The Academy Affair

This is my entry for the 2022 ‘Hammered – an Ode to Mickey Spillane’ story event. It’s a follow-on to my submission last year, ‘The Tall Open Window’. This could have gone almost anywhere, but of course belongs here in Romance, for such it is.

All persons, groups and organizations in this story are completely fictional and any resemblance between them and anything or anybody in the real world is purely coincidental. Of course.

+

If Boris had ever had a chakra for intuition and foresight, the bullet hole in the centre of his forehead had pretty well erased it.

I looked away with some distaste as the masked woman in the scrubs began a Y-shaped autopsy incision on his chest. To my mind, not even Boris should have to go through this.

Not to mention the other indignities he had been subjected to before somebody had tired of tormenting him and pulled the trigger. Even knowing the kind of predatory slime Boris had been, I winced at little.

“Found his balls yet?” I asked casually.

Lieutenant Sarah Cotton shrugged in the seat next to mine.

“Nope. Maybe Natasha has them.”

“Where’s Natasha?”

“We haven’t been able to find her.”

The couple in question were actually named Alexandr and Marina, but their resemblance to the buffoonish Slavic spies from Rocky and Bullwinkle had been sufficiently remarkable that the nicknames had been pinned on them since their arrival in the country a decade ago.

Not to their faces, of course. Boris had indeed been quite short and, yes, he’d worn a very silly half-sized handlebar moustach, but he’d also routinely won bar bets by, hands on bumper, lifting car tires off the pavement. That didn’t stop everybody, of course. Somebody had gone after him recently, judging from a couple of half-healed scrapes on his forehead. I was pretty certain however that whoever had done that to him that had crawled away with worse.

And Natasha? Well, his wife was indeed a head taller than him, with the cartoon character’s lush figure and long dark hair. She also apparently gobbled Crazy as a dietary supplement. She’d once done nine months in the state guesthouse after decking on a cop who’d tried to stop her from throttling a delinquent hooker, then clocking the cop’s backup, then taking on the next three cops arriving en masse.  Nobody tangled with Natasha. Not knowingly. Not twice.

+

I’d been poring over photos at a spare desk in the morgue office when Sarah had found me. I sensed her standing beside me, looked up.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Working. Missing person.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Bread and butter for me, Sarah. Not all of them make the news.”

“True,” she admitted.

Sarah was a good cop, the backbone of the city’s Homicide Unit. Word was that she’d have been promoted into the corner office but for the unfortunate fact that the the present occupant was the Commissioner’s brother-in-law.

“What brings you here?” I asked.

That’s when she led me down the hall into the viewing room and Boris.

+

“I can’t say as I’m sorry,” I said as the scalpel finished its first incision. People like us take humor and satisfaction where and when it comes. Nobody would mourn Boris — well, nobody except Natasha, maybe — and, with his death, the air the rest of us breathed had just got a little cleaner.

She sighed slightly.

“I know, but somebody’ll have taken his place by next week. At least with these two, you know who you were dealing with.”

“That aside, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Her head turned to mine, half irritated, half amused.

“Say what now?”

“They keeping you busy in Homicide, Sarah?”

She relaxed a little.

“Oh, yeah. The fun never stops, Taffy.”

“Anything of interest?”

Sure, confidentiality and… stuff. But we both knew the rules, knew the difference between secrets and secrets.  To the extent people in our lines of work could trust anybody, Sarah Cotton and I trusted each other. You need somebody  to talk to when the moon howls.

“Usual shit,” she said, watching as the pathologist started opening Boris’ rib cage with rib shears. The stainless-steel instrument wouldn’t have looked too out of place in a gardening store, something intended for trimming inconvenient branches.

“Domestics,” she continued, “most of them. Some woman got pissed at Hubby losing money at the track two days ago and gave him an attitude adjustment with a frying pan, oops, so sorry about your forehead. Then some brainless idiot comes home early yesterday to find his girlfriend in bed - with another woman. The fool drops his pants, tries to wade in like it's some stupid porn vid and finds out that it’s hard to breath through four pillows.”

I shared her small ‘whistling through the graveyard’ grin.

She settled herself on the bench, watched Boris’ liver being placed in a steel pan.

“Mostly straight-forward, clean-cut and simple. Then this came along. Oh, and three floaters.”

“Three? Friends of Boris?”

