windar
Teller of Tales
24.
“So, Barb, you’re the psychologist here. What did you make of them?” Stan asked. They were sitting at the table in their kitchen. Stan had insisted on debriefing her as soon as possible after the meeting with the suspects. “First impressions are usually the most accurate,” he had told her.
Barb drained her wineglass and poured herself a refill from the half empty bottle in front of her. Stan picked up a peanut from the small bowl in front of him and examined it closely as though it might hold the key to this puzzling case. “You ever see the movie, ‘Mean Girls’?” she asked.
“With that one who’s always in and out of rehab? What’s her name?”
“Lindsay Lohan,” Barb replied.
“Yeah, her, but no, I don’t think I’ve seen it.”
“Well, they reminded me of the ones in that film. Deb and Cindy definitely did-Cathy seemed a bit harder to read. Would they manipulate a sheltered, vulnerable young woman like Amanda Berger into killing herself just so they could get off on watching her strangle slowly to death? In a heartbeat, Stan.” Stan nodded to show that he didn’t disagree. “And I’d be willing to bet she wasn’t the first.”
“And what about Barbara Fulton, innocent fifth grade teacher from the Midwest? Would they like to see her dancing from the end of a rope?” Stan asked.
Barb smiled. “I bet they’re chomping at the bit to have a new prospect so soon after the last one.”
“And how does Ms. Fulton feel about that?”
“Scared, of course, but also excited. She wants to experience the sensations of desperately struggling to breathe, her body suspended by the rope that is choking her. She doesn’t want to disappoint her new friends who share her fascination. She will be reluctant, but in the end, she will do what they want.”
“She’s counting on her boyfriend, ‘Rick’ to save her tight little ass at the last minute, isn’t she?” Stan asked, winking at Barb.
“Yes, she is. And he will, right?” Barb asked.
“Maybe. That depends how nice she is to him between now and then.”
Barb glared at him. “I’m always nice to you, Goldman. Much nicer than you deserve, asshole.”
“Sometimes you are, Moore, but not always. Need I remind you of a certain morning?” Barb rolled her eyes. “Anyway, while you were chatting with your new friends, I called Marty. I told him we had a great time visiting him and Melissa and really enjoyed the hike.”
“You did, Goldman? You could have fooled me. You were puffing like an old steam engine.”
“Be that as it may, he reminded me that that this coming Saturday night is the New York Restaurant Association annual awards dinner up in Albany. His place is one of the nominees for Upstate Restaurant of the Year. It’s a good occasion for him to schmooze with his colleagues and various bigwigs and they all like to get plastered after the dinner, so he and Melissa plan to stay over up there.”
Stan stopped to take another sip of beer. Barb looked at him expectantly. “That means that we can have the barn all to ourselves this Saturday. So you can tell your new friends your uncle is away and that you’re free to play.”
“That’s great,” Barb said, smiling. “So what’s the plan, Stan?” Stan frowned. He hated when she said that, which she did because she knew it annoyed him.
“Obviously, you have to lose the game so that you are the one to hang. Because if it’s one of the others, they will almost certainly stop before anything bad happens and they can say it’s all just fun and games.”
Barb nodded. “But with me, they’ll go all the way, right?” Stan nodded. He had a momentary vision of Barb, naked, a rope around her neck, standing on a chair. He wondered if the others would yank the chair away or just manipulate her into kicking it away herself.
“Right. And I have to let you hang long enough that we can convince a jury they would have let you die, but not so long that you actually do die.”
“And where exactly are you going to be?” Barb asked. “How are we setting this up?”
“I’ll be in Marty’s kitchen watching everything on your laptop. The moment you look like you’re a goner, I burst in, cut you down and bust the perps. They’ll be half naked and totally surprised, so they shouldn’t put up much of a fight.”
“You better make sure you save me in time, Stan. I’m trusting you with my life.”
“Who better, Moore? I’ve already saved your life once, so don’t worry. But the main thing is you need to make sure you lose the poker game.”
“Right,” Barb replied.
“You said you were very bad at poker, didn’t you? Especially strip poker?”
“I told you I played once back in college. I lost my shirt, literally.” Stan imagined Barb sitting at a poker table, her tits out, about to place some chips in the pot.
“And what happened then?” he asked.
“Nothing, you dirty old man. I got shy and put my shirt back on and left the table. But I think I know how to lose at poker. And in case I don’t, I have a feeling those three will find a way to make sure I do.”
