The Hot Wife Photos Ch. 01

"I will, ma'am," said Joanne, trying to be nice, "but this is a crime scene and you really must come away from here."

"I'll take care of this, Detective Cummings." said a voice behind them. They whirled around to see Captain Cindy Ross coming up to them. "You get back to examining the body. I'll escort the Widow Jones out of here. Madam, you really do need to go before the Commander gets here."

"Yes, I suppose I must." said the old lady as she and Cindy walked away from the scene. "Such a dreadful thing, a lovely young lady murdered in the prime of her life."

"I agree." said Cindy.

"As I was telling your young but promising Detective," said the Widow Athena Jones in her scratchy voice, "have your medical examiner look into the age of the bruising on the woman's face. I might also suggest that her clothing is very interesting, and she was covering some of her bruises with actor's makeup."

"I'll tell them." said Cindy. "There's Commander Troy now, so I'll let you go. Have a nice day, ma'am."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As I got out of my silver Police SUV, I did a double-take. Cindy was escorting an old woman away from the crime scene. I peered at them as Cindy came over to me and the woman disappeared into the small crowd watching outside the Police cordon.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"One of our 'seasoned citizens'." Cindy replied, and her attempt to force the nonchalant tone of her voice was not lost on me.

"More importantly," I asked, my voice more severe, "how is it that she got on the inside of our security cordon?"

"I think she was already there before we set it up." Cindy said. "Detective Cummings was politely but firmly getting her out of there when I came up, so I had Cummings go back to work and I got the lady out of the area."

"I see." I said. We were approaching the Patrolmen at the barricade. One had a clipboard. Cindy came up to him first.

"Ross, Captain, TCPD badge number one-zero-six-nine." Cindy said.

"Yes ma'am, come on inside." said the Patrolman. "You can come in too, Commander." The other officers, including Cindy, looked at him as if he'd just made an obscene gesture.

"And you already know my badge number, Patrolman?" I asked quietly.

"Uh, no sir." said the Patrolman. "But everyone knows you're the Commander."

"And that's the point, Patrolman." Captain Ross said to him. "Even the Commander, even the Chief, even the Sheriff himself has to go through the protocol before coming through this security checkpoint, with the time logged."

"Uh, yes ma'am." said the young officer, realizing his mistake. "I'm sorry, sir. What is your badge number?"

"I'll give the you the full meal deal, just to say I did: Troy. Commander. TCPD badge number one-six-four-zero." I said.

As he wrote it down, I asked "What's your name, Patrolman?" I asked even though I already knew... it's not like I couldn't read his name tag.

"Culver, sir." said the Patrolman, a look of fear suddenly masking his features.

"Relax, Patrolman Culver." I said. "You got the freebie today, and got to learn the easy way. Just don't make the same mistake again."

"Yes sir." Culver said, now looking considerably relieved that I had not administered a Crowbar beatdown, verbal or otherwise.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I came up to the body of a white woman in her thirties, with light brown hair with blonde highlights and in a frazzle of curls a bit softer than Dr. Bonnie Karpathian or FBI Agent Lindy Linares wore their hair. The woman was relatively short, under 5'5" tall, with a stocky but shapely body which was relatively fit. Her dress was a clingy gown of a pale green color with gold trim, the gold matching her fingernail and toenail polish. She was wearing wedding rings, but no other jewelry... not even earrings, though her ears were pierced.

What immediately got anyone's attention was her face. She was pretty, but her face was bruised up pretty badly, as was her upper chest, shoulders, and arms; she'd been beaten up in the recent past.

"Hi, Martha." I said to the Medical Examiner as she examined the body. "How are you doing?"

"I am doing the best I can," said Martha acidly, "while every know-it-all Detective and old lady in the County is trying to tell me how to do my job." It did not take a great feat of detection to observe that Martha was peeved. I looked at Detective Cummings.

"Sir," Joanne said, "the old lady that was here said to tell the M.E. to look at the age of the bruising, some makeup on her body, and also the woman's clothes." It also did not take great ability to see the pouty frown on Detective Cummings's face, and that she was feeling a mixture of guilt at annoying Martha... but also irritation that Martha was giving Joanne hell for passing on the old lady's comments.

"Interesting." I said as my eyes took in a lightning inventory of the scene. "So, Martha, what have you found so far?"

