By Larry and Rosemary Mild

I’ve been known to wake up in some pretty strange places, mind you. Anyplace would be better than the Castro Convertible in my office—well, almost anyplace. Some dame’s boudoir would’ve been nice. A sluggish brain compels me to make sense of the immediate swirling  world. One eye slowly focuses and then the other. I discover apartment brick walls on three sides, and the forth—way off in the distance, a narrow opening onto a street. A cab passes quickly, an old man strolls by, and a drunk ducks in, relieves himself, and vanishes once more. The back of my head is screaming, my voice is drowning in cotton, and the rest of me aches. Something else smells.

I roll to one side and manage to sit upright. Then I realize it‘s the stench of alcohol, and it’s coming from me—all over the front of my cardigan. I don’t drink any more because my heart doc says that’s a no-no. Someone has worked me over pretty good, then poured the juice down my front. My wallet and watch are gone. If this is supposed to be a mugging, the booze doesn’t figure. I brush the alley dirt from my slacks and try to stand up, holding on to the nearest brick wall with one hand and a wooden crate with the other. The woozies return and I stumble into a GI can. After a few minutes the ground under me finally comes into balance, where I can stand on my own.

In case you’re thinking I’m some kind of Skid Row denizen, you’ve got it all wrong. My name is Slim O. Wittz, and I’m a shamus, a private eye. Investigations neat, complete and discreet, as my business card says.
I bend down to pick up my hat. It was a nice Bogie-type fedora this morning; now it’s been flattened by a freakin’ footprint. Not three feet away, I spot a woman’s spiked-heel patent leather pump. What’s odd is that it looks new, not what you‘d expect in dumpsterville. As I bend down again to get a better look, I see a second shoe—this one with a foot still in it, plus a well-shaped leg. Now I’m getting creeped out.

Dragging myself around the wooden crate, I discover this broad lying curled in a tight fetal position in the shadows facing the wall. With the back of my hand I try to turn her head toward me, but the body is so wedged against the bricks I can’t move it. All I can do is  kneel and grab her wrist. No pulse.

No wonder. There’s a hole in the back of her brunette head the size of Delaware, though there ain’t enough blood to fill a shot glass. Which means she was murdered somewhere else and unloaded in the alley. The lady looks to be thirtyish, slender body, and I have a bad feeling it may be a former client of mine. Her black silk suit, plus the nice shoes—the clothes spell money. No jewelry, and her outfit‘s not torn or roughed up at all. I’m thinking robbery, not rape. I’m about to straighten up when my sore knee hits a thick hard object. I grab hold of it. What the hell? I pull my hand back. It’s a gun, a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver—better known as a mail-order Saturday night special.

Now I’m smelling something else and it ain’t booze. Getting mugged was no random act. I’ve been set up.
I’ll lay ya five-to-one odds that piece has my prints all over it. As a licensed private eye, my prints are on file. My reputation is at stake here and I’m in a dilemma, big time . If I leave the gun for the police, I become the numero uno chump for this dame’s demise. If  I wipe the piece clean, I’ll be destroying the perp’s prints, and the most valuable piece of evidence is lost forever. I figure I gotta be more resourceful, so I dig around in the GI can and come up with just the things I need. I use a derelict ice cream paddle to push the gun onto last Tuesday’s sport page and wrap the .38 and the paddle up in one tight package. I cram the bundle into my cardigan pocket and stagger down the long, narrow alley to the street.

The streetlamp’s glare hurts my eyes, but at least I recognize where I am. I wish I could remember how I got here, though. It’s at least fifteen blocks to my office. I must have driven, but my ‘93 Buick Regal ain’t anywhere to be seen—so maybe not. I dig deep into my pockets and come up with a quarter, two dimes, a buffalo nickel, a cough drop, and three Lincoln pennies—not enough for a bus, let alone a cab. It’s well past sunset, which means my secretary has left for her night school law classes. I drag myself one more block and I’m certain there ain’t another ten aching steps left  in my legs.

