Millstone & Roche, Chapter Ten
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All Rights Reserved © 2020, Rick Haydn Horst Formerly known as Rick Heathen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Hanging the Chimney Hook: a Millstone & Roche Investigation, By Rick Haydn Horst
Chapter Ten
While working a case, a good investigator will examine the evidence individually and as a group to get a clearer picture. Unlike a physical jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of this aren't lying at one's fingertips and often have no smooth outer edge to indicate just how far the picture goes. In this mental puzzle, you'll discover obvious pieces, false pieces, and those maddening disparate pieces that you know have value but have yet to connect to anything, just sitting there like an island. The pieces connect effects to their causes, by reasoning out means, motives, and opportunities, through the gathering of evidence and an analysis of possibilities versus probabilities, which might be little more than gut instinct.
Malor had the means and opportunity but no motive that I could see, and my gut told me he hadn't killed Tommy. I heard something in his voice when he spoke of him. I couldn't compare it to how I might speak about my Golden Bear, but, in his own way, he valued Tommy.
The ring brought up several questions, and I think the involvement of Tommy provided a clue to the answer of one of them. How long did Chadwell have the ring? They started the removals on the Thornbrier mansion three years ago. The probability of him having it all that time seemed remote. And somehow, he intended to turn that valuable ring into cash. Had he deluded himself over how easy that would be? Or did he have a partner, perhaps one he tried to double-cross? And Tommy's death connected somehow; otherwise, it appeared motiveless.
Max, Edgerton, and I stood at the conference room table, and after considerable discussion, I asked them, "Do either of you think Malor is involved?"
"He has opportunity, and he knew them," said the detective, "but I don't think he did it."
"I agree," said Max, "but let me tell you of a thought that occurred to me. What if the death of Chadwell was the killer's goal? Malor made the finger traps; we know that now. What if Tommy's death were merely to help point the finger at Malor for the murder that the killer really wanted to commit? Think about it, if Tommy hadn't dated Malor and hadn't died with a finger trap on his hands, would we connect Malor at all?"
"That's a thought," said the detective, "and if so-"
"Then Tommy might not have known about the ring," I said. "But if that's the case, why Tommy? Had he picked him merely out of convenience?"
"Since he's no longer a suspect," said Edgerton, "will you question Malor about the ring, or should I?"
"You're asking me?"
"You're officially consulting," he said, "but I want a good result, and if I have to take advice on occasion to get it, I will. Catching the killer is all that matters. When you and I first met, you probably thought I had an impervious ego. Trust me, I don't."
"I appreciate that. Well, if we want the killer to lower their guard, we need to convince Malor to let you keep him in custody. If he agrees, we can ask him about the ring, but it's important that only the people we trust know we have it because if he walks, he might talk to someone. Even if he hadn't killed anybody, his innocence wouldn't mean he can keep a secret."
"Legally," he said, "if necessary, I could hold him for 72 hours without charge."
I tipped my head, thinking. "Hmm...I will ask you not to do that. Right now, he's answering every question put to him. If you hold him against his will, he might decide to zip his mouth. We know he has information, and he may have the answer to a question we don't yet know to ask. So, if he says he's willing to stay, do you have any place for him here that isn't a cell?"
"We have an entire bedroom here for just such occasions; it probably needs some boxes removed from it, but we have one. And if he gives us valuable information, I'll even throw in turndown service and a mint on his pillow."
"What, no sex?" Max laughed.
"From what you told me?"--Edgerton shook his head--"No way! He ain't fuckin' me with that thing, and what man wouldn't like a blowjob?"--he turned to me--"Let me get someone to straighten that room."
Once the detective was in the observation room, I carried the bagged ring inside a manila folder, so Malor couldn't see it. The room was quiet, and he had laid his head on the table, taking a snooze, but perked up when Max and I entered the room.
"Are we done? Will they let me go?"
"Not quite yet. It's not a coincidence that someone used the finger traps in the two deaths; the killer wants us to think you did it, so somebody wants you in prison for a long time. Have you any idea who might want that, perhaps someone from Seattle when you lived there, dealing with the court case. What can you tell me of that?"
