Sugar & Spice (18 page)

Both twins were expert computer hackers. Jerry wrote down the driver's license number of potential victims when she accepted a check. With that number they were able to access DMV computers, attain social security numbers, pull credit reports, check police records, view airline manifests, examine bank accounts, and search just about any institution that kept computer records. They collected invaluable information on potential victims before deciding how and when they would die. Tonight it was Catherine Spalding's turn.

Jerry bent down and snatched Catherine Spalding by her crimson hair. “How does it feel? How does it feel to be humiliated?”

Catherine was naked and hanging upside-down in a pair of portable anti-gravity boots with her mouth taped shut. Gravity had caused her sixty-five-year-old flab to sag. She must have weighed in excess of two hundred pounds. It was a gross sight.

Catherine tried to talk but her words were muffled and incoherent. The sound of the whip howled through the air and cracked loudly against the flesh it struck. Her body convulsed violently. She began to shake uncontrollably for a few seconds and stopped all of a sudden.

Terry frowned. She moved closer, lifted her arm to take her pulse, and felt none. “I don't believe this. The old buzzard croaked.”

Jerry screamed maniacally and beat on the old woman like a five-year-old having a temper tantrum. “You can't die! Not yet! Not yet, you old cow! Wake up!” Jerry hit her a few more times. “Wake your ass up!”

Terry laughed. “Let's go, Sis. She's done.”

“No! I'm going to get my pound of flesh! She humiliated me too many times!”

The next morning I called the post office from Headquarters. If Geraldine was one of our killers, I didn't want to tip her off that we were on to her by paying another visit. She might have a weapon and start shooting innocent citizens. Kelly and I believed that our new suspect had sent the men who attacked me in my dojo. If we were right, if Geraldine was one of the killers, and if she sent those guys after me, she had killed them, which meant she was capable of mass murder. Either way, I wasn't going to risk it by showing up unannounced and flashing my credentials.

“Pennsylvania Avenue Post Office. Carl speaking,” a man said after picking up the phone.

“This is Special Agent Phoenix Perry. FBI. I'm calling about one of your employees. I believe her name is Geraldine?” I dangled the name, hoping he would provide the last name without thinking.

“Geraldine Temperton?” he queried without thought.

“Yes. Unless you have more than one,” I said, writing down her last name.

“Only one. What's this all about?”

“Is she working today?” I asked, ignoring his question. No need to alarm him on suspicion alone.

“Agent Perry, if you want information on my employees, you'd better come in and let me see some identification.”

“Listen, Carl,” I began, trying to be as friendly as possible. We were
finally on to something and I didn't want to make an enemy by playing hardball. “I'd be happy to come down there and show you all the identification you want. However, Geraldine is a suspect in an ongoing case…”

“What kind of a case?” he interrupted.

“I can't tell you that, Carl. All I can tell you is that she's a suspect. And since I was just there a couple of weeks ago and spoke with her then, I'm sure she would recognize me. If she's there, I can meet you outside and show you my credentials.”

Silence took over for a few seconds. “She called in. But if you want to know anything else, I'll need to see some ID.”

“No problem. We'll be right down.”

Sean Bellamy, flanked by two tough-looking men wearing dark shades and suits, entered the offices of the Drew Perry Investigative Firm.

“How may I help you?” asked Sherry Henderson, the high-cheek boned, walnut-skinned receptionist. She was sitting behind a circular desk covered with ceramic animals, pictures under fiberglass, red long-stemmed roses, a basket of fruit, a canister of peppermints, and a thirty-line phone.

Sean looked at her nameplate. “Hello, Sherry. I'm here to see Keyth Perry.”

“Do you have an appointment?” the dark beauty inquired.

“No, but I'm sure he'll see me. Tell him Sean Bellamy is here.”

Sherry stared at him intensely for a few seconds. He looked familiar but she couldn't place the face. “Excuse me, sir. But have we met?”

“No, we haven't.” Sean smiled. “Perhaps you've met my mother. That's her in the picture behind you with Sydney Drew.”