I spot a phone booth and my lips part in irony—there’s only one person I can call at this hour, my ex-brother-in-law, Elmer. When Fawn and I divorced, she got the furniture and I got Elmer.

Maybe you’re wondering why I don’t call the police to tell ’em about the body. Because if they find me here, in my present condition they won’t believe a word outta my mouth. Can’t say I’d blame them; I wouldn’t believe me either. And of course there’s the gun thing.

Which leaves Elmer. He’s always trying  to sell me something I don’t want or need. When I do get sucked in, I usually wind up with one of his “I can get it for you cheaper” bargains. Like the secure, five-drawer filing cabinet that came with a chubby screwdriver jammed into the lock and the middle drawer stuck in the out position.

I squeeze into the phone booth and look for the phone book. Of course there isn’t one. That would be too easy. I need Elmer’s number, so I drop my lone quarter in the slot, punch in four-one-one and wait. A choppy feminine computerized voice answers, “May I help you? What number do you want?”

“Elmer Petrious on Maple Street, please.” I spell out the last name.

“There’s no listing for Elmer Petrious on Maple Street, sir, but we do have an Ellen Patriot on Maple Street.”

“Try Effie Petrious.” I’m thinking it may be listed in Elmer’s wife’s name.

“There’s no listing for an Effie Petrious either, but we do have an Effie Parsons on Elm Street. Are you sure of the street or the spelling, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m certain of both. Try looking again.”

“Well, there’s an Eddie Petrie on Blare Place, a Matilda Petrie on Second Avenue, and a Mrs. Louis Peonea on Fleet Street.”

“Cut that out. You’re not helping. I want my quarter back.”

“Sir, I don’t like your tone. And you can’t have it back. You’ve completed this call.”

“Let me talk to your supervisor, ma’am.”

“I’m not a ma’am, sir. A computer is what I am, and we don’t have supervisors.”

“Well, somebody has to be in charge.”

 “That would be the data base manager, sir.”

“Let me talk with him, then.” Elevator music suddenly fills the receiver, so loud I have to hold it away from my ear. I wait at least four minutes before a human voice answers.

“Sorry for the delay. How may I help you?” It’s a masculine voice, a real one this time.

I explain my problem in detail, and he does a search and comes up with the only Petrious listed. Bingo! It’s my ex-mother-in-law. So I ask to be connected, and he tells me I have to make another call. I memorize the number and hang up. I put in the two dimes and a nickel and punch in the number. This leaves me with three pennies and a cough drop. I can hear the ringing in the background and then “Hello.”

“Hi, Mom, it’s me, Slim. I’m stuck on the other side of town without any cash. I tried to call Elmer, but his number ain’t listed.”

“Oh, Slim, Elmer’s is unlisted. You know how he is. Creditors are always dunning him.”     “Mom, can you call him and have him pick me up on the corner of Twenty-third and Main?”

She cares about me and wants to know all the bloody details.

“Mom, I’d love to chat, but I hurt all over and need to get to bed. Ask Elmer to hurry, please!” 

“You poor dear. Of course.”

Mom’s a sweetheart. I shoulda married her instead of her daughter. If she’d been fifteen years younger I woulda. Fawn and I split three years ago for lack of interest and warlike incompatibilities.

Rush hour is long past and there’s hardly any traffic. Every set of  headlights gets my hopes up. After what seems like an hour, a small single light approaches. It veers across the road in a U-turn, then stops at the curb. I see it’s one of those Cushman motor scooters with Elmer seated atop of it. He’s got a grin as wide as a dinner plate.

“Hi, Slim. I got here as soon as soon as I could. My Chevy’s in the shop, so I took Effie’s wheels. C’mon, climb aboard.”

“Where do I sit on this damn thing?”