"Oh, you know of that," he said. "Well, I met a guy named Daniel, who wanted me to fuck him. He wasn't sure he could take me but wanted to try. He never said stop or gave me any indication that anything was wrong, but I had perforated his colon, and I took him immediately to the hospital. He said he didn't blame me, but that he had a boyfriend and that it was best that I go and never see him again. So, while I may have left, I still checked on him; they helped him, and he survived the incident. Apparently, Daniel had problems with sex after that, and it exposed an underlying bowel issue that he didn't realize he had. He said in his suicide note that it destroyed his life. His sister sued me for wrongful death. My uncle represented me, and I won the case based on the evidence."
"Had the boyfriend attended the trial?"
"It was a closed court, and only his sister was there, so I never saw him."
"Okay. As for Chadwell and Tommy, were they friends?"
"Oh yes, they were great friends until Chadwell discovered that Tommy wanted me. After that, Tommy was Chadwell's enemy. As far as he was concerned, he had laid a claim on me, and he said that Tommy betrayed his friendship. As if...."
"Why had Tommy quit working for Alliance?"
"I'm not sure," he said. "Is that important? I figured people quit jobs all the time, so I didn't think anything of it. Glenn got him the job driving the cab, and he seemed happy with it."
"It could be important; I'm just trying to ascertain the facts."
Max said, "You told us that you don't have relationships; you have regulars. That keeps people at a distance, doesn't it? I imagine that someone who thinks like that doesn't go on dates, but you went on one with Tommy. Why make the exception?"
Malor stared into Max and sat there in silence for nearly a minute. "Tommy was my kind of special. Like I said, he had a private life that he wanted to keep private, but so that you understand, I'll tell ya. I also have a private life that I want to keep private, but people knowing I'm a sadist isn't part of it; that's a matter of necessity. Tommy and I had a lot in common, some things too complicated to discuss here. But while we had different experiences growing up, it turned us into two sides of the same coin, and we understood one another, so I agreed to a date."
"How angry are you that someone took Tommy from you?" I asked.
"I don't show my anger much, but I am angry. And before anyone thinks anything just so you know, I knew Chadwell hadn't killed Tommy. Chadwell was a nutcase who obsessed over me, but he wouldn't kill anyone. He even had the gall to forgive me for killing Tommy."
"So, he thought you killed him," I said.
"Yeah, he did. He cornered me on break and told me that he forgave me for killing Tommy for him. And I was like, `but I didn't kill Tommy!' And he just acted like he didn't believe me."
That explained why Chadwell met us at the tailor's shop and his odd behavior. If he believed the object of his obsession killed Tommy, then he would want everyone to accept the police's initial suicide conclusion.
"We have a request of you that will help us find Tommy's killer," I said.
He squinted his eyes at us, thinking. "You need me to stay here, don't you? The killer needs to think you believe I did it. How long are we talking?"
"You're a smart man, Mr. Malor," I said. "Yes, we do, but no longer than early Sunday morning and probably less. As you would assist with an investigation involving two murders, they would gratefully treat you like a guest here, not a criminal. They'll make you as comfortable as possible. Will you help us?"
"What about my job?" he asked.
"If you help, Max and I will not only ensure that you keep your job but put your name in the boss's ear, and that could be good for you."
Malor agreed to do it, and once he had, I pulled out the evidence bag with the ring. He leaned into it and gave it a close examination.
"Have you ever seen this ring before?" I asked.
He shook his head in ambivalence, staring at it. "I'm not sure, it looks familiar, but nothing recent comes to mind. That's a nice rock. It looks like an engagement ring; is that a red diamond? I didn't know they came in that color. Where'd you get it?"
"The pathologist found it in Chadwell's stomach," I said.
Malor's shock quickly turned into a burst of laughter, and he palmed his face. "I would never have guessed you would say that. So, you think they killed him for this."
"Red diamonds are worth a lot of money. We think it came from the things left behind in the Thornbrier mansion. Do you know about it at all? Had Tommy or Chadwell mentioned something that might have alluded to it without ever mentioning the ring itself? Anything might help."
He stared at the ring, concentrating. "It seems familiar somehow; give me a few minutes to think."
His head in his hands, he sat there, his eyes closed, and his face tipped toward the table. Given the importance of the matter, the room remained silent for the three or four minutes we waited.