“Probably. You don’t want to make it obvious, though. Take your time and lose slowly. The best way to do that without them knowing is to fold good hands. Then make a few ill-timed bluffs with bad hands. Just follow my signals.”
“And how exactly will you get word to me? I can’t wear a wire, because I’m gonna end up naked.”
Stan grinned. “Yeah, that’s a shame, isn’t it?” Barb glared at him and muttered something under her breath. “The department has some tiny wireless earpieces you can stick down the ear canal so no one can see them. I’ve used them a couple of times and they’re good. I can give you instructions through that. We’ll have three or four cameras set up and hopefully I can catch enough of your hand and the others to give you guidance.”
Stan continued. “I’ll go see Phil Schupp tomorrow; I’ll tell him you and I have a hot weekend planned and I’ll let him see film of you if he lets me borrow some wireless cameras and an earpiece.”
Barb dumped the remains of her wine glass on Stan’s head. “You will not!” she shouted.
Stan got a paper towel and dried his face. He shook his head. “For fuck’s sake, I was only kidding, Moore. I’m gonna tell him that I need to watch one of my informants who I think is holding out on me. Give me some credit.”
Barb looked almost like she might be a little bit sorry over how she had treated Stan. Perhaps not enough to apologize, but she took his face in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Is that the credit you were looking for, Goldman?”
“It’ll do for now, Moore. So cameras, earpiece, we’ll also need a couple of kerosene heaters, because the barn will be cold this time of year and I don’t want you girls freezing your tushies off when you strip. And battery powered lights, because it will be dark in the barn. We can get those upstate near Marty’s-the hardware stores up there are more likely to have those than the ones in the city. What about the rope?”
“I’ll ask them, but I think they have one,” Barb replied. “That will be useful in court if it has Amanda Berger’s DNA on it, won’t it?”
“It might be, Barb,” Stan said winking at her. “Also cards, poker chips. I have those in a closet here. Offer them, say they’re from Rick, but I suspect they will want to bring their own, which will likely be marked somehow if we’re on the right track.”
“Oh, I think we are Stan. This is going to be great,” Barb said, excitedly. “I’ll get to see what hanging feels like, you’ll get to save me again and we’ll bust them. Once we do, we can get warrants and pin Amanda’s murder on them and who knows how many others, because there’s a good chance she wasn’t their first.”
“Everybody’s happy, then,” Stan replied. “Except Reggie, who’ll have a fit when he finds out we kept going on the case he told us to drop.”
“Oh, stop being a worry wart, Goldman. A bust is a bust, this will get good media and he’ll tell the brass it was all his idea. Now how’s about a game of strip poker right here, just for practice?”
“You promise to lose, Moore?”
“Sure, Stan, whatever you want,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “So how do we play?”
Stan got up and went to the coat closet near the apartment doorway. He returned with a deck of cards and a box of poker chips. “It’s simple, Moore. We’ll play five card draw, with betting after the deal and again after the draw. Every item of clothing is worth five chips from the bank.” He removed his shoes and took five chips. “Those together count as one, socks too,” he added, taking them off and grabbing five more chips from the bank.
Barb slipped off her shoes and pulled off her tights and took ten chips. “You’ve got a bra and I don’t, so you have a slight advantage, but I’m not worried,” Stan said. “We each have to ante two chips for each hand.”
“Ante? What’s that?” Barb asked.
“The fee to play a hand,” Stan said, throwing two chips onto the center of the table. Barb threw in her two as well. He dealt them each five cards. He had a pair of sixes. He bet two chips and Barb called him. He threw away the other three cards and drew a King, an eight and a third six. He bet five chips. Barb called. She had a pair of Aces.
“Not bad, Moore, but not good enough,” he said, laying down the three sixes and scooping up the chips. “You only got one chip Moore, so you better buy more.” She stripped off her shirt and took five more chips. The next hand took care of those.
Barb stood and removed her skirt, leaving her in just her bra and panties. Barb won the next two hands when Stan, having lousy cards, folded after the deal. Since she only won his ante, it barely replenished her stock of chips. On the next hand, she bet her entire pile after the deal. Stan looked hard at her and decided she was bluffing. He called and matched up a pair of sevens on the draw. Barb had to swap her bra for enough chips to bet on her final hand, which ended up being only King high.
Stan grinned as he showed his pair. “Nice try, Moore.” He reached out and stroked her breasts. “And if you think I’m going to be distracted by your tits, forget about it. I’m a serious poker player and as long as I’m at the table, it’s all business. Now you need more chips, don’t you?”
