Death of an Escort (23 page)

"Who are you, Ray? Who are you?"

"Get out of my life and stay out," I
said.

Mickey nodded for the other guy to leave. He
did.

"Look," Mickey said. "You've got leverage on
me. You figured stuff out. That's uncomfortable."

"I figure so," I said.

"So, I think you should keep that stuff to
yourself. If you do, nothing more happens. If you don't, I'll keep
digging to find out who you are hiding from. I don't think you want
that."

I stared at him. He had no idea how lucky he
was. The old me, the me before I had found my faith would have
blasted him right there, but I couldn't do that now.

It wouldn't be right.

"Get out," I said.

"I need your word first," he said.

I rubbed my forehead. "On one condition," I
said. "What's the deal with the deleted Kelly Brandt video?"

Our eyes met, and he stared intently at me
for a while.

"I'll be honest. Okay? Like a show of good
faith, okay?"

"Give it to me straight," I said.

"Okay. I took the video down after I heard
she died. You pointed out that the page minus the video was still
up. I was trying to get it all down before I got any
attention."

"Law enforcement attention?" I asked.

He nodded.

"You're a creep," I said.

He shrugged.

"Did you have her death on tape?"

He shook his head. "I wish," he said. "But
no, I shut the feed off after her and the woman finished."

"So, no footage of what happened
afterward?"

Again he shook his head. That agreed with
what I'd seen of the recovered clip from his computer.

"Fine," I said. "Now get out."

"So, you'll keep quiet?" he asked.

"Get out," I said. "And I promise not to kill
you right now."

"You wouldn't," he said.

I pulled out a semi-automatic pistol. "Want
to test that theory?"

He bowed his head slightly. "I'm leaving," he
said. "But remember what I said."

After I was sure they were gone, I went to
the men's room. There, I dyed my hair to get the roots black. and I
rubbed some more of the sunless tan lotion all over my body. When
that was complete, I went to the temporary office. In actuality, it
was a closet that had been cleared out for me.

All the same, it was better than nothing. I
pulled up websites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com and some other
lesser known ones as well. I was looking for Carlie Smith.
Eventually, I found her on a page. She had a profile that was
public on one of the lesser known social networking sites.

She hadn't updated the page in a while. In
fact, it gave her last login date as two years ago, but I found
something interesting. Three years ago, she posted some comment
about erotic asphyxiation. There it was.

Chapter 22

I started to get this feeling. It's this
feeling I get when I'm about to piece together a puzzle. Another
thing further down caught my eye. She linked to an online
classified ad site. Her posting on the social network site said to
go there to find her ad and hook up with her for a good time.

I clicked the link. The ad had expired long
ago, and the website told me that. So I searched more recent ads,
and I found one that was signed by a csmith1989.

Quickly, I went back to the social network
site. She had her birthday listed as March 19, 1989. I had a good
hunch csmith1989 was her. Back at the classified ad site, I clicked
the ad.

It was an ad advertising for "casual sexual
partners". It mentioned that she was into BDSM. The ad that I was
looking at had been posted only a few days ago.

I called up the police department and got
transferred to records.

"Gracie?" I asked.

"Yo', who's this?"

"Ray," I said.

"Dude," he said. "Are you hitting me up again
so soon?"

"I am," I said sheepishly.

"So, what do you need, bro?" he asked.

"I'm in need of the autopsy report on Kelly
Brandt. I looked at the photos of her before," I said.

"I can't actually give it to you, but I might
be able to give you some info if I knew what you were looking
for."

"Right," I said. "How exactly did she die?
Suffocation? Or was there a gas involved?"

"A gas?" he echoed.

"Yeah, something inert," I said.

"Dude," he said. "You lost me."

"I want to know if there was a gas dissolved
in her bloodstream," I said.

"Okay," he said. "I'll look for you."

"And, were any tanks on the scene?"

"Tanks?"

"Right, of gas," I said. "Helium
perhaps."

