It’s raining. Not a nice spring shower either. It’s one of those nasty February jobs. You wouldn’t know it, but it’s two in the afternoon. The sky is dark enough for it to be closer to seven. There’s a half empty bottle of bourbon on the floor by the sofa, funny, I thought I’d finished that. I’m Sam. I’m a detective, or rather, I would be if someone would hurry up and hire me. Oh well, maybe a walk in the rain will help clear up this nagging headache.
That’s when she walks in. I’m putting on my coat when I hear the handle turn on the door. “Scram Louie, when I need your janitorial services, I’ll call you.” I almost fall out of my fedora when I hear a feminine voice respond.
“I don’t know this Louie person, but I can use your services mister.” I wheel around and come face to face a dame who looks too good to be true, and probably is. She’s gorgeous though, I’ll give her that. Average height, long blond hair in curls down her back, and striking blue eyes. She’s dressed to kill too, I wonder who. A subtly expensive pantsuit, well cut, showing just enough curves to make you beg for more.
“Well? How ’bout it sir? Care to take a job?” As if she needs to ask, the answer is evident in the obvious state of disrepair my office is in.
“Maybe, who wants to know?” I figure I’ll play it cool, no sense getting to eager.
“My name is Faye, I need you to solve a murder.” Well now, gets right to the point doesn’t she? Okay then, she wants me, she can have me, but on my terms.
“Okay doll, first of all, I charge a flat rate of $200 a day, plus expenses. And I don’t carry life insurance so don’t expect me to run around looking to get killed.”
“You have a succinct way of putting things Mr…”
“Haines, Sam Haines, at your service mademoiselle.” I do a bow to match my sarcastic response. Somehow I don’t think she’s impressed.
“Well Mr Haines, I will pay your fee, plus a bonus if you’re efficient.” I knew it, I knew as soon, as she walked in the door. This dame is loaded. I should have set a higher rate.
“Okay toots, lets hear all the gory details then. From the beginning.” This ought to be a good one.
“It all started two days ago. I’m employed at the Guardian news paper on 42nd street. My manager, Gil Graham, was hitting on me as usual. No matter how many times I told him to stop, he never did. That’s beside th point though. My steady boyfriend, Lex, worked downstairs. He’s… was… a mechanic fixing the presses. I brought him his coffee as usual, black, just the way he liked it. Don’t know why he drank it though. He was an insomniac, took two extra strength sleeping pills an hour to knock him out. Not to mention the coffee has been crap since Gil fired the secretary and started making the coffe himself.
Any way Lex was going up to visit his mother that weekend, so I kissed him good bye, and went back to my office to collect my things. Things went normally after that, until about six pm, I got a phone call. Lex had crashed his car, right through the barrier on Prospect Hill, ended up on his top in the gorge. I was terrified, I couldn’t get my mind around it. When I finally came to my senses, I came here”
I take a deep breath. Hoo boy.
“Look… Faye is it?… Your boyfriend had an accident, went off the road. It’s a terrible tragedy, but it ain’t murder”
“You don’t understand, he used to drive a car in races every Sunday. There’s no way he could have simply lost control. No one is a better driver than Lex.” She pulls a tissue from her purse, and dabs her eyes. “you have to believe me Sam. I just know he was murdered.”
Call me a sucker for a cute face, call me what ever you want, I fell for it. I agree to take the case, and make a few inquiries.
“Okay, you got it. Gimme a few days, I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“I’ll drop by again tomorrow.” With that, she stood up, and walked silently out the door, her hair blown back slightly.
Okay, where to start? Well, the guy’s dead right? May as well check the morgue. It’s only a five minute walk from my office anyway.
The grey stone of the morgue steps looks almost as dead as the people inside. And I don’t mean the cadavers. There’s something about a place like this that just drains men of their humanity. I wonder what it could be?
“Hey Max, I’m looking for a corpse”
“Well Sam, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got a lovely brunette in freezer 12, she’s just about your type.” Max is a friend, from the old days. I went to school with him, he wanted to be a doctor. Seems he has trouble finding living people who are willing to go under his knife.
