Revenge Inc.
By
Michael Egenolf

CHAPTER ONE

In my business there are three things you can’t live without; superglue, a lock pick, and a slightly skewed sense of justice.
As the late Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. so eloquently put it, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I like that. It’s kind of my credo. Words to live and thrive by.
Listen, getting crapped on is part of life. It’s like eating your vegetables. You may not like the taste, but they keep showing up on your plate anyway.
I always say, ‘when life is a shit sandwich, call me Mr. Mustard.’ I can’t keep life’s injustices from happening; I just try to make them more palatable. If you feel the need to avenge an injustice that’s been perpetrated against you, but aren’t up to the task, I’ll do it for you- for a fee. After all, if you wait for fate, karma, or, God forbid, the American Judicial system to balance the scales, you’ll probably be dead before it happens.
And what’s the fun in that.
Injustice happens and who you gonna call? The name’s McBride. Shadow McBride. I’m in the vengeance business.
That’s why I’m sitting here at 17th and Pine, in center city Philadelphia, at 2am, in this rented blue Camry with the windows fogged. It’s a crappy, rainy night and my butt’s frozen to the seat like a wet tongue on a cold flagpole. I’m on a surveillance job for an old friend. I don’t normally do investigative work, but I could never say no to this particular client. Let’s just say once upon a time we were romantically entangled.
This particular notch on the old headboard is now the wife of a very important figure in Philadelphia politics. A man with connections. A power broker. A man who most likely will become our next Mayor. This very important figure is allegedly doing late night politicking with his stunningly beautiful chief of staff. Funny, but I always thought the chief of a man’s staff was his wife.
Anywho, I knew this Philly filly back when I was still walking the beat as a Boy in Blue. She was what you call a free spirit. We played naked twister for a while before she came to terms with the notion that I was no longer in her league. She moved up and I moved on to bigger and… well, other women.
Her name is Miranda Bay, but when I knew her she was Miranda Foster. She was an ER nurse at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. Nurse Foster was a stunning looker with legs that went all the way to the ceiling. She had frosty eyes and a glare that could make any Philadelphian proud. She was arctic cold with a heart like a glacier and it was lust at first sight.
She was working the late shift the night we met. She was in white and I was in red. Blood, that is. My own.
I was a cop working out of the eighteenth district when I stumbled on a bad guy and a 211 in progress in a WAWA. Wawa is a convenience store. It’s Philadelphian for “refrigerator”. Close and convenient and open 24 hours. Legions of faithful customers.
This particular faithful customer was wearing a ski mask and demanding more than just a consistently great cup of joe. When I flashed my badge and politely objected to him helping himself to the cabbage in the register, he shot me in the shoulder and fled.
The slug from the semi-automatic shattered my collarbone, square-danced around my chest cavity for a while nicking my right lung, and finally called it a night lodged in my back less than an inch from my spine. Since I decided it was better to breathe with two lungs instead of one, I called it a career lest I not be so lucky next time. I had no desire to drink all future cheese steaks through a straw.
The perp, one Mr. Romeo Blue of Southwest Philly, found himself one of those Philadelphia layers that you hear so much about. The lawyer decided that his client’s civil rights had been violated when I accidentally stepped into the path of his allegedly discharged semi-automatic while I was technically off-duty. I guess the alleged hole in my chest was a moot point. In typical Philly fashion, they sued the city. Seems an off-duty cop isn’t supposed to interrupt a hood while he’s trying to steal his daily bread.
I had other ideas. Call me crazy.
At his trial, and with my shrink’s encouragement, I set out for a little payback. Something simple. I snuck a tube of crazy glue into the courtroom and put a few well-placed drops on the defendant’s seat. When the judge asked the defendant to please rise, he did so. But the seat of his city-issued paper jumpsuit stayed behind. The headline of the Philadelphia Inquirer the following morning read: “Blue Moon Shines At Trial”. I had a good laugh. It wasn’t a hole in the chest, but it would do.
Life was moving on and leaving me behind. The world was high speed internet and I wasn’t even using dial-up yet. But maybe that was OK. Maybe this new world was too angry and violent. In my days, an automatic was a transmission, not a weapon. Time to do something a little less confrontational.
So, I traded in my gun for a tube of super glue and the seeds of a new vocation were planted. Nowadays, super glue and I are inseparable. Pardon the pun.
It’s been a few years now since I hung my own shingle. I wouldn’t exactly call the work lucrative, but it keeps me in hoagies.

Miranda Bay had called me up out of the blue a few days ago, sobbing in tears and begging my help. I felt sick way down in the pit of my stomach at the sound of her voice. It may have been the taco I had for lunch, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I wanted nothing to do with her. Sure I knew she was loaded. But money isn’t everything. Is it?
In the end, it was the tears that got me. This strong, vibrant woman was in pain and it was a side of her I never knew existed. Something had her scared. The frozen façade had melted away leaving a frightened and vulnerable Popsicle stick in its wake. I couldn’t turn my back on her, and as I already said, I never could say no to her.
We met for coffee at a chic flavor-of-the-month internet café. She ordered a double half-decaf half-caf latte and I ordered something called a mochachinko. Whatever happened to Cora the coffee queen? We sat down at a booth with inlaid mosaic tile that made the table look as though Picasso had thrown up all over it. I guess the internet terminals strategically placed at every table was for the parvenu dot.com clientele that frequented the place. I guess they needed their daily dose of porn before heading back to the sanctuary of their private cubicle.
Miranda took a sip of her frothy delight. She then went about describing the pugilistic habits of her philandering husband while under the table she rubbed her toes against my leg. Priceless.
Ok, so she’s no angel. I can tell you with perfect clarity she was a dirty little girl when I knew her. She’s a dirty girl now. It wasn’t the “philandering husband” routine that got me to help her. She could hold her own with any Bill Clinton wanna-be. It was the rough stuff. I just can’t abide by a guy who tosses the wife around for kicks. It’s the most cowardice thing a man could do, and I didn’t have the stomach for it.
That’s why I’m sitting in this lousy Camry. A coward like that deserves everything he has coming to him. And then some.
I have to say, the news of the wife-beating had taken me by surprise. Miranda’s husband, the powerful and charismatic Wesley Acton Bay, was from an old and distinguished Philadelphia blue-blood family. The Bay’s lived in one of those multi-million dollar estates up in the Chestnut Hill section of the city. The house had been in the family since the Revolutionary war. It was one of those tiny little 22 room shacks that regularly adorn the covers of those snooty home design and architect magazines. Poor bastards.
The local press had made a big stink over Miranda and Wesley’s wedding a few years back. You’d have thought it was Lady Di and that Prince guy all over again. It was the cover story for Philadelphia Magazine. Wesley Acton Bay, Philly’s most eligible bachelor, marries working girl is storybook wedding. I’da liked to puke.
Not that I was jealous, mind you. So the man has money, power and Prince Charming good looks. So what if he pretty much stole my girlfriend from me. Sure, I want to see him hang from Billy Penn’s right hand like a puppet on a string. It’s business. Nothing personal.
Yeah, Right.

It was 3:15 in the morning and I was getting antsy. I was down to my last peanut chew and my Wawa coffee supply was perilously low. Meanwhile, my once-empty Snapple Iced Tea bottle was filling up quickly, if you know what I mean.
A light flickered to life deep within the bowels of the expensive brick-front home of Wesley Acton Bay’s campaign headquarters. The drapes were drawn but the expensive lace was sheer. I could make out two figures entering the front room of the converted townhouse, their silhouettes entwined in a steamy embrace. Arms flailed about urgently as their groping became feverish. Boom-chicka-boom-boom. Tacky 70’s slow disco started playing in my head like a really bad porn soundtrack. I tried to chase the thought. I needed to stay focused. I suddenly wanted popcorn.
The energizer bunnies finally came up for air. Wesley Acton Bay hastily shrugged out of his suit jacket while the woman turned her back to me. She was tall and slim with a slamming figure. The pinned up hair was the give away. Her silhouette was unmistakable. It was Justina Tryst. Wesley Acton Bay’s Chief of Staff.
Son of a bitch.

Tryst pulled her hair clip free letting her long silky strands cascade down over her succulent shoulders like a crystal blue waterfall dr–…. Stop that! Focus! Focus!
Tryst played with the buttons on her blouse, teasing Bay as she began to reveal herself to him. The blouse fell to the floor with a shake of the shoulders and the diaphanous duo fell together once more. Tryst attacked Bay’s neck with kisses and nibbles. Or nibbles and kisses. I’m sure there was a certain amount of tongue involved. I snapped a few quick shots off with the digital as she worked her way down the man’s chest. The woman’s head slipped out of view. She was pulling a Monica Lewinsky right there in the front office! The ultimate “out of body” experience!
The man slipped from view a few seconds later. Public servant serving his public. Or was it the other way around.

Twenty minutes ticked by slowly without any heads popping up. Two tendrils of post-coital cigarette smoke spiraled to the ceiling. I decided to call it quits. I’d seen enough for one night. If this theatre showed double features, I wanted to beat it during intermission. And by beat it, I meant go home to my empty icebox and cable TV.
I wiped the fog from my windshield with my sleeve and headed home. Somehow, I just didn’t think cable TV could top the live-action show I’d just witnessed. Good ol’ City of Brotherly Love. Not that what I saw was what you would call brotherly.

CHAPTER TWO

It was after ten the next morning when I staggered into my office. My secretary, Addison Hayes, was multi-tasking her little heart out. A cigarette hung precariously from one blood-red pouty lip while she gabbed away a mile-a-minute on a phone that was locked in a vise-like grip between her ear and shoulder. Her hands were too busy painting themselves with polish to be burdened with something so menial as supporting a talking device.
Addison Hayes, or Addy, is a slightly trashy, high-haired, leather-clad temptress with spiked heels perpetually strapped to her feet. She is a Vassar graduate with an IQ somewhere in the upper stratosphere, but her attitude is all South Philly. She could talk Nietzsche on your ass while super gluing your toes together for tip-toeing through her tulips.
“If that no good two-timing sonofa dared to do that to me, I swear I’d…”
I shut my office door behind me cutting off Addy’s phone threat in mid-sentence. All I wanted to do was to slip into my quasi-comfy leather chair, kick my feet up on the desk and shut my eyes for a while. The sniffle coming from the chair in the corner changed that.
Judging by the thick lump that sprouted instantly in my throat, I decided my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
“Hello Shadow,” she said. Her voice was like fine scotch with just a hint of smokiness. She wore a smart suit with a slim skirt that hugged her crossed legs. One of her Blahniks danced nervously on her bobbing foot. But it wasn’t the bobbing Blahnik that caught my attention.
“He hit you?”
Miranda’s eyes cast a downward glance. This once-proud woman was getting smacked around by her power-hungry, philandering husband. She hated for me to see her this way. That much was obvious. But she had little choice.
“He returned home around five this morning, drunk and smelling of perfume. I was furious. I told him I wanted out. Told him I was tired of his indiscretions.”
“And he clocked you one.”
“He grabbed a change of clothes and left. I packed a few things and got out. I don’t know where to turn, or where to go. He said he’d kill me if I left him. Kill me.”
“Now just try to relax kitten,” I said. Nobody’s killing no one, no how.” I pulled out a mostly-clean handkerchief, went to hand it to her, gave her the box of bargain-brand tissues instead. She dabbed her swollen eye.
“He’s never been this violent before. It’s getting worse. Maybe it’s the pressure, the campaign. There’s also the money.”
“What money.”
“Wire transfers. A lot of them. A lot of money. Gone. I just don’t know what to think. Is he in some kind of trouble? Or is he hiding money, afraid he’ll lose it in a divorce?”
“Should he be?” It was an obvious jab at an inopportune time. Her hurt glance was answer enough.
“I loved him, Shadow. I know that’s hard for you to believe but its true. I don’t want his money. I want him. The old him. The him that didn’t come home at all hours smelling of someone else.”
“Somewhere you could go?” I asked. “Friend? Relative?”
She gingerly dabbed her eye again.
“I have a little money. Not much. Enough to get settled somewhere maybe.”
“Where would you go?”
“I’ve always been partial to ocean sunsets.” She looked up at me and I could see the vulnerable, scared child in her.
“Beachfront property ain’t exactly cheap,” I said.
She smiled weakly. My heart went out to the poor kid. She might be a handful in her own way, but nobody deserved to be a coward’s punching bag.
“You could crash at my place.” Jeesh, what was I saying. “It’s small and crappy but its home. You could have my room. I sleep on the couch most nights anyway.”
Most nights.

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning I decided to head over to Bay’s headquarters and have a chat with Mr. Scumbag. Justina Tryst was the only one in at that moment. Even better.
“Such talent,” said Tryst, flipping through the slightly fuzzy photos I was showing her. “And Newsweek hasn’t snapped you up yet? No, I guess this is more ‘National Enquirer,’” she said dryly. “Sneaking around, taking salacious photos, pulling petty pranks on people for money… what kind of vocation is that for a grown man?” said Tryst.
“I tried working at Starbucks but I got tired of the grind,” I said. “Then there was that blanket factory… but that folded. There was a while there where I wanted to be a mime…”
Tryst looked at me nonplussed.
“Talked myself out of it.”
“I didn’t know you had such a serious side.”
I smiled sarcastically at her. “When these pictures of you and your boyfriend hit the streets, the ride is over and his political career is finished.”
“That’s not me,” said Tryst.
“And what about when he tires of you, too. Maybe you’ll be the sonofabitch’s next punching bag, so go on, laugh now…”
“That’s not me,” she said again.
I laid on the “gimme a break” face pretty thick.
“And if you are insinuating that Wesley Acton Bay so much as speaks harshly with that manipulative bitch he’s married to, you are barking up the wrong tree,” said Tryst.
“He beat the hell outta her!”
“Not possible.”
“I saw her face. Looks like he Rodney King’d her ass.”
“Look, Mr. McBride. I don’t know what you are playing at, or what you hope to gain with this charade, but I can assure you that Wesley Acton Bay would most certainly never cause harm to his wife.”
I pointed to the damaging photos again.
“That your office,” I asked.
“Yes.”
“That your desk?”
“Yes”
“Your hair that long when it’s down?”
“Yes, but as I said before, that isn’t me.” Tryst eyed me defiantly. “Have you asked Mrs. Bay?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“I have known Mr. Bay for over twenty years. And although I happen to not think a whole lot of his wife, he happens to adore her. I can tell you that the only woman in a lovers embrace in that man’s arms is his wife.”
I looked at her doubtfully.
“Wesley Acton Bay has everything he could possibly want. Why would he need a mistress?” said Tryst.
“Just to break the monogamy,” I said.
She folded her arms sternly like my fourth grade teacher.
“And I suppose that’s a wig,” I said doubtfully, pointing again at the photos. She shrugged.
“Role playing,” she said.
“Role playing?”
“Variety is the spice.”
“A wig that just happens to look an awful lot like your hair, and just happens to be in your office?
“Takes all kinds.”
I wasn’t buying it. Unfortunately, Tryst didn’t seem to care whether she was making a sale or not.
“What kind of cigarettes do you smoke?” I said, trying a clever new approach.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Cigarettes,” I prodded. “What kind.”
“Mr. McBride, I am a social smoker. I have a cigarette on occasion, and am not particular about most brands, though I do occasionally find a menthol to be particularly relaxing. Would you like to know my favorite teas, too?”
I hate politicians.
“Mr. McBride, how tall would you say Mr. Bay was?”
“I dunno, six-two, six-three?”
“And how tall do your catlike detective’s eyes tell you I am?”
“Five-six, maybe”
“And how tall do you think the lady in this photo is?”
“Six-inch heels can do a lot for a woman. Especially one looking to get a leg up, so to speak.”
“Mr. McBride, your crudeness surprises me not in the least. How tall would you say Mrs. Bay is?”
“Six foot, I guess.”
She cast her eyes down at the photos again rubbing her chin pensively.
“Hmm. I think we both know to whom you should be speaking with next. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Did I mention how much I hate politicians? The trouble with someone insinuating you’re an idiot is you’re screwed either way. If you admit it, they’re right. If you refute it, you’re too stupid to know how dumb you are, and they get to be right.
I needed coffee. I needed answers. I needed a chocolate chip bagel.
I made a mental note to replace the “Elect Wesley Acton Bay” sign on Tryst’s front lawn with the campaign sign of his opponent. Maybe follow that up with a call to the newspapers. Just for kicks.
But that was later. It was time to get to the bottom of what the hell was going on. Miranda was first on the list. It was time to see just how real those crocodile tears were.

CHAPTER FOUR

I opened the door to my crappy apartment and my Adam’s apple dropped so fast I heard the thud when it hit the floor. Ok, the thud may have been the bagels. The coffee survived the shock, thank God.
She’d cleaned. Everything.
I’d only been gone a couple of hours. How was this possible? That was months of work, making that mess. Months of labor-intensive love… gone.
“Miranda!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Nothing. I checked the bedroom.
“No!!!” I screamed to the heavens.
She’d sorted the laundry. There was a clump of socks sitting in a laundry basket. This was devastating.
If there’s one thing women don’t understand about men, its laundry. Men’s laundry has varying degrees of dirty. Socks are on a scale of one to three. One- being clean, two- being only worn a few times, three- being ‘call the men in the biohazard spacesuits to have the socks de-radioactivated’. Now I’d have to wash them all.
Crap.
Miranda was nowhere in sight. Maybe she’d gone home to pick up a few things. Maybe she’d gone home to remove her husband’s testicles. Maybe she’d joined a nunnery. Probably not.
I walked through the alien world that was now my apartment. Gone were the dirty dishes piled precariously ten deep in the kitchen sink. Gone was the pile of semi-read newspapers full of Flyer’s articles that I hadn’t gotten around to reading during the hockey season. Gone was the pile of mail on the table, the 412 post-its from the front of the fridge, and the cornucopia of take-out menus that were stuffed behind the phone on the wall.
I took a deep breath and swallowed, steeling my nerves for what was next.
I opened the fridge.
A bottle of Yuengling and a semi-moldy chunk of Muenster Cheese blinked back at me. And nothing else.
This pissed me off. I swear there was some Chinese food in there that was still good.
I surveyed the rest of the destruction. How was it humanly possible to do that much damage in so little time? Impressive in its devastation.
The only thing out of place, or at least semi-untidy, was the one thing I always kept neat. My bookshelf. The whole second shelf of books seemed to be leaning over, as though there were fewer books than there had been previously.
I did what any red-blooded American bachelor male would do in this situation. I straightened the books, grabbed the beer from the fridge, and collapsed into my easy chair for a good cry.

CHAPTER FIVE

Addy had left a message on my machine about prospective clients, so I headed to the office. My office is in the swanky historic neighborhood of Chestnut Hill. Chestnut Hill is in Philadelphia proper, but some of the “socialites” who live there address their mail as “Chestnut Hill, PA.”, not Philadelphia. That kind of gives you an idea of the residents. Not all, just the multi-millionaire segment of the neighborhood’s populace. The neighborhood is replete with stately stone mansions that hearken back to a different era; an era of debutante balls and Philadelphia royalty; of Stotesburys and Wideners, Drexels and DuPonts.
I live and work in the same neighborhood, which is very convenient. While the neighborhood is predominately wealthy, I most certainly am not. They say get the worst property in the best neighborhood. Well, my apartment and office must be worth a gold mine because they certainly are the crappiest. Crappy but convenient. That’s my motto. That my apartment is actually above my office just adds to that convenience and cuts down on my “commute” to work.

