Second Hand Susan

Dan scratched his head.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, last night. This woman came in by herself. Couldn't figure out why she was here instead of downtown."

"When was she here?"

"Well, let's see. Most of these guys will head for home about ten or ten thirty, and they were gone when she came in so sometime between then and eleven. At eleven, Judy clocks out and leaves, and she was still here. I remember because Judy said the gal looked really out of place."

"Out of place? How?"

"Well, most of the women who come here are older and they dress up a little. They wear dresses or dressy pants and blouses and high heels. This gal was a lot younger, and she wore jeans, a plaid shirt, and cowboy boots. Judy said her jeans were too tight and her boobs were falling out of the shirt, but she figured since the girl looked pretty plain, maybe that was the only way she could attract a man."

"Do you remember how long she stayed?"

"Yeah, just long enough to drink the club soda she ordered. I asked if she wanted another, but she said she had to leave. Left me a two buck tip just before she walked out the door. I think she must have been waiting on somebody, because I could see her standing in front of the window for a while. I had to go get another case of beer from the cooler in back, and when I came back she was gone."

I looked around the bar at the men sitting at the tables and booths.

"Would any of these guys have been here when she left?"

"No, I don't think so. We have our after work crowd, that's these guys, and our after dinner crowd. These guys stop in for a couple of beers after work and then go home for dinner about six or so. The others come in about eight and stay until ten or ten thirty like I said. There are a few who stay until three when we close up, but they won't get here until maybe midnight. They're the second shift guys. They get off work at eleven and get here between eleven thirty and twelve."

I said I'd be back at about midnight to see if any of them remembered anything, and then left.

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It was five by the time I got back to my desk. Walt was gone but I went down to the lab to see if his techs had found anything in Alfred's apartment. Sally Jordan, one of the second shift techs was sitting at a laptop computer when I walked in. She looked up and smiled.

"Hi Jerry. You're here about that guy's apartment Tom and Cheryl checked out, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Did they find anything?"

"Nothing illegal or unusual, just normal stuff anybody would have. The guy's laptop was interesting though. He didn't use a screensaver password so I've been looking through his folders and browser history. He was quite a ladies man, or thought he was anyway."

"Oh, how so?"

Sally grinned again.

"He belonged to at least six dating sites I've found so far, and he was trying to convince a few of the women at each to meet with him. You should see the women. I think they're fake profiles because there aren't many women who look like these. They're all gorgeous, like movie stars or the women you see in magazines. Your guy was PM'ing them and asking if they'd like to meet so he could make them feel like they were in heaven. He promised they'd have at least three orgasms. I should be so lucky."

"Did he have any takers?"

"No, and that's another reason I think they're fake. They didn't ever really say no. They'd just say they thought that would be fantastic but they couldn't right now because their husband or boyfriend or girlfriend was home. Then, they'd write something like they'd love to do what he said really made him horny and they hoped they could keep hearing from him. That's something a lot of dating sites do to keep guys paying them."

"Did I hear you right -- did you say girlfriends?"

Sally chuckled.

"Yeah, he PM'd lesbians too. He told them he could change their mind. I just pulled up another dating site. I'll show you what I mean."

Sally clicked on the "log in" button, and Alfred's username and password were already filled out on the window.

"He did this with all the sites, had them remember his name and password. I guess it was easier for him and it sure is easier for me. Here, look at his profile."

Alfred called himself "10instud", and had filled out all the boxes in his profile including the ones for cock size. He claimed to be ten inches long and six around when hard. He also liked women with huge breasts and narrow hips. That fit with the women he was PM'ing. Sally was scanning through his PM inbox and stopped at one with a different avatar.

"This is odd."

"What's odd?"

"Well, this woman isn't like all the others. She PM'd him first. Let's look at her profile."

Sally clicked on the avatar and a second later "sultry_suzy" popped up on the screen.

Sally giggled.

