Full Release by Marshall Thornton (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

had to be on it. The most logical thing to find on the drive would be a client list. Whenever madams got busted, their little black books became very important. Eddie must have kept something like that. So, maybe it was a client; a client afraid of exposure.

All I had to do was open the flash drive and the document would be there. I just had to print it out, get it to the police and insist that they talk to everyone on the list. They’d find the killer. Suddenly, everything seemed simple. Of course, with my computer gone, I couldn’t just plug in the flash drive and read what was on it. I thought about going to a copy store and using a computer to open the drive. It would only cost a few bucks. But why waste money? I could drive to the studio and open the drive on my computer there. That made more sense. I could do it that evening. Or I could do it first thing in the morning. I really did need to get some sleep. I’d forgotten about lunch and was suddenly exhausted. More than exhausted, unable to move one step farther. I lay on the couch and closed my eyes for just a few minutes. Sixteen hours later, I woke up.

I lay there thinking about the night of Eddie’s death. Detective Tripp theorized that someone (in his mind, me) was having sex with Eddie, strangling him to orgasm, and made a fatal error. He pressed too hard, and Eddie passed out, assumed Eddie was dead, dragged him to the garage and staged a suicide.

Was that how it happened? It seemed possible, even likely. But what happened before that? Before Eddie passed out? There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle; Eddie had let the killer in willingly. They might have talked in the living room briefly. Briefly because there were no glasses or other signs of socialization. Eddie hadn’t offered his killer even a glass of water.

Then they’d gone into my bedroom, presumably to have sex. Had they gotten their clothes off? Probably not. Why did I think that? Because it would have been difficult to dress Eddie after he’d passed out. Difficult, but not impossible. I thought they’d remained dressed because of the keys. Eddie’s keys ended up under the bed. Given where I’d found them, it was unlikely they fell out of his pocket and ended up there. At some point, he’d taken his keys out of his pocket and slipped them between the mattress and the wall. If they’d just gone in the bedroom and stripped, Eddie would have left his keys in his shorts.

He’d dropped his keys behind the bed to keep the killer from getting them. Which meant the killer wanted whatever was on the USB drive. Was the killer a client? Yes. When we’d had our appointment, Eddie had asked me to take my clothes off right away. Assuming the killer was a client, why hadn’t Eddie seen him in Jeremy’s old office like he had me? Why hadn’t he set up his table? It was there. In fact, it was still in the spare room. The police hadn’t taken it. He would have used the table if the killer was a client.

Of course, the killer might have paid Eddie to skip the massage and go right to having sex. A lot of masseurs were available to escort. I hadn’t asked Eddie about that, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing. For the right price.

Feeling wooden, I went through my normal morning routine. Shave. Shower. Microwave oatmeal. Watch morning show while choking it down. Floss. Brush. Dab on cologne. Dress. Slacks, a light blue shirt, pick out a tie. Struggle to tie tie. Aside from the occasionally theorizing about Eddie’s murder, it was a pleasure to have a normal morning. The last few days had been so topsy-turvy. It was a relief to know that things would be over soon. Very soon.

Grabbing my phone, I ran out of the house and got into the car. As I did, I noticed a black and white parked down the street. Two uniformed officers stood on Simon Willow’s doorstep. Through his screen door, I could see him talking to the officers. Briefly, I wondered if he’d try getting on his knees with them in an exchange for information. He was probably too smart to try it, but I’d bet he’d spend the rest of the morning jacking off over the idea.

Between the conversation I’d had with Tripp and the officers at Simon Willow’s door, I guessed he’d been unaware that one of my neighbors had gotten skipped. I assumed the officers would be canvassing the neighborhood a second time to make sure only one got skipped. That idea made me feel even better about my situation.

On the way to the studio, I tried to decide exactly what to do with Eddie’s list of clients when I got it off the thumb drive. My first idea had been to just hand it over to the police, but was that wise? Is that what I should do? I could make a copy of the list and then hand the drive over to the police. That at least gave me a back-up plan.

How long should I wait for the police to go through the list? A week? Two? They might just look at it, see that I was on it, and add it to the pile of incriminating evidence they’d collected against me. No, I decided. I should contact everyone on the list myself, and I should start right away.

I assumed there’d be phone numbers, maybe even email addresses. But what was I going to do? Contact each client and ask if he was into erotic asphyxiation? That might be a good opening line in some situations, but not this one. I’d have to be subtler than that. If there were email addresses, maybe I could send them all some