Love Em To Death

My name is Kevin Morris, I'm a Private Investigator....Looking into things is what I do....I had been hired by two of the Bennett sisters, Antoinette and April Bennett to look into the life and times of one William Hutton..

The Bennett sisters were kind of like celebrities in the Black community...Their father, Lemeul ''Candlelight"Bennett had hit the powerball for 60 million dollars...Everybody in the neighborhood had heard about it!!  He was so shocked that he had a massive heart attack about a month later and dropped dead...

He had left a will leaving everything to his three daughters to be divided up evenly....His three daughters were all very attractive and would have had men running after them anyway,money or not...but now, with them having a fortune and being good looking women!!! You can imagine that men were coming out of the woodworks proposing marriage everyday....

Antoinette and April both had hired a big six foot four, heavily muscled security guard named James Brown...I kid you not! To keep the guys away....Veronica Bennett, their youngest sister had gotten involved with the sly and debonair Mr. William Hutton and declined the services of Mr. Brown...

They weren't hard to find...I saw them eating breakfast at Sam Mother's Diner a couple of days, At Mabel Jenkins soul Food Joint a couple of days and other places around the neighborhood.. They looked like a happy couple...but as I well knew...Looks could be deceiving...

A look into Mr. Hutton's background proved to be very disturbing...

He was born ,William Salmon Hutton in Atlanta ,Georgia.. Did a four year stint in the Air Force after high school and then moved to Sarasota ,Floria where he married Betty Mosley...a woman he'd met in the Air Force and looked up after they both got out. He was employed at a nearby Air Force Base as a civilian contractor.

After two years of marriage , In 1993 ,Betty Mosley turned up missing...A thirty day search uncovered her body in her car at the bottom of a Florida swamp...It was implied that she had been drinking and drove off the road into the water and couldn't get out of her car...Mr. Hutton walked away with $300.000 in an insurance policy he took out!

William Hutton next wound up in San Diego, California ,where he married Mary Latham in 1994...They were married for seven years...He worked at an Electronics wholesale store.In the spring of 2000. Mrs. Latham was found in her garage in her car, with the motor running...An apparent suicide!!! A hastily typed Suicide note was found!! Mr.Hutton walked away with $500.000 in an insurance policy he took out.

William Hutton next moved to the Federal Prison in Lompoc, California...He did a three year bid for wire fraud....

Released in the spring of 2003, He married Patty Phillips...a pretty court reporter he had gotten friendly with during his trial ,ironically enough...They lived in a suburb of Daly City, outside of San-Francisco, California..
In June of 2009, Barbara got up during the night and went in her basement...she heard water running....She went to turn on a hanging light and was electrocuted!!! It was ruled an accident..Mr. Hutton walked away with  roughly $750,000 dollars in an insurance policy he took out!!!

He then vanished from sight for a few years and next surfaced here in Philadelphia where he opened up a bank account and was living with an aunt, who has since died...It was around this time that he heard about the good fortune of the Bennett sisters and tried to romance first April and then settled for Veronica!!!

Quite a story...Either this guy was extremely bad luck for whoever he chose to hook up with or he was obviously murdering these women....

I called the Homicide departments in Sarasota ,Florida, San Diego,California and Daly City,California...All three of the lead Detectives told me the same thing...That yes they suspected him of murder, but that they never had enough to prove anything and that as soon as he collected the insurance money, he had vanished!

II-

"Kevin, I swear, when you get mixed up in something...It is never anything dull." said Lt.Sissy Van Buren of Homicide, who I shared this story with...I bought her a tumbler of coffee and was standing on the roof of the C.I.D. building talking to her...A ritual we had started years ago ,when I came to her with info on a case.

"Don't I know it Sissy...What do you think?" I asked.

"He's a murderous little fortune hunter...Those girls are going to have more guys like him coming to their door unless they leave Philly as soon as possible and keep their mouths shut." she said.

"Yeah...you're right...But I was just paid to get the skinny on him....He hasn't done anything in Philadelphia."I said.

"Well at least not yet...but if anybody does turn up dead...He's going to be my first suspect and unlike the others..I won't drop the ball..I'll put that creep away for life." she said.

"Well alright now Ms. Sissy!" I said and laughed..