"God, she needs to work on her face with some makeup. She's plain as a mud fence. She does have big boobs though...really big. I wanna know how the poor girl can sit up by herself with boobs that big, and look at her butt. Mine was bigger than that when I was thirteen. She must work out or something to keep it that tight."

Sultry_suzy didn't have much in her profile other than she was forty seven, liked really big cocks and was open to about anything. Sally went back to Alfred's inbox and clicked on sultry_suzy's first PM. It was interesting to say the least.

"Hi there, 10instud. I saw your profile and thought you and I might get along so I thought I'd write. I know I'm not beautiful, but my boobs are pretty big like you like and I'd really like to meet with you. Take a look at my profile and pics and let me know what you think."

Sally clicked on Alfred's reply and then giggled.

"I guess he got tired of hearing no. He liked this one."

I read Alfred's reply and thought I had something.

"Hi Sultry_suzy. I read your profile and looked at your pics. You're my kind of woman and I'd love meeting you. Where are you located?"

We continued looking at the thread of PM's, and it was starting to put some of my information together.

Sultry_suzy said she was in Nashville to which Alfred replied he was too and asked when and where could they meet. Sultry_suzy said in a week and gave him an address, the same address I'd copied from the gum wrapper at the crime scene.

A week from the date of the PM was the night Alfred was killed. If I could identify the woman, I might not have my killer, but I'd at least have someone to question who had seen Alfred that night.

I went back to my desk and emailed the DA about what I'd found and requested he generate a subpoena to the website for the name and any other information about the user named sultry_suzy.

After eating dinner at my apartment and watching a movie, I drove back to Harry's Den to talk to the late night customers. The only information I got from that was one guy who'd seen the woman standing outside the bar when he went in. His description matched the bartender's. Other than that, none of them had seen anything out of the ordinary.

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All the next morning I waited. I waited on the FBI to identify the print from Alfred's neck. I waited on the DA to get a subpoena served. When neither had happened by noon, I went to the bookstore where Julia's parole officer said she worked. The bookstore was empty except for one woman I assumed to be Julia. She turned toward the door and smiled when I walked in.

"Hi. Can I help you find something today?"

I showed her my badge.

"I'm Detective Jerry Williams, and I'm not looking for a book. I need to speak to Julia Winslow."

"I'm Julia. What's this about? I haven't done anything."

"It's about Alfred Justice."

"Freddy? I haven't seen Freddy since he went to prison and I don't want to. Please, just go away."

"Miss Winslow, I just want to ask you a couple questions. Alfred was killed two days ago and I'm trying to find out who killed him."

Julia stood there with her mouth open until a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Freddy's dead?"

"Yes, I'm afraid he is. Can we talk for a minute?"

Julia nodded.

"Let's go in back. I don't want any customers to see me like this."

Julia sat down on the couch in what I assumed to be the office and then motioned me to a chair in front of the desk.

"How did it happen? Was he into drugs again?"

"I don't know how it happened. That's why I'm here. His file said you were an acquaintance and I thought you might have some information I could use."

Julia sat down on her couch.

"We were more than friends, or so I thought. He said he'd marry me and we'd move somewhere and start over. When he got arrested for dealing, he said we'd do that as soon as he got out, but I had to start selling for him so we'd have the money to do it. He left my phone number with all his customers and said all I had to do was pick up a supply once a week from this other guy and then wait until people called me. Then I'd meet them in the park. I guess you know how that ended up."

"Yes, I do. Did you hear from him after he got out?"

"Yeah, when I was in prison. He said he'd decided to go straight and couldn't see me anymore."

"How about since you got out?"

"No. I tried calling him, but he'd either moved or gave me the wrong phone number."

"Can you think of anyone who might want him dead, somebody he talked about or somebody you saw him talking with?"

Julia frowned.

"No. Freddy was a wuss. He never did anything to make anybody mad at him, well, except for when he dumped me."

Julia wiped her eyes and then shook her head.

"God I was stupid then. My sister and everybody else tried to tell me Freddy was no good, but I thought if we just moved away so nobody knew what he'd been, he'd change. I should have listened to them. Instead, I have a felony record now, my sister will barely talk to me, and I can't find a job that pays better than this bookstore."

