Magnolia

"Forget about the crappers Domino. Does Richard make it a habit of giving you his credit for hauling old toilets around?"

"No, and like I said, they are reconditioned, not old... and they flush real good too. They ain't those low flow crappers that the fuckin' EPA says we have to use."

"I'm not asking you about the crappers anymore. Forget about the toilets and tell me about Richard giving you his credit card."

"I'm gettin' there. You don't have to get all pushy with me... The reconditioned toilet thing is just Richard and me's side job. His real job is unclogging and adjusting the flushers on those crappy low flow toilets they make these days. That's how he finds us customers. He's been teaching me that side of the business."

It seemed like this guy was playing dumb, but there was a good chance it wasn't an act. It looked like I was going to have to put a little more pressure on this guy. "Okay Domino, get to the part about the credit card before I lock you up for obstruction."

"Okay, okay, officer, no need to get all testy about it... So, it was like this. Richard said he needed to take a couple of days off from his day job without his old lady knowing. So he asked me to take a couple of his shifts and do the unclogging thing. He said all the customers I found would be mine."

"You're still not telling us about the card Domino."

"I'm gettin' there. I'm gettin' there... Well, them shifts I was covering was gonna take me all over the city. So I told Richard he needed to give me some gas money. Wouldn't you know it, that wuss didn't have no cash on him... So he gave me his credit card. He was supposed to meet me tonight to get his card back and pay up for them shifts."

"So, you decided to fill up like he said, then hit the strip club on Richard's dime because he's a wuss? Is that the way this all went down?"

"Yeah, the guys a total fucking turd knocker, but that ain't why I hit the club with his card. He never showed with the cash for them shifts. I figured he wasn't ever going to pay me. I knew he didn't have that sort of coin just lying around. So I took my pay out of his card down at the Boogie Bare getting lappers from Tiffany."

"So these, um lappers you got... You say that was at around nine was it?"

"Yeah I guess so... nine, maybe nine-thirty."

"This Tiffany got a real name?"

"Yeah, it's Tiffany. She told me that was her real name, and she wouldn't lie to me. She likes me."

"I've got news for you Domino. Strippers always use fake names, and they all tell you they like you."

"Well Tiffany is different."

"Do you think this woman will corroborate your story?"

"Co robber what?"

"Will this Tiffany admit she was with you tonight?"

"Yeah, of course. Like I said, she likes me."

"I guess that's enough for now. Bill, let's get Domino back down to holding while we check out his story."

"Sure thing Sarge. I'll meet you out at the car."

It wasn't far from the precinct to the Boogie Bare. Just ten or so blocks up north. It was a half decent place. Not in the bad part of town like most strip joints. I'd been to this place a time or two, just like I'd been to every other nudie bar in the city... working cases of course. Turns out a lot of hookers work the stages at these places as their day job, and hookers seem to be frequent fliers in the homicide biz. If I had a nickle for every dead hooker I'd investigated... well, I'd have a shitload of nickles.

Personally, I don't care much for strip joints. They just seem to draw the wrong crowd. Even off duty, these places never did much for me. Not even when I was young. I just couldn't see dropping some of my hard-earned coin just to see some girl's boobies flopping around.

Now Bill... he was another story. I could tell by the way he was squirming in his seat that this young man loved strip clubs. He just couldn't make himself sit still, and the whole way there he kept having to adjusting the stuff in his pockets, if you know what I mean.

My best guess was that young Bill had never even touched a woman's breasts before, but I didn't ask. Seeing the amount of excitement this little jaunt was causing Bill, I figured I'd better lay down the law right there in the car. I told him we weren't going into that place to gawk at naked women. I told him not to even look, and that we had to act like professionals while we were in there.

This titty flop was supposed to be a five-minute drive from the precinct with normal traffic, but the construction zone that showed up on Bill's phone back at the Magnolia house was right in our path. Traffic was going to be a mess and I wondered if poor Bill would make it through the construction delay without creaming in his pants before he even saw his first stripper.

