This is part of a multi-chapter story and not a stand alone story; you are recommended to start reading from the first chapter.
Author's notes.
This story is quite light on the sex part and definitely not meant as stroker/written porn. Don't expect many explicit sex scenes. It is about recollections of sexual activity rather than about having sex directly.
Synopsis
A young, pretty woman is found lying unconscious on the road, naked. She is taken to hospital, where a check-up reveals she's had sex with no less than five different men.
Oswald Jones, detective, is in charge of the investigation in this strange case. Together with his colleague Julia, a police counsellor, and his friend Thelma, a news paper journalist, he tries to figure out what has happened to this lady.
During the investigation they find out that this lady is not alone in her ordeal. Oswald and his friends dig in deeper and deeper, to uncover it all.
* * * * * *
Chapter 3. An abandoned hotel
The next morning, Wednesday, the records from the phone company came in. It was the third day of the investigation, and with no solid evidence whatsoever I was really hoping to make some progress now. Phone records were usually invaluable sources of information.
The number was an anonymous prepaid number that had been in use for less than a month. No calls were made to that number other than the call Ms Locatelli made, and it had not been used at all for making any outgoing calls. This was unexpected, as there certainly had been more people at the party - at least five males based on the medical results, and many more based on Ms Locatelli's recollection and what we learned from the car park's CCTV footage. Furthermore, according to Thelma's investigations, there probably have been more such parties. It seems that he bought this number exclusively for communication with Ms Locatelli.
The anonymous prepaid number was bought in cash from a local supermarket a few weeks before it was activated. Another dead end, no-one at the supermarket was likely to remember a routine purchase of some two months ago and their CCTV video recordings were kept for only three weeks. This person had really gone to great lengths to protect his anonymity. The only thing it indicated was that this Sonar was likely to be a local guy.
More interesting was the location data that came with the records. Phone companies always know where a phone is, using the radio signals sent between the towers and the handset. I checked the coordinates on Google Maps, and found out that the single incoming call had been received in the vicinity of an abandoned building, the former Hotel Aralla, about two kilometres from the car park at Canterbury Road. I happened to know the place. The hotel closed down several decades ago after which it had been used by some religious group for retreats, but for the past thirty-odd years it had been abandoned and had fallen into ruin. Could it be the location of these parties?
I quickly did some Internet searches on the old Hotel Aralla. All I found were stories about its history and photos and stories of curious people visiting the ruins. It was really not more than a ruin now, covered by vegetation. Part of the roof was gone, some walls had collapsed. It didn't exactly look like a place where it would even be remotely possible to host a party like the one we were investigating.
Town records on ownership of the site were unclear, as the registered owner of the site was the company that originally operated the hotel. And that company was formally wound up more than two decades ago. With no-one in charge of the site, it was left idle.
Just when I was done with my preliminary investigations on Hotel Aralla, Cart called me about the CCTV footage he had analysed.
"We found her, finally," he reported.
"Great job."
"Almost at the end of our tapes of course - my people are so glad they're done with it."
"Of course, it's always like that. So what's the result?"
"About half an hour before she was found in the street, she left the car park building via a rarely used rear exit, leading via a staircase down to the street. She was naked."
"That's not what I would have suspected but very good to know. So now we know that the party was almost certainly somewhere in the car park or the adjacent mall, and we have an idea on when it ended. That's also around the same time you saw all those cars leaving, right?"
"Exactly. And I'm about to set off to this mall, to have a discreet closer look at the situation there, to see if there are any rooms where such a party could be held. We only saw her that one time, so it must have been within the car park. We saw no other people pass through any of the exits around that time, just her leaving on foot and those thirty-three cars leaving in short succession around that time."
"A car park is not the most likely venue for a party, but still better than Hotel Aralla."
"What do you mean?"
I explained to Cart that phone records point at that location.
"No way all those people left the car park building for an outside party," he said. "We did not see any large vehicles go in or out, just those thirty-three cars leaving early morning, none coming in. That suggests at least thirty-three people involved, maybe more if some shared a car."
That was interesting, and contradictory. There must be something about this Hotel Aralla, maybe it's Sonar's hideout? His drug lab? Now that'd be a find. I really had to go and visit that place for a closer look.
Over lunch, I updated with Julia on this case. I told her what I discovered on Ms Locatelli's Facebook account, that she had had contact with Sonar, the apparent organiser of these parties, and what Cart had found in the CCTV footage.
Julia told me Ms Locatelli was back home, as she had been discharged from hospital the previous afternoon, and that she had visited her at her home for another interview.
"New memories?" I asked
"Yes. Nothing much for us to work with I'm afraid, even though it is more information about the party. No names, no locations, nothing identifiable. However it seems she really wants someone to talk to, and I've apparently gained her trust."
"She needs someone to share her story, you mean?"
"Indeed," Julia replied, passing me a USB stick. "Here's the recording. Please treat it with care, I've promised her confidentiality. It's embarrassing, and not lunchtime chat material. In most companies it would be considered NSFW, not safe for work."
"Interesting."
"It is. First of all, her recollection was of what seems to be events of the later part of the party, but the link between that and her being on the street naked is missing, as is any information on what happened there earlier. Big gaps remain. Ms Locatelli apparently was involved in an all-out orgy. Something she couldn't understand doing. Apparently there were some thirty people at the party. More men than women."
"We saw thirty-three cars leave the building, plus hers, making thirty-four in all. The departures took nearly a half an hour so may very well have included some early commuters." I took the stick, and put it in my pocket. I pondered for a moment, then asked, "Do you think she's being truthful with you?"
"I think so. If we hadn't found her like we did I'd have considered it pure fantasy, though. But we have the physical evidence. She estimated some thirty people at the party, you saw thirty-three cars leave. That is a rather close match. Her overall body language also makes me believe she's not making it up. And she's pretty consistent in her stories.
"The only alternative explanation I can think of is that she's masking some embarrassing mistake of hers, where she knowingly joined an orgy and somehow managed to pass out on the street afterwards."
"It is the stuff of fantasies, indeed," I agreed. "She also wouldn't have believed it happened for real, if she had made it back to her home."