I didn't think Julia had anything more, so I excused myself. She asked if there would be a funeral and I said if no one claimed the body, the city would bury him. She asked if I'd let her know one way or the other. She wanted to be there. It was hard to believe that after what Alfred had done to her she still felt something for him, but apparently she did.

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By the time I got back to my desk it was after five. I checked my inbox for anything from Walt or Sally, but there was nothing. As I was walking to my car, I realized I was beat. I'd been banging my head against a wall for two days with no results other than more questions. Going home and cooking wasn't something I really wanted to do and a TV dinner wasn't going to cut it either. I drove over to a little jazz bar a few blocks from my apartment. Jacky cooks a great Philly cheese steak sandwich, and I figured one of those with a few fries and a couple of beers would make me feel a lot better.

The sandwich was great like always, and the second beer was starting to relax me. The music was relaxing too. There was no band, just a CD player behind the bar, and the music was that slow jazz full of saxophones and soft trumpets that works great for thinking about something or trying to not think at all. Another song had just started playing when I heard a woman's voice beside me.

"Is this seat taken?"

She looked about thirty, maybe thirty-five, and if she'd been wearing a fancy dress, she could have stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. As it was, her snug white shorts and tight tank top made her look more exciting than seductive, though she was definitely both. The tight tank top hugged a pair of breasts big enough to make some really nice cleavage in the low cut tank top, but not so big as to be out of proportion. The shorts weren't all that short, but were cut low in the waist. Her long, slender legs were very nearly perfect and ended up in little red running shoes. Long, auburn hair cascaded in waves over her bare shoulders and framed a face that was both beautiful and a little impish. Her mouth was wide and sensuous, and her smile was infectious.

I had to smile back.

"No. It's not. Help yourself."

She did, and in climbing onto the bar stool, her breasts swayed enough I could tell she wasn't wearing much in the way of a bra. Once she was sitting on the seat, her ass was just as gorgeous as the rest of her. The low cut waist of her shorts had slipped down a little and I saw three rhinestones at the joining of the thong back and thin waistband of her panties.

When Wanda, the bartender, stopped in front of her, the woman ordered a beer. Wanda uncapped the longneck, sat the sweating bottle down in front of the woman and then collected the five she'd tossed on the bar. While Wanda was getting her change, the woman tipped up the bottle, swallowed twice, then sat the bottle down and grinned.

"Mmm...that hits the spot. It's been hot all day and I'm about to melt and run out my shoes. How about you?"

"Yeah, it's hot. Always is this time of year."

"Even wearing as little as I am, I feel like a roasted chicken. I don't know how you can wear that suit and tie. Why do you?"

"It's department policy."

"Oh, what kind of department would make you do something like that?"

I watched her face when I told her.

"I'm a detective."

She didn't frown like most women always do. She smiled.

"A detective...like in police detective or like in private detective?"

"Like in police detective."

"Wow. That must be a really interesting job to have."

I didn't know why she seemed to want to talk with a man who was probably thirty years older than she was, but she did. I didn't mind at all. I don't get many young women saying they're interested in what I do anymore. They usually avoid any interaction at all once they find out what I do. That smile made it easy to talk to her.

"It can be, sometimes. Sometimes it's not."

"I like reading detective novels. It's the suspense until you find out who the killer really is. Is it like that, really being a detective I mean?"

I chuckled.

"Well, usually it's more of a headache than suspense, but yes. You have to put together all the information you have and see where it leads. Sometimes that's easy. You have firm evidence to work with like fingerprints and DNA. Sometimes you just have to look at what you have, develop a theory and then see which of your possible suspects fit the theory. Then, you question your suspect. If he's the guilty one, he'll usually give it away somehow. If he doesn't, you go back to square one again."

She took another swallow from her beer and then turned back.

"In some of my detective novels, the detective doesn't have a suspect. What do you do then?"

