The Freaks Come Out At Night- Part 20

Sam was quiet on the drive to his office but Jenny more than made up for his end of the conversation.  As she chattered away, he wondered how it had all gone so wrong.  Overwhelmed with feelings of failure, and the guilt of putting Jenny at risk, had Sam’s mind churning overtime.  Yet, in the midst, a plan sprang to mind.  It would require him to swallow his pride but Jenny was worth it.

            “Hey!  Did you hear what I said,” Jenny demanded.

            “Um…”

            “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” she grumbled angrily.  “I’ll need to borrow your car at lunchtime. I have a couple of errands to run.”

            “Why do you need my car,” he asked.

            “Hello, my car is at my apartment, remember? You picked me up last night to go out and we spent the night at your place.  What’s with you this morning?

Sam muttered some excuse about not sleeping well and gave her a vague reply regarding the car.  A lot would depend on how far he progressed with his plan.  In order to keep Jenny nearby but also far enough away that she couldn’t overhear him on the phone, he sent her to the basement to dig out an old file on a past customer.  It was a cruel assignment, since his older records were a shambles and she’d have better luck finding a needle in a haystack but it had to be done.  Once she disappeared, he went into his office and shut the door.  He flipped through his stack of business cards until he reached Detective Todd Kelley. As a general rule, Sam tried to avoid the local police but this time he had no choice.  Todd was an old poker buddy so he could be trusted; however, that didn’t make the task at hand any less uncomfortable.  A part of him hoped his cop buddy would be too busy but he answered rather quickly.  After a brief exchanged of pleasantries, Sam got down to business. 

            “Listen, the reason I called is,” he paused for a moment as he peeked his head out the door to make sure Jenny was nowhere to be seen.  “Well, I uncovered something pretty serious while working a case for one of my clients and I didn’t really know who else to call.”

With his heart in his throat, Sam relayed the entire story to his friend.  When he finally finished his friend took a deep breath and sighed.

            “That’s one helluva story, Sam. I had no idea you were so creative.  Maybe you should write a book. Hey, I’m honored that you chose me to bounce your ideas off of…I mean, I’m assuming that’s what’s going on here because, as a detective, you know as well as I do, there’s this little thing called proof that we need to arrest someone for, I dunno, let’s say, murder, or fraud, reckless endangerment.  Even if this was true, I’ve got nothing to base an investigation on.  I’ve got your word against his. I can’t even count the Carney chick you were with since she was drinking.  If you had the recording, that would be different.  It’s inadmissible by law but still enough to give us a reason to investigate.”

            “What about the boxes of cash that are being sent to this jerk?  Can’t we nail him on that?”

            “Gimme the address and I’ll see what I can do, okay?” Detective Kelley grudgingly agreed.  “Tell me you have that, at least.”

            “Not yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get it very soon.  Will you be able to get those poor saps their money back?”

            “Maybe,” Todd answered, though he doubted it.