Letter to Belinda (3 page)

The closet door opened into the garage, where he discovered Miranda’s car. Why was
her
car closed up in the garage, while
his
car was left outside? Perhaps he had kidnapped Miranda, and was holding her against her will.
Nah,
it
was
most
likely
the
other
way
around.

Using just his Brinkman, he walked around her car and tried the door leading into the kitchen. It was unlocked, so he slipped into the kitchen. Everything was neat, and nothing out of place.

But in the living room it was a different story. It looked like a party had gotten out of hand there. An empty wine bottle was on the coffee table, along with two empty wine glasses. Clothes were everywhere, both men’s and women’s apparel. Shoes, a shirt, a tie, a skirt, a blouse, it looked like the site of a strip-tease, but there was no signs of life now. He picked up a blouse and sniffed it; it was Miranda’s all right. Travis moved toward the bedrooms. In the hallway he encountered more personal apparel, underwear and socks, and felt that he was closing in on her, so he called out, “Miranda! Where are you?”

A muffled voice came back from the far end of the hall, “Travis, is that you?”

“Yeah, where are you?”

“Back here! The last bedroom!”

He went to the last room and tried the door, but it was locked. “Here?”

“Yes! The door is locked!”

“So unlock it.”

“I can’t!”

“Want me to break it down?”

“No! Don’t break anything! When I leave I don’t want anyone to know I was here.”

“So what
are
you doing here?”

“Just get the door open! Can’t you pick the lock, or something?”

“Hold on.” He backed up to the bathroom and turned on the light, trying to find a hair pin or something small to pick the lock. He found a coat hanger, which would do. He straightened out the hook and used it to pick the lock. He turned the knob and the door opened. He was reaching for the light switch when she said, “No! Don’t turn on the light!”

“Why not?” He asked, but by the profusion of a security light coming from the window, he got a pretty good idea why not. It appeared that she was stretched out on the bed naked.

“Because the covers have fallen into the floor, and I can’t reach them, that’s why. Would you be a gentleman and retrieve them for me?”

“Why can’t you reach them?”

“The same reason I couldn’t unlock the door, or disarm the security system, or handle this entire situation without having to call you!”

“Are your hands tied to the headboard?” he asked with a smirk.

“No, they’re not
tied
to the headboard, they are
handcuffed
to the headboard, and no, I didn’t do this to myself!”

“You’re friend did this?”

“Of course! The covers are on the floor on the other side of the bed, in case you want to be a gentleman and cover me up!”

“I’m just amazed at the situations you get into, Miranda. So he just left you here like this while he went out to get cigarettes?”

“Something like that.”

“I see your choice in men hasn’t changed much.”

“Look, just throw the covers over me, and find the key to these handcuffs and you can go, Travis! I knew I shouldn’t have called you!”

“No, you did the right thing. I see now why you couldn’t call anyone else . . .” As he spoke he was walking around the bed to retrieve the covers, and bumped into something on the dark floor. He clicked on his brinkman and was shocked to see a totally naked man, dead and cold, his eyes and mouth still open, as though exclaiming ‘oh’, his penis erect as a flag pole. “. . . Actually I see a little more clearly now, why you couldn’t call anyone else.” He stepped over the dead man and picked up a blanket and threw it up over her, then pulled it up to make sure she was covered.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“I think that’s a safe assumption. How long has he been there?”

“Since about 10 P.M.”

“So he’s been dead for an hour and a half?”

“No, Travis! Since 10 P.M. yesterday evening!”

“So you’ve been here over 24 hours? Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

“I was afraid, and ashamed! I wanted to just die, but not in this situation!”

“How did you call? That’s what I want to know.”

“See the phone on the nightstand? I knocked the receiver off and used my big toe to hit the speaker button, then punched out the number. To hang up, I used my toes to grab one of those medicine bottles and sit it on the hang-up button.”

“How did you get the number to the mine?”

“I called information.”

“That’s amazing.”

