9 comments/ 15709 views/ 3 favorites Frank Devaroux, P.I. Case File 01 By: Otto26 Copyright 2007 by Otto26 * My problem, as I see it, is that I'm the wrong sort of asshole. I don't enjoy beating women, I just annoy them. If you beat them, then you're passionate, misunderstood, even masterful. If you annoy them... you're just a jerk. I dwell on this, but you could probably care less. If you're like most Americans you're simply going to lump me into that collection of oddballs that you think of as 'the strange people'. I find it offensive to be lumped into the same group as Jehovah's Witnesses, and I'm sure they feel the same way about me, but go ahead; I'm used to it. In fact, I'm one of the guys the 'strange people' lump into the category of 'weird'. I'm the laughing stock of my local munch. Oh, that's right; you don't know the 'strange person' argot. A munch is short for a burger munch and that is the proper, and original, term for a gathering of people in the bondage, dominance and sado-masochism lifestyle. Take a minute to add leather to your mental label for me. Go ahead, I'll wait. You're wrong though. Not everyone into BDSM, the lifestyle we call it, is a leather clad freak. A lot of us, I'll grant you, but not all of us. Not me. Which is another reason I'm considered fringe even by the fringe. The only reason I even bother going to the local munch is because I still know how to hope. I hope that I'll encounter someone who's sexually aroused by being ordered around. Someone who doesn't smoke. Someone who doesn't have debilitating emotional issues. Someone who doesn't weigh three hundred plus pounds. Yeah, add shallow to the label. Anyone who tells you that looks don't matter is blind, lying, or about to physically expire of terminal lack-a-nookie. Looks matter. So I go to the munch and I look, and I try not to see the sniggering and muted conversations. Munches vary in tone. It's all to do with the people involved. The Denver munch is mostly well-educated and well-employed, so the only difference between one of our gatherings and a meeting of your local Rotary club is... well, damned if I know. The tone is set by the group leaders, generally the folks who have been around the longest. So while someone might show up in a leather bustier, six inch spike heels, and obvious multiple piercings, they quickly look around to see what their peers are wearing and conform. Yep, even freaks experience peer pressure. Mostly people dress casually, blue jeans, dresses, skirts and blouses, clean sneakers, and even the occasional suit. It's really very relaxed. People drift in and stake out some tables, they order food and drinks, they talk, they socialize, they introduce new people to old people, and they discreetly share a look at the occasional specialty catalog. Relaxed. I mostly sit by myself and drink tea. Decaffeinated tea because caffeine gives me splitting headaches. By myself because, by this point, people don't even introduce me to the new folks. I'm the weirdo. 'He's rabidly heterosexual and he doesn't like hitting women. You'd do much better with....' Fuck 'em. It hurts but so does a lot of life. I tell you this so you can understand why I was surprised when Daria sat down across from me. Daria's not her real name. Let me re-phrase that, Daria's not the name she was given when she was born and it's not the name that appears on her driver's license. But Daria's her real name in the sense that it's the only one she'll answer to because it's the name her master gave her. Don't worry about understanding everything, just keep up with me and let the otherness sort of wash over you. Like a golden shower. Sorry, couldn't resist. When I thought about it, I was surprised to see Daria at the munch at all. The munch was a place for people to socialize outside of the lifestyle and Ronnie and his harem weren't really capable of getting outside the lifestyle. Come to that, I couldn't recall ever seeing one of Ronnie's subs at a gathering where Ronnie wasn't. Ronald was a controlling prick. Women mistook his misogyny, control freak attitude and lack of social skills for a commanding air and they flocked to him. He had to beat them off with a stick, which he loved. I took another sip of the tea and waited. Remember that I'm the wrong sort of asshole? Daria wanted to talk to me, but the discipline she's under prohibits her from speaking to a master or mistress unless spoken to first. I should have respected that discipline as a courtesy to her master, but I didn't. In case you haven't been paying attention, I don't much like Ronnie. And he'd been clear and vocal about his disdain for me. So fuck him. Fuck her. I let her sit there and make eye contact with the table while I waited for her to decide which was more important, Ronnie's discipline or her need to talk to me. It was torture for her. I enjoyed it. "May I speak, sir?" she finally asked. "Yes," I replied. Admit it, you thought I'd say something like 'Apparently' or 'You just did'. I'm a jerk, I'm not a complete juvenile though. "I can't find Master. I haven't seen him in over a week and he's not returning my phone calls." I shrugged. "Ronnie's not exactly known for letting his submissives down easily," I pointed out. "I can't really help you with your love tiff." "No one has seen him for a week," she amplified. "He was supposed to have a session with Maia on Thursday and he didn't leave the key for her, sir. I tried calling his work number and got the answering machine. Can you find him for me, sir?" "One hundred dollars per hour, two hour minimum, plus expenses which will amount to a least another hundred dollars. I don't promise any results." I almost put my prices up enough to put her off. Almost. Work is work and I can't really afford to be too choosy about who I work for, even if I was going to be working for a 'slave'. "Lifestyle discount?" she asked tentatively. See? No more 'sir'. She's the employer and I'm the employee. I managed not to laugh out loud but it showed on my face. She colored a little, embarrassed, and pulled some money out of her purse. She counted out three hundred dollars in grubby tens and twenties and put them on the table. I counted them and put them away and then put my notebook and pen on the table in front of her. "Ronnie's home address and a list of all the submissives he worked with," I instructed her. Normally I'd have asked about enemies, but with Ronnie we might be talking all week. Besides, this was typical Ronnie-ending-a-relationship crap. I'd find out he'd gone to Vegas for a week, or something like that, while he waited for the subs he'd chosen to dispose of to get the message. "And give me your home info," I told her. "I'll send you the contract." "Could you go ahead and start looking today?" she asked. "Please, sir?" Now I'm 'sir' again. I considered making her beg. I'd enjoy that. She'd enjoy that. But this was the munch; in public. Discreet is the term that applies and the group leaders get very unhappy with people who make the vanillas squirm. The only nice thing about being fringe is that you aren't actually an outcast. It's hard to find the kind of women I like in vanilla circles. Well, outside of the fundamentalist religious groups, and they don't believe in oral sex so I'm not having anything to do with them. "Sure. I'm not doing anything this afternoon." *** Ronnie lived in one of those dilapidated Denver Squares between Colfax and 13th. I'd