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The Swap Ch. 01

By: WifeWatchman



The order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series.

The Swap series.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.



Part 1 - The Sparks Fly

The eighteen year old boy grunted as he pistoned his large cock in and out of his mother's sopping wet cunt as she lay beneath him, driving relentlessly into her with raw sexual power. Her shapely legs were hooked under his strong arms as he plunged into her over and over in the push-up position, and her pretty feet in the high heel slides he liked to see her in were high in the air. 

Marlena looked down between their legs, barely able to see in the dim light. The sight of her own son's penis pumping into her motherly vagina was an incredible turn-on for her, almost as intensely exciting as the feeling of his rock-hard young cock stretching her cuntwalls apart as he invaded her with the energy of youth and sexual passion. 

In this position, the beautiful woman could only lie there on her back and take her son's powerful strokes as he deeply fucked her, but she didn't mind; in fact, she was in pure sexual heaven at this moment. She looked up into his face, her feelings of love and lust for her handsome, athletic young son growing every second as the rutting couple humped lustily in sinfully incestuous abandon. 

"Kiss me, son." she whispered. Though the position was slightly awkward for doing so, and put pressure on her as she was practically bent double, the boy leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. Their tongues twined in a deep, sensuous kiss, the teen's tongue straining to slide down her throat to her tonsils, her own tongue lashing and circling his. They kissed deeply for long moments, the boy knowing his mother loved being confidently, even forcefully kissed by him as much as she loved the steady fucking he was pumping into her with all of his youthful strength.

And now, she noted, Ryan's thrusts were getting shorter as he stayed deep inside her, their thick, raven-black pubic hairs intermingling as he neared the crest, ready to ejaculate his large load deep inside his mother's clutching cunt.

"Oh Mom!" Ryan groaned, finally breaking the long kiss. "Aren't you glad Dad has to travel a lot in his job?" He shoved his meat into his mother and twisted his muscular young ass in a tight circle, the grinding motion intensifying Marlena's deep pleasure as his words sank into her mind. 

"Oh yes, son!" Marlena replied, knowing that her son enjoyed the words and thoughts of their incestuous deed as much as she did. "I love it that he's working his ass off while you're fucking his wife's ass off! Fuck me, Ryan! Fuck me like your father wishes he could!"

"Oh God, Mom, you are so fucking... hot!" Ryan gasped. "I'm going to come, Mom.... do you want me to pull out?" he asked, knowing the answer already.

"No baby!" Marlena gasped. "Don't pull out. Come inside me, baby! Come inside your mother's cunt, fill your mother up with your hot sperm!"

"Oh yeah... oh yeah... oh MOM!!!" Ryan cried out as the intensely painful pleasure of his orgasm overwhelmed his young loins and the first burst of his potent, virile semen blasted down his long shaft and into his mother's pussy, coating her cervix with his full load! 

A yellow burst of sparks flew and the loud noise of an explosion filled the teen stud's ears as he ejaculated spurt after spurt of his male essence into his mother's vagina. Only as he began to catch his breath did he realize something was amiss.

"What was that?" Marlena asked, looking towards the window, where only the blue-white light of the moon now streamed in. "I think a transformer blew."


"I thought that was my climax." Ryan gasped. "Was it a real explosion?"

"I don't know, I think so." his mother said.

"I'll go see." Ryan offered. The teen reluctantly pulled his still-throbbing meat from his mother's well-filled vagina, enjoying the sight of her spread legs and her thick pubic bush as he dismounted her and got off the bed. He went to the window and looked out.

"The power is off on the whole block." Ryan said.

"It's eerie." Marlena replied, the stillness of the night in the dark seeming to add to her sensations of having just been fucked, the wetness between her legs and the sight of her muscular naked son's ass as he looked out the window adding yet more.

"It must have been the transformer right across the street that exploded." Ryan said. "The one right in front of the Schelle's house." He was looking across the street, seeing nothing.

"Come on back to bed." Marlena said invitingly. "With the power out, I guess there's only one way for us to... entertain ourselves."

Ryan looked back at the bed. In the dim light he could see his mother stretched out luxuriously on his bed, her body magnificent, her face beautiful and framed by her black hair, the arches of her feet made even more shapely by the high heel slides. He loved fucking his mother, and he felt his youthful cock hardening, wanting more.

Just then he whirled back to the window as a movement caught his eye at the edge of his vision. Was that a black car that had just pulled out of the Schelle's driveway? He was only able to get a brief glimpse of it.

"What time is it?" Marlena asked, then looked at the bedside clock, which was battery-operated. It was 9:38pm.

"Come here, son." Marlena said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her feet on the floor. "Let me get you ready for more."

Ryan walked away from the window and back to the bed until he was right in front of his mother, his hardening cock just inches from her lovely face. "Yeah, Mom, suck my cock." 

Marlena did not reply but suited his order to her deed as her hand gripped the base of his cock and guided him into her hungry mouth. She heard and felt her son's moan as she began to deeply suck him. As he rapidly grew hard again and began fucking her lovely face, Marlena moaned, the thought that she was eagerly giving her teen son head while denying his father that pleasure only adding to her own nasty delight...

Part 2 - Dorm Room Daughter

"Oh God, YES! Fuck me with that monster!" the beautiful girl gasped before letting her mouth once again descend on the large man-meat in front of her. She was on her hands and knees, and the boy lying in front of her just watched as she vigorously sucked his cock, then he looked over her back as the other young stud plowed his monstrous ten inch cock in and out of the her sopping wet snatch.

"Damn, you are one hot bitch." the young man getting his cock sucked said. He was on the University football team and had an extremely powerful physique. They were in the other boy's dorm room on the campus.

He'd heard of this hot babe before: her name was Karen Warner, she was nineteen and one of the most drop-dead gorgeous young women on campus, and she had a reputation.... she was nicknamed Karen "Wild Child" Warner. She was so promiscuous that she had caught the attention of the sex psychology professor, Dr. Laura Fredricson, who had enrolled the girl in a study of the biochemistry and genetics of nymphomaniac women. 

"Fuck her, Ted!" the football player said to the other guy, thinking of a different kind of 'biochemistry' that they boys were dumping into the girl. He had only met this guy when Karen Warner had literally picked up both of them up at a bar just off campus, asking them if they could handle fucking her in a threesome. They had both agreed, eager to fuck this gorgeous woman, and had gone to the other boy's room on the fourth floor of the main dorm.

The football player was fascinated at how the young woman was taking the hung boy's thrusts, accommodating his enormous size as he relentlessly plowed her cunt into a frothy lather. 

The football player had already come inside the woman while young Ted watched and fucked Karen's face; now their positions were reversed and Ted was tearing that pussy up... which only made Karen beg for more. He looked down at her face as his hard penis disappeared into the girl's mouth... damn, she was beautiful! he thought. And she can suck a basketball through a garden hose. Unnnh....

"I'm going to come." Ted announced. "I'm going to fucking come in your tight little cunt, baby!" 

"Yeah, give it to me, shoot that big load into me!" Karen begged, her voice husky and raw. She loved feeling men come inside her, flooding her womanhood with their hot seed...

-------------------

Time passed. Ted looked at the clock on his desk; it was nearly midnight. They'd been talking and drinking after the last round of sex, and Karen "Wild Child" Warner's thirst for sex had been unquenchable. He looked at the incredibly hot sight on his bed. Karen was lying on her back, the football player on top of her, fucking his big cock into her with all the athletic power he could muster. 

Her long, beautiful legs were trapped under the guy's powerful chest, her ankles draped over his broad, muscular shoulders. Her black hair seemed to glow in the light as she cooed and moaned, obviously enjoying the brutally hard fucking the football player was throwing into her, seeming to feel no discomfort even when Ted had rammed his ten inch monster up into her. 

Ted watched their coupled loins as they fucked, seeing her cuntlips cling to the thick cock slicing in and out of her, enjoying the sight of her totally shaved pussy being used as a pussy was meant to be used. 

*HEY! HEY! YOU! YOU!*

The sound startled all of them. It was Karen's cell phone, sitting on the desk, the musical ringtone blaring, interrupting the sounds of pleasure that had filled the room.

"Let it go." Karen moaned. "Keep fucking me!" The young man complied, continuing his thrusts, but beginning to tire and lose power.

*HEY! HEY! YOU! YOU!*

The trio ignored the phone again, but moments later, it blared a third time, demanding to be acknowledged.

"For cryin' out loud!" Karen moaned. The football player took the opportunity to dismount the college beauty. She was far and away the best fuck he'd ever had, but not even he and this other super-well-hung guy could satisfy her sexual needs.

"What the fuck IS it?" Karen screamed into the phone as she answered it. The boys just watched her as her face changed from anger to shock.

"What the hell do you want, Seth!... Wha... What?! Oh my God! Dad's dead?" she gasped....

Part 3 - The 'Chelle Chelle' Crime Scene

"Whaddya got, Ross?" I asked as I walked up to the back of the house at 10:00pm. The house was in a district to the north of downtown, fairly affluent but not where the 'hot rich' that were further northwest lived. I vaguely remembered Laura telling me that a lot of University professors and employees lived in this area of Town. 

A fire truck and two electrical trucks were in front of the house, as well as several police cars. There was no power in the neighborhood; portable klieg lights lit up the back yard and deck like a football stadium during a night game.

"Electrocution, sir." Detective Cindy Ross replied. I looked into the hot tub of the back deck, wherein a naked woman was lying dead. She was a "big girl", voluptuous and big-boned heavy, but her belly wasn't blatantly fat. Her hair was wet, but I could tell it was not black but a dark red or auburn color. A fleeting thought crossed my mind that Lainie of my I.T. department was going to end up 'big' like this if she let herself go. I let that thought go as I noticed the plugged-in radio 'boom box' in the hot tub with the dead woman.

"Stop calling me 'sir', Cindy. And you did not call me here because a radio fell into this woman's hot tub." I observed. "What's the full story? And... why is Croyle here?" I'd just noticed Teresa Croyle talking to some uniformed officers on the other side of the deck, nearly hidden around the other side of the house.

"One bite at a time: her name is Dr. Michelle Schelle, say that three times fast." Cindy replied. "She's 43 years old, married, no children, and she's a professor at the University. English Department. Nicknamed 'Chelle Chelle'. Say that three times fast. Yes, that actually came up on Myron's record search."

"Call in Captain Maxwell of the Campus Police." I said. "Let's get her in here so she'll be up to speed from the get-go if we need to talk to people on Campus."

"You talking about me?" said Cpt. Britt Maxwell as she came up to us. The house's garage was at the front left, but to the right side of the house there were two long strips of concrete that ran to the backyard, and a large concrete pad in the back right corner of the yard. Along with the deck and hot tub, most of the back yard was consumed. Britt had walked up that driveway, as I had.

"I called her when I called you and found out the victim's occupation." Cindy Ross said, a bit too smoothly.

"Good job, Cindy. Yes, Britt, we're talking about you in the most inappropriate terms possible." I said, teasing her. I knew that Cindy had not called Britt... they'd been together when the call came in to Cindy, and the story was cover. Their interrupted liaison was not my concern at this point in time, of course. 

"And Teresa is here because of the pot sitting by the hot tub." Cindy continued, hoping to distract me from figuring out about her and Britt, which was way too late because I already knew. "You can see it right there, next to that big glass of wine. Apparently the woman was smoking the bong and drinking the wine. When the uniforms got here, they saw the pot and called in Croyle first, and she called me."

"I see." I said. I had already seen the marijuana, which is why I knew we might need Britt to talk to people on campus... about Dr. Schelle's drug use habits. 

"Thank God they didn't call Ikea." I said, a bit of a slip on my part which caused Cindy to smile. "So start from the top, chronologically." 

"Okay: the power company got an alarm of a major transformer blowout at 9:35pm. The transformer in front of this house was completely blown out, and it tripped a breaker at the substation, knocking out power to this entire area. The power company people got here along with some of our Town Police, and a neighbor said they heard something like a scream or yelp right at the time of the power outage. The police walked down the path and found the body. They didn't attempt to touch anything because they feared there might be a live wire somewhere, but the power company guys assured me that all power stopped when the transformer exploded. They also said that this was a 'no-shit' blowout." Cindy said.

"So why did you call me?" I asked.

"This one's right up your alley, Mr. Holmes." Cindy said, her voice level but the underlying teasing humor noticeable. "The plug-in that the radio is in was one of those breaker-types like those required in all kitchens and bathroom where there's water. You can see it there in the wall panel. The radio falling into the water would've tripped that, and then the breaker in the fuse box, and maybe then the main breaker to the house... but no way it blows the hell out of a transformer."

"And you're calling me 'Mr. Holmes', Sherlock?" I replied. Cindy almost successfully hid how pleased she was at the compliment in my return repartee. "So what did the power company peeps say about that?" She did not get a chance to answer. 

"Lieutenant!" I heard a voice call out. It was Patrolman Rudistan, accompanied by a short heavy-set man in the uniform and safety vest of the electric power company. I went over to them and introduced myself to him.

I asked "Is there any way you can keep the power to this house off while getting the rest of the neighborhood back up?"

"Yes sir." the man said, then explained what they'd have to do. "But we can have everything else back on in about an hour."

"That'll be great." I said. I did not want citizens to be deprived of power overnight and be reporting that to their Town Council representatives. "By the way, what do you make of this outage?"

"Never seen anything like it, sir." the power company man said. "Except for lightning strikes, maybe. I've never seen anything pull this much juice that it actually tripped at the substation."

I thanked the power company man and returned to the deck, looking at the fatal scene.

"Does this woman have family?" I asked Cindy. 

"Yes, her husband is Robert Schelle. He's 42 years old, they've been married about 20 years. He runs a consulting and contracting company, Schelle Electrical Engineering Services, 'S-E-E-S' for short."

"And where is he now?" I asked as I put on gloves and opened the doors underneath the hot tub.

"We're trying to find him. The cell phone number we have was not answered and I left a voicemail."

There was a small "shed" attached to the back corner of the house next to the path upon which I had walked up. The door was open and as I shined a flashlight in, I could see that the fusebox was inside... and there was scoring around the main fuse where it'd blown out from the shock. On the floor of the shed was a lawnmower, which I noted was run by electricity, not gasoline. Orange extension cords hung on the sides of the walls, and below the fuse box I noticed two electrical plug-in outlets. The acrid odor of an electrical short could still be smelled.

"If we weren't having decent weather," I said, as Cindy, Teresa and Britt gathered around me, "I'd say lightning struck this house or the transformer." And then my eyes fell on the concrete pad in the back yard. And I understood.

"Cindy, Teresa, put out the word. Everyone is to stop what they are doing and not touch anything! Is there a Crime Lab team here?" I asked.

"No." Cindy said. "Just a team from the Coroner's Office to handle the body."

"Call in a full Crime Lab team." I said, going into 'command' mode and giving crisp, clear orders. "Cindy, when they get here, have them check every one of these extension cords for exposed wiring. We've been walking up and down this path and have probably destroyed any evidence there, but look for anything that's been dropped or footprints that might have come from rubber-soled shoes. Look for tire tracks on this path leading up to the backyard, also.

"Teresa, I'd like you to take some of the uniformed guys here and start knocking on doors around here. I want to know if anyone saw any cars drive into this driveway or out of it. Anything out of the norm.

"Last, if we cannot contact the husband by midnight, put out an APB for him. We've absolutely got to find him ASAP."

"Okay boss, you gotta tell us what we're looking for here. What's going on?" Cindy said, trying hard to slow me down. Sometimes my mind ran ahead of everything and she was right that they needed to be brought up to speed. 

"This wasn't an accident." I said. "If I'm right,...

"And you always are..." Cindy replied mischievously but witheringly as I paused. I just looked back at her as I finished:

"...then this wasn't an accident. It's murder."

Part 4 - The Anthony Warner Crime Scene

At 10:20 I received a call on my cell phone. It was Crime Lab Supervisor Tanya Perlman. 

"The Crime Lab team is already here." I said as soon as I answered.



The Swap Ch. 01



"I know." said Tanya, "and they want to start examining the body but I thought you might want to see it first."

"Uhh, where are you?" I asked, realizing that we were talking at cross-purposes.

"River Valley Country Club, covered parking deck." Tanya said. "One of the members, an Anthony Warner, was shot in his car."

"Oh, wow." I said. "We've got a two-fer going on. I'll be there right away." I said.

Just then Cindy Ross came up with a crime lab technician. "We've got something." she said. The technician showed me one of the orange electrical cords. The insulation had been stripped to the bare wires just below the female end of the cord, and it was discolored around that end.

"Bag it." I said. "That is likely our murder weapon. Cindy, tape off and preserve that little shed area; post guards if you need to. I want to look more closely at it, but we may need the light of day to see anything in there. And also, I've got to go: there's been another murder in town. You're in charge here, and I'll try to get back as soon as I can."

"Another murder?" Cindy replied. "Hell of a Thursday night, already."

--------------------

"Whaddya got, Nash?" I asked as I walked up to the crime scene at 10:30. Our newest hire, Detective Martin Nash, was next to the car, an expensive Mercedes. Martin Nash was in his early 30s, about 5'10", slender, dark brown hair, his face slightly dimpled but otherwise handsome. He was dressed in a well-fitting suit and simply had the look of a quiet, competent law enforcement agent. His actions so far had borne out the look, and I hoped that with more time and experience his imagination and problem-solving abilities would come through.

"Dead man is Anthony Warner." Nash replied, quietly but confidently and firmly. "He's 48 years old, married, two kids in college. He's the CEO of DynaCorp, fairly big company in town, they do manufacturing consulting. His company's board was meeting here tonight... I'm told he has board meetings here fairly often so they can eat dinner. He's a member here at the Club."

"And one of the better-paying ones." I said. "This roofed parking area is reserved parking, and Warner's place here is close to the walk to the clubhouse. Takes hefty donations as well as dues to get one of these slots." The parking lot was to the left, almost hidden as one came to the large open parking space in front of the clubhouse. A separate side door and canopied walk led to the covered parking lot to keep those wealthy members dry as they went to their cars. "Sorry to interrupt you, Martin. What else?"

"There was a dinner and board meeting tonight." Nash replied. It lasted until nearly 10:00pm, then broke up after some chit-chatting. Mr. Warner was the only one of the board members parked in this lot; the others went out the front door to the main parking lot."

"Exactly how close to ten p.m. when the meeting ended?" I asked.

"Within five minutes of ten." Nash replied.

"Who discovered the crime?"

"Employee at the club. Looked out the window and saw the headlights of the car were on. Five minutes later, the car was still there with the headlights on, so he went out to check, and found Mr. Warner slumped over his car and lots of blood on the head, neck and back of the shirt. He ran back inside and they called us at 10:10pm."

I looked around, gathering the full scene into my mind. Hugh Hewitt was also at the scene, as was Tanya Perlman. And... oops... an agent of the State Bureau of Investigation, the SBI. 

His name was Ted Crenshaw. His hair looked like he used black shoe polish on both ends of him, or else that was a badly-fitting toupee. But he seemed to be decent enough, not the asshole that Dick Ferrell or Steven Ikea liked to be. Ted Crenshaw was in his mid- to late-thirties and had been in the City Police Force for several years. I was really hoping he was a product of the SBI's recent attempts to have better relationships with local constabularies.

"Agent Crenshaw, what brings you here?" I asked as I glanced at the crime scene. 

"Hello to you too, Lieutenant. I got a call from a club member. Your guys were already here and Detective Perlman threatened to whip my ass if I tried to call in a State Crime Lab team." Crenshaw said, his smile set and forced.

I laughed, but noted the tension. "Yes, it would be smart to let Supervisor Perlman and her Crime Lab teams do the job. So, is this Mr. Warner's Mercedes?" 

"Yes." said Martin Nash. "Looks like he got in the car, was turning the ignition on but did not actually crank it, and at that moment he was shot in the back of the head. The Lab guys have dusted the back door and inside the back seat for prints already."

I looked in the back seat, as the left rear door was open, and Detective Nash said that it was open when he arrived at the scene. He'd felt for a pulse from the dead man and found none; that was the only contact with the car by the police until the Crime Lab team got there.

The car was new and clean. I sat down on the seat, which had been covered by a plastic tarp and looked forward. I could see the back of the dead man's head as he was slumped forward over the steering wheel, his black, gently curling hair matted with bloodstains. Peering closely and shining my light onto the wounds, I could see the small bullet holes. There were four of them.

"Small caliber weapon." I said. "Agent Crenshaw, you worked Organized Crime when you were with the City Police, didn't you?"

"Sure did." he replied, not outwardly showing any sign of wondering how I knew that.

"Take a look and see if you're thinking what I'm thinking." I said. Agent Crenshaw peered into the car. It did not take him long. 

"Mob hit, I'd say." Crenshaw said. ".22 long rifle caliber, probably a revolver."

"Exactly." I said, then turned to my team. "You guys see something like this before?" All of them shook their heads no, so I asked Crenshaw to explain.

Crenshaw gave a good lecture: "One of the most common types of professional mob executions is for someone to wait in the backseat of a car or come up and get in just as the driver is getting in, then shoot the victim in the back of the head with a small-caliber pistol like a .22 long rifle, hopefully timing it with the cranking of the car. Not much noise, happens very fast, usually no one sees anything. In this case, it looks like the shots were fired before the victim actually cranked the car." He continued with a few examples from his past experiences.

"Is there anything that you could say is out of the ordinary about this particular shooting, Agent Crenshaw?" Martin Nash asked.

"Come to think of it..." Crenshaw replied, "four shots is a lot. Usually it's just one or two... bang-bang... and then the killer is gone. Also, this is a pretty quiet place, not like a parking lot in a mall with traffic. So the shots might have been more easily heard."

"What does that tell you, Martin?" I asked, immediately putting him to the test. 

"Amateur trying to make it look like a pro hit?" Martin ventured. Tanya nodded. 

"Totally agree." I said. Martin had passed my quick test. "Okay, I'll back out of the way and let the forensics people get to work. Have the grounds been secured?"

Detective Nash replied "The clubhouse area, this parking lot and the other parking lot have been secured. But there's a golf course behind the clubhouse and that's a lot of ground."

"That sucks. Any record of entries and exits?" I asked.

Tanya replied quickly "Officer Feeley is at the guardhouse up front. He's getting that information now."

Just then Officer Pete Feeley arrived. I did not fail to notice how he looked at Tanya Perlman as he walked up.

"Lieutenant, I've got all the names of everyone who went in or out of the gate for the last 24 hours, and they've secured the video footage for the last 24 hours for us, also." Officer Feeley said. He was extremely efficient in gathering evidence and information, I thought, but just did not have the imagination needed to bring the fruit of solving a case from that data. 

He continued: "Most of the DynaCorp board members had left already, but one, the Vice Chairman, is still here. He wants to go home, so I told him you'd be here as soon as possible."

"Okay, good job." I said. "Feeley, make sure you get any video of any surveillance inside the clubhouse and around the grounds, too. Call in for a warrant if you need to."

"Yes sir." Feeley said, then stalked off.

"Martin, Hugh, go inside and conduct the interview with the board member who is here, then let him go home... unless he confesses to the murder, of course." I said. "Ted, let's you and I walk our way back along the path Mr. Warner came out." 

There was not much to see, especially in the dark. As I returned to the car, I said to Tanya Perlman "This is going to be tough at night, but see if there are any paths leading away from here to the back of the clubhouse or onto the golf course, and see if you can find something... anything. We'll wait until dawn to really search the grounds, but try the cart paths. Damn.... really sucks having to do this at night, and with another murder sucking up half my manpower."

"That's why they pay you the big bucks, Lieutenant." Tanya replied, needling me hard. I love my team, I love my team, I love my team, I kept reminding myself...

My cellphone rang. It was Cindy Ross. "The husband just got back home, and we may have a neighbor that witnessed a car leaving."

"I'll be right there." I replied. "Don't let the husband into the house until I get there."

Part 5 - The Electric Company

At 11:05pm, I pulled up to the Schelle residence in my black Police SUV, which the Chief insisted I drive because the glass was bulletproof and because of the potential threats against me by Ned as well as the Sergei Molotov gang. One good thing was that it had a portable computer inside, as did many squad cars, and I was able to read Myron's quick research on the husband before getting out of the car.

Robert Schelle was an electrical engineer and was the owner of S.E.E.S., LLC., a consulting engineering firm. His current major client was Ward Harvester... that gave me a shudder as I thought of what had transpired there those months ago. Meanwhile, Schelle's business was small and unspectacular, only a few other employees, and Myron had added a note to the file saying he was digging further into their finances. 

As I got out of the car, Cindy Ross came hurrying up to me. 

"Across the street neighbor's kid may have seen something." Ross informed me. "I told them you might want to talk to them when you got here and they've been waiting up. Kid is very excited about meeting the 'Iron Crowbar', by the way." 

I went with Ross to the house across the street, which appeared from the outside to be a bit bigger and nicer than the Schelle's. A young man opened the door at our knock, dressed in a bathrobe and Crocs. 

"Oh wow, the Iron Crowbar!" the kid exclaimed as I was introduced to him. 



"Hi Ryan." I said. "You're on the football team at Town High, aren't you?" I asked. 

"Yes sir!" Ryan said, clearly impressed. "First string!" 

"You're a Senior there?" I asked.

"Yes sir." he replied. Just then his mother walked up, who Cindy introduced to me as Marlena. She was wearing a heavy bathrobe also, and high heel slides. Even through the bathrobe I could tell she had nice breasts and one hell of a hot MILF body. Her legs and feet were gorgeous, and in spite of myself I felt a stirring in my loins.

"I won't waste much of your time, so you can get to bed." I said. "Thanks for waiting up for me. Ryan, we can talk on the front porch here." We stepped outside. "Now tell me what you saw."

"Well, sir, I saw sparks and light and heard a sound, and it must've been the transformer across the street. I looked out the window and saw the power was out everywhere. I was turning back when I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye a car pull out of the Schelle's RV driveway and go that way." He pointed to his right.

"Did you get a license plate?" I asked.

"No sir, sorry." Ryan said. "In fact.... I don't think it had a license plate, like one of those new cars with temp tags or something."

"That's an important clue, Ryan." I said in my most complimentary voice, then turned to face the house. "So which window did you see this from?" Ryan pointed to the upstairs window in the middle of the house.

"That's my bedroom, sir." he said. Out of the corner of my eye I was observing Marlena, Ryan's mom. She was a hottie and her legs were en fuego in the high heels, but my observations were more professional. She was definitely staring at Ryan and myself with concern... and I was sure there was more to it than just motherly love for a son.

"Ryan, I need to make sure of this: did you see this car pull out immediately after the transformer blew?"

"Uhhh, well..." Ryan said, hesitating. "It might have been a minute later. I was sort of looking out the window and my mom shouted something to me, and I might have seen it looking out a second time. I... it's kinda hard to remember exactly."

"That's fine, Ryan, people rarely remember the tiny stuff like that. But you've been very helpful tonight, and I want to thank you for your information." I said. Turning to his mother, I asked "Ma'am, is your husband at home? Did he see anything?

"No, sir, he's away on a business trip." she said, naming the company he worked for. I thanked her and headed back across the street. 

"So Ross, what did you observe of them?" I said.

"Nothing out of the ordinary." Ross said. "So what did I miss?"

"Two things caught my curiosity." I said. "Did you hear Ryan affirm that he's on the football team? And do you think he's a good looking young man?" 

"Yes, I heard, and he's not bad looking." Cindy said. "Of course I see things like that about the way you do."

"Yeah." I replied. "So this good looking kid, who I also happen to know is pretty popular in school, isn't out with friends or on a hot date on a Friday night?"

"With his father out of town," Cindy said, "he may have been asked to stay at home."

"True enough. Good thought." I said, then continued. "Secondly, did you observe how his mother was dressed?"

"Yes, and there is something amiss there, but I'm not sure what it is." Cindy replied.

"She's wearing a bathrobe as if she was in bed, but her high heels are not slippers... they're meant to be worn with dressy clothes." I said. "I might be totally off-base, but I think she's been wearing those heels all night."

"Oh my goodness." Cindy said, making the connection. "I think you're having dirty thoughts again. Have you been hanging out with that sex professor in spite of my warnings?"

"You betcha." I replied, grinning, my heart warmed by the thought of Laura.

"So what does this mean?" Cindy asked. "Do you think he really saw something?"




"Yes." I said, "but that's why I asked so specifically about the time. Someone took the time to put the damaged extension cord back into the closet. So the car didn't leave within seconds of the transformer blowout, which we may take as the time of death. Young Ryan probably looked out, talked to his mom and maybe she looked out the window, then he looked again and happened to catch the car driving away."

"What do you make of the car having no plates?"

"Rental. Okay, here's what we're going to do with Mr. Schelle..."

