Case of the Murdered Lovers

The chronological order of my stories to read is:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series 1-4.

Russian Roulette series 1-2

Case of the Murdered Lovers 1-6

So.... let's see if soap-opera-police-dramas with sex are of interest to Literotica readers...

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Feedback and

constructive

criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

Part 23 - The Solution

"No, that can't be!" I said, reeling with shock.

"They found his body just a few minutes ago, and said we should come quickly to examine it. They're willing to let us look at it after what you did to 'that asshole Ikea' this morning." Britt replied.

"How did they know about that so fast?" I wondered as we ran to the MCD room. "And why are they so happy about it?"

"Ikea's reputation precedes and follows him." Lt. Maxwell replied.

"Let's go, guys!" I shouted into the MCD room. "We're going to the City! I don't give a damn if you're not in jurisdiction, you're coming!" People scrambled.

We got into a big black police SUV, with me driving, accompanied by Cindy Ross, Hugh Hewitt, Britt Maxwell, Tanya Perlman and Teresa Croyle. She didn't even bother to ask, and just got in the vehicle with us.

I don't remember what speed I drove, but Hugh said I exceeded 140 miles per hour at some points. Our blue lights were flashing and our siren running, so the eight various patrol cars that we saw did not try to stop us, though most of them got on the radio and asked where the fire was. Hugh answered back, saying only that they had an emergency in the City.

We made record time, getting to the outskirts of the City in under 45 minutes. We got to the scene, an address on the west side of the City. It was an condo complex, fairly nice and upper-middle-class.

We were met at the scene by City Detective Robin Ventura and FDA Agent Fred Dixon. There were plenty of City CSI milling about, some of who knew Tanya Perlman and greeted her warmly.

I should mention that a "Detective" in the City was not as high a rank as in the Town & County Police Force, so Ventura was the equivalent of a Senior Patrolman in our police department.

I looked at the body, which was lying flat and face down. The back of the hair looked like Joe Arruzio, all right, and the body size was the same. His face had been blown away by a shotgun.

"Ten gauge." a City Detective said, a big burly black man that I did not know. "The shells are right there." He pointed at an expended shell four feet away.

"Keep that." I said. "How do you know this is Arruzio?"

"Wallet was in his back pocket with his ID. His cell phone was in the front pocket, too." the City man said.

I looked at the hands, then to everyone's shock I rose up to my feet yelling "YES!!"

"What?" the City Detective said, stunned. Everyone else looked at me.

"No wedding ring!" I said. "Arruzio was wearing his when we interviewed him the other day. There is no wedding ring on his finger now, and if you look, there hasn't been one, ever. Even if Arruzio had removed his ring, there'd still be an indentation from all the years of wearing it!" I fairly shouted. "He missed that detail."

"So what are you saying?" City Detective Ventura asked.

"You guys will think I'm crazy, but I think I can prove it.

This is not Joe Arruzio!

"

"Who is it, then?" Tanya Perlman asked.

"Johnny Arugula...

Joe Arruzio's identical twin brother!

" I said.

That got the room buzzing with general shock. I asked the City CSI to make sure they got fingerprints and footprints of the dead man for later comparison to Joe Arruzio's, whose fingerprints were on file with the FBI.

"If they're twins, won't their fingerprints be the same?" someone asked.

"There are always slight differences, scarring from cuts and such." I answered. "It's DNA evidence that won't help us if they're identical twins."

"So if this is Arugula," Britt Maxwell said, "then where is Joe Arruzio?" That question brought a look of shock to my face.

"Robin, will you take a team to Arruzio's home here in the City 'burbs? I doubt he's there, but he might be. If he is, consider him armed and extremely dangerous." I said. "Okay, my team and any State people here, come with me!"

"Where to?" someone asked.

"Nextdoor County." I said. "Back towards where we came from.

We piled into our SUV and, followed by Dixon and the burly City Detective in Dixon's car, drove west, back along the highway towards Town. In the county between us, Nextdoor County as we called it, I turned hard right onto a road next to a big bright Chevron service station.

Going north, I took a fork in a road, and then finally along a poorly paved road, coming to a stop as we approached a house near the lake, which was on the other side of the hill.

Joe Arruzio's car was parked in front of the house.

