Chapter 72

"I wasn't making any Christmas Plans myself," I said with a smile. "You need to detain Todd, his wife, a clown named Barry, and all the guest. This is like that tourist lake up in New York from the fifties. They were here to discuss business. My guess is they are all connected to a drug based criminal enterprise. I can connect Barry to an assault that hospitalized me and at the same time probably killed a kid named Bruce something or other. If you let me talk to Barry before you Marandize him, he just might flip.

"I assume you would like to do this in the parking lot here before we get him to a place with audio video equipment," the state cop supervisor suggested.

"Exactly," I said.

"If he put you in the hospital, I know you want to return the favor. but if you do that his testimony will be worthless," he continued.

"Yeah I know, don't worry I won't put a finger on him." I said.

"All right we have them all corralled in the main house. Would you like a chance to put some clothes on first. The cops are having a great time looking you over, but it might be more believable that you are a cop, if your boobs and other lady parts were better hidden." he said.

"Gee what a sexist thing to say," I replied with a laugh.

I went back to the room I had occupied last. I found my clothes and put on a pair of soiled jeans and a clean thick tee shirt. The reason I chose the thick tee was that I was cold. The mountains got cold at night even in the summer I was told, and full summer wasn't even there yet. It had an effect on my breasts I thought better minimized.

When I got back to the house there was a man walking around with a folder filled with photographs. He was identifying the guests. "How is it going," I asked the supervisor.

"Not to bad I'm afraid the building where the meeting was to held is going to be a total loss. Otherwise they were lucky. No one was hurt," he said.

"Good, could I speak with Barry now," I said.

"Is that him?" He asked pointing to the slightly heavy man, who had beat hell out of Bruce.

"Yeah that is him," I replied to the supervisor.

"So you want our interrogator to go along with you?" he asked.

"Probably won't be a good idea. Even though I'm going to be Line of sight the whole time, I might say something to accidentally violate his rights."

"Well then go for it, but don't ask him any questions," the supervisor said.

"When your man starts he should make a big deal of getting Barry to say he told me nothing. That won't be hard because he is going to tell me nothing, I don't already know. The rest your man should be able to get him to come up with." I turned and walked to Barry.

"Well Barry, I need to explain your situation to you. Don't say a word just listen then an interrogator will come over. First of all, I want to kill you myself, but I waited too long. That steak knife was meant for you, I could just never get close enough. So now I'm going to just have to be satisfied with putting your ass in a state prison.

You see Barry, you assaulted me. I even have the hospital admission to back up my claim. Also I am a cop and you are a thug. The jury is going to believe me. Then there is Bruce, I think you murdered him, I saw you beat him relentlessly. You have never seen me testify. I am going to get on the stand and tell the Jury how you beat him until he stoppled responding and how you and Todd personally carried him away. I never saw him again, even though you said you got help for him. Unless you can produce a living breathing Bruce, you are going to go away for life. Plus all the other stuff they can hang on you, That time is in a state pen. Now you probably wonder why I keep saying a state pen, Well I put a few other guys in the pen. They tell me you can get quite a beat down for a carton of cigarettes. Tell me Barry how man cartons of cigarettes do you think a broken rib is worth to a woman on the outside? Now don't say a word you son of a bitch, and let me put your ass inside, if I can't get to you before hand, that is." I smiled at him and I walked away.

"You gonna be here much longer," I asked the cop in charge.

"Yeah, but we don't need you," he said.

"I got nowhere else to go." I said and almost cried when I realized that it was true. An empty little apartment over a carriage house in a mountain town was home. That was a sad, though considering I was banged up again and just wanted to withdraw from the world period it seemed pretty good to me.

I knew I would be giving statements and probably confronting the criminal enterprise people I knew for a couple of more weeks. With a little luck they would send an investigator to County Seat and let me do it there.

"How about I round up the kitchen staff and get some coffee going or would that jeopardize the investigation?"

"It won't help it any for sure, why don't we send out for it." he said.

"You need to get to our bus over there," he added pointing to a trailways looking thing. We are using it for a temporary interview location. Give your statement then you can go back home. You can't be involved in the wrap up investigation the defense will claim it tainted your testimony." he said.