Hot Wives Investment Club Ch. 02

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Trilogy Series, Dark Side Of The Force series, Caught In The Act series, Case of the Murdered Bride series, The Credit Card Caper series.

The Hot Wives Investment Club, Ch. 1-2.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, extreme language, and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial or racist language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 4 - The Crime Scene

I arrived at the River Valley Country Club at 9:15pm, Oct. 30th. Sr. Patrolman Rudistan stopped me at the entrance to the parking lot.

"Can I see your badge, young officer?" Rudistan said jovially. I knew he was kidding, but I showed him my badge anyway.

"Sure, Sergeant Rudistan." I teased back, knowing (but he not knowing yet) that he was going to be promoted to Sergeant on November 1st. "Okay, Rudistan, you can let residents of the subdivision in so they can get to their homes, but no one goes out, and the Press does not come in at all, clear?"

"Roger that, sir." Rudistan said. "We've already got it covered." I drove on, confident that Rudistan indeed had the traffic situation under control.

There were already four police cruisers and an ambulance in the parking lot, all with lights flashing. I got on my radio and ordered that someone come out and turn off all the 'blinkenlights'. Not like they'd bring the dead back to life, and they only served to get the Media's attention. Patrolman Hicks came outside quickly and resolved the situation to my satisfaction.

I went through the front entrance, which was two large, heavy doors with a really nice glass inlay. The meeting room was immediately to the left, and entering those double doors (more normal sized, and solid wood), I found myself in the back of the room, looking forward towards the speaker's table up front. I saw a side table with desserts on the right.

Against the far back wall were two sets of double doors, with the projector screen between them on the wall. Those doors led to passageways that led to closets, a/v equipment and cleaning equipment rooms, those rooms being behind the wall covered by the projection screen. Those passageways led to a back hallway that had a door to the outside and the covered parking deck... where Anthony Warner had met his fate months before. The passageway went on around to offices and a hallway that led back to the main areas of the Club.

As I entered, I saw a number of women, some sitting, some sobbing, some being interviewed by officers. When they noticed my presence, the room suddenly became quiet.

"Commander, they're waiting for you in the back room." said Lt. Cindy Ross, coming up to me. But I didn't move immediately.

"Ladies," I called out, so that all could hear my voice, "I know you have had a shock tonight, and I appreciate your patience and staying here to help us out. I hope we'll be able to let you go home shortly. I also appreciate your cooperation in allowing the police to look into your handbags."

Police had been doing so, searching for the murder weapon, and I'd already received a phone call from Cindy about their complaints. I'd told Cindy to tell them that if they protested, we would get warrants... and they and their handbags could wait at Headquarters for those warrants. No, I didn't say they'd be arrested, but the inference was enough that they were cooperating, and so far, no one had given any back talk.

"What was that about?" Cindy asked as we went through the door to the kitchenette.

"Some of the wealthiest and most powerful wives in the County are in there." I said. "I definitely want to get on their good side to the extent I'm able."

"Oh." Cindy said. "I thought you were flirting with some of them. They way most of them looked at you, they'll be flirting with you as soon as they get a chance."

"Maybe." I said. "The perks and curses of Command. Okay, J.R., whaddya got?" I asked the youngish Crime Lab leader. He and the Crime Lab were dressed in Tyvex suits. Because of the contracts we had with other counties, we were able to afford the Tyvex suits so that our people didn't contaminate the crime scene. It was the Crime Lab leaders' call if they should wear the Tyvex or not. This scene definitely warranted it.

To the right of the main meeting room, to the speaker's left, was a door that led to a kitchenette area. Inside that area, I saw that to the right was a door that led to a service entrance for waitstaff, in front of me was the kitchen sink and counter, and to the left were the two doors to the two unisex restrooms, each meant to service one person at a time.

Halfway through the right side bathroom doorway was the deceased, lying as she had fallen. There was a pool of blood on the bathroom floor, and some on the tile of the kitchenette area from her throat wound. Inside the bathroom, the toilet was on the right and the sink on the left. There was a small trashcan under the sink. Not only was there blood on the floor, but it had sprayed all over the back and left wall of the bathroom, some to nearly the ceiling.

