Ladies Lunch Club Murders

by David Bishop

  They stood up to leave. Max said, “Let’s just hope that once the theater is sold to the developer, these killing will end.”

  33

  When the three detectives returned to their hotel, Jack got out and leaned against the car. “I’m going for my usual walk. I’ll be back in thirty minutes or so. See you guys in the morning … our usual table for breakfast?”

  Max and Nora nodded and walked into the hotel.

  Jack started on the same path he’d several other nights—behind the hotel and through the parking lot of the restaurant that faced one street over, then out to the sidewalk where he’d continue for eight or ten blocks.

  While he was behind the restaurant, a sheriff’s cruiser pulled up beside him. Sergeant CC Wilmer got out, leaving the driver’s door open.

  Jack walked toward CC. “Has something happened?”

  When he got close, the sergeant sucker punched Jack in the jaw. He didn’t say a word. Jack went down in one of the parking spaces. He propped himself up on an elbow, shook his head, and wiped his open hand across his mouth. “What the fuck, CC?”

  “Get up you son of a bitch.”

  “Not until you tell me what this is about.”

  “Ann called and said you accused her of letting me fuck her. Get up. I’m going to kick your ass all the way back to DC.”

  “It wasn’t an accusation. I said it leadingly, as if I knew, to see if she’d reject the notion. She didn’t. So, yeah, I know it’s true.”

  CC unclenched his fists and let his arms hang at his sides.

  Jack got up.

  CC hit him again.

  Jack staggered but stayed on his feet. “Okay, Sergeant, I’d prefer we talk this out, but if this is how you want it.” Jack took a stance. His arms up. His hands fisted.

  CC stepped closer. His eyes filled with fury. He threw a right.

  Jack leaned back. The blow glanced off his head. CC was old-bull strong and not to be denied. The punch caused Jack to step sideways to regain his balance.

  CC’s rage was far from spent. He stepped in, short steps like a boxer crowding an opponent toward the corner. His next swing, with his left, was high enough that Jack instinctively ducked below. CC threw his next using his other hand.

  Jack blocked it with his left. Rather than counterpunch with his right, Jack used his left, which was momentarily inside CC’s defenses. It wasn’t a big swing haymaker, but enough of a stinger to deliver the message that Jack was tired of being CC’s take-it-out-on-me punching bag.

  Sergeant CC Wilmer staggered back.

  Jack moved in, keeping the distance close. He threw several fast punches into CC’s gut—boom, boom, boom.

  CC shook his head to toss off the punches and the blur from his night of drinking. After several deep breaths, the sergeant lowered his head, and came hard.

  With CC closing in, Jack’s uppercut traveled no more than eight to ten inches. He heard CC’s nose crunch like a dropped bag of frozen vegetables. Stuff splattered the front of his officer’s shirt like bullets from a paint gun.

  The sergeant stumbled, struggling to stay up, then keeled forward.

  Jack stepped in, caught him by the shoulders, and helped the off-duty officer stay on his feet. He eased CC down until the sergeant was sitting on the concrete tire bumper at the front of the parking space. His legs remained in front of him, connected, but splayed like they weren’t.

  Jack ignored the blood still trailing down CC’s face and glared down at the sergeant. The night closing in around them. “Now, we’re gonna talk.”

  CC closed his hand over his mouth and flicked his fistful of blood onto the pavement.

  “I know you’ve got it bad for Ann. You two have been getting it on for some time. She’s used that to control some of what you did. To an extent, that’s your business and hers. But, damn it, man, wise up. That’s her way of worming into men so she can control their rudders and direct their movements.”

  CC wiped his bloody hands back over the top of his head and dropped them to his legs. “How could I—”

  “Hey, man. It happens. She started that same routine with me. You’ve got it bad, but I’m not your competition. I have no designs on the woman. I briefly thought I might, but, as this case went along, I dewormed. You need to do the same. She seduced her way into your wheelhouse, and into the governor’s. I saw no percentage in becoming her third stooge. She has no real interest in either of us. She’s got her sights set on Governor Lennox. She’s ambitious and dreaming about becoming the First Lady of America. If not, with Mary Alice and Carter Phelps dead, her consolation prize is she’ll end up married to a still wealthier man when Lennox gets his sister’s millions.”