He shimmies forward on the longish seat, and I mount the seat behind him. After bouncing my sore bones across town, Elmer drops me off at my office. I climb the stairs to the second floor, unlock the door and shed the cardigan, gun and shoes in the middle of the floor. Next I head for the dreaded Castro Convertible. It wasn‘t so bad when I bought it, but now it’s feels like a combo of rocks and corrugated cardboard. Never mind. I lie down, kick off my shoes and stretch. If you ask what’s next, I can’t tell you—I’m totally out of it.

*  *  * 

Garish sunlight penetrates my eyelids and tortures me awake just in time to hear the office door swing open. Vo plops the morning paper and a purse the size of a small Jeep on top of her desk. Yeah, I said Vo, not Vi. It’s short for Voluptuous. Her folks needn’t have worried whether she’d fulfill that expectation; the babe’s got all them pinup attributes and then some. Platinum pageboy, cinched-in waist, luscious meaty gams. Vo stops in the middle of the floor and attempts to pick up my cardigan, where I dropped it last night, but the piece weighs it down. She removes the package from the sweater pocket and feels through the newspaper wrapping.

“Whoa, there, Slim, are you packing heat now?” she asks as her fingers start to unravel the gun.

“Don’t touch it,” I yell as I fly off the couch and my feet hit the floor. “It might be evidence.” All the aches and pains from the night before return like a barreling freight train.

She shoots me a confused look and lays the partially wrapped package on my desk. “Either it’s evidence or it’s not. Which is it, Slim?”

“If the prints on the piece are mine, it’s a frame-up, not evidence,” I tell her. “If the prints belong to someone else, it’s evidence. Does that make sense?” When she arches one penciled eyebrow, I can tell it doesn’t, so I give her the lowdown on my waking up in the alley behind an apartment house. She begins shaking her head the minute I start, so I say, “What?”

“You can get into big trouble with the law, withholding evidence like this.” It’s Vo’s second-year law school scolding me now. She can’t type worth a damn but she’s honing her legal pronouncements pretty darned well.  

Flashing scarlet lacquered nails, she spreads open the newspaper wrapper on my desk. Then she opens her purse and removes a rhinestone-covered compact. Using the powder puff inside, she dusts the grip, trigger, guard and barrel. The only prints that show up are one clear thumbprint on the smooth left side of the grip and a bunch of partial digit prints below it. We both agree that it’s a right-handed shooter. The bad news is that when Vo presses my thumb down on the desktop glass and dusts the spot, the thumbprints match. The good news is I’m a lefty. Someone—I have no idea who—is setting me up for the murder.

I confess to Vo: “I can’t even remember how I got to the alley or why I went to that neighborhood in the first place. Did I take the Buick?”

Vo snaps her compact shut. “You left here saying you were taking the bus—going to warn Bugs Foggle’s wife that he was released from prison yesterday. Apparently, Bugs is looking to get even with Betty for her testimony leading to his incarceration. He got early parole after ten years’ good behavior.”

I stroke my prickly chin, badly in need of a shave. Nice of Vo to ignore it. “Yeah,” I said, “I remember knocking on Betty’s door, then nothing. I woke up in the alley with this.” I gently pat the knot on my head. It’s bigger than a Ping Pong ball.

Vo has more important things on her mind than my wound. “Well, Slim, how do you propose to get this gun to the police?”

“Do we have to?” I ask. She gives me the stink eye, and I reluctantly agree. “How about we mail it—anonymously?”

“But it has your fingerprints on it, Slim, and powder traces from my puff. They’ll nail you for evidence tampering if not for the murder itself.”

“Powder traces! That’s it, gal.”

“That’s what?”

“We wipe the gun clean with an oil rag. Then I bring the gun in myself and volunteer for a gun powder residue test.”

“But that’s evidence tampering too, Slim. You just can’t do that.”

“I didn’t kill anybody—let alone Betty Foggle, if it is Betty, so it’s not real evidence anyway.”