When we got to where the construction area was supposed to be, there wasn't an orange cone in sight. Bill's smart phone was looking to be more on the dumb side, and it looked as if our doer might have had just enough time to kill the Gash woman and make it up to the Gas-n-Go up on Northern after all. The guy we had in our holding cell was starting to looking more and more suspicious.

This Domino character had Richard's credit card in his possession, and it now looked as if he had plenty time to drive up from Magnolia to the Gas-N-Go as well. To me, this Domino clown was looking pretty good for what went down over on Magnolia. It was looking more like this was a robbery gone wrong. All we had to do now was put together Domino's timeline and I was sure it would show he did this.

We knew this Domino joker was at the Boogie Bare. That's where he was picked up on the stolen card charge. My bet was that his story about the stripper wouldn't check out. This Tiffany girl probably didn't really know the guy, and even if she did, my guess is the times this slime bag gave us wouldn't jibe with what the stripper was going to say.

We finally pulled up in front of the Boogie Bare around eleven. I told the valet to leave the car right where I'd parked it. I flashed him my badge to be sure he wouldn't touch the car, then assured him we weren't there to raid the place. The last thing I wanted was for that valet to sound the alarm that the cops were there, and have all the whores inside scatter.

Bill and I went inside and looked for Tiffany. It wasn't very hard to find her. Some guy with a nasal sounding voice announced that she would be on stage one. Domino was right. This Tiffany dame was a real looker. We stood and watched as she did her set. Then stood by while she teased a few extra dollars out of some poor schmuck. When she finally got off the stage she was naked as a jaybird, and we approached her just like she was. No sense in giving her a chance to run if she was somehow in on this thing.

"Was this guy here?" I asked, showing Tiffany our suspect's photo. "Calls himself Domino."

"Yeah he was here. Came in just after I started my shift at nine. I don't know where he got all that money. The guy's a douche. Comes in here all the time with some older guy that smells like a sewer."

"This bad smelling guy got a name?"

"Yeah, it's Dicky or something. Him and Domino are always in here taking up space and trying to talk us out of free dances."

"Any chance this Dicky guy's name is really Richard?"

"Yeah, Richard. That must be it. Some of the other girls call him Little Richard."

"Was this Little Richard fellow with Domino tonight?"

"No Domino was all by himself. He was acting different than usual too. He started throwing money around like he was some kind of rock star. Then he took me in the back and got all handsy with me. I was about to have him kicked out for sticking his greasy fingers in my money maker when a couple of cops showed up and hauled his ass out."

"I kind of expected that sort of behavior from Dicky... I mean Richard... but not Domino. Richard thinks I'm in love with his stinky ass, and the guy is always trying to get me to touch his tiny little dick."

"Did you, mam?"

"Did I what?"

"Touch his tiny dick?"

"Not on your life, but that didn't keep him from getting it out and showing it to me whenever he got the chance. He acted like I should be impressed. Wouldn't have mattered if I was. The guy couldn't get it up."

"So let me get this straight. Richard was a lecher and tried to have sex with you, but this Domino character is a good guy?"

"Well I wouldn't call that grease bag Domino a good guy, but he never acted the way Dicky does. Not until tonight anyway."

"Okay, don't go anywhere miss, um, Tiffany is it?"

"No, my name is Miranda. Tiffany is my stage name."

"Got it Miranda. Leave your contact info with one of the uniforms in case we need to ask you a few more questions."

"Leave my info with a what?"

"An officer in a blue uniform will be here in a few minutes. Leave your legal name, address, and phone number with one of them in case we need to ask you a few more questions."

"Okay. Hey you guys aren't going to throw Domino in jail are you?"

"Were not sure at this point mam. We are just investigating, and don't know that he's broken any laws."

"Good. Even though he's a douche, he is one of my regulars you know. It's guys like him that help me keep the lights on."

I headed for the door and was halfway there before I realized that Bill wasn't walking next to me. I looked back and he was standing right where we had interviewed Miranda, watching her naked ass swing side to side as she headed toward what I could only assume was the dressing room.

That woman had Bill's number and she was putting on one hell of a show for him, walking the way a woman does when she wants to keep a guy's attention. Bill never even noticed I had left, and he was as surprised as anyone when I walked back over and smacked him on the back of his head.

