Chapter 10
"What do you mean, you didn't get him?" growled Bailey, balling up his fists in a murderous rage. "I didn't pay you three grand to take a joy ride in my Lincoln, you assholes!"
Patterson and Carlile shifted their weight simultaneously and exchanged glances.
"We hit his car twice . . . but we lost him in traffic," shrugged Carlile.
"So where the fuck is he now? He's supposed to be in the bottom of Lake Michigan!" Bailey's eyes snapped toward the panoramic gray choppy waters of Lake Michigan from his exclusive condominium window.
Patterson hooked a finger in his collar and gulped. "Headed for the police station . . . "
Bailey threw himself in the nearest chair and held his head in his sweaty hands. "I've got to get those papers.. . . ! " He slammed his balled up fist into the palm of his hand and chewed his bottom lip. The blood was draining from his face; a slight tremor made his hands shake.
The hit men looked at each other and shrugged.
A red curtain of anger blinded Bailey. "Fucking son of a whore!" he spat. Whether he was damning Jack Turner or himself, was a point of conjecture. That he's sorely underestimated his son-in-law's perspicacity and depth of revenge was slamming home like the lock of a prison cell door. "I never thought the chicken shit had the balls. . . . "
The thermometer read 14 degrees, but Jack Turner was sweating when he skidded into the police station, threw himself through the bullet proof doors and elbowed his way past the dispatcher, heading straight for Officer Pearson who sat chomping down a Big Mac at his desk.
Out of breath and flushed, Jack slapped the brown envelope on the officer's desk. "There's the evidence you wanted," he challenged, breathing hard. "There's somebody out there trying to kill me . . . and God knows what's happened to my wife!"
Officer Pearson pushed back the shiny bill of his hat and stared into Jack's reddened eyeballs. Jowls rippling, he chomped on his burger and gulped it down dryly. With one eye on Jack, he pulled the string on the envelope and squinting, flipped through a pile of death certificates. "Hmmm . . . " he muttered, pooching out bread-crumbed lips.
"Bailey's in cahoots with the coroner up there. It takes seven years to declare someone legally dead, doesn't it?" Jack jabbed a finger at the 1973 date on the first coroner report. "That was delivered by private messenger yesterday."
Pearson scratched his chin; his eyes shot upwards. The names Barbara Collins, Janet Crwaford, Dottie Jackson rang a bell. He shook his head. "A handful of phony death certificates isn't evidence," decided the officer. "We need testimony.. . . "
Jack sat down and stared the officer in the eye. "Where do you want to start? I've got names, dates.. . you name it."
Pearson's thoughts were elsewhere. His eyes fell to the photograph of a lovely bloodied young redhead. Across the top of the photograph was stamped a number. Curiosity piqued, he flipped through the death certificates and matched up the name Barbara Collins. He scratched his chin. Something didn't jibe.
The officer sucked in his breath and regarded the distraught husband with a fresh opinion. "Your wife is Sherrie Turner, right?"
Jack blinked and stiffened. His body turned all sinew and tendon.
"You're shaking, kid." Pearson changed the subject.
"Somebody took a couple of pot shots at me, that's what's the matter!"
Pearson lay a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Before we get into that, I have some news about your wife." The other gulped.
"We found her car." Pearson watched the husband. "It was parked in the Greyhound Bus Depot. It appears she took a bus north to Wisconsin to a little town up there. We're familiar with the town . . . been trying to crack a case up there for years. Two Grand Jury Investigations pooped out." The officer shook his jowls.
"You think my wife's been . . . . ? " Jack's eyes fell to the pile of death certificates. "I'm going up there. I don't care if those bastards put a bullet through my brain, but I'm going to find my wife and bring her home!" he bellowed.
Pearson lay a restraining hand on Jack's arm. "This is no Dashiell Hammet novel. This is the real world where people get bloody if they stick their noses in other people's business."
Jack's cheeks crimsoned. "What the hell you doin' about it?" he whined. "Where's my wife?"
He knew now he had to take matters into his own hands.
The black limousine nosed down the snow plowed narrow road, heading for Hunters Point Inn. The sun burst in a Mediterranean blue sky, painting a pristine picture of hot and cold temperatures and colors. One gloomy object blurred the crisp focus.
Wedged between a locked door and Southworth's body, Sherrie cowered in the back seat, her mood stormy with depression. Her wide green eyes blinked under spidery eyelashes as the driver made a tight right turn into the lodge's parking lot. Sherrie shivered and pulled up the collar of her coat, holding it tight to her chin. What new hell awaited her? What perverted tortures would abuse her bruised and ravaged body?
Hunters Point Inn wore the cloak of moneyed sophistication. No Volkswagens or Datsuns cheapened this parking lot! Mercedes, Alfa Romeos, Porsches glinted under blinding sunlight. Her attention shot to the stone fronted lodge with fresh red trim dripping with pine boughs and Christmas tree lights winking at the sun.
The limousine drew to a halt and Sherrie's heart clawed at her throat. Fleetingly, the temptation to run for it flickered with hope . . but futilely. Southworth, in a deceptively gentlemanly fashion, slipped his arm through hers and together their heels clicked on the wet cement toward the front door. His nearness nauseated her, sickening her with remembrances of sordid excesses. A heavy congestion in the pit of her belly was all too real!
A fresh faced blonde with honey hair swirling about her shoulders, opened the door. The piney scent of Christmas mingled with Christmas carols and heady giggles of women and good humored men sung in the air. Sherrie's eyes swept over the high beamed ceiling with boughs of mistletoe and pine. The irony of Christmas cheer percolated in Sherrie's veins. A bolt of homesickness thumped in her heart to thicken depression.