“What makes you think the body is hers?”

“I don’t know for sure. I couldn‘t see her face, and it’s been years since I did a little gumshoeing for her. Where’s that morning paper you brought in?”

Vo rushes over to her desk and begins flipping through the pages. “Here it is, on page four under Police Beat. They found an unidentified woman’s body in an alley off Twenty-second Street.”

“So the cops don’t know who she is either,” I say. “Well, here’s the plan. I’m going drop off the clean gun, in a way that both the powder puff and I will remain anonymous. That will give me some time to investigate on my own.”

In her clingy purple mini-dress Vo looks like she‘s ready for a date, but the words out of her mouth are stern. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know. I’m out of the loop, Slim. Remember, I know nothing at all.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re innocent as a newborn babe.”

I put on fresh Latex gloves, and in the next half hour, I oil the piece and wipe it clean.  When it glistens, I put it in a double lunch-size brown bag and walk the three blocks to the nearest police precinct. Inside, it’s teeming with noise and activity, so I easily amble past the desk sergeant like I belong there and wander the halls looking for the first empty room. Luckily, no one sees me park the bag on someone‘s bookcase. I make a clean getaway and head down the street to pick up my beat-up Buick Regal.

As I near the lot, I see the lot owner, Fish-Face Eddie, hanging over my car, arguing with someone inside it. Getting closer, I make out the face of a teenage female with disheveled blonde hair and a freckled face that looks like it hasn’t been washed in a week.  Eddie’s yelling some words at the girl that would make an ex-con blush. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead, with her fists clenched in the pockets of a bulky navy-blue sweatshirt. Nothing unusual about that except that it’s July and already about eighty degrees out.

“Hey, Eddie! Who’s the girl and what’s she doing in my car? I don’t want to hear that you’re renting it out to teenagers now.”

“I don’t know who or why,” he yelps at me. “All I know is she got inside and locked all the doors. Hold on, Slim I’ll get her out for you.”

He picks up a tire iron and starts to swing at the window. “Whoa there, Eddie!” I grab his arm and yank it away. “Ain’t there some other way to get the door open without smashing in the window?”

Fish-Face Eddie grumbles and heads back to his four-by-four shed at the front of the lot. Meanwhile, I try my own brand of reason and persuasion on the teenage intruder. Being nice to her doesn’t help. She still stares rigidly out the windshield, but I notice twitching muscles in her neck, and a clenched belligerent jaw. No makeup, but fullish lips severely pinched together. She’s more angry than scared. 

Eddie reappears, this time with a Slim-Jim, an illegal tool for breaking into cars. He slips the flat sheet-metal device between the glass and the felt window liner on the door and tries to fit one of the notches in the device to the internal door lock mechanism. A few minutes pass while he finds the right notch and the right place to use it. Finally, I see the door lock button rising inside the window. Success, I think.  

Nope. It takes two hands to pull the Slim-Jim and the button up. As soon as he lets go to open the door handle, whoa! The girl’s left hand flies up and slams the button down again. Good reflexes, The game of up/down goes on for a bunch until I step in and work the door handle while Eddie pulls up on the tool.
With the door swung wide, I repeat the word “Out” several times in successively more gruff, commanding tones, but the brat ignores me. I try pulling her out by her arm, but she’s strong and uses her athleticism to twist away. I quickly squeeze one arm behind her back and the other under her legs and start to heft her out of the car. Her deadpan face refreezes in rage and her unfolding muscular arms batter about my head. When that doesn’t work, her long nails dig into my cheek. The sharp pain makes me lose control, and I drop her about a foot onto the tarmac.

Rage begins to melt into a pitiful expression of defeat, followed by a gallon of genuine tears. I unleash the prescribed amount of patience and then offer her my hand to help her up.

“Don’t you touch me, you murderer you!”

Now that’s a shocker, if I ever heard one. “Why in hell would you say that?” I ask.

