Compromised

Mrs. Martha Lott was the mother of the late, Carlotta Lott -Parker. She had hired me because she believed that her son in law, Pool instructor, Giles Parker had murdered her daughter when he discovered that she was planning to leave him and cut him off from the money that she was an heiress to. I had looked into the matter and had not only gotten the goods on him for that murder, but had discovered that he had murdered her lawyer and her lover....Now he was dead of suspicious causes......I wondered if someone had helped him out of this world..or if he had accidentally wandered into something more elaborate, something set up for someone else?

Mrs. Lott paid me my fee....It was a healthy sum....So much that after I paid Clerow, Sean Jackson,Robert Foxworth, Peeping Tom and Lockpick Johnson....All of the people who had helped me in this case...I still had a nice piece of change for myself. An old guy who had mentored me in this business once told me that you always look for who would stand to gain something when a murder was committed... Giles Parker was a pool instructor...He made a modest salary and outside of the murders he committed, he wasn't into anything else...No one stood to gain anything from his death other than revenge. I wondered about Mrs. Lott....I shadowed her every move for days , but saw nothing out of the ordinary...She just wanted justice for her daughter's murder, so where did I stand? Nowhere...I kept getting back to the same nowhere...and yet something about this killer seemed so familiar...yet ,I couldn't put my finger on it.

I was intrigued in a way I hadn't been in a long while...I loved a mystery and I loved figuring things out...and a baffling case like this peaked my interest. I wasn't that totally intrigued though...There was still the matter of Sepia...Between my job at the magazine and these last few
cases, I had been neglecting her, so I bought a couple of steaks from the supermarket and stopped by my office, where a nice bottle of Lambrusco was on my desk with a ribbon around it.... No one seemed to know where it had come from or when it arrived. I figured it was a promotional gift..We got them all the time. I went home ,threw a couple of Steaks on my grill and some corn on the cobb and loaded some Donny Hathaway ,Curtis Mayfied, Jerry Butler and Lou Rawls on my Ipod dock..... I tossed some Common and some Gangstar on there too for good measure.

When Sepia arrived home from, she was very, very surprised.... She was looking good, as usual,Pin Striped ,gray mini skirt, white blouse...matching gray jacket and gray heels... She smelled great and her braids were swinging down to the nape of her back.

"Wow Kevin...this is nice..." she laughed....

"I'm glad you like it. Sell any properties?" I asked...

"I'm about to sell one....Robert Foxworth's girl, Bonita and I are working together on this nice property." she said.

"Good for you.." I smiled.

"I saw Clerow on my way home...He said to give him a call..he has something important to tell you." she said.

"I'll call him in the morning." I said.

"He sounded like it was serious." she said.

"I'll get at him ....but tonight..I want to get at you.." I laughed..

"Ouuu, I like the sound of that.." she laughed seductively....

We ate the two steaks and the corn and downed that entire bottle of Lambrusco.....It wasn't long before we were on the couch ,kissing and making out like two teenagers....I slowly unbottoned her blouse and relieved her of her black lacy bustier.....I massaged her breasts in my hands as she moaned slowly....

My Blackberry was going off, but I ignored it....I should have answered that call, but I didn't...

I unzippered her pin striped mini skirt and she slipped off her pantyhose as I hungrily watched..
She helped me out of my pants and shirt and then we hungrily devoured each other on the couch..

My Blackberry went off again...but Sepia and I were in the throes of passion and there was no way I was going to stop what we were experiencing to answer the phone...It was probably Clerow.

We made love about three times in the living room, before I lifted her up and took her into the bedroom....

The next morning....We both woke up at the same time, laughing and kissing.....

"Woww...last night was something Kevin...my head is spinning..." laughed Sepia...

"So is mine...hahahahahaha...wow..I feel so dizzy.." I said ,laughing again....

"Where did you get that Lambrusco?" she asked...

"Somebody sent it to my office...It was some kind of promotion..We get that stuff all the time." I said.

I got up, put on my bathrobe and checked my phone...It was FBI Special Agent in Charge, Frank
Cotton. The second call had been Clerow and there was a third call from an unknown number.
I was getting ready to dial the first number, when I noticed Sepia...She was foaming at the mouth and she fell backwards on the bed...I went to go to her, when I began to feel dizzy and found myself falling against the wall....

