White Offerings

by Roberts, Ann

  Ari instantly smirked at the mention of Ruskin, a man she detested and who had sexually harassed her whenever she’d visited her father at the precinct. “You definitely don’t need him in your head.” She drained her wineglass and joined Molly. “I’m sure that he thinks this could somehow advance his career.”

  “Of course. He’s the talking head for the department.”

  “Lucky you. Still, you get to work with the FBI, so it could help your career, too.”

  “Hopefully,” Molly said. “I’ll say one thing, from what Connie Rasp has told me, working for the FBI isn’t much different than the Phoenix P.D., at least if you’re gay.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize she was gay.” Ari glanced at Molly before she added, “Is she attractive?”

  Within seconds Molly was blushing, and she wouldn’t look up from the sink. She shrugged, but her face had already betrayed her. “I guess so.”

  Ari grinned and rested her chin on Molly’s shoulder, trying hard not to laugh. “How attractive would you say she is?” Molly stammered for an answer and her face grew redder while Ari’s grin widened. “Really hot, huh?”

  “Baby, it’s strictly professional,” Molly said defensively.

  Ari cupped Molly’s chin in her hand. “I know it is. And I trust you, too.”

  Molly nodded in understanding and kissed her. They cleaned up the kitchen, and Ari mused over their simple domesticity. They fell into their unspoken assigned roles, Molly stacking the dishwasher while she cleaned the counters and scoured the stewpot. She knew she could spend every night like this with Molly, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She watched the sink drain and wiped her hands on a towel.

  Molly’s strong arms encircled her waist, and she nibbled on her ear. “Are you staying the night or do you need to get home to Jane?”

  She laughed. “Jane’s not home. She’s out at Hideaway, and I’m rather sure she’ll be spending the night in someone else’s bed. It’s just a theory, but I’d bet my next commission on it. Sex is Jane’s way of forgetting her troubles.”

  Molly kissed her neck, and she leaned back into the embrace. “Well, I think you should stay here tonight. We could curl up in bed and watch a movie.”

  “Hmm,” Ari said, her eyes closed. “What movie did you have in mind?”

  “I thought of White Oleander.”

  Ari laughed. “Or we could watch Flower Drum Song.”

  “What about Flowers for Algernon?”

  Ari thought for a second before she said, “Driving Miss Daisy?”

  They both laughed and retreated to the bedroom, their sanctuary from work.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tuesday, October 17th

  11:54 PM

  Hideaway’s dance floor couldn’t accommodate the swell of lesbians grinding and twisting to the music bursting from the oversize speakers. Women moved freely between partners, a few danced with groups, and some, like Jane, set their sights on a woman who danced alone. Jane shimmied against a voluptuous femme, her hands roaming down the woman’s sizable hips.

  From her stool at the opposite side of the bar, she watched. She avoided eye contact with everyone and chose to sit in the shadows of the bar. She projected herself as observer, not participant. She’d been there two hours and not a single woman had asked her to dance, which was fine. She was there to watch Jane. Occasionally she glanced at the dance floor and Jane’s progress with the femme. They were leaning against each other, thrusting their hips together, as if starting a fire between them. The femme reached up and unbuttoned Jane’s shirt, exposing much of her cleavage.

  Jane stepped away to give her the show she wanted. She danced alone while the femme, and many of the other dancers, watched her shameless exhibitionism. She reached behind her head and thrust her chest forward. It was obvious she was braless, as her breasts gently bounced to the music. She was an exceptional dancer, her gyrations revealing enough to be risqué but not indecent.

  She thought Jane was truly magnificent, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The femme remained rooted in one place until Jane brushed past her and took her hand. They ducked into the back room, and the crowd resumed their own displays of sexuality on the dance floor.

  She finished her martini and moved toward the door where Jane had disappeared. Two women emerged, locked in an embrace. She imagined they would head straight for the exit and the nearest motel—if they could wait that long.