Barb stuck her tongue out, then stood up and slowly pulled her panties over her hips and down her thighs, wriggling her hips enticingly as she did. Stan felt his cock swelling in his pants.
It took several more hands, Barb winning a couple, but, soon, she had lost her remaining chips. She sat naked at the table, a large pile of chips in front of Stan and none in front of her. “So, did it seem like I was trying to lose or just like I wasn’t very good?” Barb asked.
Stan thought for a moment, his eyes running up and down her luscious naked body. “I’d say the latter. I think if you play like that, you should fool your new friends. Of course, if you were playing with them, you would be standing on that chair with a rope around your neck about to swing through the air like Tarzan,” he told her.
“I guess so,” she replied. “But I don’t see a rope here.”
“No, and there’s nowhere to attach it to,” Stan said. “But you lost, Moore, so instead of hanging, you have to do what I ask you, right?”
Barb looked doubtful. “And what would that be, Goldman?”
“You know that thing that guys like that you haven’t done for me in a while,” he said, standing and unbuttoning his trousers.
“Geez, Stan,” Barb said.
“Come on, Moore, it’s better than hanging.”
“I’m not so sure, Goldman,“ she said, shaking her head, as she knelt in front of him.
The next few days passed quickly. Stan ran the photos he had taken of the three women in Starbucks through some of the criminal databases the department used, and nothing came up on any of them. That wasn’t definitive given the mediocre quality of the pictures and the less than perfect facial recognition software, but it was what they had. They’d find out their suspects real identities soon enough after they busted them.
Stan had no problem arranging to borrow the surveillance equipment. Barb PMed the suspects that her uncle would be away for the weekend and they could use the barn on Saturday night. They eagerly accepted.
NJ said she had a car and said she’d pick everybody up. Barb suggested that rather than go all the way to Queens and back in the terrible traffic, she would take the train in to Manhattan and they could meet at the Starbucks where they had met before at 4 PM so they could be at her uncles by around 7. NJ was happy to agree to that.
That Saturday morning, Stan loaded the equipment in a small backpack. He kissed Barb deeply on the mouth as they stood in the doorway. “Good luck, babe,” he said.
“You mean bad luck, don’t you?” she replied. “I’m supposed to lose, aren’t I?”
Stan smiled. “Yeah, you are. I’ll have everything set up by the time you guys arrive,” he promised.
“So, Barb, you’re the psychologist here. What did you make of them?” Stan asked. They were sitting at the table in their kitchen. Stan had insisted on debriefing her as soon as possible after the meeting with the suspects. “First impressions are usually the most accurate,” he had told her.
Barb drained her wineglass and poured herself a refill from the half empty bottle in front of her. Stan picked up a peanut from the small bowl in front of him and examined it closely as though it might hold the key to this puzzling case. “You ever see the movie, ‘Mean Girls’?” she asked.
“With that one who’s always in and out of rehab? What’s her name?”
“Lindsay Lohan,” Barb replied.
“Yeah, her, but no, I don’t think I’ve seen it.”
“Well, they reminded me of the ones in that film. Deb and Cindy definitely did-Cathy seemed a bit harder to read. Would they manipulate a sheltered, vulnerable young woman like Amanda Berger into killing herself just so they could get off on watching her strangle slowly to death? In a heartbeat, Stan.” Stan nodded to show that he didn’t disagree. “And I’d be willing to bet she wasn’t the first.”
“And what about Barbara Fulton, innocent fifth grade teacher from the Midwest? Would they like to see her dancing from the end of a rope?” Stan asked.
Barb smiled. “I bet they’re chomping at the bit to have a new prospect so soon after the last one.”
“And how does Ms. Fulton feel about that?”
“Scared, of course, but also excited. She wants to experience the sensations of desperately struggling to breathe, her body suspended by the rope that is choking her. She doesn’t want to disappoint her new friends who share her fascination. She will be reluctant, but in the end, she will do what they want.”
“She’s counting on her boyfriend, ‘Rick’ to save her tight little ass at the last minute, isn’t she?” Stan asked, winking at Barb.
“Yes, she is. And he will, right?” Barb asked.
“Maybe. That depends how nice she is to him between now and then.”
Barb glared at him. “I’m always nice to you, Goldman. Much nicer than you deserve, asshole.”
“Sometimes you are, Moore, but not always. Need I remind you of a certain morning?” Barb rolled her eyes. “Anyway, while you were chatting with your new friends, I called Marty. I told him we had a great time visiting him and Melissa and really enjoyed the hike.”
“You did, Goldman? You could have fooled me. You were puffing like an old steam engine.”
