The Plan (2 page)

“
I don
’
t understand,
”
I
replied.

Up until now, the story told by police was
that Penny had claimed she was sexually harassed at work. The investigation
proved otherwise, but no one told me why. The only explanation offered was that
after the investigation was dropped, Penny went back to work, regressed into a
deep depression and apparently had a mental breakdown before killing herself.

Convinced of foul play, Mr. Watkins
recommended a Private Investigator to look into Harvey Goldman the owner of
Legacy Investments, Inc. He was the investment broker that swindled my dad, the
same man who sexually harassed my sister and got away with it. I was convinced
he had something to do with Penny
’
s
death and I was going to make him pay.

Before he left the clinic, Mr. Watkins
asked for copies of my medical records to justify why I was in the mental
hospital so long. Without the proper documents filed, they would not release
any medical records. As my attorney, he said he was going to file an injunction
against the clinic for attempting to profit from my recent loss. The attending
physician, Dr. Jenkins, who was my psychiatrist, agreed to speak with Mr.
Watkins privately. It was decided that a new psych-evaluation would take place
in the next 72 hours and if I passed, I would be released. For the next couple
of days, I met with Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Phillips
—
another
“
shrink
”
who offered a second opinion
—
and I was cleared.

It took a few days for the release forms,
but exactly one week later, I was free to go. The first thing I did was to go
to Dairy Queen and order a Peanut Butter Parfait. The only desserts we had
inside the clinic were orange sherbet.
  

It took 78 days for the settlement to be
finalized. In order to obtain the funds, I had to meet with the NYC Department
of Transportation lawyers downtown. Mr. Watkins was there to meet me. The
traffic was horrible. I didn
’
t
know how Penny could handle this every day. Mr. Watkins and I walked into a
large conference room and there must have been seven or eight attorneys
present. The settlement arrangement was to be in three installments over a one
year period. It did not matter to me, but Mr. Watkins objected until they
agreed to pay his 20 percent in one installment. Three days later, the funds
were wired unto my account and a new life began.

***

Three weeks before the settlement signing,
I met with Mr. Watkins to get an update on the investigation. The Private
Investigator, Alex Rivera, was present. He recovered a copy of the police
report. The lead detective from the NYPD Special Victims Squad, Jerry Oliver,
was a longtime friend and high school teammate of Harvey Goldman. The charges
were dropped because witnesses said they saw Penny and Harvey kissing in the
parking lot, so it was considered consensual.

But there was more. Alex knew the Coroner
and the forensic report revealed that an unidentified male
’
s fingerprints were on a cocktail glass in
my sister
’
s
flat. In addition, witnesses claimed they saw a man that matched Harvey Goldman
’
s description at Penny
’
s apartment.

“
That
bastard,
”
I
exclaimed.

“
That
’
s not all,
”
Alex said.
“
The toxic report shows high volumes of
Rohypnol and GHB in her system.
”
He
paused,
“
Those
are date rape drugs.
”
Alex
turned and looked at Mr. Watkins,
“
There
’
s no way this is a suicide.
”

I could not believe it. All my emotions
burst at once and I started to cry. Penny was murdered. That imagery in my mind
was haunting. I could see her lying on the couch. The horror of her suffering
was more than I could bear. And, to think, she laid there for two days before
the Property Manager found her.
 

“
I
’
m so sorry,
”
Mr. Watkins said as he handed me a box of
Kleenex tissues.
 
Wiping my tears away,
my pain turned to anger. Immediately after Penny
’
s death, I was so angry. I was angry with
Penny for not calling me and telling me what was going on. I was angry with
God, for letting Penny die. I was angry at life and the whole world. Night
after night in the clinic, I laid in my bed, crying myself to sleep
—
wondering if life was worth living now
that I had no family. And, now, I discovered that Harvey Goldman had sexually
assaulted my sister. He had been
stalking her
and
he had murdered her and covered the whole thing up.

Alex went on to say that Harvey was a
player.
“
He
makes several trips to Las Vegas each month. His favorite spot is The Cat Tails
Lounge . . . it
’
s a
high-class brothel.
”

I envisioned myself in Las Vegas. I wanted
to confront this Harvey Goldman. There was no way I could get close to him in
New York. If I just showed up at his place of business, with ties to my sister
and the sexual harassment claim, I would be escorted out of the building. Then
I had a crazy idea, a far-fetched idea, but I liked it.

It was probably a stupid idea and my
background in law should have told me to let the authorities handle it, but
with this information concerning the forensics and a dirty cop, how could I
trust the system? With that in mind, I decided that I needed to do it. I needed
to go to Vegas and work at the brothel under an assumed identity.

That night, I went back to Penny
’
s place and I could not sleep. I kept
hearing Alex
’
s voice telling
me what a scoundrel and a whoremonger
Harvey Goldman was; how he treated women as if they were dogs by putting
leather-spiked collars around their necks, attaching a leash and spanking them
with a paddle for being bad.
He
’
s one sick mother fucker
, I
thought as I sat at the kitchen table contemplating his degradation.
 

