Part Three

Author’s note:

If you missed Part Two, you might want to go back for a quick read. As a short explanation, Jim’s stalker killed his fiancée and then lured Jim to the crime scene. Honey called Dan, who followed Jim in the squad car. Dan identified the victim, and when Jim saw her body, he passed out and hit his head on the concrete.

This story is a submission for the Special Edition Anniversary #10 CWP, celebrating ten wonderful years of Jixemitri. All elements in this CWP have been written in red font so you can’t miss them. Be sure to look for the elements throughout the rest of this story.

9:00 A.M.

Dan had the beginnings of a monster-sized migraine. He wished he could go find a dark room somewhere and mourn the loss of a friend, but his sense of duty called. Even though he was no longer a member of the NYPD, he still felt responsible. He hovered nearby as the crime scene photographer snapped pictures of the body and its surroundings. They would be transferring her to the morgue soon, and he wanted to stay with her as long as he could.

“Oh, woe. I guess this means that we can eliminate Amanda Woodward as a suspect.”

Dan spun around to face Trixie, who had somehow gotten past security and was standing next to him. “Trixie! What’re you doing here?”

“I got, like, 500 messages from Jim telling me to meet him at Freemans instead of in Sleepyside for lunch,” she explained matter-of-factly. “And that’s not including the 500 messages he left earlier this morning. I tried to call him back, but he isn’t answering his cell phone. When I talked to Honey, she said he was on his way here, so I decided to head him off at the pass.”

Dan shook his head in confusion. “That’s not what I meant, although I admit I was curious about that, too. How did you get past the blue wall over there? They aren’t supposed to let anyone past the yellow tape, and they usually do a pretty good job of it.”

“I saw you over here, so I just told them that I worked with you in Sleepyside.”

Dan muttered something under his breath about incompetence. “Jeez, Trix, you can’t go around pretending to be a police officer.”

“I didn’t do any such thing,” Trixie informed him tartly. “I merely told the nice officers that I worked with you in Sleepyside, and I let them draw the conclusion on their own that I was with law enforcement. They don’t need to know that Honey and I consult rather than actually arrest people.”

“Since when have you and Honey been helping the Sleepyside PD?”

“Believe it or not, the crime rate has really spiked the past few years, and lately Spider’s been undermanned,” she answered. “He’s been giving the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency a lot of work lately. Of course, I don’t look for it to happen as much since the force has hired so many new officers.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Well, try and look like you belong here, and don’t get me into trouble,” he ordered sharply. “All Jim needs is for you to get arrested for impersonating an officer.”

“Where is Jim?” Trixie stood on her tiptoes to maximize her five-foot-two inch height, but it did little good.

“They took him to the hospital.”

“What?!” she thundered. “What happened to him? Is he going to be okay?”

Dan put an arm around her. “Calm down, Trix. He passed out and hit his head pretty hard. They’re going to stitch him up and make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. He’s probably getting a CT scan right about now, so even if you went to the hospital right now, you wouldn’t be able to see him anyway.”

“I don’t care; I need to be there, Dan,” she insisted.

“No, you need to tell me what’s going on so I can help.”

Trixie shook her head. “I’ve got to make sure Jim’s okay,” she said, the shrill pitch in her voice giving away her alarm.

Dan gently clasped each of her shoulders and spoke firmly to her. “Listen to me, Trixie. If you want to help Jim, you’ll get me up to speed. Once you’ve given me the rundown, we’ll go to the hospital.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Dan interrupted. “Trust me, Trixie. Jim’s going to be fine, but the doctors are going to do a hundred tests on him, and those things take time. It might be an hour or two before they get him in a room. Besides, with the sort of head injury he suffered, Jim probably won’t even know if you’re there or not.”

As Trixie mulled his words, the panic slowly faded from her eyes. “Even if I can’t see him, someone should be with him. I don’t want him to be alone.”

“He isn’t alone. Some big dude named Al’s with him.”

“Oh.” Trixie pressed her lips together in a firm line as she considered her options. “You’re 100% positive that Jim will be okay?”

“Yes, I am,” Dan answered as he released her. “I know you want to be with him, but right now, you can help him by helping me. Someone murdered Amanda, and we need to find out who did it before anyone else gets hurt.”

