Another Cold Case and Hot Nights

"I didn't hear any more about her until she got arrested the second time. She called Mom and asked her to bail her out of jail. When Mom said no, that was the last time Mom or I ever heard from Beth. To tell the truth, I never wanted any more contact with her. I'd found God and decided that would be my life. There wasn't room in my life for a sinner like Beth."

I had one other question for Pastor Hayes before I told him his sister was dead.

"That older woman, is she still alive?"

He shook his head.

"No, I preached her funeral five years ago. Odd woman she was. I had to try hard to say anything nice about her. It wasn't that she was a bad person. She was just strange. Didn't have a husband or any kids and lived by herself all her life. The only thing I could find was that she used to be a cook and that people really loved her food, so I worked that into my elegy.

"I could never figure out why Beth went to her house instead of going to school. Mom had already taught her to cook so it wasn't for that. I always suspected it was either alcohol or drugs, but Beth never seemed to act differently when she came back from there."

Normally, I try to be as gentle and sympathetic as possible when I inform a relative about the death of a loved one, but in this case, I couldn't. I'm not a religious man by any means, but one of the things that was drummed into me as a kid by my Sunday School teacher was that we should forgive and love sinners. Pastor Hayes must have missed class the day they taught that in his Theology School.

I showed him the autopsy picture and asked him if that was Beth. I thought he might break down or at least show some emotion but he didn't. He just nodded.

"That's what she looked like the last time I saw her, maybe a little fuller in the face, but that's Beth. That's the same little mole on her left cheek. I assume she's dead. How did she die?"

I just said that was what I was trying to figure out and then thanked him and said I'd be leaving. He didn't ask me how he should go about claiming the body or if she'd left any personal belongings he could have. He just walked me to the door and I swear to God he was smiling when he shook my hand again.

That night, in spite of Pastor Hayes being such an ass, I was feeling pretty good. I had a lot more information now. I wasn't sure how that all fit into the case, but at least Rochelle and I had something we could hash out and maybe make sense of.

When I got home, Rochelle was out front in shorts and a halter top, down on her hands and knees, and planting the last of her flowers. Her shorts were really short, short enough I could see the crease between her hip and thigh and I couldn't resist. I walked up behind her and ran my hand down her butt and then inside the leg of her shorts. When I stroked Rochelle's soft lips through her panties, she giggled.

"You must have had a good day. Why don't you hold that thought until after dinner and you tell me what you found out."

Rochelle planned on turning this case into her next novel and to that end, she'd started what she called a fact board. It was almost identical to the case boards detectives use and had pictures of all those possibly involved in the case along with a timeline and little post it notes with what we knew. As I told her what I'd found out, she wrote that information and then stuck the notes in the right category. Under "Victim" she posted what I'd found out about Beth. Under "Possible Suspects" she posted what I'd found out about Charles Upton. The rest of the board had categories for "Location of the Crime", "Method", "Opportunity", and "Miscellaneous".

When we finished, the timeline went back to 1985, the year Beth dropped out of school. It also showed the times Beth was arrested for prostitution and shoplifting as well as the timing of Charles' discharge from the Charlotte police force.

Rochelle stepped back after she added the last post it note, put her hands on her hips, and looked at the board for a few minutes. She turned to me then frowned.

"We're still missing some things. What happened to Beth's car? If she drove to Knoxville, her car should have been at the Blair's house, but it wasn't. Do we know what happened to it?"

I picked up the case folder and thumbed through it until I came to the North Carolina DMV registration report.

"It says here the car was sold to a Mister Greg Davis on December 20, 1989. The coroner says Beth was killed sometime between January 5 and a week before, so Beth couldn't have driven it to the Blairs. She had to get there some other way."

"OK", said Rochelle, "but why would she sell her car? Was she still working as a waitress in that barbecue place? If she was, she'd have needed her car to get to work."

I'd kept reading and discovered something I'd missed before.

"Beth didn't sell her car because she didn't own it. The title was registered only to Charles Upton."