"Throat slit." said J.R. Barnes. "Hand over her mouth, slice across the throat with what looks like a very sharp knife, maybe a heavy one like a sendoku knife. But here's the thing, Commander: she didn't die immediately. She was dropped, but she managed to crawl to the door, tried to raise her hand to open the door, then expired and sank down, leaning against the door. When the door was opened, she fell out." J.R. had pointed to various blood smears on the door and marks in the blood on the floor as he told the story.

"Oh, but this is interesting." I said. "She was facing to the left when she was attacked. Now if she were standing at the sink, wouldn't she turn to the right to see who was coming in? And if she were standing near the potty, she'd again likely be turned to the right by her attacker coming up behind and grabbing her."

"Yes sir." J.R. said. "You're correct, though maybe in grabbing her, the assailant spun her around."

"That's a thought." I said. "So our assailant must be fairly strong, as he or she did not totally surprise the victim. So, who was it that met her unfortunate end here?" I asked, though I recognized the woman.

"Trish Donolan." said Detective Diana Torres, who had been looking around the kitchenette while her partner Martin Nash interviewed women in the main room. "Forty-six years old, married to Donovan Donolan, who goes by 'Mr. Donolan', but his apparently few friends call him 'Donovan'-"

"Is that an assumption, or do you have data, Miss Torres?" I asked.

"Data, sir." said Torres, grinning. "I wouldn't risk the Wrath of either of you Iron Crowbars by speculating."

"Smart Detective, you are." I said, grinning back. "Sorry I interrupted. You were saying?"

"Yes sir," said Torres, "he's the CEO of BigPharmaCorp. And I'm sure you remember from the recent Murdered Bride case that she was a Lightsource Industries employee."

"Yes." I said. "Do you remember exactly what capacity she was in with Lightsource?"

"Sorry, sir, I'm not prepared on that." said Diana.

"Neither am I, but that's okay: we'll refresh our memories on that soon enough." I admitted. "So, who called it in?"

"Geez, sir," said Torres, "our phones lit up like Christmas trees. The 9-1-1 system got eight calls about it, our Duty Desk got four, and Lieutenant Croyle got two."

"Croyle?" I asked, surprised. "From who?"

"I'm not sure, sir." replied Torres. "She just called Lieutenant Ross, who told me that when she told me to get over here."

"I see." I said. "Okay, J.R., what else have you found on the body?"

"Not much." J.R. said. "We took fingernail scrapings, and we're processing the scene for prints and stuff."

"Was anything of interest found in any of the ladies' purses?" I asked, looking around at the ceiling and cabinets of the kitchenette. "I don't suppose we'd be lucky enough that the murderer just stuck the murder weapon into someone's purse?

"No sir." said Torres. "No weapons, except a few handguns, and their owners have carry permits. We've confiscated them for now."

"Be damn sure to give them their weapons back when we let them leave." I said.


"Sir, are you sure?" Torres asked. I wheeled on her, harder than I meant to.

"Detective," I said, "this victim was not shot, unless J.R. changes his story in there. We have no reason to keep their weapons at this time. Make sure to give them back when they leave."

"Yes sir." Torres said, looking disappointed. I knew that there was a big debate nationally, not only about gun rights, but about confiscation of them by police at scenes like this. I, for one, did not want to deprive law-abiding citizens of their lawfully carried weapons, but I knew that others in my own Force and elsewhere were of a decidedly different attitude.

"J.R., has anyone searched above the ceiling tiles, especially in the bathroom?" I asked. It was a hanging ceiling with tiles and fluorescent lights.

"Not yet, sir." said J.R. "We'll be doing that after the body is removed."

"All right." I said. "I'll leave you guys to it. Let me know if you find anything spectacularly interesting."

"Commander," J.R. replied, "I always find everything about a crime scene 'spectacularly interesting'."

"I can't debate that." I said, smiling, as I walked back into the main room. Cindy Ross came up to me.

"We've interviewed nearly everyone." she said. "The stories are the same: they were having a meeting, they went on break, came back, Donolan wasn't there, one of them went to look for her, found her in the bathroom dead, screamed, they all rushed in, saw the body, screamed themselves. We've also interviewed all of the Club employees, who are all still here."

