Post by Roxy Cotton on Apr 21, 2018 20:15:26 GMT -5
#CooLANoire
Sheets of rain washed out another Los Angeles morning, muting the usually vibrant West Coast sunrise into a palette of grays and blacks. The white spot of sun that bore a hole through the sky's gunmetal barrel wavered in Roxy Cotton's vision as she stepped out of the taxi cab and directly into a puddle on the side of the street.
"Ugh."
"Dollar forty, Miss."
"Right. Here you go."
She reached a gloved hand into her purse, clutching the opening of her long rain coat closer to her body with her free hand. The lightly-veiled hat balanced atop her chignon hairstyle began to darken from the downpour, and as she handed two crisp singles to the driver they began to wilt under the sodden weight of the rain.
"Thanks Miss. Shoulda brought an umbrella."
"Excuse me?"
"Gonna rain all day. Have a good one."
The cabbie then rolled his window up and pulled away from the curb, tossing a small tide of rain water from the gutter onto Roxy's black leather heels and nylons.
"Asshole..."
Luckily the storefront at the ground floor of Roxy's building had an awning, and the vivacious blond stepped beneath it to escape the intensifying weather. Roxy grabbed a newspaper from the rack, barely registering the headlines as she began to use it to wipe away the detritus of the street from her clothing. PEACE! VICTORY! Screamed the Times in massive letterhead, a crude image of a Japanese flag in flames just below it. Folding the paper at its crease, Roxy checked the date before continuing to wipe away the slime from her shoes. Wednesday, August 15th, 1945.
"Hey Miss you gotta pay for that!"
She rolled her eyes. Sliding a nickel to the man on his wooden windowsill, Roxy threw the papers in the wastebasket and entered the building's front doors, held open by the uniformed doorman, as always.
"Morning Miss Cotton."
He said exuberantly, expecting and receiving no reply. Roxy dug into her purse and pulled out a package of Viceroys and put one to her lips. Right on cue, several gentlemen approached her with lit matches, jostling for position in the tightly packed lobby. She chose one at random and leaned forward, allowing the man to apply his flame to the tip of her cigarette and inhaling until the cherry glowed in orange embers.
"Thanks, baby."
She said it with a dismissive wave, heading for the bay of elevators off to one side of the room. The man re-entered the pack behind her, grinning and receiving slaps on his back from the others. The day's winner.
Eventually, Roxy reached the 14th floor, emerging into a hallway strewn with benches filled with men in fedoras discussing the end of the great war. She sidled down the hallway, heads turning as she passed, eyes tracing the seam of her nylons from just below the hem of her knee-length pencil skirt to the curve of her ankle. When she reached the office door with its frosted window engraved with "Bombshell Investigations," she looked back at the onlookers with a smile, winking as they hurried back to their papers in an effort to disguise their lechery. When she opened the door, she was greeted immediately by the familiar voice of her partner.
"There you are. Right on time, as always."
Angelica was a master of subtle sarcasm. Roxy looked at the tall grandfather clock behind her desk and saw the pendulum swing the hands to 8:45. Angie had almost certainly been in since half past seven, as was her way.
"Sorry, baby. Traffic."
"As usual. Roxy, we have a visitor."
Roxy then turned her gaze to just in front of the long mahogany desk where Angelica sat. A woman in black from head to toe was sitting with her legs crossed at the ankles beneath the wooden chair. Her face, disguised behind a heavy veil, was further cloaked by a cloud of smoke rising from the end of a long, slender cigarette holder squeezed tightly between the first and middle fingers of her right hand.
"Hello, I'm Roxy Cotton. What brings you to see us?"
Roxy strode toward the coat rack, hanging her raincoat and hat onto its sculpted arms. She removed her sunglasses and set them down on the desktop, next to an ashtray which she then used to extinguish her own cigarette, quickly retrieving the pack once more from her purse.
"Angie?"
Angelica Vaughn shook her head slowly. Roxy knew she didn't smoke, and yet she offered every morning anyway. She simply could not understand why anyone would choose to ignore the health benefits of a good smoke.
"I am here because I require your assistance."
The woman in the wooden chair said with a lilt in her voice, a heavy French accent.
"Assistance... with solving a murder."
The office window lit up then, as an arc of lightning raced from the heavens to the streets below. Angelica startled in her seat, then hurried to regain her composure as Roxy stood stoic and locked eyes with their visitor.
"My name is Aveline Lacklan,"
The woman said, gesturing with her eyes toward the circular black ashtray Roxy had requisitioned. Roxy blinked as if surprised by the declaration, pausing in awkward silence for a moment before remembering herself and grabbing the ashtray. With an exhale, she slid it across the desk to the Frenchwoman.
"Someone has killed my husband, and I want you to find out whom."
The sky returning to its hoary shade darkened the room once more, prompting Angelica to stand from her seat and walk to the tall lamp in the corner of the room, pulling its chain and casting a shade of pale light across the three of them.
"Of all the detective joints in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk into mine."
Roxy sneered through a curled and red-painted lip.
"Why?"
Angelica watched the exchange quizzically, darting her eyes back and forth between the two women engaged in what could only be described as a staredown. The Frenchwoman, Aveline, pulled her gaze away first, crushing the cigarette in its holder into the ashtray and standing, looking up into the green eyes of Roxy Cotton as she stood mere inches away from the buxom blonde.
"It is of no importance why I chose your services to patronize. Know only this – that I require the answers quickly, and that I will pay handsomely."