I saw my front door opening and I looked up into a familiar face....I was astonished!!!!

"YOU!!!!!" I proclaimed.

"Hello Kevin....it's been a long time hasn't it? You don't know how long I sat in jail plotting this...
You don't know how long I followed you, watched you, watched your friends...and set things in motion....Hahahahahahahahahahaha....I could've killed you a long time ago...but I wanted to savor it...savor this....." he said.

"You-You.. You....You're sick...you need...need help.." I managed to say...

"Shhhhhh...don't talk...you'll just waste energy......You'll be unconscious soon.....like your wife....
heheheheheheheheh...Don't worry about her, she'll be just fine...She wasn't the target of my little
plot...She'll wake up in a few hours and be just fine physically...She'll be a widow..but she'll be fine
..She's too fine for a nerd like you anyway. That much, you and I have in common. " he said.

"You'll never get away with this." I said.

''Sure I will...Nobody knows where I am...I'm good at hiding in plain sight....By the time the cops or the FBI figure it out...I'll be on a plane , far away from here...and you'll be at the bottom of that pool..... That poor sap that you collared wasn't supposed to fall in that pool....That was a dress rehearsal for you Kevin....You were the target...that's your problem, always drawing other people in your mess...You won't interfere in anybody else's life ever again...Not after I'm done with you...Hahahahahahahaha.. I'm surprised you weren't alerted that I'd escaped from prison three weeks ago...I'm on the FBI's ten most wanted list...but do I care?Ha ahahahahahahaha."he said.

"K-Kevin...I'm soooo sleepy.." said Sepia as she fell on the bed and slid on the floor....

"Leonard....you're sick.....you need help..." I said as I felt my body collapse and my consciousness
fade in and out....It was Dr. Leonard Culpepper...He was supposed to be on death row, but he had escaped somehow and he was in my house.... This whole thing smelled like him...but I thought he was safely behind bars...Apparently he wasn't...and now I was at his mercy...As I fell to the floor, I didn't know what was in store for me..... I could feel him tying my wrists behind my
back with rope and hear him breathing....

"You foiled me two times....and largely because of you ,I wound up on death row....in a small cell,twenty three hours a day....I was losing my mind....I decided that I wasn't going to go out like that...Why not pay you back first? hahahahahahahahaha....It's the end of the line Kevin..." he sneered....

That's all I remembered...then I blacked out!

(Definitely to be continued...)

In But Not Out!

The next morning I visited the Gym with the hot pool. I talked to all of the employees. Most of them told me what I already knew...That the pool was supposed to be emptied and cleaned earlier in the day, but that the guy who was supposed to clean the pool never showed up...So it was never done.

I asked the night manager on duty, Just who was the pool cleaner?.. He told me that it was a guy named Emmett Sanders, who had just been hired. "I told that to the Homicide Detectives who came here earlier today..." He said.

"Did you see anybody in here that didn't belong in here yesterday?" I said.

"Well, you and your buddy, who came to see Giles...that was it..." He said.

"Uh...oh.." I said.

"Wait..Wait...there was a guy, a tall Black guy, real muscular with glasses on.....He was built, but he looked like a nerd though...in the face...He was wearing a jump suit....He had two gym bags and he went upstairs." he said.

"You tell the cops about this guy?" I asked.

"No,I just remembered him...He was quiet...I thought he was going to swim or play basketball."
he said.

"When did he leave?" I asked.

"That's the funny thing...I never saw him leave...I saw him come in...but I never saw him leave."
said the night manager.

"You guys have cameras....Video cameras...Can I see the footage?" I asked.

"Sure..." he said.

I went to look at the footage....There was none.

"What the hell? All the footage from yesterday is gone...I can't believe this.." said the Night manager.

I could..it meant that my killer was a very smart man....I once dealt with a smart man like him once...but he was safely behind bars now.. So who was this guy? This guy who had killed a man and covered it up so well? I walked up to the pool, which was now empty.....I had more questions than answers....

I decided to pay Emmett Sanders a visit. He was supposed to have cleaned the pool and had never showed up.... Upon turning the corner of his block, I realized that this was another dead end....The Police had the entire neighborhood cordoned off and they were bringing a body out of his house in a body bag......I didn't have to be a genius to guess who this might be.....It was Emmett Sanders and he was dead....The reason why he didn't clean the pool.....