I left my ramshackled apartment and thirty seconds later I stepped into the office. Ten seconds after that, I’d wished I hadn’t. Addy was in her usual pose at her desk, cigarette all a-dangle and the phone jammed in a death grip between her shoulder and chin.
“I’d use a 9mm needle and crochet his nuts together!” Addy barked into the phone.
I closed my office door behind me. Personally, I think a nut crocheting job requires no less than a 14 needle, but hey, that’s just me.
I needed to get in touch with Miranda but I wasn’t about to complicate things by calling her house and having her shitheels high-and-mighty mayor-to-be-husband answer the phone. I had to think of something. Something clever.
I threw myself into my office chair with a grunt. I had to figure out where Miranda had gone, and my stomach was roiling from too much Wawa coffee. I was aggravated, out of sorts, and gassy. My office, my rules, I lifted my butt a little and broke some serious wind for relief. It was then that I noticed the five ladies crammed together on the couch across from me.
Damn!
“Uh”, I said, and nothing else. Hmm, pithy, clever, I liked it. I could always blame the leather chair. Only, my chair was not leather, it was black fabric. Maybe they didn’t notice. Oh well, might as well just plunge ahead. I really needed to get in the habit of checking my office when I walked in.
“What can I do for you ladies?” I asked. And immediately wished I hadn’t. Five ladies started passionately spouting the circumstance that brought them to me, only I couldn’t make out a word.
After a few moments of verbal pandemonium I put my pinky fingers to my lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle. They quieted down.
“Is there a spokeswoman?”
They all started in again.
“Ladies!” I pleaded. “For the love of god and everything holy!!!” That seemed to work. They quieted again. I looked them over.
“You,” I said to the tallest of the bunch. She was dressed smartly in a navy colored outfit, her hair in a tight beehive. Did women really still wear those? “Beehive, you’re elected spokesperson. What brings you in to see me?”
She beamed with pride at being selected. You’d have thought she’d won a spelling bee. Then again it may have been a reaction to the stink cloud that had drifted their way. She delicately touched her coif and started in.
“I’m Mrs. Clyburn,” she said. “And this is Mrs Bristol, Mrs. White, Mrs.—“
I held up my hand like a traffic cop.
“For now, how’s about we just refer to you guys as ‘the ladies’, ok?”
They nodded. If they were offended they hid it well. Classy.
“Please, continue.” I held out my hand to Beehive and urged her on.
“It’s Kyler, down at the spa,” she said. “He’s not a very nice man.”
“And?” I asked.
“He’s Grumpy,” chimed the second lady.
“He’s pissy,” said the third.
“And sleezy,” said the fourth.
“And jerky,” said the last one who was noticeably fatter than the rest.
“So he’s four of the seven dwarves,” I said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“We want you to get the little turd for us,” Beehive said triumphantly.
I was starting to like this bunch. “Tell me more,” I said.
“Well, Muriel here,” said Beehive, pointing to the fat one, “is preggers. She was approaching maternity leave and the bastard told her, her job wouldn’t be waiting for her when she gets back.”
“That’s illegal,” I said. “Why don’t you see an attorney?”
“Well”, said Beehive, “we’re not exactly employees of the spa. We’re more like subcontractors.”
“Subcontractors?”
“Yes. Subcontractors. A tradesperson or persons hired to do specialty work for an agreed upon-“
“I know what a subcontractor is, thank you,” I said.
“So technically, we are not employed and thus not a protected class,” she finished.
“I see.”
“Her husband’s a lawyer,” said the pregnant one. Beehive blushed.
“I see,” I said.
“There’s more” said the blond among them.
“There always is,” I said.
“Well, Muriel here, she’s been a little uh… excitable lately, what with all those hormones bouncing around inside her.” Carrot Top was smart-casual in a green button-down and jeans.
“Well, he is a gutless prick, Gladys, and he deserves what he gets,” said Muriel. Muriel bore a striking resemblance to an old girlfriend of mine. She was fat too. Not pregnant, just fat. Her name was Charlene. Or Cherise. Or maybe it was Charmaine.
“So what happened,” I asked
“Well, it’s like she said. She called him a gutless prick,” said the curly-haired, tall drink of water.
“And?” I asked again.
“And”, said Beehive, “Muriel is usually pretty quiet and mild-mannered. And when that came out of her mouth, we just all couldn’t help but giggle.
“And seeing how red his face got in a hurry, the giggles just kept coming and we couldn’t stop,” said Blondie.
“And our boy didn’t take too kindly, right?”
All five shook their heads.
“He started spouting off a list of profanities,” said Beehive. “I don’t know what came over us, but it’s like laughing at a funeral. You know it’s wrong. You know you aren’t supposed to. But the more you try to stop the harder it gets until you’re near hysterics.”
“I see,” I said, and I did. Kyler Vanderspeigle was third generation money in Chestnut Hill and first generation dillhole. Kyler thought himself a businessman but he failed to realize what everyone else already knew. He was just playing with Daddy’s Monopoly money. He had nothing at stake, therefore, he had no need to develop any sense of business acumen or hone the people skills needed to keep an investment operating. Kyler’s plane of existence was somewhere over the rainbow. When it came to running his spa, Kyler thought he was a wiz. Kyler was a tool. A wiz of a tool if ever-a-wiz-of-a-tool-there-was. I could see this jackhole blowing his stack and when they laughed even more, the shitheel full-on blew a gasket. “So what’d he do?” I asked.
“Well,” said Carrot Top, “he fired Muriel on the spot, said a few choice things to the rest of us and bolted out of there like his pants were on fire.”
“But there’s more,” said Blondie.
“There always is,” I said.
“The spa is always closed on Sundays,” said Beehive, the take-charge girl of the bunch. “So we planned a shower for Muriel on a Sunday when we’d all be off work.”
“You guys,” said Charlene or Charmaine, “I just love you guys. You’re so sweet.”
“Aww, honey, we love you-“
I cleared my throat. “And?”
“So the little turd decided to book a special “Spa Day” party on the day of Muriel’s shower and make all of us work.”
“I see.”
“The rat bastard threatened to fire anyone who didn’t show up,” said Curly.
“I see.” I said. “And you want me to…”
“We heard some things through the grapevine about you,” said Beehive.
“Those grapevines are real talkers,” I said.
“Can you help us?” asked Beehive. “We already put money down on the party room at the hotel. The shower is this Sunday. If we cancel now, we lose our deposit.”
I mulled things over for a moment while the ladies stared transfixed. I steepled my fingers together and pressed them to my lips for effect.
“This is what you’re going to do,” I said. “You are going to show up on time for work on Spa Day like the good little angels that you are.”
“But, Muriel’s shower?” all but Muriel/Charmaine asked in unison.
“The shower goes ahead as planned. Show up for work like you’re supposed to, only there won’t be any work on Sunday so you can run along to your little party.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Beehive.
“Let’s just say things may get a bit sticky. You ladies do your thing and let me do mine. And by “your thing” I mean leaving a deposit with my secretary on your way out.”

CHAPTER SIX

I had the perfect solution to the problem at hand. It’s amazing what a little tube of ethyl cyanoacrylate can solve. But Sunday was still a few days away and I had bigger fish to find and torture for cleaning my apartment.
I had to find Miranda but I wasn’t sure where to start. I couldn’t call her house. I didn’t have her cell number. She didn’t work so there was no job to show up to unannounced. I was at a loss.
But that wasn’t what was bugging me the most. It was the gnawing in my gut. This woman had once had my stomach tied in such a knot, Roto-rooter couldn’t get it untangled. And here I was, coming to her rescue like some knight on a gleaming white horse, doing battle against the big bad dragon on the off chance that beating the behemoth would win me the girl. I didn’t want to admit it, but that’s what was going through my mind. I wanted her back. She was toxic and lethal and I wanted her shoved in my veins like a junkie on a fix.
It pissed me off.
But in my heart I knew none of it mattered. Miranda wasn’t something that could be won. She wasn’t a prize. She wasn’t a possession. She was the kind of girl that decided you were suitable enough for “Mr. Right-Now” and for that fleeting moment in time you thought you were a God! But she was a free spirit. A wild pony, unbridled and unbreakable. A breath of wind you can’t close your hand around.
This whole bit about Wesley Acton Bay smacking her around, cheating on her, taking advantage of her… it just didn’t seem to fit. Miranda was stone cold deadly and never out of control. I couldn’t see her giving herself up to a man that way; being consumed.

I had to get to the bottom of it. I had to find her. Was she up to something? Or was she in trouble. Either way, I figured she was in trouble. But where?
I decided to make a few calls and follow up on a few leads. You know, all that “detective-type” stuff. Truth was, I didn’t have any leads and had no idea who to call to get any. I did place a call to Tryst, but it went to voice mail.
I didn’t know what to make of Tryst. She was gorgeous. Sexy in a “frigid bitch” sort of way. She was very intelligent. Lethal combination. She was either telling the truth about her and Bay, or was an Academy Award winning actress to go with her brains and looks. It didn’t seem fair that she’d be that good an actress on top of everything else, so maybe I had to consider she was telling the truth. Then again, if there’s one thing politicians know how to do, its lie.
But where did all this leave me? If it wasn’t Tryst I saw with Bay that night, who was it? Was it Miranda? Why? What would she be pulling by trying to set him up as an adulterer? Was she trying to ruin him politically? Throw the election? If so, why not go right to the press with it? Why come to me? It wasn’t adding up.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was Saturday Night and I was dressed like a Ninja in a Schwarzenegger movie. I’m not sure if Schwarzenegger ever had Ninja’s in his movies but if he did, I am sure this is what they looked like.
I checked myself again in the mirror. I had on a black turtleneck tee-shirt under a black sweatshirt. Black jeans, black boots, and a black ski cap rounded out the ensemble. I was either up to no good or going to a poetry festival.
Since I’m not much of a poet, it was time to carry out my “Save the Pregger’s Party” plan. Its sad commentary on the state of my life when the best I can come up with on a Saturday Night is to Super Glue the doors to the local spa so the local “ladies club” can have their baby shower on Sunday.
I used to have a life. I think.

The spa was on Germantown Avenue a few blocks from my apartment. I grabbed my weapon of choice from the table in my hall and I locked the door behind me. I set off into the night a whisper on the breeze. Stealthy, deadly, until I tripped on the garbage can in the alleyway and interrupted two alley cats in mid-coitus.
Once the cats were done scratching me half to death, I waited in the shadows of the alley until the curious neighbors’ lights went out again. Commotion in the alleyways is big news in this town. This part of the city has very little crime and people generally aren’t seen lurking in the shadows. But soon enough, the neighbors went back to watching cable and I was again in darkness.
A little known fact about this neighborhood is its alleyways. There are several alleys which cut through the main part of the shopping district. You can’t see them from the street, therefore, only the old-timers and merchants really know they are even there.
I lurked my way up a few blocks until I was directly behind the spa. There was a clang underfoot and I looked down to see I was standing on a rickety set of storm cellar doors that obviously led to the basement. This was where they took deliveries. It was easier to take deliveries through the rear entrance and off side-streets than through the front doors. There was never enough parking out front for shoppers, let alone delivery trucks.

I made my way around to the front of the establishment. The spa was all ultra-modern with recessed lighting, black lacquer and silver trim. It looked more like a fancy-schmancy hair salon than a day-spa. Whatever it was, it didn’t look tranquil and serene.
My evening’s work was done in a flash. A few well-placed drops of clear liquid heaven and the baby shower was business as usual. I wish I could set up a web cam so I could see the expression on the jerk’s face when he’s unable to open his door. Serves him right for being such a prick.
I slipped my weapon back into its holster. And by holster, of course I mean my pocket, and headed off to the local coffee shop a block away. It’s poetry night, after all. I need to keep up appearances.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As a rule, I despise Monday mornings. Not because of rush hour traffic or meetings with belligerent bosses- but simply because there’s just no good excuse for sleeping in. That’s what the weekend is for. Not Monday. Monday is a time for fresh starts to brand new weeks with new possibilities. This Monday morning was no different. Time to get up and go to work. So that’s what I did, reluctantly.
I stepped into the office at the crack of 10am to find Chestnut Hill’s version of Josie and the Pussycats waiting for me. If these ladies played instruments, though, they sure weren’t musical.
Beehive, Blondie, Curly, Carrot-top and The Fat One were all seated together on the three-person couch across from my desk. Cozy. I’m certain the five of them squeezing together on my couch was a mathematical improbability, but there they were, just the same. I guess they never studied Geometry.
They also must not have studied acoustics because they seemed to be under the notion that I could listen to five ranting ladies at once and not miss a beat. After the cacophony died down a few minutes later I was able to glean the following. A) The ladies showed up for work on time on Sunday to find the boss cursing up a blue streak and unable to get into his shop. B) The “SPA DAY” guests arrived to find the Spa closed because of some type of mechanical malfunction with the door. C) The Fat One proceeded to tell the party organizer what the spa owner, Kyler, had done to them. D) The party organizer proceeded to give a severe tongue lashing to Kyler and then cancelled their spa day, promising never to use his establishment again. E) Kyler, in a fit of rage, fired them all on the spot.
Did I tell you how much I hate Mondays?
“We want you to really get the little turd this time,” Beehive started in. Feisty.
“I don’t see how that gets your jobs back,” I said. “Maybe I could talk to him. Reason with him.”
“He’s part Italian and part Polish,” said The Fat One. “You’ll just make him an offer he can’t understand!”
I told you I was starting to like these ladies.
I assured the ladies that I would think on it. I’d have to percolate my brain to come up with the best course of action, though I didn’t see any action getting them their jobs back.
I ushered them out of the office. I was thanked profusely until I closed my door, shutting them off in mid-thank and throwing my office into eerie silence. Thank God.

I hit the intercom.
“Addy, get me Tinkerbell on the horn,” I said. “And get me a coffee.” I just love delegating tasks.
A moment later a slightly irritated-sounding Addy chirped in.
“Mr. Tinkwell on line one.”
“Thanks,” I said into the intercom. “How’s the coffee coming?”
“It’s ready,” said Addy. “All you have to do is put it together.”
“Put it together?” I asked.
“The coffee is in the cabinet… the water is in the spigot… the creamer is at the Wawa…”
I sighed and punched line one on the phone.
“Tink!” I said into the phone. “I need a favor. Lunch… ½ hour. I’m buying.”

CHAPTER NINE

Allan Tinkwell is a hetero-sexually challenged metro-sexual acquaintance who works in Banking. We met back when I was in uniform. He helped us with a sting operation, and over the four months it took to set up the sting, we got to know each other. Though “friends” may be too strong a word for our relationship, we have a drink together now and again. We are absolutely NOT dating!
Forty minutes later we were sitting on a park bench in Washington Square, lunch in our laps. Well, mine anyway. I had two hot dogs loaded up with mustard, ketchup, relish, onions, and a few other things I wasn’t sure went on hot dogs. Tink had something called Tab that he was sipping morosely.
“Ugh, how can you eat that garbage this early?” said Tink, nodding in the direction of my wieners. “That’s positively vile.”
“It’s not garbage, its lunch,” I said defensively.
“This isn’t lunch,” said Tink. “Lunch has tables and tablecloths. Lunch has cute young morsels in tight black pants bringing tantalizing delicacies. Lunch is Che` Vic or Brasserie Hugo. Not Mr. Wiener sleeping in a bread coffin.”
“Thought you loved a good wiener, Tink?” I said good-naturedly. If I didn’t tease him about his sexual orientation, he’d think I was dying or something. Why worry the poor guy? Besides, I get a kick out of making a grown man blush like a school girl. That’s not wrong, is it?
“You are a complete degenerate,” he shot back. It was all talk. I know he loved the teasing. Fun or no fun, though, I needed to get down to business.
“Have a Diet Pepsi and chill, will you. What can you tell me about wire transfers?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Can they be traced?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Depends on where they originated and more importantly, their destination.”
“Got the origination,” I said. “It’s the destination I’m interested in.”

(tink gives quick explanation about overseas wire transfers and how they are tracked and protected. )

I sat there in silence for a moment contemplating the complexities of it all. I was beginning to wonder what the hell I’d actually put on my hot dog and why.
I thanked Tink and gathered my trash to leave.
“Don’t think you’re getting off so easy, Mr. Smart Guy,” said Tink. “You owe me.”
“Owe you?” I asked.
“A real lunch in a real restaurant with real tight-panted hotties!”
“Not on my budget,” I told him.
Tink sent me a scowl.
“What can I say,” I shrugged. “I’m a tight-ass.”
Tink folded the newspaper he was holding and back-handed it into my chest.
“I love a good tight-ass as much as the next girl,” he said. “You, however, are just plain cheap.”

CHAPTER TEN

I left Tink sitting on the bench in the park, despondent over his disappointing lunch. I was on the move. Man with a mission. I had to find Miranda. I had to find missing money. I had to find a bathroom. I slapped the newspaper Tink had giving me into my open palm. I even had reading material. Pretty good lunch, if you ask me.
The restrooms in the Regency Tower are quite impressive. Julius Ceasar himself never relieved himself in such style. Italian marble, frosted glass, and gold where gold had no right being.
I settled in with my newspaper. I opened right to where the sports section was supposed to be. Forty ads all featuring different characters from the Village People stared back at me.
“What the hell?”
I flipped to the front page and let out a groan. I was holding this week’s issue of Philly Pride, Philadelphia’s gay newspaper. I groaned again. What the hell was I supposed to do with this? I started wondering if I had any dry cleaning tickets jammed in my wallet. Desperate times calls for whatever the hell you can get your hands on to read. I sighed deeply and plunged ahead. I opened the paper and started glancing through, hoping against hope and at the same time terrified that I would find something to occupy my mind for the next ten minutes.
It wasn’t the face that caught my attention. It was the banner.
“Take that up the ass, bitch,” I said to no one in particular. “Daddy’s gonna have some fun tonight.”
I finished up and exited the stall. I nearly bumped into an elderly gentleman in a very expensive suit. He had just finished washing up and looked at me with clear disdain. I saw his eyes rest on the cover of the newspaper I was holding. I imagined what was going through his mind after hearing my in-stall commentary.
I did what any self-respecting hetero-sexual wiseass would do. I washed up, dried my hands on his expensive jacket sleeve and tipped him fifty cents.
I love this city!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In my hand was a goldmine, only better. What’s better than a goldmine? A goldmine dropped right into your lap. Or in this case, slapped into your chest.
It was only a goldmine in the figurative sense, but it was a treasure just the same. It was the kind of special moment that can create a legend. Its residual payoff down the line was incalculable, even if it didn’t actually have any immediate cash value.
The smile on my face began to hurt from my lips being stretched.
I was back in my office snug in my comfy chair, staring at my good fortune. The Philly Pride magazine lay open on the desk before me. The photo on page 5 was taken the week prior during Philadelphia’s Gay Pride Parade. It was a wide shot of dozens of marchers carrying signs and banners supporting their cause. There were signs supporting gay marriage, signs supporting equal rights for gays, and other epitaphs of the hetero-sexually challenged.
The one banner in particular, the golden nugget of the week, was a banner espousing the views of the gay community towards the current administration in Washington.
‘Just Say No to Bush and Dick.’ Nice.
But it wasn’t the pithy clever tagline that I trumpeted. It was the face.
It was an angry face. It was a disturbed face. It was the venomous face of a protestor, fist raised and mouth agape, spewing hatred to the masses. The photographer had captured the face in mid-spew.
But it wasn’t just the face. It was the placement of the face and its juxtaposition to the banner directly overhead. As though an allegory to the face below, the word captured just above the poisonous, rapturous face, was Dick. Poetic, don’t you think?
The face belonged to Kyler. Nice.
Looks like I have some banners of my own to make.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was closing in on 2am when I finally finished up my night’s dirty work. Philadelphia is known as the city of murals. There are over 2,400 murals up on the walls of Philly, some as high as 8 stories tall. Some murals are quite evocative, but none of them created the stir that my little gem was about to create.
I got a little help from my friend at the photography store down the street. I had him crop Kyler’s Gay Parade shot to prefect proportions. Kyler’s nasty face with the word Dick right above it like a caption. Nice.
He then made me a banner-sized blow-up. Then he made me a second banner-sized blow-up. Then he made me a third.
Kyler Vanderspeigle’s storefront is on the corner. He has two huge plate-glass windows along the front of the building, and one along the side.
I’d sprayed all three spa windows with clear acrylic. I’d slapped the banners up like wallpaper. And for that extra secure grip, I fastened the banner edges to the window with super glue. Nothing short of industrial-sized lacquer thinner and a six foot razor blade was scraping those puppies from the window.
Of course, I did all this on the INSIDE! I’d dressed up in my best Ninja Poet outfit, slipped into the spa through the storm cellar doors, and stealthily created my masterpiece.
And did I mention I super glued his front door again when finished? Piece de resistance, pardon the pun.
The next morning, Chestnut Hill was awakened to a big surprise. Like a scene from Times Square, Kyler’s five-foot tall face covered the entire storefront. Kyler two-dimensionally sneered out at the neighborhood, loud and proud, and larger than life.
It might not be art but Oh, I liked it!

