For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series by Albert Simon Page B

“Play” button. The
screen flickered to life and the images that Henry saw made him
bolt from the room, he barely made it to the small bathroom where
he threw up in the toilet.

    After emptying the contents
of his stomach, he realized he was still holding the remote
control. He walked back into the office where the images were still
playing on the fancy screen. He pushed the stop button and
thankfully the screen darkened. Examining some of the titles of the
tapes and DVD’s he realized that Rex Thornbird, mid-century
specialist, top producing real estate agent in the Coachella Valley
had a dirty little secret. Thornbird was a pedophile who liked high
school aged boys.

    Several hours later Henry
walked back into his kitchen carrying the manila folder that Rosie
had given him and the Chinese food that he picked up at Lam’s
Garden on the way home. There was another note from Charles on the
refrigerator that he was going to be late at the Palm Springs AIDS
hospice where he volunteered once a week.

    He put the folder on the
dining room table while he grabbed a plate from the cupboard. He
emptied the Chinese take out from the little white containers onto
the plate and sat down at the dining room table and pulled the
folder towards him. Rosie had arranged Thornbird’s past deals in
reverse chronological order with the Albert Frey architected hotel
on Racquet Club Drive on top. The list included the original
description that the listing service had on the property, the sales
price as well as the names of the buyers and sellers. He looked
through the list while he ate his dinner.

    When he finished his plate,
Henry went to his office and called Wayne Johnson on his cell
phone. “Duke, it’s Henry, can you talk?” “Yeah Hank, I’m on my way
home. What’s up?” “Did you know about Thornbird’s little fetish, is
that why none of your guys wanted to work on this case?”

    “ Hank, I heard a rumor, and
yeah, nobody on the staff wanted this assignment, there are a lot
of cops who are secretly glad that he is dead.” “I found his
collection of videos.” Henry said. There was silence on the other
end of the phone. “Wayne, I said I found his perverted collection,
the man was disgusting, we need to have that crap
destroyed.”

    “ I… I… I’m really sorry
Henry. I didn’t know about that we searched the house but didn’t
find anything. Like I said, I heard rumors, but I had no idea that
he had a collection of stuff.” Wayne sounded very apologetic. “I
believe you Duke.” “Hank, I’d have never asked you to get involved
if I had known to what extent Thornbird was into this shit. Do you
want to quit?”

    This time Henry was quiet.
“Henry?” Wayne used Henry’s proper name to get his attention.
“Yeah, I’m here, no, I’ll continue looking into it. I’d like to
nail whoever he got this stuff from as well.”
    “ You’ll have plenty of help
from my department doing that. Let me know what you find out. Are
you mad at me?” “No, Duke, no, I’m not mad at you. You didn’t know,
right?” “I didn’t know, honestly. I’ll get a crew up to his house
to impound everything. Where is it?” “It’s in his office; I left
the picture it was hidden behind raised up so that you can impound
it.” “Allright Hank, I’ll get a crew over there in the morning. I’m
really sorry you had to find it, but I’m glad you did.”

    “ Ok Duke. I’ll talk with you
later.” Henry hung up the phone. He had to get back to
investigating who might have killed Thornbird, he wondered if the
discovery of Thornbird’s illegal activities might have motivated
the murder. It didn’t seem that way. Thornbird had kept his desires
well concealed. He decided to continue following the real estate
trail, at least for now.

    Henry picked up a yellow
legal pad and pencil and went back to the kitchen table, opened his
fortune cookie while he made his own list of all the properties
with celebrity connections, and the names