------------------------------




Robert Schelle was 5'9" or so in height, fairly slender and in decently good shape, especially for his 42 years of age. He had chestnut brown hair which right now was cut fairly short, and he had a scruff of facial shrubbery that showed he was trying to grow (or re-grow I suspected) his beard. He came across to me as someone who liked the outdoors but was not rugged. He seemed rather milquetoast to me as I was introduced to him.

"Thank you for waiting for me to get here, Mr. Schelle. I'm very sorry for your loss." I said, throwing the standard line out to a spouse of a recently deceased crime victim. 

"Do you have any idea what happened? Was it some kind of accident?" Robert Schelle said. He was trying to implant that idea into my head immediately, I noticed.

"We have no real idea yet, sir. With your permission of course, I would like to go into the house with you and have you check to see if anything is missing."

"I can go do that now."

"I'd like to come inside with you, if I may."

"Uhh... don't you need a warrant for that?" Schelle asked. Most police officers would immediately consider that to be suspicious, but I knew that the man's wife was a University professor and might have no love for the police, and that more and more people were cautious of police...and I couldn't say I blamed them. 

"Well, we certainly could get a warrant, Mr. Schelle." I said. "And if we find anything that we might have to take as evidence, then I certainly would get a warrant just to keep things clean and on the level. But I just want you to see if anything is missing, and I just want to get an idea of your wife's way of living."

Schelle considered it, then finally said "Okay, let's go." We entered his home through the front door. The kitchen and back door to the deck were in back, the small dining room to the front right. To the front left was a large den. 

"No, I seriously doubt that anything was stolen." I said to Cindy Ross as we entered the room. There was a full 55" plasma TV screen on the far wall, several devices to play movies in both tape and DVD format, and a full sound system. The brown leather sofa was heavy and comfy, and several blankets were strewn about it. A laptop computer was on the table next to the sofa.

"Is this your wife, Mr. Schelle?" Cindy asked, looking at pictures over the fireplace mantle, as I'd previously instructed her to do. I looked at the picture as Robert Schelle confirmed that it was. It showed the Schelles at various vacation spots, on hiking and canoeing trips. What was amazing was that Michelle Schelle, while still voluptuous and curvy, was once in excellent physical shape. She had let herself go a bit in the last few years.

"Yes." Robert Schelle said in answer to Cindy's question. "She and I were very active years ago, but the last few years she lost interest as she pursued her work interests."

"Where is your RV, Mr. Schelle?" I asked, purposefully in a sudden manner as I looked at the tapes and DVDs stored on shelves near the electronic equipment.

"Uh, I sold it about four months ago." Schelle replied. "We weren't using it much anymore, so I took a friend up on an offer to buy it from me. How did you know I used to have one?" 

"Oh, the driveway and parking spot in the backyard. Oh-- I see you like old movies." I said. "Casablanca.... some Alfred Hitchcock thrillers..."

"My wife used to like those." Schelle said. "But like everything else, since she really threw herself into her work the last couple of years, she didn't watch them much any more."

"Did your wife keep an office here at home?"

"Yes, she turned the sitting room in the master bedroom into her office." Schelle said. I was familiar with sitting rooms inside bedrooms; Melina had liked the sitting room in our house in Midtown before we moved up here. We headed upstairs to the bedrooms.

The master bedroom was composed, with only a dress lying on the bed as a display of any untidiness. I surmised that Mrs. Schelle had undressed to prepare for her hot tub session.

"Did your wife use the hot tub often, Mr. Schelle?" I asked, ever changing the subject, trying to keep him from guessing the direction of my questions and thus be able to throw a prepared answer.

"Every Friday night." Mr. Schelle said. "With or without me."

We turned right to enter the sitting room, which actually was another bedroom joined by a walk-through closet. It was indeed Mrs. Schelle's retreat. The desk was littered with papers. There was a relatively small flat-screen TV and DVD player, and I noted on the desk that there were several DVDs, all with home-made labels.




The Swap Ch. 01



*BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!

It was Mr. Schelle's cell phone, which he drew out of the left pocket of his pants. I looked around as he talked.

"Thank you for calling." he said. "I appreciate it... yes... look, I'm talking with the police right now... can I call you back?... I appreciate you calling." He hung up. "That was a friend of mine, just heard about Michelle."

"News travels fast." I replied. "By the way, what are these?" I asked, pointing to the DVDs on his dead wife's desk.

"Taped speeches and practice dissertations of her students." Mr. Schelle said. "She spent considerable time watching them."

"Was she popular with her students?" I asked.

"Yes, she had several grad students working for her and they'd come here from time to time. They all seemed to like her a lot."

"No enemies that you can think of?" 

"No, no one."

"How was your relationship with your wife, sir?" I asked. Cindy was watching and listening carefully as we headed back downstairs and outside.

"It was fine." Schelle said. "Like I said before, she'd been really busy with work the last several months, but we had no real problems."

"No fights, no arguments, no money problems?" I said, my eyes boring into his.

"No sir, nothing to speak of. Of course, who hasn't got money troubles in today's economy, but we were doing okay." he replied, matching my glance, a bit too studied and forced.

"Where were you tonight, Mr. Schelle? My officers tell me you didn't get here until about 10:45."

"Yes, I was at a meeting with some clients." Schelle said. "It went from about 7:30 to about 9:45. I had some problems with my tire having low air, so I put some air in the tire with the hand pump, then stopped and checked it a couple of times on the way to make sure it was okay, and pumped it up a second time." Schelle gave me the names of his clients and the people that were there.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Schelle. I'm told by the power company that there is a small but real danger of a possible fire after such a huge electric shock. I'm sure as an electrical engineer you understand that. So I'd like you to pack a quick bag and stay at the University Hotel tonight, and we'll pick you up in the morning."

"Er, uh, yes. Er, sure." Schelle said. He seemed to be discomfited by that. But there was no way I was allowing him to stay here while this residence was still a crime scene. 

Part 6 - Family Ties

"Mr. Warner's wife and sister are here." Martin Nash told me as I entered the MCD room at Headquarters at midnight. "They're in Interrogation-Alpha."

There were two sets of interrogation rooms in HQ, each with the safety system that forbade doors to both sides be opened at once. The rooms used to interrogate perps were in the booking and holding-cell area, numbered "1", "2", "3", and were painted cold jail gray. The rooms where citizens were brought in were near the front "public" section, which also contained the Media briefing room. These were lettered "A", "B", "C" and were nicely painted and wood paneled. "Alpha" was the military word to designate the letter "A".

"They came here?" I asked.

"Yes, sir. It seems they thought Hugh and I were a bit young, so they said, and they asked for a sergeant." Nash said, a hint of a bemused smile on his face.

"Not knowing that Detectives around here are already higher level than sergeants. Oh well, I can give them a full Lieutenant. Come with me." I said.

------------------

"You're a Lieutenant?! At your age?!?!" Mrs. Anthony Warner asked, openly shocked.

"Yes ma'am." I said. "And you should see the Captain of the University Police."

"You must be the youngest police department in the country!" Mrs. Warner said. I didn't acknowledge that we indeed had a young police force, with many senior positions filled by able but young officers. In the meantime I observed her and her companion.

Karla Warner was an attractive woman of 36. She had raven black hair combed back into a rather old-school style. She had rather square shoulders and a belly that was losing its previous trimness. I noted that her arms and legs looked to be toned and strong, as if she worked out quite a bit. 

Katherine Warner Wilson was the deceased's sister. She was very slender, what I'd call "willowy" with thin arms and legs, but she had a nice figure and she wore her light brown hair straight. She had a pretty, open face with large ovals for her eyes and mouth. Her nose was slender and looked long on her face. She didn't look a lot like her brother, I noted, but then again I don't look a lot like my sister Elizabeth... thank goodness for Elizabeth.

"So my detectives found you at the Ladies Auxiliary gathering?" I asked.

"Yes." said Karla Warner, the wife. "We'd been there all evening, and were helping to clean up."

"And you were there particularly between 10:00 and 10:30pm? Both of you together?" 

"Yes." said Karla.

"Tell me about your husband, please."

Karla Warner said that her husband was an aggressive man who had built up his company, DynaCorp, from a small floundering entity into a large, successful concern. He and Karla had been married for nearly fifteen years, and he'd formally adopted her two children, Seth and Karen, upon marrying her.

"Did Mr. Warner have any enemies that you know of? Anyone in business or his personal life that might want to kill him?" I asked.

Mrs. Warner considered for a moment before answering. "I think I should tell you this, since you'll find out anyway: my husband was a very competitive man, both in business and in his personal life. He loved playing tennis and golf, but increasingly had trouble finding others to play with because he was so competitive with them; he didn't know what a 'friendly' game was and so alienated a lot of people. I don't know that anyone would want to kill him over that, but he did get into arguments with people over small things in tennis matches and such."

"He was like that in business also?" I asked.


"Oh yes, very much so." she replied. "He wanted to buy out Mr. Olivet's business after Mr. Olivet died, but he pushed Mrs. Olivet so hard on it that she went in another direction. He was pretty upset about that."

"Do either of you work in his company?" Martin Nash asked.

"I did some sales work with my husband from time to time," Karla Warner replied, "but I mostly spent my time raising the children."

"And you, Mrs. Wilson?" Nash said, pressing the up-to-now silent, reticent Katherine.

"I'm on the DynaCorp board." she replied. "I've been with the company since Anthony bought it. I've been the Marketing Coordinator for several years."

"Were there any problems between either of you and Mr. Warner?" Nash asked. Both women said that there were not. 

"No arguments, no money problems, no affairs?" Nash pressed.

"No." Karla Warner said. "No money problems, and I haven't dated another man since Anthony asked me out the first time. He was very kind to me, as well as to my two children."

In response to our glance at her, Katherine Wilson said "No. No problems with him."

"He never complained about anyone you were dating or anything?" Nash asked Katherine.

"No, I don't date very many men since my divorce some years ago; I've been too busy with the job. Anthony was very demanding at work. He was fair, but he asked a lot of his people."

"Anyone at work that might resent that? Or business associate, or competitor? Anyone with any reason to take action against him?" Martin Nash asked. I liked the way he was probing Katherine Wilson to get some truth out of her.

"No, not that I can think of." Mrs. Wilson replied.

"What about the two of you... are you friends with each other?" I asked. Karla Warner's face showed no change, but Katherine Wilson's lit up.

"Yes, Katherine and I have been best friends since we met, through Anthony of course." Karla replied. "We do many things together, especially with my children having grown up and her divorce setting her free.

I then threw this incisive question, very hard: "Mrs. Wilson, it is our understanding that your brother was conducting a meeting of the DynaCorp Board tonight. Were you not at this meeting?"

Katherine Wilson's mouth fell open in total shock. "What?... I... I had no idea there was a board meeting tonight." She looked at Karla, her eyes flashing, then regained her composure. Karla had not lost her composure the way her sister had; her eyes did not show the same level of shock. Either she is good at keeping her emotions, I thought, or she knows something.

"So you didn't know that there was a meeting, nor what it might have been about?"

"No. This... this is the first I'm hearing of anything like that." Mrs. Wilson replied. There was anger as well as bewilderment in her eyes.

Just then the door on the public side to the room opened, and the desk sergeant looked in.

"Sorry sir, but there's a young lady out here who is nearly hysterical, and claims to be Mrs. Warner's daughter--" At that moment, Karen Warner burst past the desk sergeant.

"Mom! Is it true? Is Dad dead?" she squealed, her tear-stained face a mask of shock and horror.

"Yes, dear, I'm afraid so." Mrs. Warner replied, getting up and taking her daughter into her arms and hugging her. 

As they cried and shared this most painful of moments, I said to the desk sergeant "Show them out when they're ready, Sergeant. Ladies, we're finished here if you'd like to go home. I'll contact you tomorrow with any new information we obtain."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Katherine Wilson said. Nash and I had to exit out the public side since the door to the rest of headquarters wouldn't open, and we went around through the lobby.

"So Nash," I said as we headed to the MCD room. "What did you think of those ladies?"

"I was surprised you didn't push harder about Mrs. Wilson not being at the board meeting." Nash said.

"Ah, good observation." I said. "Teachable moment: I intend to find out through other means what the board meeting was about, and then I'll come back to her later when I know something." Nash nodded, understanding my reasoning. "What else did you notice?" I asked.

"Mrs. Warner was definitely the stronger of the two. She was in control. Mrs. Wilson constantly was looking to her for support, if not actual answers."

"Excellent!" I said. "Anything further you can extrapolate from that?"

"No... did I miss anything?" Nash asked, concerned.

"No, but think more about it tonight. They're an interesting... couple." I replied, giving Nash about as strong a clue as I could without outright saying anything. "I think we should really look into them and their relationships with Mr. Warner."

"Yes, sir, but they seem to have an alibi for the time Mr. Warner was murdered."


"True, but you know what I think of alibis. We'll confirm their stories tomorrow, but they could always have hired someone."


"I guess my job tomorrow will be those confirmations?" Nash said.

"Yes, but I want to go with you when we talk with Myrtle L. James, head of the Ladies Auxiliary. She's a powerful woman in this town, a member of the University Board of Regents. She's someone you should get to know, and I'll introduce you to her."

"Thank you, sir." Martin said.

"Stop calling me 'sir'." I said. "And go home and get some sleep. You too, Ross." I said to Cindy as she tried to sneak up behind me.

"Practice what you preach, brother." she replied. "Go home and get some sleep... or watch an old movie or something."

"An old movie..." I said, then became lost in thought. 

"Uh oh, look at it, Martin: I've seen that look before." Cindy said. "Penny for your thoughts, Don?"

I broke out of the reverie. "Just that I like your idea about watching an old movie... I think I will indeed go do that. Good night, Cindy. Night, Martin. Great job today." I said as I walked out the door.

To be continued.



The Swap Ch. 02



The order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series.

The Swap series

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

There is almost no sex in this chapter. However, Chapter 3 is going to be all mind-blowing sex, so stay tuned!



Part 7 - Stand By For NEWS!

My mind was too energized and I only got a couple of hours of sleep before going back down to Headquarters at 5:00am Friday morning... but it was not the crimes that had me on an adrenalin rush. But more on that later.

I began digesting data from the overnight crime scene reports, and I began the "whiteboards": the MCD room (and the Vice room as well) had large, moveable whiteboards, upon which we posted photos and made notes of the cases as we worked on them. I also emailed instructions to MCD Detectives for them to work on the next morning, and I made my "to do" list of the things I needed to accomplish today. 

At 6:00am the Chief called me into his office and I briefed him on both cases. I also asked that our 7:30am conference have all Detectives in and we talk both cases at the same time. That way if an officer became ill or -- perish forbid -- something happened, then we could bring others up to speed much faster. The chief agreed.

You know what 7:00am brings: Bettina!

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" the lovely redhead reporterette exclaimed. "Not one but two murders in Town last night have our Police Force stretched to the limit in their investigations! Channel Two News has learned that Mr. Anthony Warner, CEO of DynaCorp, was found dead in his car at the River Valley Country Club last night just after 10:00pm. He appears to have been murdered, but Town Police have not confirmed the details of how Mr. Warner was killed, citing their desire to wait for the upcoming Medical Examiner's autopsy, and the Coroner's Department has also declined to give us a statement. Channel Two News has also learned that Mr. Warner's widow, Karla Warner, and his sister, Katherine Warner Wilson, were interviewed by police officers at the Headquarters building very late last night."

Geez, Bettina, you make it sound like we hauled them in and tortured them, I thought.

"In an unrelated event, a power outage in the Kensington subdivision in the north part of Town led to the discovery of the body of Dr. Michelle Schelle, a University English professor. Sources close to the investigation have told Channel Two News that Police consider Dr. Schelle's death by electrocution in her hot tub to be suspicious. The police have not confirmed that, nor have they confirmed that the electrical shock to the hot tub was the reason for the localized power outage, but sources tell Channel Two News that a search of the Schelle home was conducted, and that police interrogated the deceased's husband, Robert Schelle, an electrical engineer and owner of S.E.E.S., LLC., an electrical consulting firm."

Way to go, Bettina, I thought. Just throw the poor bastard under the bus and raise suspicions about him, even though he appears to have an alibi. Now everyone will wonder if he did it, and if he didn't... how the hell does he get his reputation back, since I doubt 'Channel Two News' is going to do a damn thing to redeem him...

Have I mentioned that I am anything but a fan of the Press?

Bettina was not finished. "Although stretched by a shortage of Detective manpower, the MCD's recently promoted Lieutenant, Donald--" 

Yeah, butter me up, Bettina, I thought as she clearly stated my name... 

"-- is said to be handling both cases, giving us some hope that both will be resolved soon. Channel Two News will bring you more information just as soon as it becomes available to us. This is Bettina Wurtzburg, reporting for KXTC..."

Sheesh, I thought to myself. As I looked around the MCD room, I noted that Cindy Ross, Martin Nash, Hugh Hewitt and Teresa Croyle had quietly come into the room, making a game of sneaking in on me. They were drinking coffee as they watched the news, and at least Cindy Ross was smart enough to have my coffee mug full. 

"You heard her, Lieutenant." Cindy said, her voice full of sarcasm as she handed me the mug of steaming coffee, the elixir of Life. "You give us hope." She knew as I did what Bettina was trying to do, and she was having fun with it... and me.

"She gives me heartburn." I replied, my voice a grumble. The coffee tasted very good in spite of it.

"She gives me ulcers." the Chief said, coming into the MCD room, "Don, you're off the cases."

"What!" I said, whirling around in my swivel chair.

"I want you to work full time on discovering who the hell is giving that woman all that information!" said the Chief. "I want to know how in the hell she is getting so much stuff so soon after it's happened. You give me hope, Lieutenant!"

Then the chief broke into a grin. "I'm just kidding. Solve these damn cases first. You do give me hope on that!" Everyone else laughed, especially at my shock and having fallen for the Chief's ruse. 

I just love my police buddies, I just love my police buddies, I just love my police buddies...

Part 8 - Acquisition of Information

The 7:30am meeting was a re-hash of what we knew, but it served the purposes of getting the chief up to speed and cross-informing the teams. I gave instructions to each team to verify the alibis and try to get any information as to who might have motives to kill these people. I asked Cpt. Maxwell to have her Campus Police cadets work with her to interview Dr. Schelle's grad students and other professors that knew her; it would be good training for them to work with her.

"What are you going to do?" Chief Griswold asked me.

"I am going to go interview an extremely confidential source within the University's Department of Psychology." I said. Everyone laughed, knowing that my extremely confidential source was my beloved Dr. Laura Fredricson. 

"And I am also going to talk to another extremely confidential source to get some info on what the DynaCorp board was meeting about. Oh, that reminds me, Paula..." I said to ADA Paulina Patterson, who had joined our meeting in progress, "I suspect we're going to have to get a warrant to get the DynaCorp board's minutes, of last night's meeting as well as previous ones, and the financial records of the company. Might as well make it a broad warrant for everything DynaCorp-related. The Vice Chairman, Old Mr. Willoughby, was much less than cooperative when Martin and Hugh interviewed him last night."

"Tell me about that." said the Chief.

"Sir," said Martin Nash, "he was nice enough, but said he couldn't talk about the Board meeting because it was confidential and also an executive session about employees."

"He wouldn't say anything at all." Hugh Hewitt added. "Wouldn't talk about Warner, or who might have wanted to kill him. Willoughby would not even tell us who was at the meeting, nor any noticeable absences."

"And I think we know the reason why." I said. "Anthony Warner's sister is on the board, but apparently was not invited to the meeting, nor did she know about it. That's why I'm going to go 'backchannel' and try to get a hold of what happened in the meeting."

"Go to it." the chief said. "And everyone... you guys did great work last night. All of you. Two murders in two different areas at the same time... and it's not like we have the manpower of the City Police. Keep at it, and let me know what I can do to help."

"Dinner at The Steakhouse, tab paid?" Cindy chimed in. The Steakhouse was best but also the most exclusive steakhouse restaurant in the County, and very expensive. Everyone laughed.

"Solve this case, Ross, and dinner's on me." the Chief said. Everyone cheered.

Just then my cell phone buzzed. I answered it, knowing it was important.

"That was Tanya Perlman." I said as I hung up. "They've found something at the Country Club. Martin, Hugh, you're with me."

------------------------ 

The car had already been removed to the Police impound yard when I arrived at the covered parking lot. Tanya Perlman and Pete Feeley were there, and it was obvious they'd been up all night.

"As you can see in the daylight," Tanya said, "there's a little cart path from here to the back of the building. Get in this golf cart, and I'll drive you." Pete Feeley stood on the back of the cart as Tanya drove me along the path. Martin and Hugh followed in a second golf cart provided to us by the Club.

"Okay, it goes around the side of the clubhouse here," Tanya said, "and you can see where golf players can load their carts. The path to the first tee of the course goes off to the right, and the practice range is right in front of us. But what's not easy to see is this path to the left." Tanya took the turn which led to the far end of the practice area. At the very far end, over a hundred yards later, I could see the fence that marked the property border. Nets kept golf balls from going off the property.

We drove past the practice range and Tanya resumed her demonstration. "Okay, the path slants to the right here, back towards the course over there. This is a maintenance path, and not used very much. But if go over here," she continued, suiting the deed to her words as we veered left onto the soft pine straw under the tall pine trees, "you can see as we approach the fence there is some brush here. And that's where we found this."

We drove up and saw Crime Lab personnel on the other side of a thicket of bushes. A golf cart had been well hidden there, and the Lab team were dusting for prints, finding none.

"Over here," Tanya continued, leading us to the fence, "you can see the fence is breached. It's been cut, and someone pushed their way out."

I examined the cut fencing closely, noting it had been held together by a metal clip after being cut, but the clip was on the ground.

"What do you make of this, Officer Feeley?" I asked, testing the young officer as I pointed to the cut links of metal. He wanted to be a Detective, let's see if he was able to detect what I had observed.

"Looks like someone cut the fence and escaped through here to the neighborhood out there. It's not a gated community, so a car could've been parked here."

"Yes, very good, Feeley, but what do you make of this metal, of the cut in the fencing?" I said. Feeley didn't see it.

"Martin, Hugh? What do you think?" I asked. The Detectives came over and looked.

"That cut doesn't look very fresh." Martin Nash said. "Looks like someone came along earlier, as in days ago, cut the fence, used that metal clip to hold it together, then came through here last night after murdering Mr. Warner."

"Exactly." I said. "Excellent, Martin." I was impressed with him. I noticed that Pete Feeley still looked blank, and Tanya Perlman looked a little downcast: she knew Pete had failed that test.

"And this fence cut days ago tells us?" I asked, letting the sentence hang.

"Preparation of the objective." Hugh Hewitt said, using somewhat military language. "This was done in accordance with a plan created days in advance, which was to murder Mr. Warner here at this location."

"Yes." I said. "And that means that the killer not only planned to strike here, but he knew these grounds well enough to plan his escape location, navigate the grounds at night, -AND- he knew Warner's schedule, that Warner would be here in the near future."

I turned to my Detectives: "Hugh, Martin, go on back and go to DynaCorp. You guys!" I said, getting the Lab Team's attention. "How long have you been on duty?"

"We came on duty this morning." the chief technician replied. "We got called out here just a little while ago."

"Good enough, keep at it. You two..." I said, pointing fingers at Pete and Tanya. "You've been up all night. I can tell. Go home. Go directly home, do not pass 'Go', do not collect two hundred dollars. If I see you at work before 3:00pm I will fire both your asses. Move out."

No, I couldn't fire them, but the message was clear. And the Crime Lab noticed that I was taking care of my people. Always a good thing to take care of one's good people.

-------------------------

I had appointments with Myrtle L. James at 10:30am and with Laura for lunch at noon. I left the River Valley Country Club and at 8:45 arrived at the Country Breakfast Diner, located on the west side of town, just south of the Fairgrounds. The diner had the reputation of being the best breakfast in town, and many of the farmers with farms west of the railroad tracks and the river came here, as did all the old geezers... and businessmen savvy enough to know they might pick up some good "scoop" here.

Upon entering, I was greeted with a surprising number of congratulations from people over my recent promotion. I knew I had to spend time showing my appreciation, so it took a couple of minutes of shaking hands to get to my destination. I felt like a politician as I waded along the full tables, but it was a real politician I was here to see.

John "Jack" Colby was was a member of the Town & County Council, from one of the County districts. He was no-nonsense, only ran for office to try and bring some common sense to that political body, and didn't brook stupidity very well. He had been one of my staunchest allies from the beginning, pushing hard for my hiring and for my early promotion to Lieutenant. 

He was tall, slender, definitely a ranchhand in his dress, looks and demeanor. Ranching was his hobby; he'd made a lot of money over the years in cattle futures and business deals, and he was semi-retired at age 50. I knew that he owned this diner and that he owned The Steakhouse restaurant as well, which explained the excellent quality of both. 

His mustache was large, like Chief Griswold's, but his was still brown and not grayed like the long-suffering police chief's. But the most surprising aspect of Mr. Colby was the shock at first of hearing the deep baritone voice that seemed to boom from his not-so-large body. 

"Well, if it ain't the Iron Crowbar." he said, as if surprised, greeting me as I came up to the table. "Congratulations on your promotion, young man. Have a seat, have a seat." I took the seat after shaking his hand. 

"If you don't start calling me 'Jack', I'm going to take that crowbar from you and use it on you." he said after I called him 'sir'. I acquiesced as the waitress, a heavy-set friendly woman, set a delicious breakfast of eggs, grits, biscuits and gravy, bacon, and coffee in front of me. "Compliments of me." said Jack Colby.

"Thank you, Jack. I'm afraid I'm here on official business, and asking for a favor." I said.

"Is it about Warner?" he asked. As I nodded, he said. "I figured you might come over. That's why I told Mabel that we were expecting you, and to have your breakfast ready to go. What can I do for you?"

"I understand you are on the DynaCorp board?" I asked.

"Yep. I'm not involved with it much, but after those Enron laws were passed, Anthony Warner asked me to be an outside member of his board. He's an ass sometimes, but he's a good businessman and we'd done deals before, so we sat on each other's boards."

"Were you at last night's board meeting?" I asked.

"Sure was. You here on background?" Jack Colby asked, knowing what was coming.

"Yes." I said. "My officers talked to the Vice Chairman, Mr. Willoughby, last night. He wouldn't talk to us without a warrant. Of course I'll go through official channels and get the warrant to get the minutes and financial stuff, but--"

"But you wouldn't mind hearing something unofficially from me." Colby said, his deep voice rich and resonant in its amusement. "No wonder you get the results you do... you get the answers before doing anything. You sure you haven't been taking lessons from Bettina Wurtzburg?" 

I laughed, knowing I was being tested. "Well, I don't go on TV blabbing what I find out and making the Chief have heart attacks." I said. Colby nodded, understanding fully what I was saying... about my ability to keep secrets as well as about the Chief.

"Well, as long as it stays in the background, I'll tell you what you want to know. Willoughby is a frickin' idiot, and so are the in-house lawyers. Yeah, we all know you need a warrant, we all know you'll get one, but they'll try to waste your valuable time. What exactly do you want to know about?"


"What was last night's meeting about, and who was there and not there." I said. Colby again understood.

"Who was not there is who you are interested in." he replied. "Katherine Warner Wilson, the dead man's sister, was not in attendance, nor was Beatrice York."


"The University Regent? She's on the Board?" I asked. Beatrice S. York was one of the religious types, friend of Pastor Westboro and Steven Ikea.

"Yep." Colby replied. "Anthony Warner was a fierce competitor and a hard man, definitely a dick at times, but he was an honest and fair man, gave to various church charities around here, and Beatrice York has been a benefactor of his for years. Careful you don't step on her toes."

"I appreciate that." I said. "So the meeting was about Katherine Wilson, I gather?"

"You do." said Colby. "Basically Warner called the meeting, and only the five Board members who attended were informed about it. Beatrice York may have known, but she was being honored at another function. And the reason for the meeting was that Anthony Warner wanted to remove his sister from the Board and fire her from his company. He gave us his reasons, they were sound, and we voted unanimously to do so."

"Think she might've known about it?" I asked.

"I don't know, but my guess is that she didn't."

"What about Warner's wife, Karla? She and Katherine Wilson are BFFs."

"Again, no idea, but I doubt it."


"How about the finances of the company? Anything I should know there?"

"Company was doing okay, they're sound financially. Willoughby is a decent CPA and the books are good. But you know how this economy is, and Anthony Warner wasn't happy with status quo. He thought his sister's marketing campaigns had lost their edge and he wanted to make a change, and he didn't let blood get in the way of making a business decision. I have to say, I think he was doing the right thing: she couldn't hold up to the pressure he had begun putting her under."