Kyler arrived at his shop just before 10am to a big surprise. Passersby snickered as he desperately tried to get inside to remove the works of art generously left for him. I figured it would take him about ten minutes before he realized the doors were super glued again. His stunned brain would slowly make the connection and he would make a mad dash for the storm cellar doors leading to the basement.
It turns out that I accidentally sheared his padlock open while I was trying to slip in to the spa last night. I just so happened to accidentally have a spare padlock with me. Since I’d carelessly ruined his, the least I could do was leave him a replacement. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the poor guy’s spa open to vandals all night, could I? It just isn’t safe to keep your doors unlocked at night.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll give him the key.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The spa wallpapering job was the talk of the neighborhood the following day. It drew a crowd and was all the more gratifying because the front door to the spa had to be removed before Kyler could get inside. It took half the day for the crew to come work on the door. All Kyler could do was stand there and gawk with the rest of the passersby. Nice.
I strolled into the office at a little past 11am. That’s what I do when I’m pleased with my own cleverness. I stroll. Not strut, that’d be too cocky. Just the quiet confidence of a leisurely stroll to say ‘job well done!’
I was in the office a whole five minutes, when Addy was on the intercom. I hadn’t even had time to work up the nerve to ask if she’d made coffee yet and she was informing me I had a call on line one.
Addy is a study in contrast. She’d rather wear Chinese finger torture thingies than make me coffee, but she’ll be glad to inform me what line my call is coming in on. The model of efficiency. That ‘Line One’ is the only line doesn’t seem to enter into the equation. One of these days I’m going to get a second line installed just to throw her off.
I picked up the receiver and was immediately assaulted by the exuberant voices of five Martha Stewart wannabes who sounded as though they’d just won the lottery.
They loved the new window treatments at the spa.
Turns out, my favorite spa ladies had been talking and they all decided to go in as partners and open up their own spa. Nice. I’m betting they put that bastard Kyler out of business inside of six months. If I had any money of my own, I’d invest. But in my house my cat’s food taste’s like cat food.
I was able to get off the phone a few minutes later amid a cavalcade of thank-you’s and promises of free massages and facials. Hmm.
I made a cursory show at catching up on paperwork and paying some bills, and an hour later I headed out to have my head shrunk.
Twenty minutes later I was stuck on the world’s largest parking lot known as the Schuylkill Expressway. Typical. I had the local 70’s station on the radio and I couldn’t get what the spa ladies said out of my head. Free massages were nice, but facials? Was it wrong to think that sounded like porn? In my favorite cinematic excursions, women aren’t giving the facials, they’re getting them. These endeavors are usually accompanied by slow cheesy disco. I like disco. Boom, Chicka…
I nearly slammed into the car stuck in traffic in front of me. Day dreaming about porno in traffic. Jeesh! That’s it. When I get back to the office, I’m canceling my cable. When you start humming “boom-chicka, boom, boom” in the car while stuck in traffic, you know your watching too much porn.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The best thing that can be said about my shrink’s office is that it’s not in my neighborhood. That would just be wrong. I need a little distance in my intimacy. If I’m going to pour my heart out, divulging my deep darks for an hour every Thursday at 4pm, I don’t want to be running into you at the Farmer’s Market every Friday. Call me crazy.
DaVinchey Lee is a certified psycho-therapist, a certified hypnotist, a certified Zen master, and just plain certifiable. He’s nuts. But he gets me, so that’s half the battle.
His office is nestled away on Ionic Street, a little splash of a street tucked between Chestnut and Sansom at 23rd. Literally a stones throw from the Schuylkill River, Ionic Street is tiny, obscure, and nearly impossible to get to. At first glance, the block is in the dead zone for traffic because all roads lead away from the street. It took me 2 hours my first trip to navigate my way through the one-way streets. Turns out, Arch Street, six blocks away, is the nearest successful entry point onto 23rd that will bring you to Ionic.
At one of my first sessions I made the mistake of telling Lee they should change the name of his street to Ironic, since it houses an assortment of shrink’s offices, and all roads lead from there. I told him it was a metaphor for the beginning of all journeys. He asked me why I hated my mother so much.
Lee’s office is on the twelfth floor of a large nondescript grey building. The elevator in the building smells like old grease and moth balls and lurches more than the subway. The elevator’s certificate of operation posted on the elevator wall hasn’t been updated since leg warmers were all the rage.
DaVinchey’s office is done in oranges and yellows. It has Chinese symbols on the walls and a fake waterfall in the corner. He says it gives the aura of tranquility that is the center of Zen. If by that he means the aura of a Chinese massage parlor that offers washy-washy, mission accomplished.
DaVinchey Lee is Asian-American, five feet tall, with thinning black hair. His two inch thick glasses give him a perpetual squint. At least, I think it’s the glasses. The son of a Chinese shop merchant and a girl from Sedgwick, Kansas, DaVinchey was born in China but raised in the states. His mother and father had met in the mid-forties while his mother was in the South Pacific touring with Bob Hope and the USO. A little of this and a little of that and suddenly – baby makes three. It was a turbulent time. Back home, people were throwing their dishes out in the garbage because they were called “china”. Red sweaters were burned, and teachers went searching for another color of pen to grade their papers. Coming to Philadelphia, the parents decided they wanted to name their newborn son something that sounded American.
I guess it never occurred to the newbie parents that DaVinci was Italian. Ah, young love.
I started seeing DaVinchey Lee shortly after I took the bullet in the shoulder. I was angry, homicidal, and too damn much fun at parties. I needed perspective. I needed tranquility. I needed $85 a week less in my bank account.
I hated therapy when I first started. Now, it’s ‘Me Time’ in its regularly scheduled time slot. Hey, life is like driving through a shit storm. Therapy is my windshield wipers.
DaVinchey may be screwy when you get right down to it, but he got me through the rough stuff and I’m a better person for it. He even gently nudged me in the direction of my current occupation. He said I should take some small act of revenge to balance my chi. He said it would be therapeutic. Cathartic.
He was right.
Lately though, he’s been on this kick about Deets. I don’t know how it started but he won’t leave it alone. It’s becoming a problem.
Deets, more formally know as Detective Lois Dietrich, was my partner when I still wore the badge. We were partners up until the time of the shooting. She was there when I woke up in the hospital after surgery. She took it hard when I quit the force. After the shooting, all the rage and resentment dumped me into a bottle that was pretty deep. If it hadn’t been for Deets, I probably would have drowned.
I owe her a lot. My life.
We were partners. That means a lot. Now we’re friends. That also means a lot.
DaVinchey thinks there’s more. Something deeper. Something spiritual.
I told you he was certifiable. Sure she’s my best friend. Sure she’s smart, funny, and sexy as all get out.
Friends. Nothing more.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was past dinner time and I was famished. I couldn’t wait to get home, fire open a brewski and call for deliver-a-dinner Philly style. Zoning out in front of the tube was also very high on the priority list.
It’d been a long, semi-productive day. Sure I’d made a bunch of soccer moms happy, but I was getting nowhere fast on the whole Miranda thing. I needed a new angle. I needed a lead. I needed a double sausage and pepperoni pizza and a couple of six-packs. Hey, you only live once, huh? I’ll diet when I’m forty.
I stepped into my apartment. I hit the icebox and cracked open a cold one. I collapsed into my recliner and grab the phone. In Manhattan, they make reservations, in L.A. they do lunch. In Philly, we order pizza and cheese steaks. Being a tried and true Philadelphian, I feel it’s my civic responsibility to honor this sacred tradition. But when the pizza guy has you on caller ID and answers the phone “DS&P, Shadow?” you know you spend a little too much time praying to the take-out altar.
I hung up the phone and eased deeper into my recliner, letting the strains of the day melt from my body. OK, maybe melt isn’t exactly right. Subdue is more accurate.

After five beers and an hour and a half of soft porn, (I’ll cancel the cable tomorrow, I promise), I’d just about given up on the pizza delivery guy. I was tired and cranky. I was about to give in and call it a night when I heard a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I yelled.
I could smell the pizza a mile a way, but it wasn’t the thought of the tantalizing tomato sauce and melted mozzarella on a thick and chewy crust perfectly snug in a steamy cardboard box that grabbed my attention, it was the legs below.
Miranda Bay stood there in a black see-thru negligee from Victoria Secrets catalog, I get it for the articles, I swear, her legs a mile long. She held a pizza in one hand, and a six pack in the other. Every man’s dream. The salacious look in her eyes had my full attention. My hunger screamed for satisfaction, but I suddenly had no taste for pizza.
I took the pizza from her and frisbee’d it to the couch. The six-pack immediately followed. Miranda and I came together in a frenzied tangle of arms and lips, our hungry tongues devouring each other. Miranda pulled at the back of my tee-shirt, trying to pull it over my head with one hand, while the other tugged at my jeans. I wasn’t so dexterous. I was having enough trouble with her negligee using both hands and it didn’t even have buttons.
In seconds we were on the bed, our limbs flailing in frantic desperation. This girl sizzled like bacon ready to jump from the pan. I found myself holding on for dear life. Miranda threw me onto my back and straddled me. This was her thing. She loved to be in control. I had no problem whatsoever. My breathing grew heavy with each thrust. The swell of her breasts heaved with the rise and fall of her passion. I was starting to pant. Wheezing would be along any moment yet Miranda was like a champion race horse that was just getting started. A thoroughbred. Strong. Dangerous. Deadly.
Her hair whisked back and forth in time to her rocking hips. I was mesmerized. I was under her control and holding on for dear life.
“Breathe, big boy, breathe,” she teased coyly. “You need to get in shape. You used to be able to go for hours.”
I’m sure my face contorted into some kind of reply. I was doing my best to hang on for dear life. Truth is I was out of practice. The last time I had passionate sex, I was by myself.
Miranda picked up her pace. A bead of sweat slid down between her heaving breasts. I raised myself into her, searching for that bead, smelling her passion, feeling the tide swelling in both of us. She began to moan. Low, animal, sensual. My hands grabbed her hips and urged her thrusts. Deeper. Deeper. Her moans of pleasure came from deep within her throat. Her eyes blazed with desire. Faster. Faster.
Her breath came in short bursts, her hips in syncopation as our bodies slammed together rhythmically. Her moaning was louder now, more intense. More desperate. Release was a heartbeat away. Her cries longer, shriller, more insistent, ringing in my ears. My eyes rolled up into the back of my head. Her voice ringing…, ringing…,

I snapped my eyes awake. My cell phone was screaming for attention on the end table beside me. Miranda’s sweaty, writhing body chased from my dreams like an apparition.
I grabbed for my phone.
“McBride!” I answered half awake and wanting to get back to my dream.
It was Deets. She sounded tense.
“What?” I said in disbelief. “Shit!” “Fuck!” “I’m on my way.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The stately walls of the Bay mansion were awash in flashing blue giving the proud home a ghostly, garish quality. A dozen cop cars and another dozen unmarkies filled the long sloping driveway. The Crime Scene van sent a lurch through my stomach.
Deets made her way down the drive in my direction. I could see it in her face. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
“We received an anonymous call about a disturbance here at the property,” she said. She was all-business without a hint of emotion. Cops learn to shut down very early in the careers. It’s their superpower. It’s the only way to survive on the job.
“Cruiser answered the call at 10:15pm,” she continued. I tried to focus on what she was saying but I couldn’t pull my eyes from the swirl of blue washing across the portico.
“Uniform said the front door was ajar and he noticed blood on the walkway. He called for backup. Two officers entered the premises and found Wesley Acton Bay alone on the couch, in a daze, covered in blood.”
I started for the door and Deets held a hand out to stop me. She looked me in the eye for a moment before looking uncomfortably down at her shoes.
“I need to-”
“You don’t want to go in there, Shadow. Not yet.” Deets look at me again and I saw something had changed.
I looked her square in the eye again. Searching for an answer.
Deets looked off into the distance, gathering her thoughts before continuing.
“The uniforms said Bay was unresponsive, so one of them searched the house. He found blood on the marble staircase leading upstairs, blood on the rail, blood on the upstairs foyer…”
Deets pulled a pack of cigarettes from an inside pocket and offered one to me. I declined. Deets lit up.
“She’s not here, Shadow.”
I wasn’t sure what Deets was telling me.
“Uniforms found significant evidence of foul play, but no body.”
“No… body?”
“Bay’s boots are muddied,” said Deets. “Mud on the floor of the Mercedes, too.” Deets studied her shoes again. “No sign of Mrs. Bay.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Look McBride, something happened here. Something bad. There’s an awful lot of blood in the bedroom.”
“And you think…” I couldn’t even finish the thought, let alone the sentence.
“It looks to me like Bay killed his wife and dumped her body.”
I was having a hard time focusing. My head was starting to swim in time to the light show splashing across the scene. Then it struck me. There were a dozen cop cars here and a crime scene van. The only thing absent, other than a hearse from the coroner’s office, was the press. Wesley Acton Bay was a huge political figure in the city. He was a powerful man. He very well may be our next mayor. A probable homicide had occurred at his private residence, with Bay himself being the lead suspect, and not one member of the press was on hand nearly a half hour after the call had come through. Odd. Somebody called in a helluva favor to keep a lid on this, at least long enough to get a jump on the investigation. You can’t keep the press away forever, though. The vultures would be here soon enough. You could take that to the bank.
My eyes drifted over Deets’ shoulder to the two dark figures approaching. Deets caught my gaze and looked behind her. Detective Philip J. Robermann, a 17 year veteran of the force and recent addition to the rank of detective, and his partner Dick Johnson sidled up to us. I wasn’t particularly fond of either.
“Well,” I said. “If it isn’t the Show Brothers. Side and Freak!”
Robermann slid me a look that could kill before turning a less venomous look towards Deets.
“Detective, you’re wanted inside.”
There was a healthy level of mutual anti-admiration between Rubberman and me. You could say it bordered on loathing. Out and out hatred wasn’t far off. It all stemmed from a little misunderstanding we’d had while I was still on the force. He was a loud-mouthed asshole and I tried to get him to understand that. His shitheel partner was no prize either, but Rubberman was in a class by himself.
Deets began to make her way back up the long sloping driveway. I began to follow but was stopped in my tracks quickly by Rubberman’s outstretched arm.
“Fuck do you think you’re going, numbnuts,” Rubberman asked as authoritatively as the dill hole could muster. “It’s a crime scene, not a circus.”
“And yet they let a clown like you in,” I said.
Deets wisely intervened before things got ugly. “Cool your jets, Robermann. McBride’s with me.”

When you’re on the job and wear a badge, you become part of a fraternity. Every cop is your brother. That’s not to say brothers don’t fight from time to time. But for the most part, once a cop, always a cop. Since I had been one of them before, the inner circle was never that far out of reach. I wasn’t the most popular within the ranks, but I was at least tolerated by most and respected by some. And sometimes that’s enough. I needed to be here right now, and that was good enough to get me inside.
I followed Deets up the driveway, under the portico and crime scene tape, and stepped into the house. My stomach lurched at the crimson smear on the bright white of the door trim. We stepped through the foyer.
The cavernous living room opened out of the foyer like the maw of a canyon. The ceiling must have been 40 feet from the floor and the room was draped by the majestic winding marble staircase that wound its way upstairs.
Wesley Acton Bay sat alone on the antique Queen Anne sofa, head in his hands, looking at his feet but not seeing them. He was wearing mud-covered work boots to go with his five-thousand dollar custom-made Oxxford suit and his five-hundred dollar custom-made dress shirt.
Odd.
His shirt collar was unbuttoned and his silk tie hung from each side. None of the uniforms or detectives were actually speaking with Bay. It was obvious he was to be left alone until his attorney arrived.
I wanted to kick the smug bastard in the face. Only, he looked more disoriented than smug. I could see this narcissistic sonofabitch losing his temper, lashing out, and before he even knew what had happened…
It took everything I had not to drop him right there in front of a room full of cops.
Only then did I notice the blood. On him. Everywhere. If it hadn’t been for the lack of perceptible holes in his chest, you’d have sworn he was shot up by an Uzi. My head started to swim. I’m sure I swayed a bit because I felt Deets grab my upper arm to steady me.
“Shadow, maybe you should-”
“I need to see,” I said. “Need to help.”
We climbed the staircase together. Every step trepidatiously weighing me down more than the last. I felt like a condemned killer taking that last lonely walk into oblivion.
The smell hit us 20 feet from the room. That sickish-sweet coppery wave hit my nostrils and I knew that something heinous and vile had happened. I prepared myself for the worst. What I saw was worse than I could have imagined.
Pools of congealing blood covered the path from the bedroom door to the bed. Footprints in the blood looked like crimson die casts of a large men’s hiking boot. The bed was an expansive California King, obviously custom made, with a billowy canopy and a comforter in a snow-white lace duvet that was now mostly deep red and turning to black. The ornate carved wood headboard and wall behind it were splashed with blood in haphazard strokes as though a one-dimensional abstract artist had had an epileptic fit while slapping his paint onto his canvas.
I bent my head under the canopy and looked up at the underside. Deep red slashes sprayed nearly the whole underside. There was blood on the wall next to the bed, nearly ten feet away.
In all my years of police work, I have seen many horrendous things. I have never seen so much blood from one crime scene- so much blood from one victim. If this was, in fact, Miranda’s blood, exsanguination was clearly the mode of death. God only knew the instrument. I doubt she’d had an ounce of blood left in her body before Bay took her away to some makeshift earthen grave.
My knees nearly buckled. I’d seen enough. The smell of blood was penetrating my every pore, sickening my stomach. My head was reeling and I needed air. I needed to leave.

Deets quietly followed me out. We took the grand staircase back to the main living room. I was disconnecting, feeling out-of-body. I wanted to be somewhere far from here. I wanted to think of something happy, something wholesome. I didn’t want to think of the face of the woman who’d come to me for help just a few days before.
I was dimly aware of the eyes on me from all around the room. Uniforms and dicks alike. I’m sure word circulated pretty fast about my alleged history with the alleged victim.
Bay was still on the couch, head in hands. Hatred gleamed in my eyes. Fire burned in my heart. I wanted justice, old west style, and I wanted it quick. I felt my fists clench involuntarily. My feet changed course and I headed right for that slumping figure with one thing on my mind. I wanted him to pay. Pay for what he had done. Pay dearly.
The room spun, time slowed to a crawl. I watched him lift his head and look at me with a puzzled look on his face. I flashed onto the bedroom scene I had just witnessed. It was his blood, Bay’s blood, which needed to be spilled.
I saw myself approach and suddenly veer away from that pathetic bastard on the couch as Deets firmly guided me toward the front door.

We stepped out into the night, fresh air filling our lungs and clearing our heads.
“You OK?” Deets asked.
“Fucking peachy,” I said.

Hushed conversation floated on the air like a breeze. The press would be there any minute and the real circus would begin. But for now, hushed tones and conspiratorial nods filled the driveway.
A group of officers talked quietly among themselves as we approached.
“…fucking size of that house.”
“…heard she was a real piece of work”
“…drove the poor bastard mad.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. That rotten rich sonofabitch losses his temper and a good woman winds up dead, and these assholes are talking like she had it coming!
“:… there’s talk she was having an affair..”
“… never trust a rich bitch.”
“…gash with cash…”
My fist connected with the guy’s nose, crushing it under the force of the blow, before I even saw who’d said it. He fell backward onto his ass as blood poured from his ruined sniffer. It was Robermann.
How nice.
“What the fuck, McBride!”
Deets grabbed me firmly around the arm again and nearly hurled me down the remaining length of the driveway.
“What the hell was that?” she said when we got to my car. “What the hell do you think your doing?”
“Bastard deserved it,” I said.
“He’s a badge, Shadow. You know that. You just assaulted a cop in front of twenty other cops.”
“Let’s get a beer,” I said.
“You’re fucking nuts.”
“Just thirsty.”
“Well, I’m on duty.”
“Quit.”
“GET HIM THE FUCK OUTTA HERE, DEETS!” Robermann was on his feet, restrained by a handful of fellow officers. I wasn’t impressed. It was all for show. Robermann knew that if his boys let him go, he wasn’t taking me on. He was a pussy.
“I gotta get you outta here,” said Deets. “Gotta clear it with the captain first.”
“My hero,” I said.
“My ass,” said Deets. “Stay here with the car and don’t move a frickin’ muscle till I get back! You got me?”
“Got you.”
“Not a muscle!”
“Thanks Mom.”

Deets trundled back up the driveway and I watched her go. I knew that she was going to look back no less than twice to see that I was staying put.
A third of the way up the driveway, she looked back over her right shoulder at me. I waved. It seemed the polite thing to do. Maybe it was my defense mechanism kicking in. Another twenty yards or so, another glance over the shoulder. Predictable, or what. I waved again. Her eyes rolled skyward.
She looked back a third time just as she entered the house. I felt overwhelmed with the attention. She was my friend. She was looking out for me. It gave me the warm and fuzzies. I blew her a kiss. She gave me the finger and disappeared inside.

The gnawing in my belly had shifted downward and was now a gnawing in my bladder. Nature calls at the most opportune times.
I made my way around to the outer edge of the portico where the detective’s vehicles were parked haphazardly. Rubberman drove a shit-brown Impala. Unmistakable.
I’m not a violent guy by nature, but Rubberman had had it coming to him.
Talking that way about the vic¬– the missing person. I rubbed my bruised fist with a certain amount of satisfaction. I hope he needed plastic surgery. I take that back. The troglodyte was living proof that the transition of man from animal to human was NOT a smooth one. He’s always needed plastic surgery. Hopefully this time it’s medically necessary.
I slid around the back of Rubberman’s car, the infamous “brown bomber”, the car in which he earned his nickname. I did what any self-respecting protective ex-lover would do in a situation like this. A situation where her blood covered a square football field and some asshole had the nerve to besmirch her character. I popped his gas cap and relieved myself into his gas tank. That should work wonders on the fuel injectors, huh?
I finished up and zipped. I made my way back around to my car only to find a worried Deets waiting impatiently for me.
“Where the hell were you,” she asked.
“Somewhere I had to pee.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I stepped into my darkened foyer a half an hour later. Alone.
Deets had offered to stay with me a while but I declined. I didn’t need her pithy insights. I didn’t need her womanly concern. I didn’t need her understanding and compassion in the face of loss. I didn’t need her comfort. The comfort I needed was Southern and it came in a liter bottle.
It was going to be ugly and it was going to be deep. My inebriation was about to exist on many levels. I needed this multilayered plasterfication to drown out the vile face of guilt that threatened to overwhelm my thoughts.
I’d let Miranda down.
She’d come to me scared. She’d come to me hurt and vulnerable. She’d come to me for protection and the only protection I could think of came in a foil wrapper. I managed to think, somewhere in my mentally-stunted intellect, that coming to her rescue like some knight on a shining white steed, would win back her love. And I managed to insinuate she was the gold-digger everyone thought she was. I did everything but what she begged me to do.
Protect her.

