April Isn't Just A Month

At the New World Pawn shop, April found a, made in china knock off of a name brand, beach cruiser bike. The pawn shop sold it to her brand new for a hundred bucks. The same bike with a different logo was two hundred at least. She really figured the one she had bought was going to be inferior, but she didn't care.

She even rode the beast home. It certainly was better than walking the three miles, but she was passed by a couple of road bikes with skinny tires and even skinnier riders. It really didn't bother her. Nothing seemed to bother her during her half hour ride.

She realized that she should have stopped for lunch while she was out. It didn't really matter since her original plan had been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich anyway. She admired her bike in the parking lot as she ate her sandwich and drank he chemical tea. An hour later sitting at the computer, she found her muscles stiff. Even so there was no joint pain in her knees. In other words she got a painless workout, even if it was a too short one.

As she was prone to do April began to fantasize about all the things she could do with the bike. She also conceded that realistically her plans could amount to nothing.'

April spent the afternoon thinking about bicycles and doing research on the things she could buy to make her bicycle more useful. After hours of research, it was finally time to shut the office for the day. She went out to dinner on her new bike since she had not heard from Gerard. That and her pantry and freezer had just about run out of quick things to prepare.

April chose a local restaurant, which catered to men and women from the airbase just outside of town. The restaurant was located five miles farther from the beachfront than her motel, but it was worth the bike ride. The food was good, the prices reasonable. Not to mention she got a ten miles worth of exercise.

When she returned to the motel she wasn't even tired. Her body was going to feel that ride later, she was sure. In the meantime her body was feeling pleasurably used for a change. It wasn't as good as sex, but it wasn't bad either.

After April poured herself a cup of coffee, she moved to her small built in desk. She sat at the computer to type in the first website address. She had known in advance that it was a web cam site from the address. Poledancers.com was the address she typed into the browser. April chose to begin with the website whose address was on the rear of a tuna casserole recipe. When she got to the website she worked her way through the Maze of seemingly endless pop up ads carefully. She wasn't a computer genus but she knew enough to know that sites like the ones she was visiting, installed all kinds of malicious crap on computers. That knowledge was another reason she chose the home computer for her research. The corruption of the office computer could be seriously problematic. There would be less potential damage to her home computer. There was very little malware written for her version of the Linux operating system. She had come to think of Windows as a death trap on the web.

She finally made it over all the walls, under the fences and then through all the hoops. What she found at the end of the trail was a long list of women. The women seemed to be sub contractors, for lack of a better term. Accompanying each name was a picture. Most men probably chose by picture so the list wasn't in any order. April scanned until she found Jessica.

A click on a woman's picture did indeed link to a free video. The payment was having to sit through screen after screen of advertizements. The advertisers were pretty questionable websites, which no doubt were not free. April finally found a picture of Jessica Rabbit after at least a hundred other listings.

Jessica was wearing one of the small tight dresses which her husband had chosen to trash. Since there was no charge, April clicked on Jessica's image. The pop up screens were relentless. Finally April arrived at a short recorded video of Jessica. In the video she appeared to be stimulating herself sexually. However she was fully dressed, even so it was still mildly erotic. The video also appeared to be shot from different angles and most likely to have been edited. In other words it was not a real web cam video. From the background April could tell it was made in Jessica's apartment.

Jessica lowered the top of the tight dress to expose her very full bikini top. The audio was her voice, since it was synchronized to the video. It was delivered in a clean factual manner, but it was far less than an academy award performance. She didn't appear drugged, just nervous as if she were doing it for the first time, which she could have been.

April had no interest in seeing Jessica masturbate, so she copied the links and moved on. The second website's address was youngstuff.com. April expected it to be worse than it actually was. She had to search to find Jessica among the supposed teenaged girls. None of them looked like kids exactly, more like young women trying to look sixteen. Jessica for sure didn't look sixteen, but her introduction video suggested that for five dollars one could see what Jessica and he 'daddy' did together. The thought of that seemed disgusting to April, but she felt that she should see it. If for no other reason than to see what Jessica's so called daddy looked like.

