Compromised

Mrs. Martha Lott was the mother of the late, Carlotta Lott -Parker. She had hired me because she believed that her son in law, Pool instructor, Giles Parker had murdered her daughter when he discovered that she was planning to leave him and cut him off from the money that she was an heiress to. I had looked into the matter and had not only gotten the goods on him for that murder, but had discovered that he had murdered her lawyer and her lover....Now he was dead of suspicious causes......I wondered if someone had helped him out of this world..or if he had accidentally wandered into something more elaborate, something set up for someone else?

Mrs. Lott paid me my fee....It was a healthy sum....So much that after I paid Clerow, Sean Jackson,Robert Foxworth, Peeping Tom and Lockpick Johnson....All of the people who had helped me in this case...I still had a nice piece of change for myself. An old guy who had mentored me in this business once told me that you always look for who would stand to gain something when a murder was committed... Giles Parker was a pool instructor...He made a modest salary and outside of the murders he committed, he wasn't into anything else...No one stood to gain anything from his death other than revenge. I wondered about Mrs. Lott....I shadowed her every move for days , but saw nothing out of the ordinary...She just wanted justice for her daughter's murder, so where did I stand? Nowhere...I kept getting back to the same nowhere...and yet something about this killer seemed so familiar...yet ,I couldn't put my finger on it.

I was intrigued in a way I hadn't been in a long while...I loved a mystery and I loved figuring things out...and a baffling case like this peaked my interest. I wasn't that totally intrigued though...There was still the matter of Sepia...Between my job at the magazine and these last few
cases, I had been neglecting her, so I bought a couple of steaks from the supermarket and stopped by my office, where a nice bottle of Lambrusco was on my desk with a ribbon around it.... No one seemed to know where it had come from or when it arrived. I figured it was a promotional gift..We got them all the time. I went home ,threw a couple of Steaks on my grill and some corn on the cobb and loaded some Donny Hathaway ,Curtis Mayfied, Jerry Butler and Lou Rawls on my Ipod dock..... I tossed some Common and some Gangstar on there too for good measure.

When Sepia arrived home from, she was very, very surprised.... She was looking good, as usual,Pin Striped ,gray mini skirt, white blouse...matching gray jacket and gray heels... She smelled great and her braids were swinging down to the nape of her back.

"Wow Kevin...this is nice..." she laughed....

"I'm glad you like it. Sell any properties?" I asked...

"I'm about to sell one....Robert Foxworth's girl, Bonita and I are working together on this nice property." she said.

"Good for you.." I smiled.

"I saw Clerow on my way home...He said to give him a call..he has something important to tell you." she said.

"I'll call him in the morning." I said.

"He sounded like it was serious." she said.

"I'll get at him ....but tonight..I want to get at you.." I laughed..

"Ouuu, I like the sound of that.." she laughed seductively....

We ate the two steaks and the corn and downed that entire bottle of Lambrusco.....It wasn't long before we were on the couch ,kissing and making out like two teenagers....I slowly unbottoned her blouse and relieved her of her black lacy bustier.....I massaged her breasts in my hands as she moaned slowly....

My Blackberry was going off, but I ignored it....I should have answered that call, but I didn't...

I unzippered her pin striped mini skirt and she slipped off her pantyhose as I hungrily watched..
She helped me out of my pants and shirt and then we hungrily devoured each other on the couch..

My Blackberry went off again...but Sepia and I were in the throes of passion and there was no way I was going to stop what we were experiencing to answer the phone...It was probably Clerow.

We made love about three times in the living room, before I lifted her up and took her into the bedroom....

The next morning....We both woke up at the same time, laughing and kissing.....

"Woww...last night was something Kevin...my head is spinning..." laughed Sepia...

"So is mine...hahahahahaha...wow..I feel so dizzy.." I said ,laughing again....

"Where did you get that Lambrusco?" she asked...

"Somebody sent it to my office...It was some kind of promotion..We get that stuff all the time." I said.

I got up, put on my bathrobe and checked my phone...It was FBI Special Agent in Charge, Frank
Cotton. The second call had been Clerow and there was a third call from an unknown number.
I was getting ready to dial the first number, when I noticed Sepia...She was foaming at the mouth and she fell backwards on the bed...I went to go to her, when I began to feel dizzy and found myself falling against the wall....

I saw my front door opening and I looked up into a familiar face....I was astonished!!!!

"YOU!!!!!" I proclaimed.

"Hello Kevin....it's been a long time hasn't it? You don't know how long I sat in jail plotting this...
You don't know how long I followed you, watched you, watched your friends...and set things in motion....Hahahahahahahahahahaha....I could've killed you a long time ago...but I wanted to savor it...savor this....." he said.

"You-You.. You....You're sick...you need...need help.." I managed to say...

"Shhhhhh...don't talk...you'll just waste energy......You'll be unconscious soon.....like your wife....
heheheheheheheheh...Don't worry about her, she'll be just fine...She wasn't the target of my little
plot...She'll wake up in a few hours and be just fine physically...She'll be a widow..but she'll be fine
..She's too fine for a nerd like you anyway. That much, you and I have in common. " he said.

"You'll never get away with this." I said.

''Sure I will...Nobody knows where I am...I'm good at hiding in plain sight....By the time the cops or the FBI figure it out...I'll be on a plane , far away from here...and you'll be at the bottom of that pool..... That poor sap that you collared wasn't supposed to fall in that pool....That was a dress rehearsal for you Kevin....You were the target...that's your problem, always drawing other people in your mess...You won't interfere in anybody else's life ever again...Not after I'm done with you...Hahahahahahahaha.. I'm surprised you weren't alerted that I'd escaped from prison three weeks ago...I'm on the FBI's ten most wanted list...but do I care?Ha ahahahahahahaha."he said.

"K-Kevin...I'm soooo sleepy.." said Sepia as she fell on the bed and slid on the floor....

"Leonard....you're sick.....you need help..." I said as I felt my body collapse and my consciousness
fade in and out....It was Dr. Leonard Culpepper...He was supposed to be on death row, but he had escaped somehow and he was in my house.... This whole thing smelled like him...but I thought he was safely behind bars...Apparently he wasn't...and now I was at his mercy...As I fell to the floor, I didn't know what was in store for me..... I could feel him tying my wrists behind my
back with rope and hear him breathing....

"You foiled me two times....and largely because of you ,I wound up on death row....in a small cell,twenty three hours a day....I was losing my mind....I decided that I wasn't going to go out like that...Why not pay you back first? hahahahahahahahaha....It's the end of the line Kevin..." he sneered....

That's all I remembered...then I blacked out!

(Definitely to be continued...)