Rochelle wrote that on another post it note and then said, "Well, he seemed like a control freak. Maybe he sold her car to keep her from doing something, like driving to Knoxville to see the Blairs. If that's the case, maybe he took Beth to the Blair's house and then killed her and Mister Blair. That can't be right though because there was no evidence anyone other than the Blairs and Beth had been in the house.

"We probably can't figure that out until we figure out the connection between Beth and Mister Blair. They don't seem to be the same kind of people. The Uptons had both been in trouble with the law, but the Blairs hadn't and went to church every Sunday. They lived in different states, but for some reason, Beth came to Knoxville. Since Beth was on the bed naked, Mister Blair had to know her but she doesn't seem like the type of woman he'd have an affair with. There must be some connection we haven't found yet."

I said if we kept digging we'd find that connection. Rochelle smiled and pulled her haltertop over her head. Her big breasts bobbed once and then settled down on her chest with her nipples pointed right at me.

"Well while we're digging could we find some connection between us?"

Rochelle stepped out of her flip-flops on the way to the bedroom, and her little shorts fell on the floor just as she walked through the door. The little string of her thong wasn't visible until it got out of her butt cheeks, but I saw it when she rolled the thong down her thighs and then hopped on the bed. She lay there smiling while I got my clothes off. When I joined her in bed, she circled my cock with her hand and chuckled.

"I think you're ready to do a little digging. I'll keep your digger stiff if you'll get me as ready as you seem to be."

Well, what can I say? Rochelle in shorts and a haltertop had been pretty sexy. Rochelle, naked and stroking my cock was enough even if I'd been dead tired, I'd have still tried hard. As it was, I wasn't dead tired and it didn't take long to get Rochelle ready.

I'd learned that the one thing that will quickly have Rochelle gasping and pulling on my cock is planting my face between her silky thighs and enjoying the taste of her lips. I was enjoying the hell out of doing that. Rochelle doesn't have inner lips big enough to stick out, but she still has them. They're satin smooth with little ripples and they felt great against my tongue. The little moans she started making were my cue to dig a little deeper.

I felt her push against my tongue when I slipped it into her entrance, but she wasn't trying to push my tongue out. I knew that because as soon as she did, I felt a little bit of wetness on my tongue. She gasped when I pushed my tongue in as deep as I could reach, rocked her hips up, and then I felt that pushing again along with more wet warmth.

By the time I slipped my tongue up her inner lips to where they joined under her clit, Rochelle had her hands on the back of my head and she was rocking her body up and down. As soon as I licked the little bud, she gasped again and lurched up hard enough she mashed her mound into my nose.

After a little more licking around and over her clit, Rochelle started to pant. Between breaths, she whispered, "Oh God, do me now."

Rochelle helped me find her entrance with my cock. By helping, I mean that she rolled me on my back, straddled me, and then moved my cock head around until it was in the right place. She closed her eyes then and started making little short strokes, strokes that coated my cock with her wetness and also were driving me crazy.

I'd gotten used to that feeling though, so I was able to control it. When Rochelle took a deep breath and then started impaling herself on my cock, I almost lost it. I was fondling her heavy breasts at the time, and raised them up so I could look down my belly. What I saw was Rochelle's lips spread wide as my cock disappeared inside her. To take my mind off that, I looked up again and rolled both her stiff nipples with my fingers.

Well, she'd been slowly sinking over my cock before I did that, but as soon as I pinched her nipples a little, Rochelle caught her breath and slammed herself down over my cock until she was sitting on my thighs. I felt her passage contract around my shaft a couple times, and then she started riding me.

We'd developed sort of a sign language to tell each other how we were doing. Well, actually, it was my way of telling Rochelle she needed to slow down without saying it out loud and ruining the moment. Rochelle tends to get pretty into things once she starts getting really aroused and if I let her keep going, she'll be crossing the finish line long after I did.

I usually have to use that sign language a few times. That night, I just stopped tweaking her nipples and put one hand on her hip and squeezed. Rochelle didn't stop, but she slowed down a lot. I helped her along with a fingertip on her clit.