“Be that as it may, he reminded me that that this coming Saturday night is the New York Restaurant Association annual awards dinner up in Albany. His place is one of the nominees for Upstate Restaurant of the Year. It’s a good occasion for him to schmooze with his colleagues and various bigwigs and they all like to get plastered after the dinner, so he and Melissa plan to stay over up there.”
Stan stopped to take another sip of beer. Barb looked at him expectantly. “That means that we can have the barn all to ourselves this Saturday. So you can tell your new friends your uncle is away and that you’re free to play.”
“That’s great,” Barb said, smiling. “So what’s the plan, Stan?” Stan frowned. He hated when she said that, which she did because she knew it annoyed him.
“Obviously, you have to lose the game so that you are the one to hang. Because if it’s one of the others, they will almost certainly stop before anything bad happens and they can say it’s all just fun and games.”
Barb nodded. “But with me, they’ll go all the way, right?” Stan nodded. He had a momentary vision of Barb, naked, a rope around her neck, standing on a chair. He wondered if the others would yank the chair away or just manipulate her into kicking it away herself.
“Right. And I have to let you hang long enough that we can convince a jury they would have let you die, but not so long that you actually do die.”
“And where exactly are you going to be?” Barb asked. “How are we setting this up?”
“I’ll be in Marty’s kitchen watching everything on your laptop. The moment you look like you’re a goner, I burst in, cut you down and bust the perps. They’ll be half naked and totally surprised, so they shouldn’t put up much of a fight.”
“You better make sure you save me in time, Stan. I’m trusting you with my life.”
“Who better, Moore? I’ve already saved your life once, so don’t worry. But the main thing is you need to make sure you lose the poker game.”
“Right,” Barb replied.
“You said you were very bad at poker, didn’t you? Especially strip poker?”
“I told you I played once back in college. I lost my shirt, literally.” Stan imagined Barb sitting at a poker table, her tits out, about to place some chips in the pot.
“And what happened then?” he asked.
“Nothing, you dirty old man. I got shy and put my shirt back on and left the table. But I think I know how to lose at poker. And in case I don’t, I have a feeling those three will find a way to make sure I do.”
“Probably. You don’t want to make it obvious, though. Take your time and lose slowly. The best way to do that without them knowing is to fold good hands. Then make a few ill-timed bluffs with bad hands. Just follow my signals.”
“And how exactly will you get word to me? I can’t wear a wire, because I’m gonna end up naked.”
Stan grinned. “Yeah, that’s a shame, isn’t it?” Barb glared at him and muttered something under her breath. “The department has some tiny wireless earpieces you can stick down the ear canal so no one can see them. I’ve used them a couple of times and they’re good. I can give you instructions through that. We’ll have three or four cameras set up and hopefully I can catch enough of your hand and the others to give you guidance.”
Stan continued. “I’ll go see Phil Schupp tomorrow; I’ll tell him you and I have a hot weekend planned and I’ll let him see film of you if he lets me borrow some wireless cameras and an earpiece.”
Barb dumped the remains of her wine glass on Stan’s head. “You will not!” she shouted.
Stan got a paper towel and dried his face. He shook his head. “For fuck’s sake, I was only kidding, Moore. I’m gonna tell him that I need to watch one of my informants who I think is holding out on me. Give me some credit.”
Barb looked almost like she might be a little bit sorry over how she had treated Stan. Perhaps not enough to apologize, but she took his face in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Is that the credit you were looking for, Goldman?”
“It’ll do for now, Moore. So cameras, earpiece, we’ll also need a couple of kerosene heaters, because the barn will be cold this time of year and I don’t want you girls freezing your tushies off when you strip. And battery powered lights, because it will be dark in the barn. We can get those upstate near Marty’s-the hardware stores up there are more likely to have those than the ones in the city. What about the rope?”
“I’ll ask them, but I think they have one,” Barb replied. “That will be useful in court if it has Amanda Berger’s DNA on it, won’t it?”
“It might be, Barb,” Stan said winking at her. “Also cards, poker chips. I have those in a closet here. Offer them, say they’re from Rick, but I suspect they will want to bring their own, which will likely be marked somehow if we’re on the right track.”
“Oh, I think we are Stan. This is going to be great,” Barb said, excitedly. “I’ll get to see what hanging feels like, you’ll get to save me again and we’ll bust them. Once we do, we can get warrants and pin Amanda’s murder on them and who knows how many others, because there’s a good chance she wasn’t their first.”
