“Even if we found it right away,” Williams told her, “we couldn’t return it to you. It’s evidence. But don’t worry, we’ll contact the place who loaned it to the company and explain the absence to them.”
“Which company loaned the purse for the film?” Yuan asked her. Damn, this woman was too perfect for him. She radiated a desire to submit to a strong man. He’d been wrong before, but not often. There was a reason five women would drop everything and answer to his every need. Part of it had to do with his ability to read people. After a few embarrassing mistakes, he’d learned not to make error judgements. The last thing he needed was a look of horror on a woman’s face when he told her to get down on her knees.
“It came from Passion Desires,” she told him. “They have a store not too far from here.” Yuan had heard of the place too. He’d purchased several outfits as presents for his women. The place wasn’t cheap, but he managed his money and investments carefully. If you wanted to play the Great Game, you couldn’t do it on the cheap, in spite what the current batch of pick-up artists might think.
“Can you at least keep me posted?” Bella asked them, as Yuan handed her a silk handkerchief to dry her tears. “I really need something to tell the store. They’re not going to be happy when they learn it’s missing.”
Both Yuan and Williams handed her cards with their contact information on it. She took them and gave them one of hers in return. After assuring her they were working to resolve the case, both detectives crossed the barricade and walked toward the garage where Yuan’s black SUV was parked.
“What do you make of her?” Williams asked. “I can’t believe a purse could cost so much money, but women these days go for those designer hand bags in a big way. My mom, she bought the ones she carried from the place down the street when they were still open. So let’s go get in your SUV and head on back to the office.”
“Our walk will be short,” Yuan said to him.
Williams looked to the street and saw Yuan’s black SUV pull up to the curb. Behind the wheel was a well-dressed black woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. She turned on the flashers and stopped the SUV at the curb. In one move, she opened the door and stepped out, handing the keys to Juan who climbed into it. As Williams opened the passenger door, he saw her kiss Yuan and walk away.
Chapter 3
“You have all these women doing small favors for you?” Williams asked Yuan. “Even during the day?”
“Do you have a problem with it?” Yuan asked him. He was still trying to figure out where the missing puzzle piece was in the murder.
“Of course not” Williams responded. “I just find it a little bit ….odd.”
Yuan ignored him and had a thought. Maybe they missed something on the security feed at the Kimmel Center. It might be a good idea to go back and find out if there was anything there they hadn’t seen the first time.
“Why don’t you call Frank the security director at the Kimmel Center?” he said. “I want to go back and look at those feeds again. Let him know we’re on our way back.”
Williams was on the verge of the same suggestion, so he picked up his smart phone and let Frank know they were on the way. Frank didn’t appear to be too busy that afternoon, as no performances were scheduled for the day. He told them it wouldn’t be a bother and to meet him in his office.
“I’m beginning to think this was a mugging out of control,” Yuan told Williams as they pulled up in front of the center. The flashing blue light Williams attached onto the car gave them the use of a city parking space and they vanished inside the center.
Frank had the feeds ready for them to look at again. Williams took one bank of monitors, Yuan the other. As the afternoon wore on, they ran the feeds back and forth until one of them found something. An hour later Williams called out as he identified an image of Sandra Alvarez in the security video. Yuan walked over and leaned near his partner to look at the video.
It was Sandra Alvarez again, but this time she was out in the main hall during an intermission talking with another woman. The other woman appeared to be much younger, but they couldn’t get a clear picture of her from the scarf she was wearing over her head. They played the feed back and forth, as the two detectives attempted to get a clear picture of the other women, but they were unable to do so.
“Look at that!” Williams pointed out as the other woman passed Alvarez something. “What’s in her hand?” They froze the image and enlarged it, which allowed them a better, although fuzzy, image of the object she gave away. The object had a definite rectangular shape to it, but they couldn’t tell what it was. It was visible for a few seconds until Alvarez put it in her purse.
“I’m thinking we should run back to Martinez,” Williams said to his partner as they left the center. “He knew more than he told us.”
“I had the same feeling,” Yuan mentioned. “I didn’t want to push him too hard. Do it and the next thing you know they’re calling for a lawyer and I’d have to find something to charge him with.”
Williams nodded. There were so many procedures to follow these days.
“I’m thinking he might know who was with her that evening,” Williams stated.
Yuan agreed. However, he was still interested in Bella. Even if the woman was hands off for now, she might be available after the investigation was finished. He couldn’t see her as being part of the investigation, although her connection to the missing purse would make it problematic.
*********************
“That is the daughter of the Czech Ambassador,” Martinez told them as they caught up with the director who was leaving the shooting location. Most of the principal filming for the day had concluded and the film crew busied themselves shooting locations. He was looking at a screen capture of the woman with Alvarez at the centre and told them he’d had dinner with the woman and her father the night before.
Martinez appeared irritated they were bothering him again. He believed he had no connection with the murder and wanted to know why they were bothering him.
