Bob Moats - Jim Richards 01-03- 3 for Murder Box Set (51 page)

I nodded to him, and he continued. “I did love my wife, even if I was an insensitive bastard when it came to whoring around. Noreen was a good woman, despite her unusual occupation. She provided a need, and someone wasn’t happy that she did. I think it was a city official, being protected by the police or at least one of them. I want to hire you to find out who murdered her.”

He went quiet and looked distressed.

“I’m sure the police will do that for free,” I said.

“Not if they’re covering their asses, they won’t. I want an independent investigation to get to the real culprit,” he said. “My wife and I had a good deal of cash put away. It’s all legal, and I can pay you whatever your fee to do this job - please.” He looked like a man on the edge.

“If I agree to help you, you’re going to have to be absolutely straight with me. I don’t like being kept in the dark. That agreeable to you?”

He said it was, and then he took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I opened it and found a thousand dollars in large bills. He said it was an advance. I told him he had just hired a P.I. and shook his hand.

“OK, may as well begin at the beginning. What got your wife into such a business?”

“Noreen was always into strange activities, Wicca, bondage, new age stuff. She felt she could save the world one person at a time. She got referrals through the local new age stores and then started to build up a clientele through personal referrals and word of mouth. She opened the office about a year ago, and it started slow but built up so fast that she had to limit her customers. She never got into sex. It was just a way for men mostly - a few women - to get rid of their frustrations from having to be the bad guy at work. In her office through the bondage, they were the underling, the bug that she could step on. They wanted the release of pressure from the weight of responsibility, and Noreen provided that.” He went silent for a moment. I wasn’t going to rush him. “Lately Noreen was acting strange, well… stranger than usual, and she was wanting more money for her work. I said she’d get too greedy and put herself out of business. She wanted more, and she wanted the power she was starting to feel over her clients.”

I said, “Someone didn’t like her pushing, you think?”

“Yeah, someone. I know Noreen kept a list with all her clients’ names in it. I don’t know where she kept it. She wouldn’t tell me, said it was privileged information. She wasn’t a registered therapist so that info wasn’t really privileged, but she kept it hidden. She said to protect herself. She also kept videos of her sessions. She had a camera hidden on her back room that recorded them.”

“I didn’t see any camera when I was checking the place,” I said.

“It’s very well hidden, and the recorder is above it, over the ceiling tile.”

“Can we go there and take a look at the set-up? With you there, it may make things easier.”

He agreed, and we went out. The weather had changed again, and it was getting sunny out. We took my car, and I went by Benson’s office first to drop off the statement and get my check. Then I drove over to Noreen’s office. Dave was fairly silent the whole way over. We pulled up in front of the novelty store and went in to see Willy. He greeted Dave like an old long lost friend. Willy said he heard about Dave beating the rap, and Dave said that I was the one who got him off. Willy thanked me for helping. Dave asked Willy for the extra key since the police had his. Willy said that they went through the place, but he didn’t think they found anything. He gave Dave the extra key, and we went down to the office and in.

“The camera is a tiny thing. She had it well hidden in the ceiling by a smoke detector.”

We went into the back room, and he pointed to the smoke detector. I got up on a chair and looked closer at it. There was a small lens peeking out from the side of the thing. I asked where the recorder was, and he said to move the ceiling panel next to the lens. I did and found the small VHS recorder tucked in a hole in the wall. I went to pop out any tape in the thing but nothing came out. I flipped open the cartridge door. It was empty.

“Noreen or someone took the tape out. Do you know where she may have kept her collection of tapes?”

“I have no idea,” was all he said.

“I don’t suppose she told anyone about the recordings,” I said.

“Hell, I didn’t know she was doing it till I came in one day and found her up there changing tapes. She was pissed that I found out.”

“Sounds like she was into more than just attitude adjustments. Maybe starting to blackmail some of her wealthier clients.”

“Well, that would have gotten her killed easy enough.” He grimaced.

I got down and continued, “We have to look more around your home to see if she may have a secret stash there. You mind?”

“No, let’s go now. The cops have finished there, too, I hope.”

We took the key back to Willy, and he said there were two more months left in the rent. Dave said after that he was finished with the place. We left and went to Dave and Noreen’s modest little home in Roseville. We drove down Wallace Street, a quiet little road, just off Little Mack. The house was about one third down on the left. We parked and we went in. The place looked like it had been searched. Police are not known to clean up after themselves.

“Is there a particular room that Noreen spent time in more than others?”

“When she first started out, she used a small office in the basement, but the neighbors started to complain about the traffic coming and going to the house, so she got the office on Gratiot. The room is still down there, but the police pretty much wiped it out.”

I was thinking that Lincoln probably enjoyed himself rummaging through that room. We went down to the room and as Dave said, I couldn’t find much to go on. I walked around the basement examining the floor joists overhead looking for hidden panels. I checked the other small side rooms and the laundry room but really didn’t see anything suspicious. I knew the water table in the area was fairly high and I asked if Dave had a sump pump. He led me back to the laundry room and pointed to the corner. There was a round hole in the floor about two feet across, and it had water in it. The sump pump was just at water level and was ready in case of flooding. I got out my pocket flashlight and looked into the murky water. Just behind the pump I saw a string attached to the side, going down into the water. I reached over, pulled it up, and out of the water came a small plastic container. I brought it out into the other room and set it on a workbench. Dave was amazed that it was there. I said my grandfather used to hide his chewing tobacco from my grandmother in the sump hole water in an old mason jar. That’s why I looked.  I examined the plastic container and said it looked like it was recently opened, the way it was still clean and not slimy from the water. I carefully opened the top. We looked in and found a key.