“I saw you kill that lady over on Twenty-second Street. You shot her in the head. I saw you do it”

“I didn’t shoot her and I can prove it. “The prints on the gun were from a right-hander and I’m a lefty.

Besides,” I now lie to her, “I passed the gunshot residue test, so I couldn’t have fired the gun.” Her face goes blank, and she’s at a loss for words, so out come the tears again. I sit down on tarmac and put my arm around her shoulders. This time she doesn’t resist.

 Meanwhile, Fish-Face Eddie pulls a high-fashion Coach purse from the front seat and starts to go through it, coming up with a wallet and identification. “Looks like this kid’s name is Betty Foggle. Right?” He shoves the wallet in her face.

“Wrong!” She sits up and snaps back.

“Eddie, how old is this Ms. Foggle?” I ask.

“Her driver’s permit says she’s thirty-three.”

I help the red-eyed teenager to her feet.

“You need to answer a few questions, young lady. With straight answers. What’s your name? How old are you. How do you know so much about that dead woman? And how did you get  hold of Betty Foggle’s purse?” The teenager begins to tremble and the words blubber out. I wrap her in my arms and she leans on my shoulder. Realizing I could be sending her the wrong message, I straighten her up, look her in the eye and say “I’m waiting.”

“My name is Danielle Foggle,” she murmers, “and I’ll be seventeen next month. Betty is my stepmom. Her voice notches up about two shrill octaves. “It was her lying testimony that sent my father away for a ten- to fifteen-year sentence. That bitch took part in the armed robbery and she was the one who shot the cashier. It was all her idea in the first place. My father didn’t want to have any part in the robbery, but she threatened to leave him if he didn’t go along.”

“And Bugs took the fall for her?”

Danielle’s eyes flash. “Yes! Now that bitch Betty is running around with some other guy from that club where she works.”

She starts to sob again. I reach out and snatch the purse from Eddie, whose itchy fingers are already counting the bills inside. I’m thinking maybe I should take Danielle back to the office where Vo could add the much needed motherly touch. I walk my charge the three blocks with her leaning on me like I‘m her only lifeline.
Vo takes over like the simpatico person she is. A trip to the ladies and a washed face later, Danielle is seated across my desk from me.

But none of this is making sense. She called me a murderer. Enough Mr. Nice Guy. Is this little girl on the level or the next Sarah Bernhardt? I unleash my questions. “You set me up? You mugged me, took my wallet and watch and Betty’s purse?”

Danielle turns her head away slightly with a sheepish look.

“Nice manners you’ve got, girlie. Aren’t you a little young to audition for Ma Barker? Why did you try to pin the murder on me? You didn’t even know me.”

“You came to my apartment,” Danielle snaps. “You knocked on my door. Why? What business was it of yours?”

“When I came to your apartment house, all I wanted to do was warn your stepmother that your father had been released from prison.”

I had no idea my client armchair could generate so much thrashing about and stomping. I try to explain without flying off the handle myself. “You were too young to attend the trial, Danielle. I was in the shop when the robbery went down and I testified against your father. I was also there when Bugs swore he’d get even with your stepmom. Yesterday, the arresting officer gave me the “heads up” about his parole.”

“It was too late!” Danielle shrieks. “Betty was already dead. Besides, she didn’t deserve to be warned.”

I need to ask why, but first things first. The swollen knot on my head is throbbing. “What did you hit me with?”

“The same gun you already have.”

“The same gun Bugs shot your stepmom with?”

Danielle shakes her head furiously. “No, no, no! I haven’t seen my father since I visited him two weeks ago.”

“So what did happen, anyway?” I wait while she gulps from the glass of water Vo brought her.

