by Jimmy Pudge
I stood to go, almost not believing my good luck. I was sure they were going to do something to keep me there. I called Rudy from the payphone and asked if he needed me in. He told me to take the night off and he'd think about it, said if I wasn't in jail by tomorrow night that I could probably show up to work. Then he hung up on me. That meant I still had a job. He was soft on me. I was lucky. I mean he was a huge ass-hat, but he gave me a job when I couldn't really find work, and it was some sucky-ass work sometimes, like cleaning those damned toilets around back. Man, how the fuck can someone get shit on the ceiling? Fuck, that was some nasty shit, but after a few months I got moved up to night clerk, and it was a great gig. Slow traffic, and I could work on my writing. Damn, when this was all over I would have a hell of a story to write.
I hung up the phone and walked outside and remembered the two dicks had driven me here and I had no way to get home. I checked my pockets for change and realized I had enough for the bus, so I went down a couple of blocks and waited for it. I needed a transfer, and it took me two hours to get home with all the walking after the second bus dropped me near the bar. It would have been better if I had to go into work. I finally got to my trailer, and thankfully all the crime guys, or whoever searched my place, were gone. I flicked on the light and saw damage.
The place was a holy mess to begin with but this was an unholy mess. Every drawer was overturned and my mattress was even slashed open. Good thing I didn’t have any money to hide in it like my mama used too. The fridge door was opened and my beer and beef jerky were all over the floor. I grabbed a chipotle Slim Jim and unwrapped it and ate it as I continued to survey the wasteland that was my place. Everything was trashed. It was a total disaster. My computer was gone, off to some tech geek to process, no doubt. I guess they found my porn collection too. I would survey the damage tomorrow. I was dead tired. I pulled my shirt over my head and kicked off my shoes. I walked over to the fridge and grabbed a brew off of the floor; it was cool to the touch. I opened it with my teeth and drank it down in a few gulps. I looked around for the garbage and just said fuck it and threw the bottle over my shoulder. It smashed against something. I tugged my pants off and something fell out of the pocket.
I dropped my pants and realized I was naked. Shit, cops probably had my awesome ass Pinocchio drawers. I loved those drawers. I put that out of my mind and looked for what just fell. It was the envelope from Claire's room; it must have dropped when that bastard cleaned the safe out. I picked up the envelope and tore it open. A small blue booklet fell out, passport written on the front cover. So this is what one of these things look like, I thought. I was about to put it on the table in the kitchen when I decided it was probably Claire’s. I wanted to see her one last time and not like I saw her this morning either. I wanted to see her smile again. I opened it up and took a peek. Boy was I surprised.
Chapter 7
I had a friend one time by the name of Dave Rose. We all called him Rose because he was such a romantic with the ladies. Every other Friday, on payday, Rose would head to the florist shop and get his wife a dozen roses. It was like clockwork.
That’s why we were all so sad when Rose told us he was hiring a private eye to watch over his hunny bunny, one day.
“I think she’s cheating on me, Handy.”
“No way, man. I’m sure that’s not what’s going on.
Every day after that, Rose would talk about this P.I. named Groefield, how he was getting these pictures of this fellow with Mrs. Rose. One night they were walking in the park, another night eating Italian at Olive Garden.
Rose talked about it every night for a solid week. “I got the evidence I needed last night, Handy,” Rose said. I noticed something different about him. Maybe it was the way he was talking or the slouch in his step, I don’t know, but he told me this Groefield fellow had shot a bunch of pictures of Mrs. Rose giving her “friend” a blowjob.
“My wife told me she hates giving blowjobs years ago,” Rose said.
Rose had put a bullet in his head that night, and I suppose that’s why I’ve never forgotten this dick’s name Rose had used to confirm his wife was a cheating slut.
I stood outside of Grofield’s office, staring down at my watch. It was 10 a.m. The sign on the door said the place opened at 8 a.m.
I knocked again, shouted, “Open the door!” and stood there like a fool, waiting for any sign of life from within the building.
Ten minutes later I knocked again, this time by kicking the door. “Open up!’ I said.
“Coming, goddamnit,” came a voice from behind the door. It opened slowly, creaking on the hinges, and a nasty looking old man stepped into the daylight, his chin covered in what appeared to be mayonnaise and mustard. White specks littered his blue crumpled dress shirt. It was either dandruff or powdered sugar. I’d believe it either way.
“What’s the emergency?” the old man asked.
“You Groefield?” I said.
Groefield eyed me suspiciously. “The check for the furniture is in the mail. Just sent it off yesterday.”
I shook my head, sighed. “I want to hire you to do some work for me.”
His eyes got wide. “You do?” he asked. “Come in, come in.”
He led me into this musty little dungeon and sat me down in front of a card table he must have been using for his desk. There was half a Subway sandwich on the table, and a half-eaten cookie on a small foil bag.
“What’s your name?” Groefield said.
“Handy.”
“Are you employed? I only work for people who can pay me. I don’t take EBT cards.”
“Yeah, I’m employed.”
“Tell me what you need,” Groefield said, taking a seat and grabbing the sandwich. He took a huge bite, sloppy mayonnaise drenched lettuce and breadcrumbs falling from the loaf onto the table.