That night , I was in Josie's having a beer with Sean Jackson and Clerow....I brought them up to speed on what I had found out..or as the case may be, had not found out!

"Man....I'm spooked......Somethin about this aint right....The guy we was paid to get the goods on winds up dead....only there aint no good reason for him to be dead...Cat who was supposed to clean the pool winds up dead...Some other guy comes in there, only there aint no record of him being there and only one guy saw him and just barely....Somethin aint right Kev?" said Clerow.

"I know Kev...what if your boy Giles wasn't the intended victim, what if it was someone else that was supposed to be there?" asked Sean.

"Like who?" I asked.

"Like you?" said Sean.

"Me? Who would know I'd be there?" I said.

"You been investigatin that pool guy for three weeks, you had been there a number of times..
what if Giles had somebody set that up for you and he ran in there to bring you in there, so you could slip and fall in that water?" asked Sean.

"No that doesn't make sense...who knew Giles was gonna run, and to the pool at that?....If that was the case...why would he run in there if he knew the floor was slippery? He didn't know....he was as surprised as we were. No, this was being set up for something more elaborate..It was like a dry run...only something went wrong." I said.

"I'll say" said Clerow.

"The question is..why did he run in the first place? Almost like he knew the jig was up..Like somebody warned him...." I asked.

"Maybe Giles was the target, and we just don't know why?" said Clerow...

"Maybe ,Maybe is a big word...Maybe is a lot of things.." I said.

"So Kev, what are you going to do?" asked Sean.

"Tomorrow...I'm going to look into Giles Parker's life a little further....see if he talked to anybody
strange within the last few weeks....Something about this mysterious guy seen in the gym seems so familiar...I feel like I've dealt with this guy before..but I just can't put my finger on it." I said.

The three of us nodded and Gus sent us another round of drinks.

(To Be Continued....)

The Hot Pool

I walked into the Gym that night and confronted Swim instructor, Giles Parker.... I had worked on this case for three weeks....His mother in law had hired me to find out if he had indeed killed her daughter, his estranged wife.....I not only got information and evidence confirming as much, but I had him made for two additional murders too...Her attorney , who was planning to take him for big bucks and the new guy in her life , who was planning to marry her as soon as the divorce was final... I had already called the police, before Clerow and I arrived.

"It's all over Giles....The police are on their way ,you might as well sit tight ." I said... I was prepared to pick up a nice payday for getting the evidence on this one....I expected some type of snappy remark, like I usually get when I crack a case and collar a bad guy, instead...Giles Parker leaped up and ran....

"Clerow..he's on the move, let's go?" I said as we both went in hot pursuit of Giles Parker..He ran for all he was worth into the adjacent room where the swimming pool was....I was surprised that there were no swimmers in the pool on a sweltering afternoon like this.

The floor was extremely slippery and Clerow lost his balance and slipped and fell...He skidded
over to where the steps were leading into the pool and came to a stop...I slipped too and also slid
across the floor...Clerow grabbed the legs of my pants and kept me from going in the water...Giles wasn't so lucky...He slipped and fell and slid across the floor and into the pool with a
splash...

The water that splashed on us was scalding....We heard him yelling and screaming in the pool...

"ARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH, OUUUUUUUUUUUU...OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
LAWDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD, AGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH, urggggggh!"

It was horrifying...I ran to the side of the pool and touched the water...it was boiling hot..I tossed
my hand back...Clerow ran up next to me.....

"Yeoow...boss, this water is hot!" he screamed...

"You're telling me...We better call the medics..." I screamed...

"Too late for that boss...He's done." said Clerow.

He was right! When the Police and EMT guys got there and pulled the body out of the water...
Giles Parker, suspect in three homicides was dead...He had been boiled alive in a swimming pool of incredibly hot water...

The pool was drained and a peculiar device was found on the pool's floor....Some type of electric heater....a bizzare type of heater that was battery powered and triggered by remote control. The
heater had increased the heat of the water to an incredibly hot boiling point. You could have cooked corn on the cob in that pool. I had also noticed that the surface of that pool had been saturated with something so slippery that it was near impossible to walk in there without slipping.

Clerow and I had to caution the cops and emt people when they came in about the floor...It was something that wasn't lost of either of us as we drove home.

