The Cold 48 (Part 1)

Gus told me a lot of things when I was becoming a young man...Things about people..."Like People will only tell you so much...The part that makes them look good." and his most famous saying..."Kev, no matter what happens or how secret you think it is....somebody somehwhere knows about it and for the right price...they'll talk about it."  I have found them both to be true...but no more so than now.

Bonita allowed my friend, Robert Foxworth , a known womanizer to be looked on as the villain in their relationship and she as the long suffering and faithful girlfriend or friend with benefits...when all along, she was doing her thing too! I doubt that she was ever as prolific as Robert....You need a score card to keep up with his escapades ,but still she carried on with Ralph Scallion, the cook at "Bottom of the C", Dollar Bill's joint, which everybody knew about and with the recently deceased Larry John Spann, yoga instructor, which nobody in our circle, not even my wife knew about...or so she says!


"Kevin, you can't tell Robert about this." pleaded Bonita as the three of us drove back to Philly...It was Thursday night...just a few hours after we discovered the dead body of Larry Spann..

"I won't tell him...you have my word...plus...the guy is dead...so there is nothing to tell." I said.

"Aren't you interested in who killed him?" asked my wife, Sepia...

"No...should I be?" I replied.

"That's not like you." said Sepia.

"I get involved when I have paying customers of a great sense of social outrage." I replied...

For the first time tonight...there was laughter in the car...Sepia, Bonita and I laughed our heads off!

II-

I'm a private investigator, not a cop....but I've heard more than one cop say that if a murder isn't solved in the first 48 hours after it happens....it becomes more difficult to solve...In other words...It grows cold.. Things began to go bad for Bonita real fast....Of course Sepia, Myself and Bonita gave a lengthy statement to the police about how we arrived there and we heard two gunshots and we found Larry Spann's body. We gave our statements and were released.  The next day however, Bonita was called back for further questioning. She stopped by our house...very shook up.

''You need legal counsel Bonita." I said.

"I can't tell Robert about this...We are getting married in seven days." she said.

"I didn't say Robert....Call Conrad Nelson....He's a good lawyer." I said.

She did and Conrad Nelson met Bonita, Sepia and I at the police station.  Apparently, an anonymous person had mailed very damaging photos of Bonita and Larry in bed making love...hot steamy and at times kinky love.  I was seeing more of Bonita than I had a right to in the photos...Glad that Conrad and I viewed them alone.  Robert Foxworth was indeed a luckier man than he knew...Bonita's curves had curves...and the things she was doing with Larry Spann in those photos !!! Well let me just stop there...They were pretty steamy!
When we showed them to Bonita, she was mortified...

"Oh my Godddd...they were taken about a year, maybe two years ago...I can't believe that Larry would have photographed us making love." she said as she held her head down...

"Maybe he didn't...Maybe someone else...whoever sent those photos ....did!!" I said.

"Someone also called and said that they remember you and Larry having a seriously loud argument at this spa just last week" said Conrad...

"We did....He invited me to lunch...I had lunch with him and I told him that I was getting married and he wanted to....you know.......do it one last time...but I told him no....He was hurt, he said some cruel things about Robert ....We quarrelled..but...no one was there but the two of us...who would have known...Who called?" She asked.

"Don't know...Police say it was another anonymous tipster." said Conrad.

"Well so what they had an argument and they were involved....That doesn't mean she killed him...besides she discovered the body ." added Sepia.

"That's another strange thing." said Conrad.

''What is?" I asked.

"I got a copy of the coroners report.....He was killed with one shot, from a .38 special to the head....You said you heard two shots when you found him around 3:30 pm right?" asked Conrad.

"Why yes." said Bonita.

"His time of death is listed at around 1:30 pm....He couldn't have just been killed....You own a .38 special too don't you Bonita?" asked Conrad Nelson.

"I did...I reported it stolen about a year ago..." said Bonita.

"Wow...You owned a heater? I'm finding all kinds of things out about you." I joked ,trying to add a little brevity to the situation..

''Well the cops found your .38 special outside of the spa in a trash can...wiped clean of prints." said Conrad Nelson.

"I haven't seen that gun in about a year...it couldn't be...Kevin!!! Sepia...help me..somebody is trying to frame me ...and seven days before my wedding!!! Who is doing this and why?" screamed Bonita...

"Kevin...we gotta do something...Bonita is no killer!" said my wife, Sepia.

