The Shamus Sampler

by Sean Dexter

  “But we don’t know, do we, what actually happened by that pool,” Sandra said. “Possible reasonable doubt argument.”

  “There is one piece of evidence,” I said, “the knife. How did it get out by the pool? If the murder had taken place in the kitchen, it might look different. One of the two of them brought it out there. Why? To kill the other. It is, of course, possible that Henry got into an argument with her. Feared he was losing her. Could not face up to this. So he goes into the kitchen, grabs a knife, and goes after her by the pool. They wrestle. He loses. This is not what she’s saying happened, at least not to me. She does not mention him leaving the pool area and claims, hard as it is to believe, she has no idea how the knife ended up out there and in Henry’s hand.”

  “And so she stated to me.”

  “You’re fucked,” I said. “How about this son, Jonah? Do you know what he is going to testify to?”

  “That he arrived from school, found his father lying there covered in blood, his mother spattered with blood – now here’s the damning portion – smiling at him, wiping the handle of the knife with a beach towel.”

  “I can see her doing that.”

  “Even with Jonah,” Sandra said, “I have my hands tied. Carol insists I go lightly on the kid in cross, and she’s paying the bill.”

  “I thought they didn’t like each other.”

  “You know how mothers are.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I paused, then said, “there’s a possible alternative scenario.”

  “Like?”

  “I said possible. If it is alright with you, I’d want to do a little investigating. That’s what you are paying me to do.”

  “Fine with me. It’s Carol’s bucks and she appears to have plenty of them.”

  “Ah, the divorce settlement.”

  “Hasn’t gone through yet, but she has had a separate account for some time. Partly money Henry had given her, partly inheritance.”

  “See you here Sunday afternoon? If I find out anything I’ll let you know then. I understand the trial starts Monday.”

  “Good hunting,” she muttered. Then shook her head as if dismissing the notion that my investigation would lead anywhere. She was probably right.

  *****

  I stood in front of a white stucco cottage, red clay tile roof, surrounded by palm trees and cacti, in a quiet neighborhood in Palo Alto near Stanford. Daniel’s digs. Not cheap, definitely not cheap. I had talked with Daniel on the phone to set up the interview. He explained the place was rented and he shared it with two other students. Still, this family was not lacking when it came to money. Said he was looking forward to the interview. Wanted to set the record straight. What record I was going to find out.

  A tall, thin young man with curly hair like his father answered the door. Blue jeans, rugby shirt, dark brown eyes that searched me out. Their intensity reminded me of his mother.

  “Thank you so much for coming and talking with me,” Daniel said as he showed me into his living room. I found a seat on a brown leather couch.

  “Your roommates?”

  “Out. Want a beer?”

  “Good idea.”

  Figured it might relax him. In any event I really wanted a beer. It was a warm day and Palo Alto is hotter than Jack London Square. He soon returned with two Anchor Steams, sat down at the other end of the couch, and said, “I told Ms. Jacobs that I was more than willing to testify in my mother’s behalf, but she said Mother wouldn’t allow it.”

  “I gather she is trying her best to keep the two of you out of it.”

  “Not succeeding with Jonah. I understand you work for Jacobs. So why are you here then if you don’t want me to testify?”

  “Background. I need to understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “The truth.”

  “Good luck! I don’t think anybody is telling the truth, not Jonah, certainly not my mother.”

  “I thought you were supporting her.”

  “I do, but that doesn’t mean I believe her.”

  “If you don’t mind I want to ask first some questions about the past. You grew up in that household. I gather going away to college was in part an effort to escape from the family. Am I right?”

  “To escape from my father. Ours was not a family. It was a cult.”

  “Go on.”

  “My father dominated us, controlled us. He manipulated our feelings, got into our heads, distorted the way we saw the world. We all, not just mother, lived to serve him, his emotional needs. Every detail of our lives was planned, orchestrated. If we resisted, life became intolerable. We were sent to our rooms. Not given food. Unable to go out with our friends. We had no choice but to obey his whims.”

  “Did he hit you, or Jonah, or your mother?”

  “Never. He didn’t need to. He had this rage. Sometimes he didn’t even shout at us. I remember him standing before me, saying nothing, clenching his fists, his eyes drilling into me. It was will against will. And not one of us had a will as powerful as his. After all he was a trained psychiatrist and could play our emotions like a harp, pluck just the right strings. Not always the threat of his rage. There was his manipulation of our need for love.”

  “But you broke from him,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t.” He took a big gulp of his beer. Sweat formed on his brow and it wasn’t because of the heat. He was living the past. Was he going to cry? “He broke from me.”

  “Explain.”

  “It happened when Jonah was eight years old. Father no longer came into my bed at night….”

  “What?”

  “You heard me right. He used to come to my bed, fondle me. And more.”

  “Your mother didn’t do anything?”

  “I was not supposed to tell her, but I’m sure she knew. She was just too frightened to do anything about it. Jonah became his sexual plaything. At first I was jealous. I had lost my father’s love. But in time I began to see what a monster he was. So I plotted to get out of that house. Finally succeeded.”