Malor interested me. He seemed like this fundamentally good man about whom people make inaccurate assumptions, and he was challenging some of mine. I asked Max what he thought about Malor, and he told me something that hadn't occurred to me. He said that Malor was a man who had the same needs and desires as most any other. He said he believed Malor had adopted the notion of viewing himself as a sadist because he felt that he had no choice. He grew to have an enormously thick cock, and he had learned to make the best of what life had given him. He could abstain from sex because of his size, cringe at whatever pain he caused others in his need for sexual intimacy, or he could embrace it. Because, given his size, if he wanted to have sex, he had no choice but to cause some pain. I realized then that Malor really belonged in Franklin, someone just as marginalized and misunderstood as the rest of us, and yeah, that included me. People in the know had viewed me as little more than a horse cock, so I identified with some of what Malor most likely went through, and I made the best of what life had given me too.
Max's insights into understanding people made me realize how lucky I was to have him. Not only would it allow him to understand me, but he brought something to the table that I lacked, and we complimented one another in our abilities.
"I think I have something," said Malor. "It's nothing direct, but I remember a few weeks ago--just before Tommy and Chadwell's friendship ended--that Tommy was having some trouble, he said he felt conflicted about something, and he seemed preoccupied with it for several days. I asked him if he wanted to talk about it, but he said that he had already spoken about it to one of the nuns...Sister Foustina and that he may have to wait for the sisters to return from the Vatican. He wouldn't elaborate, so I don't really know what he meant, but what if he knew about the ring and spoke to Sister Foustina about it?"
Malor provided a major lead, and we told him he could trust Detective Edgerton, who would ensure his comfort while he remained there. Max took a photo of the ring to show the sister, and Edgerton left us the task of speaking to her. I hoped he would join us, but he believed we could be trusted and that he had something he needed to fix before the day was out.
Max held my hand in the elevator on the way to the roadster. Its meaty warmth pressing into my palm had begun to grow on me, and I found myself never wanting to let it go. For a while, whenever we held hands, he would occasionally glance down at them, and his expression seemed a bit flat, or perhaps uncertain. However, on the way back to the car, when I caught him looking, I saw that he had a little smile. I couldn't help but stop right there and hug him.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Oh, Max, I couldn't be more okay if I tried." I held his face just before I kissed him. I looked him in the eye and said, "You are the best and most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. And I want everything I say and everything I do, for or with you, to tell you just how much I love you, and I don't care who knows. You and I were meant to be, and the idea of spending my life with you makes me incredibly happy."
As we kissed, his hand rubbed my cock through my jeans, and I knew how he wanted to show me that he felt the same. I had told him that I would feed him anytime, and he wanted it. So, when we got into the roadster, I put the top up and pulled out my cock. He reached over the console between us, playing with my schlong as I drove us to the outreach center on 41st street.
"You know," he said, "if you had a shorter dick, I would have more trouble doing this."
Max pulled slack in the shoulder strap of his seatbelt, and with my erect dong stretching out at an odd angle to the right, he leaned over a bit, took my knob along with the first couple of inches into his mouth, and blew me right there. I had never had a blowjob while driving. It felt like a dangerous and incredibly stupid thing to do, but that only made it more exciting. Precum ran from me like a garden hose whose tap had a broken stopcock, and I could feel Max drinking it down. Taking directions from my phone's navigation, I struggled to maintain my ability to concentrate on the road with the insane amount of pleasure Max gave me.
While on Main Street, the afternoon traffic, coupled with a nasty accident ahead of us, caused us to sit idle in the middle of three narrow lanes surrounded by four delivery vans. Max noticed this and hit the button to put the top down.
"What are you doing?"
"Relax and enjoy." He shoved my cock into his mouth again as the roof unlatched and began to fold itself into our trunk.
Once we were exposed to our vehicular neighbors, I looked around to see if they could see us. They could, and I saw a couple of thumbs-up. I laid my head against the headrest while Max mouthed my knob and jacked me but knowing that people watched us turned me on so much that it made me realize that I was growing into an exhibitionist. I propped my arm on the back of the passenger's seat and let him have his way with my stiff meat.
