Twice as Fatal: A Jarvis Mann Detective Novel

by R Weir

  “No, thanks,” I replied. “The Malones are worth more to me than money.”

  “So we are in a difficult position. I don’t like to be told what to do in my business. It makes me look weak and others might exploit it.”

  “I’m in the business of getting my client out of tough scrapes. It’s sensible from a professional standpoint. Chalk it up as a loss and a learning experience. No one else has to know. We could care less about what the people in your club do. It’s a free country. You keep on going along on your merry way making lots of money, getting the votes you need to advance your cause, and we live down in Denver as if none of this ever happened.”

  He drank a little more and ate some fries. His cold eyes bore into me and were giving some final thought. I left his fries alone, the onion smell alone killing my appetite.

  “Okay,” stated Marquis, his voice going softer but frighteningly firm. “Understand one thing, if you or the Malones go back on your word, I will have all of you killed. Starting with the wife and sister, with Mack and Grady having a lot of fun before they die, both the husband and son watching, helpless to do anything. From a business standpoint, this will make the most sense if you double-cross me.”

  I sat there and met his stare with my best you don’t scare me expression. I gave him no further response, so he stood up, tossed down a twenty-dollar bill and walked out.

  Now, I didn’t often get frightened, but the chill from Marquis’s last words sent shivers down to my toes after he left. There was little doubt he meant it, and there was little doubt we wouldn’t double-cross him. If he kept his end of the deal, there would be no reason to. I finished up my first beer and contemplated my second when a man slid into the seat across from me. In street clothes, Trey Olsen dressed like any another person in the bar and not a Greeley cop. He had offered to provide backup in case things went wrong, after I told him my plan when I called for information on Marquis. It was always good to have a friendly face join you after an evil one left.

  “So how did it go?” Trey said.

  “Pretty good,” I answered. “He accepted the terms but threatened to kill all of us if we reneged. His detail of the killing was graphic and chilling.”

  “I guess it’s his way of telling you he respects you.”

  “A type of respect I can do without. Shall I buy you lunch?”

  “Of course, I’m famished. What’s your budget?”

  “Sky’s the limit,” I stated.

  He ordered a burger, fries and a light beer. Small price to pay to have him available to keep them from back-shooting me in the parking lot when we left an hour later.

  Chapter 22

  I survived the holiday weekend with Melissa at her spacious townhome after her Thanksgiving dinner with her family, which I happily avoided. Together, we mixed in a little Black Friday shopping, some bike riding, long walks holding hands in the warmer-than-normal November weather, and some quality time in bed. All good things must come to an end and I left her Sunday morning with a warm embrace and kiss, as I was involved in an intervention for Ray at my home office.

  Bill and I discussed the fact that since the threat was likely over, we needed to confront Ray about his problems. Time had come to face up to them and we were going to use the videos to drive home the point that he required help. If this didn’t work, I had one other item up my sleeve.

  The two of them arrived late morning at my place and I welcomed them in. The weather still was warm, so both came dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and light jacket. Bill had taken the family away for the holiday to visit other relatives in Kansas. They had driven back Saturday night, as planned. Bill and I knew that before Ray returned to school this issue had to be cleared up, or it could start all over again.

  With a long HDMI cable I hooked up my computer to my large-screen TV to view the recordings. There wasn’t anything pleasant about this, but a trigger was required to show Ray he was being used, like they were using others at The Hustle. I had videos cued up in a certain order with the volume set loud enough to hear, tested and ready to go. I was letting Bill do the talking until I was needed. You could see Ray was uncomfortable, sensing what was before him.

  “Son, we brought you here today to speak with you,” stated Bill. “With school starting back up tomorrow, we need to get all the cards on the table. Time to clear the air on what you’ve been involved with.”

  The clichés were coming quick and often. Certainly Bill had been rehearsing this for some time.

  “Since your last concussion, we’ve encountered some bad men. Two of which came to our house and roughed up your mother. They were about to rape her if Jarvis hadn’t intervened.”

  Ray glanced my way and I nodded.

  “They wouldn’t have gone through with it, Dad,” said Ray.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because…” Ray stopped in mid-sentence, trying to find the right words. “They are my friends.”

  “No they aren’t,” answered Bill. “Friends don’t break into your home and beat on your mother and threaten to sexually assault her. Those aren’t friends; those are evil men. You can’t defend what they did.”

  “I’m not defending. They were mad because I owed them money.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this?”

  Ray shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “We understand more than you know. Did you borrow money from them to join their club?”

  Ray nodded his head.

  “And what happens there?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Sure you can, son. Jarvis has been inside and seen the place. He knows the goings-on. Some booze and some pretty women with very little clothing on, dancing for you. Is this where you met Ariela?”

  Ray was starting to close down again, his pride in the way of admitting what he’d done.

  “Go ahead Jarvis, show him,” stated Bill.