“I probably should take a good look at the crime scene…” Trixie murmured. She cast a final quizzical look at Dan. “Do you promise to find out where Jim is if I give you the lowdown?”

“I do.”

Trixie expelled an unsteady breath. “I guess Jim will be okay if Al’s there. What do you want to know?”

“For starters, do you know who this Al character is?”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah, of course you do,” Dan echoed. It was obvious that he was irritated. “I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate…”

Trixie kept her explanation as simple as possible. “Al provides security for Ten Acres.”

“Well, I thought I was going to help Jim hire security, so that’s news to me,” Dan spat. “I’m glad I was finally informed.”

Trixie released a lengthy sigh. “Dan, calm down. We were going to tell you eventually—”

“Eventually?” Dan repeated. He paused to rub his throbbing temples. He’d kill for some Tylenol right about now. “Trixie, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’d better let me in on this big secret. I’m getting the feeling that you aren’t surprised by the fact there’s a dead body over there.”

“Dan, it’s not my—”

“And by the way,” he interrupted hotly, “what did you mean about eliminating Amanda as a suspect? Did you think she was stalking Jim?”

“How did you know that Jim was being stalked?”

“Honey told me.”

Trixie rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Telephone, telegraph, tell Honey. I swear, she’s worse than Bobby when was he was little.”

“It’s about time that somebody told me,” Dan pointed out angrily. “Whose idea was it to keep this a secret? Was it yours?”

“No! For once, I was the one who wanted to talk to the police, but Jim refused.”

“How ironic,” Dan muttered.

“Yeah, and let the record show that nobody ever ended up dead when I didn’t talk to the police.”

“You’re avoiding the issue, Trixie. Tell me what’s been going on with Jim.”

“I can’t talk to you about it now, Dan,” she hissed.

“Oh, I think you’d better. If you don’t start spilling the beans ASAP, I’ll have to escort you outside the yellow tape.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me,” Dan challenged, his onyx-colored eyes sparking.

Trixie tried to stare him down, but his glare was so intense that she had to look away. There was no doubt that he meant business. “Okay, but if Jim gets mad at me, I’m telling him that you had to subject me to Chinese water torture to get me to crack.”

“Quit stalling.”

Scowling slightly, she launched into an explanation. “The past few months, someone has been sending Jim letters. It started out with a vague quote here and there, but the last month it’s escalated. The past few letters have been pretty threatening, and we haven’t been able to figure out who’s sending them. Honey and I tried to convince Jim to talk to you, but he wanted to involve as few people as possible.”

Dan let out the kind of expletives that he had once spray painted on walls as a gang member. “Why couldn’t he come to me?”

Trixie shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Jim that.”

“Doesn’t he trust me?” he asked, his tone wounded.

“Jim trusts you with his life, Dan. I’ve heard him say that myself on several different occasions. He thought he was protecting you.”

Dan’s jet black brows shot up. “Protecting me?”

“I’m not even going to attempt to explain the logic behind Jim’s misguided sense of protection since I don’t understand it myself,” Trixie huffed. “All I know is that he wanted to keep this situation as hush-hush as possible so the media wouldn’t hear about it.”

“You and Honey have been handling this on your own?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted in a voice barely able to be heard. “Jack Palmer is actually in charge. When he took the case, he told Jim that he needed some eyes and ears in Sleepyside and recommended that Honey and I help.”

Instead of offering reassurance, Trixie’s words only served to infuriate Dan further. “Jack Palmer?!” he bellowed. “Jim could confide in your old boyfriend in Los Angeles, but he couldn’t talk to me?!”

Trixie winced at Dan’s description. “Jim had good intentions. He didn’t want to involve anyone that wasn’t directly working on the case.”

“Surely that doesn’t include the police.”

Trixie pursed her lips, knowing Dan wouldn’t like what she had to say.

“He hasn’t talked to the police?” he bellowed.

Trixie shook her head. “Jack, Honey, and I have all begged him to talk to you or Spider, but Jim insisted that we leave the authorities out of it.”

“That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Dan sniggered.

“You aren’t telling me anything that I haven’t already told Jim,” she retorted.

“Do any of the other Bob-Whites know?”

“No, and neither does Jim’s family,” Trixie told him. “The only other people who know are Marge and Al.”

