The Dominatrix

By this time along in these stories, Stanley, the new Investigator has been employed and being trained alternatively between me and Victor. The first investigation I arranged to take Stan out on was almost his last. He wanted to know what to expect. I told him each investigation is different but this one was called in to us by the decedent’s friend. Per the friend, the woman who died owned a home in deplorable condition and it was filled with large rats that the decedent treated like pets even naming some. This freaked Stanley out and he thought he was being set-up. I told him we need to go to the property and do an investigation. This was a good opportunity for him to get his feet wet. He was very reluctant and was considering quitting. He said he did not know that’s what he signed up for. I told him if the place was that badly infested with rats, I wouldn’t be going in either but we had to go out there and check it out anyhow. As we approached the house from the street, the first thing I noticed was a rat sitting on the inside window sill. It wasn’t moving and was probably dead. The friend with the keys arrived and opened the door for us. None of us wanted to be the first to enter especially since it was very dark in there and no lights in working order. I grabbed my flashlight and slowly entered, stepping over a few more dead rats. I found a lamp that worked. I was surprised to see the house wasn’t as bad as we were told. Even Stanley came in.

On another investigation I took Stanley out on during his training, he made me laugh with an antic he pulled. We were in a tidy trailer belonging to an old woman who died a few days earlier in a hospital and not claimed by any family. As I was in the living room talking to the trailer park manager, Stan went to use the decedent’s bathroom. When he came out he was wearing the old ladies wig. I laughed but told him to remove it before any of the decedent”s friends saw him. It was on this same investigation that Stan screamed while looking in a drawer saying there was a human hand in there. It turned out to be a mannequin’s hand.

Stanley is a young, single, friendly and sometimes cocky guy. Everyone in the office warmed up to him except Malika. She’s still seething about the time Stanley and his two brothers almost trampled her in the hall back when he was coming in for his interview with Mr. C. Stanley didn’t care she treated him like he was invisible because he didn’t like her either. He sensed I was a little stand-offish towards him too, naturally, since he did get the position I was hoping for. He took me aside one time and told me “What was I supposed to do? Not take the job? We all know how these positions are filled.” He was right. I can’t blame him. I didn’t hold it against Malika when it happened before when she was hired and it wouldn’t be fair to hold it against him either.

Stan is the type to be eating cold spaghetti at his desk at 8:00 in the morning. He would walk around the office in his stocking feet always visiting with someone. Our office shares the floor with the County Auditors and Homeland Security. Stan would often be in those offices too in his stocking feet talking away to anyone who gave him the time of day. Often Ben would have to seek him out and tell him to get back to his own desk and get some work done, much to the relief of the person he was talking to.

Our office has a refrigerator in the stock room where some employees keep their lunches. Stan would sneak back there and eat whatever looked good to him without their permission. He would drink from other people’s milk and juice cartons too. He would always deny it was him.

Anyhow, It’s time Stanley did an investigation on his own. He was assigned a case Malika took in the day before. None of us knew it at the time but the decedent Stanley was assigned was a Dominatrix. When he went out to do his investigation, he was to meet a few friends of the decedent. According to Stan, the friends were a “butch dyke and her fem slave.” He said later how distracted he was by the butch one continuously disciplining her slave that was on a leash. Supposedly the decedent was in possession of the “master whip” that was now missing. Whomever is in possession of this particular whip is considered the “main” dominatrix, or the one with the power. Stanley and the friends looked for it but couldn’t find it amongst her things. The friends also mentioned to Stan that one of the posters on the wall depicting an S&M image was very valuable. He doubted it but made note of it anyway.

As it turned out, being a Dominatrix is very lucrative. She wound up having enough in assets for us to “open an estate” on her. In doing so our goods and chattels appraiser, Trixie, was sent out to appraise the contents of the dominatrix’s apartment/dungeon. When Trixie arrived, she thought we were playing a sick joke on her. She wasn’t sure how to appraise all the sex toys, chains, whips and paraphernalia. She muddled through it somehow and after doing a little research on that S&M poster, was surprised that it actually did have great value to it.

The dominatrix’s customers were usually professional men, one of whom was a prominent lawyer. This lawyer would call Stanley and threaten him with a lawsuit if that missing whip didn’t materialize because the S&M group suspected him of taking it.

“What am I going to do with a fucking whip?” Stan would groan. “Why would I take it.”

But the lawyer and his friends would not believe Stan. They persisted with their calls and threats. Stanley started freaking out and having nightmares worrying about the whole slew of those involved coming after him. If anyone should have threatened a lawsuit, it should have been Stanley against that lawyer. He told me he almost quit over that stressful investigation.

The dominatrix case reminded me of a similar one I handled. According to the police report given to me, it involved a gay man stabbed to death in his apartment. I went to the decedent’s apartment to do an investigation. As I was going through his papers, I came across an old contract the decedent had between himself and another man titled “Recognition and Acceptance of Voluntary Servitude.” Naturally I wanted to read it. The content was for a specific duration of time only. In it the rules were as follows; the slave is to sleep on the floor, address the Master at all times as Sir, when the Master enters the premises the slave is to kiss his feet, the slave is to remain naked at all times and it continues for several more pages of what is expected from him. The decedent also kept copies of letters he sent to friends instructing them on how to address the Master if he answers the phone when they called. The decedent told them to explain that they are friends of the slave and may they please speak with him. “Do not be afraid to speak to him but call him Sir at all times.”