Blood Porn

by Ray Flynt

  Brad turned his attention to a few items he’d learned during his meeting with Martha Amendola. He added the IDs to the white board of the three young men whose photographs Hank Torrance and the Maple Grove school staff had recognized. One of them was still seventeen. They had stayed in Reflection, Leadership and Hope cottages, and their committing counties were Berks, Bucks and Luzerne.

  He opened Facebook next and searched for Tanner Jankowski’s page—Tan Kowski—the Elliotts said it was called. Other than a different photograph than they already had, there wasn’t much information to be gleaned from the postings on that site.

  Sharon flew into the office, ranting, “You are not going to fucking believe this.”

  Brad held up his hand. “Christa Anderson was murdered this morning at Nockamixon State Park.”

  Sharon stopped in her tracks, and her jaw slacked. “Jesus, no!”

  “I just got off the phone with Detective Nelson.”

  Sharon staggered toward the desk, dropped her purse on top of it and perched on the edge of her chair.

  “It sounds like you’ve got important news,” Brad said.

  “Well, yes…” she still sounded dazed. “I had lunch with Karen Matthews. I’m not sure how, but I think she’s involved in this porn business. Whatever, it’s clear she’s lying.”

  It was Brad’s turn to act surprised. “Lying? How?”

  Sharon gritted her teeth. “It’s all trivial shit… nothing that amounts to anything by itself.”

  Brad held his palms face up, and stared at her quizzically. “Like?”

  “She wore a sling when I saw her, over her right shoulder. When I asked about it, she wove this elaborate story about injuring herself last Friday while trying to keep a toddler from toppling off the edge of a porch following a home visit. After lunch I called my friend Natalie—Karen’s supervisor—to check out her story. Karen wasn’t at work last Friday, and the client visit to Perkasie that Karen described took place a week ago Thursday. Natalie saw her in the office after that trip and there were no signs of injury.”

  Brad drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk.

  “Natalie reiterated that Karen’s been off work all week, but each time she phoned in she wheezed and complained of the flu; never mentioned an injury.”

  Telling white lies to wangle out of work wasn’t a capital offense, Brad thought, or there wouldn’t be enough prisons. He must have telegraphed his skepticism.

  Sharon shrugged. “I know. I keep asking myself why she would lie about such piddling details.”

  Brad stared at her across the partners’ desk, waiting for more.

  “Oh,” she cried out. “Let me tell you about her dry cleaning. At lunch, Karen made the point that she’d been rushing around this morning. She mentioned picking up laundry, but I saw the laundry receipt hanging in her car window and it had yesterday’s date on it.” Sharon’s voice seemed to swoop half an octave, “And her laundry was done by Ramsey’s Dry Cleaning Emporium—the same place where Christa Anderson did her work release.”

  Sharon might be on to something. Brad brought his computer’s browser to life to search for Ramsey’s dry cleaning. Then he announced, “They’ve got stores in Lancaster, York, Reading and Downingtown.”

  When he looked in Sharon’s direction, her attention was on the white board.

  “What time was Christa murdered?” Sharon asked.

  “Her body was found shortly after 11 a.m., but a witness saw a black SUV with tinted windows leave the scene around 10:15 a.m.”

  Sharon looked at the ceiling and her left thumb touched her fingers as if calculating travel time. “I think she could have done it and still met me at Applebee’s for our lunch.” Sharon stood up, walked to the white board, and tapped the timeline with her index finger. “Tim Shaw was murdered a week ago today; a day on which Karen was missing from work.” Sharon’s eyes widened. “Her big story about an injury was all about giving me her alibi for the time of Tim’s murder.”

  Brad nodded, which brought a smile to Sharon’s face.

  “It’s reasonable speculation,” Brad said, “but we’ve got to tie a few more facts together.”

  Her smile disappeared. “I know.” She sat back in her chair.

  “Did you get my text message about Enriqué staying at Courage cottage?”

  Sharon shrugged. “I asked Karen about it, and she had no memory of him.” Sharon added, “Karen’s such a practiced liar, who knows.”