“Everybody’s happy, then,” Stan replied. “Except Reggie, who’ll have a fit when he finds out we kept going on the case he told us to drop.”
“Oh, stop being a worry wart, Goldman. A bust is a bust, this will get good media and he’ll tell the brass it was all his idea. Now how’s about a game of strip poker right here, just for practice?”
“You promise to lose, Moore?”
“Sure, Stan, whatever you want,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “So how do we play?”
Stan got up and went to the coat closet near the apartment doorway. He returned with a deck of cards and a box of poker chips. “It’s simple, Moore. We’ll play five card draw, with betting after the deal and again after the draw. Every item of clothing is worth five chips from the bank.” He removed his shoes and took five chips. “Those together count as one, socks too,” he added, taking them off and grabbing five more chips from the bank.
Barb slipped off her shoes and pulled off her tights and took ten chips. “You’ve got a bra and I don’t, so you have a slight advantage, but I’m not worried,” Stan said. “We each have to ante two chips for each hand.”
“Ante? What’s that?” Barb asked.
“The fee to play a hand,” Stan said, throwing two chips onto the center of the table. Barb threw in her two as well. He dealt them each five cards. He had a pair of sixes. He bet two chips and Barb called him. He threw away the other three cards and drew a King, an eight and a third six. He bet five chips. Barb called. She had a pair of Aces.
“Not bad, Moore, but not good enough,” he said, laying down the three sixes and scooping up the chips. “You only got one chip Moore, so you better buy more.” She stripped off her shirt and took five more chips. The next hand took care of those.
Barb stood and removed her skirt, leaving her in just her bra and panties. Barb won the next two hands when Stan, having lousy cards, folded after the deal. Since she only won his ante, it barely replenished her stock of chips. On the next hand, she bet her entire pile after the deal. Stan looked hard at her and decided she was bluffing. He called and matched up a pair of sevens on the draw. Barb had to swap her bra for enough chips to bet on her final hand, which ended up being only King high.
Stan grinned as he showed his pair. “Nice try, Moore.” He reached out and stroked her breasts. “And if you think I’m going to be distracted by your tits, forget about it. I’m a serious poker player and as long as I’m at the table, it’s all business. Now you need more chips, don’t you?”
Barb stuck her tongue out, then stood up and slowly pulled her panties over her hips and down her thighs, wriggling her hips enticingly as she did. Stan felt his cock swelling in his pants.
It took several more hands, Barb winning a couple, but, soon, she had lost her remaining chips. She sat naked at the table, a large pile of chips in front of Stan and none in front of her. “So, did it seem like I was trying to lose or just like I wasn’t very good?” Barb asked.
Stan thought for a moment, his eyes running up and down her luscious naked body. “I’d say the latter. I think if you play like that, you should fool your new friends. Of course, if you were playing with them, you would be standing on that chair with a rope around your neck about to swing through the air like Tarzan,” he told her.
“I guess so,” she replied. “But I don’t see a rope here.”
“No, and there’s nowhere to attach it to,” Stan said. “But you lost, Moore, so instead of hanging, you have to do what I ask you, right?”
Barb looked doubtful. “And what would that be, Goldman?”
“You know that thing that guys like that you haven’t done for me in a while,” he said, standing and unbuttoning his trousers.
“Geez, Stan,” Barb said.
“Come on, Moore, it’s better than hanging.”
“I’m not so sure, Goldman,“ she said, shaking her head, as she knelt in front of him.
The next few days passed quickly. Stan ran the photos he had taken of the three women in Starbucks through some of the criminal databases the department used, and nothing came up on any of them. That wasn’t definitive given the mediocre quality of the pictures and the less than perfect facial recognition software, but it was what they had. They’d find out their suspects real identities soon enough after they busted them.
Stan had no problem arranging to borrow the surveillance equipment. Barb PMed the suspects that her uncle would be away for the weekend and they could use the barn on Saturday night. They eagerly accepted.
NJ said she had a car and said she’d pick everybody up. Barb suggested that rather than go all the way to Queens and back in the terrible traffic, she would take the train in to Manhattan and they could meet at the Starbucks where they had met before at 4 PM so they could be at her uncles by around 7. NJ was happy to agree to that.
That Saturday morning, Stan loaded the equipment in a small backpack. He kissed Barb deeply on the mouth as they stood in the doorway. “Good luck, babe,” he said.
“You mean bad luck, don’t you?” she replied. “I’m supposed to lose, aren’t I?”
Stan smiled. “Yeah, you are. I’ll have everything set up by the time you guys arrive,” he promised.