The bottle felt good in my grasp. Strong. Robust. Right. Like embracing an old friend who just stepped off the train.
Nice. It was going to be a long, bleary night.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was after eleven the next morning when the ringing in my ear woke me up again. It had been a fitful, torturous night. Gone were the visions of arousing sexcapades with Miranda. I’m pretty sure those dreams were gone forever. They’d been replaced by dreams that were much darker. Sinister. There was blood and pain and just beneath the surface, its ugly head just out of plain view, was the worst of it all. Blame.
My head was pounding from the Bourbon tsunami crashing around inside of me. The phone was slicing through my head like a scalpel, but it was welcome just the same. Anything was better than the dreams.
I picked up the phone from its cradle and mumbled something that sounded like my name. It was Deets. She wanted me to come down to the station A-sap. Something about a ‘development.’ I told her to give me an hour. Now all I had to do was remember where the bathroom was and to scrape the Velcro off my tongue.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

An hour later I was across from Deets in her office at the Round House. The Round House is headquarters for the Philadelphia Police Department and takes it name from the building’s architecture which is pretty much round.
Deets pulled a manila file from her cabinet and slammed the cabinet so hard it agitated the pigeons in Love Park three-quarters of a mile away. I winced from the pain shooting through my head.
Deets dropped the crime scene photos on the desk in front of me. I winced again. The reality of the gruesome scene came flooding back. I steadied myself. Just looking at these images had my nose smelling copper.
“Bloodstains and bloodstain patterns are characteristic of the forces that have created them,” said Deets. “There are a series of what appears to be arterial gush stains, and interspersed among those are a series of erratic, cast-off stains.”
“Which means…?” I asked, thankful that my stomach was already empty.
“Which means,” said Deets. “That arterial integrity was compromised. The resulting blood gushes were shot to the wall with force by the victim’s pulse. These arterial gush stains are inconsistent, in and of themselves, because typically, arterial gush stains are relatively constant in size, and consistent in pattern.”
Deets pulled out a series of crime scene photos congruent with what she was illustrating. “They are also somewhat rhythmic,” she said. “They follow a trajectory that is usually constant. A falling body will produce an arc of arterial gush following the path of the body’s trajectory.” She pointed to the photos of Miranda’s bedroom again. “These are all over the place.”
“Suppose there was a struggle and the body was jerked around in a fight as the blood was being sprayed?”
“Then we would see this kind of asymmetry. However, we would also see breaks in the pattern.”
She showed me another file photo.
“If two people are struggling, chances are the spatter will be interfered with by the second party,” she said. “I don’t see evidence of that here. There is no discernible void space. If there had been a struggle, you would think at some point the attacker would have inadvertently positioned his body between the victim and the wall. This would “block” the blood trajectory and spatter the attacker.”
“Bay was covered in blood. Doesn’t that fit?”
“Yes, but there doesn’t seem to be any void area detectable on the wall.”
“What else?”
“Well,” said Deets, “the cast-off stains. If the perp got blood on his hand and flicked it off, it would result in a cast-off spatter. Again, the resulting spatter would be somewhat uniform if the action causing the spatter was repeated. Here, though,” Deets said, holding up a different photo and pointing to a particularly large area of splotches behind the head of the bed. “There appears to be nearly a hundred seemingly unrelated cast-off patterns.”
“A hundred?”
Deets nodded.
“Christ!”
“Tell me about it,” she said. “It’s almost as though Pollock were painting abstract.”
We both looked at the photo closely, Deets understanding what it was she was seeing and me seeing a mish mash of spots and what may have been the Big Dipper. Or maybe Orion.
“Here’s the kicker,” said Deets. “We triangulated out the best we could and it appears that, for the most part, the brunt of the spatter, both arterial and cast-off were projected from the center of the bed, about three feet from the wall behind the bed, where most of the spatter is.”
“And?”
“Well, if you go with the idea that there was a struggle, and that is why the spatter patterns are so erratic, it begs the following questions. Number one – why is there almost zero blood spatter on the hardwood floor at the foot of the bed. All it would take is one slight turn during the struggle and blood would fly over the edge of the bed and hit the floor.”
I shrugged.
“And “B”, why is there not a single transfer stain anywhere on the wall or back of the bed?”
I shrugged. Again. It was becoming habit. It was like talking to Columbo.
“Not a one?”
“Nothing, zip, zilch, nada, no how,” said Deets.
“Nothing,” I said in affirmation.
“Not even a smudge on the bed post,” she said. “Never saw anything like it.”

Inconsistent blood spatter, muddy boots, missing money… and my head was throbbing from the four-alarm hangover. I’d had enough for one day. I needed to go home. I needed aspirin. I needed a drink. I needed a greasy cheese steak with fried onions and pepperoni. There may even be cheese fries in my not-too-distant future.

Carl Weatherby, the District Sergeant ambled his way over to me. He was tall, dark, and menacing on the job – a puppy dog off. Weatherby was one of the good guys. We were pals back when I was still wearing a badge. We stayed friends for a while after I left. Carl and his lovely wife Kate would have me and Miranda to their house for Sunday barbecues. They thought we were good together. That all ended when Wesley Acton Bay came into the picture and Miranda dumped me into the nearest liquor bottle.
Weatherby stood beside me and gave my shoulder a warm squeeze.
“I’m sorry about Miranda, Shadow,” he said. “And this.” Carl folded a document into my hand and gave my shoulder another squeeze. “Kate and I miss you at the barbeques.” He gave me a sympathetic smile before heading off to do what sergeants do.
I watched him leave. I opened my hand and looked at what he’d placed there. It was a court summons for assaulting a police officer. I chuckled. I crumpled it up and stuffed it into my shirt pocket.
“Figures.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I stepped out into the blistering bright early April afternoon wishing I had a pair of RayBans or better yet, blindfolds. I tired to ignore the slicing pain behind my eyes.
Deets had filled me in on Bay, who’d been pleading his innocence while his high-priced lawyers worked their lawyerly magic to get him sprung. There was no body, so technically there had been no crime committed. The cops could only hold Bay for 24 hours without charging him, and they couldn’t charge him for a crime they weren’t technically sure had taken place.
Sure they had blood. But they weren’t even sure yet it was her blood. DNA would take some time. Meanwhile, they needed more evidence to hold Bay. Like a body. Or at least a motive.
A motive.
Miranda had mentioned missing money. Wire transfers.
When it comes to following the yellow brick road of murder trails, money is the path most frequently traveled.
When I was a green ‘boy in blue’, a street-smart savvy sergeant once told me, “when all else fails, follow the money.”
Seems like damn good advice to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

(maybe Shadow goes to the fancy schmancy mainline bank where Miranda and Bay did their transactions. Shadow can make a crack about the hoity toity café lattes supplanting the typical lollipop fare at the working class banks. His attempts at gaining any information from the bank manager are met with a sneer and being politely shown the door by the six foot four “head of security”. Shadow comments on the lack of a visible neck to rest the “head” of security on top of.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Having been shown the door by the head (and no neck) of security, I made my way down the walkway to the parking area, wincing at the sight of my car in comparison to the others in the lot. A Hunter-Green Jag and a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow made my car stick out like a mangy mutt on stage at a dog show. There was a Lexus SUV nearby and a Hummer 2 sparkled in the midday sun dry-docked just a few spaces down. Judging by the sheer size of the vehicles, it was plain to see the owners were definitely overcompensating for something, although I’m sure their “shortfall” was not monetary. Then again, maybe even the Main Line has its soccer moms.
My cell phone chirped, shattering the peaceful tranquility of the wealthy air. It was Deets.
“Yo!”
“Just thought you’d like to know,” said Deets with an air of resignation. “Bay was let loose.”
“I expected as much.”
“His lawyers had him sprung a couple of hours ago.”
“I see.”
“No body. No witnesses. Not enough to hold him until the DNA reports come back.”
I thanked Deets for keeping me in the loop, and hung up. I was disgusted, frustrated, and gassy. Time to call it a loss of a day and head home to a TV dinner and some Southern hospitality. Maybe it’s not too late to have my cable turned back on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I stopped in to the office momentarily to check on things. Specifically, I needed to check to see if that bottle of bourbon I’d left behind the file cabinet was still there. Sometimes things just needed checking.
I entered the outer office and Addy was manning her battle station, cigarette perched precariously, phone jutting out from her left ear.
Nice.
Some people in life put their nose to the grindstone. Addy puts her ear to the telephone. That’s just who she is.
“So I says, ‘Hey Romeo, if it leaves your pants it leaves them for good,’” Addy said into the phone.
I did a mental eye roll. I left Addy a quick note asking her to call to get my cable turned back on. I left the note on the untouched keyboard in front of her, and entered the quiet confines of my entrepreneurial oasis.
I went straight to the file cabinet in the far corner of the room. I peered behind, hopeful. It was dark, but I could barely make out the distinct shape wedged behind.
“Fuckin-A!” I said. “I’m going to drink till I puke my eye balls out,” I said aloud, and I meant it.
I shoved my arm behind the cabinet and stretched, trying to reach the bottle. I was reaching for my salvation. My escape from the world, at least for the next 12 hours or so. And since I was too damn much fun at parties when I got this way, ‘Shadow McBride…. party of one.’
I tried wedging my arm down as far as it would stretch without actually detaching from my shoulder. My fingers were almost there. Almost.
“I’m going home and I’m gonna drink and watch porno and I’m gonna jerk off till I blister,” I said to the walls.
Sounded like a plan.
I still couldn’t quite reach the bottle. I could barely see it. I needed more light. I pulled my arm free and turned toward the light switch.
The spa ladies were wedged together on the couch. Again.
Damn.
Beehive was holding a bottle of lotion out to me.
“It has aloe,” she said.
Christ!
“Thanks,” I said and I took the lotion from her. What the hell, it had aloe. The ladies giggled and en masse, they were off the couch and I was immediately surrounded by grateful verbally incontinent blobs of affection. There were hugs and kisses and thank-you’s coming from every direction. Not bad, eh?
“What’s all this,” I asked.
“We just wanted to tell you how much we appreciate all you did for us,” said Beehive.
“In my business, that’s usually done monetarily,” I said.
For the next five minutes I was repeatedly told how great I was, how clever I was, how much I showed that rat bastard, and if it hadn’t been for me they’d have never had the guts to open their own spa. Of course, they made sure they reminded me about all the free massages and facials coming my way. I swear it still sounds like porn to me.
In the distance I heard the phone ringing. Moments later the happy melee was interrupted by the opening of my office door. I looked up and Addy was standing in the doorway, a grave look on her face. My smile evaporated like sweat in the Sahara.
“That was Deets,” said Addy. “You better get out to the Bay house.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Once again I made my way up the long sloping drive leading to the Bay mansion as blue lights swam over the face of it. Deets met me at the door.
“You got a body,” I asked expectantly. The lump in my throat was the size of a cheesesteak.
Deets nodded. “Bay.”
“Bay?”
“He ate the end of a shot gun,” she said. “Left an innocuous note, couldn’t live with himself, yada yada.”
I felt emotions swimming around in my stomach. The slightest bit of relief it wasn’t Miranda’s body that was found, yet at the same time, understanding that if Bay’d killed himself, then surely Miranda was already dead.
We stepped inside the foyer area. Bay was sitting on the couch, his neck thrown back, his face half blown off. The shot gun was sitting upright between his legs against the couch. Bay’s hand dangled loosely from the trigger guard. There was an elongated oval of blood spatter on the marble floor a few feet behind the couch. One shot shopping, no do-overs in this game.
There was a prescription medicine bottle on the end table beside Bay. The bottle cap was off to the side and there were white pills scattered about.
“Xanax,” said Deets following my gaze. “Not sure how much he took. Tox report will take a couple of days. I guessing he pounded quite a few, though.”
“His pills?”
“Apparently a political campaign can be stressful. Who knew.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my dear old ex-friend Carl approach.
“Hanging in, Shadow?” he asked.
“Same old, same old,” I said.
“Hate to be the bearer, but you’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “Guys ain’t too happy about you assaulting one of their own, even a shit-burger like Rubberman.”
I looked over Carl’s shoulder. Rubberman was standing in a small group of badges, sneering my way. His face was all taped up and his eyes were black and blue.
Nice.
I sent Rubberman a playful wink.
“McBride. Shocked to see you standing upright,” Rubberman sneered. “Go crawl back into the bottle you fell out of.”
Touché.
Deets held my arm in case I had any funny ideas. “Shadow, why don’t you wait for me outside,” she said. “And stay the hell outta trouble!”
“Thanks Mom.”

I made my way outside. Too many thoughts were swirling around my head like a whirlpool of regret. I was having trouble sorting things through. I needed to chill. I needed a mental diversion.
I found a nice bench to take a load off, and decided on a bubblier course of action.
I made my way around the side of the house to look for the cars. There it was. The big brown bomber. I popped a packet of Alka-Seltzer from my pocket and opened the gas cap on Rubberman’s car. I dropped the tablets inside.
“Oh what a relief it is,” I said. Seems I had a funny idea after all.

I sat down on a bench in the garden again and stared up at the stars. Deets sat down beside me a few minutes later.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Deets. “There’s still the question of the body. There’s inconsistencies in the blood spatter, and…”
“Bay splashed more blood on the wall for effect, so what.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I dunno,” I said. “Why not. Make it look more gruesome. Maybe he thought no one would suspect the mayor-elect of something that heinous.”
Deets shook her head. “I hate adding two and two and getting twelve.”
“Math is simple. Bay is screwing Tryst. Miranda finds out and threatens to expose him and ruin his career. He takes her out. He feels the guilt afterwards, and offs himself?”
Deets wasn’t buying it. “What about the money?”
“Bay took it. He was in the political battle of his career and needed the extra funds for the campaign.”
Deets shook her head again. “There’s more.”
“More?”
“More missing money,” said Deets. “Seems there have been some fairly large withdrawals from the campaign fund, too.”
“Maybe Miranda not only found out about the affair, but was blackmailing him for it?”
It was plausible, but again Deets wasn’t buying.
“There’s more,” she said again.
“There always is,” I said, letting out a deep sigh.
“Blast like that has a certain amount of blow back.”
“And?”
“There appears to be void space in the blowback.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Deets nodded. “I’m thinking Bay had help pulling the trigger.”
“Shit,” I said, because that’s all I could think to say. My mind tried to wrap itself around what Deets had just told me.
“Tryst?”
Deets shrugged. “Working for me.”
I pondered for a moment, but it was my turn to find the math not working.
“I don’t see her for the doer,” I said.
“Well, someone’s pulling the strings and leaving the bodies behind.”
“I guess we’ll find out who when we find the end of the money trail,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I woke up the next morning with the unfamiliar feeling of a clear head. I threw on some jeans and headed out for a walk. I needed to think. I needed a chocolate doughnut and coffee but was going to settle for some fresh air and the comforting babble of a brook.
I made my way down Springfield Avenue, hung a right at the fork and a half a mile later ended up in Valley Green’s parking lot.
Valley Green is an historic restaurant smack dab in the middle of nowhere with nothing but trees, a creek, and a walking path in the general vicinity. The food is good, the view is great, but today it was all about Forbidden Drive.
Forbidden Drive used to be an exclusive road in the early part of the last century. Prominent houses rose in grandeur above the banks of the Wissahickon. Today, the houses are gone, the Wissahickon not much more than a trickle of a duck pond, and the road hasn’t scene a car since the 1950’s. Closed to traffic, Forbidden Drive has become an exercise track for the outdoorsies of the area. For me, it’s my favorite place to think outside the john.
There has to be someone else. Has to be. It’s the only thing that makes everything fit. Supposing Tryst was having an affair on Bay? Would that even count as an affair? Tryst has a lover, and she’s tired of being the brains behind the political brawn and never getting the limelight. She wants out. She starts to embezzle from the campaign kitty.
Bay catches on. He threatens to expose her. She kills Miranda and with her lover’s help, disposes of the body. She frames Bay to discredit him if he goes to the cops about the money. Afterwards, she thinks better of it and offs Bay, making it look like a suicide.
This theory has more holes than Swiss fricken’ cheese!
OK, Bay and Tryst are in on it from the beginning. Bay steals his own money, they kill Miranda, win a political race as a diversion, all so they can run off together with the money he had in the first place. Tryst decides to kill Bay to keep the money for herself.
It’s no wonder I’m in therapy.
Let me think. Let me think. Is there someone else? I just keep coming back to Tryst. Tryst embezzled the money because she’s tired of playing second fiddle. She wants to step up to the big boys plate and take herself a swing. She kills Miranda and frames Bay. She kills Bay and makes it look like a suicide. Miranda’s gone. Bay’s gone. Tryst gets the money. Only, I can’t see Tryst being dumb enough to think she’d get away with it.
Also, how’d she get Miranda’s body out of the Bay house by herself. If it’s Tryst, she had help. The only question is, who? Bay? Or someone else.

It was late afternoon. The sun was on its daily descent into oblivion. The shadows were lengthening and the trail was getting busy with the nine-to-fivers getting in a quick run before dinner. I’d been at it for hours and my feet hurt. I was starving and I needed something greasy chased with something bubbly.
I made my way back out of the park, back to the office.
I pulled up out front of the office to find Addy sitting out on the stoop looking pissed off about something.
“What’s up,” I asked.
“Seems your landlord and the spa owner Kyler are best friends,” she said.
“And?”
“And you’ve been evicted from the office.”
“What?”
“And your apartment.”
“He can’t do that!”
Addy glanced over her shoulder at the heavy duty padlock on the door.
“Mr. MasterLock says differently.”
“Fucking bastards.” I kicked at the kick plate on the padlocked door. I figured that was what the kick plate was there for. “What about my stuff?”
“Thermopolous says he’ll be by on Saturday to let you get your things. Have a truck ready. You get one shot. Come Sunday, your shit hits the pavement.”
Thanos Thermopolous was third generation American, but first generation asshole. He owned half the real estate in Chestnut Hill and was the reason a house going for $300K in Chestnut Hill was worth half that anywhere else in the city. He was a stain. A greedy, beedy-eyed, Grecian-formula Greek with bad skin and a worse disposition. That he even had friends came as a complete shock. That the little squeak Kyler was among those considered friends, just simply blew the mind.
I sent Addy home with a promise to call her when I had things figured out. I took her place on the stoop.
I was hungry. I was pissed. I was homeless. But far be it for me to take this lying down, no matter how tired I was.
This called for desperate measures. And desperate measures called for… well, desperate, uh… whatever. I knew just what this job needed, and just where to find her.
Pastorius.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Pastorius Park sits nestled in the west side of Chestnut Hill surrounded by trees and ludicrously large 150 year-old stone mansions. Chestnut Hillers love their parks. Chestnut Hillers also love their dogs. So it’s by no happy accident that Pastorius Park is unofficially “Dog Park”. The park is a rompfest for all the neighborhood pooches, as well as home to every species of canine poop on the planet.
I walked west on Willow Grove one block to Roanoke and turned right. I tried to kid myself that the fragrance wafting on the breeze was rich loam, knowing full well it was rich pooch poop. Someone had told me once that odor was particulate. If you could smell it, it had mass and the mass was in your nose. Best not to think of it. I hate knowing things.
I crossed over Abington and stepped into the park. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all I stepped into. I groaned and looked down at my shoes. At least it wasn’t fresh. I found a nice thick tree root sticking out of the ground and scraped the Rockpoop off my Rockports. The high yipping shrill of a tiny dog with a Napoleon complex snapped my attention away from the feces pieces.

