To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com


Title: Long Arms
Author: Jay P. Hailey (jayphailey{at}tic1.net) and K.A. Strickland Series:
Vista City/Four Corners
Part: 01/13
Rating [PG] (Some Violence)

 The dead woman was young, blond and pretty.  Angelo looked at the dressing
room carefully, drinking in the scene.  He was storing detail he might not
notice until later, if ever.  She had been shot in the chest from close
range.  Blue eyes filmed over in death stared blankly at the ceiling.
Angelo found himself wondering who she was and what she had been like.  Not
with any great force.  A homicide detective couldn't afford to identify
that closely with the victim.

 "I will be damned."  Clevon Jones, a detective from the VCPD Homicide
department said.  "Four goddamned arms."

 Angelo nodded absently.  "Yep.  We'll need prints from all four of them."

 "Doesn't that creep you out Angelo?" Jones asked.  "I mean,
four goddamned
arms!"

 Angelo shrugged  "She's been murdered.  It's our job to find out who did it
and bring them in."

 Jones shook his head. "Yeah, but, four goddamned arms.  Gives me the
creeps."

 Angelo sighed.  The young woman was a little strange but there was no
reason to let it throw you.

-*-

 "Okay Mrs. Arnold, please tell me everything that happened."  Sonja said.

 Betty Arnold was a statuesque black woman, who'd managed to age gracefully.
Her fallen face and red eyes really ruined the effect this morning.  She
took a deep breath and said.  "I went back in the back to check on her
about 2:30 and found her... shot.  I ran over here to the phone and called
for the paramedics.  Then I went back to see if I could help her until the
paramedics arrived.  But it was too late."  She shuddered visibly.

 Sonja understood.  Even after four years with the VCPD, she still hated to
touch dead bodies.  "Okay.  Was there anyone you can think of who
would want her dead?"

 "Not really."  Betty said.  "She was a real sweet girl.
Everyone who could
get past the arms loved her."

 "Were there any death threats?"  Sonja asked.

 "Not specifically, no, but there were a few people who just couldn't handle
the idea of a girl with four arms.  I just asked them to leave.  This place
doesn't attract people with strong racist tendencies."  Betty said.

 "You were sort of taking a risk by hiring a four armed person weren't
you?"

 "Honey, I played the chitlin' circuit in early sixties.  There were places
we couldn't go, restaurants would serve us cold left overs out a window and
we had to stand around and eat in the alley.  Back then we might as well
have had four arms.  This place was my answer to that.  I brought around
all the people from the old days.  We play the good old music.  We eat the
good food right here in the main dining room, and we come and go through
the front door. The only person we didn't let in here was Jim Crow.  Anyone
who couldn't handle that never came back to see the Marlene sing in the
first place."  Betty explained.

 "Hmmm.  Was there anyone here who knew Marlene before she came to sing
here?" Sonja asked.

 "No.  Whatever was happening in Georgia, Marlene left it behind her when
she came out here."  Betty said.

 "How did you hear of her?"

 "Once upon a time John Goldberg was my agent.  Actually he was the agent
for our singing group, once we left our original agent.  He called me up
and said he had a girl with a sweet voice who needed someplace to work
while he tried to set something up for her.  He reminded me of the time we
got on the TV because the producer didn't know that we were black until the
last minute."  Betty explained.  "He said it was a deal like that
and asked if I could help out.  I said sure.  Once you get a break, you
have to turn it around.  God has been kind to me and so I help out where I
can."

 "So she was singing here until John Goldberg could get her a
break?"  Sonja
asked.

 Betty shook her head.  "That was the theory but there were a couple of
problems that looked like show stoppers."

 "Like what?"

 "Well, Marlene sang jazz, blues and soul. She was a voice and a good one.
Now count how many jazz stations are on the air in Vista City.  The type of
music that Marlene sang isn't big market stuff anymore.  John was working
on getting her studio jobs.  Singing jingles for commercials, back up
singing for bigger name artists, maybe some stuff that she wasn't used to
singing like that alternative or some country.  Marlene could have done
that and was willing.  However, John was mostly retired and was having to
rebuild his contacts.  He said he was running into heavy resistance.  No
one wants to take a chance on an unknown element when they have all the
good singers in the world waiting tables in LA."

 "Ah.  So..." Sonja prompted.

 "She was sort of stuck here.  She might have gotten a break next weekend or
she might have been singing here for fifteen years before she decided to
give it up.  I've seen it happen both ways."  Betty said sadly.

 "Did she have any friends here in town?"  Sonja asked.

 "Myself and the musicians, a couple of people who came in and really
enjoyed her singing. Outside of the club she didn't connect real well.  She
was sort of reluctant to move around Vista City freely."  Betty said. 
"She was too used to hiding away."

 "Did Marlene have enemies?"  Sonja asked.

 "No.  About the worst there was Freddy Rios."  Betty said.

 "Tell me about Freddy."  Sonja tried not to pounce.