Fuck, I wanted to leave. I needed to leave. But when you make your living working at a motel called the Dollar Inn, well you got to learn how to stretch a buck. Though sloppy and nasty and probably stupid, I had to admit Groefield was by far the cheapest dick in this town according to the Internet prices.
Groefield smacked on his Subway, staring me in the eyes. “Well, what you want, boy? Wife cheating on you?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said.
“Shit, man, I ain’t no goddamn psychic,” Groefield said. “What do you need me to do for you?”
“Well, I fell in love with this girl who rented a room where I work—“
“Oh! You want to track down a one-night stand. Sure, sure, I do those all the time.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I need to find out who murdered this girl.”
Groefield put the sandwich down, wiped his hands on his shirt as if it were a paper napkin, then looked squarely at me.
“Did you kill her?”
“No,” I said. “Why would I come to you if I killed her?”
Groefield smiled. “A lot of you sick fucks like to hire guys like me to investigate, to make sure a suspect can’t be positively ID’d from the crime scene. You’d be surprised at how many assholes play this game with me. Well, guess what? I’m not in the business of helping the bad guy.”
“You’ve got me wrong, man,” I said. “I didn’t kill Claire. I just woke up beside her and she was dead. Stabbed to death.”
“That’s odd,” Groefield said. “Start from the beginning and go slow.”
I leaned back in my chair. Groefield resumed eating his sandwich.
“It was raining the other night, and this girl named Claire comes in. Said she got into a fight with her boyfriend and he left her on the side of the road. She checks in, I start talking to her, and we just hit it off. I invited her to go to the Waffle House the next day.”
“You’re a big spender, ain’t you?” Groefield said, sipping from a Subway cup.
“I take her to the Waffle House and we talk about things, her boyfriend and life in general. We have a good time, and I invite her out that night.”
&
nbsp; “What did she say about the boyfriend?” Groefield asked. “What’s his name, by the way?”
“Mal,” I said.
“Mal? That’s not a typical name around here, is it?”
“Yeah, well she lets me know Mal is a criminal and abuses her. She also tells me this guy is insanely jealous of other men talking to her. That he gets angry.”
“This is good,” Groefield said, finishing off the sandwich. Then he proceeded to lick each and every one of his fingers as he spoke. “Anytime you’re faced with a murder where the victim has been stabbed, you’re looking for a murder probably committed for personal reasons. You want to find a boyfriend or someone close to the victim who is angry with the victim. Angry people have a motive to commit murder.”
I nodded my head. “Yeah,” I said, “and I’m pretty sure it was Mal. The scumbag came inside the motel and sucker punched me, dropped me cold because he saw me with her.”
“That’s the type of personality I like when I investigate murder. That personality has murderer written all over it. So this is a jealousy motive. Go on.”
“I take Claire out to eat that night, and we have a good time, eventually head back to her motel room. All of a sudden I wake up, can’t remember anything about that night. Claire is beside me, and she’s been stabbed in the chest. She’s dead and I panic. I call the police.”
Groefield said nothing, continued licking his fingers and balled up the sandwich wrapper.
“I don’t think jealousy was the only motive, though.”
“What else?” Groefield said.
“Claire told me she had taken something from Mal, and she wanted to know how to use her room safe. I got no idea what it was. All I know is that the safe was open and the room had been tossed. I think Mal took something from that room.”
“Possibly,” Groefield said. “More than likely.”
Groefield leaned back in his chair and placed his hands on his belly. He sighed. “Yeah, hell, I’ll work this. Why not?”
I smiled.
“One condition though. I want payment up front. I need about $200 for expenses; the total fee will be four hundred for two weeks work. It goes on longer than two weeks, there will be additional charges.”
I nodded.
“You good for $600?” Groefield asked.
I pulled out his wallet and removed two twenty-dollar bills and a ten.
“It’s all I have on me right now,” I said, sliding the cash over to the dick.
Groefield grabbed the money, made it disappear quickly into his pocket. He pulled a flask of whiskey from the pocket of his coat, which was slung over his chair.
“Normally, I’d say no, but I trust you.”
“Next time you see me, I’ll pay you the full amount. I have the money, just not on me.”
“Sure,” Groefield said, looking as if he didn’t believe a single word I’d just said. ”Want a sip?” he asked, extending the bottle.
“I’ll pass,” I said.
The office was filthy and Groefield blended right in with it. His shirt was so wrinkled it looked wet, and dried mustard was splattered on his chest.
Hard to believe this guy was a detective. Hard to believe this guy was still alive. Groefield looked to be in his sixties and was a balloon of a man.
“Oh yeah,” I said, pulling a small blue book from my pocket. “I also found this in Claire’s room.”
“What’s that?” Groefield asked.
“A passport,” I said, sliding it over to the dick’s sausage fingers.
Groefield picked it up, examined it closely.
“Who’s this?” he said.
“That’s Claire.”
“The name on the passport says Brenda MacKay.”
“I didn’t say this case would be easy. Hell, I’m more lost now than when I first found Claire’s body.”