  “That’s crap.” CC’s enunciation of the word crap sprayed blood onto his pants and the pavement between his widened legs. His backside slid off the parking bumper.

  “You’re coming to the end of your career, and you don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone. I get it. But you deserve better than Ann. She’s the kind of fox we men fantasize about settling down with. But women like Ann have bigger ambitions than tantalizing one man. Ann’s perfected how to twist a man’s insides. In short, she’s a great lay, but an empty dress.”

  “She’s not that way with me, Jack. We’re good together.” He let his forearms collapse to bridge across his extended legs. He repeated himself—this time with less conviction. “I’m telling ya, we’re good together.”

  “You need to stop stacking up sins. Check your evidence, Sergeant.”

  “Sins? Shit I don’t regret any of my sins. There’s no heaven, life ends in a hole in the ground. Whatever I’ve done, I’d do again, twofold, if it meant I’d end up with Ann. What angers me is my allowing her to lead me around like some pooch in a dog show.”

  “With her that’s how it’d be. All you got is hope and the edges on it are frayed.”

  “Life’s a bitch.” CC exhaled. “Things get foggier when you get old. It shouldn’t be that way.”

  “You got any kids, CC?”

  When he answered, his voice scratched and skipped like his voice box needing oil. “One of each. When you have a daughter, all you try to do is keep her from getting fucked. When you got a son, you just try to keep him from fucking himself. … They’re both all grown. She’s in Chicago. He’s in California.”

  “I doubt you know this, but you need to. The governor’s already asked Ann to marry him. She’s not about to settle down and help you enjoy your retirement. It’s over. Frankly, it never really started. She played into your affection to gain leverage over you. Let her infect the governor’s mind, not yours. Let it go.”

  CC hung his head. His nose had stopped leaking. He used his bare hand to wipe some of the partially dried blood from his lips.”

  Jack straddled the bumper of the next parking space and faced CC. “I shook off whatever interest I was developing in the woman. I know it’s been festering in you for a lot longer, but you gotta get your head straight. You’ve had a fine career and you’ve still got good health. You’d never be happy with Ann.”

  CC sat still for the longest time, nodding slowly. He used two fingers to scratch and smear his cheek. “You’re right. … Shit. Fuck. Damn. I know you’re right. Truth is, I’ve known it for a good while—just didn’t wanna know it.”

  “Can I ask you something? It’s important.”

  CC didn’t say anything. He just sat. Then he looked up and moved his head like a bobbleheaded doll.

  “You used to do, maybe still do, side jobs for Walker and Greene. So does Ann. Did you start stuff for them before Ann, or did Ann start and then bring you in?”

  “Ann first. About six months after we started … being together, she encouraged me to pick up the easy money. Convinced me that whatever Walker and Greene wanted would get done by somebody, so why didn’t I? She said, ‘Why don’t we get some of the easy money?’ The way she put it, the tax free cash would set us up for after I retired, and allow her to retire and join me sooner
.”

  “Yeah. That’s how she got into your wheelhouse. She twisted your guts, using herself as the pussy prize. … Are you willing to turn state’s evidence against Walker and Greene?”

  “No. I could end up losing my pension. And you know where that road leads. I’ll end up having to testify against Ann.” CC shook his head. “I’ll get myself free of her, but I’m not about to rat her out and I need my pension.”

  The two men sat silently for a while. Then Jack put his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “You’ve had a few, CC. You need me to drive you home?”

  “No. I’m okay. Our little workout got my head clear.”

  “Why don’t you come up to my hotel room, use the shower and clean up? While you do, I’ll put on some coffee and scrounge up a little something to eat.”

