Full Release

by Marshall Thornton

  “Did she leave the search warrant?”

  “No.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “She didn’t have a warrant. When they searched the house they made a big deal out of giving it to me. And they left it with me.”

  Jeremy tumbled. “She tricked me?”

  “Yes. I need you to recant your statement.”

  He surprised me by agreeing right away.

  “She’ll probably try to say you and I made some kind of deal,” I explained. “But I still need you to do it.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “When can you come back?”

  “We used cash in case the police tried to find us again. We’re paid through tomorrow.”

  “Jeremy,” I said, in the disapproving tone I’d often used when we were together.

  “I’ll talk to Skye.”

  Before I hung up, he stopped me. “Matt, I am really sorry. I felt awful signing that thing.”

  As I pulled into my driveway, I wondered if things were as bad as I thought. Tripp was on my side, I was sure of that. And that had to mean that things would start to look up. I didn’t kill two people, so it would be difficult for Hanson to pin the murders on me. Especially if Tripp was there to stop it.

  Still, I felt like I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for Tripp to fix everything. But what should I do? The killer had to be someone connected to Detective Hanson or there’d be no reason for her to want to frame me. So, all I had to do was connect Eddie to Hanson. There was one degree of separation between them, and I had to find that person.

  Of course, the easiest way to do it would be to have Eddie’s client list. Which reminded me to call Tiffany about the flash drive.

  “Sonja fired me,” I told her when she picked up. Might as well get that out of the way first.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “At least it means you’re safe.”

  “This isn’t the way I wanted things to work out, Matt. You’re a good guy, and I’m going to miss having you around here.”

  “I guess Charles will be getting my job. I hope he doesn’t screw up your life too much.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “I’m actually calling about the flash drive. Did Cameron get it open for me?”

  “Oh, yes. He did.”

  “That’s great. It’s a document, isn’t it? Can you email it--”

  “It’s not a document,” she said. “It’s gay porn.”

  I was stunned. There was nothing useful on the flash drive. It took a moment to understand. Gay porn. Video. Then I thought about Cameron opening the file. “Oh my God, and your fifteen-year-old saw it. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Cameron sees whatever he wants to see. When it comes to the Internet, I’ve lost complete control. My focus is keeping him alive for two more years. If I can do that, I’ll feel like I’ve succeeded as a parent.”

  I tried to pay attention to what she was saying, but couldn’t. Porn. My life depended on this file, and it was nothing but porn. So, why was it hidden? Well, all right, Eddie was engaged to a woman who thought he was straight, and it would have been hard for her to pretend he was straight if she found him looking at gay porn. So, he had some gay porn and hid it on the flash drive behind a password. It made sense.

  “What was the password?” Curiosity made me ask.

  “El Gordo,” she said.

  It didn’t mean anything to me.

  “I’m taking conversational Spanish, remember?” She reminded me because, of course, I didn’t remember. “It means ‘The Big One’.”

  “Oh. Well I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise.” Obviously, it was the name of some Latin-themed porno about a big dick. She asked me a few questions about work projects, which I answered as succinctly as possible. Then I hung up. Well, that was it. I’d been counting on that list being there and now I knew it wasn’t.

  Okay, I thought. What did I know? I knew Eddie, and Sylvia with him, had been blackmailing at least one of his clients. Maybe more. The car in their driveway made that clear. Whoever they were blackmailing had tried to kill Eddie once before; the bruises on his neck spoke to that. Eddie called me for a date so he could hide at my house; he was afraid their blackmail victim would try to kill him again. That’s why he wouldn’t leave. His life depended on his staying. Sometime that day Eddie made the mistake of telling Sylvia where he was, and she betrayed him, bringing the killer to my home, which is why she was outside in an SUV crying. The killer must have made a deal with Sylvia, offering her even more money for Eddie’s life, but then decided he could save himself some dough and deflect attention by killing her and blaming it on me.

  I had a weird thought. I’d been assuming all of Eddie’s clients were men. I’d found him on massageformen.com, so it was logical to think that. But what if Eddie advertised elsewhere? What if he offered his services to women? He was, apparently, bisexual. It wasn’t out of the question. Were Eddie and Sylvia blackmailing Hanson? It would be embarrassing if people knew she’d seen a masseur, certainly, and if he could prove that they had sex and she’d paid for it, then her job could be in jeopardy. But was that enough for her to pay blackmail and commit two murders? And if she paid the blackmail, where did she get the money? Detectives didn’t make all that much. Did they? She didn’t make much money, but she might be able to get her hands on some. Didn’t they have stacks of drug money locked up somewhere?

  I checked my email. I had a massage request for later that morning. I emailed my phone number back and indicated that I’d be available at noon. It was cutting things close, but I could make it. A few minutes later, the phone rang and I chatted with a guy named Rick for a couple of minutes. We confirmed our appointment. Fortunately, Rick didn’t live too far away.

