Mike Fugate

B.L. Benz addressed the public-

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have breaking news today...Breaking News...One of the bodies found near the creek has been positively identified, Here to tell us is Deputy Coroner and Forensic Investigator, Dr. Hazel Baylor , who has helped the Philadelphia Police on many tough cases, Dr. Baylor?" he said.

"Hi B.L. We had positively identified one body as Michael R. Fugate, who went missing six months after Elaine Graves did...The cases may not be related..."said Dr. Hazel Baylor..

"Thank you Hazel for pointing that out." said Olivia...

We were all watching it from our conference room that morning..

"Mr. Fugate was the corpse that had the bullet wound in the temple...He was murdered right?" asked B.L. Benz..

"Apparently yes." was all Hazel would say , angry that Lt. Tragg had been on the show giving up so much information..

"So, any news on the other body? The female corpse??....It's been widely speculated that that is the long missing Elaine Graves, wife of Richard Graves, the millionaire bad boy..heh heh heh." laughed B.L. Benz..

"Speculated only by a certain Police Lieutenant who likes to take flights of fancy. WE HAVE NO POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SECOND BODY...WE DON'T KNOW WHO SHE IS..Let me reiterate that....WE HAVE NO POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SECOND BODY, IT IS NOT KNOWN WHO SHE IS."said Hazel....

"Might not be known...but everybody thinks it's Elaine.."said Beverly...

''Elaine went missing six months before Mike Fugate did....Both he and I were questioned about her and released for lack of evidence...When he went missing, I was in Paris and had been there for six weeks...I had absolutely  nothing to do with Mr. Fugate...I only met him twice...Once when I confronted him about sleeping with my wife and that second time when we were both hauled into the police station to answer questions about her disapearence."said Richard Graves..

Josie made note of what he said..

Nelson, who also taken notes ,smiled.. Josie was going to be a fine attorney....

"I am not going to let them rope Mike Fugate's murder to you." said Olivia, just as I was coming in...

"Hey everybody...I did a little digging and found out some things about Mr. Fugate...Apparently, he was quite the ladies man..The year he went missing, he had four women pregnant... Three were married...all three had abortions and ended the affairs...The fourth women was Lisa Brooks, the mistress of the late Dr. Harris.."I said.

"Lawd this case is juicy as hell." said Alfreda, who walked in on the tail end of it.. 'Go head Tall Dark and Southern, spill some more tea." she said.

Olivia ,Beverly and Josie cracked up laughing..

 "Alfreda you are too much." she said.. She was glad to be able to give Alfreda a good job and glad to have her and her humor around..

 "That's my mommy." laughed Beverly. She was glad to be able to see her mother on a daily basis now..

"You're too much Ms. Alfreda." said Josie , who viewed Alfreda almost as a second mother.

I smiled and finished...

"I spoke to Mrs. Harris, His late wife, now remarried....He carried on this affair with Lisa Brooks for two years and it overlapped the affair he was having with your wife ,Richard and three other women.." I said.

"He was a walking penis." said Richard...

Which brought guffaws from Nelson...

And Alfreda...

"At any rate, several men had reasons to want to kill him...I interviewed the husbands and ex husbands of the women and was able to clear all of them....Which leaves us with Dr. Harris...His close friends and associates who knew about the affair with Fugate say he was livid...Beyond livid when he found out Lisa was pregnant and he made her get a paternity test...Which I have here..Turns out Fugate was the father...He made her get an abortion...She did and she promised not to see Fugate again."I said.

"He's got some nerve....He's cheating on his wife with her and he demands she not see another guy.."said Olivia..

"WOWWWW!"said Beverly...

"Amazing isn't it?" I said.

'So where is this Lisa Brooks?" asked Nelson..

"That's what I'm getting at....She vanished too, the same day that Mike Fugate was last seen alive.. Hasn't been seen in 17 years....She was a suspect in his disapearence at first and then later declared a missing person...I think......That that other body is Lisa Brooks...Not 

Elaine Graves and if we can get DNA from her next of kin or somewhere....We can wrap this whole thing up.."I said,.

''Well from this photo you have of her...She resembles Elaine a lot, but appears to be smaller in stature.. I don't know her...Never met her.." said Richard Graves..

"That's good." said Nelson..

ADA Rockland Cambridge walked in...

"Good People, since you all have allowed me to hang out here with you and have fed me...I brought something for you..."he said.. "Cheesesteaks and cold Sodas.." he said..

