Once his application was complete, he leaned in and checked out his reflection again. The concealer didn’t match. Christina’s skin was a shade or two darker than his, and now he looked like a fuckin’ raccoon. He grabbed a damp washcloth and washed it off. “Maybe some eye-drops?” He located a small bottle and tilted back his head and gently squeezed, blinking rapidly after each drop. He wiped away the trails of moisture running down his face, and checked the mirror again. “That’s better.” He tilted his head under the lights, checking to make sure no trace of the concealer remained, and caught sight of a gleam of bare skin underneath his bright auburn hair. “Dammit!”
He grabbed a comb and made the required adjustment. Then, carefully trying not dislodge his handiwork, he lifted a bottle of Christina’s pump-action hairspray and applied a fine mist. He tapped his foot impatiently waiting for the spray to dry. After a moment’s consideration, he picked up his wife’s blow-dryer and swished it around his head a couple of times to see if the precisely placed and spayed hair moved in the simulated breeze. Satisfied, he turned off the dryer and padded to his mirror again, where he repeated the entire inspection routine.
Pleased with what he saw, he reached his right hand underneath the waistband of his briefs and adjusted himself. He removed his hand and checked out his reflection. He frowned and inserted his hand again, closing his eyes as he fondled himself. He ran his fingers underneath his ball sack and then across the head of his dick a couple of times, until he felt the beginning of modest growth. He quickly re-tucked and looked down, thrusting his hips slightly forward while gazing in the mirror. “That’s my big ‘ole monster.” He smiled and gave his package an appreciative pat before heading to his closet.
He dressed quickly and efficiently. Christina had carefully grouped different combinations of appropriate business wear together so he didn’t have to decide for himself what looked good. “She’s a pretty good wife,” he acknowledged, “always focused on how to best present the image of a successful and ideal American family.” She’d been difficult during the last campaign, questioning both his motives and his actions, but now she was even more driven that he was, and aggressively worked to make sure their carefully constructed life was viewed to its best advantage. She served on the best community boards, and was an active member of the Disciples Circle at their conservative, old-line church. All-in-all, she was handling her role with exemplary dedication. “She’s still quite a looker, and she’s incredibly flexible,” he thought with smug satisfaction, recalling past examples of her marital gymnastics. “Must be all her childhood training, and her weekly workout regimen.” Whatever it was, he wasn’t complaining, although, sometimes a little variety was nice. Sutton grimaced when he thought about the short leash she had him on, insisting that was the only way to avoid any unpleasant surprises during the campaign.
Sutton considered his selection of ties. Christina still left that choice to him, but after checking his appearance for the day, she often made him select an alternate. He reached for a dark blue silk tie he thought would go well with the rest of his ensemble, but it didn’t feel quite right. It didn’t send exactly the right message for today. After flipping through the selection a few more times, he finally settled on a buttery yellow tie, knowing it was the new preferred shade for power ties. Today, he wanted to appear very powerful. He knotted it carefully and pulled it tight, adjusting the folds until it was perfect.
Christina Dameron was seated in front of her laptop at the big table in the newly remodeled kitchen of their historical downtown home. Her fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard, and she ignored her tension headache as she replied to numerous campaign related questions and fired off a few suggestions of her own. In a few minutes, after Sutton left for his day, she’d begin the process of dressing herself.
Today was the press conference her husband had called. He’d given her very little advanced notice, and there’d been a ton of unexpected complications to handle. The stress was getting to her, and she knew it was important for them all to be at their very best today. She kept the children home from their private church-affiliated school to make sure they were perfectly turned out and looking adorable as they stood by her side, with one of her gentle, loving hands on each one’s shoulder. They would all gaze adoringly up at their father, as coached, while Sutton delivered his speech in front of reporters from the city’s newspapers and local news stations. “Who knows?” she speculated. “Today a modest, supportive councilman’s wife and soon – a United States Congressman’s socially powerful spouse.” She’d worked hard for her position and had sacrificed so many things, including most of her principles, and would to do whatever she needed to ensure their joint ambitions bore fruit.
She took a sip of her coffee and evaluated their chances. “If it all goes well today, we’ll be perfectly positioned.” Sutton’s message of moral steadfastness, coupled with his call for a stronger, more conservative city government should play well, especially when contrasted with the Mayor’s recent policies and the ineptness of the City’s Police Department in recent days. However, now was not the ideal time to go too far out on a limb, and she hoped the reporters didn’t ask too many difficult questions. Sutton was a fair orator when working from prepared and rehearsed materials, but when confronted with uncomfortable questions he rambled, sounding vague and unclear. She’d rehearsed every possible scenario with him over the last two evenings, but one never knew what to expect. She tapped one manicured fingernail against the side of her coffee cup. Sutton had experienced stumbles during this past term, and they’d added up. His frequent vacillations on positions important to his constituency had damaged his credibility, but was nothing compared to his debacle with the new zoning measures he’d proposed and championed, only to see them defeated by some behind-the-scenes political maneuvering. Somehow, he never understood that he was on dangerous ground until it was too late.