I guess it stands to reason that if every dog has its day, every dog park surely must have its own dog lady. Around these parts, Barbara Quint is that lady.
Barbara Quint is a bowling ball of a woman who looks like a bad science experiment to clone a schoolmarm with a Canadian Lumberjack went very wrong. With a face full of Botox Maximus to go along with the glaring red overstuffed fish lips and black, permanent-marker slashes for eyebrows, she carried a vacant yet slightly sinister scowl. Add in the wacky hard-to-control mullet and you get the overall impression of ‘all business out front, all party out back. Talk about your makeover emergency!
And then there’s the dogs.
Barbara Quint has had dozens of dogs in her time, but only two currently. A brick-colored Daschund named Frank because she claims the dog looks just like her ex-husband, and a grayish miniature toy poodle named Catch-up that’s always lagging behind. That the neighbors call her Barbie Q and she goes nowhere without her Catch-up and Frank seems to be a joke that is lost on her.
I tiptoed around the landmines and approached. Barbie Q was still obviously a firm believer that stripes and plaids were bedfellows and “tacky” and “gaudy” were brand names. Her extremely ample bosom has migrated so far south over the years that she’d have to lift her skirt to get beads at Mardi Gras. Ugh, mental picture, mental picture! I hate when I do that. This is a woman who the fashion police run screaming from.
“Skippy!” she said.
I groaned. Did I mention she also used to change my diapers?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Barbie Q has lived in Chestnut Hill forever. No one knows how old she really is. My guess puts her somewhere in the Triassic era. Barbie Q has always had money, and has lived alone with her dogs since as far back as I can remember. No one in the neighborhood has any recollection of her ex-husband Frank. If he did, in fact, exist, he must have died, or the marriage ended in divorce long before I was even born.
Back when I was a kid, Barbie Q, who never had any kids of her own, would occasionally do a little babysitting for the parents of well-behaved children. Though I was never to be confused with well-behaved, Barbie Q liked me anyway and made my parents the exception.
I was ten. Barbie Q had been enjoying a picnic lunch in Pastorius Park with her pooches. I was playing touch football in the park with a couple of the neighborhood kids. The tallest of the bunch, a bully of a twelve year old, thought it would be fun to harass the poor woman a bit. He started sending pass plays in Barbie Q’s direction. We’d run about ten yards or so, turn, and look for the pass. Several errant pass attempts landed right in the middle of Barbie Q’s picnic set-up, nearly hitting Barbie Q and getting her dogs so riled up they strained against their leash trying to get at the poor kid who’d been sent on the ill-conceived pass route. The bully kept giggling in the huddle after every errant throw. I didn’t think it was a bit funny.
We huddled up. The bully gave us a new play. Little Robbie was to run right at the picnic set-up. The bully would throw the ball a few feet away and while the old woman was distracted, Robbie was supposed to grab the bully a sandwich.
Little Robbie nearly wet his pants. I volunteered.
I didn’t know Barbie Q personally. At least I didn’t know that I knew her. She’d babysat me a bunch of times when I was a baby when my Mom’s own mother had been in and out of the hospital. Turns out Barbie Q had changed my diapers more times than I was comfortable knowing about. Not that I had any memory of her or any of it. But that was then. This was now.
I was getting angry. I didn’t like what was going on. This poor old woman was just trying to spend a nice lunch at the park with her pooches. She wasn’t bothering anyone, but here was some twelve-year old jerk trying to mess with her day because he had nothing better to do. The bully was a creep and a show-off. I didn’t take to kindly to his type and was about to let him know it. Sure he had three inches and 20 pounds on me. It’s all about the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight.
We broke huddle and I scanned the ground on my way to the line of scrimmage. There! Still hot and steamy. I bent over and grabbed a mushy handful. I was ten. Ten year olds can do that. No big.
The bully yelled Hike! I ran full speed toward Barbie Q. I dived into her picnic area head first. She let out a startled shriek. I winked and showed her my hands. Her face crinkled up distastefully. I quickly grabbed a turkey sandwich and let the contents slide out. I scrapped as much of the fresh pooch poop off my hands and onto the bread. I looked Barbie Q right in the eye. For a second, I froze. I looked the woman right in the eye and felt instant terror grip me. I was scared to death. I had the sudden vision of a witch cackle emitting from her crooked mouth and her turning me into something awful like a slug, or a toad, or a schoolteacher.
But all she did was wink.
The grip of terror broken, I winked back and left in a hurry with my new tasty delight.
Back in the huddle, the bully was nearly peeing himself with laughter. I jogged up to the huddle.
“Watcha get me, loser,” the bully sneered.
“Peanut Butter,” I said. “New kind of Skippy. Extra chunky”.
I tackled the bully right there in the huddle. I tried to defy the laws of physicality by shoving an entire pooch-poop sandwich down the throat of a stunned twelve-year old with nary a glass of milk in sight.
The other kids eventually pulled me off the bully. He got up of the ground, dazed and angry. I thought he was going to beat the ever-loving crap out of me. But something amazing happened. He looked so ridiculous standing there with dog crap smeared all over his face, and bits of Wonder bread stuck to his cheek, the rest of us burst out laughing. Then, the bully burst into tears and ran. Game over!
Amid the whooping and back slapping from the other kids, I looked over toward Barbie Q and her dogs. She gave me the thumbs up. I smiled. That was all there was to it.
I’ve been Skippy ever since.
Nearly 25 years later, on some level, we still look out for each other now and again. She’s like that one aunt in the family that no one remembers exactly how they are related.
“What kind of mess are you in this time?” Barbie Q asked, slamming me back to the present. Her one eye-brow was arched accusatorily.
My shoulders slumped. I took a deep breath and told her everything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

An hour later I was on my way. I had gathered nearly ten pounds of dog poop and was a man on a mission. First stop, Thermopolousville.
The man had no right to butt in. Had no right to evict me. Had no right to include himself in our little triangle of revenge. Sure, I had poked my nose into the dealings between Kyler and the spa ladies. That was different. I was standing up for those being taken advantage of. What I did was noble. Even if I did get paid for it. But Thermopolous was standing up for someone who was NOT an innocent. Kyler had started it. Now Thermopolous was just as no good as Kyler was because he picked the wrong side to back. And now he was going to pay.
The old “Pyrotechnic-pouch-of-pooch-poop-on-the-porch” routine was the call of the day. Only, this was the burning bag of crap on steroids. Ten pounds of flaming feces. Nice.
Thermopolous lived just off Chestnut Hill Avenue in the far west corner of Chestnut Hill backed up against Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon.
His home was enormous. His home was stately. His home was obscene. His home was gated. Damn!
So much for the poop-on-the-porch! I’d have to scale a ten foot iron gate, sneak past security cameras, and dance around land mine motion sensors just to get to the porch. Who was this guy? Rumsfeld?
Dejected, I sloughed the bag of poop into my trunk and slammed the lid down. Crap! I’d have to come up with something special for Thermopolous. Something sneaky. Something brilliant. Something that didn’t require breaking into the Pentagon.

I made my way back to Pastorius with my head hanging anywhere but high. Barbie Q met me at the corner.
“Forgot about the gate, huh,” she said.
“Who lives in a house like that?”
“Rich people,” she said. “Rich people who got rich off the backs of others and not themselves.”
“Huh,” I said in agreement.
“And celebrities,” she added.
“Of course,” I said.
She patted my shoulder. “You’ll never have to worry about living in a house like that, Shadow.”
I wasn’t sure if that was meant to make me feel better.
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Rita’s Water Ice,” I said. Mmm. Vanilla and chocolate frozen custard in a sugar cone. God damn delightful!
“I meant about your apartment.”
“Oh,” I said, slamming back to the gravity of my current predicament. “Dunno.”
“You’re moving in with me,” she said triumphantly.
“Huh?”
“I have a vacancy right across the street here.”
I looked up and noticed the ‘For Rent’ sign for the first time. The house was a corner property right on Roanoke at Abington.
“You can have the whole house,” she said. “Top floor is the master bedroom and guest room, middle floor is the living room, dining room and kitchen. Bottom floor is the office. Dr. Batley used to rent it until he moved his practice on campus at the hospital.”
“I don’t know how successful you think I am, but I could never afford all this.”
“You’ll pay me what you paid Thermopolous.”
“But…”
“And every once in a while you’ll take Frank and Catch-up for a walk when my goiter’s acting up.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said and I meant it. I had no idea what a goiter was.
I thought about the offer. Sure they were great digs. Sure she could get four times as much in rent. Sure it was too good a deal to pass up. Sure I was already thinking of a way out of having to walk her dogs.
Barbie Q and I had a special relationship. It was like that of a distant aunt you’d bump into every once and a while. We didn’t keep in touch regularly, but every now and again our paths crossed and always in a positive way. Having her as my landlord, however, was a totally different story. A million reasons why I shouldn’t take this apartment instantly popped into my head. The fresh smell of pooch poop on a warm Sunday morning; the army of flies visiting during an afternoon barbeque, every fly having dog poop on their feet; the cascading murmur of barking dogs drifting through the open window on a lazy Saturday morning just the tip of the iceberg. All I had to do was open my mouth and any number of them would come streaming out.
Barbie cut through the awkward silence. “Think on it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Good things come to those too impetuous to wait. That’s my motto. Since Poop Park crapped out, I needed a new direction. Something simple. Something basic. Something slick. Little John Connor was just the man to see.
Little John Connor was a fifty-something, three hundred-pound adult video store owner with huge jowls, ruddy skin, and a Neanderthal-ish brow that threatened to explode perspiration all over you when he squinted, which he did perpetually.
John used to run a cheese steak shop on South Street until the day his veins nearly solidified and his heart nearly exploded from his steady diet of Philly’s favorite.
Six-months in a hospital bed and a quadruple bypass convinced John to grease his way out of the cheese steak business and slip into a something a little less artery-clogging.
Passyunk AVE. Passyunk Adult Video & Entertainment. Nice. Nothing says adult entertainment like Passyunk AVE.
John nearly swallowed me in a bear hug as soon as I stepped through the door. I took a moment to recover and made sure no bones were broken.
John’s “video” store was a megaplex of adult entertainment. The store carried everything an adventurous adult could desire except, oddly enough, videos. The shelves along one long wall were replete with games, toys, edible clothing, leather, latex, and the latest in “stainless steel wristwear.”
The opposite wall displayed the DVD’s. Thousands of titles were on display. There was a $10 rack, a two-for-$25 rack, a $39.95 rack and a whole entire corner for “box sets”.
My eyes skimmed the titles. Moulin Spooge, Ten Stupid Rules For Doing My Teenage Daughter, Fantastic Foreplay, American Booty, Bare-Wench Project, Star Whores – Revenge of the Quiff. To the right, a host of gay movie titles were on display; Brokebutt Mounting, My Big Fat Greek Pecker, Crouching Tiger’s Hidden Member, Good Will Humping, The Patriot’s Missile, Hairy Putter and the Gobbler of Fire, The Back-door Boys, The Molar Express, and Glory-hole Road. It seemed the days of the “Debbie Does…” porno was a thing of the past. Hollywood porno spoofs were the rage.
The far wall had the rubber. Nice.
I gave Little John a quick briefing on what I had in mind. He smiled knowingly and handed me a whopper.
I looked the item over and felt fear. It was scary. It was veiny. It was the most intimidating dildo I had ever seen. Not that I’d seen that many, but this was a doozey. This thing would make a horse envious.
The Destructor. Yikes.
It was fourteen inches of soft, non-porous, anti-bacterial Poly-Melt material. A full three inches thick! Unique and sizeable. It weighed nearly five pounds! They should have called it The Crippler.
Did I mention it was purple.

Ten minutes and two possible cracked ribs later, I bid adieu to Little John with my lone special parcel tucked protectively under my arm. Ok, there may have been a DVD or two in there as well.
The Destructor. Simple. Basic. And with the right water-based lubricant, slick.

I had a few other things to do on my to-do list, not the least of which was figuring out where I was going to call home for now. But first I had to stop by the men’s shop to pick up a pack of boxers, and I had a work of art to create at the local print shop. Later tonight I’d find out if my little plaything lived up to its name.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Chestnut Hill Hotel is over 140 years old and sits at the bend in the road that separates the northern “upper” half of Chestnut Hill from the southern “lower” half. It’s charming, Victorian, homey, and for the next couple of days, home.
Since everything I owned that was not in my car was locked up in my office and apartment, I had very little in the way of luggage. I had to get through the next two days with minimal comforts of home. I was banking on a Chestnut Hill Hotel complimentary toothbrush to be in my near future.
I parked in the back parking lot, stepped into the cute little gourmet grocer in the Farmer’s Market behind the hotel, grabbed a few necessities, and made my way into the hotel.
The front desk was manned by a twenty-something young man in a blue polo shirt with the hotel crest emblazoned on the left pocket. His attention was currently otherwise engaged by a silvery-blue haired woman clutching a couple of hotel pillows to her chest.
“I’m sorry Ma’am, but these pillows are brand new,” said the twenty-something clerk.
“But these pillows are too poofy,” she said, squeezing the pillows in her arms like an accordion player on speed. “They’re too bouncy.”
My eyes and the eyes of the clerk met. In that instant, we both wished she’d stop bouncing the pillows because her ample bosom was doing most of the bouncing. When suckers that big migrate that far south, women need to do a better job of harnessing them to keep people from getting seasick in the waves.
“Don’t you have any better pillows?”
“As I just stated, Ma’am, they are brand new!”
“I’m going up to my room,” she said with an air of finality. “How long will it take to get flatter pillows?”
“About five years,” said the clerk. Nice.
The oscillating octogenarian left the desk area in a mild huff. If she truly wanted flatter pillows, all she had to do was sleep without a nightgown.
Mental Picture, Mental Picture! I hate when that happens.

Five minutes later I was nestled away in my hotel room. I had clean boxers. I had artwork. I had free cable. I had coffee. I had chocolate.
What could be sweeter?

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was a little after one in the morning and I was ninja-poet on a mission. This time I had help. The Destructor.
I’d completed my work concerning the spa ladies. Fun was fun, but the job was over. But Kyler wasn’t going to roll over for just anyone except maybe a Chippendale. He’d taken the situation into his own grubby little hands and upped the ante. He’d used his connections and made me homeless, office-less, and for the moment, secretary-less. I could sleep on a bench if I had to, but answering my own phones… that’s where I draw the line. It wasn’t business anymore. It was personal. And that calls for the personal touch.
If I’d been a betting man, I would have wagered that after the ‘banner’ job, Kyler would have found his storm cellar door lock had been changed and, instead of sawing through it, and replacing it with his own, opted on generous amounts of acetone on the glued front doors to regain access. I’d have won that bet.
Jeesh, he made things so simple.
I slid the key into the storm cellar padlock and viola! True love! It was almost as if the key and lock had been made for each other.
I made my way through Atheneum to the far wall adjacent to the plate-glass store front. The wall was all black with silver trim. It felt like the Oakland Raiders locker room, only it smelled better. The wall was broken up by a single door leading to Kyler’s office. The door was also black and would be virtually unnoticed if it hadn’t been for the word Office etched in thin silvery script on the door.
Even with the thin silvery script, the door was barely noticeable. It needed something. Something to help it stand out.
Something purple.
I unfurled the life-size George Bush poster I had made at the print shop earlier that day. A few well-placed dabs of ethyl cyanoacrylate, and old Dubya was loud and proud and life-size on Kyler’s office door.
Hope George likes purple.
I cut a circular hole in the general vicinity of George’s zipper. A few strategically-placed drops of pure gripping delight on the wood of the door showing through and Dubya was 3-dimensional. Pin the penis on the poser! Fun.
What’s a dildo without lubrication, though? The Destructor was no ordinary piece of rubber. It needed the spotlight. It needed to shine!
I applied generous amounts of water-based lubricant to The Destructor. Shine it must! It would also make it impossible for Kyler to grab the dildo and yank it off! The door, that is. I could see him trying to grip the massive protrusion to pull it free from his door. The harder he gripped, the more it would slip.
I love my job!
Next, I adjusted one of the track lights in the ceiling so it shined down on old Dubya like a spot light.
Masterpiece.
Who knows, maybe Kyler would decide to give old Dubya a go!
Yeesh! Mental picture again! I really need to stop doing that.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I spent the better part of Friday holed up in my hotel room. It was comfy and cozy and I was in the mood for contemplation. Did I mention the free cable?
I contemplated where to go next with the Bay case. We had no leads on finding Miranda’s body. We had no idea where the missing money had gone. We had no idea who else had a hand in this deadly game. There were inconsistencies in the blood, missing money, void space in Bay’s blowback pattern, and a clever chief of staff that seemed too squeaky to be clean.
But where did that leave us? I had no idea.
I was hoping Deets would come up with something telling when the various tests came back. They were running a soil analysis on the dirt from Bay’s boots. They were running tests on the blood samples, and the tox reports on Bay still hadn’t come back from the lab.
Did I take Barbie Q up on her offer of the house rental? Or did I spend the day looking through the “For Rent” ads?
I let out a long exasperated sigh and went down to the front desk area. If I was going to numb my brain with the classifieds, I at least needed a newspaper to numb through.
The young lady manning the desk for the day shift was dressed in the same blue polo shirt as the last clerk and had the same patented perpetual smile. She was in her mid-twenties, barely five feet tall with shiny blond hair, pretty eyes, and a blatant perkiness. Nice.
She was on the phone with, it seemed, a pesky future guest.
“No, ma’am. I’m sorry we are not a pet-friendly hotel,” she said into the handset. Our eyes met and she smiled. Wider. She held up one finger. “No, Ma’am, we don’t have anything against dogs.”
I politely pointed to a stack of Inquirers behind the desk and held up a dollar bill. She smiled again and held up another finger. At least it was the same finger.
“No, Ma’am. I most certainly would not run over a dog in the middle of the street as soon as look at him.”
The young lady looked over at me all a-smile and rolled her eyes and pointed at the phone. I pointed at the stack of newspapers again but she continued her conversation.
“Yes, Ma’am. Service animals are allowed by law. Are you telling me your ShihTzu is a service animal?”
The young lady looked over at me again. I shrugged. I didn’t think a ShihTzu could be a service animal either, but what the hell did I know. I couldn’t even seem to be able to buy a newspaper.
“Then I’m sorry, Ma’am. No pets allowed.” The girl paused a second before continuing. “Yes, of course we allow ugly people. But calling them dogs is metaphorical.”
I gingerly pointed toward the newspapers again to no avail.
“No, Ma’am. Metaphorical is not a profane word.” The girl sighed deeply. “Yes, I’m certain, and no, I don’t have a dictionary in front of me.”
I took a deep breath and looked around the lobby area. There was a cool picture of the hotel hanging on the wall. The photo was obviously old. The men gathered in front of the hotel were obviously the construction workers who’d built the place in the mid 1860’s. The photo was framed and the sepia tones gave the whole shot character. The caption next to it said that Abe Lincoln was still president when ground was broken on the property. Neat.
“No, Ma’am. My manager doesn’t hate dogs either. He has four of them.”
The young lady at the desk looked up at me and smiled as though I had just approached the desk. She held up a finger and winked.
“No, Ma’am, I don’t know their names.”
The young lady caught my eye again and pointed to the stack of newspapers with a raised eyebrow. I eagerly nodded.
“No, Ma’am, the dogs do not get to stay at the hotel either,” she said exasperated. “Ma’am, I have a guest at the desk, will you please hold?”
The young lady hit the hold button without waiting for a response.
“Lady likes her dogs, huh?” I said to her.
The young lady shrugged non-committally. She handed me over a newspaper.
Wesley Acton Bay’s photo was once again splashed all over the front page.
“Shame about that guy,” she said, nodding at the photo as she took my dollar bill. “He seemed nice when I met him.”
“You met him?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said a matter-of-factly. “He was here at the hotel not too long ago.”
“Reeeealy,” I said intrigued. My mind raced. “Wow,” I said. “Imagine if I was in the same room he was in just a short while before.” I shivered at the thought. Of course, the shiver was for theatrics. “I mean, the guy killed his wife, for crying out loud.”
The young lady disappeared behind the counter reappeared a moment later holding a file box.
“Let’s see!” she said. She ruffled through the file.
“Its all kinda The Shining-like, doncha think?”
“Huh?”
“Guy killed his wife and now I may be staying in the same hotel room…” Her vacant expression told me I was getting too damn old to relate to a twenty-something.
“Nevermind,” I said.
“Here we go,” she said, pulling a slip of paper out of the file. “Nope, different room.”
She set the registration card down on the desk. Bay had reserved a suite here at the hotel less than a month ago. But that wasn’t the intriguing part. The intriguing part was who had signed for the room.
Justina Tryst.

I was back in my room a few minutes later. I left Deets a message that I had news and to call me. I was juiced by the tidbit I’d just uncovered but I was unsure what to do with it. It surely was proof of an affair between Bay and Tryst. I was going to have to talk to Tryst again. It would be tough denying this. It also could show motive in killing Miranda and Bay, if Bay was, in fact murdered. Intriguing indeed.
I waited for Deets to call back. After twenty minutes I grew tired of waiting.
I had pressing concerns that needed to be addressed, like, where the hell was I going to live. Barbie Q or the classifieds. Tough call.
I looked over at the newspaper sitting on the bed. My shoulders sunk in resignation. I despised looking through the classifieds.
I sighed heavily and reached for the phone. At least there was a Flyers game on tonight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Saturday was moving day. I had the rental truck parked out front of my old digs and ready to go at 8am as instructed. It was now 8:15 and I was getting antsy. I had no idea how I was going to move my entertainment set down a flight of steps by myself.
Addie was there with me but I held no delusions that she was going to help me carry anything heavier than a martini glass.
Instead of keeping focused on the task ahead and figuring out how I was moving my refrigerator, all I could think of was Thermopolous.
The supercilious prick! Who did he think he was messing with? I was looking forward to giving Thermopolous a serious piece of my mind when a tall gangly college kid pulled up out front in a ’95 Saturn.
The kid unfolded himself out of the car and ambled over to us. Without so much as a word, he took out a set of keys and unlocked Mr. Masterlock. He then took the side stairs to the apartment door and unlocked that as well.
“I’m supposed to come back in exactly one hour and lock up again,” he said dispassionately.
“Where the hell is Thermopolous!” I screamed.
The kid shrugged. He folded himself back into his tiny little car and pulled away.
The clock was now ticking. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t even thought to bring boxes.
“Your handiwork?” I heard a voice call out. A newspaper landed on the step beside me. I looked up. It was Deets. Nice.
I picked up the paper. It was the Chestnut Hill Local. My own private gallery proudly displaying all my latest artwork.
The front page carried a color photo of George Dubya with the purple piston of pleasure. The shot was lit just perfectly! Nice.
“Still making friends, I see,” Deets said glibly.
“You know me,” I said.
“He actually sucker you into helping him move?” she asked Addy.
“I’m just here to help him get coffee.”
“Addy’s the only one who remembers where the Wawa is,” I said with a smile.
Deets nodded to the picture. “From your personal collection?”
“The Destructor,” I said. “Just a little something I picked up while doing research on my new career.”
“New career?”
“Porno movie titler!”
Deets and Addy both rolled their eyes. “You had to ask,” Addy said to Deets.
“Entertainment,” I said triumphantly. “That’s where the real dough is!”
“Yeah” said Addy. “And bakeries!”
“Not to mention pizza parlors,” said Deets.
Nice. Two against one… not fair. Fun, but not fair.
“There’s no such word as titler,” said Deets. “Title maker?”
“Titlest,” said Addy.
“Titler, titlest, who cares! Point is, how cool a job would that be?” I said. “Any numbnuts could do it.”
“And your just the right numbnuts for the job,” said Deets.
“I can be just as creative and clever as those guys,” I said. “Saving Ryan’s Privates.”
“True artistic achievement, that one,” said Addy.
“Austin’s Prowess: The Slut Who Shagged Me,” I countered.
They both groaned and not in the good way.
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s Cr—“
“Enough!” said Deets.
“I could make a career of naming porno movies just off Tom Hanks titles alone.”
Addy turned and started up the steps to the second floor. Deets quickly followed.
“Forrest Hump,” I called after them. “Turner and Cooch. Molar Express.”
The upstairs door opened and swallowed the women from my view. “Shirtless in Seattle,” I yelled up at the front window. “Sex Toy Story. The Boobs!”
I heard the upstairs door slam.
“Bachelor party… Splash… That Thing You Do!” I was on a roll and yelling up at the front window to the apartment. “Jeesh, half of Tom Hank’s movies already sound like porn,” I yelled skyward as a door opened and closed somewhere behind me. “You Got Male, Bosom Buddies! Big!” I shouted skyward. “Now that’s my kind of porn!”
I backed up and bumped into something cushy. I turned around. The spa ladies stood there smiling. I hate when they do that. At least I’d have help moving the sofa.
Beehive was holding out a box of tissues to me. “They have lotion,” she said.
I took the tissues from her. What the hell, they had lotion.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It was Monday morning and I was semi-settled in. Addy was already at the office getting her desk together and filling it with supplies she’d never use. Somewhere in the near distance, a bell was ringing.
It was the phone. Now if we could just find it.
“Its Deets” said Addy from behind a towering pile of unmarked boxes.
I scrambled around the pile and took the phone.
“McBride’s Brides,” I said loudly. “You wed ‘em, we bed ‘em.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. Whatdya got?”
“Meet me at the coffee shop in twenty minutes,” she said and disconnected.
We never talk anymore.

