Murder in the Nude Ch. 02

The story told by Patty Albindisi and Leah Carney was very hard for Meredith and me to believe. Once we were back in Cincinnati, we began calling the women on the list we'd been given. The first woman I called was Alison Rowe, now in Atlanta.

"Yes, I was a DOG at COW," Alison confirmed. "It's funny in a way. My sister Aleta, who's six years older than me, and I were brought up in a very strict, religious environment. We got spanked on our bare asses for saying 'damn.' Alcohol and sex were out of the question. Aleta went to a normal college in Tennessee. She began drinking and having sex. She started dating a black guy. My parents completely cut her off. To avoid 'losing' me, they sent me to COW. What being a DOG at COW taught me was that I love sex and love showing off my body. After I got my diploma from COW, I knew I couldn't go back to my parents. Aleta had moved here with her boyfriend, he's a doctor in his residency now, by the way. I came down here and stayed with Aleta and Will for a time. I had no skills and needed to make money. Atlanta has some classy strip clubs. I got a job at one. It's full nude, which I love, and I'm making a ton of money. If I hadn't been a DOG at COW, I'd never have had the courage to dance nude and wouldn't enjoy it like I do."

Alison confirmed what Patty and Leah had told us about what the DOG women did. Between us, Meredith and I talked to eleven women. They all said essentially the same thing, but their stories were not so similar that it sounded like they were repeating a script they'd been given.

Leah, Alison, and a former DOG in Cleveland named Danielle Shay agreed to let Meredith use their names in a story and offered to give sworn statements if we wanted them. Given who Patty's father was, my history with him, and my connections to Meredith; we thought it could distract from the story if Patty's name was used.

Meredith concluded that eleven women saying basically the same thing was enough corroboration to do a story. "I'd really love those videos Patty mentioned, though." Meredith added.

"I'm no lawyer," I replied, "but I'm pretty sure hacking into someone else's computer is a federal felony. I expect that receiving material stolen from someone else's computer can also buy you a prison term."

"Ok," Meredith said, "I don't want to risk going to jail but this story is so, well, extreme that I really want some other form of corroboration. This could just be a story those fourteen women cooked up. If that's the case and I publish it, I'm likely on the hook for defamation."

We decided to meet with Patty Albindisi again to talk about the videos she thought she could get. Patty suggested meeting at Maple Lodge, which she had heard about in connection with the Victor Holcomb case. "I've always been naked around mostly clothed people," Patty explained. "I'd like to try being naked in a situation where everyone else is naked too." We agreed to take Patty to Maple Lodge just for the day, the following Saturday.

My impression of Patty Albindisi at our first meeting was that she was beautiful but in an aggressive, showy way that I found off-putting. Meeting her that Saturday when she was wearing no make-up and had on a tee shirt and jeans, I got a much more favorable impression. We had not rented a cabin because we were only staying for the day. So, after we checked in, we went back to my car, stripped off, and locked our clothes in the car.

Looking is, I think, natural the first time you get naked with someone you've met before clothed. I looked at Patty. She was a very beautiful young woman in the nude. Patty made no attempt to hide the fact that she was looking at me. After we had inspected each other for a moment or two, Patty pointed at my dick. She asked Meredith, "does that feel as good as it looks?" My impression of Patty became even more favorable.

"Better," Meredith answered with a smile. Meredith is always wonderful.

We had gotten to Maple Lodge early, so there were not that many other people around. Patty seemed disappointed by that. "It's still pretty early," Meredith explained to her, "more people will be here later." We took the time to show Patty around Maple Lodge and walked some of the trails through the woods.

Later, lounging by the pool, we talked business. I explained the concern we had over her hacking COW's computers and us taking whatever she downloaded. "Are you ok if you get the videos from a publicly accessible site?" Patty asked.

"Probably," I replied. "Why do you ask?"

"If I can find the videos," Patty said, "I can post them or parts of them on COW's public website. They'll be able to figure out they were hacked, but you will get the videos while they are publicly available. For all you know, COW meant to post them."

"But" I asked, "what keeps them from tracing the hack back to you?"

