Off the Leash

by D. D. VanDyke

  Off The Leash

  A California Corwin P.I. Mystery Short Story

  by

  D. D. VanDyke

  Off The Leash

  California Corwin P.I. Mysteries

  Published by REAPER PRESS at Smashwords

  Copyright 2015 David VanDyke

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-62626-064-1

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  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic, mechanical or otherwise) without prior written permission and consent from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Jun Ares

  Books by D. D. VanDyke

  D. D. VanDyke is the Mysteries pen name for fiction author David VanDyke.

  California Corwin P.I. Mystery Series

  Loose Ends - Book 1

  In a Bind - Book 2

  Slipknot - Book 3

  Off The Leash - Short Story

  ***

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  Cyborg Strike

  Comes The Destroyer

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  First Conquest

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  San Francisco, 2005

  “It’s murder for sure,” I told my former partner Lieutenant Jay Allsop as he hauled his aging carcass around the scene of the crime. His thin hound-dog face with its permanent five o’clock shadow matched his off-the-rack detective-issue suit.

  On the other hand, as a woman in this man’s world I took care to keep my look crisp and professional. Pants and a blazer, tailored to hide the hardware I carried, hugged my slim figure, and my dark straight hair was cut in a collar-length bob to hide the bomb scars on the right side of my face.

  “Wish I could disagree, shweetheart,” Allsop replied with a halfhearted Bogart imitation. He lifted the thin blanket covering the dead junkie’s face to reveal a large syringe jammed to the hilt under her chin. I watched as he examined the blonde woman’s stiff arms, which showed old, healed needle track scars, and noticed she’d dressed for comfort – old sweat pants and a T-shirt.

  “Of course you’d like to disagree,” I replied. “You still can’t get over me leaving the force and setting up my own P. I. agency. You envy me.”

  “Only the money you took from the taxpayers,” he said with evident contempt. Our relationship had been wrecked when I’d won a cool mil suing the department and the city, but that’s a story for another time.

  “Get over it,” I said, suppressing my urge to justify my actions. “What room you want?”

  “Kitchen,” Allsop said. “You get the bathroom.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, but didn’t protest. It was his crime scene. Former cop or not, technically I was just the citizen who found the body.

  Slipping on a latex glove, I entered the tiny, dirty space. A whirlwind of mess greeted me, but not the grime and disorder of a life lived on the edge. A bottle of cheap shampoo lay on the floor, cracked as if from a fall off the shower caddy. A roll of paper had fallen into the open toilet, turning into a loose mass of soaked pulp. Several other items had been knocked over, willy-nilly. But underlying it all, the bathroom had been clean.

  “There was a struggle in here,” I called.

  Allsop grunted acknowledgement.

  Even so, a rankness oozed from the bathroom, a musky, animal odor. I could see a recently used litter box tucked behind the toilet as well as a double food-and-water-bowl combo among the detritus.

  “You see a cat?” I called.

  “Nope, but there’s half a bag of dry store-brand food out here,” Allsop replied.

  I examined the window, a screenless opening one foot square that no adult could fit through. Stuck shut, it barely budged when I tugged at it repeatedly.

  “The vic had an indoor cat. There’s poop in the litter box and water in the bowl. An unfixed tom, by the spray smell.”

  “Where is it, then?”

  I shrugged. “That’s what I want to know. We sure he’s not hiding somewhere?” I swept my eyes around the studio all-in-one, searching for anywhere that could hold a cat. A new widescreen TV sat on a nice stand, and the refrigerator had been replaced recently as well, looking out of place. “You looked in all the cabinets?”

  “Yeah.”

  I walked over to the food bag to rustle it deliberately. When I did that around my own cat Snowflake, he came running.

  This time, no result.

  “Plenty of good food in the fridge,” Allsop said after my cat-location attempt failed. “Not really in keeping for a junkie in the Tenderloin.” He turned to me. “Why were you here again?”

  “Following a lead on a missing persons case, a runaway, that’s all. I got a first name – Corrine – and this address.”

  “Well, she’s not missing anymore.”

  “The vic isn’t the runaway. She was someone who might know where my missing girl is. The father’s my client.”

  “I’ll need that info.”

  I stared at Allsop. “Only if it seems relevant. I have no evidence the murder is related. A visit from the police won’t help his state of mind.”

  “If you want to know what CSU finds out here, you’ll cough up.”

  I turned away. “Like I said, only if it’s relevant.” I took my obligations to a client seriously.

  “Then I’ll have to ask you to clear the crime scene. You’re a civilian now. Can’t have you mucking it all up.”

  “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

  Allsop laughed humorlessly. “I’ve been told.”

  “Where’s Brody today, anyway?” I asked, referring to his rookie partner.