“Coming home yesterday, I caught Betty going through my father’s things, looking for the cash from the robbery. That snake didn’t know my father surrendered the loot at his arraignment. When she boasted that she wanted it to run away with her new boyfriend, I smacked her across the face with my hand. Hard, too. Then she tried pulling the gun out of her purse. I grabbed it and we struggled. I pulled her hair, she scratched me on my arm, and both of us went down on the kitchen floor. The gun went off. Blood gushed out of her head all over the place. It was horrible. She wasn’t moving—I think she died instantly. I didn’t mean to kill her. All I wanted was to protect myself.” 

“Are you sure you’re not taking the fall for your dad?”

“My dad didn’t shoot her. He wasn’t there I tell you.”

“How did I come into the picture?”

“Once I got over the initial shock,” Danielle murmurs, “I devised a plan. I dragged her body out through the rear kitchen door into the alley. It helps that we live in a first-floor apartment. I started to clean up the mess when I heard the doorbell. I stuck the gun in my jeans belt. I had no idea who it was. At first I panicked. I couldn’t very well let anyone in. I ran out through the alley, around the building and in through the front entryway—and saw you at our door. I snuck up behind you, pulled the gun out of my jeans and clobbered you with the handle.

“Then you added me to the garbage collection in the alley?”

“Uh-huh. I figured if you came to visit Betty you had to be a sleazebag.”

“Then you went back into your apartment and watched me from the window. When I walked away with the gun, you followed me.”

“Yeah, but from way back and I kept ducking into doorways so you wouldn’t see me. I saw you go into an office building. I had Betty’s purse with me and I knew I had to get rid of it, but I didn’t know how. Then I saw this parking lot and all the cars looked pretty decent except a Buick in the back that was real beat up, like who would even want such a junker? But I got spooked—there was a guy in the booth. So I ran home. This morning I walked back to the lot with the purse. I didn’t see anybody around. I tried the door to the Buick. It was open! I couldn’t believe my luck, so I snuck inside and dropped the purse on the floor. I figured whoever owned the car would get nailed for Betty’s murder. I was about to get out and leave, but the lot owner came charging at me and yelling. So I locked the doors.”

This is pretty damned creepy, I’m thinking. What were the odds that she’d involve my car?  “You’re a piece of work, young lady.”

“Jeez, if I’d known you were such a nice man I wouldn’t have mugged you in the first place. And I sure wouldn‘t have tried to hang this miserable business on you. How come you have such a crappy car, anyway?”

“That’s beside the point. You don’t need a private eye. You’re starting yourself off with a nice juvy record. What you need is a spanking and a helluva good lawyer. What if I called your father’s lawyer?”
“I think he’d want that.”

Through the lawyer and parole officer we connect with Bugs Foggle. It takes a few months, but a self-defense plea lands Danielle Foggle a suspended sentence for accidental death. I testify on her behalf, leaving out certain incriminating facts. However, tampering with evidence gets her 600 hours of community service. Apparently, no one figured out how the gun arrived at the police station. It’s my little secret.
Back at the office, Vo parks her tush on one corner of my desk, crosses her arms, and looks down at me like a disciplining first grade teacher.

“Slim, you sure screwed up. Why were you schlepping all the way over to Betty’s place to warn her? You could have avoided the whole mess with just one handy little gadget that’s sitting here on your desk. It was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Maybe you’ve heard of him? It’s called a telephone.”   
I hate it when Vo’s right.

Bio:

Rosemary and Larry Mild’s newest novel is CRY OHANA, Adventure and Suspense in Hawaii (October 2010). Fresh Fiction calls it “an uplifting story of family and love, as well as an extremely suspenseful novel with a very satisfying ending.” The Milds also coauthor the Paco and Molly Mysteries: BOSTON SCREAM PIE, HOT GRUDGE SUNDAY and LOCKS AND CREAM CHEESE. They teach “Writing Mystery and Thriller Fiction” at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland. Their series of four short stories featuring Slim O. Witts, soft-boiled detective, appeared in Mysterical-E from Fall 2009 through Summer 2010.