The Crawford Chronicles - Book 1

by Clayton Conrad

  Back inside were hardwood oak floors throughout with Persian rugs placed in the living room and Hall. Off to one side was an ultra-modern kitchen, all stainless steel and chrome with the finest imported marble countertops money could buy. The rest of the decor was as extreme as the kitchen with the furniture made of glass and chrome and zebra skin covered cushions on couches and chairs. They all look very nice, but Clayton thought them very uncomfortable. On another wall in the living room and beautifully equipped wet bar in glass and chrome with polished black marble tiles. Some very expensive black and white prints hung on the walls and around the glass wall were electric operated shutters and drapes.

  The hallway led to the bedrooms and baths with more black and white prints. The first and second bedrooms were well furnished but not as elegant as the master suite. The master bed was a custom-made, king-size vibrating canopied affair with satin sheets. More abstract prints hung on the walls and to the left was a lushly furnished sitting room. Everything was just as he remembered it except for the men’s close he found humongous walk-in closet. He also found men’s shaving gear in the master bath. Michelle had been a busy little girl who certainly likes to entertain from time to time. He smiled to himself as he noticed a bottle of birth control pills in the medicine cabinet along with the usual items one would find there.

  Thank you for a moment he went back to the walk-in closet, to the built-in shoe rack. He found the button and the rack opened up like a book revealing a built-in wall safe. He tried three times before he remembered the correct combination. Inside were her jewels and rings, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions, along with her stash of cocaine. As he removed the drugs from the safe he found a 22 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun, a small woman’s weapon. Lying alongside the pistol or five neatly stacked freshly minted bundles of $10,000 each. $50,000 still banded with the banks wrapping. He left everything as it was except for the Coke which he flushed down the toilet. Leaving the master suite, he headed straight to the living room and the built-in bar, where he poured himself three fingers of the finest Scotch money could buy.

  He looked around the room again, everything was done up just right with a flair to the contemporary. It was a very nice place with extravagant taste, but just wasn’t him. He was more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy, where this place was strictly a five star, uptown, caviar kind of place. He guessed that was the whole trouble from the start. Frank had bought it for them as a wedding gift way back he was still hopelessly in love, so long ago.

  The wedding was a big social affair and was covered in detail by all the newspapers and TV stations. It even rated a brief mention on national news networks. All the gossip columns were having a field day with Clayton the main topic. One columnist likened a marriage to the Cinderella story, only in reverse. Clayton was the Cinderella and Michelle was the Prince who rescued him from a life of drudgery and hopeless poverty. He was the poor boy only worth a measly seven or 800,000, give or take, where she was an heiress worth multimillions of dollars. A real American Princess.

  Clayton tried to think which one proposed to whom, but he couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter because it was more like a mutual coming together. He didn’t now after all this time, she may have married him just to piss off her father, but he wasn’t sure. Anyway after that whole whirlwind courtship of six months or so, they were married and for the six months of that marriage things went just fine. All was well in their brand-new penthouse at the Wilson Arms and Suites.

  If she expected her father Frank Wellington to be upset because she brought a nobody home, she was sadly disappointed. Frank took to Clayton right away. Perhaps he was trying to replace the sun he had lost in Desert Storm. Whatever the reason the two men headed off from the start and a lasting friendship was formed that was still as strong as it ever was.

  Everything was going fine with the newlyweds, traveling to different places and sharing their life together, until Frank offered Clayton a big contract to update the security measures in all his plants. Well, this was a multimillion dollar opportunity for Clayton and write down his alley. After all, didn’t he owned and operate an alarm and security company in California? He knew the business inside and out and was well prepared to handle the job.

  That was a great opportunity all right, he thought to himself, looking back on things. But, in retrospect, it’s spelled the beginning of the end to his marriage to Michelle. Clayton finished his drink and poured another, and walked over to the huge flat screen TV and entertainment center. He looked through the CD collection. There were two or three exercise discs, one or two old movies, and several discs that were marked only with the letter X on them. Being curious by nature, he put one that was marked X into the machine and turned it on. He was so shocked at the scene before his eyes it staggered him, for on the screen was his gorgeous wife making slow passionate love to another woman.

  There in living color with all right sound effects taking place in the master bedroom in this very penthouse. It was almost too much, but there was more. About that time, good old Stephen came into the picture, to make it a three some. Then, another woman joined in the fun.

  Clayton reached out and shut the machine off. He had seen enough. He downed his drink in one gulp. He was so shocked he just sat there for a moment, stunned into silence. He never knew she could flip either way. Apparently it made no difference at all. You never really know a person completely, especially Michelle, who it seemed was spent on self-destruction.