Lacklan then inserted the empty cigarette holder between her own painted lips and extended her chin in the direction of Roxy's pack of Viceroys, still clutched in her gloved hand. Roxy hesitated then but pulled a slender cigarette from the pack and handing it to her new client. Aveline slipped the cigarette into place and then waited again with eyebrows raised behind her veil.
"Roxy! She's in mourning."
Angelica whispered pleadingly. Roxy breathed deeply and produced a book of matches, striking one against the desk and holding it behind a cupped hand to Lacklan's cigarette.
"Merci."
She said, inhaling with a wry smile.
"Please, call me at once when you learn something."
And then she was gone, exiting the office to the chorus of newspapers being lowered and raised again that Roxy herself recognized from her own entrance. As the door closed behind the exiting woman, Angelica rounded the desk and stood next to Roxy, who continued to stare after the visitor long after she had departed.
"Roxy... do you know that woman?"
Roxy seemed to startle from her trance then, turning to face Angelica.
"What do you mean... her? No... no I've never met her before in my life."
"Well..."
Angelica returned to her seat and began jotting down notes onto a legal pad with a fat fountain pen from a stand in the middle of her desk blotter.
"She is paying us double our asking price. This is a case that could save our business. We need to make sure we do everything we can for her!"
Roxy drifted toward the tall window, looking down onto the street as another bolt of lightning curled across the gray sky, throwing shadows across her face. Below, she saw the Frenchwoman getting into a checkered cab. Just before the driver closed the taxi door for her, she looked up at the window and the pair met on another's yes once more.
"Yes. Of course, baby. We'll do everything we can."
Thunder rumbled low, echoing in the office as the cab pulled away from the curbside far beneath Roxy and Angelica's office window. Under her breath, Roxy Cotton repeated to herself.
"All of the detectives... in all the world... what are the chances..."
And then the power in the office went out, sending everything into black.
The torrential downpour was far from over. Angelica hurried towards the house, holding a newspaper above her head, which offered little to no protection, but it was the idea that counted. The gutters had transformed into raging rivers, flowing down the street as the saturated sewers spat the rain water back out. Her long, brown coat that covered her long legs completely was absolutely soaked and stuck to her body like cling foil. She hated the feeling, but there was little she could do, since her cat had ripped her only umbrella.
Luckily, she was nearly there. The Lacklan Mansion, while huge, was situated right into the middle of a residential area, well guarded by high shrubberies and large gates of spiked steel. There was money in that family, that much was obvious, and despite the fact that the Lacklans had always been an enigmatic bunch, their reputation wasn’t superb.
But still, justice counted for every man or woman, not just the righteous. A victim was a victim, no matter his or her actions in life. At least, that was how Angelica saw it.
As she arrived at the gate, she wondered how she’d have to make her way inside, but her brief concerns were soon allayed as a servant behind the gate, armed with an umbrella thank goodness, had clearly been informed of her arrival. The gate was immediately unlocked and the umbrella opened above her. Not that it did much good, since she was soaked to the skin already anyway, and the sideways wind blew the water right underneath the flimsy bit of protection. They ran across the garden and towards the front door, the many flowers and plants drowning in the puddles that had started to form. The massive wooden door of oak opened in front of Angelica and she quickly and thankfully slipped inside. A loud clap of thunder accompanied the sound of the door slamming shut behind her as she immediately started leaking in the entrance hall.
“Ever so sorry!”
She said as she realized she was making a mess. Luckily she wasn’t contaminating the crime scene just yet. A servant kindly offered to take her coat and gently guided it off her shoulders. It almost felt like her skin was being peeled, and she made sure to pull her white blouse away from her body, lest it had become see-through.
“Is my partner already here?”
The nearest servant nodded sideways.
“Figures…”
Never mind that they had agreed to meet here on the dot. Roxy had claimed to have gone for a quick pack of smokes, but in typical fashion, that apparently took her about an hour and a half.
Angelica shuddered. Even though it was warm inside and she could already feel her clothes starting to dry, the whole area made her uncomfortable. The stench of death lurked in the air, penetrating her nostrils like an army of invading Krauts. She hoped Roxy would get here soon. The servants seemed emotionless zombies and gave her the heebie jeebies, even though they were courteous enough.
The knock on the door came as a relief. Roxy stepped inside as well, also accompanied by a servant holding an umbrella. They all looked so much alike she wasn’t even sure if it was the same. But Roxy was remarkably drier, with only her lower half clearly having suffered from the odd splash of water.
“Right on time,”
Angelica remarked immediately as way of greeting her.
“Again.”
The sarcasm in her voice was blatantly obvious and Roxy immediately picked up on it.
“Sorry, baby.”
“Please try and be more professional.”
“You could’ve waited outside for me, you know.”
“In that rain? I hate rain.”
Angelica tacked on, rolling her eyes. Of course Roxy didn’t care to even think about that. She was selfish and egocentric, but a talented private eye, there was no denying that. Underneath her plastic exterior there was much more than met the eye, and she was a whole lot smarter than she allowed others to believe. While many others had claimed that Angelica would be much better off on her own, Roxy had cracked many cases where Angelica had been clueless. As mean and off-putting as she could be, she had incredible instincts, as if she could often know what a criminal was thinking. It was a rare talent, one that Angelica admired. Even if it was slightly disturbing.
“Yeah, what happened to you? You look like a drowned pussycat. Forgot your umbrella, baby?”