"I'm making a note of it," he said. "I'll
check."

"What am I going to owe you?" I asked.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I've got to owe you something for
this," I said.

"Well, dude, I've been wantin' some good
wings and beer, you know?"

"I'll take you out for dinner tonight," I
said.

"Dude, what about your wife?"

"She's out of town," I said.

"Word, bro," he said. "See you tonight at
Juno's."

We hung up.

This was going to drive me crazy. I was so
close I could feel it. If there were gas tanks, then that would
make it more likely that it was a suicide. That was how an exit bag
was done. You put your head in a bag and piped in some gas, like
helium. Then you tied the bag shut. You die.

But without gas tanks, it wouldn't look like
a suicide at all. That would make it point at Carlie. Probably not
on purpose, but it would still be Carlie that killed her. Something
went wrong during some rough sex.

Right now it was a waiting game. I had to
wait to hear from Gracie. In the mean time, I needed to do
something to get my mind off it so I wasn't driven crazy waiting to
hear.

I decided to go grocery shopping.

Once I arrived at the store, I realized I had
no idea what to buy. I didn't know what we were low on. My wife
always did the shopping. For a bit I wandered around aimlessly.
Perhaps something would come to me.

Walking down the cereal aisle, I saw someone
I recognized. It was the maid, Maria Vasquez. Quickly, I walked
over to her; she didn't see me coming.

"Maria?" I said.

She spun around. Then she frantically looked
up and down the aisle. There was no one. Quickly she started
pushing her cart away from me.

"Maria?" I called out after her, and I ran to
catch up.

"No English," she said.

"Yes you do," I said. "Talk to me."

She shook her head and left her cart. I
watched as she exited the store. What was it with her?

Why would she leave her groceries to avoid
talking to me? I knew where she lived, and I decided to follow her
home. So, I did.

By the time I arrived in front of her
apartment building, I saw that the vehicle she drove was parked
there. That was good.

I went up to the door and knocked. A Hispanic
man opened the door.

"Hi, is Maria available?"

"You know Maria?" he asked with a slight
accent.

"Yeah," I said. "I need to talk to her."

"She didn't tell you about me?" the guy
asked.

"She didn't say much of anything to me," I
said.

"I'm her husband, you know," he said.

"Glad to meet you," I said. "Could I talk
with Maria?"

"Maria?" he called loudly. "Maria?"

Maria came, but shrunk back when she saw me.
He asked her something in Spanish, but she shook her head. Loudly
he demanded something else. She shook her head even more violently
no.

"She doesn't know you," he said to me.

"Yes, she does know who I am," I said. "She
used to work at the Sleep EZ Inn."

"You met her there?" He seemed a little
threatening.

"No, I met her in a store," I said.

He turned and yelled at Maria. She recoiled
from his verbal barrage.

"You need to leave," he said to me and shut
the door. For a moment I stood on the steps. Then I started to walk
down.

A sound from inside made me stop. Someone was
hitting someone. Judging from who was screaming, he was hitting
her. It made sense then. The guy was a jealous, control freak. She
was afraid to talk because she didn't want this to happen. She
didn't want word getting around to her husband that she was seen
with a guy, me in this case, because then he'd beat her.

Just like he was doing now.

And she was getting beat up because of me. I
walked back up the steps. My cell phone rang. I recognized the
police station phone number. I answered. It was Gracie. I told him
to call back and leave it as a message because I was busy at the
moment.

Then I pounded on the door. They didn't hear
it the first time. She was screaming, and he was yelling. Also,
there were the dull thuds of impact whenever he struck her.
Followed by a fresh scream from her.

I beat my fist on the door long and hard. The
noise stopped inside. Moments later the door opened. The guy poked
his head out.

I didn't say anything. Rather I shoved my way
in, knocking him backwards. Maria was there in the little kitchen.
She was bent over, but I could still see red marks all over her
exposed skin.

He was breathing heavily, and she was
weeping.