"Professionals." I reminded him. "We are here to interview a witness and act like professionals."

"Right Sarge." Bill absentmindedly answered me, still staring at Miranda's ass. I had to admit. That Miranda woman had indeed been blessed with one mighty fine ass, and she knew how to just how to shake it.

Fine ass or not, it was still my job to caution Bill about his behavior. "What you're doing here rookie... that isn't professional. Put a lid on it and let's get going. That is unless you intend to quit the force and take up ogling strippers for a living."

Miranda finally disappeared through the dressing room doors, and with the object of his desire out of view, Bill turned to leave. Tripping over his own two over-sized feet as he looked over his shoulder just in case she came back out.

Then as we headed toward the exit, it seemed like Bill couldn't shut up. "Do you think Miranda would have told me her real name? ...I mean if she didn't know I was a cop and all. She was nice, don't you think? Is she is one of the honest ones Sarge? If we need more dirt on Domino I'd be happy to come back and interview her again... or I should go cuff her now and haul her down to the station."

"Forget about her Bill." I interrupted his rambling. "That's not the kind of woman you want, and we've got real work to do on this case."

I ushered Bill out of the joint while he rambled on about how incredible that stripper was. Hell, he couldn't even get it straight whether he wanted to call her Miranda or Tiffany. When we got outside, I noticed there was a different guy doing valet.

This new guy carried himself like he was looking for a fight. I decided to have a bit of fun with him and told him we were in the gold colored luxury full size. The guy looked back at me and without missing a beat pointed us to our Crown Vic from the motor pool. I should have known that a forty-something washed up athlete like him would remember the days when only a cop would be caught dead in a rattle trap Ford with black-walls like we had.

Then on a hunch I asked this new car parking thug where the valet lot was. My guess was that with the newfound riches from Richard's credit card, Domino would be living large and not park where he wouldn't have to walk to the place. Sure enough, Domino's beat up old van was sitting in the valet lot sticking out like a turd in a punch bowl. Chalk one up for the understanding of scumbag behavior. An understanding, I might add, that only comes with working the streets the way I had.

The valet had given us a key card and directions. Turned out the valet lot was right behind the building, but you still had to drive around the block to get there. It also turned out the back of Domino's van wasn't locked. That was another hunch I had. Everything about Domino told me he was sloppy. I doubted if he had enough sense to ever lock his car, and looking at the piece of shit he drove, why would he? I couldn't see anyone breaking into that thing unless they were looking to steal a case of tetanus.

Bill and I looked through the filth in the van. It looked to me like this van was also Domino's home. Looking through the trash we didn't find a single thing that supported Domino's claims about being in business with Richard. There weren't any toilets, or for that matter not even one of those boxes he claimed he was supposed to cart those spiffed up shitters in. I didn't see a single shitter tool either. Not even a plunger. If he was working for Richard there had to be a toilet related thing in there somewhere. At the very least, I expected to find a work order or two. It was looking to me like Domino was exactly the guy we thought he was... a lying murdering scumbag.

Traffic was light on our drive from the Boogie Bare back to the precinct. There never is much traffic going that particular direction at that time of night. Of course lower traffic doesn't keep the police radio from its constant beeps and chatter. We were less than a block from the precinct when Bill turned up the volume on the radio...

"Unit twenty four, see Officer Franklin at twelve-oh-eight-oh North Washburn about a discovered deceased with apparent G-S-W to the head."

Unit twenty-four... That was us again. Wouldn't you know? It looked like we had pulled another murder case; right in the middle of our Magnolia investigation. Two murders in one night. This was rare in our little city, but it wasn't the first time I'd seen it. My new recruit was certainly getting his money's worth tonight.

"Ten-Four Dispatch." Bill answered holding the mic to his cheek like a seasoned pro. "We're looking at a ten-seventy-seven of 20... over."

"Thanks, twenty-four... out."