bet a lot of money I don't have that Ronnie thought it made him look grand and eccentric; I thought it looked like a hill-billy meth house. The mailbox on the front porch was stuffed and I took a little look through it. He had the usual assortment of junk mail, including the usual assortment of junk mail that only life-stylists receive, and a bunch of bills. Nothing really leapt out at me so I just stuffed it back into the mailbox and rang the doorbell a few times. I was certain that the full mailbox was just Ronnie being Ronnie, but in any missing person case finding an overflowing mailbox isn't a good sign. Neither is an unanswered doorbell. So I did a walk around of the house and kept my eyes open. No one noticed me or, if they did, said anything to me about it. I didn't see any signs of forced entry or any convenient open windows or doors. I did notice what looked like an enormous doggie-door. It took me a minute to connect that with the doghouse and chain-link kennel in the back yard and then translate the idea into lifestyle-ese. He'd been treating submissives like pets; making them sleep in the kennel, crawl through the doggie-door, and stuff of that nature. Not my kink, but I know a few people on either side of the collar that enjoy that sort of thing. It gave me an idea though. It was locked, of course, but people who put fifty dollar locks on their doors put ten dollar locks on their doggie-doors. Picking it was pretty easy. Feeling a little repulsed, I crawled through and into the house. Bodies stink. No way around that. I've seen bodies in all sorts of conditions and none of them is good. Old is, perhaps, my least favorite. And there was an old body in that house. If you ever find yourself in this situation here's what you do. First, go outside to throw up. Second, call the police. I didn't do either of those. I didn't do the first because I'm mostly past that reaction and I didn't do the second because I'm nosy. Okay, maybe because I could also close out the case if I positively identified Ronnie, but nosy is still accurate. He was downstairs in his dungeon. There's a lot of discussion about the merits of dungeons. Submissives tend to love them; they make the fantasy real. Dominants know that they're expensive to set up and take a lot of work to maintain. Because he'd apparently been too cheap to spend money on things like a floor and lights, Ronnie had the most realistic dungeon I'd ever seen. It was damp. It was dark. There were rats. It was perversely perfect and I don't mind admitting that it was disquieting. It looked like the kind of place a serial killer would torture and dismember his victims. Thanks to Ronnie it smelled like that too. At least, I think it was Ronnie. I couldn't positively identify him. The son of a bitch habitually strutted around at shows half-naked, but any tattoos I might have used to identify him were hidden behind bloated black flesh or covered by the damage. There was enough genitalia left to identify the person as a he, but that was about it. Someone had done a real nasty on this guy. He'd been crucified, to begin with; his arms and shoulders tied to a pipe and his body left to dangle. But after that... I've seen some hard playing that turned my stomach and it looked like every single one of those techniques had been used on this guy. There were electrical wires dangling from his anus, for crying out loud. It was bad. And the zippered vinyl hood on the guy's head prevented me from making my identification. So I called the police... from outside the house, and I waited around until they showed up. And then I waited around to walk them through my actions. And then I waited around until a detective deigned to take my statement. And then I waited around while he blustered about arresting me for breaking and entering and tried to get me to confess to the killing or at least to ransacking the house. That's the way it goes. The thing is, though, that the police in Denver are really pretty decent and I get along well with them. I won't claim that they like me, because they don't, but I always play it straight with them. They teach that when you take your certification classes; always cooperate with the police. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we've all seen detective shows on TV. But I always do. You've got to. If I held back on some information and someone else got hurt, well I'd be morally complicit in that, wouldn't I? Yes, I would. Besides, when I identified a couple of puzzling items for them during the walk-through, it scored me a consulting gig. Those pay for shit, you're getting what's left over in the budget after the civil servants have been paid, but it's all about building a network of connections. And I'd never worked with Detective Garza before. She was attractive and all tightly coiffed business. I'm sure she, and most of the world, saw her appearance as being professional, but I could look at it as being disciplined. I'm inclined to that. So I worked hard at not getting hard. "So explain this to me," she demanded. We were in the basement of the house and she was gesturing at the body, now lit by several lights. A crime scene investigator was standing by with a video camera. "Okay, class. Welcome to Bondage 101: How Not To Do It. What we have here is an extreme example of sadism gone bad. Based on the amount of damage that was done to this body I would speculate that this was done with the intention of causing severe pain beyond that usually encountered in alternative sexual playing. In plain terms, someone set out to hurt this motherfucker. I don't think this is just a case of someone accidentally dying during an intense scene." I pointed to the pipe. "Crucifixion position of the body without the presence of any support for the feet. That alone would have been enough to kill the guy in a few hours, at most. The position places the weight of the body on the limbs and collapses the chest cavity. This makes it very hard to breathe and suffocation eventually follows. It's hard to tell with the mask in place, but I think this little bulge by the mouth means that he was ball-gagged. That means he was breathing through his nose. Absolutely terrifying given his body position." "You'll have to check the anus during the autopsy, but I think you'll find an electrode of some sort up there. That... I've heard of people playing with electricity, but I've never met anyone who actually did it. That's just pure torture." "As opposed to a friendly beating," Garza said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "As opposed to a friendly beating," I echoed. "Look, this probably looks like Satan-worshipping to you, but you've got to put aside snap value judgments if you want to understand. Disapprove if you want to, but understand what it is that you're disapproving of. Take beating. Not my scene, but if you look at studies you'll find the line between pleasure and pain doesn't really exist. The standard person has two places in the brain where pleasure and pain are perceived. They're right next to each other and they share some of the same space. So if you use a mix of pleasure and pain you can stimulate more of the brain and make for a really intense experience. And that's just one of the physiological systems involved. There's more. This, on the other hand, is over the line by any standard. Giving someone electroshocks while they're crucified and gagged? Torture, plain