I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door. I had twenty minutes to make the three minute walk to the coffee shop. That gave me just enough time to drive into Flourtown to pick up a few essentials first.
I approached my car and slowed. Something wasn’t right. My car looked… fuzzy. I used the thumb pads of both hands to rub my eyes deeply.
Nope. Car still looked fuzzy. My nose caught the scent of sweetness a moment later and my mouth opened in horror.
Talk about the icing on the cake… well, it was covering my car! My entire car was covered in cake frosting.
I was speechless.
I grunted and pointed at my car. I grunted again to myself because there was no one else around to show this to. I grunted again.
It was actually pretty impressive in a sick bastardized way.
I did the only thing I could think of doing. I ran my finger along the car door handle and took a taste.
It was delicious. Of course.
I ran my finger over the handle again to clear more space. I shoved the large glop of frosting into my mouth. No sense wasting it.
I opened the car door and slid behind the wheel.
The inside of the car was dark. They’d frosted the windshield as well.
I got out of the car and closed the door.
I had to go back inside and change my pants. The pair I was wearing was now coated with cake frosting. It seems they frosted the front seat of my car as well.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many cakes would go naked this day, seeing that an army’s supply of frosting was covering my vehicle. It must have taken hours to do this. Like I said, it was pretty impressive. I guess Kyler had more friends than I thought.
I stood back for a moment and admired the work. The frosting motif was done in tans and whites. The attention to detail was astounding. My car looked like a big slumbering dog. Only one bakery in the neighborhood could have pulled this off. The look was St. Bernard, but the taste was Great Danish!
Freja Bagerdatter, the owner of Chestnut Hill’s renowned bakery Great Danish, was a forty-something block of a women with square shoulders, a 5 o’clock shadow, and a Doberman disposition. Bagerdatter and I have not always seen eye to eye, or in her case, eye to unibrow.
I chuckled for a moment at the sight of my car. I wanted to take a picture because no matter how mad I was, I had to admit, it was kinda funny. Not to mention tasty. I thought about going inside and getting a spatula and sloughing off a bit for dessert. Bill Clinton was still chasing interns the last time my car had seen the inside of a car wash, so I guess that idea was out.
I went back inside to change. On my way up the steps to my apartment, I asked Addy to try to find the camera. Bits of icing were dropping off the seat of my pants onto the stairs.
I came back down a few minutes later in a fresh pair of jeans. The office was empty.
I stepped outside to find Addy standing on the sidewalk, her shoulders bouncing up and down in mirth. At least she had the camera.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Something’s Brewing is a quaint little coffee shop in the heart of Chestnut Hill. It has all the latest gadgetry for the coffee connoisseur and has the best nibbles in the neighborhood. It also had some of the best nook and cranny seating I’ve ever seen. The place was downright cozy. Between the coffee a-brew and the delightful delectables, the place smelled like Heaven.
Deets was already there when I arrived.
“You’re late,” she said jokingly.
I slid the Polaroid across the table to her.
“You keep making friends like this, you won’t need enemies.”
“Nice,” I said.
I left her alone at the table and went to the counter. After all that sweet, I needed something bitter. I ordered a quad latte, no foam, no sugar.
I lost myself in my thoughts as a fresh-faced college kid made my drink. He looked vaguely familiar but my mind was elsewhere.
I paid for my steamy drink and joined Deets in her nook. Or was it a cranny. Hard to tell.
Deets nodded toward the photo. “Want to tell me about it?”
I shrugged. “Nothing to tell,” I said and drank my steamy brew.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, we’ve been cataloguing dirt samples taken from Bay’s boots.”
“And?”
“We’re trying to match the sample to specific dirt samples from our database.”
“And?”
We’re hoping we get a specific match. A specific match will help us narrow down possible search areas for the victim’s body.”
I cringed. It was involuntary.
“Oh, I’m sorry, McBride. That was insensitive.”
“It’s OK,” I said. I felt a rumble in my belly. My insides were all squished up and roiling. Too much car frosting. I gulped down more high-octane delight as Deets continued.
“Different compounds are found in soil in different locations around the city. The sample taken from Bay’s boots had a high concentration of Nitrogen among other things.”
I was trying to concentrate on what Deets was saying but I was suddenly not feeling well. Not feeling well at all.
“If we can isolate other samples from the Philadelphia area with the same nitrogen saturation, that’ll give us a more defined target area to search.”
I was doing my best to pay attention to what Deets was telling me, but to be honest I was more focused on the sweat that was now pouring down my face.
“There was something else strange about Bay’s boots,” Deets continued. “Other than the traces of nitrogen-rich soil, there was very little other trace evidence present.”
“None?” I said, in a feeble attempt to contribute to the conversation we were apparently having despite my sudden intestinal distress.
“Nearly none,” she said. “Forensics did find a few fibers stuck to the boot. The trace turned out to match the fibers in Bay’s BMW.”
“Which tracks with what we figured,” I said.
“Yes,” said Deets. “But the weird part is the trace was found tucked into the lace area near the eyelet on one of the boot’s uppers.”
“And?”
“And… It’s almost as if the boot was dragged sideways along the automobile’s interior carpet.”
“Dragged?”
“On the other hand, there was no trace of the carpet fibers found on the bottom of the boot treads.”
“Where you would normally find it.”
“Right.”
“Hmm,” I said because I thought it was a good time to appear deep in thought. How much damn icing did I eat?
“The troubling thing is, taking Locard’s principles into consideration, there wasn’t any other trace evidence found. Every sample of forensic value taken from the boot is consistent with the same location.”
“Why’s that troubling?” I asked. I couldn’t possibly have had more than a front fender’s worth!
“It’s almost as if Bay never set foot anywhere else except the actual crime scene area.”
“Maybe he had other shoes with him and put his new boots on in the car before stepping out into the park?” OK, maybe a little off the dashboard, but that’s it, really!
Deets’ cell phone started to ring.
“Maybe he walked on his hands. Or did somersaults, or something?”
Deets eyed me sideways while she answered her phone. I wanted this conversation to be over. Muddy boots… somersaults… my stomach was doing somersaults enough on its own, no need to talk about them as well. I needed to change the direction of the conversation.
“Any headway on the wire transfers,” I asked detachedly. My face was flush and sweat slid down the side of my face like a kid on a water slide. My stomach switched from somersaults to churning like a dishwasher. All frothy and sloshy.
My ears were ringing.
Deets disconnected her call. She started to gather her things. She looked over at me and stopped.
“You OK?”
“Fucking peachy,” I said. I clutched my stomach.
“Sorry, McBride. Gotta go.” Deets picked up the photo. “The boys are gonna love this!” she said and was gone.
A second later I made a mad dash to the men’s room as a wave of diarrhea hit. Wave after gut clenching wave hit as my insides try to become one with my outsides.
Ten very unpleasant minutes later I exited the bathroom. The entire back end of the establishment smelled anything but heavenly.
I was ashen and drained. Literally. The convulsions that rocked my stomach were gone and weakness was left in its place. I just wanted to go back to my new cluttered apartment, find my bed, and lie down a while.
I passed the counter area and caught a glimpse of the college kid behind the register. Recognition hit as his face came back to me. ’95 Saturn kid with the keys to Mr. Masterlock. The devilish grin on the kid’s face told me all I needed to know. It wasn’t the icing after all!
The fun was just getting started.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I woke up at a quarter past three in the morning. I’d slept for nearly twelve hours. My stomach gurgled, but this time it was due to hunger, not tainted latte.
I made my way to the kitchen. I made myself a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich, and a hot cup of Earl Grey. I rooted around one of the boxes in the kitchen looking for sweetener. I pulled out an industrial-sized jug of honey. Just what the doctor ordered. Only it wasn’t for the tea.
Half an hour later ninja poet was on the move. Just me and my honey. And a cheap paintbrush I found on Addy’s desk in the office.
Not sure what Addy was planning on painting, but it would do just fine for what I had in mind.
Great Danish was located on Germantown Avenue a few blocks south of the hotel in a section called SOHA. SOHA stood for South of Hartwell. Whether SOHA came from SOuth of HArtwell, or South Of Hartwell Ave seemed to matter not, but the locals like to argue about it anyway.
The bakery was just off the corner and set at an angle to the street. The canopy overhead kept the door area in deep shadow aiding in this evening’s stealthy exploits.
I slid the jumbo jug of honey out of a deep inside pocket of my jacket. Orange Blossom, my favorite.
Next, I pulled out the paint brush. The brush was dusty. I brushed it against the outside of my jacket. I checked it. Still a little dusty. I brushed it a little harder against my pant leg. One more check and I was good to go.
I was about to dip the brush into the honey but thought better of it. Why ruin the whole jug of honey? Honey’s expensive.
I held the jug upright and turned it over letting the thick mass ooze out of the opening and drop in large dollops all over the front door handle and door jamb. Nice.
I then took the paint brush and worked the thick goo all around the door frame and jamb until nearly ever square inch glistened with goop.
Not bad for a night’s work.
I dropped the sticky paint brush into one of the outer pockets of my coat and nestled the now-lighter jug of honey back inside my jacket.
I was about to make my exit when I realized I almost forgot the most important part. All artists sign their work. Some use paint, some use ink, some use a chisel.
I prefer a signature that’s a bit stickier.
I slid a few drops of superglue in the door jamb.
Ah, the life of an artist.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It was a little before seven the next morning and I was man about town. I needed to get the crusty icing off my crusty car. I was headed out to Flourtown where a coordinated team of vehicular sanitization technicians would finish defrosting my frosting.
Flourtown is a little burg just northwest of the tip of Philadelphia and just beyond Erdenheim. It’s a hop and a skip from Chestnut Hill but at the moment I was headed in the opposite direction.
I made my way east a couple of blocks down Germantown Avenue.
Great Danish! would soon be opening their doors to the day’s business, or at least attempting to. It was an opening I didn’t want to miss.
Freja Bagerdatter owned the shop and the accompanying property. The house had been in her family for years. Bagerdatter opened the bakery at 7am daily but started baking at five. Since she lived on the property, she entered the establishment through a back door.
The clock inched toward seven. My frosted four-wheeler eased down the street and slowed as I approached the shop.
The bakery’s door handle and entire doorway to the shop shimmered in black fuzz as thousands of ants were taking advantage of the free samples. Who knew ants liked honey?
Nice. And sticky.
I drove on for another two blocks before doubling back up Germantown. I needed another glimpse of my handiwork before starting my day.
I navigated the two-point u-turn and began the trek back up the hill. A whiff of something unpleasant drifted past my nose.
My stomach had recovered from the previous day, so I know it wasn’t me. I rolled the window down a little just in case. A stronger whiff caught me by surprise. I glanced at my rearview mirror to see if there was a stench buggy behind me causing the aromatic ruckus. Nothing. Trash day was two days away. I gave my armpits a whiff. Not exactly roses, but not what was causing the odor.
The stench was stronger now. It was becoming something beyond unpleasant. I pulled up to the stop light at Willow Grove. I peered over my shoulder at the back seat. I half expected to see the carcass of some dead animal half rotted with maggots all a-crawl.
Nothing.
The smell was reaching the level of putrid. My eyes were beginning to water. I had to pull over.
I made a right turn onto Southampton and parked along the hotel. I got out of the car.
The smell was coming from my trunk!
“What the—“
Fear gripped me and stopped me in my tracks. The image of a bloody, twisted, rotting corpse flashed through my mind in an instant, seizing my heart.
Miranda.
“God, please don’t let her be in my trunk.”
I semi-collapsed in a heap on the curb. I needed to focus. I needed to get my head to stop swimming just long enough to remember how to breathe. I was hyperventilating and I needed to relax and think for a moment.
Deets!
I fumbled for my phone.

Twenty minutes later Deets was sitting next to me on the curb rubbing my back to comfort me as the Crime Scene gang worked the scene.
My car was worked over. The team was able to lift a set of prints from the trunk lid. It was actually easy since the perp had left a nice clean thumb smudge in cake frosting.
Moment of truth. The lead investigator slid my car keys out from the ignition and went to the back of the vehicle. He slid the key into the slot and popped the trunk. My stomach dropped precipitously. I found it hard to swallow.
The lid was opened.
Fifty pounds of rotting chicken parts and a nasty note from another local business owner greeted the lead investigator. And that’s it.
No blood. No body. No twisted nightmares for the next forty years of my life.
It almost would have been a relief to know, but I was glad it wasn’t Miranda. I don’t think I could have handled that. Not even a little bit.
Two of the crime scene techs, dressed in their environmental space suits, were kind enough to bag the foul fowl parts while I composed myself and got the blood to inch back into my face.
“I told you to play nice,” Deets teased. She could gloat a little but I knew it was superficial. She’d been just as certain Miranda was in my trunk as I had been.
“This belong to you?”
I looked up. One of the astronauts was holding up a small bag of dog poop like it was Show and Tell hour at the space station. I groaned.
“I always imagined your trunk full of crap,” said Deets. A real sense of humor there. Who’d have thought?
“Housewarming present I wasn’t able to deliver,” I said.
“Always making friends,” said Deets.
“What do you want to do with this?” Spaceman said, still holding the bag aloft.
“Take it home and put in on your lawn” I said. I looked at Deets. “Good fertilizer,” I said.
“Actually,” said Spaceman, “Dog poop is very high in nitrogen and doesn’t make good fertilizer. Not only is it loaded with bacteria and other pathogens, but the high levels of nitrogen interfere with the decomposition process by affecting the carbon to nitrogen ratio.”
I looked at Deets and shrugged. She opened her mouth to speak when recognition hit us both at the same time. Nitrogen!
Bay’s boots!
Seconds later Deets and I and the Crime Scene Spacemen were on our way to Poop Park.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Pastorius Park is 10 acres of doggy playground. It’s a lot of room to cover especially when you’re trying to match boot prints.
A cast of Bay’s boot print was on its way to the scene. Meanwhile, Deets and I and the CSU’s fanned out and started looking for signs of freshly overturned soil. An hour later we were congregating by my front steps just across from the park. Other than an eclectic array of pooch poops on the bottom of our shoes, our search yielded little.
Another dead end. Think! Reassess what we know.
“Ok,” I said to the team like a quarterback in the huddle. “What do we know for certain?”
“We know Bay’s boots were muddy,” said Deets. “We know the samples contain high levels of nitrogen.”
“We can take a sample from here back to the lab to match it,” one of the CSU guys offered. He was a semi-serious early forty-something kind of guy. He was perfunctory and most assuredly a by-the-book kind of guy. He was definitely one of the good guys though I’m certain he was dead-boring at picnics.
“That’s all well and good,” I said, “but in the meantime, what does this scene tell us?”
Deets looked off in the distance. “Maybe we have the wrong spot, McBride.”
I wasn’t listening.
“It’s not the only dog park around,” she added.
“No, dammit,” I snapped. “This is where we get our answer. It all fits. Timeline, soil match, proximity.” I felt my face darken with intensity. A badge doesn’t make you a cop. It’s a state of being. It’s never far from the surface. Instincts remain long after the badge has tarnished. “The blood was still wet. There wasn’t time for him to have gone much further.”
“Maybe not much…” Deets insinuated and decided on a different tack. “We don’t know if the soil is a match.” Deets was being a good cop. Keeping an open mind. Not jumping to conclusion. Not assuming. Waiting for cold hard evidence.
Fuck that! Think!
“What else,” I said impatiently. “Come on, Deets! Think dammit!”
“Shadow…”
“Mud!” I shouted.
“Mud?”
“Bay’s boots. They weren’t just dirty, they were muddy. Moist. Wet.”
“And?”
“And it hasn’t rained in two weeks.”
“So what are you thinking?” she asked, but I was already adding two and two and almost getting four.
“Bring the gear,” I said.

The far northwestern corner of Pastorius is more heavily wooded and backs up to a copse of stately homes that form the fringe of the park. The easiest entry point from the street to this part of the park is at the bend in the road where Roanoke meets West Hartwell.
A conveniently located bike rack stands just a few yards into the park. And just as convenient is the water fountain that sits adjacent. If there’s one thing public water fountains in a park create, its mud.
The fountain area was unpaved. The grass long since worn away making a rough circle of dirt around the fountain. The far side of the circle was muddy.
I twisted the knob on the fountain and true to form, the water shot up in an impressive arc. The water landed on the ground a foot and a half further than the fountain basin, whose sole purpose was catching the water, was able to reach.
The dirt area around the water fountain was speckled with dozens of foot prints. Running shoes, business shoes, even a few high heel prints. Dozens of dog prints cluttered the scene like paint splashed on a busy canvas.
“McBride!”
I looked up and could read Deets’ face in an instant. “Whatdya got?”

The CSU guys made a series of casts of the prints we found along the outer edge of the dirt. Though most of the prints in the wetter areas overlapped and were difficult to differentiate, we were able to discern similar patterns going in both directions. Coming and going.
Labs would make the definitive call, but with the naked eye, the proof was plain to see.
Bay’s boot print.
This is where the bastard brought her.
The CSU guys went about their job of making casts and walking the grid for forensics. Though we didn’t find any evidence of fresh digging anywhere in the general area, CSU were going to come in with scanners later that afternoon.
I took a seat at the curb and let them work. Deets was pacing. She glanced over and our eyes met. I knew that look.
“Spider sense?” I asked.
She chewed her bottom lip pensively. She called one of the techs over. She had my full attention.
“If you were a woman, and you knew you were taking your rambunctious dog for a walk in the park that’s loaded with dog poop…” she said almost as much to herself as to me.
“Go on,” I said.
“Would you really want to try that in heels?”
I looked down at the dirt area at the high heel prints she was studying. We both made the leap.
“Tryst!”
“Boys,” she said to the crew. “We’re going to need to make a few more casts.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Deets and the boys finished working the scene, made their casts, and were headed back downtown with their haul for the day. Deets is a helluva detective but I’ll tell you, CSU guys are very underrated. They are smart, skilled, diligent, crafty, meticulous… It’s pretty impressive watching them in action.
Back when I still wore a badge, I was a beat cop. A patrol car. Deets and I had a specific area to protect and to serve and we had time tables and routes and unfortunately, loads of ticket books. I hate tickets. Hated writing them, hate getting them. Don’t get me wrong, if I saw someone obviously intoxicated, swerving all over the place, or someone driving 69 miles and hour in a 25 mph zone with kids playing in the street, I was all over them like velvet on a 70’s pimp. But giving someone a hard time because their inspection sticker expired three days earlier or their registration sticker was in the wrong spot on their tag; that just wasn’t my speed. I didn’t wear a badge to aid and abet the automobile insurance industry’s fleecing of the American Motorist. If they wanted to raise people’s rates unethically, they weren’t getting my help in doing it. Just my .02.
But the CSU guys are a different breed. Smart hombres. It was a pleasure and an honor to watch them ply their craft.
The mud at the scene was very wet, meaning it was also very mushy. But these guys pulled casts from prints in that wet squishy mud and pulled them clean. Perfect.
Like I said, pretty impressive.
Dental stone. The same stuff the dentist fills cavities with. Colored dental stone. The CSU tech mixed the stuff in a bag right there at the scene. It looked like cake batter.
The trick to pouring casts in mud or other soft materials like sand or small gravel, is to pour the mixture next to the indentation, not on it. The tech poured the mixture next to the boot indentation and let the cake mix seep its way into the print. The tech poured enough of the mixture to allow the boot indentation to fill to overflowing. Each cast was done in this manner. After about twenty minutes, the dental stone cake mix set enough for the tech to scratch into the surface his initials, the date, and the case number. Once the casts were sufficiently set, the tech deftly lifted the hardened casts and wrapped them in paper. It was all so educational.