When I'd gotten mostly back in control, I pulled her down enough I could get her right nipple in my mouth. Rochelle gave my cock a quick double stroke when I sucked the stiff nub and then started riding again.

I never need for Rochelle to signal me when she's getting close. It's too easy to tell. First, she starts to pant really fast. Then, just before she cries out and her orgasm starts to hit her, her legs start to shake. At the end, her hips start jerking up and down and she makes these little mewing cries.

I'll feel her nails digging into my back a little harder and then harder still. When she feels the first strong waves, her hands fly off my back, she grabs the bedsheets and wads them up in her fists. She stays like that until her body stops jerking and she can breathe normally.

Well, that's what happens when she's on her back. If she's riding me, it gets different just like it did that night. Rochelle started to pant really fast and her strokes got a little faster too. When her legs started to shake, she'd have fallen off me if I hadn't grabbed her under the armpits to hold her up. A second later, Rochelle stopped really riding me. She was just rocking her body up and down from the waist while her legs shook like crazy. When she let out a final shriek, I let go. It was a fantastic feeling to be spurting inside her while Rochelle's body twitched and jerked and squeezed my cock.

Rochelle was still shaking when I eased her down on my chest. She nestled her face against my shoulder until she stopped shaking and then whispered, "I think we'll save round two for tomorrow morning. I don't think I can do this again tonight."

Well, round two came at about six the next morning, and pretty much qualified as a quickie. Sometimes it's like that with Rochelle. The first time, she likes taking it slow. The second, it's more like she's just gotten a second wind and it only takes her a few minutes. I've never figured it out, but I'm not complaining.

When I got to my desk the next morning, there was a FedEX envelope there. Inside was Charles Upton's personnel file from the Charlotte PD.

Reading that file was interesting, but it was kind of like driving in a fog. You can't really see anything clearly and sometimes you think you see something that turns out not to be there. Sometimes you don't see what is really there.

Charles enlisted in the US Army when he turned eighteen. In the Army, he'd gone through Infantry training and then did a two-year tour in Germany. At the time, Germany was still separated into two halves, East and West. Mr. Upton served as a guard at Checkpoint Alpha for his entire tour there. He completed his enlistment at Fort Riley, Kansas and then returned to Charlotte and applied to the Police Academy there.

Evidently Mr. Upton was pretty intelligent. He scored in the upper one percent of his class at the Academy on every category of evaluation except for defensive and search tactics. His evaluation for these was ninety percent and the reason given was he was "somewhat over aggressive in restraining suspects in training scenarios".

That trait seemed to follow him throughout his short career. He had been given verbal counseling on six different occasions for being "more aggressive than required for the situation" or for "failing to reduce physical restraint after the subject had stopped resisting".

The assault was what got him discharged, and for good reason. He'd stopped a woman for speeding, but she'd argued with him that she wasn't speeding. According to the statement she made when she filed the complaint, he'd pulled her out of the car, pushed her up against it, and then started to search her for weapons. When he touched her breasts, she started to fight back, so he put her on the ground and put his knee in her back to hold her down while he cuffed her. After that he did what was basically a full body search, something that department policy mandated be done by a female officer.

What really sealed his fate was the woman said he laughed and said if she was a real woman, she wouldn't mind him touching her, so she must be a lesbian. When he was asked about that statement, he just laughed and said he was just joking with her to ease the tension of the situation.

His actions were way out of line and obviously grounds for assault and termination, but it was just the last in a long line of offenses where he'd been given ample opportunity to change. When I put his history together with his evaluation at the Police Academy, I came up with the picture of a man who did not compromise once he'd given a command. His first response to any resistance would be pretty violent, maybe even violent enough to become murder at some point.

Rochelle and I still had a lot of questions that we needed answered. So far, we had absolutely no connection between Beth and Mr. Blair, let alone any connection that involved Mrs. Blair or Mr. Upton. We needed that connection to establish motive and motive is probably the most important part of any criminal case. Sometimes a lot of suspects in a murder case have the other two -- means and opportunity -- but it's the motive that ultimately separates the innocent from the guilty.

