Superhero Detective Series (Book 1): Superhero Detective For Hire

by Brasher, Darius

  I grinned.

  “But, don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think I do what I do because I am some sort of masochist or a saint who is out to save the world. My job is fun, though sometimes in a back-alley brawl kind of way. I am a former professional fighter. Fighting people is a part of my DNA. There is a rush in fighting, in trying to impose your will on someone,” I said.

  “But what if you lose?” Ginny said. “Losing a MMA fight is one thing. There are rules and referees there. No one dies in a MMA fight unless it is a freak accident. Losing a street fight with a Metahuman is another thing. Supervillains don’t follow rules. There are no referees who will step in to stop a fight when one of the opponents is down. People die at the hands of Metahumans all the time. Doctor Alchemy killed Wildside just last month.”

  “The possibility of losing is part of the fun,” I said. “There is no winning without the possibility of losing. What was it Winston Churchill said? ‘Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.’ He was right. I have been shot at before, both by guns and things that looked like they were straight out of a comic book. While it was not fun at the time, boy does surviving it make you feel more alive afterwards.”

  Ginny shook her head at me.

  “That all sounds a little crazy to me,” she said. “I work at a gym and go to school. No one shoots at me or tries to turn me to stone. My days are filled with membership sign-ups and reading about collateral estoppel. Your days are spent investigating crimes and dodging laser beams.”

  “Collateral estoppel?” I repeated. “Yikes! That sounds horrific. I’d rather dodge laser beams any day.”

  Ginny grinned at me.

  “There are days I’d agree with you. Law school is mind-numbingly dull and tedious sometimes. Studying centuries old legal precedents does not exactly get the blood pumping,” she said.

  “So why do it?” I asked.

  Ginny shrugged.

  “It’s a means to an end, the end being passing the bar and becoming a lawyer. I plan on becoming a prosecutor and helping to put the bad guys away.” Her eyes twinkled. “Kind of like you actually. Hopefully I’ll avoid the getting shot at part.”

  We continued to talk while we ate about both everything and nothing. I mentioned to Ginny how I had been fired from a private security firm before I hung up my shingle as a detective.

  “Tell me about that,” Ginny said.

  “The company I was working for was hired to protect an actor who had been getting some threats. In his world, he’s a pretty big deal. If I told you his name, you’d know it. The problem was the fact he is a big deal in the acting world made him think he is a big deal, period. He told me to beat up someone who had annoyed him. I demurred.”

  “And that’s why they fired you,” Ginny said.

  “No, they fired me because when I said no, the actor got mad and took a swing at me. I think he thought the fact he was paying for me meant he could do what he wanted to me. He was mistaken. I dodged his blow and knocked him on his derriere.” I normally would have said ass, but it was just our second date. I was trying to keep it classy. Profanity really ought to be reserved for the third date.

  “I had to knock him down repeatedly before he stayed down. He had starred in some action movies, and the training he had undergone for them tricked him into thinking he really knew how to fight. In reality, he couldn’t fight, at least not against someone who was really trained to fight like I was,” I said. “Knocking him on his keister is why they fired me.”

  “I have the feeling you neither like someone trying to push you around, nor being told what to do,” she said. That was exactly what she said, “neither” and “nor.” I liked the fact Ginny spoke English correctly, which was something you rarely heard those days. I was glad I had kept it classy and said “derriere” before instead of “ass.”

  I shrugged at her words.

  “Who does like being pushed around or told what to do?” I said. I grinned at her. “I will say I seem to enjoy it less than most people, though. It’s why I like to work for myself. There’s no one to tell me what to do. And, when someone tries to push me around, I can push back as hard as I want without being worried about office politics or upsetting someone in authority over me.”

  We finished our meal. We lingered a while over dessert, and then decided to call it an evening. We went back to my car. I drove Ginny back home.

  I parked, and we got out of my car. I escorted Ginny up to her door. She proceeded in front of me. It gave me ample opportunity to admire her swaying backside. She had a good backside, and I heartily approved of it.