"Any fights between Anthony and his wife or his sister?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. Wife didn't do much with the business, just kept her nose in it enough to keep abreast of what was going on. The sister never argued with her brother; he was too overpowering and she's not all that strong-willed."

"Thank you, Mr. Colby, and thank you for the breakfast." I said, preparing to get up.

"Before you go, how about some information in return?" Jack Colby asked. As I sat back into my chair, he asked, "Tell me how things are going in the Police Department. The Chief thinks there are moles in it. Have you rooted any out?"

"Well, Sergeant Carroll and Patrolman Delmar have found it necessary to find jobs in other police departments far away from here. Right now I can see the spine of the problem, the outline of it, but I haven't gotten my head fully around it yet. I thought there might be a drug ring connection, but I haven't gotten a thread to pull on, so far."




The Swap Ch. 02



"Let me just say this, on background, friend to friend." Colby said, his voice as low and quiet as he could get it. "There's an election for Sheriff next year, and certain 'unfavorable' elements intend to run for the post, and they have some strong support on the Council and with the Regents. If they win, Griswold is finished, you probably are, too, and God knows how corrupt the Police Force might become. As I see it, you've got about one year to get the Police Department cleaned out."

"Anything you can tell me, any guidance?" I asked.


"Nope, that's why you're here. I wish I did know, so I could help you with it. But it's you that have the digging tools, and you're going to have to dig deep to root this one out. We're confident you can get it done... as long as you don't keep getting shot, of course."

"I hear ya on that." I answered.

"And while I'm at it." Colby said. "I want you to consider running for Sheriff yourself."

"Yikes." I said. "I'm happy right where I am. I don't want the top paper-pusher job, at least not for a couple of decades."

"Then get crackin' on rooting out the bad seed in the Department." Colby said. "We are counting on you."

At that moment, my cellphone rang. It was Martin Nash, asking if I could stop by DynaCorp's headquarters.

"Speaking of getting cracking, I've got two murders to solve. Seems the DynaCorp lawyers are not letting my investigators talk to anyone nor look at files. If you'll excuse me..." I said, getting up. 

"Let's go over there." Jack Colby said. "I'll take care of that asshole."

-------

"I am telling you to cooperate with these officers." Jack Colby said. I just listened, my crowbar in my hands. I'd brought it inside, knowing I might have need of it.

"They have to have a warrant, Mr. Colby," said the in-house counsel, some young jerk about my age named Sommes. I wondered if he was related to the "Sommes" firm of that jerk Worthingdon the Third that had represented Elizabeth when Ned was first arrested. 

"And I don't give a damn if you're a Board member. Unless you're the CEO, I refuse to allow anyone to talk to the police, nor can they see our papers without a warrant.

"It's okay, Mr. Colby." I said, just as Jack Colby was about to get physical with the legal beagle. "I'm on the phone with the ADA now. What's that you say, Ms. Patterson?... We have probable cause now because the CEO is dead?.... and the warrant is being faxed to Headquarters now to seize all files and papers? Thank you!"

"Hugh, Martin, start seizing the files now." I instructed. "Lock down the building; no one leaves without being interviewed. Call Headquarters, tell a Sergeant to bring the warrant and at least 25 uniformed officers. I'm going to crawl so far up DynaCorp's butt this morning, they'll be shitting police blue for a week."

"You can't touch a God-damn thing without a warrant in my hand first." roared the lawyer, of whom I'd had enough.

"Mr. Colby, let's discuss this with the lawyer in this room here." I said, indicating a very small office nearby.

"No problem." Mr. Colby said.

"Get your fucking hands off me!" the lawyer shouted as I grabbed him and shoved him violently into the room. Jack Colby slammed the door behind us, with only the three of us in the room.

"Fuck you, you piece of dog shit." I said. "I don't think you understand the situation. The CEO of this company is dead, and I'm not going to let a piss-ant piece of dogshit lawyer tell me I can't do my job."

"You son of a bitch!" the lawyer roared, trying to get past me and outside. "I'll have your fucking badge for this! I'm going to sue you to death!"

The crowbar flashed as I swung it for Sommes's midsection and it solidly connected. Then I pushed the bastard backwards, slamming him into the wall. Attacking him fiercely, I drove my fist into his solar plexus again, then as he doubled over I drove my knee up hard into his ribs. When he collapsed to his knees, I delivered a short but hard blow with the crowbar between his shoulder blades, enough to collapse him but not hurt him as badly as I tried to hurt Sergei Molotov. Then I put my foot on the back of his neck when he was lying on the floor.

"You go ahead and sue, dipshit." I said. "Mr. Colby here is a witness that will testify that I didn't touch you. Who's a jury of good citizens in this County going to believe, dipshit? A good, upstanding rancher and citizen of the County, and a Councilman? Or a slimy piece of dog excrement lawyer whose daddy's company chases ambulances and defends the slimiest criminals in our custody? Huh?"




"That's right." said Mr. Colby. "The police officer didn't touch you."

"Now you stay in this room, dipshit," I ordered, "and if you come out before I tell you to, I'll break your fucking skull with this crowbar, you hear? Or better yet, I'll arrest you for obstruction of justice and put you in the holding cells with some of the County's most hardened criminals, the one's your daddy's firm has been fucking over all these years."

Sommes said nothing. We exited the room.

"Thank you, Mr. Colby." I said. I was totally in his power and debt, but that was okay; if I had not beaten the shit out of Sommes, Colby would have... and it wouldn't be the first time Colby had solved a problem with sheer physical power, I knew.

"You're quite welcome. I loved it." Colby replied, saying he'd stay and make sure the lawyer remained imprisoned in the little room until we were done.

I went to Mr. Warner's office, where Hugh and Martin were with a lovely woman.

"Lieutenant, this is Ms. Gayle Roberts, Mr. Warner's administrative assistant." Hugh said, introducing me to her as well. "She asked to speak to you specifically."

"I'm glad she did." I said, trying to put on my most charming voice. "Hello, Ms. Roberts" I said, very charmed myself. As I shook her hand I made sure to take it in mine and slightly pull her towards me. I had felt a connection with Gayle Roberts immediately as our eyes locked. She had light brown or dirty blonde hair, short and in a mane of tight curls. She was nearing 40, I guessed, but was still extremely attractive, her jaw angling sharply into a dimpled chin, her eyes warm and inviting, her mouth rather small but luscious.

"It's an honor to meet you, and call me Gayle, please." she said.


"Thank you, and please call me Don." I said. "Let's sit here on the couch and talk a moment. Hugh, Martin, go make a special effort to meet Mr. Jack Colby out in the main hallway. He's a County Councilman, someone you should get to know." They left. 

As we sat down, I noticed and admired Gayle's figure: a very nice hourglass shape, saucy ass and drop-dead gorgeous legs. She was wearing a black dress, mourning the death of her boss, sheer stockings and very high-heel black Louboutin pumps. She made sure to show off her legs as we sat and talk, her body language and her eyes very flirtatious with me.

I knew in my soul that one day soon I was going to fuck this woman. But for now I had to concentrate on the task at hand. I interviewed her, giving the details here for the sake of brevity:




Ms. Roberts had enjoyed working for Mr. Warner. He could be demanding and the hours long, but he paid her very well and gave her time to spend with her young daughter and always bought the daughter birthday and Christmas presents. No, she had never been married, she said. She did not know of anyone who hated Mr. Warner enough to kill him, though many of his business deals had been rough-and-tumble, cutthroat with winners and losers instead of win-win situations.

As far as Gayle Roberts knew, Mr. Warner's family relationships were fine, though he'd become increasingly unhappy with his sister Katherine's work in the Marketing Department the last few months. She would've been willing to have sex with Mr. Warner, but he never came onto her, Ms. Roberts, nor initiated sexual contact with her or anyone else. He was pretty straightlaced, didn't drink or smoke, and worked hard at his businesses.




"Thank you, Gayle." I said, getting up to go.

"My pleasure, Don." she replied. "And I'll see you at your party tonight."

"Oh!-- are you coming?" I said.

"Oh yes, Dr. Fredricson is a friend of mine, and she recently me to come work for her when her previous assistant moved to Washington, D.C. I wasn't going to accept, as I was very happy working here for Anthony..." Her eyes welled up with tears.

"I understand, and I'm sorry about what has happened. As to Dr. Fredricson, I hope you'll accept her offer." I said. "And I look forward to seeing you tonight, as well."

-----------------------------

My officers spent the entire morning interviewing everyone, and the bottom line was essentially the same story, though the manager of the finance department said that he thought Warner and Board Vice Chair Willoughby didn't get along very well.

"Martin, what did you find out from the books?" I asked when I saw him again. Jack Colby had come with him to Mr. Warner's office. My search had revealed nothing. Hugh was "babysitting" the lawyer... and I suspected the lawyer might find out that I'm a wimp compared to the war veteran when it comes to taking shit from dirtbags.

"I looked at Mr. Warner's appointment book over the last several months, as you asked me to in the email." Martin said. "We collected the book with the other materials when the warrant was issued. One thing I noticed is that over the last two months, he's had several appointments with lawyers, not his in-house counsel but outside lawyers."

"I don't blame him; his in-house counsel is dog shit. What were the names of the firms?"

"Lowe, Ball & Lynch was one; and Effim, Goode & Hart was the other.

"Lowball & Lynch deals with businesses, acquisitions, split-ups, etc." I said. "And F'em Good and Hard is the Town's prominent men's divorce law firm, the arch-rival of the new Women's Law Firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.... hmm, that's very interesting. Did you guys get anything else from the staff people that worked closely with him every day?"

"Only that Anthony Warner thought business was slipping and was really pushing everyone hard. They thought he had a lot on his mind but didn't understand why, as business was just fine."

Upon leaving, we collected Hugh. "I hope you didn't leave a mark on the guy." I said.

"I didn't, but he puked up his breakfast." Hugh said.

Part 9 - Air-tight Alibis

"It was such a nice event." Myrtle L. James said quietly as we sat at a table in the Ladies Auxiliary Fellowship Hall. "Beatrice York has done so much for the community, and it was such a thrill to be able to honor her last night. We had--"

Detective Martin Nash and I endured Mrs. James's soliloquy. I had warned him in advance to be extremely polite to the elderly lady, knowing this would be a test of our patience. I had introduced him to her, hoping he would begin to cultivate political allies, and Nash was quietly charming with the old lady -- who happened to be a very powerful University Regent.

When she finally paused, we were able to ask a question. "Were Mrs. Warner and Mrs. Wilson at the event?" Nash asked.

"Yes, they were here. Very charming ladies, especially Katherine Wilson, she's very lovely." Myrtle James said. "Karla Warner is a very... strong woman, though nice enough. I really think Ms. Wilson would've been lost after her divorce if it were not for her sister's strength. That was quite a bad time for her--"

We endured another few moments of inconsequential talk before I began to assert myself. 

"Mrs. James, can you tell us if you remember the ladies being here from about 9:50 to 10:30?"

"Let me see... I remember seeing them in the greeting line and being seated for dinner. The presentation and Mrs. York's remarks went to about ten o'clock. I was at the head table on stage, but I assume they were in the audience." That wasn't much, I thought, but Mrs. James was not finished.

"But I can tell you this, very accurately: just moments after the presentation ended, maybe at five to ten minutes past ten, Mrs. Warner came out of the restroom and crashed right into a waiter carrying a tray of water pitchers. Of course it was an accident, but the poor lady was just so embarrassed, her face was red and she was so frazzled about it. We all looked over at her, and Katherine Wilson rushed right over to her from her seat in the audience. Some of the other ladies also went over to help. So embarrassing... and then to find out just a short time later that her husband was dead... how very sad." Mrs. James's eyes stared out as she became introspective.

"And this was at 10:05, you said?" I asked, attempting to pin the time down.

"Very close to it. As you know, I try to keep a tight timetable at these meetings. My late husband worked for the railroad, you know, and I'm afraid his promptness wore off on me." Myrtle L. James replied.

"That is very helpful." I said. "Just one more question and we'll stop taking up your valuable time: did Mrs. Warner get a lot of water on her dress when she ran into the waiter?"

"Not that I could see." said Mrs. James, looking surprised at the question... as did Detective Nash. "She might have gotten a little bit, but she ran into the boy's left side and the tray, and the pitchers flew off to the right, so I don't think either of them got very wet."

"Thank you so much, Mrs. James." I said. We made our goodbyes and left hastily before Mrs. James thought of another story to tell us.

"Why were you interested in whether or not Mrs. Warner's dress got wet?" Martin asked.

"Just a passing thought." I replied. "What do you think?"

"It looks like those women have alibis." Martin Nash said. "It couldn't have been better timed when Mrs. Warner ran into that waiter. Of course, I guess they could have twins like that Arruzio case you solved."

"Always possible, but I doubt we'd be so lucky." I said. "Okay, Martin, social introductions with Mrs. James, Mr. Colby and the power-players are over. Meet up with Hugh Hewitt, find out where Martin's kids are, and interview them for their whereabouts. Do it as a team, don't split up. They're probably at home with their mother; don't let the mother be present when talking to them."

"On my way."

-----------------------------

"Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Ward." Detective Cindy Ross said. She was actually wearing plainclothes, a white blouse sleeveless blouse that showed off her strong arms, a gray skirt and mid-heel black pumps, showing off her still-muscular but shapely legs. Detective Teresa Croyle was with her, dressed in an off-white dress and high heel sandals, her legs looking smoking hot. They were at the Ward Harvester plant to confirm Mr. Schelle's presence there the night before.

"So that Detective of yours that blew up my warehouse didn't come?" Ward said sourly, clearly not happy to be talking to the police, however attractive the women were. Both detectives frowned.

"Mr. Ward, our Detective almost lost his life rescuing three children that were being held hostage in your warehouse." Cindy Ross said, her indignation showing clearly. "Perhaps we should inquire why the criminals thought they were safe in using your property?"


"All I know is that I'm having to rebuild my warehouse because your SWAT team came charging in and started a fire." Ward said, holding his ground.

"Mr. Ward, the Town & County Police don't even have a SWAT Team." Teresa Croyle said. "As you found out when you unsuccessfully tried to sue the Public Safety Department."

"Good thing your detective sent you women instead of coming himself. I wouldn't say a word to him." Mr. Ward replied.

"What have you got against him?" Cindy said, her eyes boring hard into the man.

Ward turned and returned her stare, looking hard into her eyes. "Marie Arruzio was my sister, and your detective's college roommate was having sexual intercourse with her when she took a shotgun blast to her face from her husband who was driven mad by her cheating. Your de-tec-tive has been nothing but trouble and cost for me since he came to Town. I can't stand the sound of his name, and quite frankly ladies, I regret that he did not die in the explosion of my warehouse."

Teresa Croyle interjected, mostly in order to keep Cindy Ross from perpetrating another crime on this particular property. "We're not here about that, Mr. Ward. We'd like to ask you some questions about last night, if we can put the past behind us?"

"Okay, what do you want?" Ward said, sour as ever. He was not a strong man, Cindy Ross noted, but he sure had hostility for Don, and Cindy couldn't understand why.

"We understand you had a meeting with Mr. Robert Schelle last night?" Cindy said.

"Yes, he was part of the group we met with." Ward said. "He was brought in as a consultant by the company that will be installing new CNC machines in the new building."

"When did the meeting start and end?" Teresa asked.

"It began at 7:30." Ward said. "I left at 8:20 or so, so I don't know what time they finished. My project manager, Mr. Burleson, was with them."

"Can we see him now?" Teresa asked.

"I'll call him up here." Mr. Ward said, picking up the telephone and issuing instructions for Mr. Burleson to come to his office. Within moment a large, bearded heavy-set man came to the door.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Ward?" he asked, his eyes on the women's legs.

"Yes, Tom, these women are with the police."

"What can I do for you?" Burleson asked.

"Have a seat, please." Cindy said, directing him to the sofa to her right. "You were in a meeting with Robert Schelle last night?"

"Yeah, he was part of the group I was meeting with. CNC Solutions is the company name. Bill Conlan is the head guy, and he'd brought in Schelle."


"What time was the meeting? When did it end?"


"Started at, oh, 7:30 or so." Burleson said. 

"Finished up about 10:00."

"And Mr. Schelle was here until that time?"

"Well, let me rephrase." Burleson said. "The meeting was wrapping up about 9:45 and we were just shooting the bull as we put up the architectural plans and papers and stuff. Schelle said he had to leave and headed on out, that was about 9:45 to 9:50 or so. I talked with Conlan until 10:00 and we walked out together."

"I see." said Cindy Ross. "So to clarify, Schelle was definitely here until 9:45." 

"Yeah, I'd say that's about right. By the way, you mind telling me what this is about?"

"In a moment." Cindy said. "Just one more question: how was Mr. Schelle acting last night? Anything unusual? Mr. Ward, did you notice anything?"

"No." said Ward. "Nothing struck me."

"Me neither." said Burleson. 

"Thank you both." Cindy said. "We're just verifying Mr. Schelle's whereabouts. His wife was killed in a hot tub accident last night."

"Oh yeah, I heard about that on the radio." Burleson said. "Poor guy."

"Why do you say that?" Cindy asked, as if idly curious.

"I heard some rumors that he's had trouble keeping clients in this economy." Burleson said. "And now his wife passes away? Gotta be tough for the guy."

---------------------------

"Well, that's that." Cindy said to me in the MCD room at 11:30am. They'd just interviewed Bill Conlan. "Conlan was sure it was almost 9:50 when Schelle left the meeting. That means that Robert Schelle is in the clear as far as being the killer on the scene of his wife's death."

"We did learn one thing, though." Teresa said. "Conlan said that the quality of Schelle's work had been dropping the last 4 months or so, and that he, Conlan, was considering dropping Schelle from any new jobs that came in."

"I know how much you hate alibis, Don," Cindy said. "But this one looks pretty strong."

"Yeah," Teresa said. "He looks guilty as hell in every other aspect, including that second plug-in. He's an electrical engineer, he could easily have done that. Blatantly obvious... except that there were eyeballs on him when his wife got fried." 




The Swap Ch. 02



Teresa was referring to the Crime Lab's technician's finding this morning that the second plug-in outlet in the shed under the fuse box was wired past the main and delivered 220 volts like a laundry dryer... but the outlet was for a regular 110-volt. The work on that rigging seemed to have been done fairly recently, according to the Crime Lab technician. It meant that whoever had dropped that stripped extension cord into the hot tub water was bringing tremendous electrical power that not only utterly destroyed Dr. Schelle but pulled so much juice that it waxed the transformer on the pole out front... and it meant that the set-up definitely showed some pre-meditation on someone's part.

"Yes." I said. "Myron pulled up Schelle's financial information. Schelle's company had been having a tough time with money. His wife was paying all their personal bills. I suspect he sold his RV just to get money and pay company bills."

"Think they were fighting over that, over money?" Cindy asked.

"Dunno." I said, "but we're going to have to do some old-fashioned leg work and dig hard to find other suspects. And pursuant to that, I think I'll go find out more about Dr. 'Chelle Chelle' from my secret Source, over lunch."

"Tell Laura we said hello." Cindy said. "So what do you want us to do?"

"Who's running data on this case? Myron? Lainie?"


"Sonali." Cindy said, naming a lovely young Indian woman that we had hired a few months before. Just the thought of her made my loins stir with desire...and I noted how Cindy's eyes had lit up as she'd said the girl's name.

"Get with her. See if anything pops out that might give us a lead to a suspect." I said. "This one is going to be hard, I'm afraid." As Teresa walked out, Cindy stopped me.

"Can I talk to you a minute before you go? Privately? Very privately?" Cindy asked.

"Sure. Walk me to my car." I said. Once outside, Cindy started talking in a low voice.

"I need to tell you about the other case, about Karla Warner and Katherine Wilson." she said. "They're lesbians. I know because I've dated both of them."

"Hmm, that confirms a thought I had. When did you date them? And did either of them know that you were dating the other one?" I asked.

"I don't think either one knew about me dating the other, not for sure. I dated Karla about three years ago and Katherine two years ago." Cindy said. "And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that they're having a relationship with each other."

"I won't bet against you." I replied. "We may be able to use that, and soon. Keep out of their sight for now." 

As I got into my Police SUV, I said "Thanks for the info, Cindy. And enjoy your lunch..."

----------------------

"First, let me tell you about Karen Warner, whose father was also murdered last night." Laura Fredricson said as we ate lunch outside on the back porch at her favorite Soup and Salad restaurant, enjoying its lakeside views. 

"Karen is a very beautiful young woman, and she is one of the most promiscuous women on campus, one of the most promiscuous women I've ever met, period. I enrolled her in a study of nymphomaniacal women. She tells me that she has sex at least three times a day, usually with three different men."

"Oh really?" I said. "Chip off the old block?"

"Genetics is part of the study, so I can't reveal anything confidential like that." Laura said. "Why, do you know something?"

"Only that Karla Warner had her son at age 16 and her daughter at age 17." I replied. "Doesn't take much for the simple ol' police officer to consider the hereditary aspects of Karen's behavior."

"Hmm, true enough." Laura said, laughing at my self-deprecation. "Anyway, you wanted to talk about Dr. Schelle. I knew 'Chelle Chelle' fairly well. She had been studying Old English sexual stories and came to me asking if I had any information on sexual habits and mores of those time periods. I'm more of a present-day sexual studies researcher, so I didn't have much, but we had a good number of conversations and I did a little bit of research with her.

"Was she respected on campus?" 

"Oh yes. In fact, she was up for tenure, and while the official announcements have not been made, I just happen to know that she was going to get the English Department's tenure slot."



"That's big, isn't it?"

"You better believe it. Tenure is everything to us in Academia. I could not possibly study nor teach what I do if I didn't have tenure; the religious nutballs like Beatrice S. York and Myrtle L. James would run me out of town on a rail. And in fields like English, History, Liberal Arts... in this economy, it's even more important to be tenured when the job cuts start coming."

"Religious nutballs? You and my dad would not have gotten along." I said, grinning.

"Your mother loves me, though. Thank goodness, since her grandchild is kicking me from inside right now." Laura replied right back. "Anyway, Michelle was about to get tenure, and so she would've been secure in her job. There is one other thing, too-- ah, here comes Captain Maxwell, good afternoon Captain! Please join us." Brittany Maxwell looked good in her navy-blue-with-white-pinstripes dress and high heel navy pumps as she walked up to us.

"Thank you." said Britt, sitting down. "I knew Don was here, so I thought I'd come over and fill him in, if that's okay."

"By all means." I said. "And you can talk in front of Laura, she's very good at keeping secrets." That got me a glance of reproach from the woman carrying my child, while Britt's eyes sparkled merrily.

"Dr. Schelle was apparently liked by her students and respected by her colleagues," Britt said, in the tone of a report, "but it wasn't universal. Some colleagues called her 'Moosechelle' behind her back when she started gaining weight, and the nickname stuck. Also, she's up for tenure and so are some other professors, and that's the kind of thing that can create tension even among friends."

"Any comments on her relationship with her husband?" I asked.

"One of her colleagues, a professor of Pre-Law English named Paul Berkshire, said that he'd known the Schelle's for a number of years and that they all did a lot of camping, hiking and outdoors stuff with a group of people. But for the last couple of years Michelle had apparently lost interest... and Robert had a way of coming on to some of the women, so they began squeezing him out of their outings." 

"Did anything at all come up that anyone else besides the husband might want to do this woman harm?" I asked. "Robert Schelle's alibi looks air-tight right now."

Britt responded "I'd have to ask Laura here if the tenure competition would be sufficient grounds to murder someone. That's all I can think of at this point. And before you ask, I did attempt to ascertain where her competitors might have been last night around the time of Michelle's death. One of them was with his wife at a restaurant, two of them were at social parties, and four of them said they were at home. Think I need to dig into those?"

"Not yet." I said. "I don't want to start pissing off half the campus personnel before there's any other data that might give us something. Britt, I appreciate everything. I'll drive Laura back to her office, and I'll see you at the afternoon pow-wow at HQ." We made our goodbyes and left.

On the way, I said "What was the other thing you were going to tell me? From your reaction to Britt's comment about Robert chasing women, I figured it might be something you wanted to tell me privately."

"You noticed that?" Laura said, smiling. "I've really got to guard myself better. But yes, I wanted to tell you this: First of all, several years ago, about four to six years ago, Michelle was very open sexually and was a very hot fuck. Some women, but mostly men. The SEX Fraternity studs at that time really liked her and dated her a lot, similar to how they've been dating Melina these past few months. Sometimes they dated Michelle with her husband around and sometimes not. Then she started throwing herself into her work, going for tenure, and she began gaining weight."

Laura continued. "Secondly, do you remember the Libertines, the swingers group we've talked about?"

"Yes." I replied. "You said we might could join them after we're married."

"Yes." Laura replied. "And what I also know is that the Schelles were candidates to join them two years ago, before you and Melina moved here. I checked with a couple of people, and the word was that they liked Michelle but she started letting herself go physically and got out of shape. They also thought Robert Schelle was a little too eager, too hungry for sex, and this is a group where friendship and sensuous good times are as important or more important than the sex. Members soft-swap more than hard-swap."

Soft-swapping was where two couples or a group get together but either have no contact or just light contact like kissing and fondling, and only spouses have sex. Hard swapping was actual swapping of partners and sexual intercourse with persons other than one's spouse.

"I see." I said. "So Robert is sex-starved and his wife began getting big, started concentrating on her work, and it's likely their sex life went way down..."

As we pulled into the faculty parking lot of Laura's building, I saw her car, a Mercedes. And a thought struck me. Hard.

"Darling, what is it? What's wrong?" Laura asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

"Laura... your car has a safety alarm system, doesn't it?" I asked. "It alerts you if someone were, say, hiding in the backseat when you came up to it?"

"Why yes, it does." Laura replied. "It's on the car fob with the key. I have to press the button to deactivate it as well as unlock the doors. But... why?"


"Anthony Warner's car was a similar model to yours." I said. "I'm going to confirm if it has that same safety system. If it does, that means that the perp either could not have been hiding in the car waiting for him, or..." 

As I thought about that, my cellphone rang at that moment. It was Detective Martin Nash.

"We've got a real problem with both the Warner kids." he reported.

----------------------------

Back at Headquarters, the clock was showing 1:15pm as Martin filled me in.

"We simply could not get Mrs. Warner to leave the room and let us talk to her daughter. When we insisted, the mother told her daughter to demand a lawyer, which the girl immediately did. The son, Seth, was willing to talk alone, but when we talked to him he said he was out but wouldn't say where or give us anything. Finally, he said he wanted a lawyer, also. I told them to have their lawyers meet us at the station, and we brought them in. The mother and daughter are in Interrogation-Alpha with their lawyer, and the son is in Interrogation-Bravo. He's once again not hasty about getting a lawyer but won't say anything."

"All right." I said. "Who's the lawyer with the women?"

"Jeanine Olivet." Nash said.

"What the hell?" I said, surprised. "She's a divorce attorney." In fact, she was my divorce attorney, but I saw no reason to tell Martin that. Nash only shrugged in reply to my comment.

"All right, let's let the ladies stew for a few minutes and talk to the son." I said. We entered Interrogation-B and I introduced myself to Seth Warner, offering my condolences upon his family loss. He was a good looking kid, 20 years old, in shape with wavy dark-brown-to-black hair. I felt an aura about the young man, an aura I'd only felt around Todd and a few other guys... a sexual aura. This young man was getting a lot of pussy.

"Seth, I really need to know where you were last night around 10:00pm, when your father was killed." I said. "The sooner I can eliminate you as a possible suspect, the better off we all are."

"Yes sir, I understand." Seth said. He was well-mannered and respectful. "And I didn't kill my father, but I just can't talk about where I was." His eyes were pleading, and I immediately knew what was going on. I turned to Martin.

"Martin, I think that I'd like to take Seth outside for a stroll, get a little fresh air." I said. "Come on, Seth, let's go outside." Martin looked a bit confused, but wisely said nothing. He stayed inside while I walked with Seth out the front door and down the sidewalk towards the public parking lot to the right of the front of the building.

"Okay Seth, we're outside, no microphones listening to us, just you and me." I said. "I suspect you were with a woman last night, and you're doing the chivalrous thing by not telling us who she is. I perfectly understand that Seth." Seth looked nervous as hell.

"I can keep things quiet, Seth." I said. "You tell me who she is, I check things out very discreetly, and no one else but my boss, the Chief of Police, will ever know. I won't even write it down. On the other hand, if I can't clear you of involvement in your father's murder, then I have to get public about it, and I sure as hell don't want to do that."

"Yeah, I understand, but..." Seth said. He was clearly torn up. "Are you sure you can keep it secret?"

"Yes." I said. "We police have confidential sources and informants just like the Press. I have a lot of latitude in what I don't include in a written report. I just want to find your father's killer or killers, Seth. Help me out here, buddy."