I opened Penny
’
s laptop and did a search on
The Cat
Tails Lounge
. The website gave a description of the business and made it
sound like it was a dating service. I clicked on the About Us section. It gave
a brief history and mentioned the owner, Madam Elaine Dungy, but nowhere on the
site did it have a picture of Madam Elaine. Continuing to read the site, it
bragged that it had the best
“
pussycats
”
in Vegas.

I clicked on the Our Girls tab and it took
me to a page showing all the escorts. They were dressed in sexy Victoria Secret
’
s lingerie, and all of them were
incredibly attractive. One of them jumped out to me, Janine. I clicked on her
picture, and an enlarged photo with a brief description appeared on the screen.
She was a petite Chinese girl with jet-black hair. She had bright, energetic
eyes, like a Siamese cat, and they seemed to pop off the page. Her luscious,
seductive body was wrapped in a satin see-through apron with a flirty, flyaway
front, paired with a matching thong, but what caught my attention the most was
the BDSM apparatus laying on the bed in the background.

In plain view was a leather-spiked collar,
a dog leash, a leather ball-gag, rope, whips and a paddle. I sat back in Penny
’
s black leather chair and wondered that,
she
might be one of Harvey
’
s
girls.

I continued to scan the site and saw a tab
that read, Job Opportunities.
I
clicked on it and it had a brief, but enticing description:
Looking for
young beautiful girls who want to have fun, live their dreams and get paid.
Evening and night shifts only, top pay and great benefits. Apply in person. No
phone calls.

Apply in person,
I
thought. I walked to the window, pulled back the drapes, opened the window and
lit a cigarette. I had quit smoking when I was in the mental health clinic, but
quickly started again when I got out. I stared out the window, looking into the
night, seeing all the lights glowing in the dark. Flicking my ash out the
window, I thought,
Penny would kill me if she knew I was smoking in her
apartment.

I turned around and looked at the area, at
the couch that Penny had died upon. It was gone. The forensic team removed it
and there was an empty space where it sat. For some reason, I never moved the
other furniture in its place, and despite my impending fortune, the thought of
purchasing furniture and putting it there just seemed wrong.

I stepped into the small kitchen, opened a
cabinet, grabbed a coffee cup for an ashtray, went to the open spot where the
couch was and sat down on the floor. I continued smoking my cigarette, the
whole time thinking about going to Vegas. It felt like the right thing to do.

At that moment, a mechanical bird popped
out of the clock, sounding off. The cuckoo clock was Grandma West
’
s. She got it from her grandmother when
she passed.
 
I looked up at it and my
mind raced back in time, when Penny and I used to stay at Grandma
’
s house. We slept in the living room on a
sleep sofa that would fold out into a bed. It was the most uncomfortable thing
you could ever sleep on. In the middle of the night, when the bird leaped from
its hidden compartment, the sound it made scared me to death. Frightened by its
two-toned whistle pitch, my crying would wake Penny and she would wrap her arms
around me and say,
“
Don
’
t be scared Cindy, it
’
s just a clock.
”

When I was a little girl, Penny was there
in the night to protect me from the boogieman. When the tooth fairy came, she
would wake me to check under my pillow and claim my prize
—
a quarter. When thunder and lightning
crashed at two am, she would hold me and sing,
“
Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder
where you are.
”
Penny
was my rock, my best friend, and my hero.
 

I walked back to the window and looked up
into the sky. The stars shined bright against the pitch-black backdrop above. I
thought of Penny who knew all the constellations. I focused upon the Big Dipper
and it reminded me of the times we snuck out of
our
bedroom window
,
onto the roof with our blankets where we would stare into space. She would
point out the Big Dipper, identifying the outside star of the bucket, following
its pattern to the North Star, which was the tip of the handle for the Little
Dipper. She would always say to me,
“
I
’
m the Big Dipper and Cindy, you are the
Little Dipper.
”

At that moment, I started to cry.
Gathering my emotions, I looked down and noticed that I had let my cigarette
burn down. The one-inch ash remained intact. For some reason, I really do not
know why, it made me laugh.
I needed that,
I said to myself, as I placed
the butt in the cup. I looked one more time at the stars and then back at the
desk, seeing the
Cat Tails Loung
e
website on the screen, just as sleep-mode activated and the screen turned
black.

The screensaver engaged automatically
—
a picture of the moon and stars. I walked
over to get a closer view, scrolling across the screen was a typed message that
read,
“
Love
you to the moon and back.
”
Mom
used to say that to us, and after she passed, Penny would always finish our
phone conversations with that phrase.

Love you to the moon and back.

I placed my finger on the laptop trackpad,
the screensaver dissolved and the
Cat Tails
website returned. Staring at
the screen, I looked at Janine
’
s
picture and the BDSM apparel.
“
Love
you to the moon and back, Penny.
”

I made the decision. I was going to go to
Las Vegas.

Once the settlement hit my bank account, I
made an appointment with Mr. Watkins. I asked him if he would help me legally
changed my name from Cindy West to Kelly Lee. He said he could, but only after
I got a new picture ID with my new name, I would have to go into the bank and
present the legal documents in order to change the name on the account. It took
several weeks to do, but I finally got it all done.