and simple." "And look at the marks on the body. I've seen people beaten until they bled, but this... this was crippling. This kind of beating sends you to the emergency room in an ambulance. It's criminal. The safety pins through the nipples? Not so very deviant in some circles, even the weights that have been attached aren't unheard of. But through the testicles? Remarkably extreme. Don't get me wrong, this could be a scene gone wrong. I mean, people have had themselves castrated during scenes and sexual drives can be very powerful, but I'm ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent sure that this was a deliberate killing because ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the community would be horrified by this." "Besides," I continued, "I don't think this was Ronnie's style. He always presented himself as a hard-core dominant. I don't think he had a submissive bone in his body. I could be wrong, of course. Sometimes the hard-core guys are the ones that want a woman to pee on them but... not Ronnie. You'll have to talk to his submissives; they'll know more about him. You might want to hold off on announcing Ronnie's death, by the way. A lot of submissives keep their activities quiet and if you announce the death and murder investigation of their dominant they're going to make themselves scarce." "You have contact information for the woman that hired you, right?" Detective Garza asked. I nodded. "I've also got contact information for all the submissives she knew about. A couple of them are just names, though." "Okay, we'll get back to that," she said. "Tell me more about this... equipment." "Right. Okay, he's wearing a vinyl zipper mask. Pretty standard with the leather and latex crowd. People have different sized heads, but Ronnie's not a particularly big guy. This mask could fit just about anyone so I think it's part of his equipment." "The bar is pretty secure and it's got multiple eye-bolts securing it to the joists. Part of his dungeon. Let's take a look here... Single strand whip. Flogger. Ping-pong paddle..." "Ping-pong paddle?" Garza asked. I mimed swatting someone on the rear with one and she grimaced. "Yeah, I feel the same way," I told her. "I thought you were into this stuff." "I'm into women that like to be ordered around and, occasionally, tied up. Violence and pain leave me soft. Which makes me weird amongst the weird. This is interesting," I said and squatted down next to something... yeah, interesting. "A branding iron," I told her. "I don't recall ever seeing brands on any of Ronnie's girls." "Maybe he put them someplace that's covered up in public?" the cameraman suggested. "You haven't been to one of our private gatherings," I replied with a shake of my head. "Believe me, I've seen every inch of a couple of Ronnie's girls. Besides, it would have been a very bad idea for Ronnie to brand anyone. He wasn't a long-term relationship kind of person and permanent body modification is a serious commitment. This is unusual and if I was you, I'd pay extra attention to this." We spent the next two hours poking around Ronnie's home. Occasionally they'd want me to identify something, more often I'd point out some everyday item that could be put to other uses. The cameraman was convinced I was a freak, which was just great. Guilt by association. By the time he got through his third beer at the local he'd be describing Ronnie's house and dropping my name. That kind of crap wasn't worth the fifteen dollars an hour the department would grudgingly and eventually pay me. "Show me the list," Garza said as the cameraman trundled off to slander me to his drinking buddies. I pulled out the list and she started copying down the names. Copying down. I liked that. Most of the police I've dealt with would have just taken the list. It's not as if I particularly needed it anymore since I'd done the job I'd been hired to do, but copying it down was courteous. Maybe that's why I offered to help her out a little. "Tell you what, I can run down a couple of these names for you; see if I can find an address or phone number for them." "That would be helpful, but I can't promise you'd get paid," she said carefully. I shrugged. "I'll do four hours worth of work and see what I come up with. You can cover sixty dollars for my time if it turns up a couple of names." "I can probably do that. No names, no money though." "Fair enough." "What do you think?" she asked me. "A lot of people didn't like him," I said. "But the way he was killed... I think it was personal and I think it was someone he played with. I think the name of the killer is somewhere on that list." She smiled at me. "Yeah, that's what I think. Here's my card. Call me if you find anything on those names." On the other hand, maybe *that's* why I offered. I tucked her card in my wallet and drove home. **** The message on my machine was brief, curt even; Regina told me to meet her at the Sushi Den at eight o'clock. There wasn't any 'or-else' because there didn't need to be; Regina was one of the group leaders. A very senior group leader as it happened and she could tell someone to meet her at a time and place and expect it to happen. I didn't have to go, of course. The only thing that could possibly happen was that people in my particular sub-culture would stop associating with me. No death threats, no financial repercussions, no risqué photographs sent to the papers or published on the internet. Just the unspoken possibility of becoming an outcast. Frank Devaroux, P.I. Case File 01 I took a shower and wrote up my investigation results before heading down to the Den. I'm not big on sushi. Fish, to begin with, just doesn't taste that good to me and Colorado is a landlocked state. Sure, they fly it in fresh, but still. And the things on the menu that I like to eat, such as the tamago, come in huge unwieldy portions that chopstick amateurs have a hard time with. Regina isn't her real name, of course. Just about everyone has an alias, a nom-de-lifestyle, and hers was particularly apt. Regina didn't look like the Queen, but she acted like one. She liked men who liked to be treated like little boys and she'd been in the lifestyle from back when you ran a serious risk of being arrested if the authorities found out about your little games. Regina must have been pushing seventy and the men still flocked around her. She was usually accompanied by at least one. But not tonight. I knew I was in for a talking to when I saw she was by herself. Meeting me alone meant that she could dress me down without a submissive around. Frankly, I was surprised by the courtesy. "Hello, Regina." "Franklin, my dear boy, thank you for coming to see me," she replied. "Please, have a seat. Would you like something? A little toro, perhaps?" "Thank you, Regina, a bowl of miso would be fine." A waiter I hadn't heard approaching said "Hai" and walked away. I set my report down on the table next to me. "What's that, Franklin?" "My report to Daria," I said. "She hired me to find Ronnie and I did." She ate a piece of sushi, liberally smeared with wasabi, carefully chewing and swallowing all of it before speaking again. "I heard that. May I have a copy?" "Of course not," I said carefully, "that would be a violation of my client's privacy and I could lose my license." She gave me a cold and very calculating look before picking up the report and reading it. She must have read it twice because it was only two pages