“Funny, very funny. I’m looking for man named Lex. I’m on the job.”
“Lex? Oh yeah, car crash? Sure, over here” Max walks over to a bank of freezer units, and inspects the tags like a connoisseur inspects wine labels. “Here we go. Pretty basic if you ask me, went off the road, down cliff. Bet you that ruined his entire day.”
Max rolled out the slab and I make ready to greet Lex, newly deceased. He’s about 6 feet, well built, with brownish hair. Oddly enough, he also has a large discoloration on his chest.
“What’s that Max? Doesn’t look like a bruise. A burn maybe?”
“Yep, not a very bad one either. Probably oil, or some other hot fluid from the engine. Corresponds to a stain on his shirt” Max pulls out a bag of personal effects. Including a white shirt, now battered and torn, with a large brown stain on the chest. I’d seen stains like this before, but where?
“May I?” I take the shirt from Max as the phone rings. He walks across the room, and I notice something. Some pebbles, probably from the fall down the embankment, slip from the shirts breast pocket. One catches my eye. It’s white, with some colouring on one side. Strangely familiar. I hear Max hang up the phone, I slip the stone in my pocket, I don’t know why, maybe I just like rocks.
“Find anything Sam?”
“Nah, nothing. Thanks for the help pal.” I walk out the front door. Man this hangover is killing me. I need coffee. I head back to the office for a cup of joe.
I’m sitting at my desk, pondering the case at hand. A cup of steaming coffee is on the table in front of me. Maybe it’s the hangover, maybe I’m just unbalanced, I fall off my chair. Stupid thing to do really, I end up with hot coffee all over me. Burns like sin too. To top it off, my favourite, and only, mug is in thousand pieces on the floor. Damn
I pick my self up and walk to the bathroom. I stand in the mirror and look at my self. As I unbutton my shirt it hits me. My chest has been burned, not badly, but noticeably. A large discolouration matching the newly minted stain on my good shirt. THAT’S IT!
I rush to the phone and make a few phone calls. It’s late, I’ll check on the results of my calls in the morning.
I wake up to the phone ringing. Who would call at such an ungodly hour? I look at my watch and realize it’s noon. Damn. I pick up the phone to hear a friend of mine at the station tell me my tip paid off. It seems I’ve got my man.
It’s raining out side. Not a spring shower either. There’s an empty bourbon bottle on the floor next to the sofa, funny, I forgot I finished that. The door creaks open and I turn to yell at Louie the janitor. I almost fall out of my fedora to see her standing there. She’s beautiful, and she’s holding a bottle of whiskey.
“Hello Sam, I just came by to say thank you. You did a marvelous job.” She closes the door, and sets the bottle on the desk.
“Hello darling, what’s the booze for?” This is too good to be true. I had better play it cool.
“Thats your bonus” Damn, it was too good to be true. “But tell me Sam, how did you figure it out? How did you know it was Gil?”
“Simple. Prospect Hill is an hour from the Guardian office, you said it took two pills an hour to knock Lex out.” I’m relishing this now, Sherlock Holmes eat your heart out. “I figured he must have taken the pills as he left, but he would have known better than to administer them hemself. The burn on Lex’s chest was from hot coffee, not oil. So the pills were in the coffee, he was drinking it when he left, and spilled it during the crash.”
“My coffee? Oh god” I pull her tight to comfort her.
“It couldn’t have been you though, no motive, so who? Who could have wanted Lex out of the way, and who had access to his coffe? Gil. He was hitting on you. With Lex gone, he could have had you on the rebound.” I’m proud of myself. Not just anyone could have figured that out.
“I see, it all makes sense now” She moves closer
“Well, my dear, it was elementary really” I look deep into those blue eyes. “You’re beautiful, you know that”
“How long did it take to deduce that one?” Her lips meet mine. I was wrong. It wasn’t too good to be true.