If the opposition could garner enough groundswell support, they might hurt the campaign significantly. However, local area voters were notoriously complacent, and Sutton’s fund raising efforts were far more successful than any of the other candidates. “It’s a damn good thing,” she mused. “Our personal financial situation is very tight right now, given so many unexpected expenses.” Fortunately, Sutton had the financial and political support of many of the city’s more conservative factions, which counted for a lot in a southern community. But she did worry about the increasingly liberal attitude emerging among the voting public, and was even more concerned about the city’s new non-discrimination policy. She wasn’t sure how either would impact the campaign, but she knew that today, Sutton had to come across as articulate, decisive and morally self-assured or they’d be in trouble. She’s done all she could to prepare him and it was now out of her hands.
Sutton came into the kitchen and she got up from her chair to pour him a fresh cup of coffee. She handed it to him, noting with approval the clothing he’d selected. When he took the cup and sloshed a little coffee onto the counter, she frowned. “Tuck in your tie.”
“What?”
“Tuck in your tie, Sutton. It will protect it against spills. Coffee almost never comes out of silk.” He put his cup on the counter and dutifully tucked the tie underneath the button placket on his French blue shirt. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Of course I am ready. I’m always ready,” he smirked. “I’ve never been more prepared.” He noticed she didn’t immediately praise his self-confidence, and she was looking tired and drawn. It must be stress.
“Do you want to go over your speech again?” she asked tiredly “We’ve got a few minutes before you need to leave.”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want it to seem too rehearsed. I think it’s perfect right now.” He took a gulp of hot coffee, glancing at her over the rim of his mug. “You look like hell, Christina. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong. The last few days have been really stressful and the incident with….” she broke off
at the sharp concerned look he shot her way. She took a resigned breath, knowing nothing must ruffle his own composure. “No, everything’s just fine, Sutton. You know I have complete faith in you.” She turned and reclaimed her seat at the table, looking out the bay window into the backyard. “If he fumbles things this time, I don’t think I can take care of it like I have in the past.” She gave a small almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“Christina, honey, I’m concerned. It’s not like you to be so tense, and you seem distracted. You never mumble to yourself, but you’ve been doing it a lot over the last four or five days. You need to pull it together. I need you beside me – beautiful and confident.”
“I said nothing was wrong. I’m just thinking about all I have to get done this morning before the press conference, that’s all.”
“The children will be there?” he asked unnecessarily, since she’d assured him multiple times they would be in attendance to witness their father’s big moment.
“Of course they’ll be there,” she snapped. “I’ve told you a hundred times I had it under control, and you know I kept them home today.”
Sutton looked away from her irritated expression and set down his coffee cup. “I knew I could count on you.” He checked his cell phone, seeing two missed calls from Lieberman, but no indication of a message. Lieberman was a fat, disgusting dick-wad, but he’d been useful, so he’d call him back later. Right now he had more important things to worry about. He put the phone in the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’ve really got to run. I have a meeting downtown in a few minutes and don’t want to be late.” Sutton leaned over and gave her a perfunctory kiss.
“Okay. We’ll see you there, Sutton.”
“Wish me luck?” he asked, hoping for a sign that she was going to be alright today.
She directed a strained, but sunny smile at him, reaching up from her seat to untuck and smooth down his tie. “Sutton, you don’t need any luck. As you said, you’ve got this.” He gave her a satisfied nod, picked up his sleek brief case and his keys, and left, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
Christina collected his empty cup and rinsed it out before placing it in the dishwasher. She leaned against her carefully chosen granite counter top. “I hope you’ve got this, Sutton. You better not fuck things up. After the things we’ve done to get here and stay here, you’d better not fuck it up now.” She slammed the dishwasher shut, turned it on and then hurried upstairs to make herself perfect for the day.
♦♦♦
Melba managed to have several uninterrupted hours at home Sunday afternoon, and was now caught up on her laundry. She’d feel a little lonely without the overflowing clothes baskets surrounding her bed like watchful guardians, but she would enjoy the luxury of not having to search for clean underwear for a few days. She’d even done some much needed grocery shopping, and no longer had to depend on whatever was lurking and waiting to spoil in the fridge. The refrigerator was now full of more salad fixings and fresh fruit than it had probably held in its entire existence. “I’m almost living like a real human being for a change.” She’d dutifully prepared and drank the packets of medicinal tea prepared for her by Zhou. She wasn’t certain, but she thought maybe it was helping. The uncomfortable flashes of heat hadn’t been as frequent or as severe over the last couple of day, but she still was undecided if the tea had helped her temper. Much to her surprise, she’d also cut out her zinfandel habit, preferring instead to savor the delicate jasmine tea she’d been given.
In contrast with her Sunday, the Guzman murder case wasn’t going as well. It wasn’t going badly. It just wasn’t going anywhere and that bothered her. Usually, in cases like these, something broke open in the first couple of day. But, four full days had passed and she had more questions than answers.