“Unlikely. They were all female, Taff and all OD’s. No clothing, no IDs. It’s all pretty thin. We’re still checking.”

“Any of them look like her?” I held up a small photo of Penny Higgins, one of the ones I’d brought to the morgue. She took it, studied it for a moment, handed it back with a shake of her head.

I tried to ask a couple of other questions and started getting one-word answers. Sarah had apparently said all that she was willing to say.

Looking through the window, I’d have thought that the cause of death was a given, but the pathologist was being thorough. When she started taking the top of his head off with a saw, I gave my farewells to Sarah and went back to my photos.

+

Back it up a day or two.

“Taffy?”

The voice brought me up from the brooding depths, my thoughts centred on a coffee cup ring on my desk.

I looked up, saw Vladimir, my secretary and office manager.

“Mmm?”

“Customer. I think.”

I pushed back in my chair, made a quick effort to straighten up my desk. Vlad’s term was ‘archeological filing’ and he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Vladimir turned and motioned to somebody in the outer office.

Dark, curly hair and absolutely perfect makeup framed the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. Her smile was practiced, perfect and predatory. The coat she wore was my yearly rent and the pearls around her neck outpriced it.

Don’t get me wrong - I get clients like that all the time. In my dreams.

I made a mental note to raise my fees.

“Thank you, Vlad,” I said, rising. “Please sit down, Ms …?”

“Tendle. Shelly Tendle.”

“Would you care for a coffee or tea, Ms. Tendle?”

I cued Vladimir with a gesture. She saw the move, turned to look at him, smiled.

“Yes, please. Coffee, one sugar.”

Vladimir looked at me.

“My usual, please, Vlad.”

He nodded, turned, pulling the door shut behind him.

Tendle seated herself, looked about. There wasn’t a whole lot to see. A framed copy of my licence was bracketed by a graduation photo from the police academy and a photo of a general pinning a medal on a too-young-to-know-better me, too long ago and not yet nearly far enough away.

The door opened and Vladimir re-entered with two coffees. I could see her eyes on him, following as he left.

She turned back to me, saw my knowing smile and blushed slightly.

“Don’t worry about it,” I smiled. “He’s pretty spectacular.”

He was, too. Today, his unruly brown hair and designer stubble were set off by a sporty outfit, Italian I thought, with tan slacks and shirt and a ever-so-casually-ever-so-perfectly-matched jacket. A pair of what I was pretty sure were Prada sunglasses were tucked into the open collar of his shirt. I sometimes thought that Vladimir could have made much better money modelling than what I could pay him. Today, I was sure of it.

“Is he as efficient as he is...?”

I cut her off.

“Yes.”

We sized each other up for a moment.

“How may I help you, Ms. Tendle?”

“Do you handle missing persons investigations?”

“I can. It depends.”

“Depends?”

“I’ll be honest, Ms. Tendle...”

“Shelly, please.”

“Okay, Shelly, I’ll be happy to take your money for as long as you’re happy to keep giving it to me, but the reality is that missing persons traces are time-consuming and very often inconclusive.”

“Why?” I could see she was unused to being challenged.

“Some people don’t want to be found and that makes it harder. Some are no longer anywhere near here and my contacts only extend so far. And,” I stared at her, “frankly, some missing persons are dead.”

She stared back for a few seconds, nodded.

“I understand.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “Who am I looking for?”

“My daughter. Her name is Penny Higgins.”

She passed over a couple of photographs and my breath caught.

The girl was amazingly pretty.

“Higgins?” I asked, looking up from the photo.

“Her father’s name. He died eight years ago.”

“Ah.” I looked back to the picture.

Blue eyes stared back at me, framed by shoulder-length, medium-brown hair, a petite nose and perfect teeth in a sweet smile. Another photo showed an admirable figure, one with the freshness and firmness of youth.

Looking at the images, I felt a little older than I had five minutes ago, maybe just a bit jealous.

I dug out a pad of paper. Paper can’t be hacked and I tend to doodle. I found a pen, started asking the usual questions.

Penny had apparently left college two states away a month ago. Tendle was furious that she hadn’t been notified, but the school had pointed out that a) they don’t keep attendance and that b) the girl was, point of fact an adult, 18 years old being the age of majority there. No, Tendle hadn’t heard from her since and no, she didn’t know why her daughter had left. The college said her grades had been good and Shelly had talked on the phone with her residence roommate, who said she knew of no personal problems. One of her suitcases was gone from the storage room at the residence.