We already had the means of the murder, that being a rifle. We also had the opportunity, since as Rochelle pointed out, there aren't many women who would just walk into a bedroom and strip naked for a man she doesn't know really well. It was pretty obvious that Mrs. Upton had been invited into the house. We just hadn't established how they knew each other.

When I got home that night, Rochelle was sitting at her desk with papers spread all over the top. She looked up and asked if I'd found out anything more.

I went over Charlie Upton's personnel file with her and when I finished, she nodded.

"Like I said before, he's a control freak. He either controls you or you get hurt. If we could put him at the scene, I'd pick him for the killer. I might have found a something else that will help us though.

"Matt looked at the bank statements and credit history of the Blairs after the murder because Missus Blair was missing and he figured she'd have to get money somehow. I looked at her bank statements and credit history before the murder and I think I found something. There was a charge from a restaurant August of 1988 to one of their charge cards and the receipt was signed by Emma Blair. That restaurant was in Clyde, North Carolina, the same restaurant where Beth was working as a waitress. That has to be where they met."

I shrugged.

"Maybe the Blairs were just passing through and she was just the one who paid the bill."

Rochelle shook her head.

"No, she was alone. The receipt was for one sandwich and one soft drink.

"There's another charge to her credit card too, at ten the next morning. It was to a gas station in Clyde. I wasn't sure until you found out that Mister Upton was in prison until September of 1988. What I think is Emma and Beth met at the restaurant and spent the night together. He wouldn't have been home, so he wouldn't have known."

I sat down so I could think.

"So, you're saying the affair was between Missus Blair and Missus Upton? Why was Mister Blair there then?"

Rochelle frowned.

"I haven't figured that out yet, but I do have some evidence that maybe says Beth was either a lesbian or at least bisexual. Remember that her brother told you she used to skip school and spend the day with an older woman? Why would a young girl do that? When I was that age, I'd have found some guy or a bunch of other young girls to spend the day with if I wanted to have some fun.

"Look at what he told you about the woman. He said she wasn't married, didn't have any kids, and lived alone her whole life. My mother called women like that old maids and told me I should stay away from them. She said they'd try to make me like girls instead of boys. I didn't believe her at the time and still don't think lesbians recruit young girls to join them, but Beth seems to have been pretty wild back then, so maybe they sort of found each other.

"Her brother said she never came home stoned or drunk so what other reason would she have? I mean, staying with an older woman would be like staying with her mother and Beth obviously didn't like older adults telling her what to do. No, it had to be something else, and I'm thinking that something else was love. It probably started out as friendship, but it's a short trip from friendship to hugging and maybe Beth decided she wanted a lot more than just a hug. I don't think Beth felt like she was loved at home and was looking for it somewhere else. Sex is about as strong an expression of love as you can get."

I love debating with Rochelle because it makes us both think.

"If Beth was a lesbian, why did she proposition and then marry Mister Upton?"

"Beth might have tried prostitution but that doesn't mean she was straight. Only about half of female prostitutes say they're straight. The rest say they're either lesbian or bisexual. Most would like to not be prostitutes, so if Mister Upton said he'd drop the charges if she'd marry him, she probably jumped at the chance. She'd have basically still been a prostitute, but only for one man, and she wouldn't have had a conviction following her around for the rest of her life. She didn't really have a family anymore, so he was probably better than nothing."

I nodded because everything Rochelle had said made sense.

"OK, I'll buy that, but why would Missus Blair kill her if they were lovers and why would she kill her husband too?"

Rochelle wrinkled up her brow.

"That's the part I haven't figured out yet. What we need to do is find either Mister Upton or Missus Blair and ask them. It had to be one of them because there's nobody else left unless the killer was some random person, and the statistics say that's really rare. Missus Blair might have been mad because her lover was with her husband and killed them both. Mister Upton might have been mad because his wife was with another man and killed them both."