21.
Stan’s eyes popped open the next morning to take in Barb, her eyes glued to her laptop, no doubt on HangingFantasies, her new obsession. A couple of nights ago he had enjoyed Barb’s little choking game, stimulated by the story she had written for the site, immensely, perhaps almost as much as she had. However, now that the effect had worn off a bit, he found that he was getting tired of this case. That web site was a mess of fucked-up perverts who didn’t have much of a real life, he suspected, though Barb seemed addicted to it. They still had nothing that definitively said Amanda Berger’s hanging was anything other than a tragic suicide.
Nevertheless, Stan felt that it would be best to play along and pretend interest. “Any bites from your message of last night?”
Barb shook her head. “Nope, nothing yet.”
“Then let’s get a move on and head to the station.” They were met there by a young woman from one of the local colleges who had come in bleary-eyed at 6 AM to report that one of the guys in her dorm had taken advantage of her after a night of heavy drinking. Barb sat her down in one of the interrogation rooms, while Stan went to the college to haul the boy out of the breakfast line at the cafeteria and bring him to another interrogation room for a “friendly chat”.
It was a classic he-said, she-said, with the boy swearing they had only had “a couple of drinks” and it was totally consensual, and the girl saying she had been drunk out of her mind and unable to consent. The blood test showed alcohol in her system, but extrapolating back to how drunk she might have been at 11 PM when the deed had occurred was an inexact science at best.
Stan released the kid, telling him not to leave the campus pending further investigation, while Barb accompanied the girl to the ER for a thorough examination. The whole mess would end up dumped on Sam Bittner’s desk and what he would do with it was anyone’s guess. The boy had given a home address in a very posh suburb in Connecticut, so likely his parents had money and would hire a first rate lawyer. Stan wished Sam luck with this one.
Barb did an admirable job staying off her favorite web site all day while they were at the station. However, they had no sooner turned out of the parking lot onto the street, when she fired up her phone. “I got a response from NJ,” she chirped excitedly.
“You’ll have to read it to me,” Stan said, trying to sound interested. “I’m driving.”
“Hello and welcome, NoosedNudeNYC. It’s great to have another member in the area. Let’s explore our mutual interests. Anything is possible if we’re all on the same page,” Barb read. “Sounds promising, no?”
“If you’re into being hung by the neck until dead, sure,” Stan replied.
“Well, you seemed pretty into things the other night, Goldman,” Barb said. Stan blushed.
“Yeah, you too, Moore. How about the Mandarin?” Stan said, naming their favorite Chinese place between the station and their apartment.
“Sounds good,” Barb replied. They were enjoying their seafood soup with scallops, shrimp and Chinese cabbage when Barb got another reply, this one from “hangingchad”. “I loved your story. It got me very hot,” Barb read.
Stan looked up from his soup. “She’s not the only one,” he said.
Barb smiled at him. “There’s more.” She continued reading. ”It would be super amazing to do something like that in RL, wouldn’t it?” “RL is real life, Stan,” Barb added.
“I know that, Moore. I may be a dinosaur, but I’m a living one, not an extinct one. At least so far.”
“Yeah, yeah, Goldman,” she said. “Do you think I should reply?”
“Let’s wait for number three, what’s her name?”
“noose92,” Barb said.
“Yeah, we want all three of them involved, don’t we?” Stan asked.
“I guess so,” Barb replied. They were just about to tuck into the pork belly with tree ear fungus when the third suspect piped in. “I loved your story too, NoosedNudeNYC. There are lots of fun games. Have you ever played poker?”
“I think I should answer that,” Barb said. “But what should I say?”
“Have you ever played poker, Moore?” Stan asked.
“A few times in college. Once I even played strip poker.”
Stan looked up, interested all of a sudden. “Really?” Barb nodded. “And did you lose?” he asked.
“I’m very bad at poker,” Barb replied.
Stan grinned. “I’m pretty good, actually. Maybe we should play some time.”
“Sure, whatever,” Barb replied. “But what should I tell them?”
“Ask them what kind of poker they had in mind,” he said. Barb typed into her phone, then set it down and joined Stan in eating.
Soon the serving dishes sat empty on the table. Stan leaned back in his chair, satisfied. ‘Good food, good company, maybe Barb was getting turned on by this chat, what could be better?’ he thought.
Barb picked up the phone. “It’s from ‘noose92’. ‘We have discussed for some time playing a sort of strip poker, where once you lose all your clothes, you have to hang. Of course, we would rescue whoever it was before anything bad happened. But we could all get to experience the sensation of hanging FOR REAL.”
“You see she put ‘FOR REAL’ in all caps?” Barb pointed out.
“Yeah, I see that,” Stan said. He had to admit this seemed to be going somewhere now.
“Here’s my response,” Barb said, typing. “That sounds really interesting. I’d love to try that,” she read. Stan nodded and Barb hit “Reply”.
There was nothing further until they were home. Stan poured himself a Scotch and got a glass of white wine for Barb. She opened her laptop. “There’s a message from NJ.”
“And?” Stan asked, his curiosity real now.
“We could play if we had a good place,” Barb read. “The problem is all of us live in apartments. A couple of us even have roommates. So we’re pretty limited. Where do you live?”
“I wouldn’t get too specific yet. And I wouldn’t mention Marty’s barn right away. Tell them you live in an apartment with your boyfriend.”
“Is that what you are?” Barb teased.
“I’m not?” Stan asked, looking a bit offended.
“Sure you are,” Barb said, leaning over to kiss him, “And a pretty good one at that.” She typed the response into the laptop.
A few minutes later, “hangingchad” replied, “Too bad, but maybe we’ll think of something.”
“Don’t answer right away,” Stan advised. “Make it look like you’re racking your brain.” They sat sipping their drinks, Stan’s arm around Barb’s shoulder, watching a movie about cops trying to solve a murder. ‘The one in the movie was pretty clearly a murder,’ Stan thought.
After a while, he got up to pour them a second drink. “Tell them your uncle has a place in the Catskills with a barn that he might let you use. But you want to meet in person, in a public place first.”
“My uncle?” Barb asked, rolling her eyes. “You haven’t discussed this with Marty, have you?”
“Meet them first,” Stan replied. “I think I can get him to go along, especially if I promise he can watch video of the strip poker game with you and three other hot babes.”
Barb punched Stan in the arm hard enough to make him yelp. “Not on your life Goldman.”
“OK, don’t worry, I can make up a good story. He and Melissa usually stay pretty late at the restaurant anyway, so as long as we can wrap things up by 1 AM or so, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
Barb typed up the message. “I just thought of something. My uncle has a place with a barn in the Catskills, but I don’t want to ask him until we meet in person and see how we get along. Is that possible? Somewhere public?”
It took a while, perhaps close to an hour, but a response came from “NJ” as they were preparing for bed. “That sounds really cool, NNNYC. How about the Starbucks on Spring Street, Downtown. Do you know it?”
“Yes. When?” Barb typed.
“How about tomorrow around 8 PM. We’ll be three hot girls sitting towards the back. We’ll all wear red sweaters, so you’ll know us.”
“It’s a date,” Barb typed. She put the laptop down and smiled at Stan.