"That's where the headaches get worse. Usually you can find a motive of some sort. Usually, that's money, so if you look at the victim's bank account or talk to people who knew him, you'll find a motive and a possible suspect. The other big reason is a lover's quarrel. If it's some sort of lover's thing, the victim will have known the killer. If you can't find a motive, it's not likely you'll solve the case unless there are eye witnesses."

"Has that ever happened to you?"

"Yeah, not often, but it has."

"What do you do then?"

"The case gets put into a cold case file in hopes that some more evidence will be found that will lead to a suspect and an arrest. When the detective has time, he'll review that file and see if anything he's heard or seen since is relevant. If there is, he'll spend some time checking that out. Once in a while, you get lucky and that something leads you to the perpetrator."

She smiled.

"I'll bet your real cases are better than my detective novels. I'd love to hear about some of them, but you probably think I'm being a pest. I should probably leave before you tell me to go away."

My beer was almost finished and I noticed hers was too. I liked having her sit there and listen to me, and I didn't really want her to leave.

"No, you're not being a pest. Most people don't like talking to cops and it's nice to find a woman who does. Can I buy you another beer so you'll stick around?"

"I'd like that, but if you're going to do that, you probably want to know who I am. I'm Veronica Masters, and you are...?"

"Jerry Donovan."

After Wanda brought our beers, Veronica took a swallow of hers and then smiled.

"OK, Jerry, what's the hardest case you ever solved?"

I had to think about that for a while. I'd worked several tough cases over the years. Probably the hardest was one involving a love triangle but it wasn't like most.

"Well, there was one a few years back that had me stumped for a couple of weeks. This woman called 911 and said she'd found her husband dead on their living room floor. The 911 call was at five thirty in the afternoon, and the uniforms got there fifteen minutes later. The wife was crying her eyes out so they couldn't get much out of her.

When I got there, there was the guy laid out on his back on the floor with a hatchet sticking out of his forehead. The wife said she came back from shopping and had found him like that. The coroner said the guy had been dead for only about an hour.

"In any killing of a spouse, the other spouse is always the primary suspect, so I questioned her pretty thoroughly. She said she finished shopping at about five and it took her twenty minutes to get home. I checked with the last store she said she'd been at, and their security cameras agreed with her story. That and the fact she was also only four eleven and weighed in the neighborhood of eighty five pounds made me believe her story. I didn't think she was strong enough to hold the guy down on his back and then kill him with the hatchet.

"When I started talking to the neighbors, I found out another car had been seen on several occasions in the couple's drive. One neighbor had called the station to complain about loud music and gave us the license number of the car at the house that night.. One of the uniforms drove out, but by the time he got there, the lights were out and the car was gone, so he couldn't do anything. He did talk to the owner of the car the next day.

The owner of the car was a guy and told the uniform he and the couple had met online and had had a few threesomes. He said the husband was bi and that's what had attracted him to them. He'd done the wife too, but wasn't really interested in her. It was the husband he liked.

"When I asked the wife about her husband's lover, she admitted to participating in their affair as a three-some, but it had gone further than that. She said her husband got off work at three, and on more than one occasion she'd come home from shopping and found them together. She'd begged him to stop meeting the guy alone, and he promised her he would, but when she got home that day their bed was a mess even though she'd made it that morning.

"When I questioned the lover, he said he had been there the day of the murder. He knew the wife didn't want him to keep seeing her husband, so he left about four while she was still out shopping.

"My theory was at some point the husband told the lover they had to break up. That made the lover mad enough he came to the house on the day the wife did her shopping and killed the husband. I had the lover's statement that he had been in the house and I had a plausible motive. We arrested the lover and questioned him some more.

"During that questioning, he asked if we hadn't considered the wife had killed her husband. He said the wife had been hinting to him they should go off by themselves for a weekend without the husband. He didn't want to do that since he really liked the husband more, but when he said that would make her husband mad, she'd just smiled and said he wouldn't know. That seemed to me she might have been saying the husband wouldn't be around. That was another possible motive, so I brought the wife in for another interview.