“Ah, ha,” I exclaimed. “The mystery continues.”

*

Chapter Thirteen

We were looking at the key when we heard a floor board creak above us. I quietly asked Dave if anyone was supposed to be in the house. He said no. I reached under my jacket for my Glock and realized I had left it in my desk drawer in my office. Some big shot P.I. I was, totally unarmed. I put the key in my pocket, and we went to the stairs. Just as we got there I saw a couple of baseball bats against a wall. I took one and gave one to Dave. I quietly went up the stairs, followed by Dave, and came out into the kitchen listening for any sound. Dave and I went into the living room and were heading down the hallway to the bedrooms just as someone came flying out of the first bedroom and ran into us. He had a ski mask on and was about my height.

I brought up the bat, and he rolled low, pushing into my legs, knocking me back into Dave. He sprang up just past us and ran to the kitchen. Dave was trying to get up and bumped into me trying to get up. It reminded me of a comedy routine as we followed after the intruder. He had gone out the back door and was climbing over the backyard fence as we came out. I just stood there, pissed at myself for being unarmed.

“I wonder what he thought he was looking for,” I said. “The police would have just come in to look, but this guy snuck in, middle of the day, with his face covered, so no one could I.D. him. This is getting odd.” I looked at Dave, “There’s something that Noreen left behind that someone wants. We need to find it.”

We went back in the house, and I took out the key and examined it closer. It was a Master lock key, so I said to Dave, “This is from a lock somewhere securing a door to keep people out. Do you know if Noreen had a storage unit somewhere?”

“None that I know of. We had one years ago when we first moved here from Lansing. We had it for about a year then took our stuff out of it when we moved to this house. Noreen said she was going to tell them we were done with it.”

I asked where it was, and he said it was just off Masonic Road in Fraser. I knew the place, and asked if he remembered the unit number. He said it was number 78, and as far as he knew it belonged to someone else now. I said I’d check it later. We spent the next two hours going through his house, closets, attic, anywhere there might be things hidden by Noreen. We came up with nothing. It was nearly 5 p.m. and I said I had some business to attend to, just an excuse to get away for a while. I said I would start to do some serious investigating in the morning, and I would keep him apprised of my findings. He seemed happy with that, said he was tired and would rest. I told him to keep the baseball bats handy just in case, or better yet, if he had somewhere else to stay. He said he could go stay with his sister in Warren for a couple of nights if her kids didn’t drive him nuts. I gave him my card with my cell phone number and told him to call anytime if he found or thought of anything else important. He gave me his cell number, and I put it in my Treo as he gathered some clothes to take with him.

I drove him back to my office to get his car, and he drove off. I went into the office and sat at my desk, playing with the key. I called a locksmith friend of mine I’ve known for years, although I hadn’t talked to him in a while. He was surprised to hear from me, and we talked a bit about what we had been up to over the years. I told him about my present occupation, and he was impressed. I told him I needed some professional advice. He said, shoot. I told him about the key and described it, giving him the serial number off it. He looked in his book of locks and keys and said that was from a typical Master lock you’d buy in a hardware store, nothing special, just a bit more muscle than most locks but not impossible to open. I thanked him and said we had to get together to talk old times. I knew it wouldn’t happen, but it sounded nice to say it.

I pulled out my local yellow pages and looked under storage. Found the one I wanted, Extra Space Storage, and called. A young sounding man answered and asked if he could help me. I said I needed to know if Dave or Noreen Weston still rented unit 78. He paused and asked if this had something to do with her murder, that he had read about it in the paper. I told him I was a private investigator and was looking into the case. He did some typing at his computer and said they didn’t have that unit anymore. I asked if Noreen had rented another unit. He checked and said she hadn’t. I thought of something and asked if he had a Noreen Black renting a unit. He checked and said there was one on his list, it was paid through the year and it was a small one, 5X8, unit 201. I got the tingle. I thanked him and said I would be in with her husband to see what she might have left, and hung up.

I wasn’t going to call Dave that night to tell him the news. It might just somehow get out, and I didn’t want anyone beating me to it. I was a bit run down and wanted to see Penny, so I closed up and went home. Driving there I wondered how Buck was making out with Elma and Ralph. I’d call him later to see. At least he hadn’t called me to say he was in jail for killing Ralph. I finally got to the house and parked in my spot. Penny was at the door as I came up, holding a tray of cookies and looking proud.

“My God, you did it. You actually baked,” I announced happily. She beamed and shoved a cookie in my mouth. I bit, and it was good. I’m not a sweets fan, cookies, cakes, I rarely ate all that kind of baked goods, but this was good. I tried to talk with my mouth full of cookie, she laughed and we went into the kitchen. She was telling me her baker guest on the show today explained the proper way to bake. I swallowed and said I had better not find an empty store cookie wrapper in the trash. She pointed to the mess on the counter and said she did it all by herself. We took the cookies to the couch after I got a glass of milk and sat. I only drank milk with cookies, donuts or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Otherwise, I didn’t touch milk.