A Night Like Any Other
Chapter 8

Copyright© 2014 by MysteryWriter

When she closed the office on Thursday, it was the end of her apartment manager chore. Well it was the end until the next Tuesday anyway, April thought. She had to shift her mind set into a new gear for her regular job at the clinic. Three straight twelve hour shifts beginning the next evening at 7pm. That thought filled her with a mild dread. Nobody liked those killer shifts.

As she walked back to her apartment she was acutely aware that she still hadn't bought groceries, so it appeared that she would be eating out yet again. She knew that she had to do something about that. After considering her options all the way back to her apartment, she decided on take out tacos. She could manage that on the bike for sure.

She made the trip to the parking lot filled with food trucks just fine. That parking lot was just outside the main gate of the air base. April found the Mi Amigo taco truck was still on site and the window was open. The ride had been just long enough to get her heart rate up, so the taco truck had proved to be a good choice. The tacos, as she had known all along, were excellent as well.

April found not only was the taco truck in the parking lot, but there were also several other take out choices there. For instance next to the taco truck there was a Korean truck serving some kind of tightly wrapped veggie roll which was then deep fried. The sauce was fishy and hot as hell she knew from past experience. She filed that information away for future use.

After dinner in a family park near the motel, she rode to the grocery store nearest her apartment. April figured she could carry a maximum of two lightly loaded bags on the bike as it was presently configured. She also had a weight limit to deal with. Heavy bags would make steering difficult. With those restrictions in mind there were some hard choices to be made.

Since bacon was a staple in her kitchen, there was nothing going to replace it in the bag. Then she remembered that she was out of jelly. Chemical iced tea mix would have been high on the list, had her brand been available from that particular grocery store. Bagels and Dinner rolls made it into the bag. Even though she kept telling herself she could return later she picked up a few more things, which she felt couldn't do without. She bought a two roll pack of toilet paper instead of the less expensive four roll giant family size. The second bag she planned to fill with frozen dinners. So she bought her favorite half dozen.

April really wanted a box of canned diet cokes, but there just wasn't room for them on the soon to be overloaded bike. She bought two of those, almost, cloth shopping bags. She managed to get he load of groceries in them and even had a little room left over.

She walked out the store carrying the two bags, and began to fit them onto the bike. First she stepped through the frame of the heavy cruiser, Then hung one bags on each side of the handlebars. The arrangement make the bike unstable but she did manage to make it home in one piece. It was almost 7:30 when she arrived home.

It was strange to carry only two grocery bags up the stairs to her apartment. Putting away her groceries was done in just seconds, so she was back at work following Jessica's trail in less than ten minutes of her arrival home.

She looked through the recipe box to be sure there were no more clues hidden inside it. After she came up empty she mused that the person who searched her apartment must have been a man. For a woman the recipe box to be in the refrigerator would have been a glaring error. Ergo since no flags had gone off in the searcher's head, he had to be a man.

Jessica either only had time to make a few videos, or she wasn't in high demand. April found a half dozen 'webcam' videos on each site. There was even a trailer for one movie length video. The trailer seemed to be scenes from several other videos. April based that assumption on the fact that it featured all the same people as those in her web videos.

April spent her evening printing picture of the men in the videos. There were six who had obviously been to her Jessica's apartment. April had seen none of them hanging around the place.

April racked her brain but couldn't remember what, if anything, Viv had said about how Jessica was dressed. It might have been a Webcam shoot gone wrong, April theorized.

She also wanted to know how much a stripper made and why Jessica needed money bad enough to slip into that life. If she wanted to take a look at any of the places where Jessica hung around, she needed to do it that very night. She was facing three long nights at the clinic during which time the case of Jessica Rabbit would advance without her. The problem was when she made that discovery it was already 10pm. She also didn't have a car.

What she did have was Lois the detective's card. She dialed the number and Lois picked up the phone. "Detective Rice," she said in a very businesslike voice.

"This is April, buy me a drink sailor?" she asked.

"Are you coming on to me?" Lois asked with a laugh.

"Maybe or maybe I have something else to share. If you can keep the source of the information secret. I have no idea what kind of slippery slope we are headed down." April admitted.

"I'll buy you the drink regardless, but if this is some kind of vendetta, then I'm not interested," Lois replied.

"Fair enough, we will just go where it takes us," April said. "That's all I ask."

"There is no us, as far as work goes," Lois said.

"Then save your money," April replied.

"If you are withholding information in a murder investigation, I can have you arrested," Lois said humorlessly.

"Good luck with that," April said.

"Oh shit, I'll meet you in front of the rental office in twenty minutes." Lois said.

"At least you don't drive a cop car on a date," April said once she was inside the Italian econonbox.

"Is that some kind of compliment, or a veiled complaint," Lois asked.

"Speaking of veiled, is your being assigned to Mordecai somebody's idea of a joke?" April asked. "And how did you get named Lois rice?"

"What do you mean?" Lois asked.

 
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