"Is there anyone that stands out that I need to talk to?" I asked. Cindy had this look like 'we can do this', but I knew that I was a Commander partly because I knew how to interview suspects and watch their faces in ways the other Detectives didn't, so sorry.

"No sir." Cindy replied.

"All right," I said, "But I do want to talk to two people: the person that found the body, and Mrs. Myrtle L. James. She's a University Trustee, so I want you to meet her. Let's go."

I walked over to the speaker's table up front, behind which Myrtle L. James was still seated. "Mrs. James," I said. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need to ask you a couple of questions."

"Why hello, Commander." said Myrtle James. "I haven't seen you since your recent promotion. Congratulations. And I am so happy to hear that your wife has recovered so well from her surgery."

"Thank you, ma'am." I said. "May I present my partner, Lieutenant Cindy Ross."

"Oh... the Medal of Valor recipient?" Myrtle L. James replied, her eyes lighting up. "It's such an honor to meet you, Lieutenant, such an honor!" the old woman gushed as she stood up, took Cindy's hand in hers, and vigorously shook it.

"Thank you, ma'am," Cindy said, blushing modestly as she always did at such praise. "I'm sorry we're meeting under such difficult circumstances."

"Yes, so very sad." Mrs. James said as she sat back down. "Now what can I help you with?"

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to the University Trustee. "Can you tell us what happened in the moments leading up to finding Mrs. Donolan?"

"Yes." said Myrtle L. James, and I knew that of all the attendees, her mind would be the sharpest and most observant. "We started our meeting, we began a debate of which of two stocks to buy. It got a bit... exciting for a few minutes."

"What do you mean by that, ma'am?" I asked.

"Sometimes arguments happen." Mrs. James said. "Tonight we had a pretty strong one."

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how strong was this one?" I asked.

"Oh, about a '7'." she said. "We've had worse."

"Did it get personal?" I asked.

"Oh no, nothing like that. It never gets personal, as long as I'm moderating the debate, anyway. What's said in private beyond my hearing, I couldn't tell you."

"So what happened next?" I asked.

"At 8:30 I called for a break in the discussion." Myrtle said. "People were milling about, getting some dessert and coffee from the side table, talking in groups, using the restroom and so forth. At 8:45 I called the meeting back to order and everyone came back in... except Trish. After a moment, someone... Catherine, I believe... yes, it was Catherine, she was putting her handbag down when I asked where Trish was, and she said she'd go check and see if Trish was still in the bathroom..."

"I see." I said. "Mrs. James, let me ask some background information, if I may. How does your club choose what stocks to buy?"

"We have to agree by a two-thirds vote of the members present. With sixteen members, that means we need eleven votes."

"And if there were only 15 present?" I asked.

"Then we'd need 10, as it's based on the persons present." she said. "But I cannot remember having less than the full 16 at every meeting for at least a year."

"So how do these disputes get resolved?" I asked.

"Usually ladies give their presentations on what they think we should buy." Mrs. James said. "Usually we pick out one or two among the selections that everyone agrees pretty well on, and it's an easy vote. On some occasions, like tonight, we had a stronger argument between two stocks, Apple and Netflix. Usually when it's that evenly divided, someone suggests buying a half-position of both, but tonight... in fact, it was Trish that was very adamant about not buying Apple. She shot down the idea of buying both... in fact, she seemed more against buying Apple than for buying Netflix, if I remember the way she was talking."

"Any reason for her taking that attitude? Of not buying both, of being against Apple?" I asked, out of simple curiosity.

"No, no reason that I know of." said Mrs. James. "She didn't say during the public debate, and I didn't get a chance to talk with her during the break."

"I see." I said. "Okay, ma'am, can you tell me how the membership of the Club works?"

"Yes, but let me start at the beginning." said Mrs. James. "We began about six years ago, with twelve women each contributing five thousand dollars. Within the next six months or so, eight more women came in, contributing $5000. At that time, we realized that 20 was too many, but we didn't expel anyone. We made ourselves into an LLC and a Trust, and distributed 16,000 shares evenly. One woman, Mrs. Bonniker, passed away. Her family was paid out the cash value of her shares, and the shares distributed to the rest of us."

