Acting on a hunch...Kool Kat ,Clerow ,Owen Todd and I drove out to a Hess Station about two miles from where we had found Bruce Harvey's Pathfinder a day before. We showed the proprieter a photo of Bruce Harvey and sure enough, he remembered seeing him two nights before!
I identified myself as a licensced private investigator and the manager of the Hess station showed me the video from two nights before. There was Bruce Harvey entering the store at about 1:15 AM in the morning...buying a pack of cigarettes and asking for directions... There was another man behind him...The man looked about six foot three, ,slim athletic look with a very pronounced jaw...kind of like Jay Leno's..He was white and had cold blue eyes and an expressionless face..
They didn't stay long....Bruce Harvey passed the cigarettes to the man who was with him...He looked a bit nervous....The parking lot video showed a white van parked next to his Pathfinder....Bruce and this man got into his Pathfinder.. The Van followed the Pathfinder out of the Hess Station.... The film was so good...I was able to get a licensce plate number....This was my first solid lead in days...
"What next boss?" asked Clerow.
"I agree with Kool Kat that Bruce Harvey is more than likely dead and these two guys more than likely did it...I'm going to Robert Foxworth's office... He's got a pal in records who can get me an address on this van and a name.."I said.
"Unless that van was stolen." said Kool Kat.
"Yeah, you're right..and if it was...Then we back to square one...Which is nothin." I said.
"Well..We can only Hope Right?" added Owen Todd...The young protogee of Donald Smooth, who had joined us on this trip..
I smiled at him..."Yeah, we can only hope."
II-
Later on that day ,I was in Robert Foxworth's Office...I had given his young protogee' ,
Chance Howard, the Licensce Plate number we had pulled and asked him to contact their pal in Records and get me an address and possibly a name for the owner of that van.
"I'm on it Kev." he said as he left...
Robert motioned for me to come into his conference room....I followed him...To my surprise, there was my wife, Sepia, His wife Bonita..Sean Jackson, His Wife, Sheila and Attorney Conrad Nelson and his wife, Jill..Also there was the young cocktail waitress who I'd seen Westly East assaulting at the NAACP Banquet....
"Sepia?? , Sean...What are you doing here?" I asked....
"I'll tell you Kev...We are all going to issue a class action suit against Westly East...For sexual harrassment....Those five women won't talk for some reason, but We intend to talk and testify against him...He is not going to intimidate us..." said Robert Foxworth..
"Okay guys..That's great.." I said.
"I'm sorry about Mr. Harvey...and I'm sorry about the expose he may have been writing that you missed out on...but here is a good story here..right from the horses mouth." said Robert Foxworth...
I was a writer..First and foremost...and here was the story, I could be writing...
So I wrote...I took Sheila's story, My wife Sepia's story and Jill Nelson's Story....Sean Jackson took photos of all of them... And I emailed it to my computer at home to prepare for publication.
I had the names of the five women who had first accussed him of sexual harrassment...
I decided to go to their homes and interview them the next day.
This was not as easy as I thought...Four of the women refused to talk to me at all and had told me that they were now going to retract their statements of before and that they wished to remain anonymous...
The fifth woman ,however did meet with me at Robert's office...Her name was Valerie Bonnett. She once worked as Westly East's Administrative Assistant...She told me that a man, Woodley Verizon offered her a large sum of money to retract her testimony.
She said that she at first refused...Then she got a call from another man...A man who she said had a middle eastern accent that warned her that if she didn't take the offer, she might have a very fatal accident...
She told Robert Foxworth and I that the other women had gotten the same calls, one from this Woodley Verizon and another from a strange man with an accent...After Bruce Harvey vanished..They got another call telling them that the same thing could happen to them if they chose to keep talking about Mr. East.
"Counselor...Do you know this Woodley person?" I asked Robert Foxworth after Ms.Bonnett left our office.
"Yeah..He's a lawyer..He works for Westly East's foundation...." said Robert Foxworth...
"These are some serious charges." I said.