He said something unpleasant in Spanish
towards me.

"Hey," I said. "Are you hitting her because
of me?"

He looked murderously at me but said nothing.
In the back of my mind, I had this fleeting thought that I better
leave. Domestic disputes were the worst situation of any violent
encounter, but I felt that I couldn't leave Maria to this fate.
Especially because it was my fault in the first place.

"Answer me," I said. "Why are you hitting
her?"

"She wants you," he said mockingly. "The
whore wants you."

"I don't think so," I said. "She tried her
hardest to avoid me. And I'm guessing because she knew what a
weenie you are. What kind of a spineless creep beats up a
woman?"

"You want some, punk?" He moved aggressively
towards me.

Maria slumped down further in the kitchen and
continued weeping.

"Really?" I asked. "Think you can handle
me?"

Lightning fast, he closed the distance and
punched me. I didn't see it coming. He caught me full in the
face.

I stumbled back. My lip was bleeding, and I
swear I could already feel it getting fat only a second after
getting hit.

Maria screamed.

He charged again, but I picked him up as he
got close. He looked surprised.

I used his momentum to hoist him up over my
head. Then using his weight, I slammed him down into the floor. I
stood up.

He lay there with his eyes wide. Maria had
gone quiet.

"Want some more?" I asked quietly.

"Stop, please," Maria said in a shaky voice.
"This will make it worse."

I looked up at her. "You should leave," I
said.

She shook her head no.

"Really, you should leave. This guy doesn't
deserve you."

That seemed to give him strength. He started
getting up. "I will teach you respect," he said as he got to his
feet.

"Whatever," I said.

I looked back at Maria. "Please. Answer a
question for me. This is what I've wanted to ask you. What did you
see or what do you know about the night Kelly Brandt died at the
motel?"

I never got an answer. Glass smashed behind
me. I spun around. Next thing I knew, I had the jagged edges of a
broken beer bottle thrust into my stomach.

The glass bit into my flesh, and he kept
driving it in. I toppled over, and still he drove it into me. I
could feel the wetness of my own blood start to seep over me.

He'd got me right in the abdominal muscles
and I couldn't fight against it without the jagged edges digging
deeper into me.

Suddenly, he jumped up and ran out. I groaned
and was unable to get up. My own blood was pooling on the kitchen
floor. I felt sick and burning in my stomach area. The blood was
pouring out of me.

Maria called for an ambulance. "I am sorry,"
she whispered. "He is a bad man."

Weakly, I nodded.

The ambulance came and got me. What I
remember faded in and out. I think I had some emergency surgery to
stitch me up.

Much later that day, when I was clear-headed,
I lay in the hospital bed and thought about how this was the first
job I'd taken that had gotten me in the hospital twice.

Was it worth it?

Of course, this time was purely my own fault.
I should have left Maria. It wasn't really my business, and I'd
probably made the situation worse for her.

Then again, if I ran across that punk again,
it would be brass knuckle time. I'd crack his face open and let the
goo run out.

It was then that I remembered Gracie. I
called a nurse into my room and asked for my cell phone. It was
given to me.

I accessed my voicemail. There were two
messages. The first was from Gracie.

"Hey, it's your bud Gracie. I looked and
there was an autopsy done. Again for that to happen they had to
suspect foul play, but it's still officially listed as suicide, and
there's no open investigation on it. So you know. No gas tanks were
reported on the site, but you must be a genius dude, because you
nailed it. Helium was in her blood stream. I looked online. It's
what you called it. Inert. Hope that helps."

The next message was from my wife. It was
short. "Call me."

I called Gracie at the police station. I
caught him moments before he left for the day.

"I feel bad," I said. "But I can't take you
out for those wings tonight."

"Dude, don't sweat it," he said. "I'm sure we
can hook up later."

"Yeah," I said. "And I'm not blowing you off.
I ended up in the hospital with a fight that went badly."

"Oh, dude," he said. "Get well soon,
okay?"