"Welcome! I'm Jill," grinned the young woman shifting her weight in the vee-necked evening gown that clung to her svelte curves and mounds with the tenacity of wet jersey. The strawberry tips of her nipples poked through the satiny fabric as if trying to bore holes in the fabric that rippled over the pouting mound of her Venus.
When Sherrie hedged, Southworth poked a finger in her back, steely as the nose of a .38 magnum. One last desperate glance over her shoulder and the captive consented, stepping into the merriment of her new prison. The door clicked shut behind her.
Southworth dropped his clutch on Sherrie's arm and drew Jill over for whispered conversation behind the captive's cringing back. Hastily Jill ushered her up the curling staircase laden with loops of pine boughs and crisp red ribbons, down a hallway eerily reminiscent, and into a room.
Sherrie's fear widened eyes flashed over the sunlit room. Two single beds, two dressers, carpeted floor, fireplace. A private bath and dressing room made an L-shape to the spacious, finely furbished room.
"Make yourself comfortable," encouraged Jill cheerfully through succulent red lips. "I have to get back downstairs . . . you know how Southworth is," she shrugged and slunk toward the door in a rustle of satin. "Take a nap if you like and rest up," she suggested in a voice that hinted at foul play. "The maid will be in to help you dress later."
The door clicked shut and Sherrie threw herself on the bed and cried salty tears. Weakened beyond the will to fight, she fell into a dreamless sleep. Lifelessly, she lay on the bed, the afternoon sun sojourning west to splash a yellow streak of sunlight over her immobile body.
When the sun had traveled, moving its streak to the foot of the bed, a knock on the door made Sherrie's eyes flash open. Leaping to her feet, she struggled for a moment to put together the puzzle of entrapment. Southworth, the limousine . . . it was coming back to her now. Stroking a wave of hair back from her cheek, she opened the door and peered into the eyes of a young woman.
"May I come in and take your measurements?" Olga asked, shouldering her way past Sherrie.
"Measurements . . . but?" A tremulous hand wiped the sheen from her forehead.
"Don't give me any trouble, missy," snapped the matronly woman. "Now strip off that coat and let's see how big your breasts are."
Deciphering the impatient glint in the other's eye, Sherrie hastily shed her coat and tossed it on the bed. As tape measure slipped around the milky mounds of her breasts and pulled tight.
"Hmmm . . . 34D I'd say." Her hand shot out to cup one melonous circle and Sherrie bolted. The buxom woman winked at the captive and turned on her heel and departed.
Sherrie threw herself on the bed and whimpered pathetically. She could smell something in the air and it didn't smell like Christmas!
Another knock on the door. Olga poked her way into Sherrie's private quarters and ordered the fearful and confused young woman to shower and wash her hair. When the dripping captive, cringing in the terry cloth robe she'd found by the tub, obediently sat at the dresser as instructed, Olga began fussing over her with ceremonious meticulosity. She set her hair in long, swirling waves, and applied make up to her flawless skin, highlighting her high cheek bones with peach rouge. False eyelashes flickered over her cheekbones, giving her a mystical beauty. Sherrie studied herself in the mirror, not at all unpleased . . . until Olga slapped her on the back and ordered her to get up and step into the dress.
She sucked in her breath as Olga tugged at the zipper. If it felt tight, it looked tighter. Lifting her eyes to the full length mirror, Sherrie let out a gasp. Days of emotional and physical stress had shed five pounds, and the profile that stared back at her would have made a criminal out of her father!
The dress clung to her curvy flesh possessively. The red lame, garish as a Christmas tree bulb, caught the sunlight and blinked off the protruding mounds of her heavy breasts. It tugged at her waist, pulling it to a mere twenty-three inches, then loosened its grasp to swell over her slender hips and thighs. A slit opened to the sleek curve of her thigh, grazing the elastic band of her lacey bikini panties.
"I.. . I can't wear this!" she whined. Instantly intuition screamed her fate. "No! Nooo!" She would be fed to the dogs, dressed like this . . . the dogs whooping drunkenly around the Christmas tree downstairs!
Olga caught her by the arm and swung her around. "Chipper up your attitude, missy. There's no way out of here. You make a fool of yourself downstairs and you won't live to see Christmas!"
Sherrie's jaw fell slack.
A shadow darkened the doorway. "Wow, you look sexy as hell!" whistled Jill drunkenly, slinking in three inch high heel shoes to the withering captive. Reaching for Sherrie's sweaty palm, she laced her fingers in an intimate gesture and gave the captive a kinetic tug. "They're waiting for us . . . " She shivered her naked shoulders. "Oh, you'll have so much fun here, Sherrie. After you get used to it . . . And here Sherrie's eyes popped wide. ". . . life at Hunters is like one long party! All the drugs and drink you want . . . free clothes . . . and men . . . rich men!"
Add it up and you get whore, thought Sherrie.
"Hurry up!"
Fingers entwined, Sherrie tripped after her luscious bodied mentor. Her three-inch high heels wobbled treacherously as the twosome descended the curling staircase to the living room seething with obscene laughter and the clink of glasses.
Sensing her roommate's apprehension, Jill whispered hotly: "Don't worry, honey. You and I'll be together, okay?"
A pair of warm lips kissed Sherrie's cheek and she stiffened. November 21 would be a night she would never forget; that soothingly warm kiss promised her that!