Death of an Escort

Published by PNC Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Nathan Pennington

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Chapter 1

I crossed my legs and looked down at my
yellow legal notepad. I wasn't sure how to phrase this right, so I
did it bluntly.

"Your mother was a prostitute, and she only
did women?" I asked.

Her daughter, Macy, nodded.

"And she committed suicide over the weekend
in a motel room, at least that is how law enforcement sees it?"

Again she nodded.

"And you want to hire me to look into the
matter."

Macy stared at me, and then she nodded. I
looked down at my notepad and pretended to scribble some notes.
Really, I was buying time. I needed to think.

I'm a licensed private investigator, and I
usually do things like follow people around, or check up on
someone's background, or things like that.

Investigating how a dead person got that way
isn't something I normally did. But, and yes there's always a
"but", due to the economy, work was scarce, really scarce.

I needed the money.

So, that by itself was tipping me to saying
yes. But still . . .

I scooted down lower in the burgundy leather
chair I sat in. It was vintage 1970s. The whole room was. The
carpet was not quite shag, but it was a deep pile, and it was
yellow. The large wooden desk that Macy sat behind was stained a
dark, walnut color.

However, the walls were more modern. They
were painted an off white, but if I had to guess, I'd say that
there had been dark wood paneling on them at some point.

"What do you think?" Macy asked.

I looked up at her. She looked like the exact
opposite of her mother. Macy was nineteen, or that's what she told
me, but she looked older, and she was well over two hundred fifty
pounds.

The picture she'd shown me of her mother,
well, her mom was hot. She didn't look old enough to have a
ten-year-old, let alone a daughter who was nineteen.

"Well," I said. "This isn't a normal case for
me. I don't usually look into deaths."

She sighed. "I understand that, Mr.
Crusafi."

"Call me Ray, please."

"Okay, Ray. I know that. You're the third PI
I've called."

That was a great ego booster. I was third
down on the list. She couldn't get the first two she wanted; so she
finally resorted to me.

"Let's go over the details concisely and see
if I'm missing anything. Then I'll make my decision," I said.

"Okay," she said.

"Your mom was a prostitute."

"An escort," she said.

"Who took money for sex," I said.

She nodded.

"That makes her a prostitute," I said. "And
it's illegal, by the way."

She looked exasperated.

"So your mom took money for sex, but only
from other women. However, she wasn't a lesbian."

"She wasn't even bi-sexual," she said.

"That could be a hard one to defend," I
said.

"No, really. She did women because it was
safer for many reasons. It's an underserved market here."

I nodded. Who was I to disagree? I had no
market research data on horny, unattached lesbians. Probably there
weren't enough prostitutes going around for them.

"Moving on," I said. "Last Saturday night,
she was meeting with a client, and at some point that evening, she
died."

"Correct," she said.

She seemed too emotionally composed about
this, but again, what business was it of mine?

"She died in a local motel. It wasn't exactly
a high end place, as I understand it, and it looked like she
committed suicide, right?"

"It looks that way," she said.

"And it looks that way because she suffocated
with a plastic bag over her head."

Now a tear rolled down her fat cheek. She
flicked it quickly with the tip of a finger.

"She didn't commit suicide, Ray," she said.
"She didn't do that."

"That's what you want me to look into?"

"Yes. She didn't do that to herself."

"I assume you've told this to the police," I
said.

She nodded. "But they say that it looks like
the exact setup for a suicide with an exit bag."

"Exit bag?"

"That's what it's called, I guess," she said.
"You put a bag over your head, fill it with some gas, and tie it
around your neck. An exit bag."

"An exit bag? Now, this raises a question," I
said. "If someone did this to your mother, how did they pull it
off? I mean, did she lie there and let them do it?"

She turned away from me. Apparently, the
emotions were bottled up before. Now they were going to come out.
And judging by the way her shoulders were shaking, they were coming
in torrents now.

"I'm sorry," I said.

She turned back around and was wiping her
eyes vigorously with the back of her hand.

"It's so sudden," she said.

I did something I shouldn't have. I let
emotion get in the way. I decided that I would take the case right
then because I felt bad for Macy, the orphan daughter.

"Okay," I said. "I'll look into this."

"You're hired," she said. She was still
crying a little, but she smiled a little.

"You have to understand that I may find that
it all is exactly as it seems."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to look for the truth. If the
truth is that she really did kill herself, then that's what I'll
report to you."

She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

"I'm going to need to get as much information
from you as I can," I said.

She looked at the wall clock. The garish,
1970s clock said it was noon. "Could we go to lunch?"

"Lunch? I suppose," I said.

"There's a salad bar place around the
corner," she said.

And that's where we went. I hadn't been using
the yellow legal pad before, but now it was time to tip it into
high gear and take some serious notes.

She led the way out of the house. It was an
older one, but quite large.