  “I haven’t known you long, but I feel we’re friends. Thank you, but no.”

  “Thanks for what?” Jack laughed. “Hitting you while you were plastered?”

  CC laughed. “For hitting me because I deserved it. Because I gave you no alternative. … But I’m okay now, really.” He stood up, wobbled, and bent forward with his hands gripping his thighs. He slowly straightened his back and set his hands on his hips. His nose had quit bleeding, but the splatters gave his face the look of a Jackson Pollock painting.

  “See ya in the morning, Sarge? … We okay?”

  “We’re solid. Of course, I’ll see you in the morning. We’ve got murders to solve.”

  CC got inside his cruiser and stuck his head out the driver’s window. “Do you think you could get the governor to pull Ann off the case?”

  “That’s not a good idea. You need to suck it up and deal with it. If she tries to get close, tell her you’ve had an outbreak of herpes or something.”

  CC gave Jack the finger, smiled, and pulled the door shut as the patrol car started to roll across the lot. The driver’s window went up as he rounded the side of the closed restaurant.

  Then Jack heard the crunch and jogged around the corner of the building.

  CC had hit the cement abutment that anchored one of the parking lot light poles.

  Twenty minutes later, Jack drove CC’s car into the driveway of his single-family house, a sprawling one-story that looked like it had been designed by six warring architects.

  34

  The gray of morning found Jack awake, in bed, his hands behind his head.

  The night before, while he sat with CC on the parking bumpers in the lot of the restaurant behind his hotel, Jack came close to asking the sergeant what he knew about Walker and Greene’s services to the developer. In the end, he’d chosen not to spook CC by disclosing he knew the sergeant had done strong-arm work for the law firm.

  Had Jack gotten CC to confess, and afterwards CC proved incapable of pulling himself free of Ann’s buffet of affection, he would’ve told Ann. She would’ve passed it on to the governor.

  Even though CC was a former military sniper, Jack couldn’t see the sergeant in the direct role of killer. Ann was a different story. His contact in British Intelligence strongly implied that Ann had taken the initiative to assassinate more than once in some James Bond licensed-to-kill style.

  If the lawyers or the developer were behind the murders, it didn’t automatically mean that either Ann or CC had performed those killings. There was an endless supply of hitmen willing to work for crooked lawyers.

  Jack and his two detectives met for breakfast as they had most mornings. “You two look tired. Didn’t you sleep well?”

  “Max talked me into joining him for a half hour to work on that damn puzzle.”

  “So?”

  “The half hour ended at three-thirty.” Nora glanced at her watch. “It’s now seven-thirty and my alarm went off an hour ago.”

  Jack laughed. “Did you finish the puzzle?”

  “Yes.” Max painted his scrambled eggs with catsup. “Couldn’t have done it without her.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  Max looked at Nora. They both shrugged and laughed. “The puzzle’s finished. Now it’s time to finish this damn case.”

  Jack shared what he had learned in his contact with his friend in British Intel, and what happened when he gently confronted Ann. He told them about his encounter with CC last night when he left to take a walk. They each made reference to small indications that led them to conclude something was going on between the old stallion and the younger filly.

  “When you trim off all the fat,” Max said, while cutting off the fatty end of his bacon, “we have a compelling picture. Ann, and maybe CC, acted in some manner to aid the developer’s efforts to acquire the theater property. We got nothing probative on the developer. Still, it’s the only theory that fits what we do know.”

  Jack lowered his coffee cup. “That picture was distorted by the death of Mary Alice Phelps. She advised them to sell, yet was murdered. Once Norma Taylor told us the truth of Phelps’ death and her staging the chocolate covered nuts, we were able to finally uncouple her death from the others. That’s what brought the real clarity.”

  Nora dabbed the corners of her mouth, leaving a spot of lipstick on her napkin. “Every homicide has its share of shit. We assume Ann was aiding the developer, but we have nothing linking her and the developer. And, like you said, Jack we’ve got nothing probative on that law firm.”