long and I had time to start in on my soup before she set it back down in front of me and gave me that calculating look again. "How was he killed, Franklin?" "I can't talk about that, Regina. It's probably going to turn into a murder investigation and I'm consulting for the police." She nodded her head slowly. "Yes, I'd heard that too. Off the record, was it bad?" I considered my words and chose carefully. "It was a scene from hell, Regina." She sighed. "A few of us have talked about this. We don't need negative publicity like this. Help the police, Franklin. Help them find out who killed Ronald so we can get off the front page as quickly as possible. And keep them away from us as much as possible. The last thing we need is police investigations." "Come on, Regina, we're not the god-damned mafia." Her lips pursed tightly and, too late, I remembered that Regina didn't like swearing. If I was one of her boys I'd be bound for a session with the flogger. But I wasn't. I was polite, though. "Sorry, I forgot about your dislike for swearing. But, Regina, we don't have anything to hide." "People tolerate us, Franklin, so long as we don't make waves. This is a wave. No, this is a tsunami. People will be upset and they'll ask other people to make life difficult for the freaks. Publicity and public disapproval will drive people away from the lifestyle. Shy secretaries don't like the thought that mommy and daddy might find out about their dirty little secret on the front page of the Post." I winced a little at that; Sheryl had been a secretary. Regina proved her words were carefully chosen by following up. "When was the last time you got to play, Franklin?" Months. Sheryl had decided to move on to harder pastures and I'd been without since then. "Keep them away how, Regina?" "Help them close this episode quickly. Thank you for coming, Franklin. Don't worry about the bill, it's my treat." *************** Daria lived out in Aurora. Aurora used to be the town outside the gates of the military base. When the base closed, the town suffered. It was getting better, but anytime the news reported a killing odds were that Aurora was where it had happened. It's nothing compared to big city crime, of course, but in Denver it would pass for a bad neighborhood. The security door of the apartment was broken, so I just walked up to Daria's floor and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" came the muffled reply from behind the door. "It's Frank, Daria. I found Ronnie." She was smart enough to have chains on the door and it took her a minute to let me in. I walked into the apartment and took a look around while Daria secured the door behind me. It was an efficiency apartment, which is a nice of way of saying it was a large room. Not all that large, really. A mattress in the corner was apparently Daria's bed. A fairly nice computer set-up was on the floor against the wall opposite the bed. The kitchen had originally been separated from the living area by a counter, but that had been ripped out. The bathroom was separated from the kitchen by a low wall. A really low wall, only about two feet high. Except for a closet that was closed, that was everything. Everything but the cameras. They were all over the place. Web-cams mounted on the ceiling in every corner, another one on the computer and, I walked over and looked, one above the shower. I turned around to ask Daria about this and saw her for the first time. This wasn't the munch. Daria was wearing leather cuffs at her wrists and ankles and a choke-chain around her throat. Nothing else. I could tell this because she was kneeling on the floor in front of me with her legs spread. It's a common display position for a submissive to be put in; I'd seen this before. Except for the downcast face it was something I liked. I didn't want to be a jerk this time. Not with the news I was bringing. "You may speak, Daria." "Thank you, sir," she replied, eyes still fixed on the floor. "You said you'd found Master?" I sighed. "I think I found him, Daria. I'm going to have to wait for the coroner to make an identification, but I'm pretty sure it's him. He's dead, Daria. I'm sorry to have to tell you this." I had expected her to cry, but I hadn't expected her to do so silently. Her body shook with silent sobs and it took me a minute to realize she was trying to stay in discipline. That shocked me. I couldn't really conceive of someone that far into the fantasy. Then I remembered the web cams and started putting a few ideas together. Walking over to Daria I squatted down next to her. "Your Master is gone, Daria. I order you to take the next ten minutes to grieve." The floodgates opened up then. She wailed and sobbed like the women's chorus at an Arabian funeral. I just held her for considerably more than the ten minutes I'd 'allowed' her. It is one of life's gifts, however, that there is only so much crying you can do; so she eventually stopped. Of course I'm firmly of the belief that once you solve a problem, two more will crop up. Daria did not disappoint. "What do I do now, sir?" she sniffled. 'Well how the hell should I know?' I thought. I was annoyed with her because I don't particularly like clingy, helpless women. Daria was proving to be one of those women in a big way. Such a big way, in fact, that I was a little bit worried about her. "Let's talk about that, Daria," I said, more as a way to stall for time than anything else. "Is there someplace I can sit comfortably here?" "M-master keeps... kept a chair in the closet, sir. But I don't have the key to it." "Would you like me to open the door, Daria?" What little I could see of her down turned face suggested she was shocked by the question. I was growing more convinced that Daria had been broken, that decision-making capability had been beaten out of her. "Daria, your Master is gone and, at least for a little while, you're going to have to make some decisions for yourself," I said gently. "Tell me what to do, sir," she whispered. "Please." I decided to switch tactics. "I just did you inattentive bint. Is this how your Master disciplined you? To leave a dominant standing and uncomfortable due to your poor manners?" She cringed under the lash of my softly spoken words and then threw herself forward, head to my feet. "Forgive me, sir. Please forgive me. Will you open the closet and make yourself comfortable?" I extracted myself from her prostration and picked the lock on the closet. Deadbolts are hard and it took me several minutes even with the electric rake. I'm a licensed locksmith, though not a very good one, so it was all legal. She'd asked, I'd complied; hell, she was already paying me for my services. The closet was a pervert's dream come true. Floggers, chains, and toys of all sorts. There was a camp chair which I pulled out and sat down on. "This is a nice set-up you have here, Daria. How much does your website clear in a month?" "Oh, it's not my website, sir. Or my apartment for that matter. Master allows me to live here and earn my keep." 