Backwater Blues

"I thought as much. When I negotiated her being with you last night she was very keen about the whole thing. I set her straight about the situation and that there was no way that it would be a permanent thing between us and her. It would appear as if she was trying to go behind my back and convince you that it was at my suggestion that the three of us could enjoy each other's company. I am glad that you didn't go along with that, although she did say that you had to think about it."

"I thought about it for no more than a nano-second."

"I figured that to be the case. It looks as if I'm going to have to find someone else for you tonight."

"Look, don't bother. Apart from the fact that I'm a little upset that someone murdered Tania in this club, I have decided that, if you can't oblige, I will do without. What I'm trying to tell you is that I want to love, and make love to, one person only."

"And who might that be?" She was quick, I'll give her that.

"You, silly. You might have gathered from the dropped hint or several over the years that we have known each other, that I'm in love with you, and I went along with your monthly plans because that was what you said you wanted. None of the chosen have come close to what we have for each other. I hope that you have the same feelings for me as I have for you."

Rhonda looked daggers at Susie as she launched herself into my startled arms in answer to my enunciated hope. I was knocked off my feet and ended up on my back on the floor with the love of my life straddling me and covering my face with kisses.

"Sheldon will be pleased. I don't suppose that you'd consider moving in with me, would you?" This brought on an increase in her kissing and cuddling until she eventually stopped and looked me in the eyes. She could hardly look anywhere else she was that close to my face. "Let's forget about rehearsals for a while and you can take me home to fetch my toothbrush and a few other odds and ends, and we'll go to yours for a celebratory drink of champagne and we can pick up some condoms so that you don't get blood all over you."

"Why didn't we think of that before?"

"Because I know that you have an aversion to wearing a cock sock. There is another solution."

"Yes?"

"I could always have a hysterectomy, that'll get rid of my periods forever."

"A bit radical don't you think?"

"For you my love, anything." She kissed me again.

"We're going home for a bit. We'll see you later this afternoon." I told them.

"A bit of what?" Rhonda asked.

"Use your imagination, that's if you have one." Susie said as a parting comment.

"She's not a happy person. I'd watch her closely if I were you." I said as we hit daylight.

"You're thinking of becoming a detective again, aren't you?"

"I have given it some thought, let's face it, Jonas isn't the brightest bulb in the box. We have something of a history going back to when I was in the force. He was one of those totally convinced that I had arrested the wrong guy in that murder case that got me out of the force. The guy that I arrested was his brother-in-law."

"So you think that he'll take the opportunity to make your life a misery over this case?"

"Yes, and I'm afraid that he might use you to get at me."

"What do you mean?"

"If he can't finger me for the hit, doesn't that have a certain TV cop show ring to it? If he can't finger me for it, he'll try to implicate you, either for the murder, or as an accessory."

"But to do that he will have to have some fairly strong evidence, won't he?"

"Either that or he'll fabricate it."

"Surely he can't do that."

"It has been known to happen, and I wouldn't put it past him if he thinks that he can get back at me."

It was when we were naked and about to jump into bed that we realised that, in our enthusiasm to get to this point, we had forgotten to get condoms. Okay, so it was a little messy, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

"I have a proposition for you." Susie said after we had removed all traces of our lovemaking from our bodies.

"Oh yes, and what might that be?"

"Rhonda was curious as to why I just didn't give you a blow job or several on those days when my periods intervened. I have to admit that I couldn't think of a good reason why we don't, apart from me wanting to see you fully satisfied."

"I explained that it might cause you some discomfort and affect your singing."

"I'm prepared to take that chance, just to see if it will cause a problem for me." She backed up that statement by swallowing my still flaccid cock and rousing him from his torpor. He was just getting into it when she took her mouth away and began to stroke my spit covered cock, her face just centimetres from him. "He looks huge from here." She kissed his head and continued her manipulation. My first spurt caught her between the eyes so she covered his tip with her mouth and swallowed the rest of my come. "I could get used to this." She smile at me as she wiped the come from her face with her finger and sucked it into her mouth,

"I don't know why we never did this before. I have no complaints." I kissed her and tasted me on her lips.