This wasn't good news. Bill didn't know it, but we had just gotten our proverbial ass handed to us. The Magnolia case was far from solved, and as decent of a human being as he was, that greenhorn was slowing things down. Most murder cases are solved in the first few hours of the investigation. With every passing minute, both evidence and witnesses have a nasty habit of disappearing. Now having to drag Bill along, I had no idea how we would get through an entire second case's worth of interviews and evidence before time ran out on either one.

We pulled up on the Washburn scene and it was a completely different sight compared to what we saw at Magnolia. This murder was in an area where those of us in homicide are used to plying our trade. Washburn is what some call the bad part of town. Where the Magnolia scene was marked by a sea of flashing lights and countless yards of police tape, this scene only warranted a single squad car, and its bubble gum lights were probably extinguished the moment it rolled up. Once again, I had to wonder why our department doesn't treat every case with the level of respect the Gash woman got over on Magnolia.

It didn't take long to case out this second murder scene. It looked like what we had here was a typical pop and run job, even though the victim was anything but typical. Our deceased looked to be a little on the weird side. I'd seen weirder in my day, but this guy definitely had some gender issues. This vic was dressed in nothing but a woman's robe and fuzzy slippers. He had a pair of pink panties on his head, garish blue makeup on his eyes, and a jagged smear of bright red lipstick all over his mouth.

My first thought was that we were going to have to chase the perp who popped this cross-dresser all through the tenderloin district, and those folks just don't care for us cops. Who could blame them? For decades, our good men in blue made any and every excuse to use those people for baton practice.

All of the sudden things in our little homicide department weren't looking too good this particular night. Bill and I were going to have to split up if we had any chance of solving either crime. I could have flipped a coin to decide which one of us worked this new case, but deep down I knew this latest one would probably go unsolved. I figured the rookie couldn't do any harm on this one, even if he did nothing. I decided he would be the one to head down to the tenderloin. He'd do all right down there, as long as I had some way to check in on him.

I was standing there scratching my noggin trying to figure out how I could get my hands on one of those smart phone things so I could keep tabs on Bill, when the newbie started hovering around pointing the end of his phone in the air. I couldn't imagine what kind of phone widget would require a guy to look like such a fool so I stuck my arm out and stopped Bill as he hovered past me.

"OK Bill, what kind of social texting webinar thingy are you fucking with now?" I asked, ready to school him about staying focused on the job at hand.

"Find phone." He said as he started hovering again.

"I got news rookie. You've got the damn thing in your hand."

"Not that phone." Bill couldn't have sounded more exasperated. "We got the trace approved on Richard's phone, and the find phone app says it's right around here somewhere."

Bill stopped his ridiculous hovering and stooped down, pointing his phone along the ground, and dammed it all if every one of us didn't stoop right along with him to try and see what his phone was pointing at. Then Bill reached behind the left front tire of our murder victim's minivan, pulled out a little leather book. As he handed it to me, his face had about as smug of a look on it as I'd ever seen on a man.

One look at this book and I knew what we had. There was the image of a toilet carved smack in the middle of the front, and when I opened it there was no doubt our two murder cases were connected. Inside that leather book was Richard's cell phone, his driver's license, and a well-worn empty spot the exact size of a credit card.

"Okay Bill. Use that internet genius device of yours as a telephone and call child Services. Tell them to head over to Magnolia and pick up the two little Gash kids. I don't think their daddy is coming home any time soon."

"What do you mean Sarge?" Bill seemed to be confused about what I had just said.

"The guy in the van is our Magnolia victim's husband. That's Richard Gash in there slumped over the wheel."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as my stripes rookie."

"What's your take on all this Sarge?"

"Well it looks to me like he got rolled by someone he knew. Shot point blank. No defensive wounds. He didn't even try to get away. I'd say a 22 caliber. No exit wound. The bullet just rattled around in his head and turned his brain to mush. At least he didn't suffer."

"Look at the placement on that entry wound Sarge. That's a location that says suicide to me."

"I'd say that too Bill, if it wasn't for the gun. I mean where's the gun, rookie? It's kind of hard to shoot yourself without a gun. And he damn sure didn't ditch the weapon somewhere with a hole in his head. The evidence tells me this was murder all the way. To me, this almost looks an awful lot like an execution. My guess is Richard here owed someone money."