  “Out sick. Whole bunch of people down with the crud,” he said. Allsop continued searching the main room so I went back into the bathroom to root through the vanity and medicine cabinets, ignoring his threat to throw me out. He wouldn’t burn any bridges yet, not while I might figure out something that would help.

  “Methadone,” I said, holding up a prescription bottle of the drug. “Turk Street Clinic, recent date. She was in a program. Explains the cleanliness and the food.”

  “No needles or stash in the bedroom, right?”

  “Not that I found.”

  Allsop grunted. I knew he probably wanted to say something cutting, but much of what I knew he’d taught me in our two-year partnership in Homicide. Criticizing my forensic skills would get thrown back in his face for sure.

  I set the pill bottle back inside the medicine cabinet for the CSU to document and returned to the large room. “Who kills a recovering junkie with a needle to the brain?”

  “We’l
l know more when the ME does a postmortem tox screen.”

  “The bathroom’s messed up but there’s no sign of a struggle in the bedroom. A syringe isn’t a knife. Very hard to be that accurate. ”

  “Maybe she relapsed and got high. Or was sedated.”

  “Then why the mess in the bathroom?”

  “She was rendered unconscious there, and then brought in and laid on the bed. Then the perp shoved the needle in.”

  “She’s not a small woman. Carrying her took someone strong.”

  Allsop waved at the neat bedroom. “And careful. No drag marks, no stumbling.”

  I nodded heavily. “The method means something. It’s a statement.”

  “Another junkie?”

  I lifted the new, pretty comforter to gaze again at the victim’s head, injector buried to the hilt under her chin. Taking out a pocket notebook, I wrote down the details of the syringe: its capacity, description and some kind of reference number. “This is personal. Jealousy? Maybe a lover.”

  “Or a stalker. Good an idea as any.”

  “You find any ID?”

  Allsop passed me a driver’s license.

  I said, “Issued more than a year ago. Corrine Martinez, age…twenty-six. This address listed. She was keeping it together, then.” Holding down a real apartment for that long, even a cheap one in a shithole like the Tenderloin district, argued for basic stability even before she decided to get clean. Meant she’d never passed the point of no return: living in crack houses, selling herself for another fix. “Any indication of a job?”

  Allsop said, “Pay stubs from Ringo’s.” That was a bar and grill nearby. “Looks like she got maybe twenty hours a week. Food stamps. Welfare card. Checkbook with thirty bucks in it.”

  “On the straight and narrow for sure. Damn shame.” Few enough managed to get the monkey off their backs, and to end up like this…

  I heard voices and loud footsteps ascending the interior stairs, and then a knock at the door. “Sounds like CSU’s here,” I said. “You’ll be tied up here for a while. I’m going by Ringo’s and the clinic.”

  “This isn’t your case, Cal,” Allsop said with a hint of warning.

  “It may relate to mine and I’ll give you what I find out.”

  “Not like I can stop you.”

  “Nope.”

  I knew his protests were merely for show, so he could claim to his boss he warned me off. He couldn’t afford to turn down my help. Besides, Corrine was my only lead to Angela Bromley, the runaway I was searching for. Twenty bucks had gotten me a tip from a street alky that the two had been seen together at a taco shop nearby. A hooker working the early shift had provided the recovering addict’s address.

  First, I walked a couple blocks to Ringo’s, a typical corner tavern slightly more respectable than most. At least it was at street level rather than in a basement and its barred windows remained clean and unbroken.

  May’s midday sun tried and failed to break through the brooding clouds, washing the street with a wan gray light. I ignored the catcalls of crackheads, bums and layabouts gathered on corners or sitting in front of those shops that tolerated them. My professional garb stood out and more than one panhandler approached me, only to back away as I opened my blazer to reveal the gun and P. I. badge on my belt, one I’d deliberately selected for its resemblance to a real detective’s shield.

  Like I used to carry.

  I stuffed down the pain of being unjustly kicked off the force once again as I entered the pub. Stale smoke and beer smells competed with the odor of lemon wood polish and pine cleaner. A scattering of working-class men and women ate cheap bar food and drank straight from bottles or cans. The only glasses to be seen held shots of hard liquor.

  “Plate for Joe!” a tall, middle-aged bartender called into the air. In response, a man in a delivery company uniform walked up to collect his burger and fries.

  “Just you and the cook today?” I said conversationally as I approached the slab the barkeep stood behind.

  “Yep. What can I get you?” he asked with a professional smile.

  “A decent beer. You pick. And some information.”

  “I’m kinda busy with the lunch rush,” he said as he uncapped an icy bottle of Anchor Steam and set it in front of me. “My waitress didn’t show.”

  I took a long pull, and then set the bottle down carefully. “Yeah, about that…what’s your name, by the way?”

  “Burns.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Short for Burnside. Dad was a Civil War buff.”