April arranged a Paypal blind payment to Jessica's account. The payment must have cleared quickly because the video was in her email almost instantly. There was a ten minute video of Jessica giving an older man oral sex. She seemed to be enjoying it, and also she seemed to be listening to someone off set directing her. Again the background was her apartment.

April couldn't believe that Jessica was making pornographic tapes right under her nose. Not only that, she wasn't just shooting web cam video, the quality was much better than web cam junk. April decided that for sure she now had a dog in the fight. She also decided that she for sure would continue looking into it.

She decided that, the first thing the next morning she would attempt to identify the older man in the video. She made a copy of one single frame of the video, then printed off a picture of it. "Got ya," she said looking at the very clean older man about sixty.

Identifying him would be quicker, if she gave it to the police. Of course they might easily have a copy already. Then again maybe not, so she might still teach Goldman not to fuck with her.

The only odd thing was that Jessica had the punk looking red hair and wore no makeup in the video. She might have been able to pass for a sixteen year old runaway dressed and made up as she was. At least to some horny old men. It was all an illusion anyway. Everyone believed what they wanted to believe and see what they wanted to see, she supposed.

She began to concentrate on how they did it. How could they make not one, but several pornographic videos without her having the slightest clue. She knew that they could easily shoot the video and keep it from her. All they had to do was start after 7pm and finish before 7am. Even so someone had to know something, even if they didn't know they knew.

April thought surely Jessica's neighbors noticed something. She remembered that one of the rooms of her apartment shared a common with an empty motel room. It was empty while they waited for the room on the other side of it to vacate. The finished apartment on the other side of Jessica's belonged to a piano player and singer, who worked in a casino lounge. He was probably gone or didn't give a crap what went on next door. April remember that Viv complained about his keyboard music once and threatened to evict his ass. Point was Jessica was in a good spot to keep it hidden, especially since April had paid for extra sound proofing in all the apartments as the were renovated. She wanted to be sure everyone had as least some privacy. She also didn't want to deal with noise complaints against any of her permanent residents.

While she was trying to figure her next move Gerard called, "Sorry Cher, there is big trouble with that foreign shit. It's going to be a pain in the ass."

"What is it, how much to fix it, and how long," April asked shortly.

"Well it's a head gasket. Fortunately you drive very little so it didn't damage anything else. I have a gasket coming in from New Orleans by UPS. It should be here to tomorrow, but I'm going to be up to my ass in work. I'm trying to get my race car ready for Saturday night. So Cher, I can supervise Gerard Junior while he does the work, or you can wait a few days. I am Sorry," Gerard Senior said.

"You turn every bolt on the car yourself. I can hitch rides, till you get it done. So tell me how much?" April asked.

"It will be under a thousand dollars, but not much. That piece of shit burns up the man hours," he said.

"Do the best you can, but do it right," April said hanging up on him. He had to know she was unhappy, but the decision was made.

April went back to the video of Jessica and the older man to look for some clue as to who he was. That time she ran the video to the end hoping for something in the credits but there were no credits. After all the illusion was that it was a web cam video. She ran it all the way to the end and found a trailer for Jessica with what was obviously a barely teenage boy. She didn't buy a copy of it, since there were obviously several people who were going to need to be found. Besides she had a good head shot of the boy from a frame of the trailer.

April had one more day in the office, then she would have a day to rest before starting her clinic shift again. So she went to bed filled with questions. As before she slept in the tee shirt she had worn all day and her panties that she had likewise worn all day. Sleeping in her clothes was somehow comforting. It seemed to add some continuity to her life. That thought seemed strange even to her.

She was up at 6:30am the next morning. She quickly rolled the bike outside and rode it for an hour before she showered as the last of her bacon cooked. She scramble one of her last three eggs, while the toaster oven made quick work of the bagel. Two days in a row she had made a bagel with egg and bacon. How boring, she thought.