"I know....look Bonita...sit tight...Say nothing without Conrad's counsel...I'm going to do some digging...Conrad can you bring her home?" I asked.

"Sure thing Kev, if they don't decide to hold her.." said Conrad.

"Okay....I'll be in touch with you." I said as Sepia and I left.

III-

As Sepia and I drove past the spa...you would have thought that the President had been assassinated or something...Black women were in mourning...They had made a shrine to Larry Spann outside of the Spa, which was also a Health and Wellness center, much like your local GNC as well as a Yoga spa...Some of them left stuffed animals and flowers...others left thongs and bikini panties and bras....There was a huge photo
of Larry Spann  that read, "Rest in Paradise Larry. 1972-2011." Incredible....Several women just hung around , crying....talking quietly and shaking their heads...I parked the car...One in particular was crying a little too profusely for me...so profusely that I doubted the sincerity until I got up close...

I parked the car. Sepia and I got out and walked over to her...

''Honey are you going to be okay?" asked my wife..

The woman who looked no more than about 23 years old turned to us .....

"I don't know...I loved him soooo much....We were going to be married...uh...I mean, we were such goo friends.....ooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.." she wailed as Sepia comforted her.

Married? That was a hell of a slip.....The girl already had a wedding ring on her finger.....What did she mean?

"Oh excuse me...my name is Amber Curicle...I was Larry's assistant here at the spa...Ohhhhhhh, he was such a good man....so caring, so loving...who would do something like this...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." she wailed.

"Would you like for me to call your husband?" I said on purpose to see her reaction...

"My what? Oh...I'm seperated...been seperated for about a year and a half...My husband or was band is shacking up with his new woman in West Philly somewhere....Larry helped me get through that bad period of my life..ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh jesusssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
helpp meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lawddddddddddddddddddddddd." she wailed...

I offered her a hankercheif......

"You worked for him huh?  You know anybody who might have a grudge against him?" I asked.

"You a cop?" she asked...suddenly and surprisingly out of crying mode.

"I'm a private investigator." I said.

"Who hired you?" she asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say....How long had you known him?" I asked.

"A little over three years...We were very close...he was a good man, so loving, so caring...so sharing....who could do something like this to him??...He meant sooooo much to us all." she wailed.

"How did your husband feel about Larry?" I asked.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" she snapped, once again changing moods...

"Heyyy relax....I'm just asking." I said, staring at her wedding band and engagement ring. she seemed a little nervous and jumpy to me.

"My husband didn't have a romantic bone in his body....It took Larry to show me how a woman should be loved." she said with pride...

Sepia looked at me and shrugged....

"OHHHHHH how could anybody do something like this to him...He was soooooo loving, sooo giving, so caring..ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my godddddddddddddddddddddddddd,
what am I going to do without himmmmmmmmm..ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." she wailed.

I walked away....I motioned to Sepia to keep her busy...I walked to the back of the shop....I had been with Lockpick Johnson enough to observe how he beat security systems and broke into very complex places...This place wasn't nearly as complex.  I went back to my car, got some of my tools and a flashlight and was inside this spa within minutes.. I easily disabled the very cheap alarm system they used.

I found the backroom....It was indeed a bedroom!  From the looks of the photos..This was the bedroom that Bonita and Larry had had their steamy lovemaking sessions in....Having worked with a pro like Peeping Tom...I had seen enough micro-cameras planted in places where our marks had never found them....It took me less than ten minutes to find the two micro-cameras and a small recording device...I removed them, bagged them and tagged them and then left quietly.

Sepia was standing out by the car.

"Where's Amber?" I asked.

"She and some other women left." said Sepia.

''Well...I found the camera and the listening device that was planted in here....Get in the car....I gotta talk to Peeping Tom." I said.

IV-

We drove over to Peeping Tom's house.

"A very cheap device....Not like my stuff, but it gets the job done....Leave it with me...I'll see if I can run it down, might even be able to tell you where this stuff came from." he said.

"Okay...Good deal" I said , shook my friend's hand and left.

''Where to next lover?"asked Sepia.

"I'm going to talk to Robert's friend in Records..." I said.

"Kevin...Bonita doesn't want Robert to know about this...Can you trust him?" she asked.

"I'm not going to tell him specifics....I just want a dozier on some people....I've done it before..." I said.

Time was moving on.....I had already wasted a day.....I had another day to make something happen.

(To Be Continued....)