Who Killed Bishop Mandrake 2 By Bald Hairy Man
This is a story about gay men and gay sex. If you do not like that, DO NOT read it! You have been warned. It is intended for adults to read, and is not for minors. It is a fantasy, not a sex manual. I have made no effort to portray safe sex practices. If you have any comments send them to bldhrymn@yahoo.com or bldhrymn@aol.com
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A lot of information had come into the police headquarters overnight. The Arson Squad had connected Wilbur to ten fires and five probable fires. He owned no guns and had an alibi for the time of Bishop's death. The Judge who had been attacked with the same rifle had been the Judge in a dispute between the Diocese and a church that wanted to leave. He had ruled the church could leave, but not with their property. That that belonged to the Diocese. The church had also borrowed money from the Diocese and had not paid it back. That battle had been covered in the newspapers and was well known.
The director of a family health center had been killed. The center had no connection to abortion, but did provide birth control advice. It dealt primarily with children's colds and was housed in a Methodist Church located in Roanoke.
Lance was puzzled. I told him that whackos were not always acting on the basis of facts. They were free to make up their own facts. I called the Roanoke Police to get more information. The detective in charge, Barney Phister, was most informative. The attack had been preceded by letters. These had been ignored by the staff. Most accused them of things that were entirely unrelated to the women's center. Many of these were made up with no facts. There was an anti-poor aspect to the letters. The writer was complaining their hard earned money was going to undeserving women. Of course the center was funded by voluntary donations. Barney said the usual suspects were not involved. It appeared to be a killing with no motive except for the crazy letters. The letters were post marked from Richmond.
Lance made a discovery. One of the anonymous letters had an imprint of a hand written earlier letter. There was a partial signature. Lance could read only the letters "rah." The r could have been an "n".
I got a call from Butch. He had located some private letters to Mandrake and a file. The file included an offer to buy the Church and associated property from a local developer. The offer came from the Neighborhood Development Company. I had never heard of it. It had no phone number listed and I assumed it was a shell company or the real developer.
St. Peter and All Saints Episcopal Church was in an old neighborhood that had declined, but it was near some revitalized areas. At one time the Church was to have a school, so the lot was bigger than the usual. It was never used as a burial ground so it could be developed with little effort.
I went to the church to see what Butch had found. Mrs. Mandrake was moving out of the rectory. She wanted to be away from the site of the murder. She had found additional letters, he had a them in a box in the bedroom closet. They were much worse than those the Senior Warden had catalogued. They were semi-literate, expletive laced diatribes against Bishop and the church. The main complaint was that he was keeping people from "getting what they deserved."
Butch doubted the religious crazy potential. "I thought that murders usually involve love or money. There have been isolated attacks, but all seem to have been related to women's clinics and abortion," he said. "Neighborhood development was talking about $900,000.00 for the church. That must men the proposed development must be huge, big bucks."
"Killing for a real estate development is a bit of a stretch," I said.
"Remember that Bishop Mandrake was a pain in the ass for local slumlords. Getting rid of the church would be a blessing for them," Butch said. "Some of the "rent collectors" would be good in a protection racket. They are real aggressive. I had a run in with one yesterday."
"At the funeral?" I asked.
"It was after the funeral. Apparently they thought that the cat was away and they could play," Butch said. "I'm a bigger cat than Bishop was. The rats scurried away." I said I would look into it. As I left, Mrs. Mandrake left the Rectory with her furniture. The place seemed empty. The remaining furniture was donated stuff that was old and in bad condition. I asked Butch if he would like to go out to dinner. He was more than willing.
We went to an Italian Restaurant in my neighborhood. It was a warm and cozy family type place with great food. Butch appreciated it. He joked that while Bishop had the confusing first name, thinking he was a bishop, with his first name they thought he was a janitor.
"People look at me and understand why I'm nicknamed Brick," I said. "I would have guessed you were a wrestler."