  Getting ready as quickly as I could, I ran out of the house, freshly showered, wearing just shorts and a T-shirt and carrying my massage kit. The table was still in my trunk. Rick lived in a small, Spanish house in the flats of Hollywood. It was only a ten-minute drive from my house. I parked under a blooming Jacaranda tree. I figured my car would be covered with messy, purple petals when I came out, but I didn’t mind. I liked the trees.

  The house was well tended with a nice little yard surrounding it. I assumed it had been a fixer just a few years back, and from the looks of things, Rick had done a lot of the work himself. It wasn’t badly done. In fact, it was well done. But it didn’t have that anonymous quality of professional work. This house had been rehabbed with a lot of personal attention.

  As I usually did, I began to guess what he’d look like. I was guessing mid-fifties, a little over-weight, balding probably. I knocked on the door, and a few moments later he answered. I was shocked.

  He was in his late twenties and obviously spent a lot of time at the gym. He wore a pair of 501s and nothing else. His chest was well-defined. Not body-builder defined, but nice. Very nice. He had blond hair, a wide smile and pretty blue eyes. The thing that really shocked me was that Rick was the kind of guy I would never dare walk up to in a bar. I wouldn’t stand a chance. And here he was about to pay me for sex. Well, a massage and then a little sex. It occurred that the universe might be paying me back for all my recent trouble.

  Rick led me to his bedroom, which was large and had an open space between the queen-sized bed and the dresser for me to set up the table. I set up my music and got some jazz started. Then I told Rick to take his clothes off and get on the table. I turned my back and took off my own clothes.

  I turned around and took in the amazing view of Rick with his thick, round ass sticking up in the air, and beyond that his strong back. My heart beat a little faster and my dick began to swell, but at the same time I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I got some lotion on my hands and rubbed them together to warm it. I began to spread the lotion over Rick’s wide back. I rubbed him for
about a minute and a half and then said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

  He rolled his head so he could look up at me. “You’re not doing too bad, really.”

  “It’s just, I know what you’re expecting at the end, and I can’t, do that…”

  “Your ad seemed pretty clear. I mean, it said full release. You do know what a full release is?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I have, I just…I’m sort of falling for someone.”

  “I’m not looking for something emotional. Mechanical is a-okay with me.”

  “I know, it’s just, wow…I can’t. I know it’s stupid.”

  He sat up and rested his hand over his dick. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Oh, um, that’s probably not a good idea. I should just go.”

  “How about this…” he said. “You finish the massage part, and that’ll be it. I’m really sore from working out.”

  It occurred to me that the reason he called me might actually have been for the massage, since it was pretty obvious this guy could get laid any time he wanted. I thought about his offer a moment. “Okay, I can do that.”

  “You won’t be offended if I don’t tip you.”

  “No, I won’t be.”

  He laid back down, and I gave him a pretty lousy massage. When all was said and done, I was better at the sex part of the massage than the actual massage. As I rubbed this beautiful guy, I felt kind of stupid. I wasn’t involved with Tripp. A shared hand job did not imply a commitment. There was no reason in the world for me to feel wrong about doing anything I felt like with Rick. Except, I did.

  This wasn’t good. I needed the money I’d been making giving massages. Yes, I could change my listing and claim that I only gave therapeutic massages, but I had absolutely no training. And if all you’re giving is the massage, training starts to matter a lot more than your naked pictures.

  But after Tripp, I just couldn’t continue doing a rub and a tug. No matter how much I needed the money. Illogical, I know. Part of me hoped I’d get over it and take a few clients. The sooner the better. Until then, I should take my ad off massageformen.com

  When I was finished the massage, Rick was true to his word. He didn’t tip. I walked out of his house and down the street to my car. As I was climbing in, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, though I should have. When I answered, it was Alan Moskowitz from the Daily Herald. I didn’t expect a pleasant conversation.

  “We’ve been told they’re arresting a suspect today and it’s not you,” the reporter said. I was shocked. I couldn’t speak. He continued, “I’m going to pitch my editor on a sidebar about you. You know, wrongly accused and everything. It may not get in, but I thought I’d give it a try.”

  “Do you know who they’re planning to arrest?” I asked. I was curious; I’d like to know who left me out to dry.

  “They’re not saying just yet. It’ll be on the five o’clock news. They’re maximizing the publicity value. So, what do you think? About the sidebar, I mean.”

  “Can I think about it?” I asked.

  “For an hour or so. If it doesn’t go in tomorrow, no one’s going to want to see it.”

  “I’ll call you back,” I said. Then I hung up and called Tripp.

  Calling him was foolish. I knew he’d be too busy booking the actual killer to talk to me. His phone rang a couple of times and went to voicemail. “I heard. This is great. Call me. I want to know all about it.”

  It was around one-thirty when I walked into the house. I had more than three hours to wait before I’d know who the killer was. I made myself a sandwich for lunch. Then I spent a couple hours working in my garden. I thought about rebuilding my life. I decided I’d call Bobby Sharpe in a day or two. Once I was exonerated, I might be able to guilt him into giving me that job. If I couldn’t do that, then I’d have to start looking for work. Maybe I could find some consulting work. That might be nice for a while, a high hourly rate with low stress.