"Anyone not have vests on?" I asked. Only the City Detective didn't, and Dixon quickly supplied him with one from his car. I noted the words "FBI" in large letters on that vest.

"Carefully now. This guy may be nuts and I don't know what he'll do." I said. "Hugh, lead the way." Boy! do I wish we had a full SWAT team, I thought to myself. That was coming, though, it was coming.

As we neared the house, Hugh crept up to the side and peered inside a window.

"He's in the front room." he reported when he got back.

"Any guns?" I asked. Hugh said he didn't see any, that Arruzio was just staring forward as if watching TV. He was facing the front door.

Cindy, Hugh, Teresa and I crept onto the old wooden porch, incredibly making virtually no noise. Or maybe I just didn't hear anything. With a nod, Hugh kicked in the door and rushed in, followed by us all.

"Stop!" Joe Arruzio ordered. We stopped dead in our tracks, our guns pointed at him. A revolver was in his right hand, the muzzle pressed to his own head just in front of his ear.

"Drop it, Joe." I ordered. "It's over."

"Yes, it is." Arruzio replied. "So... who figured it out?" Everyone else's glance at me gave him his answer.

"I congratulate you." Arruzio said, looking at me. "What gave me away?"

"You took the shotgun shells with you." I replied. Arruzio nodded slightly.

"I see. Well played, Detective, well played. You are everything Wellman said you were, and a hell of a lot more. A lot of people are going to be scared of you when they hear how you solved this case." Arruzio said with a slight nod to me.

"Come on Joe, put the gun down. It's time to go." I said wearily, knowing what Arruzio was going to do but trying to stop him anyway. Arruzio nodded to me with a brief smile.

"Again, I salute you." he said. Suddenly, my ears were ringing and the room seemed hazy. Joe Arruzio had pulled the trigger, committing suicide. He was dead.

Part 24 - The Explanation

The pool party at Melina's house was well attended. It was Friday afternoon and absolutely perfect weather. The Chief had given the entire Force the afternoon off, with the exception of essential duty personnel manning the desks and such, and those were rotating in short half-shifts to maximize their time off. He'd also called up the Police Auxiliary for a "training day" to patrol the streets. After the internecine battles between myself and Malone and Ikea, R&R seemed like a good morale booster, so thought the chief.

We were all out on the patio, some in the swimming pool, everyone wearing bikinis or swim gear. Cindy Ross looked HOT in a tiny peach bikini and clear plastic "hooker heel" slides, which she said she'd worn in her Miss Physical America competitions. Melina was wearing a true royal blue two-piece bikini and high heel Candies slides with a blue strap to match. Laura Fredricson was wearing a white one-piece bikini that did not leave much to the imagination and her 5-inch high heel white slides. Tanya Perlman was wearing a red flower-print two-piece bikini and heavy block-heel sandals. Britt Maxwell wore a black one-piece and high heel black pumps. Sally Wellman was wearing a white one-piece with some light green leaf pattern, and she was looking just as fine as any of the other lovely women there.

And then there was Teresa Croyle. O. M. G. She was wearing a beige one-piece and leather-strap Candies slides. Her body was absolutely magnificent, perfect hourglass figure with large natural breasts and a mouthwatering ass. It was all I could do not to get iron hard every time I saw her walk by.

Hugh Hewitt was wearing a near-thong, showing off his muscular body. I was not quite as revealing in my red swim trunks, and I wore my Tilley hat to keep the sun off my red head, but no shirt... and I caught people looking at the scarring on my left side where I had been shot weeks before. The Chief wore old-school swim trunks and a fishing hat with a bunch of hooks and flies in it, and an old fishing shirt. His wife had not come, as she was out of town visiting a relative. President Wellman had a remarkably fit body for his age, which he showed off with skimpy swim trunks. Fred Dixon didn't get the word: he was wearing short pants.

Paulina Patterson, Myron Milton, Lainie Evans, Captain Malone, Timothy Geiger and Gayle Tunnin had been invited but had not come. Paulina and her husband had another function to attend, and Myron and Lainie were flying to an I.T. conference in Orlando, Florida. I was supposed to go, but gave my slot to Lainie. Gayle Tunnin had volunteered to be on duty.

Officer Pete Feeley came in later in the afternoon, still wearing his duty uniform after we'd given him a shift in MCD for the day as a reward for his assistance in our "unofficial" activities.

