The Invisible Crown (Hazzard Pay Book 1)

by Charlie Cottrell

  I joined the flow of individuals heading into the building and through the security checkpoint. Shoes, coat, hat, and belt removed, contents of my pockets emptied into a bin, the popgun handed over to the security officer in exchange for a slip that promised to return the weapon when I left. With everything else back on my person and in my pockets, I continued into the building proper.

  The lobby was large and open, echoing with the multitude of voices requesting, pleading, and demanding various things. I showed my private investigator’s license to the desk sergeant and received a pass down to the morgue. I wandered through a small labyrinth of identical hallways filled with men in crisp blue uniforms and shining badges, past detectives’ bullpens filled with plainclothes cops in cheap suits drinking awful coffee, and past doors with frosted glass proclaiming the name, rank, and official capacity of various personnel. Down a couple of flights of stairs into a sub-basement, and I finally reached the morgue. It was cooler and darker down there, facts most coroners never seemed to mind that much.

  Markus was down in his office, filling out electronic paperwork and humming an old opera overture to himself. He glanced up when I tapped on his doorway. His face broke out into a grin as he said, “Hey, Eddie, c’mon in. I’m just finishing up an autopsy report.” He returned his attention to his vid window, typing up his notes with the practiced precision of a true professional. He tapped the ‘save’ button and minimized the vid window, turning his attention back to me. “So, our gunshot wound victim, Ms. Jennings. Interesting case, actually. Not nearly as cut-and-dried as I first assumed.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised. “How so?”

  “Well, for starters, she wasn’t killed in the alley,” Markus said. He pulled up a new vid window and turned it my direction. A holographic display of the dead woman’s body filled the screen. The entry wound was clear in the hologram, just to the left of the sternum and right through the heart. She’d have died pretty fast, at least.

  “We found some blood on the scene,” Markus said, changing the image in the vid window to a shot of the alley behind the Funeral Parlor, “but not enough for her to have died there. There was just a small amount under the body, no spray on the walls or anywhere else. Someone purposely left the body there.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Markus shrugged. “No idea. Convenience? A message to someone? Your guess is as good as mine, at this point.” He pulled up his autopsy notes. “She was killed sometime yesterday afternoon, based on lividity and body temperature. Hard to be more precise, since we don’t know where she was killed. Looks like it was probably a close-range, small-caliber handgun that did the job, a 9mm or something similar. No bullet fragments or trace evidence other than gunpowder residue were found, so we don’t know anything more than that for certain.” He tapped a couple of buttons in the vid window and sent me a copy of the report, then closed the window. “Sorry I can’t give you anything more than that, Eddie,” he said apologetically. “We haven’t found any fingerprints or trace evidence to point to a suspect. This case may be going into cold storage.”

  Franklin referred to cold cases, those that went unsolved and remained open long after everyone had given up on figuring out who had done the crime. Arcadia was a city filled with cold cases; folks died every day, and the cause of death on any number of their death certificates could have easily just been Bad Decisions. It didn’t take much more than that to get killed around here. There were plenty of desperate folks in Old Town who would stab you for your pocket change, or just because you looked at them funny or happened to walk down the wrong alley at the wrong time. Not that there was a right time or a right alley to walk down in this city, mind you.

  I shook Markus’s hand and said, “Thanks. I’ll take a look at the details and see what I can dig up. I appreciate you guys letting me in on this one.”

  “No problem,” Markus said. “You seem more invested in solving the case than anyone else around here, so I’m happy to let you take a shot at it.” It was hard not to feel discouraged in Arcadia. You saw too many horrible things as a cop in this town, and it was easy to become jaded and apathetic. Markus held on to optimism as best he could, but there was only so much hope you could keep in the face of so many unsolved murders and all the organized crime flaunting their disregard for the system of justice. Most cops just gave up and concentrated on getting through each shift. You did less heavy drinking that way.

