Two naughty women, a crime scene & perhaps love?
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The Queen and the Soldier A Story of Scars
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“It was a dark and stormy night,” Sandra Lopez muttered as she sat on the back of an ambulance, sipping a cup of coffee as the paramedics made sure that none of the blood on her thousand dollar dress-suit was actually hers. ‘That’s how these stories always start, don’t they?’ she thought as some well meaning but oafish EMT shined a flashlight into her eyes for the millionth time that evening. ‘Well, it’s certainly dark and I can almost smell the rain coming,’ she finished.
Sandra was a powerful woman in the music industry, and she had clawed her way to get to where she was. At thirty-two years old, she was the youngest president in the history of Mega-Global Records. Her parents were Mexican nationals who had moved to the United States and started a successful chain of Mexican, sit-down restaurants throughout California. And even before they had found success, they had devoted their whole lives to Sandra and her six siblings, and the kids had worked hard to repay their parent’s generosity and devotion. They worked hard in school or athletics, and sometimes both. Sandra had started as regular talent scout and had worked her way up the ladder. She had been mostly raised in Beverly Hills, leaving her with very little trace of an accent. But she was proud of her language and her culture. Her parents had made sure of that. She had bought a nice house in Springfield in a nice neighborhood, and she talked to her parents every day. Unfortunately, she had been so busy recently that her love life had suffered. She had just gotten back from a Battle of the Bands that she had gone to on a whim when she was at a meeting in Texas, and she had signed a local band there that she just knew were going to rock the world some day. The fact that they were five lovely . . . very lovely . . . young women had played a small part in Sandra’s decision, but she also realized that if she didn’t snag them, someone else would. She knew that half the band members were gay, but were also unfortunately involved with other people.
“Well, just as well,” she had muttered to herself. She had stupidly taken potential acquisitions to bed before, and it had almost come back to bite her on her ass a couple of occasions. So she had planned on calling an escort service that she had used before; one that promised high quality ladies and total discretion. Unfortunately, she had walked in her front door and slipped in a pool of blood. She had taken a bit of a bump to the back of the head. But mostly what she had done was scream. She had screamed until she had finally gotten enough sense back together to call the police with her now bloodstained cell phone. All the while, there was a dead neighborhood security guard lying three feet away.
The police had arrived and had already taped off the entire property, from the front gate to the back wall. The EMT’s were looking her over, and she had already been questioned about twenty times by different people. They had already managed to confirm that she had been on a plane no more than half an hour earlier, and the guy from the coroner’s office was already speculating that the man had died at least three hours earlier. But no one had actually moved the body, and everyone seemed to be waiting for something.
After about ten more minutes, the sea of police parted for a woman in her late twenties. She was wearing baggy clothes, so it was impossible to get a good look at her body, but she appeared to be about five feet, seven inches tall and had a shock of unkempt red hair emanating from beneath a cap that had the letters “C. S. I.” emblazoned on it. The detective in charge immediately started consulting with her on a number of issues. Then everyone backed out of her way and she dipped under the tape around the doorway and slowly made her way inside. The woman was walking more slowly than Sandra thought possible. She would move, slowly spin in a three-hundred-and-sixty degree arc, scanning from roof to floor, and then taken another step. She made especially sure not to disturb the pool of blood, much like the man from the coroner’s office had done. She took pictures . . . she stared at apparently random objects . . . she retraced her steps.
“Good God!” Sandra muttered. “I’d like to be able to get into my house sometime this year.” Just then, the red-haired woman stooped down and began looking at the security guard’s shoes. “What is she . . .” Sandra started again.
Another officer wandered over. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Lopez. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s a company condo that no one’s using right now. It’s usually reserved for top-notch clientele, but I don’t think anyone will argue with me if I borrow it for a while.” She wondered if she might wind up borrowing if for longer than “a while.” Someone had been murdered in her house, and she was still having problems wrapping her brain around that. “As soon as I can get in my house and grab some of my things,” she continued impatiently.
“Again, we’re sorry about the delay. Our person from the crime lab needs to collect evidence from both entrances to the domicile before you can go in. At that point, we’d like you to take a look around, supervised of course, to see if anything is missing. It could help us establish a motive.”
“Yes, yes. Fine. How long is she going to take?” Sandra asked, glancing towards the house.
The officer’s face became a little less friendly. “She’ll take as long as she needs,” he said shortly. Then his countenance and voice softened again. “Sorry ma’am. The more time she takes now, the better our chances of finding out what happened. Trust me, if this case CAN be solved, then she WILL solve it.”
After what seemed like forever, the woman reappeared and started consulting with a couple of detectives. They were joined by another man whom Sandra recognized as the owner of the security company that patrolled her neighborhood. After that man had left, the woman and one of the detectives made their way over to Sandra. The distressed homeowner finally got a little bit better look at the redheaded police officer, finding her to actually be very pretty. Except for a few freckles, the woman’s skin was as smooth and perfect as a porcelain doll’s, and her eyes were wide, clear and deep green in color. Her full lips bore no taint of lipstick. Actually, she appeared to be wearing no makeup of any kind. And she seemed to have problems meeting Sandra’s gaze.
It was the other officer who spoke first. “Ms. Lopez, my name is Detective Jones and this is Special Detective Reynolds. We just have a few questions for you before we escort you inside.”
“It’s about time,” Sandra muttered, shooting withering glances at both of them. The detective paid no mind, while the redhead actually flinched.
“Sorry about the delay ma’am. Anyway, did you know the deceased?”
“No. I’d seen him driving around before, but I’ve never spoken to him.”
“To the best of your knowledge, had he ever been on your property before?”
“No. As far as I know, I’ve never had anyone from the security company actually have to come on the property since I bought the place.”
“Okay,” the man said as he scribbled something down. Sandra looked at the woman again, noticing that she seemed to be listening very intently (almost disconcertingly so) to everything Sandra said. Then the male detective spoke again. “Okay, you’ve got grass in the backyard. Do you have an automatic sprinkler system?”
“What? Why the hell . . .”
“Please, just answer the question.”
Sandra gave out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I have an automatic sprinkler system.”
“What time is it scheduled to go off at?”
Sandra rolled her eyes and shook her head. What kind of dumb-ass questions were these? “Seven o’clock. It’s more efficient to water after the sun goes down. What does that have to do with anything?”
Finally, the redhead spoke. “It helps establish a tuh-… tuh-… timeline,” the woman said with a definite stutter. “The guh-… guh-… guard had muh-… mud on his sh-… shoes th-… that we think cuh-… came from your guh-… garden out buh-… back.”
‘No wonder she let the other cop do almost all the talking,’ Sandra thought. ‘That’s one hell of a stutter.’
Special Detective Reynolds spoke again. “The muh-… mud was fuh-… fuh-… fresh, so for some reason, he wuh-… was in yuh-… your buh-… backyard after suh-… seven.”
Sandra turned to Detective Jones. “Listen, I’d like to know when I can go in my house, preferably before I die of old age,” she added curtly with a sideways glance at the redhead. “I’m sure Detective Reynolds may be a fine investigator, but quick and concise she isn’t.” The man she was speaking to suddenly looked annoyed while his female counterpart visibly blanched.
“Shannon,” said Jones, “you want to get back to the lab and start processing this stuff?” He glanced contemptuously at Sandra. “I think you’ve done all you can here.”