"All right." Seth said. "I was with Shayla Belle. She's married, and her husband has threatened to divorce her if he catches her cheating again. She's a great lady, and I don't want to get her in trouble..."

"I understand perfectly, Seth. Trust me, I know what to do, and it'll be all good. Meanwhile, let me ask: how were your relations with your father?"

"Good." Seth said. "He was beginning to teach me about the company, and I was going to have a leading role after I graduated." 

"What about your mother and sister?"

"My mom and dad got along fine; I never saw any problems between them. Karen?" Seth paused. "I think my dad didn't think much of the way she slept around so much, and she pouted a lot because he wouldn't buy her a car, but other than that there were no problems between them."

"Thanks, Seth. You can go. I'll go back inside." I said.

---------------------

"I apologize for keeping you ladies waiting." I said as I entered Interrogation-A with Detective Teresa Croyle. Cindy was waiting behind the mirrored glass, but I did not want Mrs. Warner to see Cindy yet. "It's good to see you again, Mrs. Olivet." I said as I shook hands with Jeanine Olivet, who was looking fine as her pregnancy developed, her long dark hair combed straight down her sides and back.

"And you, Lieutenant. Oh yes, congratulations on your promotion." Jeanine said. She was sitting to Karen Warner's left and Karla Warner was sitting to her daughter's right side.

"Thank you." I said, sitting down. I looked at Karen Warner for a second. She was a very beautiful girl, and I could see her resemblance to both Seth and her mother... and someone else... but I couldn't quite place it.

I introduced myself to Karen. "I'm very sorry for your loss. I need to ask you a few questions." I then turned to her mother. "Mrs. Warner, would you please excuse us?" I said politely.

"No, I will not. I am staying here with my daughter." Karla Warner said flatly. I should've interviewed the girl last night, I thought to myself. But she was hysterical last night, I reminded myself. As to Mrs. Warner, I decided not to play around.

"Counselor Olivet, would you please inform Mrs. Warner that her daughter is of age and that you will adequately represent Karen's interests here." I said, acknowledging Karen with a nod of the head. "And tell Mrs. Warner that if she does not leave my interrogation room immediately, I will be forced to place her under arrest."

"On what charge?" Karla Warner demanded angrily as Karen's eyes widened.

"Obstruction of Justice, Mrs. Warner." I said. "You are impeding my investigation into your husband's murder. If you do not leave now, Detective Croyle will arrest you and take you through the booking process on the other side of the building while I talk to your daughter and her lawyer."

"It's okay, Karla." Jeanine Olivet said in her most reassuring voice. Mrs. Warner glared angrily at me, but finally got up and left, escorted by Detective Croyle. After the door closed, Cindy Ross came in from the secure side and sat to my left. I introduced her to the ladies across the table.

"Karen, I just need to ask you a few questions." I said, trying to keep my voice smooth and friendly, as the girl was glaring at me.

"Why should I talk to you?" Karen replied, her voice hostile and confrontational.

"We just need to know where you were last night, especially around the time your father was killed. It's basic procedure."

"I was having sex." Karen replied, trying to create shock value. "I was fucking two men. Real men, not like you."

"Care to give us the names of those two real men, so we can verify your story?" I asked, unperturbed. Cindy just glanced at me before turning back to Karen, who looked at Jeanine, who nodded. The young beauty then gave the names, which Cindy wrote down.

"I was fucking them in Ted's dorm room." Karen said, her eyes boring into me. 

"What did your father think about you dating two men at once?" I asked.

"Oh I 'date' a lot more than just those two men." Karen said. "I fuck a lot of men. I like sex, a lot."

"So I've heard." I said. "You're working with Dr. Laura Fredricson, I understand."

"Been checking up on me?" Karen said. "Yeah, I'm working with Laura. She's a great woman. She's sure as hell out of your league, Lieutenant."

I didn't even flinch. "No doubt about that, Miss Warner. Laura Fredricson is definitely out of my league. Wouldn't you agree, Detective Ross?"

"Stoppit." Cindy said, trying mightily to keep a straight face. Jeanine Olivet could not keep her face straight; she had to cover her mouth with her hand to suppress a giggle. Karen's expression changed from derision to confusion, wondering what the joke was. 

"Miss Warner, did your father know about your promiscuity? How did he feel about it?"

"My stepfather didn't know. He was all about his business."

"Did you love your stepfather, Karen?" I asked. "Or did you fight with him? What about your brother and your mother? How did they get along with your dad?"

"Me? I loved my stepdad, he was good to me. My brother's always been too busy getting married pussy to argue with his dad." Karen said. "And my mother and father didn't fight in front of me, if they did at all."

"Thank you, Miss Warner." I said. "That's all I have. Detective Ross, do you have any questions?"

"Karen, do you know anyone, anyone at all, who might have wanted to murder your father?"

"He was a hard businessman." Karen replied. "I'm sure he made enemies, but I didn't know, or care, anything about his business."

"What about his employees? His board members?" Cindy inquired.

"That old coot Willoughby kept making passes at me whenever he saw me, and I sure wouldn't trust him with my books like Dad did, but other than that I don't know of anyone."

"Did your father seem worried or distracted the last few weeks or months? Did he say anything to you or maybe your mom about business problems or anything else?" Cindy asked, pressing.

"No. I never saw him act strangely. And it's been a very long time since I've heard him talk business with Mom."

After we wrapped up and excused her, Karen left the interrogation room, but Jeanine remained behind a moment. "Did you get the FedEx package?" she asked me. The package had contained my divorce papers.

"Yes." I said. "Are you coming to the party tonight?" I asked.

"Sorry, I can't." Jeanine replied. "But I wish I could... she's so out of your league, you know." She giggled as Cindy and I grinned.




The Swap Ch. 02



"By the way," I said to Jeanine, "why did Mrs. Warner pick you to come here today? You're a divorce attorney, not a criminal defense legal beagle."

"I... I shouldn't tell you this." Jeanine Olivet said. "But Mrs. Warner has consulted me twice in the last couple of weeks, and I guess I was the only lawyer in her speed dial. I can't tell you any more, the ol' lawyer-client privilege, ya know."

"I understand. Thanks, Jeanine." I said, my mind in deep thought until Cindy broke me out of it as Jeanine left. Once the door closed, we were able to go through the other door to the hallway towards the MCD room.

"Gonna be at the party, Cindy?" I asked.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Cindy replied. "By the way, do you regard it as suspicious that Mrs. Warner wouldn't leave her daughter's side and let us question Karen separately?"

"Not really." I replied. "Karla still sees Karen as her little girl, needing motherly protection from big bad police wolves. I'm much more interested in how Karen emphasized that Warner was her stepfather.

"Of course," I continued, a huge grin on my face, "from what we just saw, Karen can hold her own. She's out of her mom's league..."

"Stoppit, stoppit, stoppit!" Cindy cried out as we both broke down laughing in the hallway, officers looking at us as if we'd lost our minds.

------------------

"Oh, this should be fun!" my mother Phyllis said as I called her to Police Auxiliary duty and asked her to verify Seth's alibi, which she did. She then came to the Headquarters to fill me in. We talked in the Chief's office so that Chief Griswold could hear my mother's story also.

"Yes, son, I went to Shayla Belle's home." Mom said. "I had met her before at one of the Ladies Auxiliary meetings. She invited me into the house, and I did explain right off the top that I had to speak to her confidentially of a very private matter. At that, she suggested we drive around in my car and not talk at home."

"Once in the car, she said she was afraid her husband had bugged her house. She then said she knew why I had come to see her on behalf of the police, and asked if I had to make anything public. I said that I would be discreet and would only tell you in order to prove that young Seth did not kill his father."

"Shayla Belle told me that her husband had caught her cheating in the past, and that he threatened to divorce her if he ever caught her again. Since then, he'd hired private detectives to watch her at times and she thought the house was bugged. She said if she had any money of her own, she'd divorce 'the bastard' -- those were her words."

"But yes, son, she did confirm that she and young Seth were having sex from about 8:00pm to well 11:00pm. Her husband was out of town. She said that Seth was a wonderful young man, that she liked him a lot in addition to him being good in bed. She said he was...'worth the risk'... of getting caught with. "

"So she confirms the alibi." I said. "That's great. You're a great detective, Mom!"

"Yes, my son had to inherit his abilities from somewhere, Chief Griswold." my mother said, looking at the Chief, who just smiled under his mustaches. "Now I have to go help finish the arrangements for your party tonight, Don."

Part 10 - Prequel To A Party

"I heard you've been beating people up." said Steven Ikea as he strolled into the MCD room at 3:55pm.

"Would you like to join the list of people I've beaten up, Ikea? Oh that's right... you're already on the list, aren't you?" I replied.

"That lawyer Sommes from DynaCorp is about to bury your ass in legal shit, buddy." Ikea said, his voice haughty.

"Sommes? Who's that? Only lawyer I can think of right now is Jeanine Olivet." I said, deeply aware that Ikea was attempting to trap me on Sommes's behalf. The mention of Mrs. Olivet was to let Ikea know she could still sue him or throw him to the wolves for physically attacking her during questioning.

"Guys, we have a meeting." I said, getting out of my chair. "Ikea, if you'd like another demonstration of getting the shit beat out of you, just let me know, anytime, anyplace."

"Bring it on, buddy." Ikea said, his body posture one of confrontation as Teresa Croyle hurried into the room to grab him. "Remember, neither you nor your crowbar can outrun a bullet--hey!" He was interrupted as Teresa grabbed him and literally began pulling him out of the room.

"What the fuck are you trying to do?" Teresa said to Ikea as she got him out of there and back to the Vice room.

"Never seen him like that." Cindy said as we headed to the conference room. "Why does he think he can be so arrogant like that? What's he know that we don't?"

"Not a damn thing." I said. "He's trying to start trouble on behalf of his benefactors. You're seeing a proxy fight between Town & County Council members."

It was precisely 4:00pm as we gathered in the main conference room for the afternoon meeting. 

"Some dipshit lawyer named Sommes went to D.A. Krasney about a couple of officers beating the shit out of him this morning at DynaCorp. A blue crowbar was mentioned." Chief Griswold growled. "Fortunately, the D.A. does not like Mr. Sommes, they go way back... and the D.A. told Sommes to eat shit and die, and he did use those exact words."

"Then Sommes tried to call Internal Affairs, but Lieutenant Allgood is out of the office, having given his staff a well-earned early start on the weekend at noon today. So this lawyer is going to find out about crossing Town & County Law if he goes one mile per hour over the speed limit. All that being said, I do not want to hear any more reports of crowbar abuse by unnamed police officers. Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?"


"You do, sir." I replied, knowing that the Chief had just admonished me and covered his legal ass at the same time... but he had also enhanced my reputation with the crowbar, and the word would travel 'unofficially' amongst not only the Police Force, but also throughout legal circles in the County. Good.

The chief hurriedly moved people through their reports, then said "Anyone have anything new?"

"I have just one question, for Tanya." I said. "Tanya, confirm for me the safety system on Mr. Warner's car. If anyone was in the locked car as he approached it, doesn't he get a warning beep or light on his car key buttons?"

Tanya consulted her notes. "Yes, that's true.... oh wait!" Her eyes glowed as she looked at me, having caught on. "Damn, Don, I see what you're getting at! That has to suggest that its not likely the perp was hiding in the car, or Mr. Warner would've known something was up."

"Yep, but there is of course one other possibility." I said. Even Tanya didn't catch on, so all I said was "It could also be that the system was somehow defeated."

"I'll check on that." Tanya said, making a note. Everyone else looked blank, except Cindy Ross, who was staring at me.

"Don, put this together for me so we can get out of here and get ready for your party tonight." Chief Griswold said.

"First, the Schelle case." I began. "Everything in the world would point to the husband. The electrical set-up, the frayed extension cord, Mr. Schelle is an electrical engineer and could make that set-up. Then we have Mr. Schelle's increasingly bad finances, his wife getting tenure, and their deteriorating marriage. By the way, folks, the tenure thing is still not announced, so don't say anything to anyone about it."

"She's dead, so it doesn't really matter anymore." Britt Maxwell correctly pointed out. "And President Wellman is going to go ahead and make the tenure announcements today, if he hasn't already, in order to pre-empt any leaks that might come out. But how do you know their marriage was going bad?"

"He's been sleeping on the sofa in his living room for months, while his wife stayed upstairs in her office and slept in the bed." I said. "That was obvious from our walk-through the night of the murder."

"You know," Martin Nash said, "I wonder if Robert thought Michelle was going to divorce him. Once she got tenure, she sure didn't need him or his money, but he sure needed hers."

"Good thought, Nash." the Chief said. "These cross-current meetings are doing us some good, Don. The problem of course, as I understand it, is that he has an alibi. You think he hired someone to kill his wife, Don?"

"We'll have to find it and prove it." I said. "And so far, everything suggests that every dime he had to his name was tied into his business, trying to save it. How is he going to pay someone a hundred grand to kill his wife for him?"

"Keep digging into his finances, Sonali." the Chief said to the lovely Indian computer analyst, who was sitting next to Myron. This was her first big conference, and she was wide-eyed as the Chief continued. "Okay, what about the Warner murder? Do I need to mention that I'm getting a little heat from powerful people about this one?"

"No sir, you do not. I'm getting it too." I said. "And once again, our two best suspects, his wife and his sister, have alibis. Ditto that for the Warner kids. The Board Vice Chairman, Mr. Willoughby, his name has popped up a couple of times, but eyeballs were on him continuously during the time of the murder". 

"Myron is going to have to melt the ethernet trying to find something plausible for this one. So far, we haven't traced anything to suggest a payment for a hired hit. Mrs. Wilson was being cut out of her husband's company, and she has no real money of her own; she was basically living off her brother since her divorce. Mrs. Warner was even more financially dependent upon her husband. We're going to have to start looking into Willoughby and other business associates, and that's going to be a bear."

"How do we know the son has an alibi?" asked Cindy Ross. I love Cindy, but she definitely can ask the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"You can rely upon my word and my discretion for that." said the Chief, the only person beside myself and my mother who knew the truth about trophy wife Shayla Belle. "There are times that discretion is needed, and I'll be the judge of that. This is one of those times, but we've ruled out young Seth as the killer. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir." replied Cindy, not mollified at all, but unable to say any more about it.

"Okay," said the Chief, "where do we go from here, Don?"

"To my party." I said. "I have some instructions for Myron and Sonali here to make some data searches, but there really is little else we can do right now, today."

Cindy Ross whirled and was peering at me. "Don, do you know something that we don't?"

"Nope, you've seen or have been informed about everything I have." I replied. 

"Okay guys, check in with the Desk Sergeant in the morning." Chief Griswold said. "Don, you get until noon, I expect you're going to have a long, hard night tonight." Everyone laughed at that. "I'll see you all at the party. Detective Ross, would you come to my office now, please?"

Uh oh, I thought. Cindy's face showed no emotion nor surprise.

------------------------

Downstairs in the I.T. 'Dungeon', I told Myron and Sonali and our other new I.T. whiz, a goth girl named Mary, what I'd like their computer data searches to be about.

"Are you kidding me?" Myron said. 

"Nope, I want you guys to see if you can find a connection between those two people. Any connection that ties them together, even if it's a shared cab ride. If we make that connection, we have a good chance to bring the killers in both these murders to justice."

I told them to say nothing to anyone about the nature of the instructions and their searches unless something popped up, whereupon they were to tell me first.

"See you all at the party." I said as I left the I.T. room.

------------------------

"Have a seat please, Miss Ross." the Chief said as they entered his office. Once they were seated, the Chief got started.

"First, I want to apologize if it seemed like I came down heavy-handed on you about Seth Warner's alibi. I can assure you that we did check him and his alibi out, and also that there is a very real need to keep the information confidential, like a Press source. So I wanted to shut down talk of that, and I hope you understand that."

"I understand, sir." Cindy replied.

"The second thing was your last comment to Don." the Chief continued. "I understand your concern, that Don knows something and isn't telling us, and we're wasting time searching for something we needn't be. Believe me, I have had that conversation with him on more than one occasion."

"What he told me, and I generally agree with, is that if he talks about one of his, as he said in his own words 'hair brained ideas' without anything to back it up, some of you might try to investigate and prove or disprove his thesis, and end up truly wasting your time if he's wrong, -OR- information might leak out before he has a chance to consolidate what he has, which would let a perp know that the Iron Crowbar is after him or her." 

"Don does work very hard to make sure you do not waste your time. He does let me know what he's thinking, which he should, and he lets you guys know as soon as he has something solid. Good or good?"

"Good enough, sir. Thank you for telling me." Cindy said.

"I'll tell you this, also, and off the record." the Chief said. "He thinks extremely highly of you, more than anyone else in the entire Detective branch of the Force. He intends to bring you upwards with him, and he intends to break you through some of the glass ceilings that you are having to endure, if you know what I mean."


"Uh, yes sir." Cindy said.

"Trust him, Cindy." the Chief said. "When I'm finally able to retire, I know that this Police Force will be in good hands. His... and yours, as well. Now get out of my office. See you at the party."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Cindy said, acting upon the Chief's dismissal.

To be continued.



The Swap Ch. 03



The order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series.

The Swap series.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 11 - Springing The Surprise 

"The ink is dry."

As I drove home after the afternoon conference with the Chief, I remembered that text message. I had received it from Jeanine Olivet, Esq., my lovely divorce lawyer, nearly two weeks before. The message was telling me that my divorce from Melina had been finalized, and that moment was the first time it really hit me that I was a single man again.

But not for long, I thought to myself as I read the text, and then slipped the wedding ring off my finger. It resisted my efforts to pull it off... nearly 10 years is a long time, I thought. I didn't know why I'd not taken the ring off already; Melina had taken hers off, and her wedding band now adorned the middle toe of her right foot. Nope, no idea why she chose to do that.

I recall how that day I had made a phone call to Elsie Gringer. She was Bettina Wurtzburg's aunt, and she was the social queen of the Jet-Set in this Town. Her official business was catering, and she had the best wedding arrangement business in the State. She also wrote the gossip and Society columns in the local paper and the paper's online site. And she was a good friend of Laura Fredricson. 

And the only way I could get her to keep the party I wanted to throw a secret... was to have Elsie arrange it herself. Quite the racket Elsie had going, there...

The day was finally here, and Chief Griswold had moved the conference up an hour so that we could go get ready for the party, which would be tonight at the River Valley Country Club... yes, where the murder of Anthony Warner had occurred just the night before.

Part 12 - At First Sight

The well-toned, platinum-blonde policewoman made her way up the stairs just as a couple came out of her co-owner's office. It was Thursday, just hours before the Schelle and Warner murders were committed, but she could not know that. She was looking forward to a good, hard workout.

Entering the small space, she said "How's it going, Melina?"

Melina was looking gorgeous today, Cindy Ross noted. Melina's raven black hair was pulled back away from her face and into a tight bun, as usual. Her cheeks were rosy, probably from the pregnancy, Cindy thought. She still looked trim and fit in her tight-fitting gym clothes, only the beginnings of a paunch replacing her tight abs giving away the secret that she was carrying a baby. She had the aura, Cindy thought.

"Great!" Melina replied. "Just signed up another couple. Cal and Drusilla Romano."

"Good." Cindy said. "you're really kicking ass."

"You've been doing well for us, also. So how are things going with Britt?" Melina asked Cindy as the blonde sat down in a chair at the side of the desk.

"Good." Cindy replied. "We're talking about getting an apartment together."

"Ooooo... so is she 'the one'?" Melina asked mischievously.

"No, I don't think so." Cindy said. "We're more like 'friends with benefits', and we're sharing an apartment for more practical reasons, such as cutting down expenses." 

Cindy then added "But I don't think she's 'the one'. She definitely likes men, too, and tries to drag your ex-hubby into bed whenever she can."

Melina smiled, a tight, brief smile. "Laura has been researching Dr. Robin Baker's book Sperm Wars. In the book, he claims that 80% of homosexuals are actually bisexual, and that particularly holds for women. He says that a woman will often break off a relationship with another woman because she's starting one with a man. Laura thinks that claim is pretty accurate from the data she's getting."

"I'm definitely one of the 20%." Cindy replied.

"That's the men's loss. Have you ever been with a man?" Melina asked, sensing the time was right to ask such a personal question.

"Oh yeah, when I was in high school." Cindy said. "I did it because it was what was done. Slept with a couple of guys. They were okay guys, but it just didn't feel right when they were touching me or kissing me, and I didn't get much out of the sex. Don't get me wrong, they didn't force themselves on me or anything, but I didn't like it."

"I thought something was wrong with me," Cindy continued, "but then this drop-dead gorgeous Pakistani girl kissed me on the mouth at a party... and I just thought 'Oh my God -- I'm home!' She took me home that night, and after I ate her pussy I never looked back."

Melina had become introspective as Cindy talked. "What's the matter?" Cindy asked.

"Oh... nothing." Melina replied, breaking out of her reverie. "I was just wondering if I would ever find my true love, my soulmate."

"Any regrets on divorcing Don?" 

"No... Don's a good guy and I loved him, still do in many ways... but like you said about the guys you were with, things weren't right any more. And he won't admit it, but once he laid eyes on Laura, I think he was gone... head-over-heels in love with her. Every time I saw them together, I could tell they were true soulmates."

"I'm sorry." Cindy said, thinking Melina was feeling pain.

"Oh, don't be." Melina replied. "I'm not sorry at all, if they're happy together. But... my own search continues."

"I hear ya." Cindy said, getting up. The women walked out of the office onto the balcony overlooking the gym. A number of people were working out, but it wasn't the heavy time that would come when people got off work and dropped in to work out. 

Melina looked towards the back, where a man was working out on a rowing machine. He was wearing blue gym shorts and a gray sweatshirt with "T.C.P.D." on it. He had black hair combed sideways and glasses. He looked like Clark Kent from the Superman comics, she thought, but damn, he's handsome!

"Cindy..." Melina said. "Who is that?"

Cindy followed her glance. "Oh, that's Lieutenant Allgood." Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "He's the head of the Internal Affairs Department of the Police Force. I generally don't talk with him much."

"What's his first name?" Melina said. Cindy did a double-take: Melina was mesmerized.

"Daniel." Cindy replied.

"I want to meet him." Melina said. She bolted back into the office. Cindy looked into the doorway, watching papers fly as Melina searched for something. "Don't we have a coupon for a free service or something? Ah-- here it is!"

Cindy barely had time to get out of the doorway before Melina charged through, that familiar fire in her eyes when she was determined and on a mission. Melina trotted down the stairs to the main floor and approached Daniel Allgood as he worked out.

------------------------

Daniel Allgood thought he was seeing a vision from Heaven approaching as Melina walked up to him. It was as if she were surrounded by an aura glowing behind her.

Daniel had had a very deep crush on Melina from the first time he'd seen her. Though she was married at the time, he was totally smitten by her, and hardly an hour went by that a thought of her didn't pop up in his head. 

He had even taken the extreme risk to his promising police career by sneaking a copy of the DVD of Jack Burke fucking her... and the other secret tape he'd acquired, of her fucking a restrained Ned in the hospital, which even her husband had apparently not known about. 

He didn't question the weirdnesses in her relationships, but had stroked his nine inch cock many times to those tapes, desperately wishing that it was him that was deeply fucking her to her utter satisfaction...

And now, she was walking up to him. That face, that mouth, those gorgeous legs...

"Hi. I'm Melina, one of the owners of the gym." the lovely angel said to him, and he realized he was gawking like a schoolboy at her.

"Uh... hi. I'm Daniel." he replied, shaking her hand. The physical contact was electric to him.

"You're with the Police Force, aren't you?" Melina asked.

"Uh, yeah." Daniel said, not wishing to talk about the particular branch of the Force he was a part of. 

"Well, I just wanted to give you this coupon, for one of our free services." Melina said, handing him the piece of paper. "We have some special classes, or you can use it for a free session with one of our physical trainers, or for a massage. In fact..." Melina added flirtatiously, "I'll be glad to give you the massage myself, though I'm not one of the trained masseurs."

"That sounds interesting." Daniel replied, feeling the heat in his face from the blushing that was starting up. Why was he so tongue-tied in front of this woman that he'd so longed to meet? he thought to himself.

"Well, I'll let you get back to your workout." Melina said.

"Uh, Melina," Daniel said, finally getting his voice. "When you get off work today, would... er, would you like to get a cup of coffee?"

He saw the lovely woman smile, a brilliant, beautiful smile that had not been seen on her face in ages. 

"I'd love to. Thank you so much!" she said. "Tell you what, you finish up your workout, and I'll go put on some better clothes and go with you whenever you're ready."

--------------------------

They talked for hours, as if they'd been best friends forever... they were becoming best friends right there at the little table in front of the coffee shop downtown, near the courthouse square. 

Melina had put on the black dress and high-heel black pumps she kept at the gym "just in case"... and this had definitely been a situation for "just in case." She felt her heart beating furiously, as if she were a schoolgirl in love for the first time. She did not realize that she was doing every flirtatious thing, leaning in towards Daniel as she spoke, crossing her gorgeous legs as she listened to him, hoping he'd notice. 

And yes, he had noticed. Daniel's heart was thumping also, that special tightness in his chest, almost pain but wonderful. He thought she'd be bored with his story: average at school, entering the Midtown Police Force, but she was fascinated when he told her about his breaking up a drug ring within their police department and among their politicians, the bribery attempts giving way to assassination attempts that wounded but did not kill him, then his coming to Internal Affairs in this Town.

The sun was getting low in the western sky when they looked up and realized what time it was. Daniel suggested they go get something to eat, and Melina eagerly and happily agreed, saying she was hungry for a pizza right now. After another hour and a half of eating and conversation, they emerged from the pizzeria to the twilight, as the sun had set.

"Let's go for a drive." Melina said.

Daniel agreed. "There's a place I'd like to show you." he said. Even though he had only met this woman hours ago, he wanted to share his dreams and plans with her.

They drove north, not taking the main road as it curved west, but going straight for the hills that slanted from the northwest to the southeast. Melina saw Promontory Point to her right, which was the highest spot on the ridge, and where the teenagers went to make out... and fuck. 

But Daniel did not go there; he went further north, past the police training facility and gun range on their left, at the base of the hills, then winding up the ridge. 

Coming to a fenced, gated area, Daniel pressed a button on what looked like a garage-door opener. The gate swung open and they drove in. Just a bit farther along the path, they stopped at a cleared off space.

"I own this." Daniel said. "And I want to build a house here. I've been living in the house I inherited from my parents, but I just love it up here."

The view was stunning. The lights of the town twinkled in the far distance to the south. Melina could make out drops of light along the ridge to her left, which were the few homes built up upon the hillsides. She slid her left hand between Daniel's side and his right arm, taking it as if he were escorting her. 

"It's beautiful." she said. 

"It's even more beautiful with you here." Daniel said, thinking it was corny and cheesy, but he didn't know what else to say. It didn't matter; Melina's heart fluttered as he turned to face her. Don't ask, just do it! she silently begged. She was not disappointed as Daniel leaned into her and kissed her mouth. She was already moist between her legs, but she felt herself melt and go wet, really wet as fire spread through her whole body... and just from this man's kiss.

For Daniel, he could barely contain himself. His cock was throbbing, his whole body felt like it was on fire as he tasted Melina's luscious, sweet lips for the first time. She seemed to suck his tongue into her mouth, and her tongue twined with his as her hands came up around his shoulders and neck. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the firmness of her body as he pulled her into him... and feeling her yielding acceptance as he kissed her harder, more deeply.

It was just a kiss, and their first kiss... but a shared fire had been ignited between them, in their hearts and their very souls.

Melina felt weak-kneed, she didn't think she could remain standing. She wanted to slip to the ground, lie back and spread her legs in welcome... but she also somehow knew that she needed to hold back, and hold him back. She wanted Daniel, wanted him inside her, but she wasn't a whore and couldn't act like one... this was much too worthy a man for that!

"Let's get back in the car." she suggested as they broke the last of their long series of kisses. "Backseat."

Daniel was stunned. Did this lovely woman want him to fuck her? He was desperate to do that, but he also knew that she was much too special for something casual... and he knew he had to play it cool, be patient, not rush it. He didn't just want to fuck Melina... he wanted to make her his... forever.

Once in the backseat of the car, they made out like teenagers for several more long minutes, then Melina broke the kiss.

"Daniel..." she said. "before we go any farther... I need to tell you something. It wouldn't be right if I don't tell you, and now, before things get out of hand."

"Sure, babe." Daniel said. "It's okay; you can tell me anything."

"I need you to know... that I'm pregnant." Melina said. Although knowing she had to tell him, inside she was frightened that she might push him away just as things between them were igniting like a wildfire consuming dry tinder.

"I know." Daniel said. "Your husband... ex-husband, told everyone at the Headquarters."