“And how does Al fit in the equation?”

“When the letters became more threatening, Jack recommended that Jim hire a bodyguard,” Trixie explained. “Jim met Al while he was in California, and he gave him the job.”

“Can this Al be trusted?”

“I trust him implicitly,” she affirmed. “Al’s extremely loyal to Jim. He hasn’t let him out of his sight since he came to Sleepyside.”

“I’ve seen Al around town,” Dan told her. “In fact, I saw him at the Chinese restaurant last week when we went out. I noticed the way he kept watching Jim, and for a while I was worried that he was up to no good.”

“Al may look like a bad hombre, but he’s gone straight since he got out of jail for grand theft auto.”

Dan’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s a criminal?”

“No, of course not,” Trixie corrected. “He’s a reformed man.”

“Yeah, sure he is.”

Picking up on his sarcasm, Trixie defended the burly bodyguard. “It’s been known to happen. I seem to remember another tough guy that came to Sleepyside, and look how he turned out.”

“Touché,” Dan murmured. “At least Al wasn’t a member of a gang.”

“Well, actually he was an officer with the Outlaws, and he did do some work for the mafia, but neither one of those gangs want anything to do with him now,” Trixie said. “In fact, the Outlaws have a contract out on him, so I doubt Al will—”

Dan held up a silencing hand. “Please. I don’t want to know anymore. My head’s already busting…”

Trixie searched through her cavernous bag until she located a bottle of Excedrin Migraine. “Here, take two of these and call me in the morning,” she ordered as she handed him the pills.

“Thanks,” Dan muttered. He put the capsules in his mouth and swallowed them dry, causing Trixie to wince.

“That’s disgusting,” she told him. “Don’t you have an icky taste in your mouth now?”

Dan shook his head. “No, and quit trying to change the subject. Why don’t you tell me why you suspected Amanda?”

“All we knew about the stalker for sure was that she was a woman that had been scorned by Jim,” Trixie said, shrugging.

“Not to dredge up old wounds, Trix, but Jim dated quite a few girls before he finally asked you to marry him. What made you single out Amanda?”

“She seemed like the most likely person to do it,” Trixie told him. “The stalker was able to get in Ten Acres without setting off the alarm, so we deduced that she had to be someone that had a connection to the school. Amanda’s father is on the Board of Trustees. Not only that, she kept acting like she and Jim were still engaged. It was kind of creepy.”

Dan’s gaze drifted over to the lifeless corpse of Jim’s former fiancée. “Well, I think it’s obvious now that you were way off base about her.”

“Not necessarily,” Trixie argued. “Could Amanda have shot herself?”

“Not in the back of the head,” Dan said. “Besides, why on earth would she commit suicide in the middle of the street?”

“Because she’s a psychopath?” Trixie suggested mildly.

“Sorry, but you’re back to square one.” Dan nodded over to the flashing lights of the patrol cars. “Your stalker has officially graduated from being a pen pal to being a murderer, and this is now out of the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency’s hands. The NYPD will take it from here.”

Trixie scowled. She knew Dan was right, but she didn’t have to like it, and she also didn’t have to like his tone. “We don’t know for sure that the stalker did this,” she pointed out. “A lot of people hated Amanda’s guts, so I’m sure there were a hundred people with a hundred different motives to kill her.”

“Trixie, she’s lying over there with her brains blown out,” Dan growled. “Show a little respect.”

“I’m sorry,” Trixie mumbled. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but I was just being honest.”

“I know, but now isn’t the time.”

“Okay, so when will it be the right time?”

Trixie’s comment couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. She winced as she watched two of the officers place Amanda in a body bag. The medical examiner oversaw them as they transferred her into the ME’s SUV. It was a sober reminder of the frailty of life.

“You seem to be taking her death awfully hard,” she commented.

“Of course I’m taking her death hard,” Dan asserted. “On a professional level, it bothers me to see a woman be the victim of such a vicious crime, and on a personal level, I knew Amanda. That makes it even harder to deal with.”

Trixie had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something that she probably wouldn’t regret until Dan scolded her about it. However, he’d known her long enough to know what she was thinking.

“And I, for one, liked Amanda,” he added.

Trixie leveled her disconcerting gaze on him, and he broke under the pressure.