  When we arrived at her door, Ginny turned around and leaned against it. She looked up at me with her big blue eyes. They were full of playfulness and possibilities.

  “You know how sometimes a woman invites a guy in for drinks at the end of a date, but what she is really doing is inviting him in for sex, but she is too coy to come right out and say that?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  Her eyes danced.

  “Well, you don’t drink, and I’m not coy. So, wanna come inside and have sex?” she said.

  “Since you put it that way,” I said, “how could I say no?”

  CHAPTER 12

  I got a call from Astor City Homicide Detective Glenn Pearson the next morning. He asked me to meet him at George Chase’s apartment. I pretending like I did not know where it was, so he gave me the address.

  I hoped one day a homicide detective would call me to give me good news, like the homicide division was being disbanded because the lion had finally decided to lay down with the lamb and there was no further need for homicide investigators. The day Detective Pearson called was not to be that day.

  When I pulled into the parking lot I knew all too well from my days of following George, there were police cars everywhere. When I got out of my car, I looked up to see a uniformed officer posted outside of George’s closed door on the second floor.

  This can’t be good, I thought.

  I mounted the stairs to George’s floor. I walked up to George’s door. The uniformed officer did not look old enough to be a cop. The older I got, the younger everyone else was starting to look.

  The cop raised a hand to stop me as I approached.

  “You got some business here, buddy?” he asked.

  “Detective Pearson asked me to come by,” I said. I pulled out my detective license and showed it to him.

  “Private, huh?” he said. “Any money in that?”

  “Some days more than others. Besides, what it lacks in money it makes up for in giving me a chance to hobnob with you boys in blue,” I said.

  He grinned at me.

  “I’d rather just have money,” he said.

  “You and me both,” I said.

  The cop opened the door a bit, and yelled inside that I was outside waiting to see Detective Pearson. Glenn’s voice yelled back, telling the cop to let me in. The cop pushed the door all the way open. Smirking, he gave me a half-bow and a flourish, pointing the way inside.

  I went inside. The place was a mess. The orderly apartment I had observed before was gone. It looked like a cyclone lived there rather than the neat and tidy George.

  There was a gaggle of police and police technicians inside. I immediately spotted Glenn even though he was a good several inches shorter than everyone else in the room. Glenn had charisma, an ineffable presence that drew the eye. He would be the chief of police one day if he paid as much attention to politics as he did to doing his job well. He was short, dark, and stout, with eyes that bulged a bit. If he had a spirit animal, it would be a bullfrog. I both liked and respected him, the same way I respected a master craftsman, a good electrician, or anyone who was dedicated to his craft and did it well and honestly. Glenn respected me too. I was not sure if he liked me, though. For that matter, I was not sure if he liked his own mother. Suspected her to be culpable in an unsolved murder, probably.

  Glenn saw me, and gestured
me over with jerk of his head. I walked over. Lying on the ground was why Glenn was there and why he had summoned me. It did not take a master detective to figure it out.

  George Chase was lying on the floor of the living room next to the glass table I had seen before. He was on his back. His unseeing eyes stared off into eternity. He had been shot twice in the chest. A crime scene investigator was crouched over him, examining the entry points. George’s button-down shirt had been opened and peeled back. It was soaked with blood. The virile, cocky man I had encountered was gone, replaced by a pale figure that looked like it was made of wax.

  It was not the first dead body I had seen. I doubted it would be my last. Normal human, Metahuman, licensed Hero—the labels we applied to one another little mattered in the end. No one got out of life alive. But, regardless of the amount of times you faced death, you did not get used to it. Or, at least I did not. If I ever did, it would probably be time to find another line of work.

  Glenn pointed down at George with his chin.

  “You know the deceased?” he said. Glenn had the voice of a radio announcer. How he looked was at odds with how he sounded.

  I nodded.