"We had a guy from Homeland Security in one of my seminars at school last spring," Patty answered. "He told us about 'hack masks.' They are sites where, for a few thousand dollars, you can hack someone's computer through that site. The computer being hacked sees the intrusion as coming from an IP address in some country that doesn't cooperate with the US on law enforcement, typically Iran or Syria. So far, according to the Homeland Security guy, they haven't found a way to get past the phony IP address and track back to the hacker."

"You're comfortable with that?" I asked.

"Yeah," Patty said. "COW's IT security isn't great and, once the DOG videos go public, I think they'll have more urgent things to worry about than trying to track the hacker." I wasn't as confident as Patty that she would be covered. However, I thought Meredith was safe if she could show she got the videos from a publicly available website. We talked about timing. We had to assume the DOG videos would not be on COW's public site long. Meredith needed to act fast once the videos went up.

We left Maple Lodge late that afternoon. As we were walking to the car, nude, Meredith asked Patty what she thought of Maple Lodge. "I like it," Patty said. "I hope I get back. I already knew that I like people seeing me nude, but I didn't appreciate how enjoyable it is to see other people nude." Patty pointedly looked at me as she said that.

In the car after we'd dropped Patty off at her car, Meredith said, "I like Patty a lot more after this meeting than I did after our first one. I trust her a lot more too."

"She made a better impression on me too," I said.

Meredith laughed. "That's because she did everything except put up a neon sign saying she wants to fuck you," she said good-naturedly.

"I didn't get that," I replied.

"Bullshit," Meredith said. "She made it as clear as can be she'd like that fat dick of yours inside her."

"It doesn't matter," I replied. "I love you and I'd never do that to you."

"Hold on a minute," Meredith said. "I'm talking about sex, not love. Don't you think you could enjoy sex with someone whom you don't love the way we love each other?"

"I never thought about it," I said truthfully. "Wouldn't you feel hurt if I cheated on you?"

"It wouldn't be cheating if I knew and approved in advance, or if I also participated," Meredith replied.

We both rode in silence for a while. When we started talking again, we talked about other things.

We gave Patty $ 3,000 to buy time on a "hack mask" to explore whether videos of the DOGs in action could be accessed through the COW website. We had expected Patty to call with a simple yes or no that she could or could not reach the videos. Instead, she knocked on the front door of Glenda's house the Friday night after our trip to Maple Lodge. Her face looked like she'd been crying.

After I made her a drink and she sat down, Patty said, "I can get to the videos. Like I said, IT security at COW sucks. The videos are in a sub-directory labeled "DOG" under the college archives directory."

"Sloppy," I commented.

"There are hundreds of hours," Patty said. "I only had time to view a fraction of it, so I focused on the time when I was a DOG at COW. There are videos of me, Leah, Alison, Danielle, and others fucking donors. There are videos of the cocktail parties. You'll be amazed who is shown accepting drinks from one of us in the nude. There is stuff I didn't expect. Ezekiel and Madeline recorded themselves having sex with DOGs. And I saw...." Patty stopped talking. She lowered her head for a moment.

When Patty looked at us again, she looked like she was both angry and ill. "I'm sorry," Patty said. "I saw something that really got me."

"What?" Meredith asked with concern.

"I saw, there's video," Patty stopped. More anger showed on her face. Patty took a deep breath. "I saw a video of my father fucking a DOG named Lisa Farmer," Patty almost shouted. "Lisa was a year behind me. She's a friend! Leah was her senior DOG, trained her! Dad knew about the DOGs! Did he know I was a DOG? Was he ok with old men fucking me, with me showing my bare tits, ass, and cunt to his political allies?"

We sat silently. I disliked Mark Albindisi, but this surprised me. Patty's assertion during our first meeting that she loved her father sounded hollow now.

After several minutes, Patty composed herself. "I need another $ 5,000 because I'll need more time on the hack mask to do this right. I'm going to put about two hours up on the COW website. When do you want me to do it?"

"I've got to finish my story and get the editors at the platform I've talked to about running it to approve it," Meredith said. "Give me until next Thursday."

"Ok," Patty said. We asked her to stay the night. She declined. "I'm shitty company right now," she said. She drove off. I was worried about her.