“No, what’s amazing is that I haven’t peed all over the bed yet! Can you
please
find the key to these handcuffs.”

“Where should I look?”

“How should I know?”

“Where does he usually keep it?”

“I don’t know! This is the first time I did this! Look in his pockets, on his key ring, anywhere!”

“Okay, I’m turning the light on.” He clicked on the lamp on the nightstand, and Miranda winced at the bright light. “Where are his pants?”

“Probably in the living room.” Travis went to get the man’s pants, and returned with them, and the keys in his hand. “I don’t know. All these keys look like car or house keys. I don’t even know what a handcuff key looks like.”

“It’s got to be there somewhere. Let me see them.” He held them up in front of her, but she had to agree, none of them looked like a handcuff key. “Can’t you pick the lock, like you did the door?”

“I can try, if you’re not in any hurry. Let me look in a few other places first.”

“Look on the dresser.”

“I am. But I don’t see anything. Let me try the top drawer.”

“Use your head, Travis! If you had done something like this, where would
you
put the key?”

“Use
your
head Miranda! This situation is a little out of my league! I’ve never had to hand-cuff Janice to the headboard! And by the way, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you! You have finally done something stupid enough to surpass what you did in following me to Colombia! And furthermore . . .”

“Oh, shut up and look for the stupid key!”

“I’m looking, just be patient! And just for the record, you are hardly in any position to be ordering me around. And in the future, if you are tempted to accuse me of doing stupid things, I hope you remember the present situation you find yourself in!”

“Okay, I admit it! I have finally done something as stupid as you would have done! Satisfied?”

“Try again!”

“Okay, this is more stupid than anything you’ve ever done! There! Are you happy now?”

“Can I get that in writing?”

“Travis Lee! Just find that key!”

“I’m looking! Don’t you see me looking?”

“Look harder!”

“What’s this on the dresser?”

“If it’s not the key, then I don’t care!”

“It’s a letter, addressed only ‘to Belinda’. Who’s Belinda?”

“Belinda is his wife’s name.”

“I wonder what the letter says?”

“Who cares, Travis! If it won’t unlock these handcuffs, I don’t care!”

“You’re not even curious to see what it says?”

“NO! Have you tried looking on the bookshelf.”

He lay the letter down and turned on the overhead light and scanned the shelves, even dumping out the contents of a vase, which contained a hodgepodge of odds and ends, but no key. He ran his hand over the top shelf, which was above his sight, and felt an object in the corner. It was the key. “I found it!”

“Oh, thank God! Hurry, Travis, I’ve got to go bad!”

He unlocked one hand, and then the other, and she wasted no time in gathering up the quilt and dashing off to the bathroom. While she was gone, Travis threw a blanket over the dead man after noting that he had gray hair, and actually seemed to be pretty old. He picked up the man’s pants and removed his wallet. Several $100 bills caught his eye. The drivers license said he was Leonard Archibald Rosewood, and had a Vestavia Hills address. That seemed like a familiar name, though he couldn’t remember where he had heard it before. He heard Miranda leave the bathroom and go to the living room, presumably to gather her clothes. He gave her a minute then went to join her. She was dressed and in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of milk. He sat down at the table with her to talk this out.

“Do you feel better now?”

“As well as possible, under the circumstances. Thanks again for coming to help me out! I don’t know who I would have turned to if you hadn’t helped me!”

“Why didn’t you just call the police?”

“Are you crazy? This would be all over the newspapers if I called the police!”

“Well, you’re going to have to call them anyway. I mean, the guy is dead, and that’s something you need to report to the authorities.”

“So you’re not going to help me dispose of the body?”

“Dispose of the body! Good Lord, why would you do that? Just call the police, they will call the coroner, and he’ll determine that it was a death by natural causes, and that will be that! He
did
die of a heart attack, didn’t he?”

“I guess he did. After he hand-cuffed me to the bed, he clutched his chest and fell into the floor. He never got back up.”

“You’re just knocking ‘em dead, aren’t you girl!”

