“What kind of person waters their roses at eleven o’clock at night,” Vinny Michaels said to himself as he pushed the button of the garage door opener. He waived to his neighbor as he drove his car up the driveway to his custom home in McLean, Virginia. He opened the garage door which led to the hallway near the living room and was greeted by his Great Dane, Luis. “Daddy missed his baby boy today,” he said as the one hundred pound pooch jumped on his hind legs and licked Michaels’ face.
He put his gun on top of the refrigerator, and snatched a Bud Light from inside then walked across his spacious living room with high ceilings and Arizona-styled, warm rustic furniture and opened the sliding glass door so Luis could do his business. He grabbed four heavy pieces of wood from the side of the house and a lighter and charcoal burner from the shed, lit a fire in the outdoor fire-pit and used the same flame to light a cigarette. He puffed on a Marlboro as he waited for the logs to get hot. Then he removed his cloak and tossed it into the fire. He jumped back as he watched the flames go up in smoke and stood in awe as the fire engulfed the fabric and produced a thick cloud of black smoke that reminded him of camp when he was a child. He sat in a wicker patio chair and sipped on his beer, not at all worried about his neighbors violating his solitude. He fixed that the first time he’d decided to take a swim in the buff and saw the guy next door taking a peak through a crack in the wood fence. The next weekend he built an 8’ stone privacy fence, which required a special zoning permit and approval from his neighbors. The late night rose waterier rejected his plan and acted as if she was ready to exchange blows until he wrote a check for a couple thousand dollars to shut her loud mouth. The peeping tom signed on the dotted line when Michaels threatened to have a conversation with his wife. “I’m sure she’s had her suspicions,” Michaels told him. Recalling the look on his neighbor’s face caused Michaels to laugh aloud, as he watched Luis kick and strip away grass to clean his feet and cover his waste. He stared at the dog until he was transfixed with the thoughts in his mind.
He wondered if the woman who wore the locket remembered him just as he remembered her. Regardless of if she remembered or not, he had to find her. He couldn’t take the chance of her going to the police. He’d pay his snitch to keep an ear and eye out. It would cost him plenty since there were one or more police stations in every city in Northern Virginia and there were umpteen cities, but the price of freedom was far more valuable. Michaels certainly wasn’t afraid of prison. Some of his best days were spent in the joint. Still, he enjoyed his luxurious lifestyle and the fine touch of a woman’s caress, which was not impossible to have but hard to come by behind bars.
He squeezed more charcoal fluid to burn the remnants of fabric when his sliding glass door opened. He turned around to see his dinner companion standing in high-heels and a camisole.
“You’re not dressed for dinner,” Michaels said.
Sonya Wilson had dark auburn hair that flowed down the length of her back, eyes as blue and clear as the Bahamian ocean and skin as brown as a Copper Tone model.
“Well, you have a choice. We can go out to eat or you can eat me,” Sonya said in a sultry voice.
Michaels put down his beer and removed his clothes. As he walked to her, his body exhibited excitement. She was beautiful and a true exhibitionist and he relished having sex with her outdoors. Besides that, he loved black woman, and he especially enjoyed having sex with them. But this girl… this girl was one he could marry. She blew his mind intellectually when she wasn't blowing him physically.
Michaels turned on his Tiki lights that surrounded his Japanese garden and river shaped swimming pool, and he and Sonya made love in the shallow end under brightly lit stars and a full moon. Nearly an hour later, after they exerted every ounce of energy, they cuddled in a hammock until mosquitoes forced them inside. They showered together, washing each other with washcloths and their tongues, and when they finished steaming up the bathroom, Sonya put on a long, formfitting, silky nightgown that Michaels’ picked up at Victoria Secrets and she cuddled next to him in his handsome, king size bed. Michaels loved his room. He deliberately purchased a house with a fireplace in the master bedroom. He bought custom made furniture, installed a marble wet bar and stole (not because he didn’t have the money but because he could) original oil paintings to decorate his room with remnants of the nineteenth century to impress women like Sonya. However, she was his most precious piece, and she made his bedroom more stylish just by lying in his bed. With her hair still damp and smelling like a garden of flowers, she quickly fell asleep. He, on the other hand, was wide awake. He turned on the television, hoping to catch the late night news but the only stations that were airing news were news stations such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, and HLN. He flicked through the channels hoping to catch a glimpse of local news but all the stations were focused on the verdict of Casey Anthony. Michaels knew when the prosecutor told the jury that ‘she was afraid they wouldn’t use common sense’ that Anthony would get off scot-free. If given the opportunity, he’d kill the bitch pro bono. There was one thing that he hated more than anything else and that was people who hurt children. Still, he found it ironic that the reason he was in his current predicament is because years ago he didn’t kill that little girl when he had a chance, but she was an adult now, and he had no qualms about sending her to meet her maker. He grabbed his laptop from the desk in the corner of his room. He went to http://www.msn.com/ and clicked on the local news. His dick got hard after he read the headline. Arlington Businesswoman Killed at Home
Janice Smalls was found dead in her luxury apartment in Arlington, VA.
“She received a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. The police questioned neighbors who heard shots fired shortly after ten o’clock,” an anonymous police officer said.
Michaels stopped reading right there. He picked up his phone and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
“Marco. It’s me. I need a favor,” Michaels said when the call was answered. Though the cop on the other end of the line had never met Michaels personally, he’d worked with Michaels throughout the years and knew his voice. Michaels didn’t wait for a response. “I need you to find out who that anonymous cop was that gave the media information regarding the businesswoman that was killed in Arlington today. Also, I need you to spread the word to all the precincts. If anyone should come forward with a positive ID of the killer, I want their name and address. Got it?” he continued.
“How much is it worth?” the cop asked groggily.
“Five G’s off the top.”
“Bet,” the cop said and replaced the receiver.
Michaels flipped the top of his cell phone and headed back to the bedroom. He sat in his bed and admired the beautiful woman next to him then turned back to the computer. He typed in George Danielson at the Google prompt. The first headline read:
Herndon Baseball Coach Murdered
Michaels read all fifteen stories relating to the death of the baseball coach, and in every story there was detail that the previous story did not contain. One article mentioned that George Danielson retired from the military. He had a wife and child. He was a contracting officer (CO) for the state department. He was accused of defrauding the government by awarding contracts to companies who paid him a generous fee. But not one of stories mentioned that the coach’s daughter, the little girl with two pigtails who wore a gold heart locket, witnessed her father’s murder.
