Brodricksburg Pt. 03

I parked my car and walked up to the cottage on the far right. When I knocked on the door, it opened almost immediately. The tall brunette standing in the doorway was the best looking woman I had seen in quite some time.

"Mrs. Carrie Hobbs?" I asked.

"Yes, that's me," as the smile spread across her face.

"I am Lt. Brian Hobbs of the Brodricksburg police Department."

"What do you want, Lt. Hobbs?"

"I am here to arrest you."

"On what charge?" she asked.

"For withholding sex from your horny husband," I said.

"Oh, that sounds serious," she responded. "Do I have to go back to Brodricksburg with you or can I just pay a fine?"

"I don't know if you have enough money to pay this fine."

"Why don't you come in and see if there is something you like, then maybe we can work out a trade."

"Are you trying to bribe me, Mrs. Hobbs?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, then I accept."

"How did you find me?"

"It was easy. I am a detective."

*****

I spent the next three hours collecting the various fines that Mrs. Hobbs was required to pay and then we went out to dinner.

At dinner I brought Carrie up to speed on everything that had happened.

I explained to her how I got involved in the Commissioner Buske case and when I started to make progress, that is when I started getting the calls telling me that Carrie was lying about what she was doing at night. I apologized to Carrie for going off the deep end. I told her that after we separated and she took out the restraining order against me I started concentrating on the case against Buske again and then the calls started again.

"Who was making those calls?" Carrie asked. "It had to be someone that knew my every move."

"It was Jean Ross."

"Jean made those calls? Why would she do that?" Carrie asked.

"Captain Ross insisted that she make the calls."

"How did she know what I was doing and where I would be?"

"Your boss would call Jean and tell her when to call me and what to say."

"Richard? Jesus! Who were these people? I would never had suspected Richard of being involved in something like this."

"It wasn't till after Jean called me and said that you were meeting your lover on a Sunday night at a house on Munt Street that I was able to figure out what was going on. I found out on Monday that there had been the report of a prowler at that location Sunday night so I did a follow-up at that address. That is when I found out that you were there for work. You went there with Stephen Farlow to get a contract for an option to buy signed. Someone wanted me to go there thinking that you were there to meet your lover. The plan was for the police to catch me trying to see who you were with. That would have caused me a lot of trouble and put me off of my investigation of Commissioner Buske.

"That's when I saw the pattern of the land purchases and the puzzle started to come together."

I explained how I put it all together and why Buske and Boland were murdered.

"Brian, I swear to you that I had no idea what they were doing," Carrie said.

"How did you get involved in these lands deals?" I asked.

"Remember back in April, when I started having to work some nights?"

"Yes."

"That's when it started. One afternoon at work, Richard called me into his office. When I went in, Mr. Buske was in the office with Stephen Farlow. Richard told me that Mr. Buske represented a group of men that want to invest in and develop some property along the river. Richard explained that to begin with, they only wanted to put options to buy on the properties they were interested. Richard then said that Stephen was going to act as an agent for Mr. Buske and his partners and that Stephen would contact the property owners and make the offers. My job was just to go along with Stephen to get the contracts signed and hand over the check to purchase the option. Richard made it clear that nothing was to be said about these deals or who the buyers were until the options were exercised."

"Did it make you suspicious when you found out what properties were involved?"

"No. Why should it? Actually it made sense to me. The property along the river would have been a great place to build new homes."

"Didn't you realize that the J&J railroad right of way would have made the land useless for development?" I asked.

"J&J railroad? I never heard of it. There was no mention of a railroad right of way in any of the documents I saw."

"That's true. I didn't see any mention of that in the documents that you left in your briefcase."

Carrie smiled. "I was hoping that whoever found my car would bring you my briefcase."

"I don't think you need to worry about any of this. You didn't do anything wrong. The land deals themselves were not illegal. It was the conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers of Brodricksburg that was illegal. What they did to get their hands on the J&J Railroad right of way was also illegal."

Carrie shook her head. "You keep talking about the J&J railroad. What is that all about?"

I spent the next twenty minutes explaining the J&J railroad and how it played a role in the case of the Thursday Night Club.

Carrie asked a lot of questions and I answered them all as completely as I could with the exception of the events that took place earlier that day on route 116. I didn't want to upset Carrie that night. Those details could wait till we were back home.

"So what's next for us?" I asked.

"We go back to Brodricksburg and you move back home. I don't know what I'll do about my job. With Richard going to jail I am not sure I'll have a job to go back to. Maybe it's time we start making babies."

"Really?"

"Yes. I am ready for motherhood now. I think I can wait until our future kids are in high school before I go back to work."

"You think we can afford to live on one salary?" I asked.

"I expect that very soon, you will be the Chief of Police. You'll make enough then to support us," Carrie said.

"Should we start working on one of those babies tonight?"

"That's why I let you find me."

"That was a pretty good trick, sending me an e-mail with the brochure for 'The Porches' in it. It let me know that you would be here at my uncle's old cottage but anyone else seeing it would think it meant that you were at The Porches."

"I am not stupid," Carrie said.

"How did you manage to get out of town without anyone noticing?" I asked.

"When you were leaving my office and you asked what Fred would do to me if he found out about Barney, I knew your were telling me something important. So when you looked over at Richard, I understood that you saw him as a danger to me. As soon as you left my office Richard came over and was very agitated. His first question was, 'Why isn't you husband in jail? He killed Glen Buske last night.'

"I told him that you said you didn't do it and had an alibi to back you up. Then he asked my why you were in my office so I told him you were just asking why I was at 37 Third Street to meet with Mr. Buske. I could tell Richard was angry but he tried to hide it from me. Before he left my office he told me that if the police wanted to question me that I was to tell him and he would go with me.

"As soon as he left my office I called my dad and asked if I could use one of his cars. I didn't tell him why or where I was going. I ask him to park the car in the grocery store parking lot two blocks from the house. I must have scared the crap out of him with my instructions but he didn't argue. He just asked, 'You will explain this later, right?'

"With that set up, I drove to the public parking downtown and when no one was looking I left my car there and walked two blocks over to the 7/11 store and called a taxi from the pay phone. The cab took me to the train station and I paid cash for my ticket to Philly. In Philly I picked up my dad's car and drove up here."

"I thought you might just go stay with your parents but this was even better," I said. "I am extremely proud of you. You did what you needed to do to be safe so that I could do what I had to do."

Carrie smiled and said, "It was kind of scary but it was kind of an adventure too."

"Well, it's over now," I said. "Okay Wilma, are you sure Fred is out of town?"

"Oh, Barney, you worry too much. Let's just go in the bedroom and have some fun."

THE END