“I’m not following,” Groefield said.
“Brenda MacKay is Claire,” I said. “That’s Claire’s picture on that passport.”
Groefield took a closer look, sighed. “It’s a damn shame this girl is dead. She was a real looker. I see why you’re hiring me to find out what happened to her.”
Chapter 8
It took about two days to get my place back together and that’s about as long as it took for me to get my ass back to work. Thankfully, I still had the truck and wanted to get in early to see Marcia, and apologize for the other night and maybe find out if she heard anything when Claire was killed. I checked my hidey hole out near the park’s sump pump to make sure the rest of my dough was still there. I say it never hurts to hide your stuff in shit, no one will go near it on purpose anyway. Otherwise that would have raised a whole lot of questions when the popo came in with their warrants. Not that I have much mind you, just a few grand is all I have in the world. Now I am about 600 dollars poorer for that PI who hasn’t called me yet. And I had to replace some stuff in the trailer, so I have about a grand left. I decided to leave it where it was and only take about a hundred with me just in case. I also eyed the small baggie that contained my cigarette pack and a cheap disposable lighter.
I quit smoking some time ago, or tried to many times until the last time when I decided to keep a fresh pack out here. I used to love a morning cigarette, one after a meal, one after a shit, one after sex or rubbing one out, hey… that counts too you know. I mean I had a pretty good habit going but it got really expensive, and well, I could barely keep my breath running around so I decided maybe lay off the cigarettes instead of the pork rinds so I keep a pack out here, and so far, I haven’t even opened the pack, I guess a good reason is I am fucking lazy, once I am in my drawers I don’t want to come back out, so I was good; for now anyway. I put the pack back into my hiding spot and stood up and wiped my hands on my pants.
I admired the work I did on the truck, I managed to fix the door of the truck so I could get in, though it wasn’t the greatest job because once I got in I had to close it with a bungee cord. If I made a sharp turn it would open about half a foot, almost fell out a few times, but at least it taught me to wear my seatbelt. I got to the Dollar Inn about ten, I figured I could use the computer and try to get a little writing in, I hadn’t written a thing in days and wanted to get some of the events of the past few days down while it was still all fresh in my mind.
“Well, look who decided to show his face!”
“Hey Marcia. What’s going on?”
I strolled over with my arms wide, but she wasn’t having it. She was still pissed off about the other night, and my not showing up while she was doing me a favor, but I thought she’d have time to get over it. I guess not.
“Still sore about the other night?”
“Hell yeah, and they didn’t even hold you overnight? I was hoping you got ass raped inside or something.”
“No such luck darlin.”
“Well, a girl can hope.”
I laughed, so did she, she seemed to be her old self and I was relived. “I’m surprised you didn’t come looking for me when I didn’t come down at Midnight.”
“That’s just it, I did. First I called, and there was no answer, so I went up at about a quarter past, and pounded on the door and heard nothing. So I went back down, and tried your cell phone and remembered you buy those wanna be gangster phones and get like a new one every other month so I didn’t know the new number so I went back up about one thirty, and I thought I heard some shit going on in there.”
I was in shock, this could be the break the case needed, the break I needed to clear myself and get the bastard who killed my Claire. “What did you hear?”
“I thought I heard a guy say I didn’t think shed be that heavy, and then what sounded like a woman say, “stop making so much noise you’ll wake him.”
“What happened then?”
She shrugged, “I knocked again, and I heard someone shhhing someone else and then nothing. I banged on the door and yelled your name, but I heard nothing from inside. So I went down here and called the boss.”
“Anytime, but you had it coming, I mean you said you would be back at midnight and you were off murdering some girl.”
“I didn’t kill anyone Marcia, you gotta believe me.”
“Damnit, Handy, the only thing you can kill is a six pack, I know. Sorry this shit happened to you.”
I thanked her and asked her if she told this all to the police and she said she had. I went the back office and booted up the computer, it’s an ancient Pentium, but it has a copy of the full Office suite so I do my writing on there when it’s really slow. I started to write a timeline, just a list with bullet points trying to make sense of all of this but it made no sense to me.
Did Mal poison me?
Why did I pass out before Claire?
She drank the wine too, and I was bigger than she was, or maybe because I drank more at the bar I was effected faster?
Why would the weapon be in my car?
None of it made any sense. I was about to start a new document in which I had hoped to make sense of all of this by writing it down like I would when I am writing one of my stories. I just began to type the word UNTITLED when Marcia stuck her head in.
“Can’t get enough of me can you, darlin?”
She rolled her eyes in disgust, “Those detectives are here for you.”
Craptastic. I almost shit my pants. I got up and walked out to face the music.
Fairfax and Stegman stood before me and I extended my hands for the inevitable, waiting to be cuffed. Stegman grabbed one of my hands and shook it. For the second time I almost shit myself.
“Just wanted to say I know when I make a mistake and I ain’t ashamed to admit it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought I was on an episode of Punked or one of those other shows where some really fucked up shit happens, then some douchebag jumps out and tells you it was all a joke, and Claire would be alive. No such luck. Fairfax stepped forward.