He laid out seven cheese steaks and seven Cokes..

on our table.

Naturally, we chowed down...

"Rockland, you're alright with me...I don't care what Mommy and Auntay say about you." joked Beverly....

"Just for that let's take her cheese steak....Thank you Rockland!"laughed Olivia..

 "Oh Man...Just what the Doctor ordered..No Pun intended." said Nelson..

I cracked up laughing..."Thanks Man." I said.

"Thank You." said Josie..

"I didn't know you were here....I would have ordered another one.." he said to Richard....

"Oh That's Okay....I'm on my way out...I have another meeting to attend.. But Thank you anyway. Liv, Beverly, Donnie Ray, Nelson, Josie, thanks again..."said Richard...

"You know, he's not so creepy anymore...He's....He's human."said Alfreda.

"He's been clean for 15 years, he told me."said Olivia.

"Doesn't even drink anymore." said Beverly.

II-

And at the local Television station where the TV show HARD BOTTOM is filmed, it's host is having a conversation with Lt. Tragg.

"Look Artie, you were on the show when the story first broke...for two nights...what more do you want?: asked it's host B.L. Benz.

"They positively Identified one of the bodies today....You Had Dr. Hazel Baylor on , and not me...I brought you this exclusive...Your High ratings are because of me." said Lt. Tragg..

"That's another thing...Mike Fugate is not really a big story...Elaine Graves is and she hasn't been positively identified...plus..Mike Fugate went missing a whole six months after Elaine Graves and  you can't tie Richard Graves to him because he was out of the country then...I checked..I'm beginning to think that that other body is someone else and if it is...the whole Richard Graves angle is thrown out the window and that's the angle we are trying to sell.." said B.L. Benz..

"Look, Fugate was poppin Grave's wife....Graves was livid and it was well known he was a flip job...He killed em both....You know it and I know it." said Lt. Tragg..

''Artie I don't know....Until that female corpse is positively identified we can't say...I got lucky, Olivia Bennett-Alexander and Beverly West have agreed to do my show...Never thought I'd get them....They're going to discuss their side of the case...It's going to be a ratings bonanza.."said B.L.

"WHAT ABOUT ME?? I GAVE YOU THIS STORY...I DROPPED IT IN YOUR LAP!!!"screamed Lt. Tragg....

"If Graves is convicted, I'll have you on the show again...but until then, there is no reason for you to be on the show....Now goodbye Artie....I gotta meeting with the studio heads and we have to get ready for Olivia and Beverly." he said.

"I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!" screamed Lt. Tragg who got in his car and stormed off...

He wound up at the Medical Examiner's Office and in the office of Doc Gibbons.

"What do you want Tragg, I just ate?" said Doc Gibbons..

"Dr. Hazel Baylor..Where is she on this case?? The two bodies found in Juniata Park?" asked Lt. Tragg.

"They Identified the body of Michael Fugate, the other body has not been identified. It's skeletal, they had to do bone grafts , get some DNA....Her sister came in today, left some urine, blood and saliva...We are pulling DNA from that to determine if it's going to be a DNA match...but for a case this old, it's going to take time..."said Doc Gibbons.

"I want her pulled from the case and someone else put on this....I don't feel as though we can work together in harmony on this case...She has a strong dislike for me."said Lt. Tragg..

"You did try to get her fired on two occassions...I'd say whatever she feels for you is justified and here you are trying to get her removed from yet another case...I say trying because I'm NOT GONNA DO IT, for one thing and with that being said...You are going to leave here...Bye Bye Artie..."said Doc Gibbons.

"WHATTTT?" said Lt. Tragg as Doc Gibbons wallked him to the door..He was livid!!!

III-

From his neighborhood bar, Lt. Tragg watched "HARD BOTTOM"

''Ladies and Gentlemen...A 17 year old mystery is on the verge of being solved...A Man, Mike Fugate has already been identified....The other skelaton remains a mystery...Is it the body of long missing Elaine Graves, estranged wife of Richard Graves? Philadelphia wants to know...The world wants to know."

"Tonight we have the man at the center of this, Accused killer, Richard Graves, long suspected of killing his wife...and the Attorneys who are defending them... Mrs.Olivia Bennett-Alexander and her niece, Mrs. Beverly West-East....This is HARD BOTTOM folks...."said B.L. Benz..