  “What about Bob Matthews?” Brad asked. “Didn’t you meet with Karen to confirm Bob’s interest in astronomy?”

  Sharon’s face brightened. “Karen denied that Bob had ever expressed any interest in astronomy when she knew him. Hell, they were married for seven years, I think, so another lie.” Sharon kept looking at him like any minute Brad would connect the dots and get her implication.

  “Wasn’t that the whole reason for asking her, because she knew Bob so well?” Finally, Brad said, “I’m feeling dense. Elaborate your point.”

  “When I mentioned the tripod, and what Jill had said about Bob having a telescope in the shop for repairs, I think Karen saw an opportunity to cast suspicion on Bob regarding the porn videos, and that’s why she lied.”

  “Okay,” Brad said.

  “I probably should have done this in the first place, rather than rely on Karen,” Sharon explained. “After I met with Natalie, I called Oliver and asked him to research a couple of telescopes online. Then I gave him Bob’s number and told him to call, say a friend had recommended him as a resource on a telescope purchase, and to ask for his suggestions between two different models—you know the optics, focal length, best buy for a budding astronomer, that sort of thing.” Sharon grinned.

  Brad wondered how willing a participant Oliver had been in that ruse. “What happened?”

  “Oliver called me back twenty minutes later, convinced that Bob was an expert in telescopes. The telescope model Oliver described, Bob claimed he’d started with as a teenager and tried to talk Oliver into buying the Celestron NexStar, which at twelve-hundred-bucks sounds like the Rolls-Royce of telescopes. Bottom line: another case of Karen lying.

  “Oh, by the way,” Sharon added, “Oliver checked with McKean County. Tanner Jankowski’s parents are deceased and he’d been staying with an uncle.”

  “Please thank Oliver for his help.” Brad glanced at this watch, noting it was after 3 p.m. “You two are getting together tonight, right?”

  Sharon jumped up. “Yeah, and I still don’t know what I’m going to wear.” As she dashed out the office door, Sharon shouted back, “I’ll catch up with you in the morning.”

  “Have a great evening,” Brad called out, just as the door slammed shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Late that night Brad stripped off his clothes and secured a terry cotton bath wrap around his waist with its Velcro fastener. On the iPod docking station next to his bed he cued the Ragtime score by Ahrens and Flaherty, based on the E. L. Doctorow book, and strolled into his master bathroom where a few minutes earlier he had programmed the temperature for the sauna to 132 degrees. He set the timer for thirty minutes and sat on the cedar bench, closing the door behind him. He’d shared the sauna with Beth a few times, minus the cotton wrap. This evening he planned to sweat, think about the case and luxuriate to the sound of his favorite Broadway musical.

  Brad leaned back and closed his eyes as the strains of the title number filled the intimate space from four ceiling mounted speakers and a subwoofer in the floor of the sauna. After the day’s events and particularly Sharon’s report, he could see the contours of the case taking shape. Karen Matthews seemed involved in the porn making venture and potentially murder, though the method of knifing in Tim Shaw’s case and the strangling of Christa Anderson conjured up a male perpetrator in Brad’s mind. Who was her accomplice? And were there more than one?

  Not long after initially viewing the DVD of Jeremy Young’s first porn venture, Brad had focused on trying to identi
fy the mystery woman called “Annabelle” in the video. When Sharon showed Tim Shaw the photograph of Annabelle captured from the porn, while never admitting he knew her, Tim raced out of Wanda Shaw’s trailer and took Annabelle’s picture with him. It was a big if, but IF Tim had shown that picture to the porn producers, and explained how his former probation officer was asking questions, they might have feared that Tim would eventually lead authorities back to their shady operation.

  Brad could understand the misguided logic that resulted in relying on Maple Grove as a source of socially and economically vulnerable young men to entice into porn. The purported director of the videos—Enriqué Fuentes—had lived in Courage Cottage under the care of Karen Matthews. In spite of Karen’s denials, she knew Enriqué and could have recruited him. In turn, Enriqué’s rap sheet indicated that, based on his Philadelphia roots and crimes that involved receiving stolen goods, he might have known Christa Anderson and lined her up to recruit the women for the porn shoots. Why Christa was now a victim wasn’t clear. Perhaps she just wanted out of the deal, and may have been influenced by her brother Tanner, who Brad believed had witnessed Tim Shaw’s murder. Had he shared that information with his sister?