 "He likes to be called Fast Freddy. He was a small time thug until he went
to jail.  Now he wants to be a legit sleaze in the worst way.  He decided
that he would be a show business agent and picked Marlene as his first
client.  She said no.  He kept coming back and trying."  Betty said. 
Her eyes widened.  "I saw him go back into Marlene's room about
closing time. Oh no!  Freddy's a sleaze but I don't think he'd try to kill
Marlene.  But I saw him go back there. Oh, Freddy."

 "Do you know what Freddy was in jail for?"  Sonja asked.

 "Drug possession and assault, I think."  Betty said sadly. 
"You're going
to pin this on him, aren't you."

 Sonja sighed.  "You can trust Angelo to see that the truth will come out."

 Betty nodded.  "That's what Jim says.  He also tells me that you get all
the weird cases.  Is this a weird case?"

 Sonja nodded.  "Not only does the victim have four arms, but you're the
wife of our night shift supervisor.  There might be a conflict of interest,
so they called us in."

 Betty shook her head.  "I hope that you can find out who did it, but it's
not going to bring Marlene back."

 Sonja looked grim.  "It never does.  Nevertheless, our job is to get the
guy before he does it again.  Maybe we can keep someone else from getting
killed."

-*-

 Angelo and Sonja stood in the alley behind "The Soul Attraction".  They
looked carefully at their surroundings.  Behind them, the forensics team
fussed with the back door to the nightclub.

 "The way I read it, the perp entered and exited through the back door.
There was a rock jammed in there to keep the lock from engaging.  The door
wasn't locked, but Mrs. Arnold thought that it was.  The way the parking
lot wraps around a car could have slid in and out and not been
noticed."  Angelo walked through the events of the murder in his mind.

 Sonja considered the rock disdainfully.  It was a cute trick but an amateur
one.  Sonja could have wandered in and out of the place and made Angelo at
least work for the clues.

 Angelo bent down and examined the black top of the parking lot.  It was
beginning to fade and age. Cracks were appearing.  There was dirt from an
adjacent empty lot spread around the parking lot, but not enough to hold a
tire print.  Angelo reluctantly concluded that the parking lot had little
or nothing to tell him.

 "Hey."  Sonja pointed.  "I may have found a witness."

 Angelo looked up.  Across the empty lot and the four-lane boulevard there
was a gas station.  The sign on the gas station said "Open 24
hours". Angelo could see directly into the armored cashier's booth. 
Angelo plotted it out.  To move directly out of the parking lot, a car
would have to drive diagonally across the point of view of the cashier and
the turn onto Valley Boulevard and drive passed the gas station to get to
the freeway and make a getaway.

 Now all they needed was an observant gas station attendant and they might
be in luck.

 "Very nice." Angelo commented.

-*-

 David Johnson was half asleep but warmed to the subject immediately.
"There were two cars out back of the nightclub after closing.  One of
them was a lime green 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo.  It was in sad condition.  It
was a beater.  Could be reconditioned but probably never will be.
California plates, but I couldn't read 'em."

 "The other was a sweet car.  A 1963 Ford Fairlane hot-rod.  Jacked up in
the back, mag wheels, polished chrome everywhere.  I don't think it was
local. I know most of the collectibles in the region and I didn't recognize
it.  It didn't have California plates.  I am embarrassed to admit that I
didn't recognize what state the plates were from.  It sure was a sweet car,
though. Fire engine red with a white top."

 Angelo blinked a couple of times. "Are you certain about that?"

 Sonja almost snickered.

 "Detective, I had three customers after midnight last night.  If I wasn't a
car watcher, I'd go nuts in that place all night long."  Johnson said.
"Besides.  I am something of an aficionado of the automobile as an art
form."

 "Would you be willing to testify to this in a court of law?"  
Sonja asked.

 "Yep." Johnson grabbed out a pad of paper and scribbled notes
about what he
had seen to himself.  "Now I'll be able to remember it longer.  What's
the date again?"

-*-

 Outside of Johnson's apartment Sonja and Angelo stopped to exchange
impressions.

 "Whoosh!" Sonja said.  "You don't find a witness like that
every day."

 "I'd have kissed him full on the lips but that would have gotten us sued."
Angelo said.  "That's about the best witness of that type I have ever had."

 "What do you mean gotten us sued?  You're the one overcome by emotion."
Sonja said.

 "Now we go ask the DMV what sort of car that Fast Freddy has registered in
his name."  Angelo said.

-*-

 The finger prints from the crime scene were back from the lab.  One set
matched an individual with a criminal record, one Frederick J. Rios, of
Vista City.  Another set matched Betty M. Arnold, the owner of the club.
She had a criminal record in Mississippi for incitement to riot.  The
conviction was in 1957.  Four other sets did not match.

 Scott Ashby, the Captain of the VCPD's Special Investigation Squad was
running the prints through the net, trying to ID them.  He had few tasks on
his desk, so helping with the detail work on an on-going murder examination
was a good way to keep busy.  The other two sets were not on record
anywhere that the stretching octopus of networked computers could reach.

 "Captain Ashby, line two."  The intercom said.