The online state news service called The Buckeye Observer had tentatively agreed to run Meredith's story. They insisted on hearing the tapes we had made of Alison, Leah, and Danielle repeating what they had told us about the DOGs at COW. Meredith and I spent a tense day before they called back and said they would run the story based on the corroboration Meredith had supplied. Hinting that we knew something else was coming, Meredith got them to wait until Friday morning to run the story.

It was around 10:30 that Thursday night when Meredith received a one-word text from Patty, "go." Meredith got on her computer and went to COW's website. On the home page was a banner headline, "College of the Word honors the Daughters of God." Below that was smaller print that said "see how the Daughters serve the College, our Founding Prophets, and Our Public Officials." There was a link below that. Meredith clicked the link, and we went to a page with links to several videos with labels like "Daughters Serve Public Servants," and "Supporting the College Is Rewarding." Playing above that was a video, a short loop, of Ezekiel Walsh being ridden by Patty.

We did not know until the following morning that Patty had done more than she discussed with us. Going through COW's e-mail server so that COW appeared to be the source, she e-mailed bogus press releases about the Daughters of God to about twenty TV stations, newspapers, and online publications around the state. Patty attached five short videos, one showing Ezekiel fucking her, one showing Madeline with Alison Rowe, one of a cocktail party where a nude Leah Carney was handing a drink to the Governor, and her father fucking Lisa Farmer. Her bogus press release said the videos were representative of the good works performed by the Daughters. Meredith's article went up online the next morning.

Of course, the shit hit the fan. The news outlets reported receiving press releases along with videos too explicit to show. However, they reported that the videos showed Ezekiel and Madeline Walsh having sex with college-aged women, the Governor was being waited on by a nude college-aged woman, and Adrian County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Albindisi was having sex with a college-age woman. Many outlets also reprinted parts of Meredith's story on The Buckeye Observer.

COW and the Walshes were mysteriously silent. That afternoon, the Governor's office issued a statement. The statement said that the Governor had been invited to speak at a fundraiser for a Congressional candidate at the COW president's mansion. Upon arriving, the Governor was appalled to discover that there were naked young women serving drinks. "With hindsight, the Governor recognizes that he should have left the event immediately," the statement said. "At the time, the Governor felt that he had a duty to stay and do what he had committed to do. The Governor regrets that misjudgment."

Late that afternoon, news outlets began reporting calls from COW faculty and staff saying that the college had not issued their paychecks due that day. Reporters could only reach low level staff at COW, who said that only Ezekiel and Madeline could speak publicly, and they were "presently unavailable." The following Monday, lawyers from the Attorney General's office were in court getting an order appointing the AG as receiver for College of the Word. On Tuesday, the AG issued a statement saying that Ezekiel and Madeline could not be found and that the $ 65 million which had been in COW bank accounts the previous Friday morning had been wire transferred that day to overseas banks.

As the Attorney General's staff poured over COW's records, they discovered a membership roster of the Daughters of God. Each young woman had a page showing her full name, SSN, home address, parents' names, enrollment date at COW, the date she became a DOG, and a full-frontal nude photograph. Of course, copies of the DOG roster quickly leaked to the press.

Like most stories, coverage of the COW/DOG story had abated somewhat after a couple of days. However, the revelation that the daughter of a county prosecuting attorney and rising political star had been a DOG created a new frenzy. Patty had been working as a contractor for a start-up cybersecurity company in Columbus. When the news she had been a DOG broke, her contract was immediately terminated. Patty called Meredith complaining that she couldn't leave her apartment building because reporters were clustered outside. Meredith suggested Patty just wait because the reporters would likely give up in a few hours.

Patty and Meredith talked around 9:00 a.m. the day after Patty's status as a former DOG was headline news around the state. Patty called us back around 9:00 p.m. that day. Meredith put her on speaker so I could hear. "They're still out there," Patty said. "there's even one of those trucks with a dish on the roof from a TV station."

"Peter," Meredith asked me, "can we sneak Patty down here?" I worked out a plan with Patty that I would park on a street behind her building at 3:00 a.m. the next morning and she would come out a locked basement door on the rear of the building with a packed suitcase. Driving in front of Patty's building just before 3:00, I saw news cars and trucks parked on the street, although the people in them appeared to be asleep. In any event, our plan worked. I brought Patty to Glenda's house around dawn that morning.