  She slipped into the darkness of the back room. Soft jazz muffled the quiet conversations and hushed whispers of the women who lounged on the plush couches, limbs and torsos splayed across them. She thought they looked like mannequins tossed aside, but the silhouettes moved together, kissing, touching and innocently fondling. It was the complete picture of foreplay—the legal part of sex. Everyone was clothed, and a few provincial couples sat a foot apart, holding hands and talking quietly. Only a few lamps glowed, providing enough light for players to identify their partners and connect with the desired body parts. While the rules of the back room explicitly forbade sexual touching, who would know if a thumb innocently grazed a nipple?

  Most of the patrons clearly stayed on the side of decency—except Jane. She caught sight of the femme’s bleach-blond hair as it rose above the back of a couch off to the left. She moved slowly in that direction, her eyes focused on the couch—where she knew Jane lay—when she unexpectedly felt arms wrap around her middle. Strong hands groped her breasts, and lips kissed her neck.

  “Who are you watching?” the stranger asked.

  “No one,” she lied.

  “Is it the brunette over there?”

  She saw the brunette—her head thrown back over the arm of a couch while her partner kissed her neck. “No,” she said.

  “Then who?”

  The stranger’s hands slid inside her waistband and caressed her belly. Her eyes remained focused on Jane’s couch, but she sighed when the stranger’s fingers burrowed inside her bikini briefs. Suddenly Jane shot up from the couch and kissed the femme deeply.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” the stranger asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Do you love her?”

  “I do. She’s the only one for me.”

  “But she’s with someone else.”

  She parted her legs slightly, and the stranger’s fingers swept across her crotch. She sighed as she explained, “She doesn’t know she wants me—yet.”

  “She won’t want you. She’s not the type to want anyone.”

  Her temper rose, and she tried to pull away, but the stranger held her tightly.

  “Look at her,” the stranger continued. “You can tell she enjoys sex. She could never be monogamous.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. The stranger was right. Jane was a whore, and she needed to be taught a lesson. Jane needed to change, and she realized how she could help. She would take what Jane valued most.

  “Here’s a proposition,” the stranger whispered. “I’ll fuck you and you pretend that you’re fucking her.”

  She grabbed the stranger’s busy hand and exited the back room, heading for her car and privacy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wednesday, October 18th

  8:18 AM

  Files and printouts stretched across Molly’s desk, a paper trail of John Rondo’s professional and personal life. Andre had minored in finance during college, so he analyzed the business holdings of Johnson Enterprises, which was really just an umbrella company owned by Rondo using his wife’s maiden name. Molly learned what she could about the man through his credit cards. Much of the shopping was done by his wife, Jennifer, a respectable Yale graduate with a business degree. An Internet article showed the Rondos at a charity function, their cute children in tow. Molly shook her head when she saw that each month he still amassed hundreds of dollars of charges at the High Life, Phoenix’s premier gentlemen’s club, despite being married to an incredibly beautiful and intelligent woman who had her own Web site and designed upscale pur
ses.

  “What are you finding?” Andre asked across the sea of paper.

  Molly leaned back and stretched. “Guy’s got a gorgeous wife, who’s more than a trophy, but he’s still hitting the clubs, and she spends an easy three grand at Saks Fifth Avenue in an afternoon.”

  Andre snorted and dropped a file on the desk. “Then I guess they both get what they want. And they’ve got it to spend. Rondo’s easily worth five mil, and that’s the money I can find. God only knows how much he’s hidden, and how many dummy corporations he’s created to launder Carnotti’s money.”

  Molly picked up the phone. “Let’s call Rasp and see if the fibbies have better luck. Maybe their data banks can give us an accurate profile of John Rondo. While they’re looking, we can go visit the man.” When the call immediately went to voice mail, she left a quick message for Rasp to call her, and she and Andre headed for the car.

  They had reached the lobby when Sol Gardener and David Ruskin came around the corner. Sol smiled and Ruskin immediately frowned and stuck his hands into his pockets.

  “Molly, how good to see you,” Sol said, squeezing her arm. “David tells me that your informant was murdered.”