  By the time “Journey On,” the second track on the Ragtime CD started to play, Brad had pieced together a partial picture of what might have happened. He relished the counterpoint from a trio of outstanding voices as the song key-changed its way to an exciting finish. Sweat oozed from every pore and he found himself wielding an imaginary baton in time to the music.

  Ten minutes later the timer buzzed, and Brad headed for the shower.

  With only a fresh terry bath wrap around his waist, Brad sat at the small desk next to his bed where he turned on a laptop computer and an adjacent reading lamp.

  He logged on to the XRatedSugarX.com site and searched for the video featuring Enriqué Fuentes. Although he’d been credited as the director of all the videos, he was a performer in one. Brad had taken a cursory look at all of them; he hated to say when-you’ve-seen-one-you’ve-seen-‘em-all, but that was the case with these formulaic, low-budget adventures. For anyone willing to shell out $29.95 for a three month subscription the reason could be summed up in one word: SEX.

  Brad found the video, titled A-Dick-ted to Oral. He chuckled at the low creativity level of the title that he and his college buddies could easily have matched it after a few beers. Following the introductory frames, including the false legal notice that all performers were 18 years of age or older, a young woman’s face filled the screen and the caption: Starring Amber Louise. She had a beauty mark on her cheek, and curly brown hair with highlights.

  A bare-chested Enriqué materialized on the screen, looking rather smarmy with slicked-back dark hair and his thin mustache. His caption read: Introducing Hunter Jock.

  The screen went to black, then the lilting sound of I Love Paris played on an accordion. We must be in Paris.

  The scene was very simple. Amber Louise sat at a café table behind which could be seen a rack of wine bottles and a black and white print of the Eiffel tower hanging on the wall. Hunter Jock approached wearing a tuxedo jacket and a white apron at his waist. “Good evening, mademoiselle,” he said, without even trying to effect a Parisian accent. He held a green glass bottle—that didn’t have a label—at the level of his crotch, and then smiled as he said, “Do you see something that interests you?” She looked up at him and smiled, and it was clear that oral in the title of the video had nothing to do with her verbal skills.

  In fact, if the viewer blinked at that point he would miss the fade to the same bedroom used for all the other videos. The only difference being that the same Eiffel tower print from the “Parisian Café” now hung above the bed. Amber Louise sat at the foot of the mattress wearing a pair of black lace panties, and displayed a set of bodacious tatas that drew his attention. Hunter stood next to her with his shirt already off, and Amber reached to unbutton his pants.

  Brad’s smartphone jingled with the ring tone associated with a call from Beth. He paused the video, noticed it was just past midnight, and answered, “I was hoping I’d hear from you.”

  “I was worried I might get voice mail,” Beth said. “Sorry I’m so late, but we were pitching our designs to a group of investors at a cocktail party, and I just got home. There was a lot of interest in the project, and I think the economy might be turning around.” After a pause, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  Brad sensed that “watching porn” would not be the appropriate answer, and said, “We made a lot of progress on our case today, and I was just checking a few details.”

  “Whatever you do, keep Sunday open for me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Brad said. “I’ve lined up a caterer to serve a late brunch. Rebecca Hope-Clarke said she’d be here at one o’clock with her associates. I invited Sharon and her friend Oliver to join us, and Rebecca asked if a crew from channel 10, the NBC affiliate, could film the reveal for a segment they plan to run on Sunday night. I figure there will be about ten of us.”

  “Great. Make room for one more.”

  “Oh. Who?”

  “I’ve got a little surprise for you. A friend is coming with me.”

  Brad wondered who that could be. He wasn’t fond of surprises in his personal life; perhaps because each of his cases brought their own unexpected developments. “Do you need me to meet you at 30th Street?”