“Don’t say that! I had nothing to do with it! I think it was the Viagra he took though. He said he wanted this to be a memorable experience for me!”

“I guess he got his wish. Too bad he won’t remember it.”

“Yeah, too bad.”

“So where did you meet this guy, and who was he?”

“It doesn’t much matter now, does it?”

“Just humor me, because I helped you out.”

“His name is Leon. He is a federal judge.”

“Judge Leon Rosewood! That’s where I heard his name before! Wow, he’s a pretty big fish! Isn’t he the federal Judge that was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court a few years ago?”

“Uh-huh, the same guy.”

“I remember the Senate rejected him because he was considered to be too conservative, because he refused to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom.”

“Same judge.”

“Wow, if he had told the Senate sub-committee about his sex life, that might have gotten him confirmed!”

“Please, let’s not go into all that!”

“And you say he’s married too?”

“Well, sort of. He and his wife are considering a separation.”

“
Considering
a separation? So that means he is definitely married. Or
was
, before you took him out!”

“I did not ‘take him out’! Apparently he had a bad heart. His wife just left on a European River cruise, and he invited me to come over for a visit. I live next door, you know. This is his Summer House.”

“So why didn’t you walk over, instead of driving your car, and closing it up in his garage?”

“You’ve been in the garage? I guess you saw my suitcases in the car then?”

“No, I didn’t notice.”

“Leon and I were planning to go to a casino resort in Biloxi this morning and stay a few days.”

“To celebrate his wife being gone, huh?”

“Just to have something to do! My god, Travis, it’s lonely being rich! You can’t trust just anybody, because you don’t know men’s motives! Once they find out I have money, it’s all over! They are determined not to let me get away, because they see me as their meal ticket for the rest of their lives! And I can’t conceal the fact that I’m wealthy for long! My only hope of meeting someone decent is to find someone so rich themselves that it doesn’t matter how rich I am! Unfortunately, all of those kinds are so snobbish I can’t stand them! I’m glad I won the lottery, and I’m glad you helped me win, even though you won’t admit it, but there are times I wish I was poor again! I have spent money outrageously, but it builds interest faster than I can spend it.”

“Poor girl! I can see how that would be a rough life!”

“I’m serious, Travis! Having so much money scares me! There is no limit to what some people wouldn’t do to get their hands on it!”

“You can always give it away. There is no end to the charities you could give it to! You can even throw a million my way!”

“Seriously? If you want it, I’ll give it to you!”

“No, I’m just joking, you ought to know that. I wouldn’t take money from you.”

“See? That’s why you are the only person I can turn to in a mess like this. You are the only one I can trust!”

“Too bad I’m already married, huh?”

“You had better believe it!”

“Okay, it’s going on toward midnight. What are we going to do about this mess here?”

“I want to just go home and pretend it never happened.”

“Well, yeah, that would be nice, but unfortunately there is a dead man in there, and when he’s found, there is going to be a trail right back to you.”

“Then we’ve got to do something. Can we just leave him here and try to erase all evidence that we were here?”

“The best advice I can give is to pick up the telephone and call 911. Tell them the truth. That the two of you were about to get naughty, when he dropped dead of a heart attack. You might get away with not telling them that you were naked and handcuffed to the headboard for 24 hours, but you would have to have a pretty good reason for not reporting it until now. The autopsy will reveal how long he has been dead. And with the high tech ways they have of gathering evidence now days, they could probably figure out exactly what happened, so if you don’t tell the truth, they will wonder why. Just be straightforward with them.”

“I could just say I was scared.”

“Certainly. That would work. There is no crime in admitting that you were scared after he died on you like that . . . so to speak.”

“But any way you look at it, there is going to be a scandal!”

“Yeah, the ‘good judge’ will be caught with his pants down, but a scandal can’t hurt him any worse than the heart attack did.”

“Who’s worried about him? It’s
my
reputation that’s going to be shot! Since I’ve talked to you last, I’ve started going to church, and I am a Sunday school teacher! How is this going to make me look?”