  I’m sure he did, she thought. “Yeah, he was hit and left in a trunk. We’re working on a new lead, the guy who owned the building where the meet was supposed to happen. Have you heard of John Rondo?”

  Sol searched his memory and slowly nodded his head. “Yes.” He turned and pointed at Ruskin. “Wasn’t he involved somehow in that case with Jack Adams?”

  Ruskin only shrugged. Molly smiled slightly at his clear discomfort. He hated Ari’s father, the man who had hazed him endlessly during his rookie year in an effort to push him to quit.

  “For some reason,” Sol continued, “I thought he was connected. Maybe you should call Jack.”

  Molly froze, unable to fathom how she would ever have a conversation with Ari’s father when he had no idea she was his daughter’s lover. She only nodded and waved good-bye as they hurried away to the elevator.

  Andre covered his mouth, but he couldn’t silence his chuckle. “Yes, why don’t you call Jack? You could introduce yourself.”

  Molly ignored him and breezed through the door into the parking lot. They grappled with the last few minutes of morning rush-hour traffic and headed toward central Phoenix and the Biltmore Corridor, the most expensive commercial real estate in Phoenix. Rondo’s offices were located in the Esplanade, a matching set of glass twin towers that boasted extraordinary views of Camelback Mountain. They pulled into the visitor parking and took the elevator to the lobby. From there Molly could see Rondo’s personal digs—a multimillion-dollar condo building called the Embers that hugged the Esplanade property. The homes stretched to the sky, and she knew the cheapest ones were valued at two million.

  “I wonder if he walks to work,” Andre mused.

  “I doubt it,” Molly replied. “He probably still takes his Mercedes, just to use his private parking space.”

  They rode up to the twentieth floor and saw that Johnson Enterprises and Rondo Dynamics filled the entire floor with several offices. As Andre checked in with the receptionist, Molly toured the lobby, noting the expensive furniture and several hallways with offices and cubicles, but after ten minutes, she only saw three employees and never heard the phone ring.

  “You’d think it was a holiday,” she whispered to Andre.

  “It is. It’s Bust Your Favorite Money Launderer Day.”

  “Now, Andre, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge.”

  Andre rifled through a back copy of Phoenix Living. “Right.”

  After five more minutes of waiting, she returned to the receptionist with a scowl on her face. “We need to see John Rondo right now, or we’ll go look for him ourselves.”

  Clearly that idea seemed far less desirable to the twig-like blonde, who used her pencil to punch in numbers on the enormous phone bank. She whispered into the headset, and Molly was sure the young girl really had no idea what occurred at Rondo Dynamics, which was probably a good thing. Molly turned away and stared down the corridor. A man in a blue suit turned the corner, and she instantly recognized him as John Rondo. He looked like a large football player with a buzz cut, and from the way he walked, she guessed he hated wearing a suit. It clung to him as if it were still on the hanger.

  “Detectives,” he said, shaking their hands, “I’m John Rondo. Let’s go to my office.” They followed him down the long corridor, past several closed doors to another waiting area without a receptionist. Molly noted the soft lighting and the smell of expensive leather, a marked difference from the reception area.

  “Your assistant has the day off?” Andre asked, pointing to the vacant desk, which Molly noticed was devoid of any personal belongings.

  “We’re in the middle of a restructuring. Several employees have been let go or been reassigned.”

  She let the lame explanation go without comment. Rondo led them into a spacious corner office with glass on two sides. He had an incredible view of Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak and much of the Central Corridor high-rises in between. The office befitted the CEO of a large company, complete with reading area and wet bar. The walls were covered with B-movie posters, mostly alien thrillers depicting large-breasted women holding some sort of weapon. To Molly, they equated to photos usually found on garage calendars, but because they were cartoons, they seemed less offensive. She imagined that Rondo and many of his goons enjoyed staring at the scantily clad caricatures. Behind his desk was a credenza full of framed photos of him with his wife and two sons, creating a balance between skirt-chaser and family man. He motioned for them to sit and dropped his large frame into an expensive executive chair.