  “I know him as George Chase, though I believe Mr. Chase also had several other aliases,” I said. With George lying there like that, it seemed disrespectful to simply call him George. Unfortunately, George was past caring.

  I shook my head as I looked down at George.

  “It’s a damned shame,” I said. “I liked the guy.”

  Glenn nodded. He was watching me react to George’s death. Glenn did not miss much.

  “The apartment is leased under the name Sidney Waters, though there is some indication the decedent also goes by Timothy Barnes and a few other names. George Chase is a new one on me, though. I’ll add it to the list,” he said.

  “Why did you call me?” I asked.

  “Your card was on the decedent’s desk,” Glenn said. “I thought maybe you could help us get a jump on what is going on here and who decided it was a good idea to ventilate his chest for him.”

  Glenn jerked his head again, this time to the corner of the room away from everyone else. I followed him there. Glenn leaned his shoulder against the wall and looked up at me. His bulbous eyes peered at me.

  “Tell me what you know,” he said.

  Normally, in response to a question like that, I would have said something like “The sum total of what I know would sink a battleship.” But, flippancy seemed out of place with George’s body just feet away. So, I instead gave Glenn the straight scoop on what I knew. I told him I had been hired by a former lover of George’s who was being blackmailed by him, and my client had wanted me to stop George’s extortion. I told Glenn I had put George under surveillance and had observed him with several wealthy married women. I told him I believed George either was blackmailing all of them, or had plans to do so. I also told him of my meeting with George and how George had refused to stop the attempt to blackmail my client. I also told him of the visit I had gotten from Laurel and Hardy where they warned me to stay away from George.

  I mentioned I had traced the car Laurel and Hardy had been driving to David Hoff. A flash of recognition passed over Glenn’s face when I mentioned Mr. Hoff’s name.

  “You know Hoff?” I asked.

  Glenn nodded.

  “He’s a small-time thug with aspirations of playing in the big leagues. He does legitimate work as a construction contractor, but he also hires his boys out for extralegal odd jobs. Shaking down businesses, intimidating witnesses of crimes into not testifying, that sort of thing.” Glenn’s eyes sparkled with amusement. He knew I did not scare easily. “Were his guys successful in scaring you?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I haven’t been able to sleep since.”

  I finished telling Glenn what I knew. Well, most of what I knew. I omitted the fact I had violated several laws in my investigation of George, including the fact this was not the first time I was in George’s apartment. I also did not reveal Eileen’s identity.

  My leaving out who had hired me was not lost on Glenn.

  “What’s the name of the woman who hired you to look into this George character?” he asked.

  I gave him a slight smile.

  “I’m afraid that is confidential,” I said. I was Truman the Taciturn.

  “Like hell it is,” Glenn said. “You’re not a priest or a lawyer or a doctor or anyone else who has a legal right to keep who he talks to confidential. But, you’re not a dummy. You already know that. Your client was being blackmailed by our boy George over there. That makes her a suspect in the shooting. So, give up her name.”

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I said. “If I named my clients every time somebody asked me, pretty soon I wouldn’t have any more clients.”

  Glenn’s eyes bugged out at me balefully. Glenn had a powerful personality, and his unblinking stare might have intimidated a lot of people. But, I have been around the block a few times. Heck, I got into a fight with Avatar once—Avatar was one of the most powerful Metahumans ever—and lived to tell about it. I wasn’t going to get all weak in the knees because a cop gave me the stink eye.

  “Stop it with the eye rape, Glenn,” I said. “You’ve known me a long time. What will make a street thug piss his pants isn’t going to work on me.”

  “I could arrest you for obstruction of justice if you don’t tell me,” Glenn said.

  I sighed.

  “And if you do that, I’ll call my lawyer, and she’ll bail me out in a few hours. Then, I’ll call the Heroes’ Guild. It will in turn make some calls to City Hall. Then your superiors will be breathing down your neck for stirring up such a fuss for arresting a Hero,” I said. “Why don’t I save you the time and trouble and me the money and hassle. I’ll look into my client and see if she had anything to do with this. If she did, I’ll not only give you her name, but I’ll hand her over to you on a silver platter.”