She left the bike inside her apartment while she went to the office to answer the phone. She also watched the morning news shows while she did her phone duty. After almost two hours, Mordecai Goldman showed up with his much younger partner Lois.

"Mind if we come in," he asked.

"Yes, but you will probably find some reason to force me to cooperate, so come on in," April said.

"Thanks," Lois said. Mordecai just shook his head.

"So what it to be today rubber hose, or deadly charm?" April asked.

"Look you are piss at me, I get it. Why don't you just look at it like you are helping Jessica not me," Mordecai suggested.

"Because she is past help, it will just be helping you and I wouldn't cross the street to save your ass from a falling building," April said.

"God, you can hold a grudge," the swarthy looking Lois commented.

"You heard his version, want to her mine?" April asked.

"No she doesn't," Mordecai said.

"That should tell you something Lois. Be careful who you invest in," April said.

"Just tell us what happened when her husband came to pick up her shit," he demanded.

"He came, he opened the door to the apartment, which had been closed for a couple of day, and then he threw up. I loaded all her shit up in a cardboard box, which he immediately threw in the trash. Now I'm waiting for a crew from that crime scene cleaner bunch to show up." April said.

"What do you know about porno," Lois asked.

"Why?" April asked as an answer.

Lois looked at Mordecai who shook his head.

"Just askin'," Lois said.

"I don't know a thing," April lied. "So do you want to see her place again?"

"Yes please," Lois said.

"Get everything you want out of there because the cleaner will be here this afternoon, and before he comes the thrift store will take everything out. They get the furniture and all her personal items for one flat rate so take what you need," April advised the two detectives.

After they examined the apartment Lois brought the key back. "Please call me, we need to talk," she said handing April her card.

"If you want to talk, you are going to have to take me to dinner. Somewhere nice," April said.

"You gay?" Lois asked.

"Not yet," April replied. Lois left looking confused.

If Lois turned out to be cool, April thought, I might just give her a heads up.

After the police detectives left, nothing happened all day. Viv didn't even come around. April had already decided not to share any information with her. April was never completely comfortable with Viv's lifestyle.

When she closed the office on Thursday, it was the end of her apartment manager chore. Well it was the end until the next Tuesday anyway, April thought. She had to shift her mind set into a new gear for her regular job at the clinic. Three straight twelve hour shifts beginning the next evening at 7pm. That thought filled her with a mild dread. Nobody liked those killer shifts.

As she walked back to her apartment she was acutely aware that she still hadn't bought groceries, so it appeared that she would be eating out yet again. She knew that she had to do something about that. After considering her options all the way back to her apartment, she decided on take out tacos. She could manage that on the bike for sure.

She made the trip to the parking lot filled with food trucks just fine. That parking lot was just outside the main gate of the air base. April found the Mi Amigo taco truck was still on site and the window was open. The ride had been just long enough to get her heart rate up, so the taco truck had proved to be a good choice. The tacos, as she had known all along, were excellent as well.

April found not only was the taco truck in the parking lot, but there were also several other take out choices there. For instance next to the taco truck there was a Korean truck serving some kind of tightly wrapped veggie roll which was then deep fried. The sauce was fishy and hot as hell she knew from past experience. She filed that information away for future use.

After dinner in a family park near the motel, she rode to the grocery store nearest her apartment. April figured she could carry a maximum of two lightly loaded bags on the bike as it was presently configured. She also had a weight limit to deal with. Heavy bags would make steering difficult. With those restrictions in mind there were some hard choices to be made.

Since bacon was a staple in her kitchen, there was nothing going to replace it in the bag. Then she remembered that she was out of jelly. Chemical iced tea mix would have been high on the list, had her brand been available from that particular grocery store. Bagels and Dinner rolls made it into the bag. Even though she kept telling herself she could return later she picked up a few more things, which she felt couldn't do without. She bought a two roll pack of toilet paper instead of the less expensive four roll giant family size. The second bag she planned to fill with frozen dinners. So she bought her favorite half dozen.