  That was it; she must have had a self-destruct button that she pushed regularly. Well, he thought to himself that was life in the fast lane and she lived it to the hilt. Losing her mother when she was so young and then her brother a few years later, a brother that she worshiped, made things even worse. On top of that, having a father who was never there for her when she needed him the most didn’t help. You wonder how all that played out in her life, or was that just an excuse. He thought of the many trips she took with her girlfriends, while he was away working, and wondered if they were just one big orgy. All that didn’t matter now and one thing was for sure, he would have to destroy those CDs before Frank saw them.

  He sat down heavily, in a nearby chair and poured himself another drink. What a terrible waste of a beautiful, talented, educated woman with so much to offer. She lived her short life hard and fast, and died too young. Car accident of all things, or was it? She took the high side off a mountain top and was killed. Her boyfriend, Stephen Driscoll, was worried that was an accident, that she was murdered. Now he disappeared, without a trace.

  And what about the dog that was left to starve to death in his home? No one would take a trip and completely forget about his dog like that. No. Something was wrong all right, the question was just what should he do about it? He’d stop by the police station tomorrow and see what they would say. They were more than likely on top of everything anyway, so not to worry.

  Chapter 11

  He finished his drink, leaving the glass on the countertop, and put up the bottle of whiskey. He wasn’t a hard drinker and was beginning to feel its effects. He walked to the second bedroom that was being used for an office and went to her desk. Just the usual things, receipts, phone, credit card and utility bills, some business mail and an address book. He found through the pages and found several names, mostly women, some with stars before and after their names. He didn’t have to guess what that meant. Stevens’ name was there along with a few other men. He had stars by his name also, and lo and behold, so was Clayton’s, though his name had no stars by it.

  Everywhere he looked brought back the memory of Michelle and their life together, some pleasant and others not so pleasant, and toward the end, it got downright terrible. It started to turn when she became bored with being an everyday housewife, he guessed. She just wasn’t cut out for the domestic scene. It wasn’t in her makeup, and it didn’t take long to find that out, either. She complained because he was always gone on his job, find here, going there, and was drivi
ng her crazy. Something had to change, she told him one night, while he was packing for another trip to some factory on the other side of the country, 1000 miles or so away.

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” She screamed at him, “sit home and twiddle my thumbs! Not on your life Mister!”

  “Well then, why don’t you come with me? Lord knows I’ve asked you often enough,” Clayton snapped.

  “It would be the same here as there; I’d be stuck in some grungy hotel room, waiting for my lord and master to come home.”

  “You know Michelle, maybe if we started a family, we…”

  “Are you insane?! You want me to have a baby?” She cut in. “Ruin my figure by having your kid! Then I’d really be tied down. I suppose that would suit you just fine, wouldn’t it?”

  “What am I supposed to do, drop everything? I’m in the middle of a huge multimillion dollar contract. People are depending on me. Frank has taken…”

  “Oh, Frank, Frank, that’s all I hear anymore.” She came back at him with fire in her eyes. “You think more of him than you do of me. He gets more of your time than I do, perhaps you should have married him!”

  “Christ! Can’t you understand that I work for the man and he’s a big part of both of our lives?”

  “That’s just it; you don’t have to work at all. I have enough money to last us 10 lifetimes.”

  “I won’t be a kept man,” Clayton shot back.” I refuse to let you support me!”

  “Okay then, you do your thing and I will do mine. We will just see how you like that. So I’ll be flying to Paris tomorrow with my girlfriends to do a little shopping and I’ll see you when you get back. You no Clay, she continued,” you used to be a lot of fun; here lately you’ve become a real bore.”

  Clayton remembered that argument all right, because from that night on it only got worse. Everything went to hell in a hand basket on a slippery slope. They argued continually and it got so that Clayton looked forward to his business trips that took him away from her and the penthouse. So Michelle started giving wild and extravagant parties that would last to the wee hours of the morning and longer. He stayed away as much as possible while she held these wild events, where anything went and often did. With loud music banging away, drunken staggering crowds bumping into each other, there were no holds barred and no house rules; anything went. Michelle’s drug habit had steadily progressed from a mild pop now and then to $1000 a day hard habit of cocaine or heroin with some pot thrown into the mix.

  Oh, the life of the very rich and famous, Clayton thought to himself. As he studied a black-and-white caricature of Michelle, very nicely done and very expensive, he assumed, he mused. Well that was years ago, a lifetime ago. Now she was no more, just a story in yesterday’s newspapers, line the bottom of someone’s birdcage, or used to wrap dead fish. What a shame, terrible shame.

  It was 9 o’clock and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything but a light salad at Mama’s restaurant around 1 o’clock. He went to the kitchen and checked the refrigerator, which of course was empty, so he called down to room service and ordered up a light meal, nothing too heavy this late at night. Just a few cold cuts, pickle between two slices of bread with Mayo and mustard on the side. When it came he picked up a knife to spread the Mayo, when he stood almost mesmerized by the sight of the sharp knife in his hand. He couldn’t help but remember what he always referred to as the night of the Big Bang.