“Okay, so I may have tolerated her more than I liked her, but that was only because she was dating Jim and I wanted you two to get together,” he amended. “Other than that, she was a nice person, except for that goose laugh of hers.”

Trixie continued her scrutiny, not saying a word.

“Okay, so she was mostly just nice to Jim and a little patronizing to the rest of us, but she did give a lot of her time and money to charity, and she truly did love Jim. I never wanted to see her dead.”

Trixie decided it was time to change the subject before she had to weigh in on the subject. “Do the police have any idea who did this?”

Dan shook his head. “No, they didn’t even know who Amanda was until I told them.”

“She didn’t have an ID on her?”

“No, so either some druggie snagged it after she was killed or the stalker took it as a trophy.”

Trixie’s thoughts wandered back to Jim, as they usually did. “Did Jim actually see the body?”

“I’m afraid he did.”

“I was hoping he would be spared that,” she remarked. “What did Jim do when he saw her? Did he flip out?”

“Like I said before, he went into a mild form of shock. I’m not sure, but at first I think he thought it was you. Amanda had cut her hair short and curled it.”

Trixie gasped. “Do you think she was trying to look like me?”

“Maybe,” Dan said. “She might’ve thought she could get Jim back if she looked more like you.”

“I wish Jim hadn’t seen her,” Trixie murmured. “He’s been so hard on himself about breaking her heart. I’m sure he’ll blame himself for her death.”

“He was muttering something about it being all his fault before he passed out.”

“I need to make sure he’s okay,” Trixie said firmly. She looked up at Dan, her blue eyes pleading. “Can you take me to him, Dan?”

Dan’s jaw stiffened as he pondered her request. He was still angry with Trixie and Jim, and he knew he’d have to go out on a limb with the homicide detective if he wanted to find out where Jim had been taken.

“Please, Dan. I need to see him.” Huge tears welled in Trixie’s eyes as she gazed up at him. If that wasn’t convincing enough, she threw in a chin quiver for good measure.

“Okay,” he relented, albeit somewhat reluctantly. “I’ll try and find out which hospital they took him to, but no promises.”

His reward was a twin-dimpled smile. “Thanks, Dan.”

Dan guided her over to two detectives who were finishing their analysis of the crime scene. “Guys, I’m sorry to bother you right now, but which hospital was Jim sent to?”

Bennie and Charlie paused what they were doing and turned to look at Dan. Neither was particular pleased to see Trixie standing there with him.

“Who’s she, and what’s she doing at my crime scene?” Charlie demanded.

Trixie opened her mouth to speak, but Dan pinched her arm, which proved to be an effective way to keep her quiet.

“This is Private Investigator Beatrix Belden, and her detective agency occasionally consults for the Sleepyside PD,” Dan explained. “Beatrix, let me introduce you to two of New York’s finest, Homicide Detectives Charlie Weirton and Bennie Rodriguez.”

Although Trixie was pleased by Dan’s introduction of her, she was highly perturbed at the way Bennie was checking her out like she was a waitress at Hooters. She resisted the urge to pull her trench coat closed to keep him from ogling her chest.

“Nice to meet you,” she murmured politely.

“Nice to meet you, too, but that still doesn’t explain why you’re here, trampling all over our evidence,” Charlie barked. “This is a crime scene, not a nightclub. Danny, you know better than to invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry you grew up with! I didn’t care when you showed up, but now you’re bringing over all your high school buddies! Since when did this become a party?”

Insulted by both his tone and accusations, Trixie opened her mouth to shoot off a retort, but another pinch stopped her.

“Charlie, you don’t have any reason to worry,” Dan assured him. “Beatrix has spent years working with various law enforcement agencies, and I can promise you that she knows enough not to compromise evidence.”

Charlie snorted. “She doesn’t look old enough to drive, much less have a job.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Charlie,” Bennie drawled out, his gaze fastened on Trixie’s chest. “She looks legal to me.”

Sick of the interest in her breasts, Trixie crossed her arms in front of her ample bosom. “For your information, I’ll be twenty-six this year. Furthermore, one of your officers gave me permission to be here, I haven’t even set foot near the body, and you missed one of the shell casings over there.”

Both Charlie and Bennie craned their necks to look for the casing to which she referred.