April really wanted a box of canned diet cokes, but there just wasn't room for them on the soon to be overloaded bike. She bought two of those, almost, cloth shopping bags. She managed to get he load of groceries in them and even had a little room left over.

She walked out the store carrying the two bags, and began to fit them onto the bike. First she stepped through the frame of the heavy cruiser, Then hung one bags on each side of the handlebars. The arrangement make the bike unstable but she did manage to make it home in one piece. It was almost 7:30 when she arrived home.

It was strange to carry only two grocery bags up the stairs to her apartment. Putting away her groceries was done in just seconds, so she was back at work following Jessica's trail in less than ten minutes of her arrival home.

She looked through the recipe box to be sure there were no more clues hidden inside it. After she came up empty she mused that the person who searched her apartment must have been a man. For a woman the recipe box to be in the refrigerator would have been a glaring error. Ergo since no flags had gone off in the searcher's head, he had to be a man.

Jessica either only had time to make a few videos, or she wasn't in high demand. April found a half dozen 'webcam' videos on each site. There was even a trailer for one movie length video. The trailer seemed to be scenes from several other videos. April based that assumption on the fact that it featured all the same people as those in her web videos.

April spent her evening printing picture of the men in the videos. There were six who had obviously been to her Jessica's apartment. April had seen none of them hanging around the place.

April racked her brain but couldn't remember what, if anything, Viv had said about how Jessica was dressed. It might have been a Webcam shoot gone wrong, April theorized.

She also wanted to know how much a stripper made and why Jessica needed money bad enough to slip into that life. If she wanted to take a look at any of the places where Jessica hung around, she needed to do it that very night. She was facing three long nights at the clinic during which time the case of Jessica Rabbit would advance without her. The problem was when she made that discovery it was already 10pm. She also didn't have a car.

What she did have was Lois the detective's card. She dialed the number and Lois picked up the phone. "Detective Rice," she said in a very businesslike voice.

"This is April, buy me a drink sailor?" she asked.

"Are you coming on to me?" Lois asked with a laugh.

"Maybe or maybe I have something else to share. If you can keep the source of the information secret. I have no idea what kind of slippery slope we are headed down." April admitted.

"I'll buy you the drink regardless, but if this is some kind of vendetta, then I'm not interested," Lois replied.

"Fair enough, we will just go where it takes us," April said. "That's all I ask."

"There is no us, as far as work goes," Lois said.

"Then save your money," April replied.

"If you are withholding information in a murder investigation, I can have you arrested," Lois said humorlessly.

"Good luck with that," April said.

"Oh shit, I'll meet you in front of the rental office in twenty minutes." Lois said.

"At least you don't drive a cop car on a date," April said once she was inside the Italian econonbox.

"Is that some kind of compliment, or a veiled complaint," Lois asked.

"Speaking of veiled, is your being assigned to Mordecai somebody's idea of a joke?" April asked. "And how did you get named Lois rice?"

"What do you mean?" Lois asked.

"Inside what ethnic soil are your roots buried?" April asked.

"Are you a racist?" Lois asked with good humor.

"Honey, no matter what they told you in school, everyone is a racist," April informed her.

"Yeah," she replied then added, "Lebanese two generations back. My mom and dad are still Muslim. The Lois is a bastardized version of fifth century name. Rice is from an ex husband."

"What are you, Jewish now?" April asked.

"No, I'm not that brave. I'm not a believer in anything at the moment, but that is subject to change." she said.

"That is an honest answer," April replied. "Do you know the U2 lounge?"

"Yeah, it's some kind of military handout. Cheap booze and cheap whores," Lois commented.

"Good, I see you know the place. We should fit right in. So lets go there to have that drink." April suggested.

"So what has that got to do with Jessica's murder," Lois asked.