"There's more to it." Melina said. She paused, then started in. "Don and I had an 'open' relationship for a while. The baby... isn't his."

"I knew about the open marriage." Daniel said. "I had to do an I.A. investigation when Jack Burke was murdered, since Don was his college roommate. But whose baby is it? Burke's?" 

Don't I wish, Melina thought to herself. "No, I'm not far enough along. The father is Don's nephew Todd."

"Ah... I see." Daniel said. They were silent for a moment, then Daniel said "I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me. It doesn't bother me... as long as you're in my arms from now on." Melina smiled as Daniel took her into his arms, relief and joy flooding her as he deeply kissed her again.

----------------------

"Mmm, those are beautiful breasts." Daniel said. They were still making out in the backseat of Daniel's car, and he had felt her up then lowered her dress straps, exposing her breasts. His mouth had felt so good on her nipples as he kissed and sucked them, her teats hardening into rubbery spikes for his tongue to lash. 

"Easy there, tiger." she said as he tried to slide his hand up her thigh to her sopping wet cunt. "Too early for that. I don't want you to think I'm a bad girl that puts out on a first date."

"I understand. And you are not a slut. You're definitely a lady." Daniel said. His own cock was aching, and Melina had noticed the bulge in his pants. She let her hand rest on his crotch, feeling his throbbing manhood through the cloth of his pants. 

"Oooh, did I do this to you?" she asked teasingly.

"Can't help it." Daniel said. "You the most beautiful, sexiest woman I've ever met." Crap, I'm being corny again, he thought. But he needn't have worried.

"Well, one thing I am not, is a tease." Melina said as she unzipped his pants and reached in to fish out his cock. "Let me take care of this beautiful cock, baby."

His cock sprang out, almost hitting in the face. He was huge! she thought to herself, glorying in the sight and feel of his meat in her hand. His penis was sticking straight up, rock-hard, criss-cross veins wrapping around the shaft leading to the large, circumcised mushroom head.

"Oh my!" Melina gasped, her voice an excited whisper. "What a wonderful cock!" She quickly leaned over and kissed the large cockhead, letting her tongue swirl over it. "So big..." she mewled. 

She then engulfed Daniel's turgid meat into her mouth. She slid her lips tightly over the shaft as the head and shaft of his meat slid over her tongue and into her throat. Melina's cunt pulsed as she tasted Daniel for the first time, almost coming without being touched.

"Mmmmmm...." Melina moaned, hearing Daniel's groan of pleasure at the same time. She began giving him the best head she knew how to give, sliding her mouth rapidly up and down his shaft as her hand explored the base of his meat and his large balls, which were already tight and ready to deliver a huge load of his potent sperm. 

As she sucked Daniel, Melina was thinking back to the time when she'd first sucked Jack Burke's huge weapon of lust, how excited she had felt at taking Burke into her mouth while her fiancé lay asleep on the floor. She remember how much she had wanted to please and impress Jack as she fellated him... and she realized that she wanted more than anything, more than that time with Jack, she wanted to please this man she was with right now. She desperately wanted Daniel to feel pleasure delivered by her mouth, and ultimately by her body.

As to Daniel, he was feeling desperation, also... the desperation of trying to hold back, to make this incredibly intense blowjob last. He was certainly no virgin, but he'd never felt pleasure like this from a fuck, much less a blowjob. The pleasure he felt was not just physical, he realized as his hand slid over her well-toned back and down to her firm ass, then back up. What he feeling for Melina was much more than physical lust... he was deeply, hopelessly, unreservedly in love with this woman.

"Uhh... I'm getting close." he warned.

"Let it go, baby." Melina said, briefly letting his cock pop out of her mouth. "Come inside my mouth. I want to taste you and swallow every drop of your load." With that she descended upon him, again sliding her lips over his cockhead and down his meat, her hand jacking the base of his dick to bring him off. And did she ever succeed.

"OH GOD!!!! AWK!!! UHH!!!" Daniel gasped as he climaxed, firing spurt after thick, heavy spurt of his semen into Melina's hungry mouth. She gulped his man-juice down her throat and sucked hard, greedy for more. As the pulses began to die down, Daniel said "Oh god, I love you Melina!" 





The Swap Ch. 03



"I love you too, Daniel." she said, licking up the last drops of sperm from his pulsing cock, swirling her tongue around her mouth to make sure she swallowed every last bit of his essence. 

They settled down, her head resting on his shoulder as he held her. Looking out the window of the car in the darkness they could see the occasional flash of blue lights, not realizing that it was Melina's ex-husband driving like a madman from one murder scene to another...

------------------

He walked her into the lobby of the Tower Condos, where she lived. She wouldn't let him escort her into the elevator. 

"Can I see you again?" he asked, feeling clumsy.

"Of course." she said. "Come to the gym for your special treat, and then we'll go out to dinner."

"Bring nice clothes." he said. "I'm going to take you to someplace special." Melina smiled warmly at him as they shared a final kiss before ever so reluctantly going their separate ways.

As she got into bed, Melina felt her heart soaring, feeling the pure joy inside her body as she remembered her day with Daniel. She had never felt this way before, she realized. That Daniel Allgood is one special, special man, she thought as she turned over and fell asl---

Part 13 - The Proposal 

"This is such a nice party." Laura said as we talked and surveyed the crowd of guests. "So what is the occasion?"

Is it possible? She doesn't know? I've achieved surprise? I thought to myself as I answered.

"Well, it's part for my promotion and partly for my divorce coming through." I said. "And I know you like parties like this, so I wanted you to have a good time with me."

"Aw, you're sweet." Laura said, kissing me lightly.

No, I don't think she has any idea that this is going to be the most memorable Friday night of our lives, I thought to myself...

-------------------------------

The party was indeed a strange mixture of police, politicians and academic types. Tanya Perlman and Pete Feeley had come as a couple, and I could easily see what was growing between them. Hugh Hewitt had brought Patrolwoman Inga, the blonde that always seemed to show up at interesting times, such as when we brought Ned to campus to be arrested for the first time, then during the Arruzio murder case. 

Cindy Ross and Britt Maxwell had come in... but as a foursome with two guys who were ostensibly their dates. One was the young man I knew as "The Leader", and the other was one of Hugh's good friends that I was hoping would be on the new SWAT team I was still trying to get the Town & County Council to form.

I was surprised when Todd came in with his date: it was Teresa "Cunt" Croyle. I'd seen them share a kiss before, but I'd really expected Todd to bring Melina. My ex-wife had been invited, as Laura's co-workers were, but Elsie Gringer had admitted that it had been a mistake on her part. Apparently the gaffe was not going to be a problem, as Melina didn't arrive.

Chief Griswold had brought his wife. District Attorney Gil Krasney was present, with his girlfriend, and ADA Paulina Patterson had brought her husband. He was white and she was black, which caused a few people to stare. Myron Milton had brought Goth Girl Mary Mahoney, who looked pretty hot in the black leotard pants with stirrups and high heel black pumps. That Myron was doing well if he was banging that babe, I thought to myself.

Then I got a big surprise. Martin Nash came in with a lovely redheaded woman, and I recognized her. She was Sandra Speer, the FBI agent who had attended my promotion party at the Wellmans with Jack Muscone. Now why was Martin dating an FBI agent? I wondered to myself. Speaking of that, Jack Muscone also came all the way from the City to the party, in the company of a tall black-haired woman coincidentally named Elizabeth.

And speaking of the Wellmans, they were there, as well as Dr. Paul Berkshire and his wife, and several other professors from several of the colleges and schools that made up the University, most of them knowing Laura very well. I did note that Clarissa Meadows, a gorgeous woman with pale white skin, black hair with one curl on forehead, had arrived. She and her husband were the headmasters of the private boys' school in the County, and I'd heard rumors that she was the headmistress to the boys in very sexual ways, as well.

Of course, Bettina Wurtzburg and her husband arrived, introduced to me by her aunt, Elsie Gringer. Her husband excused himself quickly and headed for the bar, and I did not fail to notice a certain estrangement between them. His loss, I thought: Bettina looked lovely in her tight, clingy dress and high heel sandals. I didn't get to see her legs and feet on TV that much; they were very shapely and sexy. I took Bettina's hand as she was introduced and ever so slightly pulled her towards me, it was a gesture of flirtation and she got it. Her eyes sparkled; she was eating it up. 

"Of course," I said, "everything here is off the record." as our eyes locked.

"Oh certainly." said Bettina. "And I'm very glad to be able to talk to you in this social setting. We're going to be thrown together a lot for a long time, Don, and I hope we can get to know each other much better personally." Her voice was smooth and languid, very sensual, and I enjoyed the little game we were playing.

"Of course I don't agree to everything being off the record." Elsie said. "In fact, I intend to write a wonderful column about this marvelous event."

"I understand." I said, "but what's privately said here stays here, n'est pas?"

------------------------------

"I wanted to apologize to you for what I said in the meeting this afternoon." Cindy said.

"No need to apologize, my friend." I replied. "You're not the first to ask that."


"I could've handled it better, though." Cindy admitted. 

"Well," I said, "I for one do not want to talk shop at a party. Especially this party."

"I'll drink to that." Cindy said, and we clinked our glasses of champagne. Just then, my mother Phyllis joined us. She looked lovely in a clingy blue and white dress and high heel navy-blue Louboutin pumps.

"What do you think of that group, Son? Cindy?" she asked. The group was John "Jack" Colby, fellow County Councilwoman Dagmar Schoen, and their spouses.

"Pretty clear Jack and Dagmar are having an affair." I said. "But do you think the spouses know? Are they part of the swinging set?"

"Oh no, son, of course not." my mother immediately replied. "Jack and Dagmar hide it very well, but the spouses are so uncomfortable. I think one if not both of them suspect the affair, but it is just that: an affair."

Cindy laughed. "Don, I think your mom is the 'Mycroft' to your 'Sherlock'. She sees farther than you do."

"I have no illusions about that, my friend." I said, then added teasingly, "That's why she's my favorite Police Auxiliary detective!" 

As Cindy laughed, Todd came up to us, accompanied by the young man known as The Leader. Todd introduced The Leader to my mother, and I could tell in his eyes that he definitely liked what he saw in Phyllis as a woman... and that my mother was equally attracted to him! 

"Uncle Don, can I speak to you a moment?" Todd said as the Leader engaged my mom in conversation.

"Sure." I said, excusing myself from the group, seeing Cindy wander off to talk with Teresa. Once alone, Todd spoke to me in a quiet tone.

"Uncle Don, I asked Melina to come to this with me." Todd said. "She said she had received an invitation but had something else to do. It wouldn't be inappropriate if she came, would it?"

"Uh, no, as far as I'm concerned." I said. "Everything good between you two?"

"I... I don't know." Todd said. "She's been kind of distant, lately."

--------------------------

Dr. Paul Berkshire and his wife came up to Laura and me. She was a plain woman, decent looking but not my type. I suspected they'd both be much more comfortable in jeans and Birkenstocks. As we talked with them, I learned something new about Laura: she loved the outdoors.

"Darling, we should join the Berkshire's group for one of their camping outings." Laura said to me, starting a discussion about their group and outdoor activities. While Melina and I had enjoyed camping trips (and I remembered that fateful one to her little cabin on the lake), I had had no idea that Laura was a fan.

"Oh yes, I love camping." Laura said when we were alone again. "Melina and I were talking about dragging you and Todd out into the woods for a weekend."

"I'm all for that." I said. "I just didn't see the celebrated Professor Fredricson as a rugged outdoors-woman." Laura laughed.

Just then, Gayle Roberts came up to us. She still wore black, though a more elegant black dress and very high heel pumps that really shaped her lovely legs. I again felt the warm sexual connection between us as our eyes met.

"Darling," Laura said, "Gayle accepted my offer to be my administrative assistant this afternoon."



"That's great." I said. "I met Ms. Roberts today, under unfortunate circumstances."

"Yes." said Gayle, "and I enjoyed the stories going around about the unfortunate accident that happened to Mr. Sommes. He is such a jerk. I don't think he's going to be employed there much longer, if Mr. Colby has his way."

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised." I said, then whispered to Laura "I'll tell you about that later." Laura just nodded knowingly.

"Gayle, I'm looking forward to having you over to our home and getting to know you much, much better." Laura said. It was almost a seductive flirtation, and Gayle's eyes looked warm as she smiled. Was my lovely Laura trying to set something up here, I wondered?

----------------------------

I rang my champagne glass with a spoon to get everyone's attention at the proper time, as instructed by Elsie Gringer. Laura was by my side.

"Everyone," I said, "I'd like to thank you all for coming to this very special occasion. First, I'd like to congratulate some new members of our police family. They just graduated from the Police Academy." I stated the names of Hugh's friends. All the police people and politicians clapped; the response of the Academics was less enthusiastic.

"Dr. Wellman, would you like to announce something?" I asked.

"I've asked Dr. Fredricson to make the announcement of this wonderful news." University President Wellman said with a set smile on his face.

"The awards for tenure were announced today," Laura said, "and I'm pleased to announce that the English Department's tenure is going to... Dr. Paul Berkshire."

The Academics clapped, some more happily than others, while the police and politician side clapped politely. Dr. Berkshire apparently did not realize that the glances at him from all of my Detectives were because his award of the tenure was the one that had been going to Dr. Michelle Schelle... and that that made him a suspect in the eyes of Law Enforcement.

"Okay," I said as the applause died down, slipping my hand gently around Laura's waist, "now it's time for the real reason for this evening's celebration. As you know, I came to this town about a year ago, and I had the honor and pleasure of having the most wonderful, lovely woman I've ever met come into my life. In the year that has followed, I've come to fall very much in love with her."

I turned to Laura as everyone became still. I took her hands in mine. "Laura, I love you, I adore you, and I don't care to even consider the rest of my life without you at my side with me." I bent down to one knee before her as I pulled the small box out of my pocket and opened it, presenting the sparkling diamond ring. 

"Laura, will you marry me?"

I saw the tears spring into her eyes as her hand went to her mouth to hold back the gasp. "Oh!" she said before regaining her composure. 

"Yes, darling, of course yes!" she managed to gasp. My heart soared at the words, and I felt happier than I ever had in my life, even more than when Melina had accepted my proposal years earlier. Everyone clapped and cheered as I rose to my feet, placed my diamond engagement ring on Laura's finger, and shared with her a hard kiss.

"A toast!" cried out Dr. Wellman, raising his glass of champagne. "To the happy couple! May their lives together be happy, prosperous, and glorious!" 

"Hear hear!" everyone shouted in unison as we all quaffed our champagne.

The rest of the evening was a blur, but I do remember one moment as my police friends toasted us, Cindy said "She's out of your league, Don, but you got her anyway."

"Stoppit." I replied, just as Cindy had told me earlier today as we remembered Karen Warner's attempted insult. "But you're right: she's mine and I'm very happy for that."

"Yep, you outpunted your coverage, Don!" Hugh said, the alcohol beginning to take him. 

The Chief's cheeks were rosy under his mustache due to the champagne, and he simply told Laura "Teach this guy how to duck. I want him to come home to you and your children every night."

"No one wants that more than I do." replied Laura. "I'll watch over him." Despite the alcohol in my system, I knew what she meant... and that she wasn't kidding.

I danced with my fiancee, feeling lighter than air. As we danced, doing a lot of kissing and cuddling, she admitted that I had totally surprised her.

"Yes, darling, I admit, you totally surprised me." she said. "And hiring Elsie was your best stroke; I wondered why she wasn't telling me anything like she usually does." she admitted. 

"Mmmm, I think my best strokes are going to come later tonight, when we're at home alone." I said. I was eagerly anticipating a long, hard night with my fiancee... not realizing that another couple had a head start on us...

Part 14 - The Night Of Loving Dangerously

Friday afternoon at 2:30pm, Daniel Allgood arrived at Town Fitness Centers. After a half hour workout, he had an appointment with the masseuse, compliments of Melina. His mind was still reeling at what had happened to him the day and night before, which was the best day of his life... and he hoped tonight would be even better. With the chief's permission, he'd given the I.A. Department the afternoon off at 12:00 noon, getting out of there himself and making his preparations for his date with Melina that night.

The masseuse was excellent. It was a full body massage, sometimes relaxing, sometimes a bit painful as she expertly worked out sore spots. Once she had done most of his body, he was dimly aware that someone else was entering the room, and the masseuse left.

"Hi, handsome." Melina said quietly. "I'm going to finish your massage... properly."

"Mmm, sounds good." Daniel said. He was lying on his stomach, Melina at his side. He watched as she pulled her gym shirt up and over her head, revealing her large natural breasts. 

"Please tell me that you don't do this for any other of your customers." Daniel asked, a look of worry on his face even as he admired the beautiful woman and her luscious tits.

"Of course not." Melina said. "Only for you, baby. Only for you. Turn over onto your back." Daniel did so, the small towel over his loins not hiding his growing erection.

"Oh, you don't need this." Melina said, removing the towel and tossing it aside. She poured some oil on his abdomen, tracing the lines of his six-pack with her finger then rubbing the oil all over his chest and abs and down to his groin. She worked the oil into Daniel's skin, first massaging his pectoral muscles, then his abs, rubbing her hands all over them appreciatively. Then she worked his groin muscles and upper legs, deliberately avoiding for a few moments her ultimate objective.

"Mmmm, such a handsome, well developed body." Melina cooed as she massaged her special client. "You're in great shape, Daniel."

"Thanks, babe." Daniel said. "Nothing compared to yours, though. You're gorgeous."

"Aww, you're sweet." Melina said, her hands once again easing over his abs to his loins. She finally cupped his large balls in her right hand, very gently working them until they were slick with oil. Then her left hand grasped his cock at the base.

"Ohhhh...." Daniel gasped quietly. Melina began stroking his cock as his meat lengthened to its fullest, taut with hardness and lusty desire for her. She stroked him several times, slowly, firmly, pushing blood up into his cockhead until it was purple and appeared to be near bursting. 

Then she smoothly bent over and let her open mouth descend upon his manhood, taking almost all of it into her hungry throat.

"Oh geez!" Daniel gasped as Melina's lips slid up his shaft, sucking as hard and deep on it as she could. She lowered her face again, taking the meaty inches past her tongue and down her throat, before slowly hard-sucking again as she came back up. Soon she had a slow, steady rhythm going, fellating Daniel with feelings of lust and love coursing through her.

She cupped her breasts and brought them over his cock, then eased his meat into the deep valley between her big natural mammaries. Daniel began lightly humping his ass, tit-fucking Melina, his oil-coated cock sliding smoothly along her chest. After a couple of minutes, she backed off completely.

Daniel looked up, wondering where she had gone, and his eyes took in the most erotic of sights: Melina was slowly pushing her tight gym shorts over her luscious ass and down her shapely legs. She stood before him for a second, completely naked, and the sight of her was pure heaven for him.

"I can't wait any longer, Daniel." Melina said, her voice low and husky as she began climbing onto the table and onto him. "I've got to ride you, baby. I've got to have your big cock inside me!"

"Be my guest." Daniel said. Melina was crouched over him, her feet pressing into his hips. She reached down and grasped his long, thick cock and guided the head into her soaking wet slit. Then she eased her weight down and the cockhead penetrated, followed by inch after inch of hard male meat until their pelvises ground together, the joyous shock of pleasure racing through both of them as they realized they were united. He was inside her!

"Oh God, yes!!!" Melina squealed as she ground her hips, fully impaled on Daniel's prick. She settled her legs down, her calves on the table running alongside his muscular thighs, her bare feet pressing against him and almost under his thighs. 

"Oh Melina! Baby, baby..." was all Daniel could utter as they began moving slowly, rhythmically together, their motions naturally timed and complimentary as if they were longtime lovers.

Melina began riding Daniel, working her hips and ass, desperate to bring him pleasure as well as receive her own. Daniel was going deeper than Ned did the night she rode him in that hospital bed, and while Todd and The Leader and the other brothers of the SEX Fraternity had bigger cocks, none had ever felt so joyously good inside her tight, clutching cunt!

"Oh baby..." Melina gasped as she rode Daniel hard. "Oh baby, I love you!" She did love him, she realized. She looked down at him, her eyes locking with his, realizing that their souls as well as their bodies were uniting in love, joy and ecstasy as they hotly mated.

The only sounds for long minutes were the staccato slaps of flesh on flesh as the rutting couple lustily fucked on the massage table. Melina was slamming her ass down hard as she impaled herself again and again on Daniel's throbbing, powerful cock, the building intensity of her orgasm rising swiftly and then overtaking her.

"Oh, Oh GOD! UHK!" she almost screamed, then realized she had to be quiet here in this small room in the back of her gym. Daniel felt her cunt clutching savagely at him; it felt as if she were going to forcibly expel his length from her depths, and he pushed up hard into her in response. That set her off again, and Melina collapsed onto him, her breasts squashed into his chest.




The Swap Ch. 03



Daniel took the lead, easing Melina up enough to gain leverage, then lifting her up. Despite her post-orgasmic bliss, she realized what she was doing and eased down to her feet on the floor. He got up and led her to a mat on the floor and eased her onto it on her back.

Melina spread her beautiful legs in hot welcome as Daniel slithered between them and mounted her. He quickly slid his cock along her slit, finding the hole and pushing his prickhead in, then slamming his ass forward.

"UHH!" Melina gasped. "Oh GOD! that is so fucking GOOD!" she exclaimed as she was filled with cock. Daniel quickly slid his arms under her legs, catching them, her knees hooked over his strong biceps as he began plowing her furrow. He began fucking her steadily, hard... deep... thrusting again and again... balls-deep into her, his balls thudding against her taint wetly as he drove his ass down and buried his prickmeat into her tight, sopping wet hole over and over and over...

Their mouths met in a deep, hard kiss, their tongues twining hotly as they lustily mated with every bit of energy they could muster. Melina reveled in her pleasure as she lay there, unable to really do anything but kiss Daniel as hard as she could and take his manly thrusts. The fire in her loins burned hotter and hotter until she was unable to hold back, and the dam burst in a shower of pleasurable power.

"Oh God, UNNGH!" she gasped, her cunt clamping down hard on him again as she climaxed. He felt the tension of her body as she came, then the sudden surrender and total relaxation as her bliss overwhelmed her. He admired her face; she was just so damn beautiful! he thought to himself. Her breasts were bouncing and jiggling like jello as he pumped her relentlessly. 

There was no way he could keep this up. He felt his nut rising. His balls were like rocks, tight and ready to release his seed. The intensity built and built, rising and rising with each thrust... higher and higher and higher... then he climbed her all the way and exploded.

"I'm going to come.. OH GODDAMN I'M FUCKING COMING!" Daniel yelled as the first huge spurt of semen rocketed down his cock and burst into Melina's clutching cunt. "UHH! I'M COMING IN YOUR GOD DAMN CUNT!!" he screamed as his second blast jetting out and filled the back of her womanhood. Pulse after pulse of sheer pleasure raced through his loins like an electric current as he shot every drop of his load into his sweet Melina's pussy. Never had he felt such ecstasy, such sheer joy!

"Oh baby..." the moaned together, then smiled together. Their next kiss was deep, sensuous and loving, and it lasted a long, long time.

Some time later, as they were dressing, Daniel said "I'm going to take you to Peter's Restaurant for dinner; it's really great French food--"

"Oh?" Melina said, her eyes mischievous as she looked up at him. She slid her arms around his neck, then made a play on an old saw: "So now that you've fucked me, you think you can just take me out to dinner, huh?" 

Daniel laughed, in a way he rarely had in his life before. It was going to be a great, great night... and just the beginning of a wonderful relationship...

Part 15 - The Long Hard Night, Continued

"Mmmm, you sure can pick 'em, darling." Laura grunted, her Texas drawl coming through as I drove my meat into her with smooth steady thrusts. We were home at The Cabin, only the light of candles illuminating the bedroom. I was on top of my fiancee, lying with my weight on her, pumping her hard and steady, keeping most of my cock deep inside her and bobbing my ass up and down to piston within her. She liked it this way.

"Mmmf! What... what do you mean, babe?" I said. Was she talking about the ring?

"Gayle Roberts." Laura replied. "She is one smoking hot woman. You are going to love fucking her."

"Well you... picked her as your secretary." I said, not slowing my thrusts. Thinking of Gayle Roberts and her shapely legs gave me a boost.

"Yes, but I could feel... oh yeah, keep doing that..." she said as I began nuzzling her slender neck, smelling her as I tasted her with my kisses, "... I could feel the electricity between you and her... between all three of us..."

"The only woman I want to be fucking right now is you, baby." I grunted, thrusting hard into Laura to emphasize the point. 

"I want you to fuck her." Laura said. "And I want to watch."

I raised up on my arms so that we could make eye contact.

"Oh yes, darling." Laura said. "Some guys like to watch their wives fucking other men, and I know you like watching me getting filled by a big cock... but some of us women like to watch our husbands fuck other women... oh yeah, that's good, fuck it in there, darling... oh yeah, I can't wait to watch your cock sliding in and out of Gayle's cunt... my tongue tasting your cum from her after you come inside her... ohhhh yes!... oh yeah, oh God, here it comes... OH OH OH!!!" 

I felt Laura's cunt clamp down on me as she came, the thoughts in her head of me fucking Gayle Roberts, and perhaps other women, helping her to reach the crest. 

"Yeah, baby, it's going to be good... watching each other fuck as we fuck another couple." I said. "I can't wait to see you fucking some of those young college studs, too... then fucking you myself, getting sloppy seconds.. oh yeah... oh yeah here it comes, baby, Oh God, OH LAURA I LOVE YOU!!!!" Sparks flew around a gray swirling mist as my orgasm overtook me, the intensity of the pleasure unbelievable. No matter how many other women I fucked, none could ever compare to climaxing inside my darling Laura.

As we came down from our bliss, cuddling and kissing and sweet-talking, I realized that I had it all... a gorgeous woman carrying my child and about to become my wife, a relationship that was trusting and loving, but also allowing us to experience the pleasures of the flesh... a great job working with great people in this great Town... 

And now my fiancee was actually asking me to fuck another woman... I was totally willing to be monogamous, to be with only Laura, it would be more than enough to fulfill my life... but she was not only willing but wanted our open lifestyle... and I realized that this is what we were... we simply could not have it any other way...

-----------------------

"You feel it too, don't you?" Laura whispered, unexpectedly coming up behind me as I stared out the window at the Town in the distance below.

"What?" I said. 

"The Town... you can feel the sexual aura in this town, can't you?"

"Yes." I said, simply.

"I feel it too." Laura said, her voice quiet but penetrating my head... and my heart. "The sexual energy in this town, it's unlike any I've felt before. That's why I love it here. We can be part of it, fully embrace it and let it envelop us like a warm blanket..."

I turned to her, taking her into my arms, the smell of her perfume wafting into my nose, the sight of her eyes locking with mine sending a chill of pleasure down my spine.

"Let's add to the sexual energy now." I said. "Let's go back to bed."

-----------------------------

"Unnnh! Uhhh! Oh yeah! OH YES!" Teresa Croyle gasped as her climax tore through her magnificent body. She was on her shoulders and knees, her cheek pressed to the bed. Todd was behind her, fucking her with incredible power and stamina. Several orgasms had burst through her like waves as the young stud pumped his huge meat in and out of her sopping wet cunt. 

"God, Todd, what's gotten into you, baby? You are really fucking the shit out of me!" she said.

"Am I hurting you baby?" Todd asked. 

"No, keep going, I love it." Teresa said. Todd complied, slamming the full length of his prick balls-deep into her before withdrawing it with lightning speed and driving it back in again. The anger that was driving him was welling up again as he thought about it...

He had invited Melina to his uncle's party. He had wanted to give her a ring and ask her to marry him, encroaching on his uncle's plans, making it his night, too. But Melina had not come with him, and he had not heard from her in several days. 

His best laid plans had come crashing down, and while Teresa was a dynamite fuck, his love and passion for Melina, which had burned through him constantly and deeply from the day he'd kissed her when he was a teenager on that visit years and years ago, kissing her while his mother and uncle sparred outside not knowing what was going on between Todd and his uncle's beautiful wife...

And now... now he had this feeling of foreboding that he just could not shake. Something was not going right. Something was out of his control. He didn't even understand why he felt it, but he knew this intuition was correct...

"OH YES! FUCK ME, TODD!" Teresa gasped out again as Todd plunged into her from the rear yet again, his orgasm nearing but staying just out of his desperate reach as he thought of Melina yet again...

---------------------

"Oh yes... oh yess......" Phyllis moaned as the young stud wildly fucked her as he reached his climax. The Leader groaned as his release blasted through him, feeling his cock pulse as he jetted his massive load into the lovely 58-year-old woman's steaming hot, wet snatch. He could not remember the last time he'd had such intense, mind-blowing sex with any woman.