“It’s under that trash receptacle by the sign,” she clarified with a huff of impatience. “It was only a foot or two away from the body. You can see it plain as day, especially since the trashcan kept that patch of ground from getting covered by snow.”

Bennie raced over to the waste container, got on his hands and knees in the snow, and then made a face. Sure enough, there was the shell casing for which they’d searched. “It’s here, just like she said,” he announced.

He marked the evidence and then moved out of the way so the crime scene photographer could properly document the evidence. Once several pictures had been taken, Bennie bagged the casing and handed it to one of the officers to put away.

“You’ve got a good eye,” Bennie said gruffly.

“Yeah, Tr…er, Beatrix doesn’t miss much of anything,” Dan told him.

Charlie still appeared less than convinced. “So, did you know the victim?”

“Yes, but not well,” Trixie answered. “I’m closer to Jim.”

Something about her tone caused Bennie to quirk a brow. “Exactly how close are you to Jim?”

“Pretty close,” Trixie squeaked.

“Yeah, we’ve all been friends for years and years,” Dan quickly added. “It’s been what? Twelve, thirteen years?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Trixie affirmed.

Bennie narrowed his eyes as he studied Trixie’s face. “I don’t remember seeing you at the fundraiser last June. Since you’re in Danny’s little circle, why weren’t you there?”

“I must’ve had a previous obligation,” she answered, immediately recalling the event in question. What she didn’t tell him was that she hadn’t wanted to watch Jim and Amanda together, and that “previous obligation” included spending the night eating a tub of Rocky Road ice cream.

“So, were you aware of any problems Jim and Amanda were having?” Charlie inquired.

“Umm…No, none that I know of,” Trixie faltered. “But Jim and I didn’t talk much about Amanda. He’s really private about his relationships.”

“Speaking of Jim,” Dan began, “can you guys tell us where he is? This is undoubtedly a difficult time for him, and he should be surrounded by his friends.”

“Don’t you want to help with our investigation, Danny Boy?” Charlie asked.

Dan shrugged. “Sure I do. Both Beatrix and I will be happy to answer as many questions as you’d like… as soon as we check on Jim. Understandably, he’s our primary concern. He took quite a fall, and we need to find out where he is so we can notify his family.”

“He’s at St. Vincent’s,” Bennie told them.

“Thanks, that’s what I figured,” Dan clipped. In an attempt to take control of the situation, he took Trixie by the hand and pulled her away. Before they could get too far, Charlie stopped them.

“Hey, Danny. You might be seeing us at the hospital. Me and Bennie have a few questions for your friend Jim.”

“And we aren’t finished with you or Beatrix yet, either,” Bennie added.

Dan just waved in response, his back still turned to them. “Keep walking,” he whispered to Trixie. “Don’t look back at them.”

“But what did he mean by that?” she hissed.

“Who knows?” Dan muttered under his breath.

“Are they always that jerky?”

“Just when they’re dealing with women. Charlie’s the biggest male chauvinist pig you’ve ever met, and in case you didn’t notice, Bennie’s got an eye for the ladies.”

“I noticed,” Trixie mumbled as she unlocked her Civic. “If you want to know my opinion, Charlie must be the village idiot, and Bennie must be his idiot-in-training.”

Dan opened the door for her, still keeping his back to Charlie and Bennie. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, but since you gave it anyway, I’ll go ahead and agree with you. And while we’re speaking so freely, let me give you my two cents. Jim needs to be kicked for keeping up this charade with Amanda for so long.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, brother,” she retorted as she sat behind the wheel.

“You and Jim owe me big. I don’t like lying to the cops.”

A hint of a grin teased the corners of Trixie’s lips. “You were good at it, though.”

“For his sake, I hope Jim’s good at it, too,” Dan retorted as he brushed away the snow from her windshield. “Unless he intends to come clean to the cops about the arrangement his family made with the Woodwards, he’s gonna have to play the part of the grieving fiancé.”

Trixie merely snorted. “Jim’s good at a lot of things; however, lying isn’t one of them.”

“I guess this is one time that my criminal past has come in handy,” Dan groused. He shook his head sadly. “I never thought I’d be lying to the authorities again.”

“Technically you didn’t lie to the police; you may have stretched the truth a little and forgot to mention a few things, but you didn’t lie.”