"Damn sure is..Thing is..None of those women will walk in a courtroom or talk to a policemen about it...We'll never prove it." said Robert Foxworth...
He was right.
Chance Howard walked in the office just then....
"Jackpot Mr. Kevin...I got a name and an address...Chessly Waters is the owner...He's an ex-con...Local Hood...The van is registered to him....This is the address." he said.
"Thanks Chance...." I said.
"Were are you going Kev?" Asked Robert Foxworth....
"I'm going to catch a couple of killers...Call Kool Kat..Tell him to meet me at this address." I said as I left.
III-
Finding the white van was easy enough.....It was parked in a seedy neighborhood in front of two other white vans...but it was easily indentifiable by the licensce plate...
I got out of my car and studied the van closely... I couldn't really see inside of it...I looked at the address...It matched...Still I was confused...Chessly Waters was a low level hood and nowhere near six four...Plus , he was black...definitely not middle eastern and not the man I saw in the video...Could I have followed the wrong lead??
I walked around the back of the house...I saw nothing...I picked the lock and let myself in....It was eerily quiet...Too quiet!!! I walked around....When I got to the living room...I smelled a horrible , but familliar smell...It was the smell of death....and there on the couch, sat Chessly Waters....Black, about five foot three, 200 pounds...and very dead, with a nice neat hole in his head....His body felt warm..Like he'd just been killed...
I needed to find a light switch...I had the funny feeling that somebody else was in the house...You know how you just have that feeling that someone is watching you? I had it now...I sure wished I had waited for Clerow and Kool Kat and Owen Todd! Or maybe had come with Robert or Chance...Anyone!!!
The large hands wrapped a garotte around my neck with ease and began squeezing...I never saw it coming...The more I struggled...The more I lost air...He was squeezing and the garotte was starting to cut a line in my neck ...This man was big...about six feet four and definitely white...with bad breath too...
"You shouldn't have come here..You should have left this whole matter alone....You wanted to know what became of Bruce Harvey? Now you will know...You'll join him in death.....You'll see him in paradise...." came the voice...
"ARgggggghhhhhhh..can I just say one thing?" I gasped as I struggled with him..
"What is that?"he asked...
"Man ,did you ever think of buying a pack of tic tacs...your breath stinks man." I gasped..
"Whyyyy youuuuuuu!!!!" he screamed....
I had just enough of a break to slam my elbow into his adams apple.....
'' Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he gasped as I broke free and landed a nice well placed flat footed kick to his jaw , which sent him flying into the wall...My kick boxing instructor would have been proud!!
He was a tough one....I said before that he was big..He charged at me full force..throwing haymakers...My boxing training kicked in, I ducked his blows...I landed solid lefts and rights to his body and an upper cut that nearly ripped his head off..
He charged me again and I landed several lefts and rights to his head and face, sending him flying.... He pulled the rug from under me and sent me falling to the floor...I fell and before I could move, He was on me and had my neck in a vice like grip....
"I will see you in Paradise...." he said as he began choking me...
"You'll be there first damnit" came a voice and three loud gunshots!
Blood and brains were splattered all over the wall and my would be attacker was now in the middle of the living room floor, as dead as a doorknob!
It was Kool Kat and Clerow!!! They had followed me and found the address...Kool Kat had shot him with his .44 magnum....
"Whew!! Boy am I glad to see you.." I said.
"Kev..What I tell you about going to these spots alone...With no back up?" the big man chided me..
"You alright Boss?" asked Clerow...
I smiled...
"Yeah... Just glad to be alive...That's all..." I said.
"Yeah...you're in better shape than laughin boy here on the floor."said Kool Kat.
"Or that dude in the livin room." said Clerow.
I shook my head..They were right!
IV-
"Well? What now Kev?" asked Kool Kat.
"I'm going to call the cops..tell em where they can find these two....We are going home."I said.
"These two probably killed Bruce Harvey." said Clerow.
"More than likely..but they'll never be able to tell us now." I said.
"Let's go home guys.....I'm going to finish this." I said.
(Conclusion Next!)
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