  Mostly I thought about going on a date with Tripp. Where would we go? To dinner? Should I make dinner? Rent a DVD? Or should it be more special? A trip to the Observatory maybe? Or Santa Monica Pier? Maybe I should just get him to come over and we could spend a couple days in bed. Actually, it all sounded great. I didn’t really care too much what kind of date I had with Tripp, as long as I had one.

  When it was about five minutes to five, I went to the coffee table and found the remote. I clicked the television on and flipped over to cable. I surfed to the local news. Then I waited. I surfed through the channels quickly. Three of them had local newscasts. Finally, the news began. The first channel mentioned the arrest as a top story, “Major development in two area murders,” but moved on to something else. They were using it as a teaser. I surfed. The second channel seemed to be doing the same thing. I surfed to the third. They were in the middle of the story.

  “…police officer has been arrested in the murders of two area residents.” My first thought was that Tripp had found a way to arrest Hanson. Relief flooded through me. It was over. But why? Why had she done it? I wondered.

  They cut away from the anchor and showed a police car in front of a government building somewhere. Was that the jail? I wasn’t sure. Cops were pulling someone out of the patrol car and the anchor was saying Tripp’s name. And then I saw that it was Tripp being pulled out of the car. Handcuffed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I found Tripp by using an inmate locator on the Internet. He was in the Men’s Jail located north of downtown and east of Chinatown in a part of town I was not especially familiar with. Visiting hours began at ten in the morning, so around nine-thirty I parked my car a block and a half away and walked up to the jail. The architecture was cold and chalk white, with slits for windows. Outside the building were half a dozen teenagers who looked like they were putting on a fashion show for a new designer line of gang wear. Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I walked into the building.

  Fortunately, I’d called ahead and learned that Tripp was a segregated inmate. As a police officer, and a gay police officer at that, he needed to be in a protected area away from the rest of the population. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unescorted. I’d been told to follow the blue line through the jail. I did.

  When I got to the waiting room, about six other people were waiting. After a few minutes, a guard asked us to line up, then led us into a small room with six booths divided by glass. Each booth had its own telephone. The guard explained that the phones were on a timer and wouldn’t be started until everyone was seated. Then we’d have fifteen minutes.

  I sat down in front of Tripp, smiled at him, picked up the phone and waited for it to come on. Suddenly, I heard static and said, “Hello.”

  Tripp said, “It’s good to see you.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got me in the gay unit. I’ve been here twenty-four hours and I’ve had three marriage proposals.” He smiled, then added, “I turned them all down.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I thought you were my lawyer here to talk about getting me out.”

  “So you’re not going to be here long?” He shook his head. “What happened?”

  “They searched my apartment and found Javier’s client phone.”

  “How would that implicate you?” I asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure. My lawyer says they claim there are pictures of me on the phone. You can’t see my face, so maybe it’s me, maybe it’s not.”

  “It’s not, though.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  It was the same sort of thing that had happened to Jeremy. I told him about what Hanson had done to Jeremy and Skye.

  “I’ll tell that to my lawyer,” Tripp said. “None of this is going to stick.”

  Something didn’t make sense to me. If Hanson was connected to the killer then…
“So, how did you get on this case to begin with?” I asked Tripp.

  “Lucy called me at home, said she’d heard it on a scanner. She told me to call the captain and see if we could pull it. She needed the solve. Since we thought it was a suicide, it was pretty much a slam dunk.”

  “Why’d she have you make the call? Why not make it herself?”

  “She said she didn’t want to ask for it herself -- she never liked to ask for favors. So I did.”

  “Except it was all bullshit,” I pointed out. “What’s her story now?”

  “That she called me about a drive-by shooting we’d been working. I brought up the suicide. She thought it was a cheap way to get a solve, but I convinced her.”

  “Do you think Hanson killed Eddie?”

  “No,” he said. “She was with me when Sylvia died. She couldn’t have killed her, and if she didn’t kill Sylvia, then I don’t think she killed Javier. She’s protecting someone.”

  “Who? Who is she protecting?”

  “Someone powerful. Someone who had a relationship with Eddie that could have hurt him.” I felt like I should know the answer to that, but didn’t know why.

  “So, if we can find out who she’s protecting, you’ll be safe?”

  “Or in more danger.”

  “What can I do to help?” I asked.

  He smiled. “It’s sweet of you to offer. Just go home. Put your life back together.”

  “No, I want to help.”

  “I’ve got a good lawyer. He should have me out of here soon.”

  “Will you call me when you get out?” I asked.

  “Of course. I want to see you when I get out.” His meaning was clear, and the way he was looking at me was getting me hard. I shifted in my chair. The Men’s Jail was not the kind of place I wanted to sport a woody.

  The fifteen minutes were up before we knew it. The phone turned off before we’d properly said goodbye. I gave Tripp a little wave and left.

  After I worked my way out of the jail, I found my car and drove to Hollywood Station. I’d been exonerated, so I should be able to get my computer and other belongs back from the property room. I’d called ahead that morning to make sure I was heading to the right place. It turned out evidence and property was in an entirely different building all together. I followed the directions I was given at Hollywood Station and drove to the building.