a man—"

  "It was only two women," she said.

  "What about before or afterward?"

  She thought for a moment, and then shook her head no.

  "No man at all?"

  "No," she said.

  I walked into the hall, and she locked the door to room 214. We went downstairs together.

  "Find it?" the owner asked.

  "No," I said, and I pushed my way outside.

  I put my hand into my pockets as I walked to my car. I felt that button, and I had a b
rainstorm. I knew someone who worked at the police station. He wasn't a cop or anything like that.

  I wouldn't know any cop, and I certainly wouldn't be friends with a cop. But Gracie, yes it's a guy, was a clerk or something in records.

  We'd run into each other several times in the past, and I'd gotten help from him on other things I'd been working on.

  I'd always buy him a beer or something for his help. He had helped me finding who a license plate belonged to or something like that, and he had been quick at it. Faster than I could have. Why hadn't I thought of him before?

  There would be photos of the site where the body was found, at least I hoped there would be. If there was, I could find out exactly what Kelly was wearing when she died, and I could see if it was something that this button went to.

  I pulled out my cell, and I found Gracie's number.

  "Police, records room," Gracie said sounding tired.

  "Gracie, it's . . . Ray," I said. That had been close. I'd almost said my name from before. The one that I don't use ever anymore. Why had that happened? It was a little too close for comfort. I'm Ray, I told myself. Ray Crusafi. Come on, it's been years. Hold it together. My name is Ray Crusafi.

  "Ray? Oh, yeah. Ray, how's it going? What'd you need?"

  "Photos from a suicide Saturday night," I said. "Tell me you have some."

  "Yep," he said. "I got them. I filed them today. I'm not sure why we have them, but we do."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "They took them like it was a crime scene, but it was suicide. Normally we don't have photos for that," Gracie said.

  "Sounds like someone thought it was more than suicide."

  "Dunno," Gracie said. "It's listed as suicide. You workin' on it?"

  "I am," I said. "The daughter has hired me."

  "Huh," he said. "Come on over and I'll show you what I got."

  We hung up.

  At the police station, the receptionist had to call down to records to see if it was really okay if I went down there. Gracie told her it was okay, and she let me go, but not before I'd signed in and put an oversized badge on that designated me as a visitor.

  Then I took the elevator down to the basement and went over to room A123, the records room.

  There was Gracie. He looked like a real Italian. Black hair and olive skin. I looked like that right now too, but unlike him, I wasn't really Italian.

  He had both ears pierced and had jet black earring studs in them.

  "Bro," he said. "How's it goin'?"