Angelica didn’t even dignify the question with a response. She turned towards a servant.
“Would you kindly show us the room, good man?”
The servant nodded and motioned for them to follow. The detective duo followed him through long, winding candle-lit hallways filled with creepy paintings of old people and underfed twins. Their footsteps were muffled by a seemingly never-ending carpet, while the occasional suit of armor looked like it could jump to life at any second. Thank God they were empty.
At least, that’s what Angelica hoped.
“This place is a bit weird don’t you think?”
Angelica whispered in Roxy’s ear. But before Roxy could answer, the servant clearing his throat interrupted their discreet conversation.
“We’re here.”
He led them into a rather dark room, which lit up the moment he flicked the switch. Thankfully the city had gotten the power back up, because Angelica wasn’t used to conducting crime scene investigations by candle light.
The only sound came from the pattering of raindrops on the window. It was strangely calming, although the room itself put any delusions of peace and quiet to bed. The markings from the original police investigation, which had obviously not been fruitful, were still there, the outline of a body next to the bed still clear to see and yellow evidence markers lying next to suspicious items.
“Mrs. Lacklan chased the police away,”
the servant clarified.
“Nothing was taken from the room except the body. She wanted the pair of you on the investigation.”
“Obviously.”
Roxy answered, but Angelica had already tuned him out. Her eyes darted back and forth throughout the room, looking for strange objects, or things out of place.
“The old Mr. Lacklan’s bedroom,”
Angelica whispered as she crouched down near the bed, careful not to step on the carpet it was put on. The canopy bed had its curtains torn, clearly the work of a sharp knife. Something caught her eye near the edge of the thick, fluffy carpet, intended mostly to keep someone’s feet warm as they got out of bed. There was a strange marking on it that came from the fibers being pressed down. Two straight lines running parallel to each other, not unlike… !!! Angelica immediately grabbed her notepad and drew something in with her pencil.
“Hey, Roxy!”
She motioned her partner over, who raised her eyebrows as Angelica pointed at the markings.
“Doesn’t that look like the markings of a…”
“...wheelchair? Why, yes it does, baby. Yes... it... does.”
Later Still...
Inside the sparsely furnished interview room that the LAPD so graciously lent to Roxy and Angelica for interrogations (“Thanks baby, I owe you one…” the vivacious Cotton would usually add with a wink and a kiss on the cheek, guaranteeing compliance from many a uniformed officer) the pair of blondes sat and awaited the delivery of their suspect.
“Do you mind, Rox?”
Angelica waved a hand under her nose, wafting away the heavy halo of smoke that surrounded them both. Roxy’s Viceroy cigarette was burned halfway down, and to other corpses lay crumpled and discarded in a single ashtray in the center of the plain table before them.
“Sorry baby.”
Roxy said with a long exhale, a train of white smoke coming from her mouth like a cartoon word bubble.
“Do you think it’s her? Really? Sarah Lacklan is rich and powerful in this town. I can’t quite believe she’d murder her own father, unscrupulous though she may be..”
Roxy drew another deep drag from the cigarette then, turning her head slightly away when it was time to blow the smoke out once more.
“Of course it’s her, Angie..”
Roxy started, grinding the cigarette out into the ashtray. Angelica was often naive and more willing to see the good in people, whereas Roxy had no such inclinations. In fact, Roxy Cotton was always prepared to assume the worst. As much as that served to protect her time and time over, it had also very often led to the bombshell missing out on thee truth. This is where her reliance on Angelica and her insistence on silver linings came into play. Countless times, the wrong suspect would have been hounded and possibly even arrested if not for Angelica being able to see the good in a person.
“Think about it, baby… Sarah Lacklan thinks she’s above the law. She lives her life in a fortress, surrounded by servants. Her money has bought her insulation from the outside world. She thinks she’s… untouchable.”
“But she’s… you know… she’s a…”
Angie couldn’t force the words from her mouth.
“A cripple? So? Even a cripple can fire a gun. And her wheelchair’s tire marks were right there at the scene of the crime!”
As if on cue, the door to the interview room swung open just then. A patrol officer held it open while a man in a tweed jacket and a bowler hat pushed a top of the line aluminum wheelchair into the room. Seated in the chair, her legs covered in a thick plaid blanket, was the young daughter of the Lacklan estate, the heiress herself, Sarah Lacklan. The accident which had confined her to her chair had been widely publicized just the year before, and she had become the toast of the town after years of relative self-imposed ostracism from general society. She was slowly wheeled into position in front of the metal table, after which her handler, the man in the bowler, stepped back and stood with his hands crossed over his midsection in a corner.
“He can’t stay here.”
Angelica quipped. A veritable encyclopedia of the rule of law, that one.
“He stays.”
Sarah replied, without a hint of room for discussion.
“Why am I here?”
“Don’t play coy, Lacklan!”
Angelica slammed the palms of her hands on the desk in front of her and rose to her feet, all five foot ten of her towering above the wheelchair-bound suspect.
“Your father was murdered in his own house! Exactly how many people would have had access to him, do you think? There were no traces of burglary, no signs of breaking and entering. This was an assassination, and who else but the cold-blooded heiress of America’s richest and oldest weapons manufacturing family would have the motive, the means and the heart to perform an act as heinous as this?”
Sarah’s face remained as straight as was humanly possible. She looked up at the private eye, near impossible to read.
“My father... wasn’t a good man.”
