Facing Her!

Sometimes the part of this private detective gig that I hated the most was interviewing people...I called everybody listed in that ledger, which was about 200 men...I started with guys I knew first, Like Pastor Struthers and Rollie Rollerson....and over the next three weeks, I met with about 199 guys and spoke to them discreetly, either in Josies, The Mermaid Club, Bottom of the C, Mulberry Street, Ciros ,the Church office and a local juice bar...All of the men thanked me for my "sensitivity " and my promise to keep what I knew discreet and out of the paper...All of them had wives and lives to protect....Most of them had slept with the comely attorney years ago and would understandably like to forget about it....

All of them described to me more vividly than I would have liked the "glorious" , adventuristic and insatiable non stop sex they had with her...The meetings in hotel and motel rooms, office breakrooms, et al and the things she would do for them that they couldn't get done elsewhere...None of them regretted the huge amounts of money they had paid her for her services...

And yes...they all knew that she was a married woman and a court officer....She couldn't blackmail them without putting herself in also...It was a symbiotic relationship that worked...Some of the men worked in the D.A.'s office and found themselves facing her in court after "facing her " for hours in bed the night before...None of the men seemed to have any malice towards her and thus...one by one, I eliminated them all from suspicion...


II-

I met with Cindy Waters for lunch at Bottom of The C...and brought her up to speed on what my investigation had turned up....Nothing... She didn't know about her girlfriend's secret nightlife (or at least she said that she didn't.) She didn't know about the money or the ledger, until I told her and showed her all of the names in the book and told her about all of the people I talked to...but she did have this to say.

"I appreciate all of the legwork you've been doing Kevin, but you haven't found her ...That's what I paid you to do...Find her,it's been a month now." she said.

"I know...Nobody has seen her and she's been missing a lot longer than what you know....Despite what she was doing on the side....I know one thing....I talked to her Father and Mother and her brother and they all told me that this woman would not have left her kids behind like that....She wouldn't have just left her house with that money there and that ledger, her insurance for the future out like that....I think she's dead...I'm 99 percent certain she's dead...." I said.

"Ohhh My God...Noooooooo." said Cindy as she started to cry...


"Cindy...maybe you can help me...I haven't talked to her first husband....Did you know him?  What was he like?  Would he have harmed her?" I asked.

''William?  I know him...Oh my God...I slept with him...after they were divorced ...She never knew that...He wouldn't hurt her..He wouldn't hurt a fly...He was the Assistant District Attorney of Homicide before Keith Wallace..." she said, still sobbing...

''You got an address on him?" I asked..

"He's in Private Practice now....Powell & Douglass....It's out on Route 611, outside of Abington, PA. " she said.

"Okay...I'll see what I can turn up." I said.

III-

I immediately got on the road and drove out to law office of Powell &; Douglass....It was outside of Philadelphia in a predominately White Area...Gus always told me..."If you're gonna play the part ,look the part."

I had on a brand new tailored suit and $400.00 shoes...I was driving a Lexus....I pretty much looked the part.
Unlike the others....I did not tell William Powell ,I was coming.  I arrived.... My first surprise was that his partner, Dennis Douglas was white...As was the receptionist... William Powell was a tall, six foot three inch , brown skinned man with a close cropped haircut and impeccably dressed and coifed...He's what we would've called a prettyboy back in the hood...He spoke very well...Kind of reminded me of the gambler, Stephen Bristol a little.

His partner ,Dennis Douglass had that college , frat boy, jock air about him...He eyed me suspiciously , but kept trying to make small talk with me..He asked me three times who I was in different ways and what my business was with Will.  I told him as politely as possible that I was a Private Investigator and that this was a private matter between myself and Mr. Powell.

William Powell came out of his office and I rose...He smiled and shook my hand.....

''Mr...er, uh Morris is it?" he said.

''Yes sir." I said.

''Can I offer you some coffee?" he said.

"Please do....Thank You." I said.

The Administrative assistant...A shapely and busty blond poured me a hot steaming tumbler of coffee and I added cream and sugar....William Powell already had a cup of coffee and so we both went into his office and closed the door.

"So Mr. Morris...What is this about?" he asked.

"It's about your ex wife....Mary Powell-Mabry...She hasn't been seen or heard from in about two months now." I said.

''Yes....I know... Her uh second husband, Josh Mabry called me a few weeks ago and I came and got my daughter." he said.

"And you didn't think anything was unusual about her not being at the house?" I asked.

''Of course I did... I called the police, So did her other ex-husband and her family...They've opened up a missing persons investigation...." he said.

"Uhhhh Mr. Powell...Did you know about how your ex-wife made a living, in addition to working for the public defenders office?" I asked.

He leaned forward and said quietly to me-

''YES , I knew....She was a...She had a problem...She was a nymphomaniac...She was insatiable....That was why I had to eventually divorce her....Yes...I knew that she was turning tricks as they say...but I couldn't prove it....I won my house, but I lost custody of my child....She was good at hiding things" he said.

''Did you know about a ledger that named names and dates and payoffs?" I asked.

"No...but I assumed that she kept records of some type...She was a very organized person...She won most of her cases because she was always more prepared than the next person." he said.

I imagined that after she'd had wild mind blowing sex with an opposing attorney the night before, his mind probably wasn't even on the case he had to try the next day....I smiled to myself at the thought...

"When is the last time you actually saw your ex-wife?" I asked as I sipped my coffee.

''About three months ago...She told me that she was afraid, that she had a bad feeling about something." he said.

''Oh? What?" I asked.

''She said that someone kept calling and hanging up.. All times of night...I told her that it was probably some nut...I even joked that it was some disgruntled customer of hers...We laughed about it. Last time I saw her was two nights before she vanished..a neighbor called me and her  other ex husband and we both came to her house and picked up our kids." he said.

"You say a neighbor called you?" I asked.

"Yeah..her name is Lola ..Lola Bey, she lives in the house directly across the driveway.She called us to pick up our kids." he said.

"So you never were in the house?" I asked.

"No...I wasn't." he said.

I made a mental note of that.

"So there was no bad blood between you two?" I asked.

"Oh nooo. We've been divorced for years sir and we've both been remarried and divorced again...I...I even slept with her the last time I saw her...It was a spur of the moment thing...but we both needed it and we both enjoyed it...It was quite pleasurable." he confessed..and gave me a sly look that men give each other when describing good lovemaking.

''Well, I guess that concludes our interview Mr. Powell." I said as I got up.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help...and I do sincerely hope that she is alright...that no harm has come to her." He said.

"I hope it hasn't either." I said, but I was certain I was wrong.

IV-

Robert and Chance had a "friend" that worked in Telephone Security.....I checked all of her phone messages dating back to six months the next two days...I eliminated calls from family, utility companies and some of the men on the ledger...There was a series of calls from the Abington-Willow Grove area made at 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM in the morning for about a month leading up to her disappearence and a series of calls from a Duke Snyder made around the same times....The calls to Snyder were longer...He was the one person on the list who had not returned or even answered my calls..He had not even acknowledged my calls.

The calls from the Abington-Willow Grove Area were made from a payphone, in fact two or three payphones within blocks of the Powell and Douglass law firm....How careful the caller had been... But Duke Synder had an address..I could find him.

I did some checking on Synder's background...First of all...He had a record...He served three years in Prison for Assault.. He had attempted to rape a 23 year old girl he had picked up who was hitch-hiking....She had barely escaped with her life....That made Mr. Synder , a person...My number one person of Interest.



(To Be Continued....)