"Kev...We done cracked some pretty bizzare cases, but we aint never damn near been killed while cracking one." He said.

"Yeah..I know.....Somebody set that whole thing up man...I'm not sure who the intended target was...." I said.

"You think somebody was trying to clip Giles?" He asked.

"Why? He's not a mob boss, just a pool instructor...He doesn't even have a lot of money..Who would have a motive?" I asked..

"Yeah, you're right Kev...but that slippery floor wasn't no co-incidence and that heater in the pool sure wasn't...That hot pool was meant for somebody man.." said Clerow.

" I can't argue with you man...you right...but I just can't imagine who.." I said as I dropped him off at his house.

"Okay man, but I know you...you thinkin just like I'm thinking and when you decide to look into it...I want in..cause , that could have been me and you in that pool." he said.

I nodded...I couldn't agree more. I drove home and all the way home, I thought about what Clerow had said...Only ,I was too tired to dwell on it now...

The hot steamy water ran through my hair and down my shoulders and Sepia's soft hands lathered me with hot soap as we stood in the shower holding each other and kissing softly...any thoughts of that hot pool was the farthest thing from my mind...as I lifted my wife up against the
shower wall and entered her slowly as the water and the soap engulfed us....

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh...ouuuuuuuuuuuuu.." she moaned softly...as she began a rhythmic motion up and down....

I saw a flashback of Giles Parker splashing up and down in the pool and screaming out in pain in my mind...for a split second...then I returned to what I was doing.....

The next morning, I stopped by Homicide...Lt. Sissy Van Buren brought me up to speed on what was going on...

"Kevin, that solution that was poured all over the gym floor is like nothing I've ever seen before..
It's just strange...and this device...this heater....It's not on the market anywhere in the U.S. It was ordered online....It's a CIA type device...We traced it's origin to Eastern Europe... The person that ordered it, used a computer in a cyber bar and a phony name that we traced to a mailbox downtown....That name was phony too..." she said.

"So somebody was trying to kill somebody in there.....huh?" I said.

"Oh definitely...." she said.

" Our boy Giles.....I'm wondering if somebody wanted him shut up for some reason...somebody else who had something to lose? " I pondered.

"Well Kevin, you can look on that angle....I'm looking on another one." she said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"What if that was set up for somebody else? and you ,your friend and our dead triple homicide suspect just happened upon it by accident?" she said.

"Hmmm, that is an angle." I thought... It was time to pay this neighborhood pool another visit.

(To Be Continued.....)

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I used 2
wine em..
then I'd dine em..
Covet them
and quickly forget them...
but girl that all changed with U./

See when they talked about growing up..
I felt like throwing up..
Little Lady came around
knocked all of my defenses down..
uh huh
like a bolt of lightning from up above..
A Crazy Little Thing Called Love..
Just a
Crazy Little Thing Called Love./

you see before I met you..
I used to
love em
and then leave em...
break their hearts and deceive em..

and all of the girls knew...

see I'd wine em
and then dine em..
covet them
and then forget them..
but honey that all changed when I met you.//

because you hit me like a bolt of lightning
from up above...
A Crazy Little Thing Called Love..
uh huh...
A Crazy Little Thing Called Love
What you say?
A Crazy Little Thing Called Love../

Someone To Dance

She
she's not here tonight
to break any hearts
you might think that
but before you start
take a look in the girl's eyes../

she
she looks good in that dress
that's as black as the night
a dress as short as it is tight
something is telling you
that tonight..
tonight is the night that you might
make things right../

All she knows is that she
can't be alone another day
another night by that phone..
or waiting for her Blackberry to ring
but this night...
you see here is the basic thing
all the girl is looking for../

Is someone to dance with her..//

You
you're here tonight with one thing in mind.
but
but you know that what you've searched for
is really never what you find..
She might just hold a very nice surprise....
Go dance with her boy..
go look in her eyes.../

You..
you're about to go...
but she catches your eye...
You...
you say "oh no..."
then.."my oh my."
the question kind of lingers in time..
that question of why oh why..
you never noticed her before?
wait...
don't walk out that door..
all you know is you can't go home alone..
not another night by yourself at home..
it's just a start...
boy go with your heart...
right now all she's asking for .../

Is Someone to dance with her...
before you try to romance her..
be someone to dance with her
just
someone to dance with her.//