It was late afternoon and I was Man on a Mission. My car smelled like, well, like 50 pounds of rotting chicken flesh sat in my trunk for a week. It was disgusting. Could have been worse, though. Best not to think about it.
Rusty Auto Body and Detailing was a grungy little auto shop on Ardleigh Avenue just east of Willow Grove. I wasn’t sure if Rusty was a name, a specialty, or a description of the overall appearance of the building housing the shop. I was hoping fumigation was not beyond the shop’s capacity for detailing.
The proprietor was a barrel-chested man of about fifty, in paint-stained coveralls. His shock of deep black hair without a hint of gray told me the name mystery was no closer to being solved. His piercing blue Clint Eastwood eyes were deeply hooded as though years of too much sun took their toll. I looked around the dimly lit shop and realized a second mystery presented itself.
I gave Mr. Rusty the lowdown on the car. His eyes were mirthless but the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly as I told him the story. Seems a sense of humor was hiding behind the grief exterior of having no personality.
I left my keys with Mr. Personality and headed back up the hill on foot. I made a quick stop into the local pharmacy in the next block before continuing on up the hill. Seems there’s a latte in my near future.
My deal old pal Joe College would be just starting his shift at the coffee house. We’d had a little falling out my last visit to the coffee shop but it wasn’t anything a little cellophane wrap, eye drops, and IcyHot couldn’t cure. It’s important to forgive and forget and move on. It’s important to maintain friendships. I’m the kind of guy who believes in keeping in touch whenever possible.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.
“Something’s Brewing,” the kid answered, “Home of the Loco Latte, Josh speaking”
Josh. How sweet.
“Uh, I was just wondering…”
“Uh huh?”
“If something bad happens there, do the cops show up pretty quickly?”
Dead Silence. Nice.
“Um, excuse me?” His voice croaked after a few seconds. I heard the kid swallow over the phone.
“Never mind,” I said. “Say, tell me. Has it been a busy day so far?”
“Uh, busy?”
I disconnected. That should shake him up a little. Now for part two of my diabolical plan to take over the world. This should be fun.

I walked into Something’s Brewing a few minutes later doing my best to look nonchalant. I went right up to the counter and ordered a no foam quad-latte. Joe College averted his eyes and the smallest hint of a grin showed in the corners of his mouth. Go ahead, punk, do you feel lucky?
The kid went back behind the work area to make my coffee.
“I’ll be back in a sec to pick that up,” I said. Time to let the games begin.
I stepped into the men’s room, the scene of my intestinal disembowelment. My stomach gurgled uncomfortably. This time, however, the shoe would be on the other foot. And by foot, I mean… well, you get the idea.
I slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and got to work. First up on the hot parade was the cellophane wrap. I lifted the toilet seat and pulled a length of the clear plastic from the carton tucked inside my jacket. I covered the toilet bowl with the plastic and pulled it taut. It was clear and ripple-free. Invisible. I lowered the seat.
Next up was the IcyHot. I pulled the tube from my inner jacket pocket and squeezed a liberal amount onto my fingertips. I was thankful for the rubber gloves. I rubbed the ointment all over the toilet seat completely covering it and rubbing it clear. Nice.
I pulled the rubber gloves free, rolled them up and stuffed them into the trash can. I put the IcyHot and the cellophane wrap back into the jacket pocket. I pulled the small eye drop bottle from my back pocket and palmed it. I left the bathroom and went back to the counter. My drink was ready.
Joe College kept looking nervously toward the front door when he opened the register to take my money. Imagine that.
I took my change and grabbed my coffee from the counter and turned to leave.
“Oh, by the way,” I said over my shoulder, “there’s no hand soap in the men’s room and the toilet paper’s nearly out.”
I made my way to a comfy cranny (or nook, who can tell?) and opened my paper to the sports section. Over the top of my paper I saw the kid come out from behind the counter with a couple of rolls of TP and a pink enema-looking bag that must have been the hand soap. The kid took one last nervous glance towards the front door before he headed inside the men’s room.
I was on the move!
The cap on the eye drops was already in my pocket, the tube of solution in the palm of my hand and ready for retribution.
I quickly made my way around to the outer side of the work area where the sugars creamers and stirrers were stocked for self-service. I looked around the coffee shop quickly and saw no eyes looking my way.
I raised my arm high enough to clear the divider and aimed a stream of eye drop solution into the extra large coffee mug with Josh written in four-inch high rainbow letters on the side. It was a direct hit.
Nice.
I went back to my seat and started thumbing through the paper. The kid came out of the bathroom a few seconds later.
He sent a wary look my way and again looked nervously at the front door. He went back behind the counter.
I buried my eyes in my paper. The hockey playoffs were underway and I was behind in my news. But there was time for that later. For now, it was time to wait.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Joe College burst out from behind the counter and covered the distance from the counter to the men’s room in three large strides. Impressive.
Showtime.
Seconds later an inhuman wail came from the bowels of the bathroom followed by a splash and a string of profanity as the diarrhea hit the plastic wrap and ran all over the back of the kid’s legs. Delightful.
Seconds later he screamed again as the heat hit him.
In the commotion that followed, I dripped a drop or two of my favorite sticky substance into the door jamb by the lock on the men’s room door. That should hold him for a while.
My work here is done!

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Three days passed before Mr. Rusty Personality called and said my car was ready. Nice. It was about damn time. I had court the next morning and had no desire to take the damn train, stuffed like a sardine with people who actually had to work for a living. Jeesh!
I walked the four blocks to the shop. I was excited to get my car back, frosting-free and smelling April fresh!
I stepped into the shop and there she was, my humble little putt-putt all a-gleam. Nice. Then Mr. Personality gave me the bill. Not so nice.
He took me over to the car. He opened the trunk. Hesitantly, I took a sniff. Seemed OK. I took in a deep lungful. No remnants of rotting chicken. Excellent.
I walked around the outside of the car. Not a smudge or smear of frosting anywhere. Cool.
I opened the car door and breathed deeply. Delightful. I was a happy camper.
I’d had a bit of a rough run lately with business owners in the neighborhood. Truth was I was a bit leery of this guy. He didn’t seem like Chestnut Hill blue blood. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who rubbed elbows with the likes of Thermopolous, or Vanderspeigel, or even Bagerdatter for that matter. His elbows were far too dirty to be rubbing them against anybody, much less those three. Still, never can be too careful.
I gave him my credit card and he rung me up. I studied his face for a moment before I relaxed a little. Deets was right. I really needed to learn how to play nice with others. Cordial. Gregarious. Convivial. Amiable.
I signed the credit card slip and Mr. Rusty stapled my copy to my invoice. I thanked him for his nice work.
Of course, I couldn’t get out the door without sabotaging myself.
“You hear the one about the unemployed auto body guy with ADD?”
He looked at me impassively.
“No attention to detailing,” I said with a chuckle.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Didn’t think so,” I said. I turned to leave.
“Ever hear the one about the guy who stuck his nose where it didn’t belong?” he said.
Great. Here we go again.
“Yeah I heard that one before,” I said. I stalled for a second. Seems I suddenly needed a plan and needed one fast. Think!
I looked around quickly. The phone. I had an idea.
“Say, you know those heavy brown paper doodads you guys use in customers cars so
you don’t get grease on their seats and carpets?”
“What about ‘em,” said Rusty-guy warily.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any, would you?”
“Why?” he asked. Jeesh, paranoid much?
“I walked through a bad grease spot on my way over here,” I said, looking down at my shoes for effect. “You guys did such a great job cleaning the inside of my car, I’d just like to keep the carpets clean a while longer before I start dirtying them up again.”
“You dirty them, bring ‘em back in. We’ll clean ‘em again for you.”
“That’s great but I’ll have to save my pennies back up first,” I said waving the heavy bill for effect. “Look, I just need two. I’ll be happy to pay for them,” I said.
He stared at me pensively for a moment before answering. “Wait here,” he said.
“Thanks. Really appreciate it.”
Rustyguy made his way back into the garage area to retrieve a set of the mats. My cell phone was out as soon as he disappeared from view. I quickly dialed the number for the shop. Rusty’s phone rang once and I gently lifted it from its cradle. I waited a second to see if the guy would come back to the office to answer it. I figured he wouldn’t bother since the phone stopped ringing after one ring. I waited another moment before continuing. I had another few seconds before he’d be back with my mats.
I dialed *72 into Rusty’s phone and quietly hung the receiver back onto its cradle.
Seconds later Rusty Personality returned with the mats. He handed them to me and glanced over to his answer machine. No messages.
“Only rang once,” I said truthfully.

I was once again mobile and headed down Bethlehem Pike into Flourtown. Buffalo wings and cold beer at the pub seemed like just the right way to go at the moment. It wasn’t my usual haunt, but under the circumstances, I thought it was the right call. The beer was cold, the wings hot, and the big screen TV had hockey. It was also far enough away from my neighborhood that I was unlikely to ‘accidentally’ get food poisoning.
I was feeling good. It had been a semi-productive day. Semi. Buffalo wings and cold beer in my not so distant future, there was only one other thing I needed.
Barenaked Ladies.
I popped in the Canadian band’s latest CD and was ready to get groovy like a tune. Wiper fluid started shooting up on my windshield like a teenager with a teenager’s prostate.
“What the…?”
I switched the CD player to the radio tuner. My wiper blades started thwacking across my windshield in an epileptic fit. Nice.
I hit the switch to turn my wipers off and my driver’s side window slid down. And up. And down. I slammed my fist on my steering wheel. $700 bucks and he sabotaged my electrical system. Figures.
I pulled into the pub’s parking lot and found an open space near the back. I hit the window switch to close my window and my horn blasted. I hit my horn and my high beams came on. I was getting the hang of this.
After ten minutes of trial and error, I switched my dome light on and my windows rolled up. I got out of my car and shut the door. I was hungry and annoyed. Mostly annoyed. I hit the automatic door locks and my trunk sprung open. It was a work in progress.

CHAPTER FORTY

I settled myself in for the night trying to get as comfortable as I could. It was getting late but there was still work to do. I had to prepare for court tomorrow.
I looked over my note pad at the names and numbers assembled. Earlybird, Sunrise Communications, Philly-Call, AM-Sharp, Rise-N-Shine.
A smile stretched the corners of my mouth ever so slightly. It was time to do what I did best. Plan. I picked up the phone and punched in the first number.
A pleasant voice greeted me and asked how they could help.
“I’d like to set a wake up call for tomorrow morning, please.”
“I’d be happy to help you with that,” she said cheerily. “Do you already have an account with us?”
I read the woman the account number.
“What time would you like your wake up call, sir?”
“3a.m.”
“Wow,” she said. “Earlybird.”
“That’s why I called you guys,” I said with just a mild hint of sarcasm. I gave her the phone number I wanted called. I asked for the special “perpetual snooze” and asked it to be set at ten minute intervals.
“Is there anything else we can help you with,” she asked.
“That should just about do it,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Your wake up call has been set. Thank you, and good night Mr. Robermann.”
I hung up the phone with a smile. “Yes, good night, Mr. Rubberman.”
One down – four to go. I dialed the next number.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The next morning I nearly overslept, myself. I was supposed to pick Deets up at 7am sharp. When I finally opened my eyes, it was already going on six-thirty.
I did the three-S’s in record time, combed my hair and made my breath minty.
I was out the door in 20 minutes flat! Deets lived twenty minutes away and I had ten minutes to get there. And I was supposed to be bringing coffee. Oh well.
I took Wissahickon down to Lincoln Drive. A few minutes later I was speeding along Kelly Drive. The sun was shimmering along the river and assorted adrenaline freaks were out on the water sculling their little hearts out. People were jogging, rollerblading, and biking along the path. It looked like two in the afternoon on a Saturday for crying out loud. Didn’t these people ever hear of oversleeping?
I hit the light at Falls Bridge and picked up a badge in a patrol car. Great. Now I had to do the speed limit. It was already five past seven.
The light turned green and I proceeded through the intersection cautiously. Relax, I said to myself. He’s too focused on his coffee and jelly doughnut to give you a second thoug— Aw, crap!
The badge had flipped on the patrol car lights and was pulling me over. Brilliant.
I pulled the car over and put it in park. I turned off the ignition. I looked back through my rearview to see the badge calling the traffic stop in over the radio. When he was finished, he stepped out of his patrol car and made his way toward me.
The officer, a brash, headstrong cop I recognized from Who’s On Third, took a good look at my license plate as he approached. He stepped up to my driver’s side window.
“License and registra—” The officer peered into my car and cut himself off mid-sentence. He blew out a deep sigh.
“McBride,” he said “Always a pleasure.”
I tried to ignore the sarcasm that dripped off his words.
“What can I do for you Officer Morelli?”
The badge ignored me and stepped around behind my car. I watched him in the rearview. He was looking at my plate again. A moment later he bent over and was gone from view. Another few seconds and he popped back up again and came around to my driver’s side door.
He flung something in through the open window at me. It hit me in the face before dropping to my lap a second latter. I picked it up.
“What the hell is this?” I said.
“A Hairnet,” said Morelli.
“I can see it’s a hair net. What are you doing with it?”
“Was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, and I didn’t.
“It was covering your license plate.”
“Huh?”
“It was covering your tag. Blackened it so it couldn’t be read. That’s why I pulled you over.”
That’s when it hit me like a hairnet between the eyes.
“Rubberman.”
“Excuse me?”
“Robermann did this,” I said. “We have a court date this morning.” I twirled the hairnet around my finger. “This little diversion was to get me pulled over and make me late.”
“Looks like it worked to me.”
I let out a deep breath.
“Punching a badge is high on the shit-list meter,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, Robermann’s an A-hole. He’s still a badge.”
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. Gave him a half-smile for good measure.
“Up to your eyeballs in it, you ask me,” he said.
“If you’re in shit, the only place to be is deep,” I said.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

It was almost 7:20 when I finally got to Deets’ house. To bust my stones as a sign of badge solidarity, Morelli issued me a warning which he took his good old time writing.
Deets was waiting at the door looking pissed. With no coffee to appease with, I was sure to be getting attitude all the way to the courthouse. Good thing it was only 30 blocks or so away. Jeesh!

Deets settled herself into the car. As soon as her rear hit the seat she adroitly noticed a lack of steamy beverage in the cup holder area. She shot me daggers for a moment before rolling her eyes in resignation.
“There’s been a forensic development,” she said as soon as she buckled her seatbelt.
“Good morning to you, too,” I said. I knew she was annoyed but she could still show some civility. More daggers. Best not to push her right now.
“Uh, development?” I asked.
“It turns out the blood samples taken from the bedroom have different red blood cell counts.”
“Her blood, his blood?”
Deets shook her head. “It’s all from the same person.”
“So what’s the significance of different red blood cell counts?”
“Hard to say, really. It would seem to suggest the blood came from the same person, but not at the same time.”
“Meaning?”
Deets shrugged. “Not sure.”
“Like maybe he bled her for a while and stopped the bleeding before she bled out. Then, couple of hours later, bled her some more?”
“Something like that, only in this case it’s not possible.”
“Fresh blood on top of dried blood,” I said. If Miranda had bled a significant amount even just an hour or so earlier, and then bled some more, the original blood would have had time to congeal and dry before the second batch of blood hit the walls. In this case, all the blood looked relatively uniform, as though very little time elapsed during the first splash hitting the wall, and the last splash.
“Exactly,” said Deets. “Also, there wasn’t enough time elapsed between the time you last saw her and the time the call came in.”
“So where does all this leave us?”
“Hard to say without a body,” said Deets. “And I’m still not feeling good about the anonymous call coming in on an untraceable cell phone.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The district justice center for Philadelphia County is located on the corner of 11th and Market Streets. It’s a monolith of glass and steel and looks more like the answer to Wall Street rather than the answer to ‘mean street.’
Deets and I entered the building at about a quarter till 8. After 9/11 the district court set up an elaborate security system that resembled the zigzagging lines at Disney. Although with these lines, Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t waiting at the end of the line for you. Humorless security guards manning airport-style metal-detectors was your reward here. The austere troglodytes ushered the crowd through the security check point with no concept of time. At least nine out of every ten people currently in line was sweating bullets over the delay. They knew they had another twenty minutes in line. They also knew if they weren’t in their particular court room in ten minutes, a district judge would be reaming their asses for their unprofessionalism.
Me? I could give a damn.
“I still think you should just apologize,” said Deets.
“For crying out loud Deets. I’m sorry, OK! I got pulled over on the way over and didn’t have time to stop and get your goddam…”
“Not to me, you idiot! Robermann!”
“Robermann? For what?”
“For slugging him, you ass.”
“Well, which is it?” I said. “Ass or idiot? I can’t be both.”
“Somehow you manage,” she said. “And coffee would’ve been nice.”
“Whatever.”
“Look, if you apologize, we can avoid wasting the rest of the morning in court. Suck it up, man.”
“You suck it up,” I said. “I’m not apologizing to that shitbird.”
Deets just shook her head. I could tell she was perplexed. She didn’t get it, but how could she? She didn’t have the history.
“So what do you have against Robermann, anyway,” she asked.
“You mean other than him breathing air that could be better spent on the rest of us?”
“I don’t have to be here, you know,” said Deets defensively. “I have much more important things to do, like solving murders, than to hold you hand while you get spanked.”
I sighed. I really didn’t feel like telling the story. I was cranky. I needed a chocolate doughnut and a café au lait. I needed a bathroom. “Do you have any idea why they call Robermann Rubberman?”
Deets shook her head. “I thought it was obvious.”
“It is,” I said. “But only if you know the story.”
Deets eyed me expectantly. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to be, apparently.”
I took a deep breath. “This goes back a few years. Before you and I were partners.”
I had her full attention. “A bunch of badges were hanging out at ‘Who’s On Third’ after work. Robermann had had a keg too many and was running his mouth as usual.”
“And?”
“Robermann had just been assigned a new partner. His last partner transferred out of the district because he couldn’t stand the sonofabitch.”
“Nothing new. Isn’t the first time someone transferred to get away from a dickhead partner. Probably won’t be the last.”
“Robermann got stuck with a green. Twenty-two year old kid right out of the academy. Nice kid. Smart kid. But not street smart. Robermann was pissed he drew the assignment. He thought the kid was going to get him killed.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, the green was a little, how shall I say, effeminate.”
“Gay cop?”
“Not that it matters, but no. Just a little quiet and soft spoken. Pretty boy. We all had a hard time seeing this kid kicking ass to keep the peace.”
“We’re all green in the beginning,” said Deets.
“True. Some more so than others, though. This kid was grass, he was so green.”
“So what about Robermann?”
I shuffled forward a few baby steps in line and continued.
“Robermann, ever the obnoxious prick, started in on the kid in front of everyone. Calling the kid a pussy, and stuff. Kid took it like a man because he thought it was some kind of initiation, or some shit. Robermann started getting sloppy drunk and started calling the kid a fag.”
“No way.”
“Way. He started grabbing his crotch and calling the kid ‘suckboy.’ ‘Come ‘ere, suckboy.’ ‘Want some of this, suckboy?’ That kinda shit.”
“Asshole.”
I nodded. “That’s about what I thought, too.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, once the ‘suckboy’ shit started the kid beat it out of there with his tail between his legs. The rest of us were trying to shut Robermann the fuck up, but his mouth is never quite engaged with his brain and there’s no shutting that mouth down once it’s revved. We tried getting him so drunk, he’d pass out, but the sonofabitch has a hollow fucking leg.”
Deets chuckled. I shuffled a few feet forward again and continued.
“Even after the kid left, Robermann wouldn’t knock it off. He wasn’t working with a ‘baloney pony smoker’ and that was that. After a while, the other badges had had enough of motor mouth so they started bagging out of there.”
“But not you?”
“Not me,” I said.
“And?”
“Roberfuck decides he’s spewed enough venom and drank enough beer for one night, and he’s gonna beat it outta there.”
“Plastered off his ass, of course.”
“Of course.” I shuffled forward again. “But you know the saying, friends don’t let assholes drive drunk.”
“Bet that went over well,” said Deets.
“Couple of badges tried to get his keys. He pushed one of them on his ass.”
“Should’ve clubbed him with the billy.”
I smiled. “He kept saying he wasn’t some fag hag who couldn’t hold his liquor.”
“So you let him drive?”
“Thought about it. Wouldn’t be the worst thing if he wrapped himself around a pole on Kelly Drive. But drunk drivers aren’t that thoughtful. They don’t kill themselves, they kill others. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So what did you do?”
“Followed him out to the parking lot. He was wobbling pretty bad. I figured chances were he wouldn’t be able to get the car in gear anyway. I had pepper spray just in case.”
“You sprayed him, didn’t you.”
I shook my head.
“He made it to the car and even got the damn thing open. He plunked down behind the wheel, fumbled with the keys for a couple of seconds before he slumped over.”
“Puking?”
I shook my head. “Passed out cold.”
“So what did you do?”
“Taught the fucker a lesson.”
“Which was?”
“Taught him to never get that sloppy drunk again and try to drive, and taught him to show tolerance to the heterosexually challenged.”
“And how did you manage that?”
I looked around. Apparently my story was attracting a crowd. Nice.
“He was bent at the waist and slumped over toward the passenger side of the front seat. I just straightened him out a little to make him more comfortable.”
“Uh huh,” said Deets, not buying it.
“I did,” I said defensively. “And then I pulled his pants down below his ugly hairy ass.”
Deets rolled her eyes with mirth.
“Then I might have pulled a condom out of my pocket.”
“No,” said Deets.
“Then I might have unrolled it and slid a pencil inside, eraser first.”
“For crissakes.”
“Then I might have slid the condom-covered pencil up the motherfucker’s ass.”
“You’re fucking insane.”
“Then I might have pulled the pencil out leaving the open end of the condom sticking out of his butt.”
“Twisted fuck.”
“Then I might have gone back into the bar and made an anonymous call to 911.”
“Shit,” said Deets.
“Then I might have told the 911 dispatch about a guy slumped over in a car in the parking lot.”
“Unbe-fucking-lievable.”
“Then I might have said the guy looked like he was dead.”
“Sick sonofabitch.”
“Minutes later, badges by the boatful arrive, lights blazing, drawing a crowd.”
“Too fucking much.”
“They open the door to find an off-duty cop with his pants down, literally. They see the condom sticking out of his ass.”
Deets had tears coming down both cheeks. I saw shoulders bouncing up and down with laughter all around us in line. Nice.
“The story circulated through the district like wildfire. He’s been Rubberman ever since.”
I dropped my keys, change, Viagra pill, and tube of crazy glue in the tray and walked through the metal detectors. I let the woman scan my body with the wand as her chest rose and fell with giggles. I picked up my belongings and waited for Deets.
Deets picked up her belongings from the tray and we started off toward the elevator bank.
“You ain’t right, my friend,” she said, shaking her head. “Diabolical little shit, you just ain’t right.”
“Thanks, Mom.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Court was on the ninth floor. We hurried down the corridor to our assigned courtroom passing a host of other court rooms and judge’s chambers. We found courtroom 912 and were about to make our way inside when the nameplate on the solid oak courtroom doors across the hall froze me in my tracks. .
Honorable Atwater Kinsey Bay. Wesley Acton Bay’s father. The real political muscle behind his son’s campaign for Mayor.
“McBride! Let’s go.”