'Oh, shit,' was the thought that ran through my head. I'd known Ronnie was a sleaze, but this... "Do the cameras have sound capability, Daria?" "Yes, sir. But the sound is turned off right now. I'm only allowed to turn the pick-ups on when Master comes over or when one of his friends visits." Honestly, I was torn between hating Daria for being so stupid and feeling sorry for her that she'd been so badly victimized. I settled for hating Ronnie. And at least I hadn't blurted out the fact of Ronnie's death on the internet. "Do you have any friends or family you can call, Daria?" Please, God, let her have friends and family. "Not really, sir," she replied, slowly shaking her head. "Master didn't permit me to have many outside contacts." She went on to justify Ronnie's controlling behavior, but I was too busy seething to listen. Ronnie's behavior was out and out abusive. Yes, the healed scars on Daria's body showed that she enjoyed abuse, but... Damn it! It's hard to quantify but there's a line between abuse and... well, abuse. I realized that Daria had gone quiet. "Do you have food, Daria?" "Not really, sir. Master always brought the food I was permitted to eat and I'm almost out." I took my report, and my bill, out of a pocket and dropped them on the floor. Then I pulled out two hundred of the money she'd given me and dropped that on top of the report. "You paid me for two hours of work and my expenses. I was able to finish my work in about half an hour and my expenses were slight. This two hundred dollars is your money. I want you to use it to buy some groceries. Today or tomorrow you're going to have a lot of visitors. The police are going to want to ask you questions about Ronnie. I'm going to talk to someone about getting you a lawyer for when you talk to the police. I also want you to talk to a friend of mine who will help you sort out your choices now that your master is gone." It wasn't much, it wasn't even everything I could do. But it was a start. I got the website address from her but I left the computer equipment alone; tech's not really my thing. The chair went back into the closet and I locked that up, after I'd taken a look in the kitchen to be certain there weren't any knives or anything else that Daria might be able to use to hurt herself. I found the building supervisor's apartment down on the first floor. He was a very heavy, very short Hispanic man. "Apartment 4F," I said, holding up a twenty dollar bill. "Who pays for it?" He shrugged. "It's all done on computers. Skylark Entertainment or something like that. They make sex films, I think. They keep their actresses in the apartment during filming." That was interesting. "Actresses? How many women have lived there?" He looked meaningfully at the twenty so I handed it over. "Six, seven," he said. "This one's been there for a month." "Gracias." Six or seven. That was both interesting and disturbing. I walked out into the parking lot and dialed a number on my phone. "Regina?" "Is that you, Franklin?" "Yes. I just talked with Daria and gave her the news about Ronnie. She's worse off than he is. He's got her in a efficiency apartment wired with internet cameras. She doesn't get paid for this, not even when one of Ronnie's friends comes over. She's lost the ability to make decisions on her own and he cut her off from all her friends and family. Bad abuse, Regina. Very bad. And it looks like he did this to several women. The good news here is that you might be able to spin this guy as a professional pornographer, not an amateur lifestylist. But if the newspapers get hold of Daria it'll be bad. She needs a lawyer at her apartment immediately and she needs a really good therapist who knows about spousal abuse and cult programming even faster. And someone who understands the lifestyle and can order her to cooperate with these folks." "You don't ask for much, do you Franklin?" she asked dryly. "Ask hell, Regina. Get people out there now or I'm going to call my contact at the police department and tell her that Daria's a suicide risk." There was a long moment of silence before she replied. "I'll be there myself in half an hour. The others will follow. I admire your respect for your submissives, Franklin, which is why I tolerate you at all. But don't push me." Then she ended the call. *********************** Joining the website cost me $200, which just goes to prove that karma thinks it's got a sense of humor. The Obedient Sluts website specialized in live webcam porn. You could choose between about a dozen feeds that showed you young women going about their daily business in next to no clothing. You could also look at archived 'highlights'. Daria had been on the website for about a month and her highlights were progressively more extreme. Moving from beatings and sex with Ronnie to beatings and sex with other men, sometimes more than one. Humiliation figured prominently. I debated the merits of cheap and hard versus expensive and easy and laziness won out. I e-mailed an associate of mine with the website info and my login information and asked him to track down everything he could. I particularly wanted to know who owned the website and if he could identify other women who had been in that apartment before Daria. You can do that by checking a few websites and making a few phone calls, if the ownership is direct. I had a suspicion the ownership wasn't going to be direct, though. Besides, I had other things to do. There were seven names on the list Daria gave me and I needed to run those down if I was going to have a hope of collecting a magnificent consulting fee from the police department. Now, I might not have many friends in the lifestyle, but I do have a large number of acquaintances. I started burning up the phone lines and pestering people for information. The advantage to dealing with acquaintances is that I don't mind lying to them. So I put out the story that I'd found Ronnie, true, and that I had information concerning that death that X needed to hear, not true. I got a couple of phone numbers, one real name, and lots of promises to spread the word. Then I got a knock at the door. No one knocks at my door. Not since... well. The door says 'No Soliciting', it says 'Day Sleeper', and it says 'Beware of Dog'. My mail goes to a post office box and my utilities are located in the basement of the building. So no one bothers me; a knock on the door was surprising. More surprising still was seeing Detective Garza standing in the hallway. I opened the door and opened my mouth to greet her but didn't get the chance. "Franklin Devaroux you are under arrest for breaking and entering and criminal trespass. Turn around and put your hands behind your head," she barked. "Whoa Detective, easy there," I said as I turned around and put my hands behind my head. "I thought that was taken care of; me calling you to report a murder and all that? Good faith? Besides, if it comes down to a court case I'll be able to convince a jury that Daria had a long-standing relationship with the deceased and that she had implicitly granted me permission to enter the premises." Well, it sounded good to me, and I could probably sell that to a jury. "What's that?" she demanded as she ran a hand down one of my arms. "I'm happy to see you," I retorted. "It's a collapsible baton, Detective. I've got one strapped to each forearm and yes I have a concealed carry permit." She pulled back the sleeve of my shirt, ripping the cuff in the process, and took the baton out of the forearm holster. "'Implicit permission'? Is that what Daria's lawyer is going to tell her to say?" she snapped. "Or her shrink? Or the freak you've got handling her?" "You're pissed because I got an abused woman help? Fuck you," I snarled. The other baton joined the first on the floor and then she wrenched my arms around and put the cuffs on me. I'm familiar