“So it would seem.”
“Yet his untimely death wasn’t my doing, whether I ordered the trigger to be pulled, or did it myself. You want reason? I’ll give you reason. His death would not have benefitted me one bit.”
It was here that Roxy intervened. Angelica knew all too well that Roxy considered an inheritance such as the one JPL left behind would be one to kill for, and Angelica needed to capitalize on Cotton’s understanding of wealth and influence.
“Oh please!”
Angelica nearly shouted, closing in on the chair-bound suspect.
“You don’t think MILLIONS of dollars would benefit you? I SEE THROUGH YOUR LIES, LACKLAN!”
“Baby…”
Roxy placed a hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, easing her back a tad from the unflinching face of Sarah Lacklan.
“Relax. Let me talk to her.”
Angelica slammed her palms onto the table and walked away, facing a wall. Her hands sternly gripped her hips as she stomped away.
“Miss Lacklan… Sarah… Can I call you Sarah?”
“Of course…”
Lacklan’s voice softened some as Roxy walked slowly to the table beside Sarah’s chair, swinging her hips in slow, deliberate arcs. Roxy lifted her behind and sat on the tabletop, crossing one leg over the other and reaching for her pack of Viceroys once more.
“Are you even allowed to smoke in here?”
Roxy giggled as she lit the end of her cigarette, waving the flame dead from her match afterwards.
“What do you think they’re going to do, baby? Arrest me for smoking?”
She switched the position of her legs then, folding and unfolding them directly in front of the seated Lacklan’s eyes. Sarah Lacklan’s fingers began to tap nervously on her metal armrest.
“Would you like one?”
Roxy held the pack over toward Sarah, using a finger to pull one of the remaining smokes free.
“I… I suppose I would.”
Sarah then reached a hand out, but Roxy simply poked the cigarette into Lacklan’s mouth.
“Hmmm… I’m out of matches. Here.”
Roxy then leaned forward deeply, the lapels of her blazer falling open revealing her ample bosom as she bent her head to the level of Sarah Lacklan’s, and then purposefully touched the burning tip of her own cigarette to the unlit end of Sarah’s. Their eyes stayed focused on each other as the second cigarette came alight.
“There we go.”
Sarah’s forehead began to perspire slightly, and she produced a lace handkerchief from her own jacket pocket, dabbing at the flesh of her brow.
“Are you too warm, baby?”
“No! No… everything is… fine. It’s fine.”
“Good. We just need to ask you a few more questions, and then you can go about your day. You want to help us catch your father’s killer, don’t you?”
“Of course… of course I do!”
Sarah’s sternness returned, the stoicism in her face and the stony look in her eyes replaced the momentarily vulnerable expression of just a moment before.
“My father had many enemies. You do not amass such wealth without turning people against you. It was in his nature to take care of himself first, at any cost.”
Roxy smiled and took a drag on her cigarette. She bent her ankle slightly and noticed as Sarah’s eyes followed the movement closely. Too closely.
“I see… Sarah, I hope you understand the urgency my partner and I have been feeling to solve this. Angelica may get a little… emotional…”
In the corner, Vaughn looked back over her shoulder at Cotton, furrowing her brow. Roxy continued without any visible reaction.
“But it’s only because we want to find justice for you and your family. You understand?”
Roxy flexed her toe, causing the heel of her shoe to come off of her foot ever so slightly. Balancing the shoe on the ball of her foot, Roxy reached down and began to massage her heel and ankle. Sarah’s eyes were glued to the action.
“We’ve been walking all morning, Sarah… my feet are killing me… I hope you don’t mind?”
“N-no… no… please, go on.”
“Thanks baby.”
Roxy purred through smiling lips, pulling the shoe completely free from her stockinged foot. She stretched her toes and fanned them out, the webbing of her fishnet nylons expanding and shining in the harsh overhead light. Roxy rubbed her foot, her ankle, and her calf, watching intently as Sarah Lacklan began to quiver in her wheelchair, reddening her otherwise porcelain skin as blood rushed to the surface.
“Do you need some water?”
“HUH? Oh! What, yes… water would be wonderful. Please… ask me your questions. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“So unprofessional!”
Angelica sighed as she walked back into the picture, placing her hands on top of the table and leaning in Sarah’s direction. With one hand, she adjusted the spotlight on the desk, steering it in the direction of Sarah’s eyes to blind her some more.
As Roxy quickly escaped the room to go get some water, Angelica asked her first question.
“All right, let’s get the obvious out of the way. If you’re so innocent, I’m sure you’ve no problem telling me where you were yesterday evening between 9 and 10 PM?”
“I… Err, gosh, I…”
Sarah Lacklan started to stumble over her words. Angelica frowned.
“Hiding something, are we? Like how you were at your father’s house, ducking the servants and your stepmother, making your way to his bedroom to shoot your unsuspecting father?”
She planted her fist on the desk again as she uttered the last word. Sarah flinched momentarily before quickly regaining her composure.
“I assure you, nothing of the sort happened. I was… elsewhere by then.”
“By then?”
At that point, Roxy walked back into the room with a glass of water, but Angelica didn’t even look up, keeping her eyes focused on the potential culprit.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, where the heck were you??”
“AT STARS AND GARTERS!”
Sarah blurted it out under duress. Angelica pulled up her nose and raised one eyebrow before looking over at Roxy for help.
“What’s that?”