"We'd better get back or Rhonda will get upset at us."

"She can get upset all she likes, I really don't care."

"Now, that's not nice, you should be caring about the others, after all we are supposed to be a band that gets on well together."

"I suppose so." My response just about reflected my lack of concern. My mind was now busy exploring the murder at the club, and trying to make sense of the whole episode. It was failing. You can imagine my shock when we arrived back at the bar to find Inspector Jonas waiting for us, a pair of handcuffs in hand. "Susan Sweetman, you are under arrest for the murder of Tania Roberts. You do not have to say anything at this time, but if . . . . ." The rest of his spiel was lost to me as my mind kicked into gear. What possible evidence could they have? ". . . . You have the right to an attorney, if you do not have one, an attorney will be provided." He snapped the cuffs on her wrists and began to drag her towards his waiting car.

"Hold on here mate." He glared at my familiarity. "What evidence have you got?"

"I don't have to tell you anything, you aren't in the force anymore, but if you must know, we have CCTV vision that puts her at the scene. How do you like that, mate?" He emphasised the 'mate'. "Your wonderful girlfriend is a vicious killer."

"Don't worry." I told Susie, "I'll get you a Lawyer and I'll get to the bottom of this." I would have kissed her but Jonas made sure that I didn't get the opportunity by pushing her into the back of his car and slamming the door, a little forcefully I would have thought.

"Who'd have thought that she did it?" Rhonda said from just beside me.

"She didn't."

"And how would you know, you were probably snoring your head off at the time."

"You could be right about that," Come to think of it, I remembered nothing from the time that I pulled out of her and rolled away from her, to the moment when I woke later. "But I know Susie could not have done it."

"And just how can you be so sure about that?"

"I know Susie." I didn't think that I needed to say anything else, so I didn't.

"Do you?" Rhonda was getting on my nerves, so I tried to walk away from her. She followed me like some starving pooch waiting for its dinner, honestly, if she had a tail she would have been wagging it. "How well do you really know her?"

"Well enough. We have been through a lot, Susie and I." That was true enough, we had, and in all of that time she had never given me any reason why I could not trust her.

"You're going to have to face it, Susie isn't what you think she is."

"And what do you think she is?" I couldn't wait to hear this.

"She is a manipulative woman who has you by the short and curlies. She only has to tell you to jump and you ask 'how high'. She can do whatever she wants and you still think that the sun rises and sets out of her arse. As far as you are concerned, she can do no wrong in your eyes, but she has been screwing with you all of this time."

I didn't want to hear that. Could it be true? I thought not, I hoped not. I had implicit trust in her. Was the past tense a Freudian slip? Did I still trust her? I'm going to have to think about that. Okay, I've thought about it. Scrub the past tense, I still have implicit trust in her.

George had made the decision that, in the absence of his star vocalist, the show would not go on. If she made bail, the publicity of her return would ensure a full house the next night. He was all heart our George, he made no offer to contribute to whatever the bail amount was.

I was no sooner home and finished talking to my Lawyer to arrange to spring her, when my phone rang. "Hi Lover." It was Rhonda.

"Who is this?"

"Bastard! It's Rhonda, I need to see you."

"Can't you tell me over the phone?"

"No. Drop the key, I want to come up."

"Hang on." I grabbed the key off the hook and slipped the fish hook through the hole and lowered it down. Minutes later she arrived wearing this slinky black number that was devoid of a panty line and, by the look of her nipples pressing against the fabric, she wore no bra.

"What do you want?" I asked, curious as to what she could possibly want.

"You." I have never seen anyone become naked as quickly as she had. Once the fabric of the top of her dress had cleared her tits, the whole lot fell to the floor. No bra, no knickers, just a very delectable, if only at a better time, young female body. This was not the better time for her. I stooped and picked her dress from the floor. "Put it back on, I'm not interested." I said, tossing it back to her.