"I was a wrestler in college, before I went to the seminary. Let's just say, the Seminary wrestling team was not nationally rated. Whenever they had a project in a poor neighborhood, they included me," he said. "I served as a pastor-bodyguard."
"Are all your churches like St. Peter and All Saints?" I asked.
"I was at Christ Church in God-knows-where Virginia for two years," Butch said. "The Bishop told me it was troubled. That was an understatement. It was small nasty and well endowed. They didn't want new members or new ideas. They were afraid of undesirables. That included families with children, and anyone who wasn't related to a currant member of the church."
"I am unmarried and that was worse than having no children. There were no more than two dozen people who ever attended services. They had a paid choir of ten members. Sometimes they outnumbered the congregation," he said. I said I wasn't married either.
"You haven't met the right woman yet?" he asked with a wink.
I said that it might be a long wait. We talked a while longer and he came home with me for a drink. He asked me if it was a beach of professional ethics to jump in bed and screw like rabbits.
"You are not a suspect. Do you top?" I asked.
"I used to be all top, but I let a wrestling teammate who lost most of the time open my horizons. Most of the team had fucked him, I felt sorry for him. He was a scrawny guy who was great in bed," Butch explained. "I do it all now."
Butch looked good in the bedroom. He liked the way I looked too. Sometimes you meet a guy and are disappointed. That wasn't the case with Butch at all. He was still muscular, hung and friendly. It wasn't earth shattering sex but it was good for both of us. I realized as his cock slid into my ass, that everything fit. I felt as if his tool belonged in me.
Butch was a playful top. He played with me, looking for whatever worked best. That was hard since we were both big men. He was considerate and even handed.
"Would it offend you if I told you that I tend to like sex without deep emotional connections?" he asked.
"No, not at all," I said. "Actually, I feel a bit relieved. There are fewer complications."
"More orgasms, but fewer complications are good for you?" he asked. I nodded. I took him home a few hours later. We certainly had taken care of the orgasm part of the relationship. Usually when you have the first sexual connection with a man, it is a bit uneasy. somehow I felt I had known Butch for years.
At the office he next morning, Lance had been busy. He had made friends with Dianna Fox, the chief computer guy. He was good with computers and he recognized she was a master of the computer mysteries. He was also old fashioned polite and she liked that. They discovered that Eric Helmstadt was in Germany at the time of the shooting with his pal Jerry Holmes. The German authorities had arrested them for pro-Nazi agitation. Germans aren't as worried about free speech as we are.
He had tried to get information about the Woman's clinic director who had been killed. The Methodist Church that had housed the clinic had merged with a suburban church and had sold the building. He had an article saying the murder had spooked to many members of the congregation. Lance had found another article saying that and out-of-town company, the Neighborhood Development Company had bought the property and was going to redevelop the site as condominiums.
When I came to the force, an old detective told me that until proven otherwise, all co-incidences are clues. This was one hell of a co-incidence. Lance and Dianna were on it in minutes. The company had an opaque web site and the official officers listed by the State Corporation Commission were straw men. That was like waving a red flag before a bull. Dianna was on the trail.
Lance had also checked up on Collin. His degree in Theology was bogus; the seminary that granted it had no record of granting him a degree. The problem with his last Episcopal church was precipitated by an effort to sell off some property. The church had inherited some property and he had tried to sell it off and skim some of the purchase price. I asked Lance to find out who the buyer had been.
I had a call from Fran Talbot, the arson investigator. Wilbur, our arsonist, did some of his work for personal pleasure, but some was on commission. Apparently some was to do some clearance for a real estate company. He burned historically listed buildings in the way of new developments. Wilbur was not as sane as he should have been and sometimes refused to talk right before he made an unconscious confession. He loved fire and he wanted people to appreciate his work. He would have burned St. Peter's and All Saints if Butch had not been looking out of the attic windows. Wilbur thought that was unfair. Fran thought they would need to send his to a well-managed, fireproof asylum.