Roxy chuckled, placing the glass of water in front of Sarah Lacklan’s chair.
“It’s a club, Angie. For… gentlemen who wish to watch beautiful women on a stage with progressively less clothing on.”
Angie stood and screwed her nose in confusion, but then a light bulb seemed to go off in her had.
“A strip club? But why would a woman want to… go… unless…. Ohhhhhh....”
“Exactly. So the rumors of the affair between yourself and tinseltown starlet Kenzi Grey are true then? A little bit more than friends are you?”
Sarah grabbed at the glass and sucked down half of the water in a gulping sip. Gasping for air, she returned her gaze to the pair of detectives, both of whom had pushed closer into her personal space in anticipation of a reply.
“You can’t let any of this leak to the papers. My reputation will be ruined! And Kenzi… if she found out I went there again, after what I promised…”
Sarah’s head dropped, her chin pressing down to her chest. Roxy smiled, secure in the knowledge that Lacklan was nothing more than a fish on the end of her hook then.
“There’s no reason anyone needs to find out what we discuss in here… as long as you play ball. Now tell us… what did you see? What do you know?”
Sarah didn’t look up. Instead, she took a deep breath and let it out in a shivering sigh before answering quietly in a voice bereft of all confidence.
“The servants… they have a private, hidden access to my father’s quarters. I needed to come and go without any of Kenzi’s friends in my personal detail knowing, so I utilized this secret breezeway.”
“Good. Go on....”
Roxy nodded feverishly while Angelica wrote everything down.
“When… when I returned later that evening, I was passing his bedroom when I heard a crash. A shattering of glass. Normally I would have checked to see, but I knew it would raise questions as to why I was there… and so I convinced myself it was nothing and retired to my own chambers. God forgive me…”
“Glass?”
Roxy asked, looking at Angelica, who folded her notebook shut.
“She means the aquarium… Remember?”
Lacklanland Manor
LA, California
Flashback to the past
“A wheelchair, yes indeed…”
Angelica continued to take notes in her notepad as they went over Jean-Paul Lacklan’s bedroom.
“Obviously this could mean that Sarah Lacklan was here… I say we bring her in for questioning, but obviously this proves nothing in and by itself…”
Angelica’s eyes started to look across the room again, momentarily distracted by the rain banging on the window as it was still pouring down. Her gaze fell on the dresser, which, like most things in the room, was grand and antique. But a big stain covered the wooden piece of furniture, as if water had been dripping down from it and leaked into the crevasses of the wooden floorboard below.
“Roxy, check this out…”
Angelica got back to her feet and inspected the dresser closer, finally noticing what the large glass box-looking thing on top of it was. The front of the glass box was broken, and judging by its contents, it had been an aquarium as a dead squid was lying motionless between a few plants.
“All of my ew!”
Angelica pulled up her nose as Roxy went to stand beside her. Its dead empty eyes looked straight up at Angelica, who slowly backed away. She pointed at the aquarium.
“Roxy, could you erm… give that a closer look, please?”
Roxy sighed and leaned forward to do as requested.
“There’s a label on the side here… ‘Crowthorne’s rare and exotic fish’. Could be a clue. Says here that the date of purchase was yesterday.”
“Kay.”
Angelica opened up her notebook again and started scribbling away.
“Let’s bring in the owner!”
Back to the future...
“Like… I, uh… I don’t know why I’m, like, here?”
The raven-haired Milisandre Crowthorne, proprietor and sole employee of Crowthorne’s Rare and Exotic Fish sat squirming in the interrogation chair, her limbs as squeamish as the tentacles of a submarine octopus.
“DON’T TRY TO PLAY COY!”
Angelica boomed with her hands balled into fists, the knuckles pressing into the metal table top. The setup didn’t work as well this time, though, as Crowthorne seemed legitimately out in the cold in regards to the goings-on of Lacklan Manor.
“Like… I barely know them? Like, sure, Jean-Paul was a customer… he liked squids and jellyfish in particular… but I was never, like, ONE of them, you know? I was always, like, an outsider? I just sold fish, man…”
“Don’t try to hide the fact that you spent several months under their roof! I did some research on you, Crowthorne, you’re closer to the Lacklans than you want us to believe! Five years ago your father died in the war and you were left as an orphan, Jean-Paul Lacklan took you in until you were eighteen and old enough to be your own legal guardian. It’s HIS money that built your business. ‘Just a customer’, indeed! Or was he ‘another’ kind of ‘customer’, for your ‘business’ ‘on the side’?”
Going heavy on the air quotes, Angelica stood over Milisandre like a pitbull, but Crowthorne seemed more terrified by the prospect of being falsely accused than by any kind of truth coming to light. Roxy quickly put her hand on Angelica’s shoulder to calm her down.
“Easy, baby.”
Anglica lets out a low growl but backs off a bit. Roxy steps in, waving her cigarette in front of her face for emphasis.
“Is all of that true, Angie?”
“Of course it’s true! I told you I was following up on some leads!”
Roxy nods, impressed.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Crowthorne? It seems like my partner here has you dead to rights, red handed. Lying right to our faces!”
Milisandre squirmed again, squeezing her hands between her thighs and avoiding any eye contact with Angelica, who still bore holes straight through her with her eyes from across the room.
“Well? Speak up!”
Roxy threw her hands in the air, frustrated. She just couldn’t garner the same kind of attention from this suspect as she had the last. In fact, Mil seemed to barely notice what was going on around her, continually asking inane questions about herself as if she were the focus of the investigation.