"Death appears to be by strangulation." said Martha. "The markings on the neck suggest she was strangled from behind. Death occurred at least twelve hours ago; my preliminary guess is late yesterday afternoon or early yesterday evening."

"Detective Cummings," I said, "how close to the body did that old lady come?'

"Not very close, sir." said Joanne. "She never got closer than about 15 feet, that I saw." Other officers confirmed this upon my queries.

"Good." I said. "The garbage men found the body?"

"Yes sir." said Cummings. "And they called it in. I got their names and contact information, then let them go to do their jobs."

"Good enough. We definitely do not want the Citizens complaining to the Council that their trash is piling up because a Police Detective arrested them." I said with a grin. Joanne stifled a giggle.

As I looked around, I said "The body was brought here and dumped. Did anyone find a purse or an ID on her?"

"No sir." said Joanne. "No purse, no personal effects in any pockets of her dress. I photographed her face and sent it to the Data Group."

"And fingerprints?" I asked.

"I haven't done those yet, sir." Joanne said. "I was staying out of the Medical Examiner's way." I understood the underlying complaint of that comment.

"Martha," I said, "let Cummings get a couple of fingerprints." Martha said nothing but grudgingly got out of the way. Joanne came up with her Police iPhone and started an app that would read the deceased's fingerprints when pressed to the screen. Within seconds, the FBI database would be searching for those prints. Technology... is cool.

I also noticed that Joanne took the time to study the woman's wedding rings, even trying to pull them off the fingers. Ah good! I thought to myself. Someone learned from the Murdered Bride case!

As Joanne did her work, I asked Martha: "So let's do talk about those bruises on the victim's face, Martha. Am I right that they don't look as recent as the strangulation marks and the fingernail scrapes and splitting where she tried to fight off her attacker?"

Martha knew that I was not a 'know-it-all' Detective, that I observed and deduced things. But she still gave me a look suggesting I was a 'know-it-all' Commander. I was beginning to tire of her attitude this morning, as it was making mine not much better.

"I don't know, sir." Martha said. "I'll have to do a closer examination during the autopsy. The Crime Lab has already taken samples of the makeup that was covering the bruises on her shoulders, so ask them for those results."

"Okay." I said. "Expedite the autopsy, if you will. There are some... 'strangenesses' about this crime scene."

"By the way, sir," Joanne said, "the woman was not wearing any shoes, nor did we find any in the area."

"Hmmm," I said, "that might or might not be important. Not to put too much emphasis on it, but the likeliest place she'd be without shoes in the early evening... would be at home."

"And 'home' is what we need to find out next about her... along with her identity." said Cindy Ross. "Did the FBI App come back with fingerprints yet?"

"No ma'am." said Detective Cummings. "The app is pretty fast, too. So for it to take this long means it's likely that her prints aren't in the database."

"So, Detective Washington," I said to Theo Washington, who had been working with uniformed officers in looking for clues around the area, "why do you think the perp or perps brought the body here, behind the Ladies Auxiliary Clubhouse building?"

"Uh," said Theo, with a puzzled look on his movie-star-handsome face, "there was no one here last night and it was convenient?"

"Could be... could be." I said. "What do you think of that theory, Captain Ross?"

"Only that you don't share it." Cindy said to me. "I don't know what it is, but you have some knowledge about this particular place that I know I don't have. So clue us in... sir." That was Cindy's little way of barely maintaining decorum while expressing her impatience with my little game.

"I need to get as many of you up to speed on things like this as I can." I said. "You're right, Captain: this location is known as a 'dead/live' location. There is cellphone service, but there are no surveillance cameras in the immediate area. If I were a perp, I'd want to drop off a body in a place like this, where my cellphone was available to take calls, but no cameras are observing or recording me dumping the body. I happen to have an idea that the late Captain Malone used to come here to use his burner phones."

"Where are the other 'dead/live' zones, sir?" asked Theo.

"We'll have to have some classroom training on that." I said. "For now, I'll just say that good portions of the Fairgrounds, some of Ronald Reagan Park, and of course Promontory Point."

"With all the kids that go up there," asked Joanne Cummings, who had been listening to us, "wouldn't Promontory Point be the place cameras are needed most?"

"You'd think that, but Chief Griswold and I absolutely wanted 'plausible deniability' on having any idea who is up there at any given time." I replied. "We absolutely do not want parents screaming at us that their daughter got pregnant at Promontory Point and we knew they were up there and didn't tell said parents."