Sissy looked at me and laughed too..but I had no doubt she would put him down if he got cute in Philly! Sissy was nothing if not thorough!

''Hey when does Chica come back?" I asked.

"Oh she's already back in town...She comes back to work tomorrow." said Sissy.

"Cool...I'm so happy for her...And she's with a good guy too, ADA Keith Wallace..." I said.

"Yeah...I knew those two were going to wind up getting married as soon as they hooked up...You could just see it."

''Yeah, I wish that all relationships were solid like theirs.." I said.

"Me too. So many have so many gray areas." said Sissy...

"Yeah, it's the gray areas that keep people like you and me busy." I said.

''Aint that the truth?" she said.

I hugged Sissy !

"Be Easy Friend.."I said as I kissed her forehead.

"Always Kevin." she replied and smiled as I left...

III-

Josies was not where I wanted to do this...but it was the only place I could meet with these women...Gus pointed to them when I came in and just shook his head...I had to laugh at his imitation of Joe Neptune, the bartender at the Mermaid Club.

The next day,Antoinette Bennett, April Bennett and their waywood sister, Veronica Bennett and her fiance, William Hutton all sat at a table...I passed several doziers to Antoinette...Their bodyguard, James Brown stood menacingly behind me...

"So Veronica...These are the facts...Mr. Hutton here has been married three times and all three of his wives have met a ghastly fate....and in all three cases, he has pocketed a huge insurance payout...Not to mention, he did three years in federal prison  for wire fraud.." said Antoinette.

"He told me all about his three wives untimely deaths...He had nothing to do with them...Two were purely accidents...He wasn't even there when they happened and one was a suicide for god sakes...And yes...he told me he did time in Prison...I know all that...But I love him...and I'm going to stick by him." she said.

"That's right....I had nothing to do with my wives deaths...and the jail term...I got in with the wrong people is all.I made a mistake." he added..

"Did you tell her that you dated or tried to holler at her sister April?" I asked him. He looked at me with white hot hatred...

"That was before I met her and yes, she knew about that." said William Hutton..

"I don't care what you all have found out...William has been nothing but forthright with me and I'm sticking by him...you hear?" screamed Veronica..

"Fine...but Ronnie...If you marry him, you won't get a penny of Papa's money." said Antoinette....

''I don't care...I don't need it..William has plenty of money." she said.

I smiled...I'll just bet he did...I checked his bank account...He had run through a lot of his money..Living high off the hog, expensive clothes, a flashy car, trips to Vegas and Atlantic City and Miami...I didn't tell the sisters that...but it was just something I was keeping to myself for the time being.

With that, the two of them got up and walked out...

Antoinette and April passed me an envelope with the rest of my money in it...

"Well thank you anyway Kevin...You did a good job...You're better than they said you were." said April.

I counted my money and smiled..

''Pleasure doing business with you."I said and I watched as they walked out....

Honey Brown walked over to me after they left....

"That is one jacked up family." she said.

"Yeah, but they pay well and on time." I laughed.

"That's what matters right?" she said and we both laughed.

IV-

You would have thought that that was the end of the case right?? Wrong!

A few hours later...April Bennett called me wailing...There had been an accident!!!...Her sister, Antoinette was dead!!!

I was no longer employed by them, but I drove to the sight of the accident...It was bad...the car was totaled..

The only good thing was that I saw my good friend, Detective Carlotta Rodriguez at the scene!!!...

She was happy to see me...She ran over to me and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.....

''Heyyy Carlotta..How are you doing? And congratulations on your engagement!" I said.

''Thank you Kevin....Hey what are you doing here?" she asked.

"I was employed by the dead woman up until a few hours ago...I heard she'd been killed in a bad car crash...What are you doing here?" I asked.

"This wasn't a bad car crash Kevin..This was murder!!!...Somebody tampered with the brakes...It was an amateur job too....So obvious...even the patrolman who was the first at the scene picked it up.."said Carlotta.

"Ohhh boyyy...My work with her was done....but ohhh crap, somebody else's wasn't." I said.

"What's up?" asked Carlotta...

"We gonna have to go somewhere and talk Chica...It's a long story." I said.

I had thought this case was over...It was just beginning.

(DEFINITELY TO BE CONTINUED!!)