Email address? Phone number? Twitter? Facebook? The list went on a while.

Boyfriend? No, nobody steady, not that Penny had ever mentioned or the roommate knew of.

It took us almost an hour. Eventually, I put down my pen.

“Almost done,” I said. “How about credit cards? Does she have one? More?”

She handed me a printed statement.

“This is hers; the bill is sent to me.” She pointed at one charge near the bottom of the page; a bus ticket to here.

“This is when you realized she wasn’t still at school?”

“Yes. It was kind of a shock.”

“Does she have a phone? Do..."

She had the bill ready, passed it to me before I’d finished the question.

“Forgive me,” I asked, “but I need to know. How did — do — you two get along? Be honest now.”

She looked indignant, but I stared her down. She settled her ruffled feathers, replied.

“Fine. I mean, there was the usual teenage angst silliness every child goes through, but nothing unusual. And she’s older now.”

“Settled down?”

“’Matured’ might be a better word.”

I nodded.

“Penny came here but didn’t let you know. Why might that be? Do you think she meant it to be a surprise?”

“No.” She seemed unsure. “No, I don’t think so.”

I had a couple more questions, then she was rising to go.

Her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated, turned back to me.

“May I ask... I mean, that young man out there...”

I cut her off, chuckling.

“You mean, are we together?”

“I suppose.”

I thought for a moment, chuckled again.

“No. Much to both our disappointments.”

After she left, I handed Vlad a to-do list. Top priority was to take Penny’s phone bill and run down the calls. After that, he was to dig out anything he could about the family in general. Something seemed just a bit... off.

“Square the circle. Yes, Boss!” He grinned as he said that and I felt my heart melt a little. Next time, Taffy, get a woman as your office bitch. A plain one.

+

“Who can tell these days?” Petey smiled.

He wasn’t wrong. ‘Privacy’ is a phrase that covers a lot, mainly cracks.

I looked around the crowded nightclub, felt out of place. There were a lot of women in The Amber Bead, but I suspected I was one of the few with a vagina.

“Petey, you know better than the bus company how many girls show up at the depot. I need to find just one of them.”

He sighed, his dapper, slim figure sagging slightly.

“Taffy, hon, it’s been how long since this girl was last seen?”

“A month. She went AWOL from college. The school apparently didn’t notice and Mom didn’t find out until she got a bill for the bus fare last week.“

.
I’d met Petey when the only thing newer than my badge number was my blue police uniform. Officer McFitch had intervened in a quarrel and kept a rather younger Petey from a serious stomping when his ’date’ went bad.

Petey gradually parlayed his good looks and street smarts into a move off the streets, becoming first a flamboyant, wildly popular callboy. Unlike many in the sex trade, Petey had stayed independent, squirreled away his money, kept off drugs and eventually wound up running a top-end, both-sexes escort agency. He’d made a bundle in the process, his profits being rolled over into any number of businesses. And he hadn’t lost his contacts on the street along the way.

He’d also been one of my first customers when I hung up my blue suit and got my licence as a private eye. It was the only time I’ve seen Peter Dainois in a panic. His steady boyfriend had been — he said — framed for a particularly gruesome murder.

I did some digging, then some more, pulled in some favors, did some things which would have had the Licensing Board gnawing on their corset stays if they’d known and, what the heck, earned my fee.

It had been less a matter of hatred or malice than it was some of the good old boys in Homicide being too lazy to get out from behind their donuts and do the kind of gritty investigation their job demanded. Tagging Roger for the deed had been... convenient.

Needless to say, the name McFitch wasn’t overly popular in the bullpen when Petey’s lawyer used my evidence to get the kid sprung. There’d been a lot of pushback, a lot of dirty looks on the street. My car had been stopped for a burned-out headlight about six times, that sort of petty stuff. The quiet battle became public when a couple of hungry reporters picked up on it and splashed the whole mess across the news screens. The ensuing uproar culminated in a bureaucratic earthquake in Homicide, with a lot of deadwood taking an overdue retirement and Sarah Cotton pushed from sergeant to lieutenant.

While I was now still persona non grata  in some quarters, I had, one might say, some solids to call in. Sarah was well-settled in the law enforcement side of the city; Petey knew just about everybody on the flip side.

I tried not to call them too often.

.
Petey took a sip of his tea and smiled at me sadly.