  As I made my way out of the precinct house, I considered my next move. I needed to track down Guido and Billy Sunshine. Finding Boom-Boom would probably help, too.

  More than anything, though, what I really needed right then was a stiff drink.

  XII.

  I had to walk to the Funeral Parlor. Miss Typewell said she needed her car back to run some sort of errands for the office, though damned if I knew what those might be. I didn’t question her, though, because the ways of the office manager are cryptic and not for mere bosses to understand or question. I just shrugged and smoked three cigarettes on the short walk to the bar. The whole way over, I had this itchy feeling on the back of my neck, like a bug had bitten me or someone was watching me. I trusted my finely-honed detective skills to alert me if someone were about to do something really obnoxious, like actually try to kill me, but ignored something as pedestrian as being watched. In this town, there was always someone keeping tabs on you. If it wasn’t the city itself, with its legion of closed-circuit cameras, or the media with their legion of ambient cameras the size of a small insect floating around in the air, or private businesses with their legion of security cameras covering every possible angle someone could burgle them from, it was someone sizing you up to see if you were worth taking a run at, or whether or not you possibly owed them enough money to warrant a conversation involving Mr. Baseball Bat and your kneecaps.

  Of course, given the case I was working, and everything that’d happened so far, there was a very good chance one of the ninjas was tailing me, or possibly someone working with Guido and Billy Sunshine. Hell, it might even be an official police detail, if O’Mally wasn’t particularly happy with me after last night. I decided not to sweat the details, though. If someone was going to take a swing at me, I’d deal with it when and if it happened. Otherwise, life was too damn short to constantly be looking over your shoulder.

  It was early afternoon, and the Funeral Parlor was pretty empty. The back alley had been cleared of police equipment and crime scene tape. Rex poured me a drink and wandered off down the bar to do whatever mysterious things it is that a bartender does when there aren’t that many customers to deal with.

  I didn’t think much of it when someone sat down on the stool next to me, though I didn’t grunt an acknowledgement of their presence. Sure, it went against bar etiquette to sit right next to someone when the bar was almost completely empty, but I didn’t really stand on social graces.

  Glancing over, I didn’t recognize the person on the stool next to me: mid-50s, close-cropped hair going gray in a dignified manner, weathered features that looked like the contour map of some young canyon, and dark, serious eyes deep set in the guy’s head. He looked Latino, darker complexioned, and somber. He was well-built, muscular but not thick-necked like all the goons you saw these days. His clothes were decent but non-descript, a nice jacket over a button-down shirt and a pair of dark slacks. You could see the outline of his arms against the fabric of the jacket, and they spoke of a man who did plenty of cardio and probably some boxing or some other martial art training. None of it rang a bell, but it did send up a few flags that indicated that, whoever the guy was, he was strong and competent and could probably beat six different kinds of crap outta me. I wasn’t in terrible shape, mind you, but my peak had been ten years and twenty-five pounds ago, at best. I had a passing acquaintance with exercise, but neither of us were all that inclined to make it something more serious.

  I raised my glass slightly to him and gave the guy a nod; he returned the nod and signaled to Rex for a drink.


  “So, friend,” I said, “you here to kill me, question me, or give me advice?”

  The man shrugged eloquently. “All depends on you, detective,” he replied quietly.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Look, pal, I just came in here to have a drink and a think. I don’t want to start anything nasty.” Which was entirely true: I didn’t want to get involved in a fight or anything, because I’d probably get my ass kicked. But that wasn’t really relevant.

  “I don’t intend to fight you, detective,” the man replied, “but we do need to have a serious discussion.” Rex arrived with a beer for the man. Rex, whom I consider to be a good judge of character, didn’t seem apprehensive about the guy, so I relaxed a bit. If Rex didn’t think he was gonna start anything, I’d go along with it. For now.

  “Okay, sure, what do we have to talk about?” I asked. “Sports? I’m not really up on sportsball. Did our team win? Lose? Are we proud of them or think they’re bums?”