He'd asked Phyllis if he could give her a ride home, and she had eagerly accepted. The sexual tension between them, despite the age difference, was hot and building with each moment during the party. He had danced with her, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, the way she moved, the sound of her voice. 

Once at her home, she had invited him in for a "nightcap", and he had eagerly accepted. He had made love to her, kissing her as their touches turned to hot groping. This woman may have been a mature babe, but she was incredibly hot and ready for sex.

He had taken it easy at first, sinking his huge ten inch cock into her slowly and carefully. She had accommodated his length and thickness incredibly well, and had fucked him back with all the intensity that he had poured into his driving thrusts. He felt her shapely legs wrapped around him as he plunged into her over and over again, enjoying the pleasures of this older woman in ways he never thought he would have...

"Oh God, baby." he gasped as his climax subsided, trying to catch his breath. "That was the most incredible fuck I have ever had. Jesus Christ, you're magnificent!"

"Mmmm, thank you honey." she said as her hands caressed him and she nestled into his side. "You're fantastic, also. I've never had a cock that big, and God! do you know how to use that thing!"

"Can I see you again, Phyllis? Take you out to dinner? Like, on a date?" The Leader asked.

"Of course." the mature beauty replied, inwardly smiling at the stud's youth. "But we're not finished with tonight yet. Now lie back and let me suck this big cock for awhile..."

------------------------------------------

Yes, I thought, looking out the window of the bedroom of The Cabin at 3:00am, trying to feel those currents, that sexual aura that enveloped this Town. I looked back at Laura, who was finally asleep, looking beautiful and peaceful, like an angel. My angel.

I turned back to the window and looked down at the University and the Town beyond it. Somewhere in the distance I caught the flash of a blue light; it was a police car. I thought about the two cases, knowing that the answer was right there in front of me. I let everything sift through my mind until the pattern I was seeking finally began to form, links of a chain beginning to connect, to come together... 

All I need is evidence, I thought to myself. All I need is that one connection....

To be continued 



The Swap Ch. 04



The order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series.

The Swap series.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.



Part 16 - Burners

At 10:00am Saturday morning I entered the I.T. "Dungeon" in the basement of Police Headquarters. Myron Milton was there, and sitting next to him... very close to him... was Mary Mahoney, the Goth girl that had been in Vice but now was in I.T.

"Did you have a good night last night?" Mary asked, smiling, her eyes boring into mine.

"I sure did." I said. "And it's obvious you two did, also."

"You bet we did." Mary said, her hand caressing Myron's back as he typed. Good! I thought, I'm glad the nerd man Myron's getting laid, and Mary was not a bad looking girl by any means.

"This girl is good." Myron said, obviously impressed with Mary, his comment meaning she was good in more than one way. "She's been writing algorithms I never dreamed about." he added, fooling no one present.

"Well, Mary," I said, "You must be good if you've impressed Myron, here."

"He's impressed me, too, haven't you Miltie?" Mary said, slanting her eyes towards Myron, who was blushing furiously.

Mary looked like a wild and crazy goth girl, but I knew she'd been a good undercover officer in Midtown's Vice department -- despite her efforts to stand out, she seemed to just blend in. I also knew she was fearless, and did not mind saying inappropriate things in the presence of the ol' MCD Lieutenant.

"I call him 'Miltie' because he's equipped like Milton Berle. You know about him, Lieutenant?" she said. 

"Yes, I do." I said, smiling. I knew that the late comedian Milton Berle was reputed to have an eleven inch penis; Tanya Perlman had made sure to gift me with that information. Apparently our resident I.T. geek Myron had a surprisingly considerable package, as well. But we needed to get down to the brass tacks of police business, so I said "But I'm more interested in any data that you've found."

"Nothing yet." Myron said. "I've expanded the two names to the seven you gave me, and just can't make any strong connection anywhere. We did find one thing, though... a car was rented in Katherine Wilson's name on the afternoon of the murder." Mary handed me the sheet of paper with that information. "Do you think it means anything?"

"I'll ask the questions, here." I said. I didn't mind Myron asking some questions, but I didn't want him to get too nosy and thus be biased in his information searches. "I don't want you to get biased in your information searches." I told him.

"Roger that." Myron said. "The ladies were at the Ladies Auxiliary dinner at the time of Mr. Warner's murder, and that's a pretty good distance from River Valley Country Club. Furthermore, no rental cars entered or left the Country Club, according to their records. So we don't see any connection there."

"I called the auto shop near that rental place." Mary said. "Karla Warner took her car in for service that afternoon, so it's likely she rented the car. When I asked the desk person if she had come in alone, he said 'yes', then got suspicious as to who I was. So she rented it in her sister's name, but I don't know why."

"Me neither. I'll ask them about it." I said. "Good work. Keep at it." I got up to go, but had a sudden insight and whirled around to them.

"Oh--" I said, "I'm sure you've checked the phone records?"

"First thing." Myron said. "No calls between your persons of interest, no calls to the same places at all."

"I'm not surprised." I said. "But I want you to check on something, to the extent you're able. Can you identify if a phone is a 'burner' phone?"

"Uh yes," Myron said, "but we might have to cross a few lines to do it." 

Burner phones were the name of phones that were pre-paid or under phony names. Drug dealers and organized crime figures often used them to conduct their illegal businesses. I recalled how the hit on Anthony Warner was made to look 'professional'.

And Myron's reference to crossing a few lines meant that he'd might have to hack into some computers to get the codes. The Federal Government's NSA was known to be able to tell which phones were which, but they were reluctant to share their information unless a Federal government agency was involved in the investigation... and that wasn't the case here.

"Do it." I told Myron. "My responsibility. Check for burner phones being used at the nearest cell towers of the victims' homes, the victims' places of work, and also the people whose names I gave you. And if the Federales inquire about it, say that DynaCorp had contracts with the U.S. military, which is true, and we're just checking for suspects along that angle.

"But can we use that excuse for both murders?" Mary asked as she typed, her fingers flying on the keyboard, an algorithm to search for the information already forming on the screen.

"Absolutely. Just don't mention the other murder. Myron, fill Mary in on what's going on. You're right-- this girl is good." I said as I noted the elegance of her program even as she typed it at lightning speed. Mary smiled at the compliment and kept on typing.

"Great work, guys. Keep it up." I said again, as I walked out.

------------------------------

"Misssss Ross, we have work to do." I hissed as I entered the MCD room. Cindy did not move out of her chair as she drank coffee and read the paper, her feet propped up on her desk. Teresa was using the computer to get some information on a drug perp, and only glanced up at me as she typed. 

I called to the Uniformed Officers Desk and requested that Patrolwoman Diana Torres come to MCD. Torres was aware of Cindy's orientation. She came in within a minute, and I spoke to her and Cindy:

"I would like you two to come with me to interview Karla Warner and Katherine Wilson. It's about time we got the truth out of them, the whole truth."

"It would be my pleasure." Cindy said dramatically, matching my own voice and mood as she threw down her paper. "What's the plan?"

As I told them, I noted that Diana's eyes looked excited; she was happy to be part of my investigation. She did not know that if I had my way, she would soon be part of my MCD Detective team...

---------------------------

"Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today." I said. Diana Torres and I were in Katherine Wilson's apartment, a small but adequate one-bedroom floor plan in the district just south of the downtown area, not far from DynaCorp's headquarters. Anthony Warner's administrative assistant, Gayle Roberts, also had an apartment in this gated complex.

"How can we help you?" Katherine Wilson asked. We sat in chairs we had pulled up and the ladies were seated on the sofa opposite us, their black dresses showing off their nice legs, both wearing high heel black pumps. Karla Warner said nothing; her eyes still looked daggers at me after the confrontation over her daughter the day before.

"First, I have to ask this question: now that Mr. Warner has passed away, what is going to happen to the company?" I asked.

"Anthony had 80% of the shares." Katherine replied. "The other 20% belonged to the other board members, in varying amounts. I had about 5%. But upon Anthony's death, his shares were split equally between Karla, myself, Karen and Seth, and I had to give up any other shares I owned."

"So the entire family benefited equally, no one more than another." I said.

"You make it sound like there's something sinister in it." Karla Warner said, her voice icy and accusing.

"By no means, but we have to ascertain who might have had a motive to kill your husband, Mrs. Warner." I replied, unperturbed at her hostility. "In fact, the arrangement Mrs. Wilson has described is much less sinister than if either of you inherited the entire company alone." They did not notice that I had raised my pen up at an odd angle as I spoke. It was a signal.

"By the way... oh, thank you Detective Ross." I said as Cindy came into the room and handed me a folded piece of paper as if it were a note. She looked meaningfully at them, as I had instructed her to. Both women practically jumped out of their skins when they recognized her.

"Ah, I see both of you know Detective Ross." I said enthusiastically. The women looked at her, then they looked at each other... and reacted, their eyes even more uncomfortable.

"Thank you, Miss Ross." As Cindy left the room, Diana Torres took up a position several feet away, just watching. I bored in on the two women. 

"Okay ladies," I said. "It's time we get to the truth: are the two of you having a sexual relationship... with each other?"

"Why, you--" Katherine Wilson started, pretending indignation, but was stopped by Karla Warner's hand being placed over hers on her lap.

"It's okay, Katherine." Mrs. Warner said, and I knew that she was smart and cunning enough to know the game I was playing. "Yes, Lieutenant, we are lovers."

"For how long?" I asked.

"Since the time we met, when Anthony introduced us right after he began dating me." Karla Warner replied. "It was love at first sight for both of us, and we have been in a relationship ever since."

"Good enough." I said, trying to keep my voice soft. "Did your husband know of your relationship?"


"If he did," Karla said, "he never said a word to me. I tend to doubt that he knew; he's the kind of man that would've confronted one or the other of us if he found out."

"Did your husband know, Mrs. Wilson? Was your relationship with your sister the reason for your divorce?" I asked, trying to get Katherine to respond instead of acquiescing to the dominant Karla Warner.

"Yes, and no." Katherine said. "My husband was a lying sack of shit, a real dirtbag. He was verbally abusive and an alcoholic. That's why I turned to Karla; she was there for me..." Her hand clutched Karla's and they briefly smiled at each other. "But to answer your question, he called me a dyke a couple of times, so I think he knew." 

"Did he ever physically abuse you?" I asked.

"Only once, at the end." Katherine replied. "He slapped me. I ran out and went straight to Anthony and Karla. Anthony took a couple of his workers and went over there. I don't know what happened, but David never came near me again. He ended up leaving town pretty soon after. Anthony got me this apartment the next day, and also called the lawyers to start the divorce proceedings."

"You're not the only one with a crowbar in this Town, Lieutenant." Karla Warner said venomously.

"No doubt about that. Mrs. Wilson, do you think your ex-husband might've come back and killed your brother?" I asked, somewhat brutally.

"I... I don't know." Katherine said. 

"Her ex-husband was a weak man." Karla said. "I don't think he had the balls to do something like that. And he's been gone for years. Anthony kept a watch on him for a while when David moved to the City, to make sure he didn't try to come back to Katherine, but he never did... and eventually we lost track of him."

"Thank you, ladies." I said. "I have just a couple more questions: Mrs. Wilson, we have a record of a car being rented by you on the afternoon of the murder. Why did you rent that car?" 

"I can answer that." Mrs. Warner said, stepping in very quickly. "My car is in the shop, and we rented that car in order to get around and go to the Ladies Auxiliary dinner for Mrs. York."

"And you did not use Mrs. Wilson's car?" I said.

"Her car was stolen three weeks ago." Karla said. "The insurance company is being damned slow about things, so we haven't gotten her a new one yet."

"I see." I said. I did not need to pursue the matter further, I had seen what I had expected to see: shock on Katherine Wilson's face. She had not known that the rented car was in her name.

"Mrs. Wilson, during the course of our investigation, we have discovered that the reason for the board meeting your brother called was for the purpose of removing you from the Board of DynaCorp. Are you aware of that?"

"I am now." Katherine Wilson said, near tears. "The lawyer... the in-house counsel... called me late yesterday afternoon and informed me that I'd been fired and removed from the Board."

"Sommes?" I asked.

"Yes." Karla Warner replied, her eyes flashing anger. "The bastard didn't even offer condolences over Anthony's death before telling Katherine that. He said Willoughby ordered him to make the call. Needless to say, however, that lawyer is now seeking employment elsewhere. I fired him within ten minutes of hearing what he'd done to Katherine. And I'll deal with Willoughby next."

"I don't blame you a bit." I said, my sentiment very genuine. "Lawyers are totally heartless bastards." The women could not have known I was thinking of my father at that time, though he truly wasn't a heartless man... just a naive and too-trusting man.

"I have just one more question: did either of you know a Robert or Michelle Schelle?" I watched their faces carefully.

"No." said Katherine Wilson, quickly. She was telling the truth, as far as I could tell.

"No, I don't, but I've heard the name... oh, wasn't she killed in her hot tub around the same time my husband was murdered?" Karla Warner said. Her eyes had turned inquiring and suspicious, and she definitely was suspicious of me... but there had been no initial reaction to the mention of their names.

"That is true." I said. "I just wanted to make sure we don't have someone with a reason to have killed both your husband and Mrs. Schelle, but it looks like the deaths are unrelated."

------------------------

"So, ladies, tell me your impressions." I said. We'd driven up to the front office building of the apartment complex and were sitting on benches outside.

"I didn't see too much of it." Cindy replied. "But they reacted when they saw me, and then looked at each other. I don't think either of them knew the other had dated me, but realized it at that moment."

"I agree." I said. "That'll be one conversation-starter between them. Diana?"


"I tried to watch them as you asked me to." the pretty Hispanic policewoman said. "But Mrs. Warner, she's very good at keeping her feelings off of her face. Ms. Wilson, she was an open book, I'd say she looked... very confused the whole time."

"Very good." I said. "I agree with you. Did you notice their reactions when I mentioned the car being rented in Katherine's name?"

"Oh yes." Diana said. "Ms. Wilson had this 'what the hell?' look on her face."

"Exactly." I replied. "That'll be another talking point between them... maybe. 

"Think we need to look into Willoughby?" Cindy asked. "He ordered the legal beagle to treat Mrs. Wilson like that, and he was uncooperative with Hugh and Martin the night of the murder. He was at the scene, maybe there's something there?"

"No, not for the murder... though I suspect we'll be hearing Willoughby's name again soon, but it will be from our friends in Vice or from the FBI." I said. "Great job today, ladies. You can head on back. Keep looking into the Schelle case. I want to know everything about Robert Schelle, where he's been the past four months, what he ate for dinner, who he associated with, everything he's purchased with a credit card, and so on."

"Wilco." Cindy replied. "And you?"

"I have one other errand to do around here before I head back." I said.

"Can I ask you a question, Lieutenant?" Diana said. Cindy tried hard to keep her eyes from rolling, not at Diana wanting to ask, but at my response of "Sure, you may ask..." as I sat back down.

"Weren't both those women at the Ladies Club event?" Diana asked. "Don't they have an alibi for Mr. Warner's murder? And there appears to be no motive for Mrs. Warner at all. I know you hate alibis, but I don't understand where this was all going..."

"Diana," Cindy interjected before I could respond. "Welcome to Town & County MCD under the direction of Lieutenant Donald--" she said, using my name. "You will find that he often forgets to tell us What. He's. Thinking." She looked at me severely, unafraid of challenging me on this.

"Diana," I said, by way of explanation, "you will also find that I sometimes have 'hair brained' ideas, and I only don't mention them so that you guys won't waste your time trying to prove or disprove them before I have reason to think I may or may not be right. Imagination is a great thing, and I encourage you both to develop yours, but I also have to be careful about things, and about too much theorizing without facts to back me up."

Diana nodded, but I saw Cindy react slightly as I said it, though she had hidden it as well as she could. I now understood the reason of her being called into the Chief's office the day before, and the likely one-way conversation from the Chief at that 'meeting'. That was okay, it was all good.

"But your question is fair, Torres." I said. "And while both women may have alibis that show they were not personally involved in Mr. Warner's murder, I still have not cleared them in my mind of possible involvement."

Part 17 - Afternoon Quickie, Hot Raw Sex!

"It's so nice of you to come, Lieutenant." Gayle Roberts said as I entered her apartment, an exact duplicate of the floor plan of Katherine Wilson's rooms. 

"Thank you for having me over." I replied. The sexual tension between us was already there, already tangible. Gayle was wearing an off-white sundress with a flowing skirt and very high heel nude/bone colored sandals with two thin straps over her toes and one very thin strap higher up holding the them in place, the high arches molding to her elegant, shapely feet. Her legs as well as her feet were magnificent, and I felt myself hardening in my pants at the sight of her. She had put on just the right amount of makeup and styled her hair just so; I knew she'd anticipated my visit long before I placed the phone call a couple of hours beforehand.

"My sister took my daughter out shopping, so I'm here alone." Gayle said, a clear signal and invitation for me to seduce her. And I intended to.

"I just have a couple of questions." I said as we sat down on the sofa, very close to each other. Gayle crossed her legs in a way to let her dangling foot caress my lower leg. "Did any of the Warner's know Robert or Michelle Schelle?"

"The name... sounds familiar," Gayle said, "but I don't know why. I don't think Anthony knew them professionally, and I don't remember their names on invitation lists when Anthony or Karla hosted parties."

"The name is probably familiar to you because you heard it on TV." I said. I was disappointed that there had been no link that Gayle could remember, but I intended to assuage my disappointment. My hand was now on her leg, gently massaging her slim thigh through the dress.

"I see." said Gayle. "I hope your next questions are much more...personal." Her eyes were boring into mine and her mouth was slightly open as her hand slid over my shoulder. Our mouths met and pressed together tightly in a hot kiss, our tongue instantly twining and battling.

"Yes..." I whispered, just breaking the kiss, our lips still practically touching. "Deep... probing.. questions..." Our mouths slammed back together as we hungrily made out, our hands feeling each other up, exploring.




The Swap Ch. 04



"Let's go to my bedroom." Gayle said, breaking the kiss. We got up and she led me into her bedroom, which was simply but nicely decorated in a way that matched the golden-beige color of the walls. The sun shining into the back window added to the shimmering gold effect. 

Gayle stopped at the corner of her bed and turned to face me. I stepped up to her and bent down and deeply kissed her mouth again. As out tongue battled again, I slid my hands over her shoulders, easing her dress straps down her arms, beginning to undress her. Sliding my hands down her back, I unzipped her dress and let it slip down her legs into a puddle around her feet. 

"Leave your high heels on." I ordered as I admired her body, now naked except for panties and the shoes. "Now lie back." I guided her to the edge of the bed and she eased down onto it. I reached under her succulent ass as her legs rose into the air and pulled her to the edge of the bed so that I could kneel on the floor and eat her. But first I gripped her panties and began sliding them up her smooth, shapely legs. After sliding them over her feet I threw them to the floor, discarding the last vestiges protecting her honor. 

I took Gayle's feet into my hands and guided first one foot then the other to my mouth. I kissed and tongued the sides of her feet and her heels, the pleasure of orally worshiping her feet making my cock throb with intense desire. But I didn't keep that up long and quickly kissed and licked my way down her legs. My hands spread her thighs apart, exposing her wet pussy to my lusting eyes. Wasting no more time, I sank down to my knees on the floor, leaned forward, and began eating Gayle's steaming wet snatch.

"OHHHH!" Gayle moaned as my tongue contacted her slit and slowly but roughly pushed upwards to her clit. "Oh, that feels so good..." she mewled as I licked her again, then began working my tongue deeper into her cunthole. I clamped my mouth over her labes as I tried to push my tongue as deep into her pussy as I could, kissing and munching, sometimes grunting or moaning to let those added vibrations flow through her loins.

Gayle was already sopping wet, her labes swollen and ready. As I worked a finger into her cunt and let my tongue lap upwards and lash her engorged clit, she put her hands on my head and began trying to pull me up.

"Oh Don, I'm ready for you." she gasped. "I need your big cock inside me. Fuck me now, baby, put your cock in me!"

I stood up as she eased back onto the bed, her head on the pillows. I began to undress. I took off my gun holster strap and my jacket and put them on the nearby chair. Then I quickly peeled out of my pullover mock turtleneck shirt and slacks. Gayle's eyes were glazed with lust as she watched me lower my underwear and saw my cock pop free. I was iron hard with desire for her, feeling huge and thick, my cock bobbing stiffly out in front of me.

"Are you ready, baby?" I asked huskily as I moved to the bed. 

"Oh yes, baby." she replied. "Come get on top of me and give me every bit of that thing!" I suited words to my deeds and climbed onto the bed with her, mounting her as she pulled her knees up and back, spreading her legs in wanton invitation to mate. She grasped my cock and swiftly brought it to her slit, inserting the head into her wet hole. I pushed forward.

"Oh God, that is so GOOD!" Gayle cried out as I slid into her as if we were tailor-made for each other, burying my meat balls-deep inside her hot, clutching cunt. I began fucking her hard, immediately pumping in and out of her with hot physical lust. And Gayle was giving every bit as good as she got, pushing her cunt up to meet each of my driving, downward thrusts, her legs enveloping my thighs and her hands clutching at my sides as I plunged into her again and again. 

Her cunt clutched at my cock as my balls pressed against her taint, massaging my meat in its firm embrace, trying to crush my shaft and dominate my manhood with her womanly sheath. I flexed my cock and pushed in even harder, battling her tightness as we rutted heatedly.

"God damn, baby!" I grunted. "That is one hot tight pussy! You're hot as hell for my cock, arentcha Gayle? Yeah, take that cock, baby, take it deep inside you babe!" I plowed Gayle hard, feeling my nut already beginning to rise as our lust consumed us.

"Oh God, I love your cock, Don!" Gayle gasped, sweat already forming on her brow and between her breasts. "Your cock is so fucking hard! It feels like a fucking iron rod inside me, harder than my vibrator!" She pulled my face down to hers and our lips smashed together, an almost painfully hard kiss that matched the nearly brutal fucking that we were giving each other.

"Not going to last long fucking this sweet cunt, baby." I gasped, steadily plowing Gayle's furrow with fast, hard strokes. "You're just too fucking good."

"Don't worry about it, just come inside me whenever you're ready." Gayle said. "Just don't pull out!"

"Are you on the pill, baby?" I asked.

"No, I'm not on the pill, but don't you dare pull out. Come inside me, Don, give me every fucking drop of your cum!" Gayle begged. She wrapped her legs tightly around me, imprisoning me.

"You got it, baby." I grunted. "I'm not going to pull out, I'm going to come deep inside your nasty wet cunt, babe! I'm gonna fill your pussy up.. with... my cum... oh...unnnh... OH GOD, UHHHH!!!" I cried out as I exploded. The deep pain of ecstasy pulsed through my loins and I felt spurt after spurt of my potent semen being ejaculated into the depths of Gayle's steaming womanhood. I felt her clutching even tighter around my cock, almost pushing me out with its intensity, and I shoved my loins forward to stay buried inside her as deep as I could while I delivered my hot payload of virile sperm deep inside the luscious older woman...

---------------------------

Our second mating was much more loving, more relaxed as we took our time and fucked deeply and passionately. I mounted Gayle's sweet ass from the rear and fucked her dogstyle for a long time, admiring her back as her head was pushed into the pillows, deeply enjoying the feeling of her succulent asscheeks thudding into my groin. We collapsed into a "top-load" position, with me plowing down into her cunt as she lay on her tummy, only a cushion under her belly helping to arch her butt upwards as her pussy received my thrusts.

Then she turned onto her back and I sat over her loins, my cock buried in her as I took off her heels and used my lips and tongue to kiss, lick and suck her gorgeous, shapely feet. Her calves, ankles and feet were as lovely as a woman's could get, I thought to myself as I sucked her toes into my mouth and really kissed her heels hard before letting my lips slide along the sides of her feet. I don't know if she got anything out of it, but she said she could tell that I was really getting off on it, and of course I was... I don't mind admitting that I have a hot fetish for women's beautiful feet.

After the pleasurable moments of worshipping Gayle's sweet feet, I eased down onto her, sucking her breasts then lowering my weight onto her and nuzzling her neck, thrusting deep and hard again as we hurtled to my second climax... and for her at least a fifth orgasm.

As we cuddled, our pillow talk was of me asking questions and Gayle giving me info about DynaCorp, information that surprised and shocked me.


"So Seth and his stepfather worked very closely together?" I said, holding Gayle in my arms and cuddling with her as our naked bodies pressed together and our hands caressed and explored each other. 

"Oh yes, I think Anthony was going to bring his son into the company pretty soon." Gayle replied. "But then a few weeks ago, Anthony changed. That's when he started calling the outside lawyers and working harder. Seth didn't come into the office at all the last few weeks..." I lay there, listening, not telling Gayle that I understood the reasons for all that. I also was sure Seth did not murder his father.

After Gayle and I showered together, sharing deep kisses as the warm water coursed over our bodes, we got dressed. "Will I see you again?" the lovely older woman asked.

"Of course." I said. "I'm going to take you somewhere nice for dinner, too. And I'm sure my fiancee has plans for both of us." I added, both of us knowing full well that Laura was more than just approving of my liaison with Gayle.

Gayle smiled. "You're right, I think she does. You're a lucky man: beautiful wife-to-be, baby on the way, and an open relationship... that's why I never married. I was engaged once, but he couldn't handle it that I wanted sex with other men too."

And women, I thought to myself, very sure about the lengths of Gayle's openness. But that was for another time.

"His loss." I said, taking Gayle into my arms for a last kiss. "And yes, I am lucky, and I intend to be lucky with you a lot more often."

I kissed Gayle, deeply and passionately, and she returned it just as warmly. After a long lusty and loving kiss, I reluctantly left Gayle's company, having to get back to the business of bringing murderers to Justice.

Part 18 - A Cell Phone Call

Before getting back to Headquarters, I stopped by the Schelle's home. Robert Schelle was there, packing up his late wife's effects in her office. But boxes were all over the house, and it wasn't hard to deduce that he was packing everything. There was still no power to the house: Schelle had not fixed the fusebox nor had someone else do it.

"I'm going to send all this back to the University." Schelle said. "Michelle's students will sort it all out."

"Looks like you're planning to move." I said.

"I'll probably have to soon." Schelle said. "I know you cops have been looking into our finances, so I won't pretend that I'm going to be able to keep the house."

"You didn't have life insurance on each other?" I asked.

"No." Schelle said as he threw papers and DVDs into boxes. "We both had jobs and didn't have kids, so we never thought much about it. By the way, I'm sure you've also heard that I've been fired from the Ward Harvester contract. Seems Mr. Ward doesn't like the Police on his property, and having two of your officers asking about me made him angry. He called Conlan, Conlan fired me. So I've got nothing."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Pretty damn heartless of them, if you ask me." I said. Cindy and Teresa had told me about Mr. Ward's deep hatred of me, but I couldn't dwell on that now. "Where are you going to go?"

"To the City. Maybe then to California." Schelle said. "I'll try to find some work somewhere. So, Lieutenant, what brings you here?"

"Just a couple of questions." I said. "First, were you the one that rigged that electrical system behind your house, and if so, why?"



"Yeah, that was me. I'm sure you realize it." said Schelle. "I was doing an experiment with my RV, trying to upgrade the power to it in order to put more appliances in. If it had worked, I was going to patent the appliances and try to sell them to RV companies."

"When did you rig the wiring? And why didn't you undo it when you were done with your tests, or at least when you sold the RV?" I asked. 

"I rigged it about a year ago." Schelle said. "I just forgot about it and didn't think I needed to disconnect it." He paused for effect, then added: "With perfect 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had now, of course. So what was your other question?" He was trying to move this along, and move me along out of his way.

"Just this: did you know Anthony or Katherine Warner of DynaCorp?"

"No, I don't remember ever meeting them." Schelle said, continuing to pack a box with papers.

"You didn't try to get any business with them, as the company does manufacturing consulting? They might could've used your skills." I said.

"I think we may have contacted the company some time ago. I would've had one of my employees do it; he would call all the major businesses around here to drum up work for us. But Mr. Warner was the CEO there, wasn't he? I would likely not have talked to him at all, even if I went over there. I'd have met project managers and such, not the brass."

"So you never met Mr. Warner, nor his wife, not even socially?"

"No, sir." Schelle replied. Just then his cellphone started buzzing. He fished it out of the right pocket of his jeans and answered it.

"Lieutenant, it's for you. It's Detective Ross." Schelle said, handing me the phone.

"Yes, Ross?" I said into the phone. "Yes... yeah, my cellphone died, I've got to recharge it. What's up?.... Okay, I'll be right there." I hung up the phone and handed it back to Schelle.

"Thank you, and thank you for your time, Mr. Schelle." I said, turning to leave.

"Any word on what happened to my wife?" Schelle asked. "This... surely it was just an accident...." 