Wilbur was not involved in the murder, but the real estate angle was looking good. I called Winston Carlisle to get some information. Winston made it a point to know people and was a gossip. I asked him who to talk to get the low down on real estate development. I said I wanted to know about the less respectable developers.
"I think you might talk to Milburn Wells. He is semi-retired now but he keeps his ears to the ground. He had an incredible ability to hear jungle drums that normal people can't hear," Winston said. He gave me Milburn's private phone number. "You can use my name. He is a member of the fraternity, by the way." I called him and we agreed to meet at his apartment at five.
I spent the rest of the day reading the hate mail. I hadn't realized how unimaginative hate mail writers were. There wasn't an interesting turn of phase in the group. I think the word "fucking" made of 30% of the words in the letters. It was depressing. I also had a meeting with the Chief to give him a progress report. He liked the potential real estate angle; he thought religious motives were unlikely.
I left at 4:30 to meet with Milburn Wells. He lived in a nice condo facing the River. Most people prefer to meet at home, rather than at the office. Office gossip can be a problem. If the word get out that a Policeman is talking with you, it can be a problem regardless of the actual situation. Milburn Wells was a hyper-active, nonstop talker. He worked for a big firm as an information specialist. I soon came to the conclusion that he was a professional gossip.
I asked him if he knew Bishop. He didn't, but he knew of him and the church. It was on the edge of a revitalizing area and that was where you made big bucks. Many of his friends went to the church and several had bought houses in the area and were fixing them up.
"Follow the gays; they are often the advance scouting parties of renewal," he said. His apartment was what a friend called Homo-Danish, with retro pieces of modern furniture and paintings of nude men. They weren't pornographic, but there were very nude.
"Is there any buying up properties in the area?" I asked.
"Yes and No," he replied. "Are you interests in facts or rumors?"
"I am looking for anything that might help catching Bishop Mandrake's killers," I said. "I need somewhere to start."
"Colony Properties is merging and growing. Some might say they are slum lords. Their business practices are questionable, the area near the church is their sort of property," he said.
"What would you say about them?" I asked.
"I think being a slum lord would be a few steps up the social ladder for them. I would opt for blood sucking parasites," he said. "My cleaning woman got into their grips. They combine the worst characteristics of slum lords and loan sharks. I got her out of it and she has moved to a better place. She missed a payment when her husband was sick, and it spiraled out of control. "They used beatings to get payment."
"Bishop Mandrake was fearless, and did battle with many small victories, but nothing decisive," Milburn added. "It was an uphill battle."
"The head of the building department went to school with the owners of Colony Properties, Frank and Sylvester Carter. They officially have a hands off relationship with the company, but I think that is to avoid legal problems" Milburn explained. "There are whispers that their rent collectors get a percentage of the rent. That is always a problem. They also have a 10% late fee. Colony Loans is associated with Colony property. You can get a loan from them to pay the overdue rent."
"At 20 % interest?" I asked.
"You understand the arrangement. It is quite illegal, but most of the tenants have reasons to avoid the law," Milburn explained. "There were rumors that Bishop was getting close to getting a solid case together before he was killed."
"Are some local men involved?" I asked.
"You do understand that what I have told you is just word on the street, the Carters are not popular and some parts of the stories may be false," Milburn cautioned me. "Someone mentioned that the Carters have relatives in Baltimore. They have similar business techniques. Several of our local enforcers may be from Baltimore."
"And perhaps some of our boys spend the week in Baltimore?" I asked.
"That could be the arrangement," he replied. "No one here recognized the rent collectors."
"Colony Properties tends to sell local properties to Neighborhood properties that sell it to New Dominion Reality. It does upscale housing developments. I think I heard that New Dominion is owned by Frank and Silvester's wives. New Dominion had no official connection to the slumlord business. They can appear in front of planning boards and city council without embarrassing connections."
"Could Bishop have been a fly in the ointment?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. St. Peter and All Saints was in decline before Bishop came there. As the gay membership grew, some of the members had accounting and legal skills. Others are well placed in the city government. That all could have been a problem for Colony," Milburn mused. "The church is only two blocks from a gentrifying area. The might be great profits from a redevelopment of the church site. I heard there was an arson attempt. Is that true?"
