Excerpt
September 2011
The paint wasn’t dry on the walls before we started moving
in.
“Ya know, Boss,” John said, “we should have bought new
office furniture. That would give the place a touch o’ class. This old stuff, I
don’t know. Clients judge you by the appearance of your office.”
No one will ever accuse former Detective John Gallagher of
being financially savvy. And his wife is no better. They had living beyond
their means down to a science—spending money like Crockett and Bowie the night
before the Alamo fell.
I finished rubbing dark scratch remover into a scar on top
of the old solid oak desk. “First thing, John, stop calling me boss. We’re
partners in this cockamamie private detective business. I have a first name.
Please use it.”
“Okay, B…uh, Sam. But you know how it is, old habits are
hard to break.”
“Let’s put those words to music and get Bobby Vinton to sing
it. The song should be more successful than we’ll ever be.” I shook my head. “I
don’t know why I let you talk me into this private cop venture.”
John looked shocked that I’d question the sanity of his
goofy scheme.
“It was a good idea,” he said. “According to Lonnie Ray,
we’ll make lots of money.”
“And we agreed to give Lonnie Ray Wilson seventy-five bucks
for every hour he spends with us working on his computer, hacking into places
where we shouldn’t be. You think he’s got a vested interest in suggesting we
start this business?”
“Boss, you’re the voice of doom.”
I grunted and finished buffing the top of the old desk as I
sneered at Gallagher. “There, see? These things have character. Between the
Salvation Army and Goodwill, I bought four desks and eight chairs. After I
tipped the kids who work there for helping me load this stuff into my truck,
the whole shooting match cost us $320.00. You can’t get a bottom-of-the-line
new desk for that—and it would be made from some kind of poisonous Chinese
flake board that would give us cancer. Who needs new furniture? These may not
be genuine antiques, but they have a special kind of class. They give the place
sort of a…hardboiled, Philip Marlowe look. Vintage. Like us.”
John didn’t have a chance to comment when Bettye Lambert walked
into the outer office.
“Good mornin’, gentlemen. How’s the new business goin’?”
“Well,” I said, “you’re looking good. The new job suits
you.”
John jumped in with a compliment of his own. “Yeah, Sarge,
uh, Sheriff, that outfit is way nicer than your old Prospect PD uniform.”
For the five years I’d known Bettye, during our time
together at Prospect PD, I often thought of her as the loveliest desk sergeant
on the planet. Now she’s the most beautiful sheriff. Her silky black blouse
clung to her figure like one of the gowns worn by the Muses and Graces living
above the clouds on Mount Olympus. Her straight beige skirt showed only an inch
of knee and couldn’t have been more appropriate for a newly appointed female
sheriff.
John, on the other hand, looked like a slightly larger than
usual leprechaun whose tie was always too short. Or were his pants always too
low?
“Thank you both,” she said. “I won’t lie and say I wasn’t
overwhelmed when I started this new job, but so far, so good. I’m gettin’ to
like it.”
John smiled.
I said, “Good.”
“But listen,” she said. “I came to see you guys and ask how
you like bein’ private eyes?”
I let Bogie answer, “Private investigators, doll-face. Save
that private eye malarkey for guys like Boston Blackie. We’re high class like Marlowe
and Spade. We get twenty-five smackers a day plus expenses. And I love it when
a dame like you visits the office.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Bogart. Have you been busy?”
“Honest answer?” John said. “I did one case—followed a
cheating husband and his girlfriend to a sleazy motel. Not exactly the French
Connection.”
Bettye smiled before asking a question, the answer to which
would change our lives for the next couple of weeks. “How would you like to
work for me? I’m ready to put you two on the payroll and let you use those
Special Investigator badges I gave you when I became the official interim
sheriff of Blount County.”
John jumped in promptly. “Yes, ma’am. I could use the
money.”
I played hard-to-get. “What’s it all about, sweetheart? Come
on. Spill the beans. I’m no sap. What am I gettin’ involved in for my
twenty-five bucks?”
“Will you stop with that 1940’s act?”
“If I must.”
“Good. This should be right up your alley. And you get a lot
more than twenty-five dollars a day.”
She took a moment to reactivate a smile I took in with my
eyes but felt all the way down to my shoes. I have problems leaving my
hardboiled gumshoe character behind.
“Stanley got a missin’ person case in Prospect that he
passed off to us because he’s goin’ to be in Los Angeles for at least three
weeks,” she said. “His grandmother died. His family would like help handlin’
her affairs, and Prospect PD is shorthanded now that we all left. I’m low on
personnel, too, what with vacations still goin’ strong and a couple of
complicated cases that are keepin’ CID busy.”
“I like missing persons cases,” John said. “The Boss does,
too.”
“John, I’ve asked you to stop calling me that. But you’re
right. I like MP cases. Always have.”
“Ya know, Sheriff, the Boss, uh, Sam, worked missing persons
cases when he first got to be a detective back in New York. He started out in
Juvenile but didn’t last long there.” John lowered his voice and looked around
as if he was afraid some nonexistent person might hear him. “He told me MP
cases were easy because you didn’t have to worry about Miranda or any of that
stuff. He’d dangle someone out a window or hang them off a pier to get
information about the missing kid.”
Bettye looked at me as if she just learned I enjoyed pulling
the wings off dragonflies. “Sam Jenkins, I will not allow you to dangle or hang
or otherwise physically abuse some witness while you’re investigatin’ for me.
Is that clear?”
“Yikes,” I said. “Has she gotten tough or what? John,
there’s no doubt who’s the new boss in town.”
“Oh, stop,” she said.
“Okay. When are you going to tell me about the case? I need
to know a few things before we jump into this.”
Bettye smiled. “I’ll tell you all about it if you take me to
lunch.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got an expense account, don’t you?”
“Matter of fact, I do.”
“Wow, a pretty woman with an expense account. I’d marry you
if your father owned a liquor store. Let’s go someplace pricey.”
“Yeah, Sheriff, I mean, Boss,” John said, “I can call you
that, right?”
“Of course you can, John,” Bettye said.
He finished with, “Where we going?”
“Not we, John,” I said. “You have to write up your keyhole
peeping case for the offended woman, and then you’ve got those four boxes of
crap you want to hang on the walls to deal with. I’m gonna take my blonde lady
friend here and buy her a glass of cheap white wine before she picks up the tab
for our expensive lunch. I’ll come back and tell you why she wants to hire us.”