Sherry turned around. “Yes. Okay. You look just like your mother minus the blonde hair.” She hit a button on the phone and spoke into her headset. “Mr. Perry, Sean Bellamy is here to see you.”

A minute later, Keyth Perry came out of his office and greeted Sean Bellamy and the four men walked into his office and closed the door. Gesturing with his hand, Keyth offered them a seat. Bellamy sat on the sofa but the two men with him continued standing.

Keyth couldn't help thinking about the stories that Phoenix had told
him about Coco Nimburu and Adrienne Bellamy. He wondered how much Sean knew about the murders that had taken place a couple of months earlier.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee, Mr. Bellamy?” Keyth said.

“No, thanks. And call me Sean.”

Keyth sat across from them on the mahogany love seat. He took a sip of coffee before saying, “Okay, Sean. What can Drew Perry do for you?”

“I need a favor,” Sean said in a serious tone. “I need you to find a woman for me. I'll pay whatever you ask.” He opened a silver briefcase and handed Keyth a photo. “Her name is Victoria Warren.”

Keyth recognized the name immediately but didn't let on that he knew who the woman was and what their relationship had been. “Why are you looking for her, Sean?”

“I'm planning to marry her,” Sean said confidently.

“What's this all about?” Keyth asked firmly. “I need to know everything before I commit the resources of this firm to an endeavor like that.”

“I mean the woman no harm, I assure you. I intend to marry her, Keyth. We were seeing each other some years back and she broke the relationship off. She claimed she was pregnant by another man.”

“Claimed?” Keyth questioned.

“Yes. Claimed.”

“How do you know she wasn't telling the truth?”

“Well, as you no doubt know, my mother was killed by an assassin this past June and I took over the day-to-day operations of the Bellamy Empire. That's how I found out about Drew Perry. My mother helped your wife's father put this business together. Did you know that, Mr. Perry?”

Sean was trying to find out how much he knew about his mother's death and Keyth knew it. So he played along. “The part about your mother helping Sydney get his dream off the ground? Or the part about how you found out?”

Sean smiled and continued, “It turns out that my mother orchestrated the entire thing. There was no other man. The baby was mine.”

“And you can prove this?”

“I have a signed contract.”

“Do you have it with you?”

Sean handed the contract to Keyth, who quickly flipped to the signature
page and read the names on the document. Sterling Wise was the attorney representing Adrienne Bellamy. Then he flipped back to the first page and began reading. The contract spelled out the conditions under which Victoria Warren and her family would be taken care of for the rest of their lives if she agreed to an abortion.

“Forgive me for asking, but why would you want to marry a woman who would sell out for money? If she did it once, she might do it again. How can you trust a woman like that?”

“Without going into a lot of detail, suffice it to say that Victoria was under tremendous pressure. My mother had purchased the mortgage on her parents' property. Then she had them both fired from their jobs. Victoria was working on her doctorate at Stanford when my mother had her dismissed on fraud charges. What other choice did she have?”

There were a lot of things she could have done, Keyth thought, but said none of them. What good would it do? The son was just like the mother. He was going to have his way no matter what.

“Sean, it's been a few years since this contract was signed. She could be seeing someone else by now. And given the recent tragic death of her parents, do you really think she would be receptive to you?”

“Let me worry about that, okay, Keyth? Now, will you take the case, or not?”

“Sure. I'll put my best man on it.”

“Great. When can you begin?”

“It seems simple enough, Sean. Shouldn't take too long. We can begin immediately.”

We had found them. When Kelly and I showed Carl our credentials, he was very cooperative. It turns out that Geraldine Temperton had a twin and they lived together in a spacious home on Vermont Avenue in Fairfax, Virginia.

Even though the Temperton twins were only suspects at this point, Kortney Malone thought we needed to get all the civilians out of the neighborhood before we went in. She didn't want them to take any hostages and try to negotiate their way out. I agreed with her. It was the smart thing to do.