“We’re not trying to harass you, Mr. Martinez,” Yuan told him. “We have a dead actress working on one of your shows and we need to find out if you have any more information we can use.”
“I was at dinner with the Czech ambassador and his daughter at Binder’s” Martinez said. “You can talk to the restaurant. I paid the bill and they’ll have me on file to prove it. I swear I don’t know a thing about who she was out with last evening.”
Martinez was angry. “Why do you continue to bother me? I came to this country with the best of intentions and now I’m treated like a common criminal. If you want to know anything further you will have to call my lawyer.”
“It is your right, Sir,” Williams told him. “Just as it might be mine to ask about the legal status of this very young lady with you.”
Martinez froze. A second later a young Brazilian woman who appeared to be in her teens came up and placed her arm around him. She asked him what was the delay as she was very lonely and looked forward to spending the evening with him in the large bed he’d installed in the guest room of his new house. She spoke freely in front of them since Eva, which was her name, assumed the Asian and white guy, like every other Asian and white man she met in America, spoke no Portuguese. This proved to be a bad mistake on her part as the slovenly Williams spoke it fluently and vacationed every winter in Rio. It became even worse when she turned to Martinez, after giving them a radiant smile, and asked him if the two dumb cops were finished.
“Como voce esta hoje, Falta?” Williams asked her. The young woman turned pale as Williams continued talking to her in Portuguese: “Are the police stupid in your country? Because it’s the only reason I can think of why you would talk to us in such a fashion.”
The woman began sputtering a rapid series of apologies, which Yuan didn’t understand, but his partner did. She offered all forms of condolences up to and including a formal introduction to one of her sisters
, who was considered a great beauty and liked men from the North.
Martinez eventually told her to shut-up in English and Portuguese. The woman vanished into his trailer and stayed there.
“We’ll stay in touch, Mr. Martinez,” Williams said to him. “I appreciate your taste in women, but in the future, you might want to check with customs before you import such delicate flowers into our country.” They turned and walked away.
“I wanted to applaud you back there,” Yuan said to his new partner. “I must confess, all day I’ve wondered when I would see the magic everyone in my district told me about. I specifically requested you when I made detective.”
The next stop was the restaurant where Martinez claimed to have dinner with the Czech ambassador and his daughter. Williams had eaten there many times, but it was a little too rich for his blood. Founded in the nineteenth century by some immigrants from Europe it was one of the best seafood houses in the city. It even had a line of canned soups that used its name. The prices were steep, as the people who frequented tended to be the “quality people” of Philadelphia. The mayor was a frequent guest and was often in the back entertaining the dignitaries who visited Philadelphia.
Parking was difficult to locate in the Olde Town district, but Yuan managed to find a space for his SUV.
“You realize this is a thirty minute zone, don’t you?” Williams said to his new partner. “The parking authority people will take a picture of your tag and zap you if we’re one minute late.”
“I thought they respected police officers,” Yuan said as he climbed out of the SUV. Williams eased himself out the other side, as he tried not to scratch anything on the vehicle.
“Oh, they respect police officers,” he told him, “but they’ll tag you anyway. This is Philly where the meter police have been outsourced.”
“It’s crazy,” Yuan told him as they stood on the sidewalk and watched the parking meter man walk down the street and take pictures of the license plates with his tablet camera. “You would think with all the money the city makes off traffic tickets they’d want to keep the enforcement in house. I can’t believe they’ve outsourced it to some private company.”
“The reason they outsourced it is because they make so much money from the program. The job used to go to relatives. The city found out too many meter readers were letting overdue cars off when they paid the reader a fraction of what they owed on the ticket. In the old days, how could you prove someone had over-stayed his or her time? It’s why they make them use the photo option these days. Can’t argue with a date and time stamp unless you pay a lawyer a lot of money. Most civilians are content to just pay the twenty dollar fine.”
They walked into the restaurant with the photograph captured from the Kimmel Center’s feed. It wasn’t very good, but anyone could see the face of the woman from whom Alvarez took the lighter. Yuan still couldn’t understand all the fuss over a lighter or what it was supposed to represent.
Binders’ was still the picture of Philly dining excellence. Williams and Yuan stood in the vestibule and admired the polished hard wood on the interior. White-coated servers went from one booth to the next while fifties’ jazz played over the sound system. The menu, proudly displayed in a glass frame, was there for everyone to see. The air smelled of warm seafood and mints as people paid their bill and left the restaurant. It was traditional in its interior.
The hostess brought them the manager right away when they told her they were with the Philly Police Department. A young man of thirty came and escorted them into his office. It was the same kind of office found in any ritzy eating establishment and contained a wall with schedules tacked-up over an old safe. He offered them chairs, but Yuan and Williams preferred to stand.