The burgers and hot dogs that the Chief and I cooked on the grill were consumed, but it was the Chief's trout and catfish that had people declaring him the Town Champion of the grill. Drinks flowed freely all day, from hard lemonades to beer to, you got it, bourbon and Scotch. I noticed that Britt and Cindy talked a lot, but also noticed that Teresa and Melina talked for a long time together, their faces alternating between intensity and deep sadness. Something told me they were talking about the one thing they had in common: Jack Burke.

As darkness began to settle and the air got cooler, we all went inside, sitting in the basement room that led to the patio. Drinks were still being served and only Officer Feeley and Teresa Cunt did not partake of alcohol. Even the Chief was getting a buzz.

Finally, Cindy Ross could not take any more. "Okay, guys, it's long past time. I want to hear the story of how Don solved this case." Everyone else enthusiastically agreed and as the room grew quiet, I had the floor.

"First, let me tell what happened in chronological order, then how I resolved it." I began. I was sitting on the sofa, Laura on my right side and Lt. Maxwell on my left. Everyone else was on the other sofa, chairs, or standing.

"Joe Arruzio called his wife around 8:00pm and said he would be staying in the City. Marie immediately called Jack Burke and invited him to her condo, and he arrived shortly afterwards. At that same time, Arruzio's identical twin brother Johnny Arugula comes up to Arruzio's office. They both change clothes, Arugula into Joe's business suit and Joe into black clothing.

"Joe leaves right after that, no later than 8:05-8:10. At 8:30 Johnny Arugula makes a call on Joe's cellphone to Marie, which is not answered. Johnny then goes down to the bar at 8:30, spends nearly an hour buying a round for everyone and making sure he's seen and on camera at that time and for that duration. Johnny then gets a call around 9:30, from Joe on a burner phone. Joe has just killed Marie and Jack. So, guys... what happened next?"

Tanya Perlman replied, "They had to meet again, but I don't see how Joe went all the way back to the city and then back to Town."

"Yes, so how did that happen?" I asked. No one answered, and I sensed it was as much from wanting to hear my narrative as not figuring it out.

"Here's how." I continued. "Johnny leaves the bar and drives Joe's car west as Joe drives Johnny's car east. They meet halfway, likely at that Chevron gas station where the north turnoff is, change clothes again, then Joe drives his own car west to Town while Johnny drives his old car back to the City... with a lot of money in his pockets, I might add. Anyone at the Chevron station who saw a man in a suit and a man in dark clothes... didn't realize they'd changed clothes.

"Joe drives back to Town, 'finds' the bodies, calls the cops and starts drinking. Johnny, meanwhile, drives back to the City, goes to a bar and starts celebrating his good fortune. I'll get to that part later. Does everyone understand to this point?"

Everyone started talking at once, trying to ask questions, so I raised my hands, palms outward, to get them to slow back down.

"Okay, let me explain how I got to that." I said, "First, when I first got to the crime scene, I noticed two things. First, that no one had puked. Now I just don't see how anyone besides Tanya here..." I saw Tanya grin guiltily as I continued "...could have walked in on that scene, especially when it was his wife, and not gotten sick. Hell, I almost got sick. So that's not much, but I'm already wondering about Joe Arruzio's relationship with his wife, and how prepared he had been to 'discover' that scene.

"Then there was the missing shotgun shells. If this had been a pro hit, the killer would've left the shells, not bothered to find and retrieve them. On the flip side of the same coin, a pure amateur doing this would've fired and fled. Our killer did neither, but carefully retrieved the shells. I found this odd, and while Tanya and I had already discussed premeditation, this seemed to confirm it -AND- seemed to show that someone was trying to make things appear to be what they weren't... which is always a mistake in committing a crime.

"However... from the start Joe Arruzio had a story, an alibi. And it was a good one. But I later began seeing the tiniest of flaws in it: Joe's business meeting was cancelled, that was hardly a matter of celebration in a bar and buying a round. Our later investigations found nothing in business that went particularly well for Joe right at that time; in fact, quite the opposite. So why go to a bar, buy a round, and celebrate something? And why not go home immediately and celebrate with his wife?