"That's not the impression I got last night, or this morning."

"That was last night, and that was this morning. Different times, different circumstances. I wasn't missing the love of my life then, but I am now. I have to go and see my Lawyer and arranged to get her out of gaol. I do not have time to be fooling around with you, so get dressed and go home."

"I'll come with you."

"No, please, just leave me alone to do what I have to do."

The hungry pooch followed me into the lift, her sad face watched me the entire time that it took to descend to the car park. "Stay." I held my hand up in front of her face. "You can't come with me, go home, please."

She whimpered but obeyed my command.

"It's pretty fucking obvious that this is a setup." I whispered to Raymond Georgeson, my Lawyer, after we had sat through the screening of the CCTV footage of a woman entering the club at around the time that the Medical Examiner had decided that Tania had been shot. "I might not be terribly smart, but if I, like Susie, had distinctive blonde hair I think that I would have hidden that fact from the cameras. We know that they are there."

"A very good point. They don't have anything else to go on, no forensics to link Susie with the crime, no murder weapon, even though they have gone over her apartment with a fine toothed comb." He stood and addressed the Judge. "Your Honour, this is obviously a frame up. As you can see, my client has blonde hair, long blonde hair. Now someone with long blonde hair, and who knew of the existence of CCTV cameras at the entrance to the bar, as she does, would have made sure that her hair would be hidden from the cameras, not clearly visible. The vision does not show the face at all, so it is not possible to definitively identify my client as this person. This is someone who has gone to great lengths to implicate my client. I might add this is someone who is not particularly smart, if he or she thought that this would fool anyone with a modicum of intelligence." This dig at Inspector Jonas did not go un-noticed.

"I agree. It is my considered opinion, Inspector." He fixed Jonas with a particularly withering glare. "You do not have sufficient evidence to hold the prisoner in custody, so I am ordering her release." Jonas was about to protest but this was cut short by the Judge's gavel signalling an end to proceedings.

With no gig on tonight, Susie, Sheldon and I had a night to remember. Early to bed and early to rise, I had an erection of monumental proportions before we even hit the sheets, and Susie savoured every subtle nuance of him until exhaustion kicked in. Sheldon curled up at the end of the bed until Susie and I were totally knackered, and then came up to join us, his two stroke motor rattling loudly as he curled up in his usual position against Susie.

Twice during the night we woke and made love, taking care not to disturb our bed companion. He was disturbed, but seemed not to mind the disruption to his sleep, cranking up his motor as we settled back for our post coital sleep. I cursed myself, as I drifted off, for not arranging for Susie to live with me years ago.

After breakfast, brunch, lunch, whatever, I headed off to see what I could find out about why Tania had died and who could have done it. Susie headed off to bring more of her stuff around, taking my key with her, and telling me that she would get a duplicate cut while she was out.

Tracing Tania's life proved to be difficult. She didn't work in a brothel or for an escort agency, she appeared to be a loner who kept very much to herself. One thing that did surprise me was where she lived, the YWCA hostel. I know that you don't have to be a practising Christian to stay at one of these places, but her choice of accommodation was nonetheless surprising. I spoke to a couple of girls, but they could tell me little of significance. None of the girls knew of her night time activities. She had told them that she worked the late shift at a MacDonald's, and they saw no reason to doubt this explanation. She did tell them that she came from a small country town, but a check on this was fruitless, no-one there had ever heard of her, and there was no record of a girl in her late teens missing from the area.

I thought of trolling the missing persons records but the sheer number of girls reported missing, that would have been the same age as her, meant that luck would have been a deciding factor in identifying her. I didn't feel all that lucky.

George told me that he had felt sorry for her, and had allowed her to use the club to pick up tricks, even offering his services on those nights when she struck out. She sometimes slept on the couch in his office, and this seemed to have been the case on the night in question. Other than that, he knew nothing of her. He did say that she did keep herself and her clothes clean.

I know that this is going to sound callous, but I had come to the conclusion that Tania Roberts was irrelevant to the solving of her murder. She would appear to have been the wrong girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no obvious motive for the crime, and without one, the chances of solving it were remote.