  I clicked the mouse and the first video started. There was a white overweight man naked and strapped to the bed. Standing beside the bed was the blonde woman I’d encountered at Ariela’s with her leather outfit on. She had a crop with leather tassels she was whipping him with. The man was moaning loudly in excitement when Ariela walked in, also dressed in leather, and rubbing the blonde woman with her hands, kissing her on the ear, telling all to hear what she was going to do. The scene started getting more explicit so I stopped it.

  “Recognize the two women?” asked Bill. “Is the one walking in last Ariela? Wasn’t she your last girlfriend? Or would sex buddy be a better term?”

  “She is doing her job,” replied Ray.

  “OK, let’s go to the same scene, only this time it’s edited, and listen to what is stated at the end of it.”

  I started the modified version with the faces blacked out, and an audio track recorded over it. It basically said the same thing as the edited video of Ray, to either pay up the increased fee or the footage would be placed on the Web for all to see, with the man’s face no longer covered up.

  “Next,” said Bill.

  This one was of two men and Ariela doing things I had a hard time watching. Once I played some of it I switched to the edited version, which almost word-for word had the same threat. We continued this through two other videos until we came to Ray’s.

  “Watch this next one closely. I believe you’ll know who is in this one.”

  The video started and Ray saw himself. He closed his eyes, but Bill firmly told him to look. I only played about two minutes of it and switched to the edited version with the included threats. We went straight through to the end. When I turned it off you could see the embarrassment on Ray’s face. He tried to get up and walk out but Bill stopped him by grabbing his arm. Ray attempted to pull away, but Bill was strong enough to hold on, until Ray shoved and broke free.

  “Leave me alone,” yelled Ray. “I can handle this. I don’t need your help.”

  Getting out of my seat I went to block the door. Ray was a big, muscular
kid and I didn’t want to use force, but I needed to keep him there. He stared me in the eyes with a determination of get out of my way, but I told him no. Whatever I needed to do I, would to keep him there.

  “Ray, sit the fuck down!” yelled Bill.

  Ray appeared shocked at his father’s profanity and wasn’t sure how to act. He backed away from me and up against my kitchen wall, his head down, chin on his chest. He put both hands on his head in pain. The scene was a bit scary. You wondered if he was losing it, his mouth moving though no words came out. A gentle knock came at the door and he looked up. I opened it and in came Raven, her timing perfect. I had called her and asked if she could join us. She was his best friend and the strongest bet in getting through to him. She walked over and stared straight in his eyes and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Constance,” said Ray, the one person she would allow to call her by her given name. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask the same thing,” stated Bill.

  I hadn’t told Bill of my plan, uncertain how he’d react to it, since Raven had mentioned he didn’t care for her. I motioned for Bill to be quiet and let them converse.

  “Come on, you two, take a seat on the sofa,” I said. “You have a lot to talk about.”

  I took her jacket and hung it on the wall with the others. She was dressed all in black, down to the top of her boot-length skirt, a silver chain through the belt loops, a blouse adorned in flowers with burnt orange flames coming out of them. Her black hair with red highlights extended to her shoulders covering half her face, a gold necklace of skulls around her neck, matching earrings sparkling under her hair. She took Ray gently by the hand and they sat down on the sofa. I waved Bill to join me in the kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was coming?” Bill whispered to me.

  “You would have said no,” I replied. “So shut up and listen.”

  His stern glare was met by my own, but he did as he was told.

  “Ray, I know how you feel,” said Raven, both of her hands holding his. “Your parents are getting on your case about everything and you want to tune them out.”

  “Yes,” Ray responded.

  “It’s bumming you out, bringing you down.”

  “If they would leave me alone, I’d handle it.”

  “Parents sometimes don’t get it; won’t let us grow up and deal with our own problems and stick their nose into everything we do, as if we are children.”

  He nodded again, looking our way.

  “But they are right this time,” Raven stated with a gentle voice. “I’ve seen what is going on with you, heard what you’ve been doing, and it’s not the man I know, have known for some time now. This is something you can’t handle yourself.”

  Ray glanced down, not wanting to look her in the eyes. She took her hand and softly turned his head up again so their eyes met.

  “They care about you, Ray,” she continued. “Love you and want what is best for you. The way you’re behaving is not right. I love you too and want to help you, like you helped me years ago with those assholes that were treating me like dirt, all because of the way I appeared to them, the way I dressed. But you knew to dig deeper and see I was a person underneath. Like now, I know deep down you are a good man who has gotten lost, gone down the wrong path. I want to help you like you helped me. Tell me what is going on.”

  “I don’t know for sure what happened,” Ray said. “I’m losing what I loved, which is football. I was a big shot on campus and now I’m nothing.”

  “This isn’t true. You are more than football. Don’t be some stuck-up jock sticking it wherever he can. A clichéd athlete you hear about every day. This girl you were banging didn’t care about you. She was screwing you for money. Hell, I didn’t like your girlfriend, Shawna, but at least she wasn’t using you and cared for you. And you tossed her aside for a piece of tail or tails, from what I heard, a fantasy moment which will cost you your soul. What is going on in your head? You’ve got to talk about it.”