  I shrugged. “Who am I to judge? My mother named me California, but you can call me Cal.” I pulled back my blazer and briefly showed my badge. “I’m investigating a murder. Your waitress wouldn’t happen to be Corrine Martinez, would it?”

  Burns made the leap immediately. “Damn. Was it her?”

  “Afraid so.”

  He sighed heavily, sadly. “You said murder, so she didn’t fall off the wagon. That’s something, anyway.”

  “Recovering addict,” I stated.

  “Yeah. She was doing all right. I gave her what hours I could, but…” he waved at the place. “If the city cleared more of the riffraff off the streets I could really make something of this place.”

  “You know why they call this place the Tenderloin?”

  “Sure. Officers used to be paid extra to venture in here. Enough to buy prime cuts of meat.”

  “You know what cops call it now?”

  Burns shook his head. Apparently he hadn’t heard this one.

  “Another meat joke. They call it Hamburger Hill. Every effort the police make here gets ground up and spit out.”

  “That’s not funny, Cal. I was there at the real Hill, back in Nam.”

  I met Burns glare for glare. “Wasn’t meant to be funny. Plenty of my brothers and sisters carried out in boxes, too.”

  “You’re not a cop anyway. I know a real shield when I see one.”

  “I was on the force for eight years, last two in Homicide. Now I’m a P. I. consulting on Corrine’s murder. I’ll give you the number of the lieutenant in charge and he’ll vouch for me, if that’ll make you feel better.” I took a hit off my beer to ease the confrontation.

  Burns looked away as his shoulders sagged. “Naw. It’s all right. Anything that will help you catch whoever killed Corrine.”

  “You liked her,” I ventured.

  “Like a father. Thirty years younger than me.” His eyes brimmed suddenly.

  “That wouldn’t stop most men your age. Okay, so you weren’t dating the help. Ever been over to her place?”

  “Once. Damn tomcat. Big tabby mix named Bowser. Almost ate my face. He hates men.”

  “We didn’t find the cat.”

  “Must have gotten out. I told Corrine to get him fixed to settle him down but she didn’t want to. Could have done it for free at the SPCA, too.”

  I shook my head. “I found the door shut but unlocked when I arrived, and no cat. Maybe he ran away when the perp entered.”

  “No way. First, what kind of murderer leaves the front door open while he kills somebody? Second, Bowser doesn’t run from anything. He attacks. Corrine used to joke about it.”

  I reached up to rub the blast scars alongside my right ear and my neck, turning my head away as I did so, a habit. “Unless the perp wasn’t male.”

  “That would fit.”

  “But whoever killed her was strong. Sound like any women you know?”

  Burns thought a minute. “Veranda. That’s a name, not a joke. Comes in here couple times a week. Big girl. Samoan or Hawaiian or something like that. Could snap most guys in half.”

  “When do you think she’ll be in again?”

  “No telling, but give me your number and I’ll call you.”

  I handed him a business card. “Veranda friendly with Corrine?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “Corrine gay, or bi?”

  “Don’t think so, but I didn’t know he
r all that well.”

  “Well enough to visit her place.”

  “I was dropping off some food, that’s all. She was sick.”

  I placed my hands flat on the bar. “Okay. You know how it works, though. In a murder, everyone’s a suspect until they aren’t, so it’s probably wise not to take any sudden trips out of town.”

  Burns spread his arms to encompass all we could see. “I own this place. Where would I go? And I want to know who did this.”

  “Me too. Oh, before I forget…you ever see this girl?” I pulled a photo of Angela Bromley out of an inside jacket pocket.

  “Yeah…Angela. Showed up here a couple days ago. Bought a grilled PB&J and talked to Corrine for a while.”

  “Peanut butter and jelly?”

  Burns waved at the bar food menu on the wall. “Yeah. Cheapest thing on the list and it sticks to your ribs. Hungry customers don’t stay and drink.”

  “How’d she look?” I wanted to know her general condition – healthy, strung out, what – but Burns answered differently, which was the nice thing about asking open-ended questions.

  “Absolute knockout,” he said. “Maybe fifteen, sixteen. That picture doesn’t do her justice. She was fending guys off from the moment she walked in. Well named, Angela. Face like an angel. Made all the other women look like hags.”

  “You let underage girls in here?”

  “Long as they sit at a table and don’t drink alcohol, it’s legal. For most of them, better in here than out on the street. I don’t abide trouble.” Burns’ eyes drifted off me into that look they call the thousand-yard stare, the kind men who’ve killed sometimes exhibit.

  War veterans and hard cases.

  “When did you see her?”

  “They left together.”

  “Together?”

  “Not like that. Like friends.”

  “Pretty sudden.”

  Burns shrugged. “People on the street get close real fast sometimes. Maybe Angela needed a mother figure. Maybe Corrine saw some of herself in Angela. She had a good heart. Tried to help people, you know?” He looked away, blinking.