Hot Wives Investment Club Ch. 05

As we walked back to the car, Teresa noticed my slight limp. "I observe and deduce that Cindy beat the shit out of you this morning." she said. "Does she feel better now?"

"I hope so." I said. "But having a sister like you that she totally trusts makes a lot of difference..." Teresa just nodded in vigorous agreement.

Part 21 - Epilogue

"Dr. Fredricson, Mrs. Myrtle James and two others are here to see you." said Gayle Roberts into the intercom, at the same time that Teresa and I were examining the Jackson crime scene.

"Show them right in." said Laura Fredricson. As the door opened, she stood up to greet the University Regent/Trustee and the other two ladies: Barbara Langram, treasurer of the Hot Wives Investment Club; and Investment Club Senior Board Member Helena French.

After having the ladies sit on the sofas facing each other, and sitting with them, Mrs. Myrtle L. James got to the point: "Dr. Fredricson, we are pleased to offer you the next membership in the County Ladies Investment Club."

Of course Laura accepted, and she immediately arranged for a cashier's check for $25,000 to be made out to the Investment Club for her pro-rated membership. After the ladies left, Laura called me to tell me the good news.

After taking Laura to lunch, I thought about a conversation I'd had with Jeanine Olivet Burke. "I'm the only person in the world who knows the exact order of the wait-list," Jeanine had said, "and if I re-arranged it slightly, who else is ever going to know?"

"I take back every bad thing I've ever said about lawyers." I replied to my niece-in-law...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 11:00am on the morning of Friday, November 7th, I was in the FBI conference room in the Federal Building off Courthouse Square. With me were Lt. Cindy Ross and Chief Griswold, as well as Jack Muscone, Sandra Speer, Eduardo Escobar and Lindy Linares.

"So you think there's industrial espionage behind all this?" asked Jack Muscone.

"Yes." I said. "Blair and Trish Donolan were trying to get at Lightsource's research, Alicia Foster and Spence Foster were trying to infiltrate Dynacorp, as were others who were traitors for foreign powers. Corrigan's cell tried to kidnap Barry Oliver, now of BOW Enterprises, over the nanoetching process he's now patented. And now we have Donovan Donolan, whose company spending millions in chemical and drug research. Before that, we had Tom Burleson at Ward Harvester before the Black Widow waxed him, and his brother is at Crown Chemicals now, along with Sean Bailey. But this recent stuff is especially interesting. There's definitely a thread connecting them."

"And you think there's a single entity behind it?" asked Sandra Speer.

"Yes." I said. "And that entity had the brains to put together a really interesting and brilliant scheme to murder Trish Donolan, though in my opinion it was a bit overdone. Ditto that for the Diane Lang case: elegant, but needlessly dramatic and complicated."

"And it would've been successful if not for you seeing small things like a large handbag, velcro on a wedding dress and a guy talking about his victim in the past tense, and a prostitute's disappearance at the same time Alicia Foster tries to buy a gun with a bad credit card." said Jack Muscone, shaking his head. "Salem is calling, they want you for trial."

"They'll have to wait." I said. "Too many people right around these parts want to light my fire, and in a bad way."

"So who is behind it all?" asked Eduardo.

"Oh, I suspect the person who sent me that lovely oil painting depicting the Fall of Troy." I said. "And who made the huge mistake of scaring my wife in her nursery behind her office."

"Wargrave." said Muscone. He then looked up at the ceiling. "Hmmm, lightning didn't strike me down mentioning his name."

Suddenly, someone burst into the room. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Muscone," said the young man, "but there's been an explosion at BigPharmaCorp! We have reports of fatalities at the scene!"

"See Jack, lightning DID strike." I said as my cell phone began going off. It was Tanya Perlman, informing me of the BigPharmaCorp explosion. She told me that several people were hurt and possibly dead. The Chief rode with me as we hustled over to BigPharmaCorp across the River.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Three people dead, including the CEO." said the Fire Chief to myself and Police Chief Griswold as we stood 100 feet from the scene of the explosion. Two tanks full of propane gas had exploded just as CEO Donovan Donolan, his Media Relations officer, and a plant foreman had walked by. All three had been immediately killed by the blast, which I could tell was seemingly directed right at where they had been walking.

Two Town & County fire trucks and two EMS ambulances were on the scene, as well as three BigPharmaCorp fire trucks. The fire had been quickly contained, as it had not spread after the initial blast. "My arson team is looking into it." said the Fire Chief. "I suspect it was an intentionally set explosion."

I turned to the BigPharmaCorp security man who had escorted us to the scene. "Did Mr. Donolan normally walk down that path?" I asked.

"Yes, Commander." said the security man, his face ashen and looking like he wanted to get sick. "He often took that route to his second office, which is located inside Plant Number Two. He'd go to that office to get away from the office people in the front offices, so he could talk to the plant managers and find out from them what was really going on. He'd been doing that for years."

After watching the investigation and aftermath, including the removal of the bodies, the Chief and I walked back to my Police SUV.

"Whaddya think, Crowbar?" the Chief asked as he rode with me back to Headquarters.

"Donolan was murdered, wiped out." I said. "Whoever did it knew he'd be walking along that street, and rigged the explosion to kill him. Maybe someone was watching and triggered it, maybe it was done by some sophisticated remote control that recognized his cell phone signature."

I continued, thinking more to myself than addressing the Chief: "I don't know why, but he was silenced. Maybe he knew of his wife's espionage, maybe he was stealing secrets from his own company. Remember, sir, that the Feds in Washington, D.C. were interested in the case when I had him arrested. Something's up about this one."

"Think it's Wargrave, or someone else?" Griswold asked.

"I dunno." I said. "We've suspected there are still three assassins out there from the Corrigan Cell. Maybe they're behind it; they'd have the Special Forces training to do something like that. Whatever it is, Chief, they're not letting you retire quietly. They're going to usher you out in a blaze of glory. Things are definitely heating up, and I'm not talking about football season."

Little did I know that things were not only going to heat up... they were going to catch fire...

Finis... for now.