While blowing me, Max always moaned his pleasure and made a lot of sexy cum-pig sounds. It horned me up hearing that continuous flood of the wettest slurping and sucking, guzzling and gulping noises for ten minutes, twenty minutes, even thirty or forty minutes that Max could provide without rest. He was like a milking machine intent on having that load, and I could feel the mercury rising as his efforts made me so hot that I began to sweat. When the involuntary undulating of my head began with every electric surge coursing through me, I knew he had me close. I lingered in that ecstasy for a minute, a pleasure so sweet it reached my toes and fingertips. As the dam burst, I grabbed the headrest of my seat while Max went into overdrive, chugging the torrent of cum from me like a beer bong, every bit down his throat, never a drop wasted. My body jerked as he kept at it, cleaning me up, milking my cock of anything left inside the shaft.
The gray-headed driver to our right had his window down, filming the whole thing on his cell phone, while the younger-looking passenger to our left had a squirt of cum running down the interior of his window. I kissed Max, and he thanked me for feeding him. He flipped the visor down and checked his face in the mirror. With spit in his beard, he cleaned himself with one of the wipes from the glove compartment intended for just such occasions. I hadn't gone flaccid enough to pack my appendage away before the traffic began moving again, so I left it out.
The sisters had located The Saint Marianne Cope Outreach Center of Franklin in an old long-abandoned brick building that previously housed the business offices of some evangelical church. The city had converted its equally abandoned sanctuary next door into an annex to the main library downtown. The parking lot of the library had far too many spaces for its current usage, so the city had turned three-quarters of it into public parking, and we parked there. After packing away my dick, we left the roadster for the center.
The sisters had cleaned up the building well and had the brick repointed. Someone had cleverly placed the original name of the building into the design of the brickwork; it read Clancy's Gym and the date 1949. We arrived in time; the center would close in twenty minutes. We entered, and a sister we hadn't met before greeted us.
She smiled. "Hello, I'm Sister Catherine; how may I help you?"
"I am Howard Millstone, and this is my partner Max Roche. We're private detectives assisting the Franklin Police Department. We were hoping to speak with Sister Foustina."
"I've heard of you," she said, "but I'm sorry, Sister Foustina has secluded herself for nearly a week."
"It's because of the death of Tommy Haines, isn't it? If you could let her know that we're here to speak to her about that, with some urgency, she may be able to assist us in finding who killed him."
"Killed him? But the police officer told us that Tommy had taken his own life."
"That's a relatively recent retraction," I said, "I expect her heart will feel a bit less broken if you let her know that."
She smiled a bit, and with eyes wet, she asked us to wait in the little waiting room nearby while she told Sister Foustina.
Another sister we hadn't met sat in the waiting room. She looked to be in her early 20s and wore the same white shirt under a simple gray dress and a matching veil that all the sisters wore. She sat crocheting a rather large afghan of cotton yarn.
She looked up from her work and smiled, "Good afternoon. Please, have a seat. I'm Sister Mary Eloise. I heard what you said about Tommy; you bring good news, and that's always welcome."
We greeted her in return. The waiting room had a couple of chairs and the couch upon which we seated ourselves. I put my arm around Max, and he looked a tad uncomfortable.
He whispered into my ear, "Are you sure you want your arm around me here."
"Not if it bothers you."
He held my hand that lay on his shoulder to keep me from pulling it away.
"Sister Foustina spoke of the two of you," said the sister. "Welcome to Franklin."
"Thank you," said Max, "that's much appreciated."
"I have a question of you," I said. "Who is Saint Marianne Cope? I'm not familiar with her."
She paused in her work and smiled at us. "Oh," she said, sounding as though she enjoyed the opportunity to reminisce a bit, "the name of the center is an interesting story. Saint Marianne Cope is a relatively new saint, originally from Germany, and she helped a lot of people, especially people with leprosy, but she has become known as the Patron Saint of Outcasts."
"That sounds perfect for Franklin," said Max.
"We thought so too," she said, "and certainly more compassionate and agreeable than the center's previous name. The sisters who started this outreach several years ago called it Saint Jude's Outreach Center of Franklin. I'm afraid that the name more reflected the less charitable attitude of the sisters who started it, but we felt that naming it after the Patron Saint of Lost Causes was tone-deaf and rudely inappropriate. We felt sure the community recognized the original name as a slap in the face, and we could hardly blame them."