“Well, like, what’s going to happen to me? What about my life? My career? My goals? It’s, like, hard to be a businesswoman in Los Angeles…”
“Have you tried Stars and Garters, baby? You could do okay there, probably. There must be SOME men who are into… whatever it is that you are…”
“Whoa, what? The nudie bar? No, no way, like… I mean I know Kenzi Grey said Sarah went there a lot, but that’s not my thing, uh, like… at all? You know?”
Instantly, the two blondes snapped their necks toward one another in realization. Angelica marched up to the seated brunette, grabbing the arm of her chair and leaning in close.
“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?”
Milisandre winced, leaning her head back and away from the line of fire.
“Uh, what? Like, I like guys… okay?”
“No, baby… she means the other part. About Kenzi and Sarah?”
“Oh! Yeah, like… um… Kenzi was in my shop just this morning, and she said Sarah was sneaking off to see the topless dancers last night again. She was REALLY upset about it. I’ve never seen hr so mad!”
Thee two blondes exchanged looks once again, this time with a conciliatory nod between the two as they came to a mutual understanding.
“Roxy… I think it’s time we gave Miss Grey a phone call...”
Even later that day...
“Make it snappy, we don’t have all day!”
Sidney Grey snapped her fingers to give extra weight to her words as Kenzi was seated in the interrogation chair. Her mother stood behind her, trying to intimidate the two private eyes, but Roxy clearly was having none of it.
“It’ll take as long as it takes, ba---.”
The words choked in her throat, as not even the buxom blonde could seriously call Sidney Grey ‘baby’ with a straight face.
“And we’ll need some privacy.”
“My daughter ain’t saying zip until we get our lawyer up in here!”
Sidney Grey threatened, but Kenzi turned around at her mom. She stopped chewing her gum for a minute and took off her cap.
“Mom, seriously, it’s okay. They just wanna ask some questions. Could you go wait outside, please?”
“Ohhh… Well, fine then!”
Sidney grabbed Kenzi’s head and pressed it into her chest, an affectionate sign of motherly love.
“But only because you asked, my sweet, sweet beautiful girl!”
She took her by the temples and jerked Kenzi’s head back so she could look at her face.
“Just look at that beautiful face. No man alive is worthy of you, my gorgeous Mackenzie! And don’t let these two threaten you, you hear? As soon as they overstep their bounds, you come call on mommy dearest!”
“Fine!”
After shooting the two private eyes an evil glare, Sidney Grey left her beloved daughter behind with them and joined the rest of the so-called ‘Kentourage’ in the waiting room. Kenzi resumed chewing on her gum and blew a bubble as Roxy watched on. It grew to about five inches in diameter until it popped.
“Nice technique.”
Roxy remarked, knowing all about bubblegum.
“But that’s not why we called you here. You know why, I presume?”
Kenzi, looking extremely bored, shook her head.
“Because I’m black?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,”
Angelica intervened.
“There was a murder last night.”
“Oh, so it IS because I’m black! HELL no I didn’t do that shit! MOMMA!”
The door to the interview room starts to open, but Roxy presses it shut firmly, locking it as Sidney Grey’s angry visage grimaces through the glass. Roxy lowers the shade and walks away from the door, ignoring the pounding from the other side.
“Kenzi… we know about Crowthorne’s. We know you were in there crying about Sarah going to Stars and Garters. We know about you… special… relationship with her. And now, at the same time your lover was going behind your back, thinking you didn’t know, her rich and influential father turns up dead. Seems a little suspicious, wouldn’t you agree?”
Kenzi’s mouth flattened out. Clearly she was unaware so much of her dirty laundry had already been aired in public.
“You guys know all that stuff?”
“We sure do, ba-”
“YES we know all about your LURID affairs, Grey! Now TELL US WHY YOU KILLED JEAN-PAUL!”
Angelica was right in Kenzi’s face, her voice booming with authority. Kenzi looked up at Roxy.
“She okay?”
“She’s been doing this all day, I don’t know. Angie, baby, just chill okay?”
Angelica folded her arms in a huff and stepped away, once again allowing Roxy to slide in as the voice of reason.
“Kenzi, listen… we could have you locked up and have the key thrown away. You know as well as I do that even as famous as you are, we have enough to get a jury on our side. Do yourself a favor. Talk to us. Tell us your side.”
Angelica also chimed in, a bit more relaxed this time, but clearly trying to force a confession.
“Listen, we get it, okay? Kenzi Grey, child starlet. Told by everyone from birth just how amazing you are. You get big break after big break, and the world is at your erm… feet.”
“HUGE feet, by the way.”
Roxy interjected, but Angelica continued after an eye-roll.
“And your mommy constantly telling you how no man is ever good enough for you. So OF COURSE you would be drawn to women, and who more so than Sarah Lacklan, right? You surrender heart and soul to her, but when you found out that you’ll never be enough for her, since that raging lesbian is still watching other women get naked behind your back… you lose it. And in your rage, you sneak into Lacklan Manor and shoot Sarah’s father in an effort to hurt her as much as she hurt you! Did it feel good, Kenzi, to squeeze that trigger and watch as he bled out and the life faded from his eyes, knowing that Sarah’s pain would be unfathomable?”
“MOOOOOM!”
But Kenzi’s shouts didn’t do her any good as Angelica turned the spotlight right into her eyes, blinding her.