“I told them Jim was engaged to Amanda, and that’s a lie,” he snapped. “If that wasn’t dishonest enough, I didn’t introduce you as his real fiancée.”

“Well, you’d already told them that Amanda was Jim’s fiancée, so unless you wanted to make Jim look like a bigamist, you couldn’t very well admit that he was going to marry me.”

“I’m not kidding.” Dan’s voice was ominous and sent chills up Trixie’s spine. “This is serious stuff we’re dealing with.”

“I know that, Dan.”

“No, I don’t think you do. Amanda Woodward has been murdered, and the police are going to turn over every imaginable rock to find her killer. Furthermore, as a former homicide detective, I know from experience that the worst thing you can do during an investigation like this is lie to the cops.”

“Dan, we didn’t lie,” Trixie argued. “Neither one of us killed Amanda, so I don’t know why you’re so worried.”

“This murder investigation is going to get nasty.”

“Why do you say that?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know exactly, but something tells me that we’d better hold onto our butts, because the ride’s going to get awfully bumpy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Feeling two sets of eyes boring holes into his back, Dan looked over his shoulder and waved again to Charlie and Bennie. “They’re watching us,” he whispered to her. “Hurry up and get to the hospital, Trixie. I’ll follow you there in the squad car. We need to talk to Jim before those cops show up.”

“But why are they watching us?”

“You ask too many questions,” Dan muttered. “Start your car and drive away before they come over here. I don’t know what the plan is now about that fake engagement, but we need to warn Jim. With that bump on his head, he might not be thinking straight. There’s no telling what he’d tell Charlie and Bennie.”

“Does that mean you aren’t mad at him anymore?”

“No comment.”

Charlie and Bennie watched as Trixie drove away, followed closely by Dan in his patrol car. The two detectives exchanged a smug smile.

“Something tells me that ol’ Danny Boy wasn’t being totally honest with us,” Bennie remarked.

Charlie grunted his agreement. “Yeah, and that blonde friend of his didn’t sound exactly truthful either. That girl’s definitely hiding something. The big question is what it is and how it relates to this case. By the way, I talked to some little old lady that was standing outside of that bagel shop near the crime scene.”

“And?”

“And our witness claims that, when she was leaving the bagel place, she heard what she thought was a car backfiring, followed by a loud pop. When she didn’t see any cars around, she assumed some kid was setting off firecrackers as a joke.”

Bennie’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s interesting. If the killer used a silencer, it might’ve sounded like the noises she described.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point. Although she can’t swear to it, the old lady’s pretty sure that she saw a woman wearing a black coat leaving the scene of the crime.”

“Is that so?”

Charlie nodded.

“Did she seem like a reliable witness?”

“Who knows,” Charlie muttered, shrugging his massive shoulders. “However, with the appearance of Beatrix, that woman’s sounding a lot less batty.”

“Speaking of Beatrix, I can’t wait to have a little two-on-one action with that cute little moll dick in the interrogation room,” Bennie murmured.

“You’d better be practiced up on your good cop routine,” Charlie began, “because I’ve got dibs on being the bad cop. A woman private eye… Whoever heard of such a thing!” He concluded his rant with a loud snicker.

“So, where are we off to now? Back to the diner for an early lunch? We did get called away from our breakfast…”

Charlie shook his head. “Nah, unfortunately not. We need to pay a visit to the Woodwards.”

“I don’t look forward to being the one who tells them that their daughter’s brain is all over Fifth Avenue,” Bennie remarked with a grimace. “It ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“No, it isn’t,” Charlie said quietly. “Carlton Woodward’s a powerful man, but unfortunately, he wasn’t powerful enough to protect what meant most to him—his family.”

Bennie nodded. “We’d better solve this thing quick to keep him from breathing down our necks.”

“Yeah, I just hope they can offer up some kind of clue as to what Amanda was doing on Fifth Avenue,” Charlie murmured thoughtfully. “Maybe that’ll help us figure out who killed her.”

“And why,” Bennie added.

Although they didn’t say it aloud, both cops had a feeling that Beatrix Belden had played an instrumental role in the death of Jim Frayne’s fiancée. It was their job to find out exactly what that role was.

Credits:

A million thanks to my wonderful team of editors: Steph H, Ryl, and Country Girl. What would I do without you?