We couldn't help but quietly laugh at the amusingly cringeworthy attitude of some people.
When we heard footsteps coming down the tiled hallway, we stood and thanked Sister Mary Eloise for the conversation. Sister Foustina came around the corner wearing a smile and the same clothing they all did.
She said, "Misters Millstone and Roche, I'm so happy to see you. Please, come into my office, have a seat there, and we'll talk."
She led us to a room further down the hallway, and my eyes immediately drew to the antique religiously-themed tapestry that dominated the main wall. Along with her desk, she also had a cozy sitting area, and as she seated herself upon an azure blue wingback, she primly crossed her feet and tucked them beneath her chair. We sat on the comfortable Queen Anne couch across from her.
"Sister Catherine tells me Tommy hadn't taken his own life. Are you sure?"
"Yes, we are quite sure, and you may be able to help catch who did it. Tommy's boyfriend told us that several weeks ago, Tommy felt conflicted about something, and he spoke to you about it."--Max held up his phone with the photo for Sister Foustina--"Would it happen to be about this ring?"
Her gaze of astonishment told me it was. "Yes, do you have it?"
"Currently," I said, "it's evidence in the murder of Douglas Chadwell, so the police are holding it for now. What do you know of it?"
"Oh no, Douglas is dead too?"--she made the sign of the cross--"Tommy found the ring; Douglas was there when Tommy found it. Douglas said that he would make sure their boss got it. So, Tommy waited for him to follow through, but whenever he questioned him about it, he hadn't handed it over. `Oh, I forgot. I promise I'll do it tomorrow.' That sort of thing. Tommy kept pushing him to turn it in. He told me he felt conflicted for his friend and asked me if he should go to his boss to tell him about it, but he knew that doing so would get his friend in trouble. It seems like such a minor quandary, but for Tommy, who never had friends, it was serious.
"I asked him about the ring, and he showed me the photo he had taken of it when he found it, and the thing is, I recognized it...well, sort of. I have a friend who's a historian that jokingly prides herself as a font of useless information, but she gave me this bit of history because the Thornbrier estate lay so close to Franklin. This story involves Saint Roch, a name that shares the same root word as your own name, Mr. Roche; they both mean rock. Saint Roch is the patron saint of bachelors, dogs, people falsely accused, and the sick.
"Long ago, before the French Revolution, Joseph Bourbon of France, a distant relation of the ruling Bourbon family, believed that Saint Roch cured him of a grave illness, so, as a thank you, he gave a red diamond to a small Church of Saint Roch. They accepted the diamond and had it installed on a chalice used in Holy Communion. Eventually, the man died, years passed, and his line of the Bourbon family found themselves in dire straits when they had to flee for their lives during the French Revolution, but before they left for Spain, they demanded the church return the diamond to their family. When they were refused, they stole it and fled. We don't know what happened during the interim years. They may have sold it and eventually bought it back, or not have sold it at all and just kept it in the family; we don't know, but eventually, it came to the hands of Helene Bourbon, who we would come to know as Lady Thornbrier. Back in the 1800s, diamond cutters in France knew of the Bourbon Diamond of Saint Roch due to its notoriety among jewelers. When Lady Thornbrier sought to have it cut by an expert and mounted, he refused and told her she needed to return it to the Roman Catholic Church. Not receiving satisfaction, she took it elsewhere, but the jeweler told the bishop of the incident and that the diamond had turned up again. After my discussion with Tommy, I knew what I needed to do. Sister Mary and Sister Agnes were taking a trip to the Vatican one last time before they grew too old to fly the distance, so I volunteered to accompany them to ensure they were okay and to search the Vatican Archives for the records necessary to petition the city for the stone, and I found them. I called Tommy the day before we returned, telling him that I found all the information we needed. So, he told me he would tell his boss about the ring and about how it belonged to the church."
"What was the name of his boss, do you know?" asked Max.
"Oh, it was something rude sounding."
"Was the name Bo Pecker?" I asked.
"Yes! That's it."
I turned to Max, who said, "I hoped it wouldn't be him."
"How much do you think that diamond would be worth right now?" I asked her.
"Even with Lady Thornbrier having it recut, due to its history and that it's a flawless red diamond, it's practically priceless."
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