Dead Girl Found

by Warren Court

  “Shocked, Armour?”

  “Little bit.” He pushed his straw boater higher up on his head, took a monogrammed handkerchief out of his pocket, and dabbed his forehead.

  “Trust me, this is tame,” Henderson said. “I wouldn’t show you something fresh. One of the workers uncovered it. We have to treat it as a murder scene. I mean, obviously…” Henderson laughed. “Where’s the rest of him?” His fellow detectives joined in the laughter.

  “Any idea who that is?” Armour said flatly.

  “That’s where we thought you might be able to help. We need to know if this is a recent murder or something from a long time ago. Maybe a real long time ago.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Connors bought this property off the city. City Hall says that all the records for this entire area were lost in that fire a couple of years ago, and no one remembers who the previous owner was. All we know is that the city has owned it for ten years. Thought maybe you might know.”

  Armour wrinkled his nose. Although the field was overgrown with weeds and there were no structures on it, there was the smell of horse manure in the air.

  “You smell that manure? The workers have dug down to it. There used to be a farm here,” Armour said.

  “Yeah, I can tell, but whose?” Henderson asked.

  “Fred Dorre,” Armour said without hesitation.

  “Dorre? Never heard of him,” Henderson said.

  “Fred’s gone. Heart attack. His wife has gone down south. Florida. One of their boys was murdered. The other one died serving overseas.”

  “What’s his name? The one who got killed.”

  “Wilbur. He got mixed up with the wrong crowd. He got shot in the back of the head in the Calypso movie theatre downtown.”

  “Specifics please. What crowd?”

  “You know,” Armour said, and put a finger to the side of his nose.

  “No, I don’t know,” Henderson said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “The Pappanillos,” Armour said.

  Henderson looked at his colleagues, who had moved steadily closer to the quirky civilian in the fancy shoes. The Detective’s eyebrows went up. “John,” he said, pointing to one of them. “I want you to take the lead on this. If this is a Pappanillo hit, I want to nail that son of a bitch Sonny. I don’t care how much the Connors bitch about their stadium.”

  “Sonny?” Armour said. “You mean Carlo.”

  “Maybe we can get someone on Sonny’s crew to roll. That Omerta bullshit ain’t what it used to be.” Henderson rubbed his hands together and laughed, and his big belly heaved up and down.

  “Detective Henderson, you mean Carlo Pappanillo?” Armour said, a little confused.

  Henderson gave Armour a sad look. “Sonny Pappanillo. That’s who this Wilbur got mixed up with, isn’t it?”

  “No, it was Carlo,” Armour said. “Rumour is Wilbur was running booze for The Hammer. He got it in his head to switch his allegiance to another outfit. Witnesses said two gunmen came into the theatre while Wilbur and his girlfriend were watching the new Valentino flick. They opened up on him from behind. He got it in the head. So did his dame. But why am I telling you? You probably know more about it than I do.”

  Henderson shook his head and the other detectives looked puzzled.

  “What the hell, Bain?” one of them said. “Carlo ‘The Hammer’ Pappanillo? He died in the thirties, I think. I just helped my kid with a school project on that. Rum runners, Prohibition, Al Capone. All that stuff.”

  There was a roar overhead. Armour spun around, startled, and gazed up in fear at the fat Boeing 777 crossing the sky on its way into Pearson International Airport. There was a muffled ringing sound. One of the detectives pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, put it to his ear, and stepped away to take the call. Armour was speechless.

  Henderson pulled Armour aside. “Have you gone off your meds? You sounded like you had it together on the phone.”

  “I do have it together.”

  “I need you to come into the twenty-first century, for Christ’s sake, Armour. Its 2006, not 1926. Are we chasing an eighty-year-old ghost?”

  Armour looked dejected and scuffed at the ground with his muddy wingtip. “There hasn’t been anyone living on this property for sixty years,” he said finally.

  “And the two Dorre boys?”

  “Kenneth got killed in the Great War. Second Battle of the Marne. Like I said, Wilbur got up to no good. It’s an unsolved murder. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, so…”

  “I know that, Armour. Sweet Jesus. Who cares? It was eighty years ago.”

  Armour looked down at the ground again.

  Henderson took a breath. “Okay, then. Thanks, Armour,” he said, brushing his hands together. “You’ve been a great help. We’re overworked as it is. And the Connors can build their stadium.”

  Armour said nothing.

  “I got tickets to the Tiger-Cats game this Friday. Last game at Merchant Field. You want ’em?”

  “No. I don’t go to the Tigers’ games anymore.” Armour always referred to Hamilton’s football team as the Tigers, the original name before they merged with the Wildcats after World War Two. “Do you need anything else from me?”

  “No. We’ll mail you out a cheque. Call it a consultation fee.” Henderson turned and went back to his detectives.

  “What is with that guy? He looks like he stepped out of a museum,” Armour heard one of them say.

  “Good guy, but he’s got issues,” Henderson said.

  Armour wandered back over to the hole. The two forensics technicians in white suits were talking to each other and paid him no mind. The hole was roughly six feet deep but the sun was high enough to cast light on the skull. Something on it caught Armour’s eye. There was a section on the exposed side of the skull about the size of a half dollar that was glimmering in the sunlight. He stared at it until the skull started to swirl in his vision. He jumped down into the pit. The detectives started to laugh, thinking Armour had fallen into the hole.

  “Whoa, Armour, what the fuck are you doing?” came Henderson’s voice and the sound of running footsteps. “Get the fuck out of my crime scene.” Henderson’s face appeared at the rim and he reached down to grab him but Armour bent down and was out of the detective’s reach.

  Ignoring Henderson, Armour clawed at the dirt and came up with the skull. He left the jawbone stuck in the ground. He quickly wiped dirt off the part of the skull that had caught his eye. Henderson was down on his knees now. He caught hold of Armour’s jacket and tugged at him. He was overweight and out of shape, wheezing from the effort, but he was still incredibly strong and angry. He hauled Armour up to his feet.

  “Look,” Armour said, and he held the skull up to Henderson. The other detectives were crowded around the hole now. Their laughter had given way to angry shouts.

  “He’s totally contaminated the scene,” the one named John complained.

  Henderson , balled Armour’s jacket into his fist and hoisted him out of the hole. Armour still clung to the skull.

  “You see that?” Armour said.

  Henderson’s face was fire-engine red.

  “You see this metal plate?” Armour continued doggedly. “Maybe hospital records can be traced.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Henderson exploded, gasping for breath between his words. He pulled the skull loose from Armour’s grip and let go of his jacket. Armour fell to the muddy ground.

  “I should bust you for obstruction of justice. John’s right: you’ve contaminated our crime scene.”

  “You said no one cares,” Armour said, as he got back to his feet and adjusted his now muddy pants.

  “I don’t give a goddamn what I said. Get out of here. And you can forget that consultation fee.”

  Armour could feel the eyes of all four detectives on him as he walked away.

  “What a weirdo,” he heard one of them say before he was out of earshot.


  Out of Time (Armour Black Mystery Book One)

  https://www.amazon.ca/Out-Time-Armour-Black-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07195HLR5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535071232&sr=8-1&keywords=out+of+time+warren+court