  “What do you think happened by the pool, the day your father was murdered?”

  “Think? I know. I know Mother, I know Father, I know Jonah. Mother was incapable of fighting with him. Impossible. It took all her will to finally divorce him. Not in her character. Physically she couldn’t do it. And Jonah? He’s quite strong. On the wrestling team. I know the rage that builds up over time from that kind of abuse. I would have killed him if I had stayed in that house.”

  “So you’re suggesting Jonah arrived at the house before your mother. He killed your father, Carol shows up and covers for him.”

  “Possible.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  “You’re a detective. Do some work. There are records of complaints made against him. By me. By Jonah. We, of course, were convinced to recant but the complaints would be in the files. And the sequence of time when the two arrived that day. Must be records.”

  *****

  I sat across from Sandra Jacobs at Big Emma’s. As it was the weekend the place was almost empty. I ordered an Oban single malt and a vodka martini for Sandra. She took a sip of her drink and pulled a notebook out of a large scuffed leather briefcase. I took a gulp from my drink and reported on my interview with Daniel. I have a very good memory and left nothing out. Then I said, “I checked out his story. The facts fit.”

  “Like what?”

  I looked down at my notes and said, “The school bus dropped Jonah off no later than 3:00 PM as it does each day like clockwork. I have a signed statement from the bus driver.” I handed her the affidavit. “Carol attended her book club that afternoon. It met in a corner of Starbucks in Lafayette. She left the coffee shop about 3:30 PM. I have statements from two members of the club and a barista.” I shoved more paperwork in her direction.

  “Give me your scenario.”

  “Jonah arrives from school around 3:00 PM. His father calls for him from the
pool. This could be part of a regular pattern of sexual abuse when Carol was not in the house. He has had enough this time. He passes through the kitchen and grabs a knife. He will not allow Henry to touch him one more time. Henry attacks him. Jonah lashes out with the knife. Loses it. Carol shows up and finds the bloody scene. Works out a cover story with Jonah. Has him call 911.”

  “That would explain how the kitchen knife found its way to the pool area.” Sandra said. “And the complaints against the father?”

  “Sorry, no luck there. Juvy files. Sealed.”

  Sandra put on her reading glasses and looked over my reports. Then said, “Good job.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “My duty as an officer of the court. I will request a meeting in camera with the prosecution and the judge. I will turn over this material to the prosecution. But first I will meet with Carol. I have a meeting scheduled for nine tomorrow morning.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then swallowed the rest of her martini.

  “Pisses me off,” she said. This was no surprise for Sandra was perpetually being pissed off.

  “What?”

  “The names of the kids. Jonah. Daniel. Lifted right out of the Bible. This is no story for Sunday School.”

  *****

  Sandra and I met with Carol Platt in a small conference room in the courthouse. She wore a navy blue dress, matching jacket, and white blouse with a gold cross of David dangling from a chain. A touch of blush and lipstick made her look more alive than the gray of our first meeting.

  “Originally I wanted this meeting to go over our trial strategy once again,” Sandra said. “Perhaps, I hoped you might have given up on your plan to testify in your own defense.”

  “You know my view,” she said coldly looking to her intertwined hands.

  “But all that has changed. Jim here has been doing some investigating. He has produced evidence that what both Jonah and you have said was the sequence of events could not be true.”

  Sandra showed her copies of my report. She barely glanced at them.

  She asked, “What are you going to do with those?”

  “I have requested a meeting with the judge and the prosecutor. I am legally bound to turn over this material to the prosecution just as they were legally bound to give me copies of your and Jonah’s depositions and other evidence.”

  She said nothing. Just shrugged her shoulders.

  “Of course this will change my defense strategy. I need to suggest another scenario for the events of the day of your husband’s murder. A scenario that suggests the murderer could be your son Jonah.”

  “No!” Carol screamed. She stood up, took the papers Sandra had handed to her and threw them in her face. “You’re fired!”

  Then she sat down again emotion drained from her. She turned away from Sandra and looked at me. That same curious expression she had used on me at the end of our earlier session in prison. Almost a smile. Seductive.

  *****

  “What happens now?” I asked Sandra as we walked down the corridor towards the courtroom.

  “I have the in camera session. I turn over your material. I inform the judge of Carol’s decision. Then it is up to him as to how to proceed.”

  “And what do you think the judge will do?”

  “He has two options. Either to postpone the trial or call a mistrial.”

  “And he will choose?”

  “I believe the prosecutor will want the latter. He is not too happy with the present jury. Too many women.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m out of it.”

  *****

  Once again I sat across from Sandra Jacobs in my favorite booth at Big Emma’s. Her request. It was one month after our last meeting. She said that she wanted to bring me up to speed on the Carol Platt case. It was four on a Friday and, unlike our previous visit, the place was packed. Longshoremen, UPS drivers, Port of Oakland office workers and a sprinkling of lawyers and off duty cops. A soft golden glow from candle-shaped bulbs gave the oil portrait over the bar of the voluptuous naked Big Emma, sprawled on her red satin settee, an ethereal look. No angel, more like a floating blimp. A cacophony of shouts from liar’s dice players, the drone of ESPN, the voices of a hundred conversations battered my eardrums. Sandra and I were going to have to shout to be heard.

