The Tall Open Window

After that, it was pretty much like a feeding frenzy on Shark Week. Six guys were all over the little figure - every orifice, every combination, every angle.

I paused it, feeling very sad for her and more than a little puzzled. If Francine had been telling the truth, Michelle never  walked that side of the street, not for any kind of money.

I started it again, tried to ignore the flailing mass of flesh on the screen and look for other clues. After a moment, one jumped out at me. The camera circled the bed, around and around, zooming in to catch particularly juicy shots. What struck me now was how slick it all was. The camera wasn't bobbing like a handheld. It moved so smoothly that it had to have been on a dolly. The editing seemed even, not jumpy. It was smooth enough to give the video a professional feel, if you liked that kind of professionalism...

Her face on the screen pinched into what looked to me like a very real orgasm. Her mouth pulled away from two cocks long enough to pant and gasp before they were on her again.

It went on, to my mind, much too long before ending abruptly, with no credits or titles of any kind.

I backed it up to her orgasm and froze it. My mind kept flipflopping from the face on the screen to the placid, cold one on the bed in the Plaza.

Somebody was going to pay for this.

+

I looked across at Daphne Cooke. She stared back, expressionless.

"Who'd have suspected a high-profile lesbian film studio of being the front for a boy-girl prostitution ring, right? Open porn production made it too darned obvious, a Purloined Letter. And Hot Flashes' all-girl menu would make it look even more implausible, right?"

She stared at me, disdain in her eyes.

"That's ridiculous!" she sneered. "You'll never prove it."

"Oddly enough, I think I will," I said. I pointed to the hard drive.

"I lied," I repeated. "Colleen didn't encrypt it. Shocking how much can be in such a little package, isn't it?"

"You're bluffing."

"'Money', 'Men' and 'Girls'," I said softly. I saw the shock in her eyes. She knew that I'd seen what had killed Colleen.

Her eyes telegraphed her intent when they darted down to the pillow beside her. As her hand emerged holding the butt of a small automatic, her eyes flipped up to see my PPK already pointing straight between her eyes.

"Go ahead," I said softly. "Keep trying. I like being underestimated."

She froze, shrugged, her hand still on the gun.

I waggled with the PPK.

'Two fingers," I ordered. "Drop it on the floor then kick it back under the sofa with your foot."

Hatred in her eyes, she did so.

"It was cute," I said. "A bunch of super-hot girls, all of them already willing to get frisky for surprisingly little cash. All you had to do was find -- or create -- a big enough stick for any of them and then you owned her cute ass. With Michelle, you had her hauling a train with half a dozen slobs. When the cops get a look at the hard drive, it's pretty good odds that there's something really sordid on each of your string. If a girl stayed with Hot Flashes long enough, you'd find a way.

"Michelle must have been terrified of you showing that video to Rachel. The question becomes how you set it up in the first place, but I'll bet the cops'll be able to find a selection of Roofies and other fun pills in your office."

She sat silent, thin-lipped.

I looked at her, smirked. "I'll bet the johns got an extra thrill from banging girls they'd watched rug-munching on their computers."

"You don't think this means anything?" she hissed. "This'll never even get to court. Who cares what scenes porn actresses star in?"

"Think so? This is just the beginning. Colleen also included a personally video'd deposition of what she saw and overheard behind the scenes."

Her face turned paler as she realized the implications of that.

"The hard drive has all your clients, Daphne. All the dates, all the payoffs. And the blackmail photos on them, too. Oh, the johns'll consider trying to keep this quiet, use their influence to cover it up. But only briefly, sweetie, just briefly. Then the reality is going to hit home, that there've been three murders and it's not going to get swept under the rug and that they can either play ball or they'll get the bat shoved up their ass. That realization is going to take each of them all of about six minutes alone with his lawyer and then they'll be happy to throw you under the bus. By this time tomorrow, you won't have a friend in the world, honey."

She sagged back into the sofa.

"But you know, Daphne, it's as much a beginning as it is an end. It's an end of this little scheme of yours, sure, but it's a new start, a way out for some of your girls. They can still clam-dive for video peanuts if they want, but there'll be no more fear, no more forced 'dates'."

I grinned.

"It's also a beginning of a 40-year story."

"What?"

"They did away with the death penalty around here, but the 20 years you'll spend in the prison laundry will age you like 40. You'll be a very poor, very friendless and very old hag the next time you see daylight, Daphne." I stressed the words 'poor' and 'friendless' and 'old'; I could see that they hit her like bricks.

She struggled, overcame it.

"You're forgetting something, McFitch. Even if your little fairy tale was actually true, why on earth would I kill  Dawn and Michelle?"