  Max stopped variegating his eggs by mixing in catsup. “The developer talked with Walker and Greene who then talked with Lieutenant Reynolds. This avoided any direct contact between her and the developer and shielded the connection both ways through attorney-client privilege. None of the normal gimmicks we use to turn one criminal against another will work. We’re dealing with lawyers and seasoned cops. They know the games and won’t incriminate themselves or each other because that would lead back to themselves.”

  “If we could get warrants, we could search the firm’s books and Ann’s bank records to identify a pattern of payments.”

  Jack retorted Nora. “Fat chance. We got no basis for either warrant. Besides, the developer likely gave cash to the firm which passed it to Ann who, from her time in MI6, knew how to hide it offshore.”

  Max wiped his fork free of catsup by dragging it across his hash browns. “The effort to secure warrants would tip off the law firm and Ann. Frankly, even with warrants, I doubt we’d find anything persuasive. The weakest link may be the developer, but he’d just refuse to talk without his attorneys, Walker and Greene, who were, we’re theorizing, a willing participant in the criminal activity. We’d end up with a big circle-jerk that’d get us nowhere. We need something solid, and right now all we’ve got is unsubstantiated accusations. In short, we’ve got bupkis that’d sell to a grand jury.”

  “So, how do we play it?”

  “We probe and press and hope we get lucky.” Jack put down his coffee cup. “We’ll never solve this case in the normal way—from the outside. I gotta play Ann against herself. She thrives on manipulating men. Maybe I can give her the opportunity to manipulate me while I manipulate her into a corner.”

  35

  Ann Reynolds rolled her nylons off and unfastened her garter belt. A moment later she dropped her silk peach blouse on the bed, then her bra. Instinctively reacting to a minor irritation, she ran her hands back and forth under her breasts. Her fingers drew down the side zipper of her skirt. The onomatopoeic zziiipppp purr, the only sound in her bedroom. Her plan was to fix a hot bath and soak her troubles away. With her thumbs snugged inside the elastic on her panties, she heard the doorbell ring. She considered ignoring it, but couldn’t ignore the curiosity.

  The back of Jack’s neck itched the way it did after he got a haircut on a hot day, but he’d had no haircut. A scratch bought him a moment of relief. He felt like a still jungle cat lying in tall grass when a twig snaps just outside his lair.

  Ann crested her panties back in place on her hips and moved to the living room window with an angled view of the front porch. Jack McCall stood at her door. He was not expect
ed.

  She stepped in front of her mirror and used her fingers to fluff her hair. After a playful smile at nothing more than thoughts, she left her bra where it lay and slipped on her mid-thigh-length blouse, leaving the top two buttons unfastened. She stepped around to the end of her bed and slipped on the pair of black high heeled shoes she’d just stepped out of.

  She opened the door just enough to look surprised and opened it fully. “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you were coming, but you’re always welcome.” She stepped back, keeping her hand on the doorknob. The top of her blouse gaped. “Come in.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t catch you in the middle of anything, did I?”

  “No. I’m alone.” She smiled. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “Always.”

  Ann’s ample breasts moved freely as she returned with two bottles of beer. She leaned toward Jack sitting in the overstuffed chair in the corner across from the couch.

  He took one of the beers. His eyes not on the bottles. “Were you getting dressed to go out when I came?”

  “No. I was actually undressing. I was going to fix a bath steamy enough to fog the mirror and soak my skin pink.”

  She sat on the couch and crossed her naked legs. “What’s up?”

  “I’d like to continue our last discussion. On reflection, a few of the things we talked about last time, don’t fit together right.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mostly, the Mary Alice Phelps thing. Her death. Her brother being the governor. The death of her son. All of that. The seams where those things meet up don’t connect right.” He took a drink of his beer. “Not the big stuff. You helped me make sense of all that. It’s just some little stuff that doesn’t quite mesh.”