Meredith greeted us with the declaration, "I think I know why the media is so eager to talk to Patty."

"Why?" Patty asked.

"No one can find your father," Meredith answered.

I got a friend of mine who was a lawyer to issue a public statement that she represented Patricia Albindisi, that Patty was at an undisclosed location, and reminding people that trespassing onto private property to find Patty could result in civil or criminal liability. Meredith took Patty to a hair stylist who turned Patty's long straight hair into wavy hair that reached only to her earlobes. I didn't say so, but I thought the new hairdo was an improvement.

Since we had started living together, Meredith and I were always nude at home. Patty insisted that we continue that practice and joined us. Living nude with two very beautiful nude women sounded like a high school guy's fantasy. It became my reality. Believe it or not, Patty did sleep in the guest bedroom. Meredith and I both came to like Patty a great deal. Over a few weeks, I moved the rest of her things from Columbus to Glenda's house. Through Meredith's friends, Patty found some spot work in Cincinnati.

As the calendar changed from August to September, the COW story shifted focus to the students who had paid tuition, room, and board and who had expected to start class in September. Instead, College of the Word was closed. The Attorney General's press officer vowed that the AG would pursue Ezekiel and Madeline, who had apparently taken COW's money. However, the press officer had to admit that they did not know where Ezekiel, Madeline, or the money, were. The fact that no one had seen the Adrian County Prosecutor in the month since the COW story had broken went largely unmentioned.

Meredith and I had been to Maple Lodge often enough that we were on the resort's e-mail list. The resort usually closes for the year at the end of September. That year, we received an e-mail on the last Wednesday of September saying that, because of the forecast for good weather, Maple Lodge would be open the first weekend in October. That gave Patty an idea. After several phone calls, we had booked three cabins at Maple Lodge for that extra weekend. We had commitments from Leah Carney that she and her relatively new boyfriend would come. Danielle Shay was coming from Cleveland with her boss and her boss's husband. When the roster of DOG members became public, Danielle learned that her boss, Renee Fuller, had been one of the first four DOGs.

The first weekend in October was sunny with daytime temperatures in the 80s. Leah, whom I had not seen since our first meeting in July, had toned her look down a little. Her boyfriend, Guy Roberts, was an Air Force vet who was now working as a civilian at the Air Force base near Dayton. He had met Leah at Wright State where they were both taking classes. "I've never gone naked with strangers before," Guy told us, "But if Leah wants to do it, I'll give it a try." Not surprisingly, Leah, Danielle, and Renee all looked very lovely in the nude. I still thought that Meredith, and Patty too, were more beautiful.

One thing I had learned since I met Meredith is that people become better friends more quickly when they are all naked together. That certainly happened with our group. We all arrived on Friday evening. By mid-day Saturday, no one thought anything about it if Renee, for example, patted me or Guy on our bare ass. Guy, Renee's husband Phil, and I had several nude hugs with each of the women.

Around 4:00 p.m. Saturday, we were sitting outside our cabins drinking lightly and talking. Danielle leaned forward to set her cup of beer on the ground. As she did, something ripped through the back of the lawn chair she was in. That was quickly followed by the sound of a shot. I realized that Danielle would have been shot in the chest had she not leaned forward at exactly the right time. She had the good sense to flatten out on the ground.

The shot seemed to come from the woods behind our cabins. I grabbed Meredith and Patty and rushed them into our cabin. "Stay in the front room on the floor," I instructed, hoping that the combination of exterior and interior cabin walls would stop any more bullets. As I rushed to the back room to get my revolver out of my bag, I heard another shot.

Going back outside carefully, I saw that Guy had gotten Leah into their cabin. Danielle had crawled along the ground and was lying against the foundation of our cabin. Renee was lying prone on the ground. Phil was trying to drag her behind a cabin. Just as Guy came out of their cabin with an ugly.45 automatic in his hand, there was another shot and Phil fell on top of Renee. Guy and I both fired once in the direction from which the shot seemed to come. Guy and I crouched, naked with guns in hand, against the sides of our cabins. After what seemed a long time with no more shots, we ran to Phil and Renee. Both were bleeding, but their wounds did not appear life-threatening. I got towels from the cabin to use as temporary bandages.