  Sandra leaned over the table toward me and said, “I have just learned that the DA has decided not to request a new trial for Carol Platt.”

  “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t like to lose. Your evidence appears to have checked out.”

  “And what about Jonah?”

  “That would be a matter for the juvenile court and probation system. I had suggested that the prosecution look into past complaints of abuse of the kids. My guess is that they have. I have a friend who handles juvenile cases. She doesn’t expect them to prosecute.”

  “That’s it?”

  “One more matter. This letter addressed to me came for you.”

  She handed me an opened manila envelope. I pulled out a plain white business envelope hand addressed to me. Ripping it open, I extracted a folded white sheet of paper wrapped around a check. For $10,000. Neatly written on the paper with a fountain pen by a delicate hand was the following:

  “Thank you,

  “Carol Platt.”

  I handed it to Sandra. “I thought she would be mad at me for dragging Jonah into this mess.”

  “Look at the results,” Sandra said.

  I could see Carol’s face, that wisp of brunette hair over one eye, the seductive smile.

  “What if…?”

  “Cash the check.”

  *****

  Tim Wohlforth’s PI novel EPITAPH FOR EMILY was just been published by Krill Press. It is the second in a Jim Wolf trilogy. NO TIME TO MOURN, the first in the series. was reissued in 2012. The PINK TARANTULA, a short story collection, featuring paraplegic Private Eye Tom Bateman (Crip) and green-haired sidekick Henrietta was published in April 2011 by Perfect Crime Books. His thriller, Harry, which deals with eco-terrorism, was published in May 2010. A short story, One Berkeley Night, is included in SEND MY LOVE AND A MOLOTOV COCKTAIL published by PM Press in September 2011. Other stories have appeared in HARDCORE HARDBOILED (Kensington), MWA’s DEATH DO US PART, (Little Brown). Two of his stories have made Otto Penzler’s Distinguished Mystery Stories list. He is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and received a Certificate of Excellence from the Dana Literary Society. He is the author of over 80 published short stories.

  The Patriot

  by

  Sean Benjamin Dexter

  Morris, Oklahoma

  1965

  Sean Dexter is one of those highly underrated writers self-publishing some great stuff. He’s also a fine editor, having edited a lot of my own stories and was heavily involved in getting this anthology formatted. His Jack Burke Thrillers are a great mix of the hardboiled school and modern thriller that deserve a wider audience. I am thrilled to publish his historical PI story so everyone can see what they're missing. It’s got a great twist ending!

  “You want to run that by me again.” The man sitting across from me was well-dressed in a small town Oklahoma way—jeans and a heavy-duty blue work shirt fresh out of the package and buttoned up tight at the collar, factory creases sharp enough to slice bread. His heavy Okie twang almost required an interpreter, and on top of that, he wasn't making a lot of sense. His name was Wayne Magee and he worked at the stockyards east of town. He couldn't have been more than twenty. Morris was a small town but not so small that I knew everyone well. I'd seen him around town, but I didn't know much about his personal life.”Some of what you said went by a little fast for me to get hold of.”

  “I want to hire you,” he said.

  “I got that part,” I said. “It was the rest that sort of slipped past.”

  He sighed heavily as if burdened by my stupidity. I get that a lot. “I operate a short wave radio from my garage.”

  “Yeah,”
I said, “that I got.” I sat up a little straighter and scooted the old, oak swivel chair a little closer to my desk. The wheels hadn't seen any oil since FDR took office—the first time.

  “I picked up some people talking. One of them sounded like a Ruskie…the other one sounded normal.”

  “Normal?”

  “Yeah, you know, like one of us.” The young man squirmed like a ten-year-old sitting in the principal's office. He kept running his hand gently across the top of his head like he was checking to make sure the pomade was still holding his flat-top high and tight. It was. Should have been a dipstick stuck back behind one of his ears.

  “Can you tell where these folks are located?” I said.

  “Hard to tell. It's weird what you can pick up. I've even picked up telephone calls a time or two. I think maybe these two fellas was on the telephone, but I'm not for sure. A couple Eye-talian brothers with a rig a lot like mine swears to the almighty they heard some Russian lady astronaut screamin' for help up there in space somewhere like she was burnin' up.”

  I nodded. I'd heard the same rumor and knew it to be true. “And this worries you because…?”

  More squirming, but his face was serious. “Well, you know, them Commie sons-of-bitches, pardon my French, just about dropped an atom bomb on us over that Cuba thing.”

  Wayne was referring, of course, to the Cuban Missile Crisis a few years back that had most of us peering up at the sky for a few days waiting for the BIG ONE to come barreling down on our fair little community. I wasn't quite sure what Wayne expected of me, but he did have my attention. “Did they say something that worried you?”

  He nodded. “Them boys was sorta talking in circles, almost like a code.”

  “What did they say?”

  “It was a weak signal, kept cutting in and out. But twice I heard them say something about how important it was to have a man in place. I also heard something about the Dow chemical plant.”