  “Are you afraid of your own silence, Mr. Hazzard?” the man asked.

  “Not afraid of it, no,” I replied. “It’s just that as long as I’m talking, I know no one’s shot me.” Usually, I amended silently. There were the times where I managed to continue talking even after I’d been shot, but it was a lot harder and most of the talking was of the, ow, ow, ow, you shot me, you asshole! variety.

  “If I have to kill you, I won’t shoot you,” the man said simply. There wasn’t a threat in his tone, simply the statement of fact. The hair on the back of my neck stood up on end.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Someone who knows what you’re up against. If you were wise, Detective Hazzard, you would drop this case and stay as far away from it as possible.”

  “Your words don’t say ‘threat,’ but your tone sure does,” I commented.

  The man shrugged again. He could say a lot with a shrug. This one said, I will neither confirm nor deny your statement.

  “Why warn me?” I asked.

  “You deserve to know what you are about to get involved in. At the moment, you have only skimmed the surface. If you continue, if you persist in you investigation, you will go too deep and know too much, and you will have to be dealt with.” By him or someone else, he didn’t say.

  “What am I getting involved in, then?” I asked.

  “This is more than a simple missing persons case, more than the murder of that poor woman from the alley. There are fissures in the Organization, cracks that run all the way to the syndicate’s core. The thing Guido and Billy Sunshine are a part of . . . it has the ability to crack the city in half.”

  “Those’re some fancy metaphors, guy,” I said, taking a sip of my whiskey, “but what does any of it have to do with me?”

  “If you want, I can tell you how to find Billy and Guido. But if you find them, you will be caught in the middle of the civil war that is threatening to tear the Organization apart. One side or the other will find you and kill you. I happen to be part of a small group that believes you have value and should be kept alive as long as possible.”

  “Just how many cabals are there in play here, and how many of them want me dead?” I asked.

  “Too many,” the man replied. He chugged the rest of his drink and stood. “On both accounts.” He started to walk away, then called back over his shoulder, “If you decide you want to pursue Billy Sunshine and Guido, meet me at the corner of Monument and Mignola tonight at midnight. Otherwise, I’ll assume you’ve dropped the case.” He left without another word, and I sat contemplating my options and wishing there was some sort of manual I could follow for dealing with all this shit.

  * * *

  Without any other real leads, I didn’t have much to do that afternoon except think and drink. I returned to the office to do both, picking up a fifth of cheap whiskey from a corner store on my way there. I had that itchy feeling on the back of my neck again, and decided maybe it was time to be proactive and see who was tailing me.

  A couple of blocks from the office, I ducked down a side street and found some shadows to hang out in. With the whiskey bottle in one hand and my cosh in the other, I waited for a minute before a slim figure in a long coat came to the mouth of the alley and stopped.

  Standing at the entrance to an alley is always a bad idea. Generally, alleys are darker than the street you’re coming off of, so you can’t really see anyone or anything that might be ahead of you, while whoever or whatever is in the alley can see you clearly outlined and backlit. And stopping just makes you look uncertain and guilty, marking you as a target for whoever you were following.

  I stepped forward, the cosh held casually in my hand, and said, “Is there a reason you’re following me around?”

  The backlit figure started, nearly jumping out of their skin. Up close, I could see it was a woman, maybe late-20s, with long dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and skin that had seen plenty of sun. I also noticed that she was holding a gun in her hand.

  “St-stay back,” she stammered, raising the gun and pointing it at me. Her hands were a little shaky. “I’ll shoot.”

  I knelt and placed the cosh and liquor bottle on the ground, then rose slowly and put my hands up in surrender. “Easy, lady. I don’t want to cause any trouble, and I sure don’t want to get shot. Why don’t you explain what’s going on here.”

