away.
“Damn you Adam! I don’t want your pity. I’m your wife.”
Her words were barely audible, as her utterances were issued between heavy sobs!
The phone in the house began ringing. Adam hastily walked toward the house, passing through open sliding glass doors that led into a home office. He picked up the phone from his desk.
“Hello, this is Adam Speck.” He listened for few seconds.
“Why Bill, I thought you would be on the ninth hole by now.”
He listened a bit more and then spoke again. “A new client? I didn’t know we were taking on any new clients.”
“A murder case?” as he repeated these words, he was clearly startled.
He then listened very attentively for several minutes.
“Bill, did you say The Bulge? A murder was committed last night at The Bulge?”
The expression on his face showed he was drifting in thought, almost to the point he was no longer hearing what is being said on the phone.
Multiple seconds funneled into a minute. A loud voice soon became audible from the other end of the line. “Adam, are you there? Adam?”
His train of thought is suddenly snapped.
“Yeah! Yeah Bill, I’m here. You said the dead man’s name was,” there was a pause, “Brice Williams?”
A tear rolled dlown his cheek as he reconnected to the conversation.
“You want me to do what! Take this case!”
He raised his hand, gesturing opposition to the request.
“Bill, you know how busy I already am. To take on more work, given all my present commitments, well… Hell, it’s just not possible.”
He paused and listened more.
“Sure, but,” his comment is cut short as he listened again.
“The client requests me? And that’s agreeable to…”
Before he can finish his comment, he responds, “Yeah, I know, he’s the senior partner. I know he has the greatest confidence in me. Yeah, I know! I know!”
There was an extended pause as he listened for the last time. Then he ended the conversation, “I understand. Okay!”
He turned to look out toward the pool. His wife is taking a draw off another cigarette. He took the phone and pressed the receiver under his chin, holding it with both hands. He held that position until an electronic-sounding message begin to emanate from the object in his hand. “Please hang up the phone, a receiver has been left off the hook. Please hang up the phone… Several more tears fell from his eyes…”
CHAPTER FOUR
Seated and leaning toward her computer screen, Angelina took a quick sip of cold coffee from a white paper cup. She appeared to be oblivious to the fact that it had gotten cold. Charlie walked up to her desk with steam rising from a cup of coffee in his hand. All around them was the hustle and bustle typical of the downtown Phoenix Police Station.
“How about a fresh cup?” She nodded to accept the offer. He placed the steaming cup on the desk in front of her.
“All computer records and receipts are now secured,” he said.
“And our friend, Carl Morrison?”
“His lawyer just contacted our office. It seems the attorney is not happy over how we treated his client.”
“Did you tell him it was a matter of cooperation, or the lack there of, that caused his client grief,” Angelina smiled big as she said this, not taking her eyes off the monitor.
“His lawyer is Adam Speck,” Charlie waited for a response.
“The Speck, of Harold, Wiggins, and Speck?”
“Yep, the same.”
“Somebody’s got some deep pockets to be able to get those uptown attorneys on board for a case like this,” Angelina said. “That’s very interesting.”
With the remarks, the wheels inside her head obviously were sent spinning.
Angelina’s success within the department had been founded on her efforts at doing thorough research and great detective work for each of her cases. She, in fact, went looking places other detectives could easily miss. Determined efforts had paid off several times in her career. In particular, she had gained significant notoriety in solving a triple homicide. A city official, in the high profile case, had been brought to justice for instigating a hit on three gang members who were competing with him over drug territory. The news stories from that case found her being referred to as “the City’s Angel.”
“Charlie, look at this!”
He bent down to cast his eyes on the screen. Immediately, he pulled reading glasses out of his pocket.
“There was a murder in a bath house in Houston two months ago. It happened on a Friday night and the victim, a man in his twenties, was strangled to death.”
Charlie, stooped over, to glance at the news story from the Houston Chronicle, the city’s newspaper. After reading a paragraph or two he asked, “You think it’s a coincident?”
“Look.” Excitement was in her voice.
Charlie bent over again.
“At a bath house in South Florida, five months ago, there was confusion over a death in a bath house. ‘The police department felt there might have been foul play; however, there was enough cocaine in the victim’s system to contribute to his death. The DA has not ruled out the possibility of strangulation as the cause in the death.’”
“Angie, you thinking we are dealing with a serial murder?” He straightened up as he said this.
“And look,” even more excitement registered in her voice. Charlie bent over to look at the monitor yet again. “About eight months back there was an investigation begun in Chicago. A man in his mid-twenties was strangled to death at The Unicorn, a bath house located in the city’s predominantly gay area. The detective doing the investigation is fellow named Detective Robert Moskowitz.”
Charlie quickly read Angelina’s mind.
“Think he’s working on a Saturday?”
“It’s worth giving a try,” she instantly responded.
Wasting no time, she pushed a button on the dial. “Hello Roberta. Please connect me to a Detective Robert Moskowitz with the Chicago PD.”
Before she could say another word a female officer, carrying a plastic box, walked to Angelina’s desk. She put the box down.
“Here’s the deceased’s valuables, I retrieved them from a locked box at that creepy
