Veteran Vigilante

CHAPTER 9
We showered separately and headed for the soldiers home. We stopped in a McDonalds to grab some breakfast. You know I don’t guess I had ever felt so good.

The veterans were just finishing eating when we arrived and met with the director. We were there on the pretense of checking on some John and Jane Does in our morgue that were thought to be veterans from this soldier’s home. This would be the same story Lurch was using in Ohio so we would match. The Director gave us a tour of the home and we ended it in a common area that had a large bulletin board on one wall.

As the director was telling Hammer about the recreational area I was perusing the items on the board. Just as I was getting really bored and beginning to daydream about the night before, one of the cards caught my eye. This card had a border of dollar signs and read, “Do your Terminal Assignment!”, “ $$$ for Your Heirs”, “Send you Grandchildren to College” “Easy money for doing what the military trained you to do.” call 555-2580 to set up an interview.

I pulled this off the board and, as soon as I could interrupt, I asked the director what he knew about it. He told me that they were replaced every two or three weeks and that some of his vets had called and a few had even had interviews. I asked if we could talk to some of them. And he said that four were still there, five had passed away, and four had left, he also said he would ask those that were still there if they would talk with us.

They all agreed so we found a table and conducted four interviews that lasted all of ten minutes each. It seemed that the company had sworn each to secrecy but they could tell us that the job was explained to be dangerous and the pay (six figures!!) would be given up front. Following these interviews we showed the Director the photos from the morgue and he identified two of them, asking for the cause of death. Both were from terminal illnesses that they had been receiving treatment for at the VA hospital. We requested and were provided copies of their personnel files to include photos. We noted the phone numbers that were in use at the home and got a list of any vets that had left the home in the last year with available photos. Thanking the director for his help we headed back to the Motel.

CHAPTER 10

Once back to our motel we decided we would change into swimsuits. We split to our own bed rooms, changed and head out to the pool. The pool area had a very nice eating section with wait staff. We both ordered a cold beer and crab cake sandwich, both of which were excellent. Our conversation was a lot of trivial chatter as I don’t think either of us was ready to discuss the night before and this was not the place to talk about the case.


Since it was getting warm I took off my shirt, tossed it on a chair and dove into the pool. When I resurfaced, I swam over near Trish and asked her if she was going to get wet.

She smiled slyly and said “oh yes”.

She turned her back to me and dropped her cover-up onto a nearby lounge chair. All I saw was that she had on one of those thong bikinis, and once I saw that I think I went “brain dead”.

Damn she was so beautiful and when she turned around it was as good as the rearview or perhaps even better. When she dove in I was surprised the water in the pool didn’t start to boil. As hot as she had made me I should have already had it boiling around me. Trish came to the surface along side me and splashed me good in the face. This brought me around and for a while we splashed, dunked and played with each other like a couple of teenagers. When we were both played out we spent about two hours soaking up some sun and at around 4:00 we went up to our suite.

All the way up in the elevator we snuggled and held each other. I opened the suite door for Trish and once in I couldn’t wait any longer to again taste those sweet lips. As we broke our kiss, Trish asked if I’d wash her back and, as I am a gentleman, I said of course I would.

Now that was some shower and I swear to the fact that this motel can provide hot water for over an hour. We finally finished and toweled each other dry. Since we were in a bed room, naked I decided to see if Trish was ticklish. She was and very much so. This led to a wrestling match that ended with both of us on the floor, Trish on top. Not ones to miss an opportunity we took this as another chance to enjoy each other.

When we were again exhausted, we realized we were both hungry and ordered some food from room service. While we ate we decided we could review what the director had given us and see if there was any connection between any of it. We also had to pack for our return trip to Jersey and try to get some sleep (though not much).

CHAPTER 11
We left a wake-up call for 5:00 A.M. and we were on the road at 7:30 following a filling breakfast. The day promised to be sunny with a high in the upper 80’s so the top was down and Hammer was dressed to improve her tan while driving me crazy. We talked about the case, the weather, and my retirement but not about “us”. About two hours into the drive Lurch called to tell us he was on his way back to Jersey. We decided that we would hook up at my place upon his return. We stopped and got some fast foot “to go” at some time around 11:30. I had decided we would picnic at the first rest area we came to (I always keep a Blanket in the trunk). I think we looked like a couple of middle agers who were trying to relive their teenage romance. Bet they didn’t realize just how correct they were. After we ate we lounged on the blanket, mostly just flirting with each other. When I noticed it was getting close to 1:30 I reluctantly packed up and we continued our trip north.