I turned to face him. "Mr. Schelle, I would say it is most very lucky for you, damned lucky, that you had eyeballs on you at the time of your wife's death. I think we both know full well that you would be under considerable suspicion if it were not for that alibi. Be very careful where you step, Mr. Schelle, and make sure not to leave town without letting the Police Department know. Good day."

I left behind a man with a look of considerable fear on his face.

------------------------

I had to make one more brief stop.

"So Mrs. Warner crashed into you right here." I said. The waiter from the evening of the York recognition dinner confirmed it. He was a young man, college student, barely 18 years old.

"I just have one question." I said. "It was pretty late to be putting fresh water on the tables, wasn't it? The evening was almost over."

"Yes sir." the waiter said. "In fact, it was ironically Mrs. Warner who asked me to take a tray of water pitchers to some of the back tables. And then she collided with me as I brought them out. Crazy, huh?"

"Yep." I said. "Crazy." Crazy like a fox, I thought to myself as I suppressed my burning excitement. 

Part 19 - An Arrest

"Yes, honey, I did fuck her." I said into my cell phone as I drove back to Headquarters. Laura was at the other end of the line.

"I am soaking wet just thinking about it." my fiancee told me. "I can't wait for you to get home tonight, darling."

"Me neither, honey, but it might be a long night. We're going to crack the cases, both murders, and make arrests." I said. "But there's one other thing I need you to do for me, and on as expedited a basis as possible. A paternity test..."

--------------------------

Walking back into Headquarters, I was met by Cindy Ross in the hall. "Did you get what you wanted?" she asked.

"Sure did. Thanks for making the call." I said. My cell phone battery stays well-charged; the call was a total ruse to gauge Mr. Schelle's actions.

"Chief said he wanted to see you as soon as you came in." Cindy said. I headed to the corner office suite, where the Chief's secretary immediately ushered me into his office. To my surprise, Chief Griswold was not alone. Sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk was John "Jack" Colby.

"Chief, Mr. Colby." I said as a hello as the Chief pointed for me to sit in the chair next to Colby.

"Don, there's just one question that I can't figure out, and I want you to help me with it." Chief Griswold growled. "Why in the heck did you see fit to use your crowbar on that lawyer Sommes? By that, I mean that you could've handled him without the crowbar, and you didn't even need to bust his chops; you could've just arrested him." The chief leaned forward, as if wanting me to share a secret with him, and said quietly "So what's really up with that?"

"You're right." I said. "Mr. Colby, I'm going to have to break a confidence."

"I've already told him." said Colby. The Chief confirmed it. I felt huge relief at that. 

"Yes, sir." I said. "I told Mr. Colby in the car on the way to DynaCorp yesterday morning that I was going to do that, and why. I am very sure that Sommes and Willoughby have conspired to embezzle money from DynaCorp. I've already suggested to Mr. Colby places he and the Board can look to start tracing the embezzlement."

"Yep." said Colby. "Beatrice York and I have already started looking into it. I was going to call the FBI to look into it, since there are military contracts involved, but Mrs. Warner fired Sommes yesterday and I don't know why. So I came down here to see what you guys wanted to do."

"From what Mrs. Warner said today, she fired him for reasons not related to the finances." I said. "But one of the two reasons I roughed the lawyer up is because I wanted him to go to the D.A. I knew Krasney and Sommes hate each other's guts: I've been reviewing old Town and County cases to familiarize myself with any perps that might return and start repeating themselves. There was a case about five years ago, when Krasney was an ADA, where he and Sommes tangled. So D.A. Krasney tells Sommes to shove it. Internal Affairs had the day off, but it looks to Sommes like they're ignoring him, and that he's about to have the entire Police Force and Justice System of the County coming down on him like a ton of bricks.

"And the reason he would think that is this: Hugh Hewitt didn't touch Sommes. Sommes puked that morning because of what Hewitt told him... that Willoughby was going to protect himself by throwing Sommes to the dogs, i.e. to us. So when Sommes got fired, I'm hoping that he believed that Willoughby was behind it, and that his own ass is going to be in a sling. So his next visit to the police should be to offer to turn State's evidence on Willoughby in exchange for a deal. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't turn himself in within 24 hours."

"God damn! This guy *is* good!" Colby burst out, grinning. The Chief was also grinning merrily under his mustaches.

"You took a big risk with that, Don. We could've gotten him without the theatrics." the Chief said in admonition. "Of course, I can see that you also took the opportunity to have every Legal Eagle in the State scared shitless of you, and now they will be."

"There was one other reason... the people who Sommes and Willoughby are working with." I said, informing them of their partners in crime. "Jack Muscone of the FBI told me that they've been looking into someone at DynaCorp possibly giving military secrets to foreign agents. I looked at Willoughby's and Sommes's appointment books, and there are interesting trips to San Francisco as well as some gaps. So we think the traitors are possibly Sommes and Willoughby... and that is the other reason I put the crowbar to the man: I don't like traitors to my beloved Constitution of the United States." I said the last bit with a bit of passion.

"Don't blame you, I don't either. Well, come with me." the Chief said, getting up. Colby and I followed. Colby couldn't hide the amused smile on his face, so I knew something was up.

We walked down the hallways to the Interrogation rooms, the ones where perps were interviewed. Coming to the window of Interrogation-2, I looked in. Since Vice handled most white-collar crimes that did not involve physical harm to persons, I saw ADA Sanders, Detective Teresa Croyle and Senior Patrolman Christopher Purvis interviewing someone. Purvis was being considered for promotion to Detective in Vice.

The man being interviewed was Sommes. He had already turned himself in.

"Sommes called me a couple of hours ago." Colby said. "He was begging for his life, literally. He was crying. I told him to get the papers he would need and I went and got him and brought him here."

"Darn, I was wrong." I said, grinning. "I thought he'd just come down himself. So you made the bust, Mr. Colby. You beat me bad on that one."

"Shit!" Colby said, still grinning himself. "I got nuthin' on yer ass. I gotta get a crowbar now, just to protect myself from you."




The Swap Ch. 04



"Certainly not necessary." I replied, then turned to the Chief. "What about Willoughby?"

"Warrant is issued." Chief Griswold replied. "Ikea is making the bust, but I forced him to take Hewitt along. That should be amusing." 

It was not long before Willoughby was in Interrogation-1, having been formally charged, processed and booked. His lawyer, an elderly man with hard features that I did not know, was with him. Even Ikea's methods of interrogating perps failed to move the man; it quickly became clear that Willoughby was adamantly denying being involved in the murder of Anthony Warner.

As we watched the interrogation, the Chief whispered, "Do you think they might have murdered Warner because he found out about the treason?"

"No." I said. "Warner would've called the FBI already if he'd found out, and Muscone said they learned about the treason from another source. He wouldn't tell me who that source was, but he doesn't have to; I'm not as dumb as I may look."

"And to think you're mother is even better than you at observation and deduction." the Chief said. "Jesus I almost feel sorry for the punks infiltrating the Police Force when the two of you start wiping them out..."

I just smiled. The Chief and I agreed not to bring up the treason issue with the other Detectives unless Willoughby or Sommes brought it up under questioning: the FBI would be coming in for that in the near future, and we didn't want to spoil their case. So nothing about that would be mentioned.

Part 20 - The Winding Road

At the 5:00pm meeting with the Chief, only myself, Cindy Ross, Teresa Croyle, Martin Nash, and Hugh Hewitt attended, it being Saturday after all. Teresa informed us that Willoughby was cooperative enough on the embezzlement charges in order to get a reduced sentence, but most importantly to me: he was strongly denying that he had anything to do with Warner's murder. 

"Don, you think Willoughby or Sommes are involved in the murder?" the chief asked. All eyes were on me.

"I'm having a hard time seeing it from the logic point of view." I said. "In fact, Warner's death was the worst possible thing that could've happened to them: only his death had the police crawling all over DynaCorp."

"Wasn't Warner meeting with outside lawyers that specialize in corporate breakups?" Martin Nash observed. "Maybe Warner got wind of the embezzling and was talking to the outside lawyers to cut Willoughby out of the company"

"Good observation, Martin." I said. "Really good. And you might well be right about that. I'd been thinking that Warner made those consultations in preparation for removing his sister from the board... but you might be right."

"But to bust my own theory, we get to the alibis." Nash said. "Sommes was not in the Board meeting, but was waiting outside with a couple of other aides to Board members, and of course Warner was in with the Board. When they came out, Warner went his own way and back towards the exit to his car, and no one went with him. Sommes talked to Willoughby, then Sommes walked out to the main parking lot with others. Willoughby remained inside, but was never unattended."

"What about a hired hit?" the Chief asked.

"If they've been embezzling," Cindy said, "then they may have associates in Organized Crime. They could've hired a hit man to kill Warner."

"We have nothing at all there." I said. "Myron has found nothing in data searches. I've contacted some people in the City, including Robin Ventura of the City Police, Ted Crenshaw of the SBI, and Jack Muscone of the FBI. They quietly asked around, and are not getting any word that anyone made a hired hit on Warner."

"Also, I need to say this." I said. "I know we have to go where the facts and the evidence lead us. But my instincts are entirely against Willoughby and Sommes being involved in the murder. It would be the worst possible 'solution' for them, even if Warner had found them out. Why bother hiding a golf cart near the fence, and cutting the fence? That's a badly unnecessary finesse. No, I think the killer actually did leave the scene in that golf cart, indicating that this was a pre-planned murder with thought given all the way through to the getaway phase."

"And let's put ourselves in Willoughby and Sommes's place: even if you hired a hit, would any of you want Warner to be murdered at a time and place where you are in his physical vicinity? Wouldn't you want to be halfway across town.... halfway...."

"Uh oh, there he goes again." said Cindy as I fell into deep introspection. When I came out of it, I stood up and went to the large map of the Town & County that was on the wall.

"River Valley Golf Club is here, to the northwest, near the wealthier neighborhoods in town." I said. "Ward Harvester is down here to the west, in the industrial district, but County Farm Road 5 is a quick and straight shot between them, as we all know all too well." We knew that from personal experience, remembering my fateful drive along that road before the near-fatal confrontation with Ned at Ward Harvester.

"The Ladies Auxiliary Clubhouse is here, just north of downtown." I said, pointing out the location. "Not far at all from the Kensington suburbs, though a bit of a distance on busy streets to get up to River Valley. That's a big-time piece of the puzzle, though it's no proof of anything." 

No one in the room said a word, they were trying to follow my train of thought as it left the station.

"Oh, and just one other thing." I said, sitting back down. "Remember that the perp either had to time his movements precisely with Warner's so that he was opening the back door just as Warner was cranking the car, -OR- he had to be waiting in the backseat."



"But that's not possible, there was that security system." Hugh said.

"No, it's possible..." I said. "if the system were turned off. And the likeliest explanation of that is that the killer had the spare set of keys to Warner's car."

"If that's like most families, that would mean Mrs. Warner had those keys." the Chief said. "But there's her alibi again."

"Agreed. Karla Warner absolutely did not kill her husband herself." I said. "But I believe the killer was lying in wait in the backseat and therefore did have the keys."

"So what does that mean?" Hugh Hewitt said.

"That I need some evidence... Dammit! I need some evidence!" I said.

"Bingo, Boss!" said Myron Milton as he burst through the door, Goth Girl Mary in tow. "I think we've got what you need."

"Miss Mahoney, is that any way for a police officer to dress in these Headquarters?" the Chief growled. Mary was wearing goth makeup a tight black t-shirt that underscored how big and luscious her breasts were, black leather pants that molded her her lovely legs all the way down to her slender ankles, and very high heel black patent-leather pumps. She looked extremely hot. I could also tell the Chief was not as serious as he sounded.

"Chief, I'm in the Dungeon all day." Mary said, completely unafraid. "Besides, if it gets this guy motivated, isn't it worth it?" General laughter was not successfully repressed, and little by little everyone began laughing, even the Chief.

"And this guy is good, too." Mary said, pointing at Myron. Yes, that was Myron-worship in her eyes.

"Whaddya got, Milton?" the Chief asked.

"Don asked me to get info on burner phones and their locations the night of the murders. We found two numbers of interest." Myron said, handing me the numbers that were listed on a sheet of paper so I could write them down. "The nearest tower for Number 1 is the Kensington subdivision, but Thursday night that number pinged off of the tower nearest The River Valley Golf Club. Number 2 has pinged around the area where DynaCorp is located, then it pinged off a downtown cell near the Ladies Clubhouse, then pinged... in Kensington."

"Is that what you need, Don?" the Chief asked.

"It's close enough." I said. "We're going to have to do a little trickeration to get some people to talk or confess, but I think my theory has facts behind it now.

"So why don't you share your theory with all of us... especially Miss Ross." the Chief said, an amused gleam in his eyes.

"Yes, please!" said Cindy Ross, her eyes boring into me. 

"Okay.... have you guys ever seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie Strangers On A Train?"

To be continued.



The Swap Ch. 05



The order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series.

The Swap series.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.



Part 21 - Plan of Action

"Okay, does everyone understand what we're going to do?" I asked. Everyone was looking at me, dumbfounded, still trying to grasp the theory I had told them.

"Put it into effect." the Chief ordered, breaking the silence. "And let's get going. Move, people, move."

We all went down to the I.T. room. Myron had the lights dimmed to almost off, so that we could all see the screens more easily.

"All right, here goes nothing." I said, picking up a phone and dialing Robert Schelle's cell phone number.

"Hello Mr. Schelle," I said, identifying myself. "Yes, I'm calling to tell you that we may have a break in our investigation of the death of your wife.... yes, sir, one of your neighbors had a security camera that caught a car leaving your RV driveway right at the time of the crime, and we'd like you to come to the station and see if you can identify her.... yes, that's right, I said 'her', it's a woman... how about tomorrow morning, 10:00am? That'll be great... thank you Mr. Schelle. Good night."

We all watched Myron's screen. It did not take long.

"There it is, burner phone number one!" Myron said. "Kensington cell tower!"

A moment later he added "Burner phone two, near Katherine Wilson's apartment complex!"

Picking up the phone, I called the Chief's office and asked him to go ahead and call the D.A. for warrants. Then I picked up what looked like a green telephone handset but was actually a hookup to the police radio system.

"Okay Cindy, Tanya, go!" I ordered.

------------------------

"Who the hell is that?" Karla Warner asked, scowling at the harsh knock on the door. She released Katherine Wilson from her embrace, their lips smeared with their lipstick after their several minutes of deeply kissing.

After arranging their opened dresses to look presentable, Katherine Wilson went to the door of her apartment. It was the Police. She opened the door.

"Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Warner," Detective Cindy Ross said imperiously, "I'm going to have to ask you both to come to Police Headquarters and answer a few questions."

"Are we under arrest?" Karla Warner said. 

"We can play it that way if you want to, Mrs. Warner, but you're coming to the station one way or another." Cindy Ross replied. Two female uniformed officers came in to escort the women to police cars. Tanya Perlman darted into the apartment and confiscated both women's purses. 

"What the hell are you doing with my purse?" Karla Warner shouted, her face crimson with anger.

"Evidence, Mrs. Warner." Supervisor Perlman stated. "We'll return it to you at the station."

--------------------

"Mr. Schelle, I'm Detective Martin Nash and this is Detective Hewitt. We need you to come down to the station with us."

"Uh, sure, give me a second." said Robert Schelle, attempting to retreat back into his house. Nash stopped him from closing the door. 

"We need you to come right now." said Nash.

"Wait, am I under arrest?" Schelle asked, beginning to show anger. "Do you have a warrant for my arrest?"

"You're not under arrest yet, Mr. Schelle, but you will come with us now. If we need to place you under arrest, we can do so." Nash said.

"I want a lawyer first." Schelle demanded.

"You can call your lawyer at the station." Nash said. Hewitt moved in on Schelle, who decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and did not resist as he was led to the squad car outside by the larger, stronger man Hugh Hewitt.

-----------------------------------

"Let's take Mrs. Warner first, shall we?" I said to Cindy Ross. We entered Interrogation-B. Tanya Perlman came in behind us, with Mrs. Warner's purse.

"What the hell is going on?" Karla Warner demanded. "Why have I been brought to the police station? Where is Katherine? I want to call a lawyer,... lawyers for both of us, right now!"

"Take it easy, Mrs. Warner." I said. "In fact, allow me to make the call." I dialed a number from the police phone on the wall. A cell phone inside Mrs. Warner's purse went off. Tanya Perlman fished it out.

"Is that your cellphone, Mrs. Warner?" I asked, my voice cold. 

"Yes it is." Mrs. Warner said. "What the hell is this about?" I did not reply; I was dialing a second number...

-----------------------------------

Some ten minutes later, I entered Interrogation-A with Detective Nash. Tanya Perlman also came into the room.

"Mr. Schelle, we've brought you here to ask a few more questions about the murder." I said.

"What about it?" Schelle said.

"We're trying to ascertain your whereabouts at the time of the murder." I said.

"I... we've been through this. I was in the meeting with Conlan at Ward Harvester when my wife was killed." Schelle said.

"Ah, forgive me, I'm so sorry Mr. Schelle for not making myself clear." I said, trying not to break into a smile or laugh, "I was not referring to your wife's death. Mr. Schelle... where were you at 10:05pm... when Mr. Anthony Warner was shot dead in his car?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Schelle said, getting up. "I'm getting the hell out of here!"

*BRRRINGGG! BRRRINNGG! BRRRING!*

"Not so fast, Mr. Schelle." I said. "Is that your cell phone?"

"Yeah..." Schelle said, reaching into his right-hand pocket and taking out the cell phone. Looking at it, he said "It says 'Blocked'". 

"That is what you may expect to see when a Police telephone calls yours." I replied. "Just place that cell phone on the table, if you will. Thank you. "Now--"

*BRRRINGGG! BRRRINNGG! BRRRING!*

"Is that your cellphone, Mr. Schelle?" I asked again, having dialed a second number.

Schelle turned pale. "Uh no, it's right there on the table." he said. The ringing phone continued.

"Surely it's the phone in your pocket, Mr. Schelle?" I said. "Why don't you take it out?" He didn't move. "Or I can have my officers forcibly remove it from your pocket, Mr. Schelle." 

Schelle finally reached into his left pocket and extracted a small cell phone.

"Detective Perlman, secure that burner phone. Take both those cell phones into evidence. Note the numbers." I said. Tanya did so. We now had both burner phones with the numbers Myron had discovered... and found in the respective possessions of Robert Schelle and Karla Warner!

"Okay, Mr. Schelle, you should be able to see now that we know everything. So once more from the top... sit down, Mr. Schelle, sit down." I said, sitting down myself. "There you go. Now... where were you at 10:05pm?"


"I told you this before: I was driving home." Schelle stammered.

"Yes, with the tire low on air." I said. "I remember that story. The problem is, it won't pass muster. You have no alibi at 10:05 because you were at the River Valley Country Club, where you lay in the back seat of Mr. Anthony Warner's car, and then shot him to death when he got in."

"What!" Schelle said. "You will never prove that."

"I think I will." I said. "I know that you and Karla Warner conspired to kill each other's spouses. You got the idea from one of your favorite movies: Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train, which I saw in your home the night of the murders. You set up the electricity and extension cord so that she could drop it into the hot tub while you were in your meeting, then you hustled over and shot her husband while she was creating a diversion at the Ladies Auxiliary dinner.

Schelle said nothing. The look on his face was simple disbelief, fear, and not knowing what to do or say next.

"Come now, Mr. Schelle," I continued, "we are talking about a death penalty case if you don't start cooperating. How did you and Karla Warner meet and form this little scheme of yours?"

"I... I want a lawyer." Schelle said. "I've got rights."

"Yes, you have rights." I said. "You've got lots of rights. In fact, you've got so many rights that sometimes I count them all, just to make myself feel crazy."

I continued, leaning in on him. "But right now what you've got is a world of shit, Robert. Do you think Karla Warner is going to go down alone, do you think she's going to take the fall for you? Think about it, buddy, while I arrange for you to call your lawyer... though I don't think you can afford to pay for one good enough to save you from the syringe." I said. 

I got up and exited into the Headquarters area. Cindy was waiting in the anteroom.

"Karla Warner hasn't said a word since the burner phone in her purse went off, except to demand a lawyer." Cindy said.

"Okay, it's time to take them into booking." I said. "Do you have the pager?"

"Sure do. When you beep it, I'll bring her out."

I re-entered Schelle's room. "Mr. Robert Schelle, I am placing you under arrest for suspicion of the murder of Anthony Warner, and conspiracy to commit the murder of your wife, Michelle Schelle. Nash, read the citizen his considerable rights." Nash did so as Patrolman Morton handcuffed Schelle's hands behind his back. As I opened the door to the public side, I pressed the pager.

Schelle stepped out into the hallway at exactly the same time Karla Warner did. They looked at each other, shock on their faces, and Schelle nearly jumped out of his skin. It was Karla Warner who burst forward.

"Don't say one word to them, not one god-damned word, you hear!" she shouted into Schelle's face. Cindy began pushing her forward past him and Karla turned and screamed over her shoulder "They can't prove a god damned thing; don't say one fucking word!"

I don't know why everyone was looking at me. I was just grinning.

Part 22 - Confession Is Good For The Soul

In Interrogation-C, a room I rarely visited as it was only used when "A" and "B" were full, Katherine Wilson was sitting alone. We had left her alone in the room for as long as possible. Now it was time to work on her. I entered the room from the headquarters side with Detective Cindy Ross and Patrolman Diana Torres. Torres stood off to the side and watched as Cindy and I sat at the table facing Katherine.

"Katherine," I said, "you were at the Ladies Auxiliary dinner the night your brother was murdered, weren't you?"

"Yes, Karla and I were both there." Katherine said.

"Were you there the entire time, Katherine?" Cindy asked, keeping her voice as soft and friendly as she could.

"Yes... yes! We've told you this already." Katherine said. Her eyes were near to tears, her face looked panicked, almost like an animal caught in a cage.

"Katherine," I said, playing the role of 'bad cop", "Karla wasn't there the entire time, was she?"

"I... yes, of course she was there." Katherine said. 

"The whole time? You can testify you were in sight of her the entire time?" I said.

"I..." 

"Katherine," Cindy said, her voice soft and pleading and helpful, "you need to tell us what happened." Katherine's eyes looked to Cindy for support and guidance, but she still held back. "If you didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't take the fall for this."

"Katherine," I said, boring in on her, "Karla rented that car in your name. Your name, Katherine! And that car was spotted by a neighbor driving away from Michelle Schelle's home when she was murdered."

"What?" Katherine said. "I... we had nothing to do with any of that! I thought you were talking about Anthony's murder..."

"Katherine..." I said. "You've been deceived, tricked by Karla Warner. She left the dinner for a while, didn't she? She drove the car, rented in your name, to Dr. Schelle's home and threw a live wire into the woman's hot tub. Now I don't think you had anything to do with that, Katherine, but the car at the scene was rented in your name."

Tears were flowing down Katherine's cheeks.

"Katherine," Cindy said, "Karla left the dinner for a while, didn't she? Come on, tell us what you know. Where was Karla at 9:30?"

"I...." Katherine said. "She... she went to the restroom for a few minutes. That's all. I'm sure someone saw her in the hallway or the restroom."

"Katherine," I said. "I know what happened. Karla left, telling you she was going to the restroom. She was gone at least 20 minutes. After a while, you grew concerned. You went to the restroom to see if she was all right... but she wasn't there, was she, Katherine?"

I bore down, hard. "You waited for a long time, wondering where she was. You only saw her again when she crashed into that waiter, isn't that right, Katherine?"

Katherine looked at me, her eyes huge, like a doe at bay. She was a lovely woman, but total fear was now etched upon her face.

"Come on, Katherine!" I commanded. "Karla Warner is setting you up, don't you understand? She rented that car in your name! She's been cheating on you, having affairs! And why do you think your brother was cutting you out of the company, eh?"

Katherine looked at Cindy. "Help me..." she whispered. "I don't know what to do, please... help me."

"You have to tell us the truth." Cindy said with as much compassion as her ability to commit deception would permit.

Katherine Wilson began sobbing. And she broke. 

"No... she wasn't there the whole time." Katherine admitted, the words coming between sobs. "She... it was as you said, she went to the restroom and I didn't see her again until she ran into the waiter. Oh God... oh Karla I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." She buried her hands in her arms, the choking sobs coming unabated.

--------------------------------

I strode into Interrogation-2, painted cold jail gray, on the other side of the Headquarters from the public interrogation rooms. Robert Schelle was sitting at the table. He still looked like a frightened rabbit, but he now had a resigned look on his face. Entering the room with me was Assistant District Attorney Paulina Patterson.

"Okay, Robert, your rights have been read to you." I said, making sure the videocamera's taping the session got that. "I think you understand that we have sufficient evidence to place you in the vicinity of Anthony Warner's murder, and at the time of it. What's more, Karla Warner has been arrested, and if she cuts a deal with the D.A.'s office before you do, you are looking at the death penalty. She'll have no qualms about throwing you under the bus to save her ass-- er, save herself."

"I understand." Schelle said. "I know now that she never loved me. I'll tell you what you want to know." He looked at me. "I never should've let you into my house. You figured it out when you saw the movie, didn't you?"

"No, Robert, the movie only showed me that you got the idea from it. I began getting the idea that your wife's and Mr. Warner's murders were connected when I visited his crime scene. It was all your idea, wasn't it?"

"Not really." Schelle said. "It was Karla that kept talking about how great things would be for us if we were free from our spouses. I knew Michelle was going to divorce me, and I suggested Karla divorce her husband, but she said she'd lose her company and her money.

He paused, then added "She also said that the only way I could save my company was to avoid divorce, otherwise Michelle and her lawyers would lay claim to it. Everything I had worked for, gone, just like that. That's when I thought of the plan."

"So Karla really wanted you to keep your company, didn't she?" I asked.

"I..." Schelle paused for a moment, then said "Now that you mention it, she did keep saying how important it was that we keep the company in my name, and that she'd help me rebuild it."

"Why do you suppose that was, Robert? What about your struggling company was so interesting to Karla Warner?"

"I have no idea."

-------------------

"You can save yourself from the death penalty, Karla." Cindy Ross said. She, Martin Nash and Paulina Patterson were interviewing Karla Warner in Interrogation-1 as I watched through the one-way mirror. "Just work with us. You can save Katherine. You'll get to see pictures of your grandchildren. But right now you are looking at a one-way ticket to Death Row."

Nothing fazed the woman. All she said was "I wish to confer with my lawyer privately for a few moments." Everyone but Karla and her lawyer got up and walked into the anteroom where I was.

I had a sense of foreboding, that there was more to this legal pow-wow than just her legal options... Karla Warner was up to something, I could just feel it.

--------------------

It was nearly 2:00am when I got back home to The Cabin. A lovely sight greeted me there, and my cock sprang to instant throbbing hardness.

Blankets were spread on the floor in front of the fireplace in the greatroom. Laura and I often fucked on the floor or the sofa or wherever we were when the mood hit us... and it often did. But this time, we had a guest. It was Gayle Roberts.

Both women were naked except for Laura wearing her white high-heel slides and Gayle wearing bone-color sandals with thin straps, different from the ones she'd worn when I'd fucked her at her apartment. Laura was between Gayle's legs, eating Gayle's pussy, Laura's long tongue penetrating deeply into Gayle's hole and licking and lashing all over the beautiful woman's swollen labes.


"Hi darling, welcome home." Laura said, looking up. "I'm just enjoying this delicious late-night snack. Want to join us?"

"You bet your sweet ass I do." I said. I came up to Gayle's feet as Laura got out of the way. Gayle and I locked eyes as I stood over her and began undressing, slowly enough to make a show of it for both ladies. Laura was beautiful, as always, but I was concentrating on Gayle. She was lying on her back looking up at me, her legs spread obscenely, her feet in the high heels on the floor. My cock sprang out, hard and ready, and both women's eyes smoldered with lust and desire matching my own. 

Naked, I moved to my knees between Gayle's legs, but before I mounted her I pulled Laura up to me and deeply kissed her mouth. I could feel more than see Gayle's eyes watching us as I deeply kissed my fiancee, tasting Gayle's sweet cunt juices on Laura's lips and tongue. 

Breaking the kiss with Laura, I turned my attention and lust-fueled desires onto Gayle. I mounted her, hooking her legs under my arms. I felt powerful as I leaned over and deeply kissed Gayle's sweet mouth, twining my tongue with hers. I felt her reach between us and take my cock and fit it to her cuntlips. She was hot, wet and ready. I drove forward, burying the full length of my meat nuts-deep into Gayle's lovely cunt...