  She had been moody all evening but at least they weren’t fighting.

  “I’m going to Germany tomorrow,” she said, as she poured herself a stiff drink straight up, no ice. “And I’ll be gone for some time, maybe a year or more. I’m sure you won’t mind as you are never here anymore anyway.”

  Clayton said nothing, just studied her for a moment or two. Nothing she could say or do would surprise him anymore. They were in the living room, she at the bar and he was in his recliner. It didn’t go with the rest of the decor, but he likes it and it was comfortable. He got up and walked to the bar and when she saw him coming she braced herself for a fight. He stopped before her for a moment and she flinched to take a blow she felt sure was coming. It was the furthest thing from his mind.

  “Have we really come to this? Do you honestly think I would ever strike you? Not in 1 million years. My God, what have we become? No. I just wanted to join you in a drink.”

  He walked behind the bar, got a tumbler, and poured himself a double shot of scotch. “Elixir of the gods,” he said and raised his glass for a toast. “To your health Michelle, may you someday find what you’ve been looking for, before it’s too late.”

  She said nothing, but just walked to the glass wall that looked out over the city and the Chesapeake Bay beyond.

  “Don’t be overly concerned about my health,” she said in a cutting voice. “I’ll do just fine, I always have. I know you’re eager to be rid of me anyway. You don’t fool me for an instant,” she added, as she turned to face him, but he had already left the room.

  They had been sleeping in separate rooms by then. They were living together but going in different directions, married in name only. He remembered the last time he saw her.

  There must have been a noise of some sort that woke him. He had been reading the business report from the last job he had just finished and had fallen asleep in a chair at his bedside. Yes there was again. He looked at the clock on the nightstand and it read 2 AM. He put the report down and walked to the bedroom door and opened it Michelle’s bedroom door was closed and so was the other door that led to the office. The noise was coming from down the hall leading to the kitchen and living room. There was a light coming from the kitchen, it was only Michelle knocking around down there but he would go and check anyway.

  It was Michelle all right. She was sitting at the breakfast bar, her eyes glassy, a white powdery substance around her nostrils and a bag of cocaine on the bar in front of her.

  “Shit Michelle!” Clayton said as he walked into the kitchen. He picked up the bag of Coke and walked to the sink with it. “You just can’t leave it alone, can you?”

  “Give me that!” She screamed, and got up to stop him. He held her at arm’s length while he poured the entire contents of the bag down the drain.

  She was frantic by now, flailing at him with both arms and screeching at the top of her voice, with the foulest names one could imagine. He turned the faucet on and watch the white powder swirl down the drain. She suddenly stopped struggling with him and grabbed a steak knife that was in a rack near the sink.

  “You son of a bitch!” she snarled, “I’m going to cut your heart out for that!” She took a wild stab at his chest with every notion to do just that. He easily sidestepped her attack, but again she lunged at him, and again he dodged the flashing blade of the now deadly weapon.

  She was frustrated now and more determined than ever. She charged wildly at him, screaming and cursing, completely out of control. She lunged at him, the knife high over her head, intent on driving gleaming blade deep into his heart.

  The many years of his training in close combat in karate exercises have really paid off for now. He reached up in one fluid motion and took her by the rest, turning her around so that her back was to him. Then he pulled her into him and held her there in a strong bear hug until she stopped struggling to free herself. When she finally calmed down she broke into heavy deep sobs.

  “I almost killed you,” she gasped in a shaky voice, between sobs.

  “No,” Clayton said, lowering his head down so that his mouth was close to her ear, “not even close.”

  He could smell the shampoo in her hair, the scent of her perfume, the inviting warmth of her lovely body.

  “You want me,” she said. “I know you do; I can feel you hard up against me. It’s all right Clay, I understand. This is a new experience for both of us; it’s kind of a turn on, isn’t it? What a rush,” she added.

  Clayton wanted her, there was no mistaking it, that moment the old animal instinct was coming o
n strong, but he was no one’s fool. He didn’t trust her one iota, not a lick. He wasn’t going to fall into that snare again. He pulled away from her.

  She looked at him with a half quizzical look, smiled, and cocked her head to one side. “You’ll be sorry for this later,” she said with that infectious smile of hers. “I know it’s over between us, tonight kind of fries that for good, but wouldn’t it be nice to end it with the big bang. Just think what a hell of an ending that would be for us. One for the books.”

  “Not on your life sweetheart. It would be like betting a female scorpion, waiting for the deadly sting, which you are so good at. I’m going to let you go now,” he said, carefully removed the steak knife from her hand and released her.

  “You’re a big disappointment Clay-baby,” she said.

  “Well, that’s life in the big city,” he answered. “You go ahead and take your trip, stay as long as you like. I’ll finish up here and return to California.”

  “I’ll just get more you know, the drugs I mean.”