Richard  Graves , Olivia and Beverly walked in and sat down...So did Josie, Nelson and I..

"We have the entire legal team here, Josie Boyd, a Para Legal and law student who works for Olivia and Beverly, Nelson East, another attorney on the defense team and the husband of Beverly West and former New Orleans Homicide Detective, now principal investigator and the husband of Olivia Bennett-Alexander, Donnie Ray Alexander.. Welcome to HARD BOTTOM!" say B.L. Benz.

The Ratings went sky high for this show, the highest yet.....Lt. Tragg was as usual, Livid!

"I should be on that show....This is my case....I gave that case to them.....I should be on that show..." he groused...

''Quiet Artie...I'm tryin to hear Olivia and Beverly.." said Curly..

 "This whole thing is nonsense B.L.  You find the skelatal remains of two people in the creek, you have no idea who they are, you just found out who one of them was today and you go on a flight of fancy and have my client arrested when there is absolutely no proof that a crime was even committed. Come on. This is over the top, over zealous and unfair police persecution of my client." said Olivia.

She didn't mention him by name, but everybody knew who she was talking about...

"Apparently a lot of people went missing that year, Mike Fugate, identified today who our client only met two times and a young woman named Lisa Brooks...who did not get a lot of attention when she went missing...Everyone was talking about Elaine  Graves...We don't know for sure if she's dead or living under a new identity in another country somewhere...But a certain Lieutenant likes to take flights of fantasy and cook up a story and that's all it is that paints our client as guilty of a double murder."said Beverly.

"Our client was in Paris, France when Mike Fugate went missing and he only met him twice..There is no way he is guilty of killing him and if he's not guilty of that, chances are he's not guilty of killing that other woman, whoever she is..."said Nelson...

"I didn't kill  my wife, I ,like everyone else doesn't know what happened to her...I certainly didn't kill and bury those two people near the Juniata Creek...I understand My former sister in law is in town and she's given the M.E.'s office a DNA sample....Hopefully this will prove that the other woman is not a match." said Richard Graves..

"I think this was a rush to judgement and that there are plenty of other angles to look at."I said.

''Mr. Fugate was involved with several women in addition to Mrs. Graves and the only one of those women missing is a Lisa Brooks, a girlfriend of Dr. Sherman Harris, who died tragically a few days ago..."added Josie.

"Dr. Harris was also Elaine Graves's doctor.."said B.L. Benz..

"You do better investigating than Lt. Tragg…"said  Richard Graves...

Which was met by raucous laughter from everybody...

"OHHHHHHHHHH So They're making fun of me now huh?, Wait til the body turns out to be Elaine Graves, wait! Who will be laughing then? Huh?" snarled Lt. Tragg.






IV-

Nightfall came....

We were all hanging out in Beverly and Nelson's place, playing cards.

''Deal Me in." said Nelson."

"You realize we practically argued our entire defense on his show don't you?" he said..

"Normally I wouldn't do that, but I feel a need to sway Public Opinion our way...It goes a long way when you think about potential jurors....I mean everybody has heard about this,"said Olivia.

"Your hand Donnie Ray."said Beverly who looked exhausted..

"I got nothin....I'm out." I said.

''Me too" said Paris, who along with Josie

Was spending the night with Beverly and Nelson..

"You know I went back over to Dr. Harris's office today....I read Elaine Graves's file...She was never pregnant and she never gave birth to anybody and this woman was clearly pregnant once...If Hazel can establish that...That's enough to prove that that is not Elaine Graves body." said Nelson.

''Wait a minute...You saw Elaine Graves file in Dr. Harris's office? That's impossible, it burned up with him in the car."said Olivia.

"No, I saw her complete file...Hazel was there, she saw it too.. She has it now..."said Nelson.

"I was there...I saw it too." said Josie.

''He took a file out of there when he went running...I was certain it was Elaine Graves file...That's all we came for." said Beverly..

"We didn't tell him what files we came for, just that we wanted to see his files..He heard like everybody else in Philadelphia about the remains of a man and a woman in the Juniata Creek, What if he ran because he knew exactly who they were.???...and it wasn't Elaine Graves file he was afraid of us seeing, but someone else...like say Lisa Brooks?" I asked.

"Awwww Suki Suki now. This is getting good." said Beverly....

"Alfreda was right, this case just gets murkier and murkier."said Olivia.


(CONCLUSION NEXT)