  “No. My train won’t get in until noon,” she explained, “and you need to be there for the design crew and your guests. Oh, and I have another surprise.”

  Brad squeezed his eyes closed. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  She remained quiet on the other end of the line, teasing him with her silence before finally saying, “I’ll be able to stay a couple of days. I don’t have to be back in New York until Wednesday.”

  That was the best news he’d heard in a while, and he told her so. They spoke for a few more minutes before ending their conversation.

  The call with Beth had relaxed him, even more than the sauna and shower; perhaps that had to do with emotional versus physical relaxation. He debated going to bed, but decided to finish watching the porn video, just in case he spotted a clue.

  Brad clicked to resume the video. It didn’t take Amber long to unzip Hunter’s pants and he stood there in a well-filled out jock strap. What else would a person named Hunter Jock wear? She fondled him for a minute and then pulled the strap down over his thighs and the main oral event was underway. Hunter moaned in response, and even Amber managed a few mumbled groans. Hadn’t her mother ever instructed her not to talk with her mouth full?

  The sound of huffing and puffing seemed to intensify, almost as if there were other people in the room who’d been told to join in a chorus of heavy breathing. He also thought he heard the squeal of metal on metal, and although Amber Louise was moving up and down faster than a teenager at a Halloween apple bobbing contest, it didn’t sound like bed springs that he heard. Brad reminded himself that this porn was an amateur effort at best, and that sound glitches were to be expected. Still, he couldn’t figure out exactly what he heard.

  Brad thought he saw another object at the bottom of the screen. He paused the video and then restarted it at a point a few seconds earlier. There it was: a set of fingers intruded into the scene. And it looked like they were directing the action. Brad froze the frame and wrote down the lapsed time on the video at that point. He wanted Sharon to see and possibly identify Karen Matthews’ hand. The fingernails at the bottom of the video had peach-colored nail polish. Would that spark enough recognition? Given Sharon’s love for the porn videos—not—she wouldn’t be enticed to watch much more.

  He recalled Sharon’s report of her meeting with Bob Matthews and Jill Baker. While Bob was ranting about not having the social work credentials to continue working at Maple Grove, he belittled Karen’s degree by saying that she started out majoring in theatre, but shifted to social work because that was the major of her boyfri
end at the time. It seemed to Brad that Karen may have found another way to put her theatrical interest to use.

  Brad yawned.

  He figured he’d seen all he needed to for one evening, escaped the website and turned off the computer.

  Brad heard a car rumble across his cobblestone driveway. The digital numbers on his alarm clock showed 12:36 a.m. Feeling like neighborhood watch, he went to the window to investigate, separated slats on the blinds with his fingers and peered out. Lit by a few ornamental gaslights that lined the drive, Brad could see Sharon’s Civic roll-up outside the garage. She emerged from the driver’s side. Instead of heading for the stairway to her second floor apartment, she opened the trunk of the sedan and pulled out a small overnight bag. Then Brad observed Oliver Reynolds get out of the passenger side door.

  “I’ll be right there,” Brad heard Sharon say.

  She slung the strap of the canvas bag over her shoulder, then joined Oliver and linked arms with him before they marched to the apartment entry. Sharon unlocked the door with her key, snapped on the stairway light, and the two of them entered. A few seconds later, lights came on inside Sharon’s apartment and the stairwell went dark.

  Brad grinned and eased the slats of the blinds back to their normal position.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Brad slept solidly for four hours, then tossed and turned for another two before finally getting out of bed. It was 7 a.m. He checked e-mail on his bedside laptop and there was no news. He gazed out the front window and noticed a dense morning fog, which obliterated his view of Sharon’s apartment so he couldn’t tell if anyone was stirring there yet.

  After showering, he selected a green cotton sweater to wear with his khakis. Sun was supposed to come out later in the morning, with the temperature rising to near sixty. He sent a text to Sharon inviting her to join him in the kitchen for coffee, juice and pastries. After reflection, Brad sent a second text message: “Oliver welcome too,” and added a smiley face.