As she began to get dressed Monday morning, she thought it over: “Item one; mystery cell phone found in my purse after the super market incident.” She pulled a blouse from the closet and tried to shake out a few wrinkles. She’d done her laundry, but there was no way in hell she was going to ruin a Sunday by ironing. As she pulled it on, she recalled her conversation with Tom Anderson when she’d dropped off the phone on Friday.
“What do we have here Detective Reightman?” he asked as she placed the phone enveloped in its protective sandwich bag on his desk.
“It’s a cell phone, Tom.”
“I can see it’s a cell phone. Where did it come from?” She explained the chain of events that led to the phone being discovered in her purse. “Ouch! That must have hurt.” He studied the item through the clear plastic, turning it this way and that. “Do you think it might be connected to the case?”
“I don’t know, but I thought it was too much of a coincidence to not bring it in.”
“Alright, fair enough. I guess it’s better to be safe now, than sorry later. I’ll run some prints and get back to you as soon as I can. I’m going to have to squeeze it into the line-up of very important things already on my overfull plate, but I’ll do it for you. Don’t tell anyone else I’m such a softie or I’ll never dig out from under the pile. It’ll probably be Monday morning before I can get to it. Will that work?”
“Sure Tom, I know you’re swamped.”
He finished his initial inspection and jabbed the power button through the plastic covering. He soon gave up, and tossed the phone onto his cluttered desk. “I’ll see if I can round up a charger as well – this thing is totally dead. After I check for prints, I’ll charge this baby up and we’ll see what secrets we can convince it to share. Check with me Monday mid-morning. I should’ve made some progress by then.”
Reightman was relieved to have passed off the problem and could mark another thing off her list. “I appreciate it. Anything else to report?”
He pulled out a folder from the stacking system on the wall. “You know I can’t remember anything, Reightman. Thankfully I make outstanding notes. Let me take a look.” He quickly reviewed his notes and then tossed the folder on the desk, on top of the phone. “The athletic shoes found in the wash appear to be a tentative match to the marks on the floor. After we sprayed the whole area with chemicals and put it under our super-special-DNA-finding lights, we picked up a few faint footprints. I think the prints mostly likely came from bare feet walking on the floor, lots of different shapes and sizes of bare feet. However, I don’t think it’s unusual to find those sorts of prints, given the nature of the business. The only other thing to report is we confirmed the blood on the garments belonged to the vic, and there were minute traces of another blood type. Not enough for anything conclusive, but I did note it. It could have come from anywhere. Anything new from the morgue?”
Reightman shook her head in disgust. “No, nothing yet. When Sam checked, Riley informed us that the good doctor was out on sick leave and won’t be back until Monday. Riley sent in samples for a toxicology screen, but won’t have the results back until the first of the week at the earliest. Too bad it’s not like it is on TV. The city budget doesn’t make allowances for all kinds of nifty toys and almost everything has to be sent out.”
“How well I know, Detective. Some days it seems we don’t even have the basics around here.”
That pretty much concluded their discussion, and Melba resigned herself to the fact it would be a few days before she had any answers. Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Melba pulled a pair of slacks off a hanger and checked them for wrinkles. They looked pretty good, except for a couple of specks of dryer lint. She picked off what she could and decided no one would notice anyway. She turned her attention back to the case. As of right now, she had nothing except a few minor findings from the crime techs and she was still waiting on Lieberman. Hopefully at least the mystery of the phone would be solved today, so she moved on to the next item.
“Item two: review of all client files and financial records of the Time Out Spa.” Melba, Sam and an additional headcount scared up by the Chief had worked through the records over the last couple of days, assist
ed by Toby. The client list included movers and shakers from across the city and the surrounding area. They’d sorted the list by name, address and profession but so far nothing unusual had popped up, unless you counted the name of some of the customers combined with the variety and nature of the services requested. When she reviewed the initial findings, her eyebrows had shot straight up to her hairline a couple of times. She didn’t even want to think about people she knew or saw on a frequent basis getting their backs waxed, or having themselves slathered in Dead Sea clay. And heavens, visualizing a couple of them getting something described as a Total Brazilian would scar her for life. She’d never be able to look them in the eye again.
The financial records told a similar story. Again, she’d been surprised at the amounts of money people paid for things like hot stone massages. The single anomaly was the number of large deposit transactions made over the last couple of months. The transactions simply identified the deposits as cash, and hadn’t provided any additional information. Since Geri Guzman had handled most of the banking, Toby wasn’t able to offer much insight. He’d have to go down to the bank on Monday and have them pull copies of the actual deposit slips. At least he had offered some explanation why the deposits might be so large. The spa staff often preformed outcalls, and those services were always paid in cash. Apparently, all the full-time and a few part time spa technicians and body workers took on extra offsite appointments. Toby split the payment with them generously, with the spa keeping 70 percent of the earnings and the technician keeping the remainder, plus any tips. According to Toby, the tips were often quite large. The cash was turned in the next morning and included with the day’s bank deposit. If the services were provided on Friday after close of business or over the weekend, the deposit was made on Monday. The process made sense to her, but the irregular, large amounts of cash deposited appeared to be excessive.
Done Rubbed Out: Reightman & Bailey Book One Page 13