I nodded. The religious funny business could have been coincidental, or it could have been a cover for the real estate business.
Milburn was a small, thin man. he was not a leader of men. As we talked, his mannerisms became less pronounced and he seemed almost conventional. Officially he was the personal assistant to one of the biggest real estate men in the city. He was invited to every cocktail party and reception in the city. While his conversation was informal and unscripted, I had the feeling it was carefully planned. Plausible deniability was built into every comment.
"I do have the feeling that murder is a step too far, even for a big development. Is there any way Bishop's murder could have been a mistake?" he asked. I told him no. It was definitely a targeted kill. We talked a while longer and I left.
As I left the building an old friend of mine was entering. Stan Holbrook, was a reporter for a television station. I knew him when he was new to town and we had connected. He was now the senior political reporter for the station and also covered local stories for the network as needed. He asked me in for a drink. Most reporters were not my cup of tea. Stan was different; he didn't do the microphone in the faced a mother as she was told of the death of her child stuff. He was not an ambulance chaser.
He was a first rate political reporter and dealt with environmental problems. An avid outdoorsman, he made environmental issues understandable for the hunting and fishing crowd. He was down to earth, popular and intelligent.
His lived in a penthouse apartment. It was nice. We talked for a while when someone knocked on the door. That man came in the room. "Brick, I like you to meet, Rudy the Raft Man," Stan said. "Rudy, this is Brick, the detective." We shook hands. Rudy ran River Rafts that ran rafts down the river in the summer and was a leading environmentalist. He was tall, lanky, muscular and bearded. The atmosphere in the room changed. I realized their intentions were not platonic. I said I had to be on my way.
"No need to do that, I think we are all members of the same fraternity," Stan said. "We share common interests. The more the merrier."
"I don't want to intrude," I mumbled.
"Rudy and I had talked about trying a threesome, but we hadn't found the right man," Stan said. "When I saw you, I realized you are the right man."
"We have both been in group situations before, but it was with strangers. It was exciting for both of us. Stan has a tendency to be jealous," Rudy explained. "He's told me that he wants a playmate who his sexually exciting, but not amorous. I hope that doesn't insult you."
I wasn't insulted. I usually think it would be better if I said no to this sort of random sex, but saying no doesn't seem to happen much. I also thought that I should have gotten over my tendency to get excited at the prospect of sex with a new man. That doesn't seem to be happening either.
A few minutes later, I was naked in the whirlpool bath of the penthouse with Stan and Rudy. Rudy was better looking nude than dressed and I had forgotten how good looking Stan was when he was younger. He had matured and looked better. Neither Stan nor Rudy held back at all.
It was good. Stan was a top. Rudy and I were versatile. Usually Rudy bottomed for Stan. I sucked Stan as Rudy took care of me. His cock massaged my anus, then my sphincter, my prostate and finished with a full rectal massage. I loved it. I had forgotten that Stan was a leaker. His cock ooze was both exciting and plentiful. Stan popped, filling my mouth with his semen. That inspired Rudy, who did the same in my ass. After an intense round of orgasms, we returned to the whirlpool and talked until we all recharged.
I told Stan how well Rudy had done and gave him a glowing review. He had a stealth fucking technique. His uncut tool was in me a doing its magic before I realized how big and effective it was. I had been distracted by Stan's cock ooze. It had turned me on before Rudy's cock revved me up. Given what Rudy had said about his relationship with Stan, I figured a little praise for them as a team would hit the spot.
The second round was more intense. We were more relaxed and casual. Stan was inspired and let Rudy into his ass. Rudy and Stan loved that. I eased my cock into Rudy. He had a willing, welcoming ass. As Rudy seeded Stan, I filled Rudy's ass. This session was entirely successful. By the time I went home all of us were mellow, satisfied and happy.