The offices of K.P. Investigations.
Larry Kessler was in his office in Richmond, but standing over his partner’s desk sifting through the vast amount of scattered paperwork that unsystematically lay there. Including what he’d already knocked to the floor. Larry was forty-years-old with very short dark brown hair. He stood six-feet-two in height, had a thin face and a square chin which made him look younger than his years and rather handsome.
His partner, Greggorrio Pierroni, or Gregg as he was known, was a thirty-eight-year-old Italian who’d lived in America since his parents moved there thirty years earlier. He wasn’t as tall as Larry only standing at five-feet-ten, but he certainly had the looks and always charmed the ladies. Larry and Gregg had been partners for the past two years after leaving the police force to start up their own investigative agency.
Recently they’d been working on the case of a missing fourteen-year old black girl by the name of Alicia Vincent. Alicia was last seen a week ago and was the ninth teenage girl to go missing in Richmond in the last two months.
According to the police they were doing what they could to find Alicia and the other girls, but Alicia’s Mother wanted that little extra help. So she called the number she’d been given by a friend and hired Larry and Gregg to investigate her daughter’s disappearance.
As far as Larry was concerned Gregg had been following a lead on the missing girl, a lead given to him by one of Larry’s strongest pet hates. A psychic. But with their recent lack of contact Larry was worried something had gone wrong.
Brenda Wise their secretary opened the door to the main office and leaning against the post she looked at her watch. ‘A-hem…’ she said.
Larry looked up. ‘Jeez Bren, you still here? I thought you went home hour’s ago.’ he said through an unlit cigarette.
Brenda stood five-foot six-inches tall, was thirty-seven years old and slim with piercing green eyes. She had shoulder length black hair which ensconced her small but very pretty oval face. She wore a black skirt just above the knee and a bright red V-neck pullover which enhanced the appearance of her already ample breasts.
Brenda had worked for Larry and Gregg for the past eighteen months after leaving her job as a legal secretary to a high flying company of solicitors. She left after being subject to unwanted advances from some male members of the staff there.
Her knowledge of the legal system, and the fact that Larry and Gregg were useless with computers, were two of the reasons she’d landed the job. The third reason was the fact that Gregg thought she was very hot.
‘My cars in the garage remember? You said you’d drop me.’
‘Ahh shit. Sorry Bren, I got tangled up in all this.’ He said holding his arms out.
‘Leave that to Gregg, only he knows his own filing system.’
‘I would, if I knew where he was.’
‘Still no word then?’
‘Nope, he left at nine this morning for some place called Lynchburg, wherever the hell that might be. He said he’d received a call from some old lady claiming to be a psychic of all things. I mean, come on… a psychic, can you even believe he fell for that old chestnut?’
‘Psychics’ have been known to offer up some very useful information on hundreds of cases the police couldn’t solve Larry.’
‘Or hell… not you too Bren?’
‘Oh come on, stop being so cynical. At least it’s a lead.’
‘Yeah? Well we’ll see won’t we? Anyway, Gregg told me he was going out there to check it out, and he’d call me if he found something or not. So far he’s been gone over fifteen hours; he said it was only three hours there and three hours back. That so far has given him at least…’ he looked aloft. ‘Nine hours to check his lead.’
‘This might sound like a stupid question Larry,’ she moved closer to the desk. ‘But have you tried his cell-phone?’
‘At least five times in the last hour. It rings a few times then goes onto voice-mail.’
‘He could have lost it.'
‘If that was the case Bren, why the hell hasn’t he used a public phone?’ Larry knocked even more papers onto the floor.
Brenda crouched picking them up. ‘Well who’s this mysterious old lady?’
‘That’s what I’m looking for, care to lend a hand?’
Brenda picked up the half dozen sheets of paper Larry knocked to the floor and the few others that were already lying there. She thumbed through them passing one to Larry. ‘Could this be her?’ she said smiling.
The sheet of paper contained a name and an address, but no telephone number. Brenda recognised the name but couldn’t think from where.
Celia Brontrose,
2 Lilac Lane,
Lynchburg.
Larry and Brenda locked up the office and walked around to the parking lot behind the building. Larry’s car was an old but tidy looking red 1974 Triumph Spitfire. He’d bought it as scrap and spent three years and three and a half grand getting it back on the road. And because the car was so small Larry had the seat as far back as it would go. Even so, his knees still rested either side of the steering wheel.
The office was in Montrose Heights in the heart of Richmond. Brenda’s apartment was in Highland Springs, an elite part of the neighbourhood west of the city. Larry drove along Williamsburg road taking the 60 past Richmond International Airport and then onto the 33 up to Highland Springs.
After fifteen minutes they reached Brenda’s apartment block which was a four story brick building built seventy years ago as a clothing mill, and since turned into forty high priced apartments.
Brenda got out and leant into the open window of the car. ‘Wanna come up for a coffee?’ she asked knowing he would say no, he always did, but wishing that just once, just this once, he would say yes.
‘Nah Bren, gonna head home, grab a sandwich and hit the sack. Need to be at Celia Brontrose’s early tomorrow. Maybe next time eh!’
‘Yeah maybe…’ she thought, and turned heading for the main door.
After watching Brenda enter her apartment block and close the door Larry finally lit his cigarette. Turning the car around he drove along Nine Mile road over to his house in Church Hill. Larry’s house wasn’t a large place but was big enough for his needs. Beyond the small front garden the house had two rooms and a kitchen downstairs, and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
Twelve years ago he and his wife Samantha bought the place on a shoestring. Larry was on the average cop’s wage and Samantha was a nurse at Maymont Park Hospital, a place where the work was hard and the money was even harder earned.
Six years ago Samantha was working overtime one evening in late fall when an eleven-year-old black boy by the name of Michael Madison was admitted suffering from a gunshot wound to the neck. Apparently a drugstore robbery had gone awry and the little boy was hit by a stray bullet.
Whilst he lay in the theatre being operated on his seventeen-year-old brother Daniel arrived at the hospital demanding to see him. The staff justifiably refused him access to the O R so he pulled a gun out, and once again he demanded to be taken to his little brother.
One security guard and a doctor quickly tackled the youth to the floor, but during the mayhem the gun discharged once. The bullet hit Samantha in her chest and sent her to the floor. Larry was told she’d died instantly, as did the one month old foetus he knew nothing of.
Michael Madison subsequently died from his injury. The saddest part about Michael being shot and killed was his older brother admitted robbing the drugstore. He’d taken Michael along as his look-out. It’s thought Michael ran into the shop when he heard shouting. He must have seen the drugstore owner holding Daniel by his shirt front shaking him violently.
During that struggle two shots were accidentally fired, one hitting the store owner in his right arm, and the other hitting the cash register and ricocheting off hitting Michael in the neck. Daniel is currently serving a thirty-year prison sentence for armed robbery, Samantha’s murder, the attempted murder of the store owner, and the manslaughter of his eleven year old baby brother Michael.
Since then Larry hadn’t bothered with dating, although Gregg tried to set him up a few times with women he was acquainted with. But every time Larry would last for an hour or two then make his excuses for leaving and return home.
Larry changed into a pair of grey loose fitting running pants and a blue sweatshirt. He’d also thrown together a ham and cheese on rye smothered in mayonnaise. He opened a bottle of beer and slumped himself in a chair in front of his T V.
Looking at his watch the time was 1: 05am. He decided he would finish his beer and sandwich and have another cigarette. After which he would try Gregg’s cell-phone again. He switched on the TV and began watching a re-run of Bonanza on Cable.