I then concentrated on finding a reason why Susie had been implicated, and here I had a little luck. It was all my fault apparently. For some reason, whoever did this thing had done it to get back at me for some reason. What that reason was remained a mystery for the time being, but an overheard conversation was the key to this information.

A week or two ago George had been contemplating his navel or something in a cubicle when he heard two men talking. "My client is looking for someone to do a small job for her. You will get a grand up front and a further two grand on completion."

"What does she want done?"

"You are to top someone and make it look like someone else did it. You do not need to know who wants this done, who you are to hit, who will take the fall for it, or even why it has to be this way. Are you in or not?"

"That's a silly question. You know that I'm into Lou for three grand, and this will square me with him. I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Not really. Now this is how it's going to go down. There's this girl who we need to get rid of. Who that is of no concern to you. You will be given the time and place for it to happen. My client will set the scene for someone else to take the fall. You will be provided with a shooter, and after the job is done, you are to dispose of it so that it will never be found. You are to take the usual precautions, wipe it clean, including the clip, before you use it, wear rubber gloves, so that you leave no prints, dispose of your jacket. I have to warn you that if you do not carry out these instructions and you are connected with this hit, I, we, do not know you, have never met you, and you will find yourself on your own. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah."

"You will be told the how and where of this when the time comes. After you have done that you will disappear for a while. Tickets will be provided for a cruise, one of those party boats. You will be provided with blow, as much as you need, so there will be no need for you to seek supplies on board. If we hear that you have been buying on board, you will disappear in such a way that you will not be missed until the ship returns to port. Are there any questions?"

"No."

"You leave first and I will follow in a few minutes. We will be in touch."

George thought nothing more of the conversation until I began to ask him if there had been anything unusual going on around the place. He didn't think that the conversation had anything to do with Tania's death until I began to dig deeper into what had happened. He still wasn't sure, but I was. There was one thing that he was sure of, and that was that neither voice belonged to Jonas. That the conversation took place in the toilets of the bar sort of connected it to there. Tania was probably the only regular in the place that could be considered irrelevant. Who was it, that the person coughing up the money wanted to get back at, and who was going to carry the can for it? This was still unclear. My guess was that it had to be someone connected with the bar in some way. That it could have been me I doubted, but that was not out of the question either.

I arrived home to dinner cooking away on the stove, and Susie and Sheldon having quality time on the couch. Susie was between Sheldon and his spot, and the bastard didn't seem to mind. I leant down to kiss her hello and he glared at me. This was the last thing that I needed, a jealous cat. He protested when she stood up and threw her arms around my neck. "How did you go?"

"More questions than answers. I think that the killing of Tania was a by-product of a different agenda, and one that scares me. I have a horrible suspicion that you were set up to get at me for some reason, though for the life of me I can't work that out. What I am looking for is some change in patterns or circumstances over the past couple of weeks, months maybe, that could lead me to the why of this whole mess."

"Funny you should say that. I have had this feeling ever since Rhonda came to the band, that she was there for more than the singing. And when she came up with her wonderful scheme for us sexually, I realised that she had been trying to insinuate herself between us for some time. Hopefully my moving in with you will put a lid on any ambitions she might have in that particular direction."

"I wouldn't count on that." I told her about the visit that I had while she was inside.

"The bitch! Gee, she didn't let any grass grow underfoot, did she?"

"I put an end to it very quickly."

"I bet she was overjoyed, after all you are not known for your subtlety when it comes to women, me excluded of course."

We were back at work, but the vibe was uncool, the spark had gone. "Rhonda, are you going to fuck around or get your shit together and join the real world." I had just about had enough of her attitude.

"Listen jerk. If the queen bitch hit a right note it's by accident. How can I sing back-up when I don't know what she's supposed to be singing, but it ain't the right tune? If there's anyone who needs a kick up the arse it's her. Why don't you stop thinking with your dick and get her to actually sing instead of squawking."