We pulled into my drive at about 6:30 and unloaded the car. Trish called Lurch and found that he was about an hour away so we decided to order a couple of pizzas and see what we each found out. By the time we got a call through to Alfredo’s, and ordered the pies, our timing should be perfect. I grabbed Trish and myself a cold beer and we went out on the back porch to await both Lurch and the food. It was a treat to just sit and relax after that drive and it also gave me some time to think about my future plans.

The pies arrived at about 8 and Lurch pulled up with a couple of six packs five minutes later. We ate outside as the sun set, setting fire to the sky. By 9 we had finished two pies, a couple of beers each, and had moved inside to my kitchen table. As Trish got each of us another brew I tossed the card from the bulletin board in front of Lurch. He sat there looking at it for a minute, took a drink of his beer and pulled a similar card from one of his pockets.

“Well it looks like we all found the same interesting circular” Lurch commented “did you get anything else?”

We both told almost identical renditions of our trips, although Trish and I left out some parts of ours. We also had postulated what we thought was happening though none of us could figure out how we would be able to get the proof we would need to close these cases. We decided to call all the teams together on a tele-conference, explain what we thought and see what all those brilliant minds could figure out. Since it was right at 11 pm we decided to call it a night and meet at the station house at 8:30 the next morning. We polished up the kitchen and I walked my friends out to their rides. Lurch got to his first and we said our “good nights”.

As Trish and I watched him leave I hugged her from behind and said “Shall I drive you home now or would like to stay awhile?”

“I think the offered ride would be best tonight. We both have a lot to think about and I need to get some clean clothes, but that is only if you will give me a ‘rain check’ on the offer” Hammer replied.

She turned to me and slipped her arms around my neck. I told her she didn’t need one, as that was a forever offer for her. We loaded up in the ’56 and I drove her home. A quick little peck and she was out the door and running up her walk. I sang to myself all the way home.

The next morning we set up the tele-conference for 2:00 that afternoon. Hammer and I went over our other cases (no we don’t work one at a time) and talked about an idea Hammer had come up with during the night.

While waiting for the meeting, I checked on my retirement and found it was “a go” and all I had to do was give them a 30-day heads up. I then informed my two friends that this joint case would be my last and that after retirement I would be opening a private investigation and personal security business.

It was time for lunch so we all loaded up and went to Vinny D’s Italian Deli for a great meal. We enjoyed a nice Italian lunch at Vinny D’s and arrived back at “Cop Central” about 20 minutes before the scheduled “tele-conference”. Lurch, Hammer and I grabbed something to drink and took our seats around the conference table. Our calls to the teams were connected without any problems and after about an hour of information exchange it appeared as we had all been hearing the same basic stories….
1. At every soldiers homes bulletins were being posted trying to recruit the aged vets for ‘special’ jobs.
2. Only Terminally ill vets were called back for a second interview.
3. To date twenty deceased vets have dispersed, to their families, $1,000,000 each.
4. There is no way to tie the money to the crime with viable evidence, as all known suspects are deceased.
5.
With these facts agreed to, it seemed that the teams had hit a stone wall. No one seemed to have any idea how to stop these “hired hits” and the vets thought it was due punishment for the criminals. So now I said that Hammer was going to explain a plan that we thought could get us to the people doing the contracting. Each team was to be assigned an older veteran who has past ties to law enforcement and who has maintained these ties. These vets will enter one of the veteran’s homes and be diagnosed with a terminal disorder that would not be disabling. When a bulletin appeared they would reply to it and from there we would proceed depending on their information.

This seemed to be a workable plan among the teams so we worked it out that each team would find out who their veteran would be as soon as we had found them and cleared the way with the VA hospitals to falsify medical records. We asked each team to try to come up with names by next Monday and we would do the paperwork and phone calls. We terminated the conference and began to split up the work that we had to do. (I hate doing Phone work!)