with handcuffs, but people are using them less and less because they're relatively expensive and they're pretty easy to escape. That's why everyone, including folks in the lifestyle, is moving to zip-cuffs for restraint purposes. Unless you like the look and feel of old-style handcuffs of course. There's just something about the look and feel of metal. "I knew you were a freak, but I thought you could be trusted to stay bought," she told me as she continued to search me. She was thorough, and yes that means what you think it means. I might have enjoyed the search under other circumstances, though I'd rather the roles were reversed. "I have. If you were prevented from talking to Daria then that was a mistake. I can make a phone call and get you access to her. Would you like that?" She spun me around and pushed me back onto a chair then she stood in front of me and glowered at me. Now, body positioning is a wonderful thing. You can really put someone into the proper frame of mind using good body positioning. Detective Garza was trying to intimidate me by putting me under arrest, handcuffing me, and then towering over me. But I was in my home, I knew the arrest was a minor annoyance at best, and I'm used to using body positioning. I sat back in the chair and crossed my legs; made myself comfortable. My policy is to always cooperate with the police, and I hadn't resisted her in any physical way that would have given her an excuse to charge me with resisting arrest or, worse, assaulting a police officer. But if she wanted to play subtle dominance games... cool. She was smart and realized that she wasn't as in control as she wanted to be, so she switched to a different track. She pulled out her phone and flipped it open. "Number," she demanded. I gave her the number and she dialed it and held it up to my face. I smiled and mouthed the words, "Thank you" at her. "Regina?" "Franklin, you're becoming annoying. What do you want now?" "There's been a little mix up, Regina. Someone told the police they couldn't talk to Daria." "That female detective has already contacted you? Now there's a woman who's over-compensating for something. Yes, we told her that Daria needed to talk to her lawyer before she started answering questions." "Regina, she's not a suspect in the case. Would you please arrange for her to go to the police station and speak with Detective Garza? She can bring her lawyer, of course." "Is she there with you right now?" Regina asked. "As a matter of fact, yes, Regina, she's standing right here. She's holding her cell phone up to my face because my hands are cuffed behind my back." Regina laughed. "Maybe you'll learn something," she told me. "Put the good detective on the phone, Franklin." "She'd like to speak with you," I told Garza. She put the phone to her ear. "Garza," she said. Frank Devaroux, P.I. Case File 01 I swear she blushed a moment later, but then she said "Tomorrow at 9am would be fine. Thank you." "Am I still under arrest?" I asked her. "No." "Good." I pulled my hands out from behind my back and handed her the handcuffs and a paperclip. I'd like to say that I keep lock picking tools, weapons, and condoms hidden all around my apartment for just such a situation. The truth is that I don't clean under the cushions very often. The paperclip was just luck. The condoms on the other hand... "Would you like something to drink?" I asked her. She shook her head as she put the handcuffs back into her belt carrier and took a look around my home. "Not what I expected?" she admitted. "Black leather? Pictures of bound women? Red lights and whips and chains?" She nodded. "I'm not like Ronnie," I said. "Who are you like?" she asked. The question surprised me. What did she care who I was like? My cynical and suspicious brain began to put some ideas together and come to some wild conclusions. I dismissed them as wishful thinking brought on by involuntary celibacy. "I'm like me," I replied as I stood up and retrieved my batons. "And since I'm the only me in the world I can't really compare myself to anyone else." "That must get lonely," she observed. I wasn't particularly certain how far I wanted to allow her to crawl around inside my psyche, but sometimes you're so lonely that even the shallow intimacy of a police officer trying to profile you is welcome. "Sometimes," I allowed. "I've run down a couple of those names and I've got some folks checking on the others. I also asked an associate of mine to run down the information on the website Daria was working for. Have you seen that?" She shook her head. I pointed to the computer and went into the kitchen to get myself something to drink. "You sure about the drink? There's only milk, water, or fruit juice to drink. I don't have alcohol in the house and wouldn't offer it to a cop on duty if I did." "Water then," she answered. "Why no alcohol?" "I'm an alcoholic," I told her. "I used to find the courage to tell the world to fuck off in the bottom of a bottle." "How do you find it now?" she asked. "I blame God," I said. She laughed. I liked it. "I'm Catholic," she told me. "We blame man." By that criterion most of the women I knew were Catholic. "Well, I'm just generally religious. I blame God for the way I was made, I try to live responsibly, and I go to weekly meetings and confess my sins. I'm popular there. Since I joined the group we've gotten a lot of new people showing up to hear my confessions." She laughed again. "This is the Obedient Sluts website," I told her as I handed her the water and sat down at the computer. She pulled up a chair and sat next to me. "Looks like pretty standard webcam voyeurism," she observed. I looked at her in surprise. "Hey, I'm hip to some of the broad trends amongst the pervs," she joked. It was my turn to laugh. "It is. Though they've added the bondage window dressing to give their product an additional cachet. The highlights are what are interesting. Here's a clip of Ronnie and Daria in action." She watched it quietly for a minute before asking, "Does that turn you on?" I think, in retrospect, that it was her tone that decided me. She wasn't condemning me with the question, just asking. I think that's why I didn't tell her it was none of her business. "Some of it. The control, the obedience, the restraint. Those push my buttons. But this," I said as Ronnie pulled out a crop and started in on Daria, "bothers me." I let her watch a few more minutes to get a good appreciation of what, exactly, Ronnie had been like. Then I stopped the clip and selected another. "This is two weeks ago," I informed her. "Ronnie started bringing in other men, singly at first, then in pairs. This is a threesome." It was fairly disturbing to me and, I guess, to Detective Garza. After a few minutes she asked me turn it off. "One more," I said and selected something from deeper in the archives. "What do you notice about this?" "Different woman, same apartment," she noted. I nodded. "And Mr. Flogger here? He's a repeat customer." "How many?" she asked. "At least six women," I said. "I talked with the building super and he said some company rented the apartment and kept women there. He thought they were a porn outfit." "He was right. What's the name of the company?" "Skylark Entertainment, he thought. I haven't checked it out yet." "I'll take care of it," she said. She stood up and took a last drink of her water. "Where are the women now?" she asked. I shrugged. "Too early to say. I'm