“Taffy, girls come and girls go. You know that. You can stand in the bus depot or train station and see lost souls drift in with the tide every day. Unless they’ve already got a place or a job — and few do — when their money runs out, they either run home to Mommy and Daddy or else wind up on the streets.”

I nodded. I’d never had to wade through that particular social sewer, but it was hardly a secret.

“Once any young woman — or young man, for that matter — gets desperate enough, Taffy, they realize that they’re sitting on their rent. It’s a dismal realization, but hunger never goes away. Often enough, they get picked up by a pimp. Their new friend seems sympathetic, supportive, often generous at first. It doesn’t take long for reality to settle in.

“She’s in a strange, frightening city with no money and only one friend. So, when he asks her to ‘do him a favor, just this once’, she generally agrees and then she’s on that all-too-slippery slope. And if words don’t bring cooperation after that, there’s force. She’s all by herself and who’s she going to call? And then he provides a pill that makes things feel better for a while – until she has to earn the next pill. On her back, of course.”

His face turned dark. Petey was a nice fellow with a surprisingly developed sense of ethics for one in his profession.

“Once they’re netted,” he said grimly, “they tend to get bought and sold like lunch. They peddled to other pimps, other mobs. She could be three time zones away by now. You know that, Taffy.”

“I know, Petey, but I’d still appreciate your trying.”

He smiled.

“Of course, hon. For you, anything.”

I passed him her description and copies of the photos Shelly had given me. Petey eyed them curiously.

“My! She is a beauty!” He shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises.”

“Thanks, Petey.”

“No worries. And don’t worry about the tab, hon. Uncle Petey’s got this one.”

I smiled. Last I’d heard, Petey owned a solid 18 percent of The Amber Bead.

“Thanks again.”

+

Vlad was waiting when I got back to my office.

“I‘ve been digging into the family like you asked.”

“And?”

He passed me some written notes, but gave me the highlights verbally, as he knew I preferred. “Shelly Thurn and Timothy Higgins. Married 22 years ago, one child, female – Penelope, now 20 years old. Timmy was a venture capitalist who had a massive coronary and checked out in the middle of a tennis game. It was reported in the papers and in a number of business journals, no hint of his death being suspicious. His widow remarried five years ago to one John (Jack) Tendle, Secretary and General Manager for The Havens Golf and Country Club."

That last bit had my eyebrows up. The Havens was about as exclusive as one could get. One didn’t join  The Havens, one was elevated  to its membership.

“I take it money’s not a problem?”

“Hardly,” he smiled. “I pulled a copy of Higgins’ will at the court house. Daddy left a bundle for the Widow Higgins and established a juicy trust fund for his daughter. Penelope Miranda Higgins is going to become a very rich young woman when she turns 21.”

“The money – is it to be paid all at once or in pieces?”

“One big payment, more or less. When she hits 21, the trust fund closes out and Ms. Higgins gets a very nice cheque. There are some other minor beneficiaries, but she gets the lion’s share.”

“Hmm. Who’s been managing everything since then?”

“Her mother’s the executrix of record, but there’s no history of her having any business experience.”

“Meaning Stepfather Jack...?”

“Probably, Taffy, but I haven’t had time to dig any further into it.”

“No worries. Good job so far, Vlad. Anything else worth knowing?”

“Not really. The second marriage was well-covered in the society pages. They’ve been doing a lot of entertaining, blah, blah.”

“Kay. Keep at it. See what else you can find on Mr. Jack. Penny was coming to see somebody in town and it wasn’t Mom.”

“Gotcha, Boss. Oh, I forgot…”

“Mmm?”

“I ran down Penny’s phone bill. She called The Havens three times last month. Twice on the day she bought the bus ticket.”

“Oh. Any idea who she spoke to?” Sometimes extensions show up on bills.

“Nope. Just the main number. The first two calls were long ones – 25 minutes and almost an hour. The last one was pretty short.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “So far.”

“Thanks, Vlad. Good work.”

I picked up my purse and headed for the door.

“Will you be back?” he asked.

“Hope so. I think it’s time to talk to Step-daddy Jack.”

+

“Employment interviews are around back. Follow the signs from the back parking lot.”

The receptionist at The Havens looked as imperious as a legion of Roman empresses. The fact that I was wearing my usual working garb made it obvious that I wasn’t anything remotely approaching membership quality.