By one p.m., we had set up a command post in a Chevy van filled with sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment a few houses down the street, out of visual range of the Temperton house. We had an assault team geared up and ready to go. But first, we needed to know if they were actually in the house. The last thing we wanted to do was kick in the door of an empty house and give away our hard-earned advantage.

Kelly suggested we call the house and pretend to be telemarketers. And if that didn't work, we could have an agent don a Federal Express uniform and go to the front door. Either way, we needed to do something immediately, before the media got wind of what we were doing.

“Make the call, Kelly,” I said.

“Why me?”

“It was your idea.” I laughed.

Kelly flipped open her cell. “What's the number?”

“I know you're not going to call on that cell,” I said. “What if they have caller ID? It's going to show up as a cell.”

“Fine. I'll use one of these.” She picked up a headset on the control console of the command post. “What will these show?”

“It'll show up as unlisted,” the tech said.

Kelly dialed the number. Three seconds later she hung up the phone.

“What happened?” I asked.

“They have privacy manager. You have to say who you are and what you want before they'll pick up the phone.”

“I guess we go with the Federal Express idea,” Kortney said.

“Can we tap into the post office line and call from there?” I asked the tech.

“Yes, but it will take some time to set up,” he said. “We can climb the pole and tap in from there. We tell them we're the phone company and say they haven't paid the bill. We can at least find out if someone's there.”

“Do it,” Kortney said.

The tech left and walked down the street. A few minutes later the phone inside the command post rang. Kelly picked up.

“McPherson.” She paused. “Go ahead. I'm ready.”

She looked at me and mouthed, “It's ringing.” “This is the phone company. May I speak with Geraldine Temperton?”

“This is her sister, Theresa. Is there a problem?”

“Yes. We haven't received a payment in three months. She's been a loyal customer and we'd hate to cut the service off without giving her a chance to catch her payments up.”

“Jerry!” Theresa shouted. “Did you pay the phone bill?”

Kelly looked at us and smiled. Then she mouthed, “Both of them are there.”

Geraldine picked up the phone. “Listen, I paid the bill. I have the canceled checks in my hand. There must be some mistake.”

“What's your address, Ma'am?” Kelly asked.

“1619 Vermont.”

“Ma'am, I apologize. We have you mixed up with another customer. We show the payments were on time for that address. Sorry for the inconvenience.” Kelly hung up.

“We got ‘em.” I smiled. “Did they suspect anything?”

“Not that I could tell,” Kelly said.

Two hours later, Geraldine and Theresa were downstairs in the basement working out, where they had a complete Olympic weight set, including an assortment of dumbbells, barbells, a treadmill, a stairmaster, jump rope, a heavy bag and a stationary bike.

Geraldine was spotting Theresa, who was bench pressing two hundred seventy-five pounds. She had already pressed the weight ten times on her way to fifteen. The weight felt heavier and heavier as she approached her goal.

“Come on, Sis,” Geraldine encouraged. “One more.”

Theresa pressed as hard as she could, finally getting the enormous amount of weight back up over her chest. She was lifting nearly twice her weight. The twins were over six feet tall and weighed a lean one hundred sixty-five pounds.

“One more, Sis. One more.”

Theresa lowered the bar to her chest and again she pressed it upward, struggling to get it back up.

“Push! Harder! Harder!” Geraldine urged.

The bar eased up further and further until she had the bar over her chest again. She held the bar there and took a few deep breaths. “I'm going to need your help with this last one, Jerry.”

“Let me know when you're ready.”

“I'm ready,” Theresa said and lowered the bar.

She tried to lift the bar again, but could barely get it up, Geraldine grabbed the bar with both hands and helped Theresa lift. “Now for the burn, Sis. Five more. I'll help you get it up.”

Just as they finished the burn, the phone rang.

Geraldine answered. “Hello.”

“This is Special Agent Phoenix Perry of the FBI. We have the house surrounded. Come out with your hands up and you won't be harmed.”