  Ray still was looking into her eyes, trying to find the words.

  “Ray, I love you,” said Raven boldly. “I’ve loved you for some time now, but couldn’t say it. Love is one of those odd things I wondered if I’d ever feel for someone, but I do for you. More importantly, I want to help you find your way back from this evil world you’ve gotten yourself into. Please let them aid you, let me guide you.”

  “It hurts,” said Ray finally. “My head aches and I have strange thoughts and don’t know what I’m doing at times. I want it to stop, so I do things to take my mind off of the pain. I was the man who was going to play in the NFL, be a star, and now I can’t find my way. I’m lost and can’t seem to get these demons out of my head.”

  Ray’s eyes started to water and soon he was crying. Raven grabbed his head and pulled it to her shoulder, embracing him as he let out all of his emotions.

  “We’ll help you,” she said while looking our way. “All of us will bring you home.”

  “I’ll be damned,” stated Bill softly.

  I knew it was his way of saying thanks.

  Chapter 23

  The remainder of the intervention went pretty well. After Ray had calmed down, Bill called Rachael, and she and Monika met all of us for lunch, allowing for additional decisions to be debated. It was agreed Ray would opt-out of college for the rest of the semester and get the help necessary with the school doctors and the best specialists in head trauma they could find. Rachael would drive him back and forth wherever he needed to go, and Raven would join them when she could. One could sense the relief in the family for crossing this hurdle, though they knew others would present themselves. It was a marathon and not a sprint.

  With my services no longer being required, the next day I prepared an invoice to give to Bill covering my expenses. I was going through finalizing it when my cell phone rang from a number up north. I answered and it was Trey, the Greeley officer who had been helping me.

  “A social call, I hope,” I said.

  “I wish. Farmer found a body in his cornfield, with your business card nearby. County Sheriff looked you up in the Law Enforcement database finding I had connected with you recently and asked me to contact you. They want you to come to the crime scene to see if you can identify and make a statement.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “A person of interest for now.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Female.”

  I was afraid to speculate. “I’ll leave right away. Probably take me an hour to get there.”

  “It’s what I told them,” replied Trey. “They will be on the scene for a while. Meet me at the station and I’ll drive you from there.”

  The late Monday morning commute was pretty good. Many took the day off as part of the long holiday weekend, so I got there in good time. Trey was there and I jumped into his squad car and we headed north into farmland, outside of town. The area was crawling with County and State units. When we arrived, Trey showed his badge and we were let in. We found the County Sheriff in charge. He was an older, balding man, tall and muscular, with a weather-worn face and crows’ feet around his eyes. His shirt ID said Sheriff Aldon and his demeanor was standoffish. Without a word, he walked us over to the covered remains. He removed the sheet and there was the naked body of Ariela looking pale, bruised and very dead.

  “Do you know her?” said Aldon.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Her name is Ariela Martinez. She was a dancer at a club in Greeley, The Hustle.”

  “Found her with your business card,” said Aldon. “Any notion why?”

  “I was working a case and gave it to her to call me.”

  “What type of case?”

  “Missing person’s. Son of a friend who hired me to find him. He had been staying with her.”

  “No clothes, no other possessions other than your card. Care to speculate?”

  “No idea.” No reason to lie but no reason to give the whole story either.
/>   “Something must come to mind? Maybe the son got mad and took it out on her.”

  “No. He has been with his parents all weekend. I was there for part of it. He has an alibi.”

  “Still need a name. Need to talk with him.”

  “Can’t give it to you until I discuss it with my client.”

  “You know I can hold you as a material witness.”

  “Sure, but my lawyer would get me out pretty quickly. I’ll cooperate but I need to speak with them first. Client confidentiality.”

  He nodded, though not happily. He covered Ariela back up which was a good thing, being I wasn’t a fan of dead bodies. Seeing someone so alive, now being so lifeless wasn’t pleasant. Though my discomfort didn’t do her much good.

  “Not a pretty thing. She appears to have been raped, beaten and lastly strangled. Crime guys will be looking for what they can but I don’t like this happening in my area. We plan on catching the bastards who did this. Any reason to believe you were involved?”

  “I was with people all weekend who can vouch for me. Do you know the time of death?”

  “Not yet but it’s been recent. Probably dumped her overnight. The rape, beating and killing likely happened elsewhere. Should we be looking at this club The Hustle?”

  “It would be where I’d start.”

  “We’ll do some digging and see what we come up with. But I need to know what you know. If you don’t come clean, we’ll haul you in. Understand?”

  I nodded but didn’t figure he could do a whole lot. So long as there was no evidence of my involvement, threats would be all he had, though the business card was connection enough for them to get pushy.

  “I’d check out where she lived,” I said. “Good place to start. I can take you there if you want. It’s in Greeley.”

  “Since it’s in your jurisdiction, Olsen, why don’t you take him and see what you can find? Treat it as a crime scene. You discover anything, call me. We’ll need to get our guys on it. Try not to trample on the evidence.”