The court room was nothing like the outside of the building had advertised. It was tiny, cramped, and had no personality whatsoever.
We sat through a dozen or so cases before the judge called for a quick recess break so he could go to the john. I took the opportunity to say hello to my good friend Rubberman, and to add a little insurance to the proceedings.
“Fuck do you want, asshole?” said Rubberman.
“Language!” I said. “You are standing in the hallowed grounds of American Jurisprudence,” I said gesturing expansively. “Have you no respect?”
“Fuck off,” was the only response offered. Rubberman turned his back away from me giving me the opening I needed to carry out my diabolical plan to…
“McBride!” Deets shouted over at me in little more than a whisper. She’s talented that way. I looked over and she nodded to the front of the courtroom. Judge was entering the courtroom again.
I returned to my seat. Deets just glared at me. “What?” I mouthed defensively. Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed.
Deets and I were seated near the main center aisle in the section directly across from where Robermann sat with his lawyer. From time to time he’d looked my way. I know this because I stared at him for minutes at a stretch. He looked over and I winked. He looked over again, I blew him a kiss. He looked over a third time and I held up a rubber.
He blanched. That’s all it took.
Another half-dozen or so cases were called. Our case was finally called. Showtime!

Rubberman’s lawyer was a slouchy, greasy sycophant. An unctuous package of pretension rivaling that of any Hamptons butler or Beverly Hills boutique sales clerk. He was trying to ‘work me over” as though he’d watched a dozen too many Perry Mason episodes.
“isn’t it true, Mr. McBride, that on the night in question, you—“
“No,” I cut him off mid-sentence. He was a toad and toads shouldn’t be allowed to speak in the courtroom.
“But isn’t it true, that-“
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is that all you got out of your law degree?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, offended at my implication.
“You should beg it,” I said. “Is that what they teach you in law school? How to be a pompous asshole?”
“Your honor, please!” he pleaded. “Must we suffer these verbal indignities?”
“Consider yourself warned, Mr. McBride.”
“Warned?”
“That kind of language is not permitted in this court. If I hear it again, I will hold you in contempt. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” I said. “But just one thing, Your Honor. Where does it say that I can’t say that? I’m under oath, Your Honor. I’m sworn to tell the truth, Your Honor. And the truth is he’s an asshole. These aren’t my words. I’m sure many in this courtroom feel the same way!”
A roar of applause rocked the courtroom. Nice.

Forty-five minutes later Deets and I made our way out of the building. I was a free man although substantially poorer than I had started the day.
“Five-hundred bucks!” I said. “Five-hundred smackeroonies and not a shred of proof!”
“At least the charges were dropped,” said Deets.
“Judge couldn’t produce one law that said I couldn’t call the lawyer an asshole if he was one.”
“You’re just lucky Robermann had a change of heart.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said. “Rubberman knew damn right well if it went on much longer I was going to have to tell the court just how this whole “feud” thing started.”
“That wouldn’t be good.”
“That, and I dropped a Viagra in his Diet Pepsi when I went over to say hello. He’d be called to the stand with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.”
“You’re a twisted fuck, you know that,” said Deets.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I dropped Deets off at the Roundhouse and made my way down to Washington Square. I owed an old friend a quality lunch.
Washington Square is a hip upscale fusion restaurant on the west side of Washington Square Park in an area known as Society Hill. It’s one of a dozen restaurants owned by the Philadelphia Restaurateur. The food is always amazing if indescribable. It cobbles flavors from a diverse ethnic background and melds them into something unique, and delicious.
I needed to pick Tink’s mind about wire transfers again and this time, Mr. Weiner in a bread coffin wouldn’t cut it. Oh, and the manager owed me a favor. Wink!
Tink seemed happy. Nice.
“So essentially,” Tink said animatedly, “the person who made these transfers was someone trying to make themselves a PT.”
“PT?”
“Perpetual Traveler,” said Tink. “It’s someone who sets their finances and documentation in such a way that all governments consider them tourists. If you are a tourist, and not an actual resident, you don’t have to live by all the same laws of the country that the citizens have to live by.”
“So you can literally get away with murder?”
“No, silly. But there are some advantages of not being a citizen of the country you are in. You don’t have to pay taxes, serve in the military, serve on jury duty… you can get away with the occasional indiscretion more easily.”
“I’m not sure I follow how this works,” I said.
“PT’s may own passports from and hold citizenship in several countries, countries that impose tax solely on citizenship. Their legal residence, however, will be in a country that is a tax haven.”
“Like where,” I asked.
“Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Aruba, Belize.”
“They all sound great. Why wouldn’t they really live there? Why “fake” living there?”
“Other than the tourist areas, those places are usually poverty-stricken cesspools. No one in their right mind would actually “live” there if they had money. But for documentation purposes, it’s home sweet.”
“And they just live elsewhere,” I said.
“They spend most of their time elsewhere, seeing the world, never staying in one place long enough to be considered a resident.”
“Is this legal?”
“Legal according to whom? Legality is a perception. It depends on time and place. At one time, burning witches was legal right here at home. Slavery was legal. There are still parts of the world where a husband can kill his wife for adultery.”
“So if someone does this, they aren’t breaking any laws?”
“US Citizens have to pay a hefty tax to expatriate wealth. It’s the law. But there isn’t one single person worth $10 million or more that doesn’t have money sheltered tax-free overseas. Is it illegal? If you are a US citizen sending US funds overseas, yes. Can it be enforced…?”
“But this PT thing. It’s legal?”
“You start a fictitious company in a country that is a tax haven. The company has an address, usually just a safe deposit box somewhere. This enables you to apply for citizenship, which in most countries that are tax havens, can be bought. Then you get a passport. Doesn’t mean you have to stay there. It appears you live there, but damn if you’re ever home.”
“Hmph,” I said because I was frankly speechless. Where the hell do people learn how to do this kind of stuff? Was I out that week in high school?
“I have a client that’s a PT,” Tink continued. “Seventy-seven years old. Very partial to the South China Sea. He lives on a cruise ship. Goes from Hong Kong to Bangkok to Singapore and back again. Just keeps making the same loop. Why not? Someone makes his bed and cleans his room everyday, the restaurants are fabulous, there’s every kind of entertainment imaginable including wealthy, attractive, middle-aged lonely women you never have to call back, and you don’t need to take a taxi to do any of it. Been there twelve years, and the only way he’s ever leaving that ship is when they toss him over the side at his funeral.”
“So why can’t people do that here?”
“You can spend up to 122 days per year here in the states without being considered a resident and having to pay income tax. You can even own property, and still not pay.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The afternoon lunch with Tink had been educational to say the least. I’d decided to try to learn more in the hopes of figuring what happened to the missing money and who was on the receiving end of it.
It was getting late and I was parked in front of the computer in the office. I was bleary-eyed, but I still had work to do.
Being the card-carrying techo-phobe that I am, I usually have Addy do all the internet stuff. If Addy was the Lexus of internet surfers, I was the Edsel.
I’d been Google-ing for a couple of hours, a guy could go blind, when I decided to call it a night. I learned a little bit more about PT’s while surfing, but nothing that could really help me. I still had no bead on where the money had gone, who’d sent it, who’d received it, or who’d set up the transaction. I was spinning my wheels and I was getting cranky. It was after midnight and I needed a pizza.
Since finding an open pizza shop in Chestnut Hill after midnight was simply not in the cards, it was time for bed.
I locked up the office and headed upstairs. A few minutes later I was curled up in bed with a good beer. Nice.
The moaning was low and guttural. I sat up in bed. The TV was off, the VCR and DVD players were fast asleep.
I checked under my covers to be sure I was alone.
The moaning grew louder. It sounded as though someone was in the next room and they were in pain. The good kind. The pleasurable kind. The kind I wasn’t having any of lately.
I sat up in bed and listened. It grew louder, more insistent. I felt the vibrations of a headboard being banged against a wall in rhythmic succession.
The moaning had turned to gasping shrieks alternating between yes, yes, yes and no, no, no.
The coital play-by-play was accelerating. A good sign. That meant my fornicating downstairs neighbors would soon let me get to sleep.
My apartment sits atop my office. It also sits atop the 1st floor rear apartment, at least partially. Apparently, the partially part was the bedroom.
Blood-curdling screams shattered the night as the young couple in the apartment below spent themselves in a mutual orgasm that was porno-movie worthy.
Silence ensued. Nice.
A few seconds later I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke wafting through my open bedroom window. Not so nice.
I chugged the rest of my beer, turned out the light, and wrapped my head in my pillow. I closed my eyes on another seemingly unproductive day.
Or so I thought. Apparently the evening’s sexcapades were just beginning. The tribal calls started back up again ten minutes later. Impressive. I haven’t seen that kind of bounce-back since my early 20’s.
It started low and rhythmic, like a kick drum during sound-check, boom… boom… boom…
Next, the backing vocal oohs and ahhs kicked in. Within minutes, the freight train was full-speed ahead. Chuga… chuga… chuga…
When it started up for a third time, I knew I had to leave.
I decided to head back to my “home-when-I-didn’t-have-a-home”, the Chestnut Hill Hotel, and hopefully get a few hours sleep. I just had to grab a few things first and set my alarm.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I awoke the next morning to my cell phone ringing. It was Deets.
I was nestled in the Chestnut Hill Hotel. I’d slept like a baby for three whole hours. I was feeling irritable and foggy-headed. Listening to porn is just not as fulfilling as watching it. What can I say? Men are visual creatures. Seeing is believing. Or at least, seeing is fantasizing.
“What?” I whined into the phone. It was a little past seven in the morning and I was groggy with sleep. Bleary-eyed and pissy. Nice combination to start the day.
“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” said Deets.
“Don’t ask.”
“I just did.”
I told her about the Symphony Orgasmic concert all-nighter and my subsequent migration to the hotel.
I could swear I could hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
“I have an update,” she said.
“Peachy,” I groaned.
“Meet me at Something’s Brewing in thirty minutes.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m bringing my own coffee.”

I awoke again an hour later with a sharp object poking my ribs. It was a hotel pen. On the other end of it was Deets.
Oops!
Ten minutes later I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel. Deets was making herself comfortable in the chair in the corner of the hotel room. I felt her eyes do a slow crawl up and down the front of my towel. I tried to swallow away the lump in my throat.
“Do you mind?” I said, feeling very naked underneath.
“Not at all,” she said.
“How am I going to get dressed with you in the room?”
“Relax McBride. It’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before.”
“Yes, but you haven’t seen this naked man before.”
“First time for everything,” she said with mock flirtation.
I knew Deets. She wasn’t interested in seeing me naked, it wasn’t about that. She was getting a kick out of seeing me squirm. Plain and simple.
“The only way you see this naked body is naked. You first.”
Deets let out a long breath. She stood up and turned to face the window that looked out on the parking lot.
“You didn’t sleep with that bed spread, did you?” she asked.
“Huh?” I asked, trying to get the towel off and my underwear on in record time before she decided to turn around.
“You ever see what’s on a hotel bed spread?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” I said.
“I saw an expose on 20/20 or something like that that showed some sick stuff. Body fluids, blood, feces, vomit.”
“You really need a hobby, Deets.”
“I’m serious. They found all kinds of things. That’s why hotels use dark bed spreads with busy designs. Doesn’t show stains as easily.”
I tucked in my shirt and pulled up my zipper.
“I could get the lumalite out of the car and we could-“
“Nice try Deets. But I’m not so easily flustered,” I said. But the truth was, I was so easily flustered. But not about the bed spread.
I’d looked at the window and our eyes met. Deets had been watching my reflection in the window. The entire time.
She turned and strode past me on her way out the door, a salacious semi-smile on her lips. She winked as she passed me. “Me you downstairs, big boy” she said and left.
Damn!

Half an hour later I had my quad latte and a blueberry muffin in front of me. Joe College was nowhere to be seen so I figured it was safe. Deets had a steamy cup of Chai Tea.
“Should have let me run the Lumalite,” Deets teased.
“Lumalite. Brilliant invention, pardon the pun.”
Deets groaned and not in the good way.
“Best invention since the windshield wiper,” I said. “Now there’s a guy whose hand I’d like to shake.”
“Mary Anderson,” said Deets.
“What?”
”Mary Anderson. The guy who invented the windshield wiper.”
“Is that what you do with all those lonely nights?” I said. “Sit up and read the Trivial Pursuit Cards?”
“You know, you really have an attitude problem.”
“I do not have an attitude problem,” I said with more attitude than I was comfortable with.
“Yes” said Deets. “You do.”
“Do not,” I said knowing full well she was right.
“You are a vindictive little shit, Shadow. It’s your nature.”
“Back to that, are we?” I said sarcastically. “It’s not my fault my downstairs neighbor is a sex-crazed gigolo. Maybe you two should meet?”
“So it’s his fault? Is that how you justify it?”
“I’m not a vindictive person by nature,” I protested. “I believe in living and let live.”
“Yeah, OK.”
“I’m more of what you call a “tit for tat” person,” I said.
“Uh, huh.”
“Last night, he got “Tit”, this morning I said “take tat.”
“And by “Tat” you mean you set your alarm clock on the hardwood floor directly above where you figured his bed to be.”
I shrugged my shoulders noncommittally.
“Then you set the alarm to go off at 5am, loudly.”
I smiled coyly.
“For good measure, you placed a cardboard box over top of it to act as a natural amplifier,” she said. “Tit for Tat?”
“Retribution’s such an ugly word,” I said. “At least I don’t go sneaking peeks!”
“Relax,” she said. “I’m a boxer kinda girl. Not much for the tighty-whities.”
Great.
Deets’ cell phone chirped and she answered it. She snapped it closed a moment later.
“Well, it was definitely a woman’s heel print,” she said. “Size 9”.
“Tryst?” I asked.
Deets shrugged.
“Can we get a warrant on Tryst to find the shoe. Place her at the scene?”
Deets shrugged again. “Depends on the judge. Probable cause? Maybe. They may want more.”
This is not what I wanted to hear right now.
“Besides,” Deets continued. “Bay was friends with the lot of them. They’re not going to be in any hurry to condemn the name of their dearly departed boy’s club member.”
I kicked the table leg in disgust. I was frustrated, bloated, and needed chocolate. Stat!
“There’s more,” said Deets.
“There always is,” I said. “What else?”
“Depth inconsistencies. It’s what I came over here to talk to you about in the first place.”
“Depth inconsistencies?”
Deets nodded. “Yeah. The idea is that if Bay weighed 210 and Tryst weighed 110, and they stood on the same ground at the same time, Bay’s foot or shoe imprint would be deeper. More weight.”
“And?”
“It’s not,” said Deets. “They’re inconsistent with the proposed body weight. The difference in the print was negligible.”
“Fucking brilliant,” I said. “So where does that leave us?”
“Well, either it was a heavier woman out there than Tryst, or the same person made those marks.”
“What, like Bay tried to set Tryst up, too?” I shook my head. More Swiss cheese.
“That doesn’t work,” I said. “If anything, it clears her, not implicates her.” I pondered for a moment. Two and two was adding up to five entirely too many times lately. “Maybe someone else is pulling the strings.”
“As I see it,” said Deets. “The DA is gonna just about want a confession to move on
anything questionable. I don’t see a confession coming from a stiff. You?”
“Shit!” I said. It seemed pithy for the occasion. “Bureaucratic bullshit, as usual.”
I kicked the chair again. Seemed like the natural thing to do under the circumstances. “If Billy Penn had any idea want went on under his hat,” said Deets. “He’d turn over
in his grave.”
I made a mental eye roll. I was flustered, bleary-eyed and pissy, irritable and foggy-headed, and apparently a vindictive little shit. My tolerance threshold was at an all-time low. It wasn’t Deets I was frustrated with, even if she did see me naked. She just happened to be in close proximity.
We got up and made our way to the register.
“Well,” said Deets. “It may not break the case wide open but it’s a chip in the right
direction.”
I snapped. I’d had it up to my eyeballs with the case, politicians, bureaucracy, fanatical fornicators, being peeked at, and most definitely had had it with Deets butchering the King’s English.
“You know,” I said, not too politely. “You really are an idiot.”
Deets shot me a look.
“It’s ‘chip off the old block’ or ‘step in the right direction,’” I said. “You are a walking
dictionary of clichés, only you got all the pages mixed up. If you can’t even bother to get them right, do us all a friggin’ favor and don’t use them at all.”
“Lay off, Grumpy,” said Deets as she set a fiver down on the counter.
“And FYI…,” I continued. “Roe Vs. Wade was NOT a decision George Washington had to make before crossing the Delaware!”
Deets looked back at me. I could see the hurt in her eyes. “Just because you want this
guy so bad you can taste it doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me.”
I groaned.
“Besides, hotshot smartypants-alec,” Deets continued. “I said it right. Chip in the right direction. It’s what the golfers say after a particularly tough shot that went well.”
Deets collected her change, turned her back to me and made her way to the door. I slammed my own fiver down and didn’t wait for change.
“You don’t play golf,” I said, hurrying after her.
“Yeah, but I could.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew I’d hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t help it. I was cranky. I took a deep breath and dropped my shoulders in resignation. I squeezed past her and in a gesture of contrition went to open the door for her. I was met with an immovable force. The door was locked on the right side and only opened on the left. Pet peeve number 73 on my list. My momentum carried me shoulder-first into the locked door. My take-out cup exploded under the impact and drenched me with hot latte. Karma.
Deets smirked. “Now who’s the pot calling the kettle an idiot?”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

I stopped by my apartment to change into a shirt that was less java-fied. My answering machine was blinking on the desk. I hit the playback button to retrieve my messages while I retrieved a semi-clean shirt from a rumpled pile of such shirts at the bottom of my closet. Who has time for hangers?
It was Tryst. Interesting. She called to say she had information I would be interested in and that she wanted to set up a meeting.
Since she no longer had a horse to back in the upcoming election, and since she was temporarily unemployed, Justina Tryst was spending quiet time at her summer home down the Jersey shore.
The weather outside was steadily warming. Spring was kicking into high gear. Flowers were flowering, buds were budding, and trees were, uh, doing what it is trees are supposed to do. Seemed like a good time for a road trip.
What was Tryst up to? Did she have vital info, or did she have something up her sleeve. If she had something to do with Miranda’s killing, that made her dangerous. I was a little nutso, but I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t walking into a trap. Not alone, anyway.
I called Deets and told her about the phone call. I tried to ignore her cool tones on the phone. I knew I had hurt her feelings, but this was business. Deets was a professional. She’d let me have it later.
An hour later we were headed to the southernmost tip of New Jersey to a quaint Victorian hamlet known as Cape May. It’s Chestnut Hill with a beach.
Sort of.
The New Jersey shoreline is only 60 miles due east from Center City Philadelphia. Popular Jersey shore points further south add another 30 to 40 miles to the trip. Cape May was a solid two hours of vehicular togetherness away for Deets and I. Quality time.
Sort of.

Californians hit the surf, World War II veterans ‘storm’ the beach, Philadelphians go ‘down the shore!’ It’s just what they do. Going ‘down the shore’ is a time-honored Philadelphia tradition dating back more than a century.
For a large metropolitan city, Philly is quite provincial. There are entire neighborhoods where kids grow up, marry other kids from the neighborhood, buy their own houses just down the street from where they were raised, and then raise their own kids who’ll live their entire lives within the same four block area.
In recent years there has been a migration from Philly neighborhoods to suburban areas that drape the city limits. Some of the neighborhood loyalty Philadelphia has enjoyed has tarnished a bit, but in some areas of the city, it remains quite strong.
Philadelphians are serious about their turf. They are insanely serious about their sports teams and their cheese steaks. They are just as serious about their shore points.
As a Philadelphian, your social equity can be closely tied to your choice of shore points. Sea Isle for the college kids, Avalon for the twenty-somethings, Margate for the Main Liners, Atlantic City for the gamblers and the octogenarians on bus tours, and Ocean City, (a dry-town since it’s founding in 1879) for families looking for that wholesome family experience. Wildwood, enjoying a recent renaissance is once again another prime family destination with great boardwalks.
Cape May is for those with money and a taste for a finer shore experience. Its old-world charm harkens back to a simpler time. The nation’s largest collection of Victorian-era homes outside of San Francisco offers clean beaches, great shopping, quaint little B&B’s, and the best bird watching on the entire east coast.
Tryst’s kind of place.