  “How can I help you?”

  She and Andre had worked a strategy in the car, one that required her to let him lead the conversation. She hated being in the second chair, but she’d been a cop long enough to recognize that macho men responded better to other men.

  Andre glanced at his notepad and cleared his throat. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. Do you know a man named Dudley Moon? On the street he goes by Itchy.”

  Rondo shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “So you wouldn’t have any idea how his body and severed head wound up in a trunk at the airport?”

  Rondo held up his huge hands and Molly noticed he wore no rings, not even a wedding band. His wrist, however, sported an extremely expensive watch. “Look, detectives, I’m a businessman. Despite what the feds think, I don’t get involved with my family. Yeah, Vinnie’s my cousin, and every year we exchange Christmas presents, and we see each other once or twice. He’s family, but I don’t know anything about his business.”

  It was a well-rehearsed speech, one that Molly imagined he’d delivered to the FBI and the Justice Department. “So are you suggesting that Vince Carnotti had something to do with the execution of Dudley Moon?”

  Rondo paled, recognizing his mistake. “I’m not suggesting it. You are. Why else would you be here?”

  “Maybe because we’re interested in Rondo Dynamics,” Andre said. “Maybe we’d like to learn more about your company. What exactly do you do here, Mr. Rondo?”

  He shifted in his seat and smiled pleasantly at Andre’s question. “Rondo Dynamics and the Johnson Corporation are largely middlemen who deal in the buying and selling of medical equipment and parts.”

  Molly recognized the advantage of Rondo’s role: much money and goods traded hands, and if anything was laundered along the way, it would be very difficult to prove. It was the perfect cover. “What can you tell us about Cactus Airpark?” she asked, unable to keep silent any longer. “We were told that a drug buy might be occurring, and when we went out there, the entire place was abandoned. It looked like someone tipped them off. Do you know anything about that?”

  Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on Rondo, who smiled easily. It was obvious they couldn’t prove anything, and he showed no sign of discomfort. “I assure you
there wasn’t any drug buy happening on that property. Right now Cactus Airpark is undergoing a major renovation. Many of our tenants have found other arrangements in the meantime. I’m sure that’s what you saw.”

  “Of course,” Andre answered.

  Molly tapped Andre on the arm with the back of her hand. “I’ll bet the construction crews are on their way over there right now to knock out a few walls and install some new plumbing.”

  Rondo chuckled. “I assure you that I have all of the proper paperwork for the project. Would you like to see the plans?” He grabbed a roll of drawings from behind him and dropped them onto his desk with great ceremony.

  Andre leaned forward. “I just want to make sure I’m clear, in case we have to have another conversation downtown at some point. You don’t know anything about the murder of Itchy Moon.”

  Rondo shook his head. “No, I wish I could help you, but I don’t make it a habit to associate with street people.”

  “Does that include prostitutes?” Molly asked pointedly.

  Rondo glared at her. “Detective, in case you haven’t noticed, I am a happily married man.” They glanced at the photos displayed on Rondo’s credenza, all of them depicting two beautiful children with angelic smiles, their arms wrapped around Rondo and his wife, a buxom beauty. Molly was certain her oversized chest was financed by Rondo’s money-laundering deals.

  “Half of the men in America are married and have visited a prostitute,” she said. “Having a family doesn’t exempt you. We do know you’ve spent quite a bit more time and money at the High Life than most married men.”

  Rondo didn’t answer, but she knew she’d hit a nerve, and the façade crumbled. “Detectives, I think it’s time you left. I have nothing else to say.” He strolled to the office door and opened it, waiting for them to exit.

  She could feel Rondo’s eyes on her back as she went down the hallway. The man was too smart to slam his door shut in a huff, leaving them to accidentally veer down the wrong corridor and deeper into the heart of Rondo Dynamics. It wasn’t until they were within sight of the receptionist that Molly heard the door close.