Mrs. James continued: "We then had three other ladies leave over the next couple of years, and we paid them out and distributed the shares until we had sixteen women with 1000 shares each. That number seemed to work well, so we set our membership limit at sixteen."

"Have others wished to join your group?" I asked. "You've done very well, from what I've heard."

"Yes, we have a waiting list." said Mrs. James. "And the value of the fund is about $2.5 million now."

I noted Cindy's look of shock and worked hard to hide my own surprise as I said "So for someone to buy in, they'd have to come up with nearly $160,000, wouldn't they?"

"No, Commander, not quite." said Myrtle. "They could do that, or they could pay $10,000 and their shares would only be worth a pro-rated amount. Over time, their re-investments can be used to pay to increase their shares to full par with everyone else's. It's pretty complicated, and we have a lawyer and CPA do all of that for us. We've only had two women leave since we incorporated. Well, one of them died... Mrs. Bailey."

"Margo Bailey?" I asked, surprise in my voice. I remembered how, a year and a half before, Margo had been taken to the Hospital E.R., and had subsequently died of a drug overdose. (Author's note: Please review 'Case of the Murdered Chessplayer, Ch. 03-04, for the Margo Bailey death.)

"Yes, that was her." said Myrtle James. "She was the closest we ever came to expelling a member. She had serious drug problems, but she got clean... for a while."

"Yes, I remember her death." I said. "I hate to have to ask this so shortly after Mrs. Donolan's death, but I really must: what will happen to Mrs. Donolan's shares?" I asked.

"I understand. Her heirs will be paid their fair value." said Mrs. James. "We'll have to have a CPA determine that amount within a couple of weeks. Then the first person on our waiting list will be offered the chance to buy the 1000 shares from the Club."

"Do you know who that person is?" I asked.

"No, I'd have to have our lawyer look that up. Mrs. Olivet- I'm sorry, Mrs. Burke, of that Women's Law Firm, is our agent. She handles all of that and doesn't tell us, to keep things fair. Only she and her two partners know."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. James." I said. "And I'm sorry for your Club's loss. Now who found the- er, Mrs. Donolan?"

"That would be Cat- oh, that's her nickname. Catherine Clausen is her name. She's Trish's best friend. She's right back there."

I saw the woman to whom Myrtle L. James was pointing, and I excused myself, listening to Myrtle tell Cindy that she so hoped to get to talk to the younger woman, if only Cindy would come to a Ladies Auxiliary meeting. To my happiness, and my surprise, I heard Cindy promise to come to the next meeting.

"Oh, Cindy, while I'm talking to this witness," I said, "would you call Paulina for a warrant to get all the video footage from the Country Club and the area, then secure it-" I broke off.

"I'll call Jenna; she's waiting up for me as it is." Cindy said. "Er... Don? You all right?"

I exhaled. "Yeah... yeah." I said, trying to recover my emotions. "I... I was just remembering when Anthony Warner was killed outside, and... and Pete Feeley had secured all that video before I even asked..."

Cindy patted me on the back of my shoulder, understanding. "I'll get right on it." she said as she dialed her cellphone.

"Oh," I said, "while you're at it for warrants, ask for these also." I told Cindy what I needed to do, what I was looking for, and why.

I went to the chairs in the back row and introduced myself to Catherine 'Cat' Clausen. She had black hair, curly, was short and somewhat voluptuous, but very pretty. But her nickname was 'Cat' because it was said she and Trish were friends, partied together, and were known to be a mean pair of bitches at times... the 'cat claws' would come out.

"Mrs. Clausen," I said, "I understand you found Mrs. Donolan?"

"Call me Catherine, or 'Cat', please." she replied, her eyes looking at me invitingly as she spoke. "And yes... yes, I found her."

"Tell me what happened?"

"We took a break from our meeting. Trish and I were talking in the kitchenette with Carol Carlington about the debate over which shares to buy. Carol wanted to buy AAPL, which Trish had opposed-"

"Let me interrupt you with a question, if I may." I said. "Was Trish normally this... defensive in her arguments? By that, I mean did she normally argue strongly and uncompromisingly?"

"She usually was set once she decided what she wanted to see happen." said Cat. "But tonight I'd have to say she was really determined to not buy the AAPL stock."