“Did you laugh as you stood over his corpse, with the gun still smoking and the smell of gunpowder tickling your every sense? Huh??”
“Jesus Angie… that was intimate... I liked it!”
Roxy grinned as Angelica stood with her chest heaving from the deep, impassioned breaths.
“WELL???”
“What? No, what the fuck? I followed Sarah last night to that tittie bar, okay? I went incognito, because otherwise everybody would recognize me. Then I followed her back home, wondering if she’d take some stripper along with her, and I climbed up the walls of the mansion so I could see through the windows. But she rolled right back into her bedroom. I even almost got caught by her dumb French stepmother when she stepped out of Sarah’s dad’s bedroom…”
“Wait, what?”
Roxy jerked her head towards Kenzi.
“You’re saying Aveline Lacklan stepped out of Jean-Paul Lacklan’s bedroom right after Sarah got home? How did she look?”
Kenzi shrugged.
“Normal, I guess? She sure seemed to have a big smile on her face, which was a bit weird, but that whole woman is weird. Bitch smells like garlic and frog’s legs.”
Roxy and Angelica looked at each other, and the buxom blonde took her taller and thinner counterpart by the arm, pulling her in close for a whisper.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Angelica nodded.
“Let’s get Mrs. Lacklan back in here. Because I think she’s been playing us from the very start!”
Midnight...
Sirens blared in the middle of the Los Angeles night, as rapid footsteps splashed through the remnants of the day’s rainstorm. Red and blue lights reflected against the wet brick of the buildings lining either side of a dark alleyway as the veiled Frenchwoman in black ran down the center of the claustrophobic artery, which narrowed in on her on all sides.
Mere strides behind her, the duo of Angelica Vaughn and Roxy Cotton followed suit, Angie slightly in front due to her extended stride and the fact that Cotton was doing her best to avoid stepping in any more gutter water than was absolutely necessary.
“Stop right there! Aveline! You can’t get away!”
Then, a gunshot rang out. The air hummed with the ricochet as a coil of smoke twisted into the air. Angie and Roxy stood back up after ducking for cover and stood side by side, facing the trapped Aveline Lacklan who had reached the end of the alleyway and stood defiantly in front of the stone facade, revolver in hand.
“You two… how did you ever find out the truth? You were supposed to blame that insolent little daughter of his, the sole other heir to his fortune! I planned every step!”
Roxy stepped forward. Her mouth curled upward in a slight grin as she held a pistol of her own up and leveled at the murderess widow of Jean-Paul Lacklan.
“You thought you did… but you couldn’t account for Sarah’s own immorality. Nor could you have expected Kenzi Grey to be onto her little games and to have followed her right to your bedroom door right after you fired the fatal shot!”
“Les enfants terrible… Cette enfant démon!”
“Face it, Aveline… the jig is up. This ends here… but what we need to know is… why? Jean-Paul gave you everything! Your riches! Your love! He adored you more than life itself… what more could you have wanted?”
The Frenchwoman’s lip quivered in the shadows, and as the gun in her hand began to shake, her voice broke as well.
“Jean-Paul… was a lecher! An adulterer! He was sleeping around behind my back and I found the proof of it that night. He admitted to the indiscretion, but when he wouldn’t identify the harlot he was doing his whoring with, I became enraged and shot him right in his heart. He died thinking he had kept his little secret… but he had no idea what I had found.”
Roxy, looking nervous, took another step forward while still leveling her firearm at the woman in the alleyway.
“And… what exactly did you find? Surely it couldn’t have identified the woman he was seeing!”
She said with a forced chuckle, darting her eyes to Angelica and back, but seeing no sense of suspicion there.
“Well… what was it? Or should I make this easy on the cops and finish you off right here?”
Roxy demanded, curling back the hammer on her sidearm. The metallic clicking echoed loudly in the alley as Aveline smiled in reply.
“Non, my child… you would be doing me but a favor by taking me from this world of heartache and sparing me from the shame of living out my years imprisoned. Fire if you must, but I will see my vengeance through…”
“Roxy? What does she mean?”
Angelica questioned, sheepishly lifting her gun to target the suspect as well.
“Angie… listen…”
But Roxy was cut off mid sentence by the Frenchwoman as she continued her monologue.
“I found the business card in his wallet. For this so-called Bombshell Detective Service. I saw the lipstick pressed against the white cardboard. I know it was one of you two salopes!”
“Oh my god…”
“Angie…”
“AND I KNOW HE PREFERRED TALL WOMEN! DIE, HARLOT!”
Suddenly, Aveline trained her gun onto Angelica who froze in place. The shot rang out like the sound of the world tearing apart, and the flash blinded the three women together in the compact alleyway.
“NO!”
The scream cried. And then the second shot, and the third. At the edge of the alleyway, the Frenchwoman slumped to the ground, two bullets lodged in her torso. Her lifeless eyes turned upwards to God, and the final expression on her face was one of glory and release.
At the other end of the alley, Angelica dropped to her knees… for in front of her lay the form of her partner and friend, Roxy Cotton, with a bloom of crimson spreading across her white blouse.
“Roxy! Oh my god Roxy! Why! Why did you do it??”
Roxy coughed, a string of blood trailing down from the corner of her mouth, and she looked up at Anglica with tears pooling in her emerald eyes.
“I couldn’t help myself, baby… I just… wanted him…”
“No, no, Roxy not that! Why did you jump in front of that bullet for me? Why did you save me?”