"Flawlessly logical, as Mr. Spock would say." said Cindy.

"Yes." I said, trying not to laugh at Joanne's facial expressions. "Okay, speaking of flawless logic, let's try to apply some to identify our Jane Doe and start solving this crime. I can tell you from my own observations that there is little of interest here. The old lady was right that the victim's attire is interesting, and that the bruising of her face where she was beaten up is older than the injuries leading to her death. Somebody beat her up a few days ago, then someone killed her last night. And I don't think she was out and about last night; her clothing suggests she was at home... or someone else's home. Has everyone examined the body?"

"I didn't take a close look yet." said Theo.

"Go do that now, so we can release the body to the M.E." I said.

After one last look around, I said "Okay, I'm heading back to Headquarters. Who has Perlman put on the case-- speaking of that, where is Perlman?" I looked around, not seeing her at all.

"She called me and said she's on another mission, sir." said Cindy. "She sent Cummings and Washington down here, so I'll deduce she wants them handling the case."

"That's fine." I said. "And Cummings, you are the primary on this one. Let me speak with you a moment before I go. Ross, Washington, I'll see you both at the Station."

I had Joanne come a few steps away so that I could speak privately with her. She looked worried, thinking she was about to get chewed out.

"Cummings," I said, "I just want to mention a few things. First, I was told how you handled the old lady with courtesy but firmness. That's very good, and I commend your handling of the situation."

"Thank you, sir!" gushed Joanne, blushing a bit at the praise. I think she was expecting anything but praise, but she'd done well from all that I'd heard.

"Second," I said, "I observed you looking at the wedding rings. What did you find?"

"They'd been on her hand for some time, sir." Joanne said. "Indentations on the fingers below showed that. Also, I didn't try hard, but I would have to try hard to get them off her hands."

"Yes." I said. "She's married, and has been for some time. She has family. So I would expect to hear of the Station being called with a Missing Persons report pretty soon. Keep in touch with the Duty Desk and all the Precinct Duty Desks."

"I will, sir." Joanne said.

"Last," I said, "I know you tried to handle that situation with Martha politely. But I want you to remember that this is your crime scene, not hers. The M.E.s are invited in as a courtesy, not a requirement. Don't let Martha or anyone else give you grief or intimidate you, okay?"

"Yes sir." Joanne said, absorbing the lesson.

"Okay, carry on." I said. "I have some work to do." With that, I took my leave of the scene.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back at Headquarters, I went straight to the small Lieutenant's office that was Tanya Perlman's. Knocking on the door, I went straight inside.

"Good morning, Commander." Tanya said, grinning up at me, her cheeks rosy. "Did you have a good weekend?"

"It was excellent." I said. "And you obviously had a good weekend, as well."

"Not much gets by you, sir." Tanya said with an even happier grin. "Dr. Wellman's wife was hostessing some function for some group dedicated to saving African elephants, so I entertained him and kept him from getting bored."

"Or kept him board stiff, if I don't miss my guess." I said, very inappropriately, very rudely... and Tanya loved it.

"You betcha." she replied. "He was really randy, all hot and bothered, too. Maybe he'd been looking at dirty pictures and his wife didn't give him any relief."

"Which begs the question of who she was giving relief." I replied. "But it wasn't me, so I'm not too worried about it. So... what did you find out that kept you away from a murder scene this morning?"

"Well," Tanya replied, "first, I didn't go down there to give my Detectives some breathing space. You might want to do that, also... they're using us both as crutches, and I want them to develop their own skills."

"I can understand that." I said. "But I'll be bored as a gourd if I don't at least go look at the scenes."

"Anyway," Tanya said, "I've been finishing up my investigation of Selena Steele for you, as well as her father Edward R. Steele and her boss, J.P. Goldman."

"What did you find?" I asked.

Tanya replied: "First of all, J.P. Goldman has been a banker for decades, and while his sphincter is as tight as a cat in a dog kennel when it comes to money, he's one of the most honest and aboveboard people you'll ever meet. He's given a lot of money to charities, supports the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, and various University Hospital projects.