  “Y-you’re the detective, right?” she asked. I nodded. “And you f-found Carly’s body last night?” I nodded again. She lowered the gun, her eyes filled with tears and her lower lip quivering. “Can you help me find who killed her?” she asked before breaking down into a sobbing mess.

  XIII.

  Back in the office, I offered my would-be assailant—a Miss Jasmine Luitzo—a chair and a shot of the whiskey. She accepted both gratefully, if rather shakily.

  “Why don’t you give me some more information,” I said, collapsing into my desk chair. Miss Luitzo took a deep, shuddering breath and launched into her story.

  “Carly and I have been living together for three and a half years now. Lately, she’d started acting strange. Said there were weird things going on at work, stuff with her boss that didn’t look right or legitimate or whatever. She was investigating him, trying to put together evidence to blow the whistle on him.”

  “So they weren’t having an affair?” I asked, fishing for support for one of my theories.

  Jasmine shook her head. “No. When I say we were living together, I mean . . .” She trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed.

  “Ah. Say no more. Mr. Stewart was not her type,” I said.

  Jasmine gave me a weak smile. “Yeah. He tried to wine and dine her, she said. He kept taking her to a fancy hotel, trying to buy her off. She didn’t go for it, though.”

  Wally Stewart was starting to look less and less like your average accountant and more like a mobster. Maybe his wife didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. And maybe he wasn’t kidnapped so much as he disappeared for some sinister purpose. “So, what do you think happened? Do you think Mr. Stewart had her killed because she knew something?”

  Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I heard he’s been missing for several days, so I don’t know how he could have done it.” That was a bit of a tough one, assuming he’d been kidnapped or killed, but that wasn’t looking like the right answer anymore.

  “Did Carly happen to tell you what she thought was going on, or what evidence she had or something?” I asked.

  Miss Luitzo shook her head. “She kept pretty quiet about it. She said she didn’t want me getting dragged into it. She did say that she had some evidence saved on a datachip that she’d hidden, but she didn’t tell me where it was.” Typical: one step up, two steps back. There was evidence, but we had no idea how to find it.

  I gave Jasmine my most conciliatory smile. “We’ll figure it out. Did Carly have a safety deposit box or something?”h

  Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t know. Possibly? If she did, she never told me about it.”

 
; I sat lost in thought for a moment. What I really needed were her keys. If she had a safety deposit box or a P.O. box, there’d have to be a key. If she’d had them on her when she died, they’d be in the evidence lock-up at the 4th Precinct.

  I stood up. “Okay, Miss Luitzo, I think I have an idea where to look. I promise I’ll do everything in my power to track down Miss Jennings’s killer and bring them to justice.” The flash of hope that crossed the young woman’s face was like a knife in my heart; I had no idea if I’d be able to make good on my promise, but I’d try my damnedest.

  “Thank you, Detective Hazzard,” she said, rising and shaking my hand. I handed her a pen and a pad of paper so she could leave her contact information with me, in case she had anything else to say that might help with the case, and I escorted her out of the office. Alone, I sat and stared out my window for a while, trying to make sense of the information I had. Wally Stewart was looking less and less like an innocent victim in this business, and I was convinced—despite a lack of hard evidence—that the man was alive and well, and probably plotting something nasty.

  I sent a quick message to Captain O’Mally over at the 4th asking to look at the evidence from Carly Jennings’s murder, then had another drink or two while I waited for his reply. I was just getting ready to pour drink number three when my computer pinged in my pocket and O’Mally’s reply came up. I recapped the bottle of whiskey and grabbed my coat. The walk to the 4th Precinct would be quick, and I had some keys to locate.

  * * *

  The desk sergeant gave me a guest pass and Officer Higgins met me in the lobby to escort me to the evidence lock-up. “Her personal effects were just processed, so I’ve got a list of what she had available for you.” He opened up a vid window and sent a copy of the list to me. I pulled it up and scanned the list of items, searching for keys. Towards the bottom of the list, I found them: a set of six keys of various sizes and descriptions.