looking into it." "I won't be able to pay you for much of your time," she warned. I shrugged again. "This kind of crap offends me," I offered as my only explanation. Cops understand that; sometimes a case gets under your skin and you've got to scratch the itch until it's gone. More often than not that means you scratch so hard that you bleed, but it's an occupational risk. "Thanks for the water." "Thanks for not arresting me." "Yet." I smiled as she left, but I was still puzzled. She could have threatened me over the phone and gotten much the same results. So why had she come over? I didn't believe the answer I kept coming up with because I wouldn't permit myself to believe it. But why not? ************** Winston Churchill once remarked that there is nothing in life so exhilarating as being shot at to no effect. I will observe that Sir Winston was obviously a twisted man with emotional issues beyond the ken of a layman such as me. I hated being shot at. Since I'd actually been injured the first two times people shot at me I think you'll agree that my aversion is firmly based in objective reality. At least this time they'd missed me. Missed me three times, even. I looked around for the shooter, but with the traffic on the street and people screaming and running for cover it was an impossible task. I thought a blue Lexus might have held the guy since it had peeled away shortly after the shots, but that might just have been someone smart unassing the target area. Since I was sure someone would already have called 911 I rolled over onto my back, pulled out my cell phone and called Detective Garza. "Garza? This is Devaroux." "Have you got something for me?" "I'm not really sure," I admitted. "I think someone just shot three bullets at me outside my apartment. I'm going to wait around and talk to the investigating officers." "I'll be down in a few minutes, tell them I'm coming." "Sure." I checked to make sure I hadn't wet myself and then stood up and took a look around. Operating on the assumption that the blue Lexus had held the shooter and that I had been the target I did a quick scan to see if I could spot the bullet impacts. It wasn't hard. One bullet had gone wide to my right and spider-webbed the security glass on the door to my building. A spall mark on the brick might be the impact of a second bullet which put the third bullet... into the open window of the apartment on the first floor. Mrs. Erlichmann. The first patrol officer showed up about then and I explained that a bullet had gone into Mrs. Erlichmann's apartment. He got the super to open the place up and we found her cooling on her couch. Not shot, just scared. But a heart attack is often more fatal than a bullet. I walked outside after the paramedics arrived and spotted Detective Garza talking to another patrol officer. I walked over and caught her attention. "You okay?" she asked. "A little twitchy, that's all." "I saw the ambulance." Was that concern I was imagining in Detective Garza's voice? "Mrs. Erlichmann had a heart attack," I explained. "Oh. You think you were the target?" "Yeah. Take a look." We walked over to the doorway and I pointed to the bullet impacts. The thing about shooting multiple shots in rapid succession is that your aiming point tends to climb. A disciplined shooter can compensate for this, but I'd never heard of an aiming point going noticeably down. Besides, a disciplined shooter wouldn't have missed me with three shots. "There, there, and there," I said. "I'd guess it was a left-handed shooter, but that's just a guess. Since I was walking out the door at the time and that's where the impact trail starts I'd guess I was the target." "Yeah," she nodded in agreement. "Why?" "I'm only working one case," I replied. "No jealous husbands?" "The only woman I'm seeing on a regular basis is you." "Okay. I'm late for court. Give the patrol guys your statement and we'll talk sometime this evening," she decided. "I need to figure out a way to get into the Indigo Lounge this evening," I told her. "One of the names on Daria's list is supposed to be working an event this evening." "So go talk to her, we can talk after." "It's not that easy. The Indigo Lounge is couples only and it's a lifestyle night. Finding someone to go with me is not a simple task." She chewed her lower lip for a moment and then nodded. "I'll go with you. What time should I pick you up?" I'd been hoping for that response, but it still surprised me. "Nine." "Wear something sexy?" she asked. "Slinky," I amended. "I'll see you then," she called back over her shoulder. I watched her go and reflected that it was a funny day when I could be shot at and still feel so good. Maybe Sir Winston wasn't such a twisted man after all. ********* "What's your first name?" I asked as I climbed into the passenger seat of her car. "Eloise," she replied. "Eloise?" I echoed her. "You look Latina to the bone. How did you end up with a name like Eloise?" "Mixed marriage," she replied as she pulled into traffic. "My dad is Hispanic, and a cop, my mom is first generation American. Her family came from France." "Must have been interesting. How'd that work out?" "Not so well, actually. They fought a lot and separated when I was four." "Divorce?" "Well, a Catholic divorce. They're still married but she lives in Boulder and he lives in Highlands. Tell me about the Indigo Lounge." "It's an adult club. Not a sex club, but a place where adults can go and have sex together. They mostly cater to the swingers, but twice a month they have lifestyle nights to bring in the bondage crowd. It's pretty upscale and they screen everyone to keep it that way. Speaking of which, are you carrying?" "Yeah, I've got a personal weapon." "No guns or knifes are allowed on site. We're going to have to step through a metal detector and your purse will have to go through an x-ray machine." "They've got that kind of money?" "Upscale." "Shit. What about you?" "My batons are gravity locking and they're made of ceramics and plastic. I like to be able to carry them wherever I choose to go." "That why you don't carry?" she asked. "No. I don't carry because I shot somebody once and I didn't much like it." When we arrived at the Lounge I got out of the car first to give her a moment of privacy. She was wearing a black, silk dress with spaghetti straps and a plunging back. There was only one place she was able to conceal a pistol in that outfit. When she got out of the car we walked across the parking lot towards the entrance. "Who are we looking for?" "Sariel. Bottle blonde, angel wing tattoos on her back, about five foot four. She should be one of the entertainers." "Interesting name," she observed. "I looked it up. Sariel was one of the fallen angels." "And by 'entertainers' you mean?" As we were walking into the club I decided to explain a little later. "You'll see," I promised. The Indigo Lounge is a nice place. As you might imagine, blue lights feature heavily. There's a dance/performance floor and clusters of seating arranged around pillars done up as Greek columns. Draped fabric hides the roof and separates the room into sections that you can wander through. There's a bar in one corner, but alcohol is members only from their private lockers. Not really something that concerned me. Nevertheless, the bar was where I bee-lined to. "Two waters," I told the bartender. He was a big guy wearing black and I knew that he doubled as a bouncer and tripled as