Frank Devaroux, P.I. Case File 01

My first stop was a random mailbox. I tipped the edited DVD mailer out of the zip lock and into the mailbox. My second stop was a post office. They were closed, but I used the package drop to mail my evidence package to my bank. My third stop was the Denver Rescue Mission. For ten dollars, one of the guys hanging around outside made a phone call from a pay phone to my house. My last stop was a Holiday Inn off of I-70. I got a room for the night and called Dakota. I told her we needed to talk and asked her to meet me at the bar in the lobby.

"Am I going to be attacked again?" she demanded quietly as she sat down across from me.

"Probably. Veronica likes to cover her tracks," I replied.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she hissed.

"Veronica. She convinced you to murder Ronnie. I'm pretty sure you had some help from some of his other victims, hopefully all of them, but I can't prove any of that. I don't think the police will be able to prove it either, unless one of you gets stupid and starts talking. Ronnie deserved to die, so I'm not particularly upset that I can't prove anything, but I think your life is in danger."

She stood up and turned away, hesitated, and then sat down again. She waited for me to continue.

"Veronica participated in setting you up. She cooperated with Ronnie to make it easier for him to brainwash you. So I asked myself 'How does a strong, angry woman forgive something like that?' The answer was that Veronica had convinced you that she was a fellow victim. Just being sorry wouldn't be enough. Certainly not enough to have you call her 'an angel'. No, she did more than that. I happen to know that Veronica has money. So I'm guessing she financed your rescue of the other women. You'd know where to find them, after all. Your shelter was a good cover, a good place to hide them."

"And maybe Veronica was being genuinely altruistic. She hated helping Ronnie, but she loved the control he exercised over her; it was like an addiction that she couldn't stop. But Ronnie went too far. He demanded that she get her husband to help him. And if Veronica has any absolute limits, that's one of them. So she convinced you and the others to kill him. I'm guessing she wasn't even there for it. She went over later, after you'd called her. Probably told you she'd make sure no evidence was found, but she was really looking for Ronnie's video recordings."

"The problem, now, is that you and the others are a link to Ronnie's death that can be laid at her doorstep. If you die, the problem goes away. I was wondering how Domingo got involved in this; Daria was killed too soon after going off the air. I figured that was my fault, but he followed you instead of me after the meeting we had. I'm not sure, but I think Veronica was using the Dallas boys to clean up the loose ends. Domingo's in jail, but there were others."

"I've taken some steps to shut the Dallas boys down, but so long as you're alive, you're a threat to Veronica. And there's always the chance the police won't get all of the Dallas boys. So my advice is that you and the others should relocate, and I don't want to know where."

"He was a bastard..." she began, in a hesitant voice. But I cut her off.

"I don't know. I don't want to know. Anything you say on this subject, to anyone besides an attorney, can be used against you. If you tell me and I don't tell the police, then I'm an accomplice after the fact. So if you tell me, I will tell the police. Don't say anything, ever. Okay?"

She nodded mutely, stood, and walked out of the bar.

***

The meeting with Veronica was easily arranged; a phone call was all it took. I chose to meet at the airport because it's very public and guns go poorly with the security arrangements. She had at least one of her goons with her, maybe more, but I only spotted the one as she walked over and sat down next to me.

I passed over the original DVDs and the letters and pictures.

"My bill is in with them," I told her. "You're a very dangerous woman. But you're a lousy shot."

"We all have our limits," she told me after a minute.

I nodded. "Murder is one of mine. I can't prove you had Ronnie or Daria murdered, Veronica, but I know you did. And I can prove that you've been involved in some things the public really wouldn't like. That evidence will never see the light of day so long as you behave yourself. No more killings. I won't tell you not to play dirty; your husband's a politician. But no more killing. If you do, then I'll take you down very hard, and very dirty."

She studied me very closely and I thought I saw something new in her eyes, hunger. "You surprise me, Mr. Devaroux. I didn't expect this of you."

I nodded. "I tend to do that. Don't be late with my bill or I'll turn it over to a collection agency."

"Would you take a portion of your fees in... trade?" she asked quietly.

I laughed. "You're much too hardcore for my tastes, Veronica; I'm not going to scratch your itch. Besides, I'm seeing someone."

"Pity," she sighed. "Why not just take me down, if you're so concerned I might hurt people?"

"I have a number of bad reasons," I shot back at her. "Tangling with you is just too messy. Too many bystanders would get hurt. You can trust me not to use this information to blackmail you or your husband so long as I can trust you not to kill anybody."

She gave me a long hard stare, followed by the first genuine smile I'd ever seen on her face, and then stood up and walked away from me, trailed by her goon.

I waited for an hour and then caught the bus back to the city. I didn't think Veronica would try to have me killed in the airport parking lot, but I wasn't taking any chances. I figured I had enough time to get to the bank and put the contents of that package into my safe deposit box and still make it back to my place in time to meet Eloise. The thought made me smile.

***

"It's over," I told Regina a week later. "The police have arrested most of Ronnie's partners in Dallas and, I'm informed, a couple of the prostitutes have agreed to testify against them. It's already Metro news rather than A section."

"I am, believe me, Franklin, glad to hear this. But you haven't answered my question; who killed Ronald?"

"I don't know," I told her in all honesty. I strongly suspected, of course, but I wasn't going to talk about that. What good would it do? If I was right and I proved my suspicions then all I'd manage to do was heap more misfortune on Ronnie's victims. In the balance of things, I thought I could live with letting some brutalized women get away with murder rather than getting 'justice' for a despicable man. Yeah, I'm trying to convince myself as much as I'm trying to convince you. Life's hard sometimes. "The police seem to be working on the assumption that Ronnie was killed by his partners because he was planning to go into business for himself. Apparently they got an anonymous tip about that," I said.

"You're not telling me everything," Regina declared, fixing me with that gimlet stare her boys dread and desire.

"No, he's not," Eloise said as she slid into the booth beside me. "But he's not telling me everything either," she added.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked.

"No," they both replied.

I shrugged. "It's not a problem then."

"I dislike anonymous tips," Eloise said. "They're too pat, too deus ex machina, too likely to be the work of someone with an axe to grind."

I shrugged again. "Anonymous tips are part of investigation. Even I get them. Frankly, I'm mostly satisfied with the results of this case: Ronnie's dead and the pimps are out of business. I'd like to know what happened to Ronnie's victims, but the Dallas police are in a better position to investigate that than I am." A little lie, professionally acceptable. "Though I am curious about one point." I turned to look at Eloise, casually, as if her presence at the Munch wasn't my biggest surprise of the month. "When you were arresting me, what did Regina tell you on the phone that made you blush?"

She blushed again, which is one of the delights of my life. She wasn't thinking about Sariel or Veronica anymore, either. She would, of course. She's a police officer, and a woman, so she'd think about those two and want more information. But not right now. "She said I should pull your penis out and criticize it and you'd tell me whatever I wanted to know," Eloise said.

"My boys love that," Regina said. "Have you ever seen a grown man cry while involuntarily ejaculating? Marvelous!"

I sighed. It's not the life I expected, but it's the one I've got, and, all things considered, it's not bad.