The house was also situated on a main street.
I let her go out first. Only after she'd walked out did I peak
around the corners of the doorjamb.

As the house was right on the main street, it
felt exposed. Two lanes of traffic zipped by in both
directions.

I was being cautious. You see, my name isn't
really Ray Crusafi. I'm not really a black-haired Italian. Not
really. Fifteen years ago, I used my real name like everyone does,
but I did something that got some very powerful and scary men
angry. Angry enough to put a price on my head that attracted some
top bounty hunters.

I think that they may have forgotten about me
by now, but I'm still not taking any chances.

So, I let her go out first, and I made a very
quick, but very thorough canvass of the walk and street in front
before exiting, and an even wider sweep after exiting.

She was already down the steps, and I
followed. As we were already on Main Street, the restaurant was
only three buildings over. Very convenient.

We entered and ordered. I found out that when
she said salad bar, that was exactly what she meant. It was
strictly a salad bar, but there were two soups to pick from
too.

On the bright side, it was cheap.

We sat down in a booth opposite of each
other. She took out a checkbook and started filling it out.

"Can I make it out to your name?"

"That would be fine," I said.

"Would a retainer of fifteen hundred be
enough to get you started?"

It would, indeed. "Yes," I said. "And I'll
invoice you extra if any other expenses come up."

"For how long will the retainer last?" she
asked.

"My rate is two hundred per day," I said.
"So, a little over seven days."

She ripped the check out of the checkbook,
made a notation in the registry, and handed it to me. Then we both
went up and filled our plates with iceberg lettuce.

I topped mine off with croutons, sunflower
seeds, a few raisins, bacon bits, and a pickle on the side, and
Thousand Island dressing over top. Then I took cup of chicken
noodle soup, and a package of cellophane-wrapped twin saltine
crackers.

We met back at the booth and slid into
separate sides. I took out my notepad.

I figured I should approach this like a logic
problem. I would assume the conclusion false and the premises true.
If I then found no problem with that, I knew the argument was
false.

In plain English, I would assume that her
mother, Kelly Brandt, was murdered. I would draw up a list of
suspects. If each had an alibi, if I could convince myself that
none of them did it, then it would have to be suicide.

Of course, for this to work well, I'd have to
get an accurate list of suspects. Was that possible?

How could I know? This wasn't my line of
expertise. I don't do murder investigations.

I started writing at the top of my pad. She
started eating. I wrote "Unknown suspect", and "Macy".

Not that there was any reason to suspect her,
but I wasn't going to leave anyone out.

"Where is your father?" I asked.

She looked up at me like I'd jabbed her with
my fork. "What?"

"Your father?"

"I never knew him. I only heard about him
from my mother."

"But he knew of you?" I asked, and I poised
my pen ready to write his name down.

"No," she said. "He's been dead for almost
nineteen years. He died before my mom even knew she was pregnant
with me."

"She told you that?"

She nodded.

"And you know for sure that he's dead?"

"I've visited his grave." Anger flashed in
her eyes.

I put my pen down. "I'm sorry."

I stuck my fork into the salad and took a
mouthful. Then I picked up my pen. I wrote down, "last to see her
alive".

"Who was she with the night she died?" I
asked with my mouth partially full.

Again, I got this blank look.

"Do you think she discussed that kind of
stuff with me?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"I have no idea who she was with," she
said.

"Okay," I said. This was going to be harder
than I thought. "Is there any kind of client list?" Even before I
finished the sentence, I knew it was a dumb question.

"No," she said. "As you so delicately put it,
she was not in a fully legal line of work. She didn't keep
records."

"So you have no idea who she was seeing for
business?"

She looked angry, and I took that as a
no.

"And," I said, "she only took cash?"

Macy nodded.

"Can I ask a side question?" I asked. She
didn't say no, so I continued. "Are you paying my fee with money
she earned?"

Macy looked out the window. She kept looking
out the window. She said, "My mother was a good provider. She kept
me safe and protected."

I guessed that was a yes.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

She looked back at me and shook her head
no.

"Did your mom have any other children?"

"Didn't I say no?" she snapped.

I leaned back against the hard plastic booth
back. "Look," I said. "I understand that you lost your mother and
you think foul play was involved. That's got to be very emotionally
trying, but work with me here. I'm trying to collect the info I
need to work this case for you."

Her bottom lip and chin quivered. "Sorry,"
she said and looked like she might cry.

The restaurant was not very full. No one was
taking any notice of us, but if she started crying and sobbing
right now, well, they would start looking and it would all get
really uncomfortable really fast.

"It's okay," I said. "It's okay."

We munched salad in silence for a while.

"Can you think of anyone else connected to
your mother?" I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. "Her fiancé."

Chapter 2

"Fiancé? She was engaged?" I asked.

Macy nodded.

Interesting. She's a hot call girl, escort.
She's old enough to have a nineteen-year-old. She only services
women, and she was engaged to be married.