As stated earlier, this is a submission for the Special Edition Anniversary #10 CWP, and the elements include:

· Staying up all night- Jim’s stalker had been up all night (part one)

· Any book from the Trixie Belden series- The Mysterious Visitor (in reference to the stalker) (part two)

· A retirement- Detective Charlie Weirton’s upcoming retirement (part two)

· Chili. With beans.- Charlie and Bennie discuss their chili preferences (part two)

· A new meeting place- Jim wanted to meet Trixie for lunch at Freeman’s instead of in Sleepyside (part three)

· A small event that grows unexpectedly large- people showing up unexpectedly at the crime scene (part three)

· A village idiot- a reference to Charlie, and I threw in an idiot-in-training to boot! (part three)

You didn’t really think I’d kill Trixie, did you? How could I ever get a happy ending out of that? J

Freeman’s is a popular lunch spot in Manhattan. I’ve never been there, so I can’t give you a firsthand recommendation.

Trixie and Honey do consult for the Sleepyside Police Department, so she wasn’t fibbing.

If you’d like to read about Jim and Al’s first meeting, you can find it in The Gumshoes.

Dan went out to eat with Jim and Trixie to the Chinese restaurant in Daddy’s Girl.

I don’t know how all my readers will feel about Dan’s anger, but personally, I couldn’t blame him for being hopping mad at Jim. As close as they are, I’m sure Dan feels betrayed.

If you have a bad headache, I heartily recommend the stuff that Excedrin makes. It really helps. J And Excedrin, if you’d like to pay me for that endorsement, The Cameo welcomes sponsors.

Dan, being the sensitive soul that he is, would obviously take Amanda’s death hard, in case you were wondering about his reaction to seeing her body in Part Two.

I don’t know how closely you’ve followed my stories, but Amanda has gray eyes. In Part Two of this story, I said the victim had eyes the color of the sky, and her eyes were indeed the color of the sky on such a gloomy, wintry day. Was I able to mislead you?

Amanda had long, straight blonde hair, but if you’ll recall in Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, when she asks Jim how she should wear her hair for their wedding, he suggests that she could curl it. Apparently, she took his words to heart and decided to do all she could to look more like her competitor.

If you’re unfamiliar with the restaurant, Hooters is an eating establishment where the waitresses wear skin-tight tank tops and Daisy Duke shorts. Definitely not anyplace I’d want to eat.

Remember in Part Two when Bennie says the victim was a part of Dan’s do-gooder group from his hometown? Well, obviously he’s referring to the Bob-Whites, but there was no way for Bennie to know that Amanda was Jim’s date and not actually a BWG. As for Trixie’s absence, I couldn’t see her attending the fundraiser when she knew that Amanda would be present. Someday I’m going to write a few stories to fill in the gap between the Here and Now and Glimpses into the Future.

I thought long and hard about having Trixie and Dan be less than 100% truthful with the police. In this instance, when the line between truth and fiction is so fuzzy anyway because of the Wheelers’ agreement with the Woodwards, I decided their loyalty to Jim would outweigh their desire to be completely honest with the cops, especially when Dan knows that the two detectives in question aren’t model officers. Besides, apart from Dan calling Amanda Jim’s fiancée, he and Trixie never actually lied to Charlie and Bennie. They evaded the truth a few times, but they didn’t actually lie.

St. Vincent’s is the nearest hospital to the scene of the crime.

As you’ll recall in Part Two, the killer did indeed use a silencer. Contrary to popular belief, a silencer (technically known as a “suppressor”) doesn’t completely eliminate the sound of firing a gun. Silencers don’t even reduce the noise to that quiet whistling or “phut” sound you hear on TV. With a silencer, you can reduce the muzzle blast, the sonic signature, and the sound of the ejection cycle. (Incidentally, the loudest sounds of gunfire include the muzzle blast and the sonic signature.) However, even though you use a silencer, you will still hear the round being ignited and the impact noise. A typical unsuppressed gunshot measures over 160 decibels, and even when the quietest of silencers is used, the gunshot will still register 117 decibels. As a point of reference, small firecrackers and ambulance sirens measure between 100 and 140 decibels. Now you’ve learned all you’ll ever need to know about silencers. School is dismissed for the day. J