  Glenn stared at me a bit longer. He then sighed.

  “All right. Like you said, I’ve known you a long time. You’re almost as good as you think you are. I’ll cut you some slack,” he said. He pointed a stubby finger at me. “But, if I find out you’ve been holding out any more information on me or if you were involved in this man’s death somehow, I’ll fall on you like a ton of bricks. Hero or no Hero. Understand?”

  “You’re so beautiful when you’re making threats. Your eyes get all sparkly. It really makes them pop,” I said.

  Glenn snorted.

  “Though you’re almost as good as you think you are, you’re nowhere near as funny as you think you are,” he said.

  “Everyone is a critic,” I said. “Since I told you what I know, you want to tell me what you know about what happened here?”

  “Why do you care?” Glenn said. “Mr. Chase being dead seems to rather conclusively end his blackmailing days.”

  “True,” I said. “But, like I said, I liked the guy. Besides, my client might want me to stay in this thing long enough to see it through.” I thought about the pictures of Eileen and the other women having sex with George I had found in his drawer. Were the pictures still there? Or, had whoever shot George taken them? I was sure Eileen would not want those pictures to fall into the wrong hands.

  Glenn nodded.

  “Okay, here’s what we know so far,” he said. “Your George Chase, or whatever his name is, was shot twice in the chest from close range. We won’t know for sure until the medical examiner takes a look at him, but so far it looks like George was shot late yesterday afternoon or last night. Mr. Chase’s cleaning lady found his body shortly after 10 a.m. this morning. Unlike usual, she found the door to be unlocked when she arrived. She says she did not touch anything, and immediately left and called us. We’ve spoken to some of the neighbors in the nearby apartments, but none of the ones we’ve spoken to so far report seeing or hearing anything.” George rapped on the wall with his knuckle. “Must be mighty thick walls.”


  Glenn was telling me all of this without referring to notes. I had never seen him write down what anyone told him, yet I had seen him regurgitate verbatim what someone had told him. Unlike me, Glenn really did have a mind like a steel trap. If he did not have a photographic memory, I would have been surprised.

  “We don’t know the exact caliber yet as the slugs are still in him,” Glenn said. “There is no indication of a struggle. There are also no signs of forced entry.”

  “So it looks like whoever shot George had a key, or George knew him or her and let them in,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Glenn said. “On top of that, there was a gun hidden in a fake book on Mr. Chase’s bookshelf. Presumably, if he had felt himself to be in danger from a stranger, he would have tried to get his gun. There is no evidence he did so.”

  I could not think of a subtle way to ask about the evidence I had found of George’s blackmailing enterprise, so I just came right out and asked about it.

  “Did you find any evidence of Mr. Chase’s blackmailing? I’m sure my client would rest easier if she knew that any proof of her indiscretions Mr. Chase might have kept was safely in the hands of the police rather than in the possession of his killer.”

  “Assuming, of course, your mysterious client is not in fact the killer herself,” Glenn said. He shook his head. “No, we did not find anything like that. Since the cleaning lady says Mr. Chase tended to be neat and tidy, it looks like whoever shot him searched the place. The place had been ransacked by the time we got here. If George kept anything like that, it’s gone now.”

  That meant one of two things: either George had for some reason removed from his home the things I had seen and taken photos of days before, or whoever killed George had it. I was betting on door number two.

  “Speaking of George’s killer,” Glenn said, “where were you last night?”

  I had been expecting this question. I knew Glenn did not really think I was involved in George’s shooting. He would not have told me as much as he had if he actually thought that. But after all, I had been hired to end George’s blackmailing of my client. George’s death ended that blackmailing rather conclusively. Glenn would have been committing police malpractice by not ruling me out as a suspect.