"It was no secret that Michelle's wife had left her. With Rachel gone, you had no more hold on her. Those videos you had of her and your dong squad might be embarrassing, but nothing more, not with Rachel gone. Who remembers Paris Hilton's leaked tapes now? And you must've known she hated you for what you'd made her do. It would have been be too much of a risk to let her go. She'd go public sooner or later.

"And Michelle had  been investigating a move. You were in her purse -- it's a safe bet you saw her plane ticket."

"So why would I want to kill Dawn?"

"Collateral damage, sweetie. You knew Michelle was slipping the leash and you wouldn't have had any way to push her into even one more 'date', not one more 'special' video - not without Dawn's help. You still had leverage on Dawn, I'm sure; she still had hopes of marriage and a family. Once you'd pressured her into talking Michelle into the Plaza for -- what was it? 'Just one more movie, pleeease?' -- Dawn had to go, too. She was not only expendable, but would've been happy to burn you when news of Michelle's murder got out."

"It was a good plan, too. It might've worked, Daphne. It could've come off like you planned and looked like just a squalid hotel robbery murder. Dawn had reserved the room in her own name, the same as your girls always did for a date. I'll bet they both had vanilla jobs like you said and there'd have been no tie to you, except for one thing. You took the wrong bag, Daphne. You took the makeup case and missed the second purse. The cops found my business card in it. One of them knew me and, trying to do me a favor, called me. I recognized Michelle from when I'd been at the studio earlier.

"But your troubles were just beginning, 'cause Colleen had taken off and was blackmailing you with a copy of your files. Now that must've scared the crotchless panties off you. But when I showed up at the studio a second time, you saw a chance to turn it to your advantage and hired me to find her.

"Which I did, of course. I also found this." I pointed at the hard drive. "You couldn't have known she'd put it into the mail to herself when you tore up her apartment and the motel room."

"And the Plaza Hotel is only two blocks from your studio. I guess you had to go there to get a camera; it would've looked weird for you to show up at the Plaza for Dawn and Michelle without one."

"And the dumpster you tossed the makeup bag into on your way back is just about half-way between the Plaza Hotel and Hot Flashes. Juries just love coincidences like that.

"You must have been some pissed when you opened it." I grinned. "The cops have it now. Did you know they can pull fingerprints off fabric these days? Lasers, I think."

Silent, she stared at me, trying to process how deep Shit Creek really was.

"And security here in the Canmore is pretty good," I continued, my smile getting wider. "I bet they'll have a log, maybe even security camera footage of you leaving here early Monday night and coming back late. That's 'opportunity', easy-peasy."

She sat totally still, barely breathing.

"I'm guessing that Colleen called you from the Parkway Motel just after you hired me. What did she want, Daphne? Was she still wanting money or had she read about Michelle and Dawn and was willing to settle for a 'Get Out of Dying Free' card?

"Not that it really mattered. Those damned airplanes flying over every two minutes -- it was a dead giveaway to where she was hiding, wasn't it? I'd even be willing to bet that your costume room at the studio has a niqab - such a convenient disguise for you at the motel.

"And it's a lead-pipe cinch that that little popgun under the sofa is a ballistic match for the one used to kill Colleen, Michelle and Dawn. So, that's 'means' to a jury, Daphne.

"Put it all together, sis, and it's motive, means and opportunity in one sordid, squishy little package. The D.A. will probably take the case herself. The headlines will write themselves: 'Porn Madam Indicted! D.A. Vows Conviction!'

I saw the certainty of it slowly sink home, gloried in the horror growing in her eyes. It made up for a lot, to my way of thinking.

I felt through my purse with my spare hand for my phone, glanced at it. There was a series of texts from Sarah.

Ignoring them, I thumbed 'Call'.

"Sarah, we're in Room 1204." When she started with questions, I cut her off, dropped the phone back into my purse.

I held the.380 steady.

"Who?" she asked.

"Lieutenant Sarah Cotton, Homicide. I sent her a text half an hour ago, telling her I'd cracked this one for her. She's been in alley behind the place, waiting for me to show up."

I could see her mind working, little wheels spinning, plans and options chasing each other like methedrine rats in a maze. Her eyes narrowed slowly as a long minute passed.

There was a rapid knocking at the door. It paused for a second, started again.

I was ready for her to try to buy me off.

I was ready for her to scramble after the gun under the sofa.

I was even ready for her to throw herself at me over the coffee table.

I wasn't ready for her to launch herself at the window beside her. That tall open window drew her like a canary seeing an open door to its lifelong cage.

She didn't make a sound for 12 stories, not a whisper. It was very quiet for about four endless seconds, then the street and the dogs and the car horns and the birds and the alarms outside all began to scream on her behalf.

I got up and went to open the door.

Sarah would take it from there.

André would be waiting.

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