Part 23 - The Solution

It was Sunday evening, and we were gathered at The Steakhouse, in a private back room. The Chief had kept his promise and arranged dinner with the restaurant owner, John "Jack" Colby. I did not know, nor care to know, what financial arrangement had occurred between them, but I suspected Colby was going to try to conveniently forget to send a bill; such were police perks in this Town, for right or wrong.

Present were: the Chief, myself, Captain Brittany Maxwell, Detectives Cindy Ross, Martin Nash, Hugh Hewitt, Teresa Croyle, Tanya Perlman, Technicians Myron Milton, Mary Mahoney, and Sonali, Police Auxiliary members Laura Fredricson and my mother Phyllis, and Patrolmen Diana Torres, Pete Feeley and Christopher Purvis. I'd invited SBI Agent Ted Crenshaw in an effort to forge better relations, but he had been called to a case in the City.




The Swap Ch. 05



Dinner was delicious; The Steakhouse truly had the best steaks in the State, much less the County, and the sides, salads and drinks were great, also.

After dinner, we formed our chairs into a circle so that I could tell how I solved the case: of course that was what everyone was waiting to hear.

"First, I'll tell you what happened, then how I came to the conclusions I did." I said. "Let's start with DynaCorp. Anthony Warner thought his business was slipping, and that might partly have been due to Willoughby and Sommes embezzling from him. We now know that Willoughby and Sommes had been embezzling from the company for some time, but we have also learned that they were stealing some of the information from the military contracts and selling that information to Chinese agents.

"Their main contact, a Chinese spy posing as a diplomat, was shot dead in San Francisco some months ago." I said. Author's note: See the Case of The Murdered Lovers, Ch.01 for the discussion of that murder. "After their contact was assassinated, Willoughby and Sommes got nervous and scaled back what they were doing... but the Feds, the FBI and the CIA, were already looking into it, and I suspect there was, and maybe still is, a CIA mole deep inside the company that was trying to root out the spies. I'm sure that treason charges will be coming against Sommes and Willoughby soon. And I certainly did not mind applying my crowbar to a piece-of-crap traitor."

"You knew he was a traitor then, at that time?" John 'Jack' Colby asked. He had joined us for the discussion after personally serving drinks and making bottles available for refills.

"I had a good inkling of it, but let's save that for another time." I said. Laura hid it well but I could see her discomfort, so I began to close this line of discussion. "Now that I've told you all that... forget every word of it! It matters very little in these murder cases." I said. There was a bit of laughter and a general buzz as I sipped my single-malt Scotch.

"About six months ago," I continued, "Karla Warner arranged to meet Robert Schelle, ostensibly on DynaCorp business. Karla Warner was much more involved in the business than she'd let on to us. She also had become aware that Anthony Warner was planning to divorce her as well as remove Katherine Warner Wilson from his company. She consulted divorce attorneys in the weeks leading to the murders.

"Karla did not meet Robert at the DynaCorp offices, but she did make the deliberate effort to meet him, and she began seducing him. Robert Schelle was a very sex-hungry man and was easily enticed into her bed. While Karla had to be careful about cheating on her husband as well as her lover Katherine Wilson, she was very experienced at adultery and took the normal precautions.

"It was Robert Schelle who was suspicious to the point of paranoia about being spied upon, especially by the Government. He told us that all those movies were favorites of his wife, but that was a lie: he himself loved all those movies and watched them unceasingly while his wife worked in her upstairs office. Theirs was a totally estranged marriage.

"Anyhoo, Robert and Karla began using burner phones to communicate. When they met for sex in cheap hotels nowhere near where either lived, they began talking about their spouses, whom they each hated. In my opinion it was Karla that steered Robert into the idea of murdering them. It was Robert's idea to murder each other's spouses, which he got from the Hitchcock movie Strangers On A Train.

They planned it fairly meticulously: Robert stripped the extension cord wiring and installed the high-voltage current outlet so that Karla could simply put it in the hot tub and fry Michelle. Robert also cut the hole in the Country Club fence to gain entrance, scout the grounds, then he fastened the fence up until he needed it that night. But it was Karla who visited the Club earlier that day and hid a golf cart near the site of the breach in the fence.

"Also, and this is one of the most important aspects of the case; I cannot stress it enough: Karla had to give Robert her spare set of keys to Anthony's car, so that Robert could disable the security system and hide in the back seat. It was when I realized that Karla had given the murderer the keys to Anthony's car that I began really getting my ducks in a row on both crimes.

"It also helped steer me to Karla rather than Katherine as the main suspect... Katherine likely would not have had keys to Anthony's car, especially since she wasn't driving it after her own car was stolen. If Karla were innocent, it would really be a risk for Katherine to take the keys and have Karla notice them missing. Last but not least, Karla was by far the more dominant and decisive of the two. So I felt comfortable looking much more closely at Karla in the early going.

"Question!" said Tanya Perlman, her cheeks rosy with interest as well as alcohol. "Why did Karla Warner single out Robert Schelle, clearly with a murderous intent? Why him?"

"Ahh, very good question." I said. "And so far we have no answer at all. Karla Warner hasn't said anything at all, and we have so far come up with absolutely no prior connection between Karla Warner and either Robert or Michelle Schelle. But she did seduce Robert with the intent of using him and/or his company in some way to gain full control of DynaCorp."

"I'll say more on this in a minute. Back to the murders." I said. "I was also going to say that the 'mob hit' was yet another example of Robert watching too many movies, but it might have worked if they had not been so sloppy in their execution of the crimes, nor trying to do them both in one night and having to meet rigid timetables for their alibis.

"Well, it all came to fruition last Thursday. Robert had a meeting that he knew would go late. Karla was going to be at the dinner, but was sure she could slip out the back unnoticed for half an hour in the middle of it; indeed, she got the schedule from Myrtle L. James, who runs her meetings as timely as a railroad.

"So while Robert was still at his meeting, Karla slipped out of her gathering, needing to worry only about Katherine Wilson, who worshipped the very ground Karla walked on. Karla drove to the Schelle's residence, which was not far away, found the extension cord that Robert had left ready for her, and threw it into the water, killing Michelle Schelle within seconds. Then she pushed the radio into the water to make it look like that was the culprit, put the extension cord back into the shed, and drove away."

"Question: why leave the extension cord there?" Britt Maxwell asked. "Why not take it with her and throw it in a garbage can somewhere."

"That's a good question, and I thought a lot about that very point." I said. "My guess is that Karla was on a tight timetable, needed to get back, and didn't have time to fool with looking for a trash can along the way. She was hustling as it was: she was said to be red-faced from embarrassment when she ran into the waiter... but it's more likely she was red-faced from the excitement of having just murdered someone plus having to hustle so quickly to get back to the Clubhouse.

"In addition to all that, she couldn't be seen with the cord; that would be a dead giveaway. Yet again, if the cord were found anywhere between the house and the Ladies Clubhouse, it conceivably could point back to her."

"And speaking of her red face and excitement, Tanya, I think she got a big thrill out of murdering Michelle Schelle, who was as far as we know a total stranger to her. Karla Warner has some demons deep inside her, I suspect, and killing someone gave her a rush. Did she plan to kill anyone before Robert came up with the idea of swapping spouses for murder? I don't know, but I suspect she loved the idea when it came up." 

I paused, then continued: "As to the extension cord, I also think that Robert wanted her to leave the cord there. He had it set up so completely to look like he was the guilty party... but then he'd have an alibi of the highest order, leaving us utterly confounded. I think he might have wanted that cord left there to be found just to play us.

"And that's an idiot mistake when the Iron Crowbar is anywhere around." Cindy said. Despite the cheer of agreement, I knew that her remark was partly complimentary and partly needling. I love my team, I love my team, I love my team...

I continued, noticing my mother beaming at Cindy's compliment. "So Karla heads back to the Ladies Club, gets the waiter to bring a tray of waters, then crashes into him within moments of 10:00pm, giving herself her own alibi, any excuse if her dress had gotten wet at the Schelle's, and for her red face... if she even thought of that aspect.

"Meanwhile, Robert has left the meeting and hurries to the subdivision near the River Valley Golf Course. He goes through the fence, drives the cart to the back of the clubhouse, then gets into Anthony Warner's car and waits. This part was dangerous, as he might have been seen, but even more, the timing had to be good and he was hoping Warner would not be too late."

"Wow, what if that meeting had ended earlier?" Martin Nash mused, "and Warner had left already?"

"I asked Schelle about that." I said. "He said that if he had missed Warner at the clubhouse, he was going to try again at Warner's house that night, having a pass to enter the gated subdivision as well the codes to disable the home alarm and the house keys, all from Karla. And that brings up a second key point: Karla had to use the burner phone to call Schelle and see if the crime had gone off as planned. She knew she could not go home until it was completed. That is one reason she was still at the Ladies Club when you guys found her. 

"But more importantly, I just happened to be in Robert Schelle's presence when she called, and I saw him take the phone out of his left pocket. Later, I would observe him take his cellphone out of his right pocket... he kept them separated. I knew then I had something in my theory.

"So, Warner obligingly comes out right after 10:00pm, Schelle shoots him then runs off to the golf cart and out through the fence. Not a bad plan at that point."

"So now let me tell you how I came to the conclusions I did." I said. "First, I have to admit that I had an advantage over all of you... I was the only person to visit both crime scenes that night and the next morning."

"Hell, no wonder you get all the wins." the Chief growled. Everyone laughed out loud.

"I admit it." I said, smiling. "But by going to both places, I noticed that both seemed to be staged events, as if they were both part of some play-acting happening at the same time."



"Aren't all murders staged?" asked Officer Pete Feeley, somewhat out of turn. It was an interesting point, though.

"In some way, yes." I said, "but this was different; follow me here. The Schelle incident was made to look like an accident, then as we found evidence of murder it all pointed to the husband... except, so sorry, he had an alibi. Then the Warner incident, staged to look like a pro hit, but then as we dig we find the likeliest top culprits, the wife and the sister have an alibi, so sorry.

"I was first struck by the RV pad in the Schelle backyard. That is what led me to begin looking for extension cord hookups from the house to a previously existing RV. And that led me to seeing that there was a power source that could deliver deadly voltage to the hot tub, certainly far more than that silly little boom box radio! And that led me to realizing that Dr. Schelle had been murdered.

"And at the Warner murder, I saw instantly what would've had to happen to make that 'pro hit' a reality... and that it truly wasn't realistic. Certainly that was not a hired hit, and the staging of it to look like one eliminated motives such as robbery. Certainly the knowledge of Anthony Warner and his movements that were needed to hit him right at that time was too much to be by a total and complete stranger on an off-chance or random shooting.

"Anyway, and perhaps because of the similarities in the crimes in my mind, I found myself looking at these two seemingly unrelated crimes as indeed related, and I set about on a hair-brained chase in trying to find a connection between the Warners and the Schelles. But there was none that was obvious until Myron came up with the burner phones, and we were able to establish those.

"I'm surprised they didn't change burner phones a few times." Laura said.

"Actually, I think they did." I said. "The records for the two numbers we found them with were recent and spotty. Myron felt like he had at least four more numbers from a few months ago and a few weeks ago, but those numbers haven't been used for a while. Any other questions?"

"I've got more questions in my mind than I can handle right now." admitted Martin Nash, "but the one burning at me right now is the motive for killing Mr. Warner. I can see the motive for Michelle Schelle, but why did Mrs. Warner think that killing Mr. Warner was the best thing to do?"

"That's one for pondering and discussing... good excuse for another Scotch!" I said, pouring another one into my glass. Others followed my example and refreshed their own drinks.

Recharged and re-fortified, I continued. "I can say this: the Warner side of the equation is indeed much more complicated than the Schelle side. I think Robert Schelle just basically snapped; his wife treated him like crap for the last couple of years, no sex between them and he being a very horny man, then her stringing him along on barely enough money to live while he struggled like hell, unsuccessfully, to save his fading company. Schelle also said that Karla told him that Michelle was getting tenure and divorcing him, but how she knew, I have no idea."

"If I may, son," my mother Phyllis interjected. "I would venture a guess that Dr. Schelle visited the same divorce attorneys that Mrs. Warner did. That new Women's Law Firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe has been getting quite a bit of business from unhappy women in this Town. While I doubt Mrs. Olivet nor her partners would say anything, there are eyes and ears in every office filled with workers. It is likely that Dr. Schelle told her lawyer that she was getting tenure... oh, I'm sorry Laura, but things like that are among the worst-kept secrets on a University campus... and thus the knowledge went to Karla and ironically right back to Dr. Schelle's own husband."

"I think I'm going to promote Phyllis to Captain." Chief Griswold said, his cheeks rosy. He'd been enjoying some select bourbons over the course of the evening. "Especially since she's the only one with any hope of keeping the Iron Crowbar under wraps, since I know he'll mind his mama." Everyone laughed again.

"I think you may well be right, Mom." I said. "As to the Warners... Anthony Warner visited lawyers dedicated to company acquisitions and split-ups. He wanted to buy Tim Olivet's company, he wanted his sister out of his company, he might have found out about Willoughby and Sommes and was going to kick them to the kerb. Which one? Who can tell, except that Warner was looking for legal advice outside his company, not from within it."

Martin Nash said "He did visit divorce attorneys, and it's likely he did so with the idea of divorcing his wife Karla. Maybe he thought she was in league with Willoughby and Sommes?"

"Nooooo, I don't think so, from what I saw and heard." I said. "Karla Warner had no love lost for Willoughby nor Sommes. I suspect Occam's Razor is the answer, the simplest solution: Warner found out that his wife and his sister were lovers, and he moved to eradicate both of them from his company and his life."

"But why kill him?" Nash asked, persisting, probably for his own thoughts more than anything else. "Surely not for divorce? After all, she could've fought him for half the company, and Courts don't look at lesbianism the way they once would have." 

"But she was cheating on him with men also. He likely could've won, and he had the financial resources to take her to the cleaners. I also suspect he may have had some kind of trump card over her" I said. 

"Another reason she may have resorted to murder is because of Katherine... she may have discovered his plans to cut Katherine out of DynaCorp, and I'm sure cutting her lover out of his company made Karla very angry at her husband. She's as in love with Katherine as Katherine is with her."

"Of course, Anthony was a fairly religious man-- uhhh...." I stopped a moment as the thought hit me.

"Here we go again." said Cindy, seeing that look on my face again. I came out of the reverie within a moment, though.

"Sorry about that." I said. "Another wild-ass, hair-brained thought on something entirely unrelated. Anyway, Warner was a religious man and might not have handled his wife and sister being lesbian lovers too well. But I don't insist upon it."

"All right, folks." the Chief said. "It's past my bedtime, so it's past your bedtimes. See you tomorrow morning at 6:00am. Clean up any paperwork on these cases so I can close the files by the end of the day. Don't worry about Willoughby and Sommes, the FBI has already informed us they want to speak with them, and they'll likely take them into federal custody soon."

As the gathering broke up, Cindy approached me. "Maybe we can talk more about this tomorrow?" she asked. "I've got some questions about Willoughby and Sommes, but I got the impression you didn't want to talk about it here in front of everyone."

Fantastic, I thought to myself. This woman was learning fast, both in her seeking the answers and in her discretion.

"Yes," I replied. "Maybe not tomorrow, but I'll be glad to talk with you about it soon. That's a promise." Cindy nodded and wished Laura and myself goodnight as we walked out together.

As I drove Laura's Mercedes back towards The Cabin, I asked her "Did you order the paternity tests I asked about?"

"Sure did." she replied. "Probably be Tuesday at the earliest, maybe Wednesday."

"Good." I said, "If I'm right, then that may be the real reason Warner started laying the divorce groundwork...

Part 24 - Unholy Unions

The young man slammed his big cock down into the beautiful woman beneath him. Her slender arms were wrapped around his neck as they deeply kissed, and her luscious, shapely legs were squeezing his sides like a vise as she climaxed deeply around his pistoning prick.

"Oh God, Seth, that was so good.... so good." the woman moaned as she recovered from her orgasm, shivering in delight. "You are one hell of a stud!"

"You're one hell of a woman, Aunt Katherine." Seth gasped, returning the favor as he pumped his lovely aunt, nuzzling her neck as his hard ass bobbed up and down, his prick slicing rapidly in and out of her.

"Oh yeah, baby... so good." Katherine said. "Just like our plan."

"Yeah, I know." Seth said, grinning, slowing down his thrusts as he looked into Katherine's eyes. She smiled back, a wicked smile.

"Yes, it was unfortunate that Karla chose to murder your stepfather like she did." Katherine said, not feeling unfortunate at all. "And now she's in the pokey, and the company is that much closer to being... ours." She kisses Seth, hard.

"And the best part is..." she continued, "is that idiot detective thinking he knows what is going on." She laughed, an evil cackle filling the bedroom.

"Well, he did solve the two murders. Glad he didn't look further." Seth said cautiously.

"Yeah," she continued, "the mighty 'Iron Crowbar' has no fucking idea that it was you who told your dad about Mom cheating with Robert Schelle, and also told him about Willoughby and Sommes embezzling from him."

"You were brilliant too, Aunt Katherine." Seth said. "You had your own car stolen so that Mom would rent another one, and you suggested she rent it in your name. She took one for you when you denied knowing that right in front of her. Then while she was gone, you made sure some of the other ladies noticed she was gone, pretending concern...




The Swap Ch. 05



"Yes," Katherine mused, "and I liked your idea of seducing Shayla Belle, and making sure to be with her on the night of the murders." Katherine said. "The cops are thinking that you're being chivalrous, protecting her, and they just left you completely alone."

"It was you who realized that Mom and that Schelle bozo were going to act on Thursday night. Or did you suggest it?" Seth said.

"Oh no, Karla thinks I'm clueless and knew nothing about any of it. And then the crying and sobbing while I ratted Karla out to that hick detective and that fucking dyke bitch I dated a couple of years ago... they were totally fooled. But it's all good: Schelle is in the pokey, ratting on your mom. You're mom is in the pokey, and soon we'll control her shares of the company."

"Yeah, baby, yeah." Seth said. "Speaking of 'pokey', I'm going to pokey you some more and then come inside you. Maybe this will be the load that knocks you up, Aunt Katherine?"

"Mmmm, I hope so, baby." Katherine replied. "I've been waiting so long to have your baby... oh fuck me Seth, fuck me--"

"Yeah! Fuck her Seth!" shouted a voice as the bedroom door flew open. Karen Warner stood in the doorway, seeing her brother on top of her aunt, seeing their loins joined in unholy, incestuous union.

"Keep fucking her, Seth!" Karen ordered her brother, who had stopped and looked totally stunned. She approached the bed. "Fuck your aunt! Fuck him back, Aunt Katherine!"

Seth recovered from the shock of his sister bursting in on them. She was wearing a white blouse, tight blue jeans, and high heel pumps, looking hot and beautiful, the smell of her perfume giving him an extra charge. He began fucking his luscious, willowy aunt even harder.

"Let me help you come, big brother." Karen said. "And I do mean big, don't I, brother? What a nice cock. You're a lucky bitch, Aunt Katherine, lucky to be getting all that hot cock to yourself." Karen took some of the lube from the bedside table and coated the index finger of her left hand.

"UHH!" Seth gasped as he felt his sister probe his tight anal sphincter, then begin sliding the lubed finger in. "What the fuck are you DOING, Sis?"

"Gonna make you come, stud." Karen said. "Gonna make you blow your big load hard into Aunt Katherine and get her nice and knocked up." Karen began massaging her brother's prostate from deep within his ass, a trick learned from the hottest sex professor in the nation. "I can't wait to see her belly swelling with your baby."

"Uhh, Uhhh, OH UNNHH!! UHHH!!!!" Seth cried out as he began climaxing. Spurt after spurt of potent, virile semen blasted into his aunt's fertile womanhood as he ejaculated. Karen slid her finger out of her brother's butt as he collapsed onto Katherine, sharing kisses with the lovely older woman.

"When you're finished cuddling, get dressed." Karen ordered, her voice cutting through their heavy breathing. "Come into the living room, we've got some shit to discuss."

------------------------

In the living room, the couple sat down in chairs opposite the sofa, upon which Karen was lounging as if she didn't have a care in the world. She did sit up as they sat down.

"Okay, guys, here's the story." Karen said, her beautiful face glowing, but her eyes sharp with evil intent. "Mom just signed a full power of attorney and a proxy for me to totally control her shares of DynaCorp. Here's a copy of the original document."

Seth and Katherine were totally shocked as Karen continued: "I have control of 40% of the company. Either you can work with me separately, or together, but you better decide soon, because if I fuck the men on the board until their cocks fall off, and they give me 51%, you're both toast."

Seth and Katherine looked at each other, their plans shot to hell. "What... what do you have in mind?" Seth asked.

----------------------------

"Thank you for coming today." Laura said as she seated herself opposite of Seth and Karen Warner on the sofas in her plush, comfortable office. It was Wednesday morning.

Laura continued as pre-planned. "I have something that I really need to show you both. Don, would you come out please?"

I came into Laura's office from the door that led to the back room and the labs, again noting how lives would change on these sofas that faced each other. I was not surprised at what happened next.

"You son of a BITCH!" Karen Warner shouted as she saw me, getting up and running hard at me. She tried to slap me but I was too fast. I had her wrapped up and practically threw her back into her brother's arms.

"You bastard!" Karen screamed as she tried to fight out of Seth's grip, but failing. He was trying to calm her down but she was having none of it. "You tricked my aunt into betraying my mother! You deceived her and tricked her! I'm going to wipe you out, you motherfucking prick!"

"Karen!" Laura ordered, her commanding voice filling the room. "Sit back down! Now!" The girl stopped struggling and Seth led her back to the sofa.

"I didn't trick your aunt, Karen, and I think we all know it." I said. "In fact, she thought she was putting on a really great act, crying and sobbing as she threw her sister and lover to the dogs. She's not a very good actress, though. Neither are you, for that matter. I did enjoy the spectacle, but I was ready for it and that's why you didn't get to slap me like you wanted to."

"And while we're at it," I said, "I also know that Seth is the one who told his father about his mother having affairs, including with your Aunt Katherine as well as Robert Schelle, and that was why your father was going to divorce your mother... well, that's why you think he was going to divorce her. Then the two of you would be his sole heirs. But that plan got fucked up, didn't it, when your mother got wind of his divorce plans as well as him kicking Katherine to the kerb. She and Robert Schelle created a scheme and killed their spouses."

The Warner siblings were dead silent. Seth had a dumb look of shock on his face, but I noticed a new emotion on Karen's face: respect.

"You will never prove one word of that, Lieutenant." she said, quietly but firmly, a gleam in her lovely eyes. I noticed Laura watching intently, hiding a bemused smile at my repartee with the lovely young woman.

"I don't intend to. I've already proved the murders, and Schelle has cooperated with us. Karla is also beginning to cooperate... to save Katherine." I said. 

"But you're right:" I continued, "there is absolutely nothing I can even arrest either of you on. And I'm certainly not going to waste the tax dollars of the good People of this County by having you brought to a trial I could not possibly win."

"You... you said the reason we 'think' Dad was going to divorce Mom." Karen continued, practically not indulging in her legal victory. "So what's the real reason?" I looked over at Laura.

"That's why I asked you here today." Laura said. "Do either of you know who your father is, your biological father?"

"No." said Karen. Seth shook his head.

"I ran these tests from the blood samples you gave me during the study, Karen, and Seth was kind enough to let me take a cheek swab for his DNA." Laura continued. "I ran them against samples taken at the Hospital of a man who was murdered in this town just a few weeks ago, a very famous man."

"You... you mean..." Karen stammered.

"Yes." Laura stated. "Karen, you and Seth are the biological children of the late Reverend Jonas Oldeeds." The kids looked a bit blank, but otherwise not particularly perturbed.

"And that was a big part of the reason for your father divorcing your mother." I said. "Oldeeds impregnated your mother twice years ago. Your father was very religious in his younger days and not only was an Oldeeds follower, he agreed to marry your mother and raise the two of you as his own because he knew who your father was and at the time wanted to help him and protect him. Your father is by no means the only person fooled by Oldeeds." I thought of my own father as I said that last bit.

"Then when the Oldeeds planned visit to this Town was announced, some other things happened. Oldeeds made a move on a company your father wanted to buy, and when your father investigated what was going on, he found out some news about Oldeeds and his empire; he found out that Oldeeds was involved in human trafficking of young women. Your father was incensed, and was going to divorce your mother and cut all three of you out of his will. Then he found out about your mother and Katherine being lovers, and he cut his sister out too... a bit unfairly, if you ask me."

"Well, we certainly didn't know any of that stuff with Oldeeds." Karen said. 

"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't." I said. "But as I said, I couldn't do anything about it even if I wanted to. But I'm trying to help you here by giving you this information."


"How so?" Seth asked.

"I just told you: you are biological children of the very wealthy Jonas Oldeeds. You have every right to sue his estate for mucho dinero."

"Which you obviously want us to do." Karen said perceptively. "Why?"

"Let's just say that I am not a fan of the Reverend Oldeeds nor his whore of a wife. You deserve that money as much as his wife does." I stated.

"Yeah," Karen said, her eyes shrewd and cunning like her mother's eyes had been. "I'll find out the real reason someday. There's got to be someone with your powers, someone I can use against you. Author's note: that's a clue for the future, peeps! But... I have to admit, you're not a stupid as you look."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I said, making a mental note of her threat, wondering who she might try to use against me. I then got up and went to Laura's desk. I picked up a picture, then showed it to Karen. "Nice picture. You like it?"

Karen looked, then frowned. The picture was of me and Laura on the day I was promoted to Lieutenant, me in full uniform and the Medal of Valor, Laura's hands on my chest as I held her in one arm, obviously a couple in love posing for a picture together.

"Well I'll be damned." Karen said. "So that's why Mrs. Olivet was laughing when I said that. And the engagement ring on her finger right now, too?"

I just smiled.

"Well, congratulations." Karen said, her voice withering and not happy at all. "Come on, Seth, we'll be going now. Dr. Fredricson, I'm out of your program. I won't be returning to school. And I'll see you soon, Lieutenant... in hell."

"You have a nice day too, Miss Warner." I said. "I for one hope that I never have a professional reason to ever see you again."

Seth looked blank and confused, but Karen knew full well the intent of my admonition. But she said nothing as she walked out the door.

"Okay, how did you know all that about Seth?" Laura asked. I came over to her and took her into my arms.

"Like my mother said the other day, offices have eyes and ears." I said, then kissed Laura's cheek and nuzzled her neck. 

"And I do believe it was you who suggested I sleep with Mr. Warner's personal administrative assistant." I whispered.

"Mmm, good man." Laura said. Our lips met in a warm kiss and fire spread through my chest and down to my loins. "I'll be sure to tell Gayle not to give away my secrets when you're fucking her in the future."

"No worries, babe." I said, knowing full well that Gayle had given me all that information... because Laura had told her to...

Part 25 - Epilogue

Saturday morning, 7:00am. A beautiful sunrise, and beautiful Bettina on the TV screen.

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg at the anchor desk of KXTC Channel Two News!" she said from the TV studios. "Let's go straight to national reporter Priya Ajmani for some breaking news!"

"This is Priya Ajmani, KXTC Channel Two News!" the drop-dead-gorgeous Indian woman said into her microphone. "Channel Two News is following the breaking story that Karen and Seth Warner, adopted children of the recently murdered Anthony Warner, have filed an inheritance claim against the estate of the late Rev. Jonas Oldeeds. They claim to be Rev. Oldeeds' love children after he had an affair with their mother years ago. Their mother, Mrs. Karla Warner, was arrested in connection with the murders of Dr. Michelle Schelle of the University as well as her own husband..."

"Wow." Cindy Ross said as we watched together. 

"Was that 'wow' about the story or about that beautiful Indian reporterette?" I asked. We were alone in the room.

"Both." Cindy said.

"I don't blame you a bit on that one." I said, smiling.

"When is Laura's baby due?" Cindy asked, wanting to change the subject.

"In about a month." I said. "We're going to get married next weekend at the Justice of the Peace. Laura is insisting on it. Shortest engagement in County history, I'd imagine.

"Ha!" Cindy replied. "Do you realize how many slugs meet at the House of the Rising Sun, get 'engaged' overnight, married at the J.P. the next morning?"

"No, but I'm sure Tanya could tell us." I replied as the lovely Crime Lab Supervisor tried to sneak up behind me. "Isn't that right, Detective Perlman?"

"No," Tanya replied, not letting anything show that I'd caught her, but knowing full well. "But I can tell you all about the wickedly delicious, sinfully adulterous sex they're having."

"By the way," Tanya added. "The front desk asked me to tell you that the Chief called and said he'd see you at 10:00 this morning.

"The Chief is off this morning." Cindy said.

"That's right." I said, "but you and I are going to see him at his house, Cindy. And before you ask, you'll find out why when we get there."

Finis ... for now.