“We’re here investigating a murder, Mr. Lemons,” Yuan said to the manager. The man’s mouth opened in surprise and Yuan saw him begin to ask, “How did you know my name was Lemons?” when he turned to the mirror over the desk and spotted the nametag he wore. It was amazing how many people asked it. Yuan once had a suspect at a gas station ask him how he knew his name was George when it was “George’s Gas Station” and the man wore a name tag reading “George” as he sat behind a desk with a plaque with his name on it.
Williams handed the manager the video feed capture of Alvarez and the women they were trying to identify. “Do you recognize either of the women in this photograph, Sir?” he asked him.
“No, I don’t,” he told them.
“Was a Mr. Martinez here last night?”
“The film director? Yes he was. He had dinner with the Czech Ambassador and a woman who he said was the ambassador’s daughter.”
**********************
“Well, now I am confused,” Williams said to Yuan as they left the restaurant. “He didn’t recognize the woman in the picture Martinez claimed was the ambassador’s daughter.”
“You think someone got the time wrong?” Yuan asked him. “It’s happened before.”
“Time stamp on feed says 8:05 in the evening,” Williams pointed out to them. “The manager claims they were there around 8:30, but they could’ve been there much earlier. He thinks they stayed around two hours, which is reasonable. I don’t see us having a problem.
“We need to talk more with Stanford,” Williams pointed out. “He’ll have a good idea on the time of death. We need to find out when it happened and they should have an idea by now.”
“The purse,” Yuan brought up while he slowed down to a traffic light. “It always comes back to the purse. Why was the purse even brought onto the set? I’m not seeing any connection here.”
“I don’t understand these film people,” Williams added. “They go to great lengths for a real designer purse which is valued at fifty thousand dollars and then lose it? Don’t they keep better track of these things. I don’t buy that girl Bella’s story either. She’s leaving something out about why she gave Alvarez that purse.” The light turned green and Yuan moved the SUV forward.
It was close to five in the evening and their shift was about to end. Williams felt a true police detective was never off-duty. He was constantly turning over an idea or a motive in his head. He would sit in front of the TV in the evening churning over an idea about something he’d uncovered earlier in the day until he felt there was a solution. Then it would hit him in the middle of the night when he woke. He kept a small notebook by his bed just to record any sudden impulse or idea that might flood into his mind as he slept.
Yuan was different. When the day ended, he turned to his evening where he enjoyed the life he led in private. The police job was how he paid the bills and when he checked out at night, he didn’t want it to follow him home. His women were his interest after he arrived at home and he liked to keep them away from work. Tonight a new candidate for his attention was supposed to meet him at a coffee shop and they would talk before he decided whether to take it further. When he put on the badge in the morning, he gave his job two hundred percent and his home life went to one side. Today he had two of his women deliver something to him, but it was for a reason. He wanted to see how his new partner would react. So far, the veteran detective had not said a word and Yuan was happy. No reason to spend his days with a prude.
“Are you seeing both of those women?” Williams asked Yuan as they waited in traffic. He had to ask.
“I am,” Yuan told him. “I see more than those two. They were close by and I needed something from them. It worked out. Did they bother you?”
“Not at all,” the older detective responded. “I was going out with a lady a few years ago, but she moved away. Too set in my ways, I guess. Never had time for the women or family. Whatever works for you.”
Yuan was ready to tell him it worked very well for him, but let it drop. No reason to bring his personal life up right now. His house was in an isolated part of the Olney district and his neighbors liked that a cop lived down the street. After he arrested a burglar one night, he became a local hero and
no one would cause him any grief.
Chapter 4
“Where did she say the purse came from?” Williams asked the other detective as they cruised in the SUV across Center City on their way back to the office.
“Passion Designs” Yuan responded from behind the wheel. “I think there might have been a mention of an address down near Seventh Street. You want me to call the movie set and talk to her? She gave me a business card.”
“Sure go right ahead. I can call if you want because you’re the one driving.” Yuan passed him the business card for Bella and Williams made the call. He wasn’t on the phone long.
“She told me where it is on Seventh, just like I thought,” Williams told him. “They’re not too far away; want to make a quick stop? We might find out something useful.”
Yuan shrugged and agreed to stop. They weren’t that far from the district office and it shouldn’t take too long for them to stop in and ask a few questions. He turned the SUV to the right, went into another lane and merged onto Seventh Street as Williams called out the address. He was familiar enough with the city not to need a map or GPS receiver and searched for a parking place. Once again, he was lucky and pulled the SUV into a space just as the previous occupant was pulling out. He didn’t see a meter reader anywhere, but pulled out his credit card for the new meters. He remembered when they only accepted coins and an army of meter collectors patrolled the streets emptying them out each day.
“How about I stay in the car and you go in and ask the questions?” William proposed to Yuan. I’m not dressed the way you are and I bet they won’t unlock the door for me. Yuan laughed, checked his image in the mirror and opened the door. He’d managed to get a space right in front of his destination.
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