"He's they only person who has simultaneously served on the Town & County Council and the University Regents Board, and he's still on both now. He's always been involved with the political people in the State, and is a friend of Governor Jared. He's twice brokered political deals between the City and the State, especially the SBI. But as he's gotten older, he's backed off all that stuff and is just living more quietly here in our good Town and County, being a philanthropist."

Tanya continued: "Edward R. Steele is also a Councilman. He's a good friend of Chief Griswold, as is Mr. Goldman. Mr. Steele was in banking himself, but then became a developer of a lot of the subdivisions in the area. The Kensington District was one of his developments. He was also a friend of late Mr. Bonniker, the former head of Crown Chemicals, and who built and owned your Cabin before you bought it... and rebuilt it. He's rumored to have been in the bond business with Hamilton Myers, whose home was robbed in the Parole Officer Case you solved, so he's got oodles of money."

"And he's aboveboard?" I asked.

"Pretty much." Tanya said. "As far as I can tell, and I dug deep. He has more international connections than Mr. Goldman, especially in Japan. If your nephew Todd wants to do more business there, it probably wouldn't hurt for him to talk to Mr. Steele."

"And date his gorgeous daughter." I said. "What about Selena?"

"Well, Selena and Todd would probably be hot in bed together, but I'm not sure how they'd get along otherwise." Tanya said, letting her eyes lock onto me as if to suggest she knew some things I didn't. "She's pretty demanding of the people working for her in the Goldman Bank, she's very sharp with numbers, and word has it that she is going to run the J.P. Goldman bank eventually. Todd, of course, is carefree, happy-go-lucky, and while he's a good CEO of BOW Enterprises, from what Barry Oliver is telling me, I think his laid-back attitude would grate on Selena."

"Interesting." I said. "What else about her?"

"She was in Texas, then Missouri, then came up here." Tanya said. "You know this because you know Angela Harlan followed her up here, trying to frame Selena for murder." Tanya's face was falling; she was remembering who the Black Widow had successfully murdered-- the father of Tanya's child, Pete Feeley.

"Yes," I said, "no need to rehash that unless there's some new bearing I don't know about."

"Nothing except that it's odd Angela would go nuts over Selena." Tanya said, then saw me peering at her. "Don't worry, Don, I'm okay talking about this."

"Not sure I can say the same thing." I said, the pain still heavy on my heart. "But go ahead."

"Like I was saying," Tanya said. "Selena is sharp, in control, a great leader. She'd have been a good military officer in the Finance Corps of the Army, if she'd wanted that. As it is, she runs the J.P. Goldman Bank, having made some good deals for them and made wise investments of J.P.'s money all over the place. I'm still just beginning to look into those investments and the companies involved."

"Okay, thanks." I said. "I want you to be a bit careful getting into these companies, though. Check with me on anything you discover before delving too deep. I want to make sure we don't step on FBI toes as they investigate some things that I'm helping with... and I sure as hell don't want to tip off our Consultant of Crime to what you are doing."

"Gotcha." Tanya said. "By the way, I know the Vice people are looking into Domingo Shipping, but I did some backdoor snooping. Seems Domingo paid a visit to State Senator Jimmy 'Coffin' Cerone of Southport. Jack Muscone told me that the FBI learned that Domingo wanted Cerone to put out a hit... on you."

"So I heard." I said. "I take it you didn't get this from Muscone, at least not in his office?"

Tanya grinned. "I hav vays too make him tawk. He ees unable to ree-sist my methods of extraction." she said in her best German-speak voice.

"Your feminine wiles are too much for heem." I said, also in German-speak. "I must bee on guard against yoo myself."

"You will be unable too ree-sist." Tanya replied, her eyes smoking.

"Okay," I said in a normal voice, "so Domingo was trying to put a hit on me. Cerone very wisely told Domingo to sit and spin, which caused Domingo to fly into a rage, whereupon an armed standoff occurred. No one was killed, but Domingo has left the State, and maybe the country."

"There's more." Tanya said. "Domingo also may have been shipping for Thaddeus Ward of Ward Harvester. Some legit ammonium nitrate went out with Domingo, but you know Ward... and that he sometimes sends 'extra'."

"I sure do." I said.

"In addition," Tanya said, "I came across a company called 'Vauxhall Medical Supply'. Domingo was shipping for them, too, but then the relationship was suddenly broken off. I was starting to look into Vauxhall, who is based in the City, but Jack Muscone waved me off that one."