a host. "Is Sariel available?" "Maybe," he replied. I sighed and put a twenty on the bar. He glanced at it but didn't take it. I put another on top of it and they vanished into his massive paw like they hadn't ever been there. "She just got in a few minutes ago. When she's ready I'll send her over. You up to performing with her?" "I just want to talk for a few minutes and then I'll turn her loose," I replied. "It's worth her while." He nodded skeptically and I collected the bottled water and handed one to Eloise. Can you get over that name? I couldn't. Eloise. She pointed to an empty cluster of seats and I nodded. We walked over and sat down. "Seems like any other nightclub," she observed. On the surface it sure looked that way. The music wasn't deafening loud and there were a few people on the dance floor, mostly women. They weren't even particularly scantily clad in comparison to some of the other clubs in town. About half of the seating clusters were occupied. Instead of explaining that it was early yet and that everyone was drinking at other bars before coming here to get their kink on I just lifted the padded top of a side-table and let her examine the selection of toys contained within it. Sariel, when she appeared a few minutes later, was pretty much as described. She had rings in her nipples and nose in addition to the tattoos. She knelt down in front of me and gave me a critical look. "I didn't think you were into my kink, sir," she said. "Not particularly, but I'd like to ask you a few questions." She tossed her hair and shook her head. "I'm here tonight to have fun, sir. I'm not interested in answering questions. With your permission?" On the one hand, I'd already talked to three other people on Daria's list. Of the other four, however, Sariel was the only one I'd been able to find a lead on. The other three were just gone and no one knew where. And I hadn't learned anything new from the ones I had talked to. "I've got a secret?" I asked. Sariel gave me a questioning look as she sized me up. She knew my reputation, and 'I've got a secret' was a challenge as much as it was a game. "Certainly, sir." "Thirty minute time limit," I declared. "What's your safe word?" "Safe word," she replied. "Limits?" "Nothing illegal, no cutting." I snorted. That was like saying 'anything goes'. It was also like saying 'do your best, because you don't scare me at all'. I pulled out a set of handcuffs. "Eloise, would you please cuff her? Hands in front." "What are you doing?" she asked me as she took the cuffs from me and secured Sariel's hands. "I'm going to beat the information out of her," I replied. "Want to help?" She shook her head. "I can't do that, Frank. Not even in fun. I'm a cop. Beating information out of someone?" I nodded. "I understand. Sit back and watch. Keep me hydrated, if you would." I attached Sariel's hands to a ring in the column and pulled a collapsible spreader bar out of the side table. It took me a few minutes to adjust it and secure it to Sariel's ankles. But when I was done she was pretty well exactly the way I wanted her. I picked a short-tail flogger from the toys and gave it an experimental twirl. "I've got a secret," I announced to the people gathering around. "Thirty minute time period. Safe word is safe word. I'm starting now." Even over the music I could hear the murmur of people discussing this development. I tried to shut them out and focus my attention on not throwing up. "Tell me about Ronnie, Sariel," I said. "Who?" she replied in tones of faux innocence. I snapped the flogger around hard, curling it around her thigh so that the ends snapped against her inner thigh. She hissed and her body jumped. I brought the flogger back and gave her an identical stroke to the other thigh. "Ronnie?" I prompted. "Reagan?" she responded. The trick, with a flogger, is getting the tips to snap just where you want them. I'm no artist with one of those, and I can't claim that enthusiasm made up for my lack of skill, but I was determined. I didn't bother asking any more questions, I just went at her and tried to make sure I got every single sensitive portion of her body below the shoulders. I added some weights to the nipple rings. I put alligator clips on her earlobes and labia. I smacked her ass purple with a paddle. I even, at the end, put her hands behind her and lifted them with a rope. I was exhausted when time was called and we were both sweating buckets. The voice that called time had sounded familiar, but I was too busy to puzzle out exactly why that was the case. I carefully removed Sariel from the bondage devices and put her into a thin cotton robe. I walked her over to the couch and sat her down. "Two waters please," I asked Eloise. She wordlessly got up and walked over to the bar. I sat down next to Sariel and pulled her against me. She didn't make any complaint and just cuddled up to me, breathing hard. "I didn't think you had that in you, Franklin," Regina remarked as she sat down next to me. Now I was able to place the voice. Regina was wearing a suede evening gown and she had two of her boys, leashed by the testicles, kneeling at her feet. 'Boys' is something of a misnomer. One of them was a walking billboard for Denver tattoo parlors and the other looked like an overweight banker. "Did you enjoy that?" she purred. "No," I replied. "I did," came Sariel's comment. "That was very nice, sir. I didn't expect that from you." "Nor did anyone else, I think," Regina said. "You won't be lonely for long after word of this gets around, Franklin. Well done." Regina's presence was unwelcome at that point in time. Very unwelcome. Still more so because her boys were pressing in and I was already uncomfortable enough. I looked up and saw Eloise coming back with the water. "You're in Eloise's seat, Regina. Please move." She frowned at me, but she moved. Then she laughed as Eloise sat down next to me. "Detective Garza, I thought I recognized you. Welcome. Are you enjoying our party?" "I'm learning to, Regina." The answer seemed to shock Regina as much as it shocked me. "What did you want to know about Ronnie, sir?" Sariel asked. "Anything," I replied. "Where are his other subs? Did he have any enemies?" "Did he ever go to Dallas?" Eloise interjected. "Dallas?" Sariel asked. "Sure. I went down to Dallas with him once, maybe three years ago. He'd gotten a lot of money from somewhere and he had a long party weekend. It was me and two other subs. We flew down first class and hit all the clubs. A nightly orgy in the hotel room, room service, champagne, and rented limos. Ronnie was blowing through the cash like there was no tomorrow. In one of the clubs he dropped maybe twenty or thirty thousand dollars on roulette. He beat me so hard I had to go to the emergency room to get a cut stitched and I missed the excitement." "Excitement?" I prompted. "One of the subs... Dana. Dana said the other sub, Uma, freaked out and Ronnie had to have her committed. It really spoiled the mood and ended the party. Ronnie was really upset, pale and sweating. Dana wouldn't talk to him, barely talked to me. It was an uncomfortable flight back. Economy seating, too." "Did you ever see Uma again?" I asked. "No. I asked Ronnie about her once and he said she'd committed suicide. Sad. She was pretty and she was devoted to Ronnie; she'd do anything he asked. A real love slave. Sir, I hate to be a bother, but I've got to pee. May I please go to the bathroom?"