"Of course, the answer is that he simply wanted to be seen and heard by a lot of people... and videotaped in a way to be obviously seen on the tape. In other words, he was

actively establishing

an alibi. So I had that in the back of my mind.

"And then came our first piece of good luck: Joe didn't count on Old Mrs. Boddiker seeing him.... or someone that looked a lot like him. He may have hoped that any neighbors seeing him from a distance would've been dismissed by the force of his alibi, that we'd think the witness must've been mistaken. But Mrs. Boddiker was close, and she had also heard the shots fired, though mistaking them as doors slamming.

"Hearing her story after hearing Arruzio's, I was presented with a contradiction, and by Natural Law contradictions cannot exist. As Ayn Rand wrote in her famous novel

Atlas Shrugged

, 'When you have a contradiction, check your premises. You will find one of them is wrong.'

"I began looking at other information. We had heresay evidence coming out that Marie Arruzio was intending to leave her husband, and that Jack Burke was her kept man; and we had Burke saying that he intended to settle down with a woman." I looked at Melina as I said that. "Now I don't know if Burke intended to stay with Marie, or if he'd just fleece her of her money, or if Marie was not the woman Burke intended to settle down with, but Marie certainly was preparing to get out of the marriage.

"And as we dug further, we found that Marie had a trust fund, which had been tapped into a few times. This was coincident to Joe having some financial issues, and also to some drug deals going down. I suspect that's how Joe financed his payback of the loans from his wife's account."

"But I thought he couldn't touch that money." the Chief said.

"True," I replied, "but I think he either got a corrupt judge to issue a Court order, or he forged the Court order. Likely the first two times was a judge and the last time he couldn't go to that well again, so he forged the documents needed.

"So I'm envisioning that Joe is having some financial problems just as he finds out his wife is starting to make preparations to leave him. And Marie would definitely find out about her trust fund being tapped into once the divorce got started. So we now have serious motive, even without the added fact that Marie was having an intense sexual relationship with Jack Burke."

"But when Jack Burke's affairs came out, you still didn't look at him... even with Arruzio's alibi?" Britt Maxwell asked.

"Ah yes, there's that alibi again. That

was

key. It had me wondering for a while, too. Of course I knew he'd established it on purpose, but how to break it?" I replied.

"But then I realized that it was the premise of the alibi itself, and not Old Mrs. Boddiker, that needed checking. I allowed myself to imagine a 'what if'...", I put my hands up and made quotations in the air as I said it.

"... as in'

what if Joe went a lot further in creating that alibi for himself

?' This is where most criminals trying to create alibis fuck up: something in their beautifully planned scheme goes off-kilter and the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

I have an old adage that '

Solving a case is a matter of knowing what the most important question is, and then answering it.

' In this case, the question was 'Just how did Joe Arruzio manage to be in two places at once?' Does that not immediately suggest that there are somehow two Joe Arruzio's out there? It certainly requires imagination to this point, but I was willing to consider it, and in so doing consider what Joe's solution to the problem might be.

"So by now, with the added good fortune of not having really heard the clutter about Jack's various relationships..." I said, feeling the tension in the room from Melina, and from Teresa as well, "... I had already just about concluded that Joe Arruzio was our prime suspect."

"So you

were

already thinking it was him, from the start?" Hugh Hewitt asked, though I had just thoroughly explained that.

"Pretty much, though I did consider that it might be someone else, such as the Olivets or one of the women on one of the DVDs -- or one of their husbands. Boy! would

that

have been a lot of work to have to go through interviews with all of them!

"But to that point... I ran into some real hard questions. How would any of them know where Jack was at that time? Why would they kill him -AND- Mrs. Arruzio, when they could've just killed him in his own apartment? How could they have set up a plan to kill him and then act on it so precisely? And once again, we have Mrs. Boddiker.

"So no... I had motive for Marie's murder and just needed to show the opportunity. I just did not see any evidence or anything else pointing to Burke being the intended victim of the crime, at least not yet.

"But Burke's involvement did cause me to ask myself if Joe Arruzio had set up his wife's liaison with Jack Burke. If, I surmised, Joe had planned this ahead of time, then it fit well that he'd called her to lead her into thinking he wasn't coming home that night. She took the bait and immediately called Jack." I looked at Britt and Hugh. "That's what struck me while we were in the car coming home from the city... the

first

cellphone call was the set-up."