Roxy smiled then. Coughing once more and reaching her hand up to cup the side of Angelica’s face.
“Because, Angie… you’re my friend… and I would… die… for you…”
Roxy’s pupils widened and her body went limp, her hand falling away from Angelica’s face to land with a splash in the muck of the alley floor.
“I’m… sorry…. babyyyy…”
And then she was gone.
“No! NOOOOOO!”
Angie wailed into the cold, California night.
Present Day
San Antonio, Texas
Days before No Holds Barred
“NOOOO!”
Angelica woke up screaming, cold sweat dripping down her forehead. Her heart was racing, as if it was trying to escape her chest like a baby Xenomorph.
Not that Angelica had ever watch ‘Alien’... Ew, so creepy! But still, she felt as nervous as the crew of the Nostromo as she threw the sheets off of her. Her kitten-patterned pyjama’s were all damp (because she was SWEATING so hard, duh! Get that mind out of that gutter, thanks) and she tried to remember what it was that had caused her to be this upset. Had she been dreaming? It was hard to tell. It was like trying to keep a puddle of water in her hands, but it kept slipping through her fingers and the more she tried to think about it, the quicker it slipped away.
She walked around her new house, the furnishing not yet entirely complete. But the cold floor provided some comfort as it cooled down her bare feet. Ever since moving here she’s stopped wearing socks since the heat caused them to become nothing but a sweaty mess (ew), but for now it helped to cool her down. Taking deep breaths, she managed to gather her wits.
Yes, she’d been dreaming. Quite vividly and quite intensely. About… Roxy? Yes, she was pretty certain Roxy had appeared in it. She wasn’t that surprised, because she’d been thinking about her all week. In one last desperate effort to get them to reconcile their differences, the UGWC Staff, in their infinite wisdom, had booked them at the No Holds Barred PPV to fight alongside one another in a Prison Break match. For the Cooperative Titles no less. It was a huge opportunity, but Angelica wondered just how ready they’d ever be as a team, when the last team Roxy had betrayed her in such a selfish manner.
And yet… something had changed. Right now, she didn’t just miss Roxy. She wanted to hear her voice. She wanted to know her friend was doing okay. She wanted to know she was in good health, because she had this strange feeling that something terrible had happened to her. But the two hadn’t really spoken since Angelica’s birthday, their conversation having ended in a rather emotional fight.
Ser Bobby started to give her tiny headbutts, reminding her that he was the cat and she was the servant, and that he required feeding. But for once in her life, Angelica ignored her furry little feline baby and walked back into her bedroom, snatching her phone from her bedside table. A Prison Break match was one thing, but right now she just needed to hear Roxy’s voice. And so she dialled the bubblegum bombshell’s number…
“Hmmm… hello?”
Apparently Roxy had still been sleeping, judging from her distracted voice. But just hearing it made Angelica breathe a sigh of relief.
“Oh, thanks goodness, you’re all right. It’s Angie, Rox. I errr… Thought we could use a little talk. We didn’t really end things on a high note last time.”
“No… I guess we didn’t. But I know it will all be okay. That’s why I asked them to team us together in UGWC this week. I know I can trust you and you know you can trust me. Like always.”
“Well, I guess so. I mean, I was kinda mad at you, but… I do miss hanging out with you, and just being friends. Life’s too short to carry grudges. I err… didn’t know we were teaming at your request, though. But that’s fine. We’ll hold our own for sure! I mean, with gals like Eden Morgan in that match, you sure won’t be lacking any motivation to kick some bu… bott… I mean, backside. Right?”
“Hold our own? Angie, we’re going to win! As soon as I saw that Eden and her little goat headed partner were getting into the tag title scene, I knew I had a chance to get them back for what they did to me at Lord of Trios. The way they poisoned me and nearly killed me! And I also knew that there was nobody else I’d rather have at my side when I got my revenge on them than you, Angie, because you were the one I let down the most… by not winning.”
Angelica chuckled. As much as she wanted to be mad at Roxy, she just couldn’t do that anymore.
“It’s fine, really. Always a new opportunity, as if the case right here. And thanks, I mean it. And you can trust me, Rox. I… I know you’d take a bullet for me if it all came down to it. I just want you to know I’d do the same for you. Because that’s what friends do, right?”
Roxy paused, and the silence was heavy over the line for a moment. But just as Angie started to get anxious, the bubbly voice she had longed for over the weeks returned.
“Yes! I’m so happy that you feel that way… Angie… I know I don’t always say the right things, and that most people would probably rather not have me around… but you have always been there for me when I needed you and you have never expected me to be anything other than who I am. Whether it’s you or me in that prison cell at No Holds Barred, I know that no one will try harder than us to work together as a team and overcome the odds that are stacked against us. There is NOBODY that I would ever pick over you to be my partner… and I know that together we can do anything we set our minds to. Especially just get back to some dumb stage before those other losers do.”
“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t call all of them losers, but I’m just glad we’re back to being friends again.”
Angelica smiled, and her cheeks suddenly regained a healthy blush that had been lost for a few weeks.
“Anyway, I’ll let you go back to sleep. We’ll catch up later?”
“Thanks baby… and Angie?”
“Hmm?”
Angie replied, bringing the phone back to her ear.
“Thanks for calling me. Really. I… missed you. Okay ciao, I need to put these cucumbers back on before they get all icky.”
Angie smiled.
Click.
-fin-
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2013, '18, '23 
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