 Ashby picked up the phone and hit the right button.  "Ashby, Special
Investigations."  He answered.

 "Hello, Captain.  My name is Taylor Dane.  We met in Panama in 1989."  The
voice on the other end said.

 Scott cast his mind back to Panama in 1989.  It was a weird mission to try
and isolate Manuel Noriega from some of his more "interesting"
allies. Flying California Air National Guard F-16s they were actually
agents of a top-secret government agency.  The man calling himself Taylor
Dane was their briefing officer, describing targets and locations that were
bombed under cover of the war effort.

 "Well, Mr. Taylor.  It's nice to hear from you again. How may we help
you?"
Scott said casually.

 "I am currently employed by the Department of Unusual Phenomena."  Taylor
said.

 Scott smiled faintly "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

 "In some cases.  Now Captain, I'm told you have a murder case working."
The government agent said.

 "Actually we have several."  Ashby said.

 "The one you're checking finger prints on right now."

 "Ah." Ashby said.  "The victim is tentatively identified as
Marlene Summers
of Four Corners, Georgia."

 "You understand that this is a matter of interest to us." Taylor said.

 "It's an open murder investigation, Sir.  The law and community interest in
this case is clear."  Scott said.  He was getting ready to fight.  The
"Department" rarely made these sorts of calls unless they were
trying to hush something up.

 "Well, Captain, we can confirm the identity of your victim.  We'd
appreciate it if you'd work with the Four Corners authorities in this
matter and act with all due discretion." Taylor said in businesslike
fashion.

 "Define 'due discretion'." Scott spoke perhaps a little more harshly than
he intended.

 Taylor was silent for a moment.  "This may be hard for you to grasp,
Captain, but this department and this government owes the people of Four
Corners.  We're trying to ensure that they are free to live their lives
without undue interruption or controversy. We'd like you to cooperate with
the local Four Corners Authorities in this matter."

 "So you're calling me to ask me to be quiet and professional as if I were a
real law enforcement officer."  Scott said.

 Taylor sounded embarrassed.  "Well, yeah.  That and to confirm the identity
of the victim.  Those prints are not going to be found in any normal files.
We have a flag set up to alert us if anyone goes poking around in records
that are Four Corners' business."

 Scott said.  "Okay, so you can confirm that the victim is indeed Marlene
Summers of Four Corners Georgia?"

 "Yes.  I confirm that. Actually two sets of the prints are her." Taylor
said. "Set number one and set number three as you scanned them."

 "How about the other two?" Scott asked.

 "Sorry.  We don't have any files on those."  Taylor said.

 "Would you tell me if you did?"

 "It's in our interest to solve this murder as quickly and as quietly as
possible, Captain.  I tell you so three times."  Taylor said.

 Scott sighed it was an old code to verify authenticity.  "I hear you three
times, Mr. Taylor."

 "Thank you.  Please take down this number." Taylor read off a
number with a
Georgia area code.

 Scott read the number back to make sure it was correct.  "Whose number is
this?"

 "That's Jim Mosley, the Mayor of Four Corners.  Call him and update him,
please.  Cooperate in every way with him."  Taylor said.  "Keep
this as quiet as possible, please."

 "Listen, Mr. Taylor.  This is an ongoing murder investigation.  Maybe the
victim was from Four Corners but the murder happened here in my turf.  I
will cooperate as much as possible but in the end we will find the
murderer, arrest him, take him to court and testify to the truth of the
evidence we uncover.  I don't care who we find at the center of this.  I
will not allow a murder to go by if I can help it.  A judge, a jury and
some lawyers are going to have to deal with the fact that the victim of
this crime happened to have four arms.  That's all there is to it. I won't
deliberately involve the press or try to turn this into a circus, but my
first priority is the truth."

 "If that's your attitude, then you can count on the full support of this
office, Captain.  I just wanted to avoid another 'trial-of-the-century'
like that O.J. thing."  Taylor said.

 "Why? Was that one of ours?"  Scott asked, confused.

 "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.  Will there be a post
mortem?"
Taylor asked.

 "In a murder case?  Are you joking?"

 "Who's doing the autopsy?"  Taylor asked.

 "Dr. Monique Le Beau."  Scott answered.  That should soothe Taylor a bit.

 It did.  "She's one of ours isn't she?"

 "Actually she's a Canadian Officer, but in the same line of work."  Scott
replied.

 "That explains why she doesn't appear in the file for the SIS."  Taylor
said.  I'll have to fix that. Anyway, I know that you have a long day ahead
of you so I'll let you go now."  Taylor ended the conversation.

 "One more thing.  I need a contact number for you, in case I need to take
advantage of our acquaintance myself."  Scott said.

 Taylor sighed.  "I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine? Okay.  Here's th
e number."  Taylor read off a Washington DC telephone number to Scott.

 "Thanks.  Hopefully I won't be calling anytime soon."  Scott said.

 "Good luck Captain.  Keep your head down."

 "You too, Mr. Taylor."  Scott hung up the phone.


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