The PI Who Knew Too Much Ch. 01

Half an hour and two smokes later Wilkes showed up in a black-and-white driven by a uniform. I was surprised, he usually drove himself in an unmarked car. They double-parked and Wilkes walked over to me. It was starting to get dark, the young cop stayed in the car and turned on the flashing red.

Yeah, Wilkes was a cop, but we'd crossed paths a few times and kind of understood each other, maybe even trusted a little. As usual, he looked like he'd slept in the baggy sport coat and slacks that hadn't seen a crease since Truman was president. I knew he had better clothes, but he dressed like that to throw people off. He was a crafty sonofabitch, but as near as I could tell he played it straight with me.

"Whaddya got here, Spector? You said something about an ugly murder. Aren't they all ugly?" He was chewing on a cheap cigar; I'd never seen him light one.

"Some murders are tidy. This one isn't. Take a look." I flicked my Lucky in the gutter, opened the door, and turned on the lights. He stopped, took the cigar from his mouth and spit some soggy tobacco on the floor.

"Jesus, it looks like a goddam butcher shop in here." The butcher shops I'd seen were a lot cleaner than this, blood was everywhere. He waved the uniform over and told him to radio for a medical examiner and crime scene crew. The kid took a look and almost lost his lunch before he lurched back to the car.

"Okay, Spector, give. Whaddya doin' here? Who's the stiff? A client? Who did this? Any idea why?" At least he didn't sound like he thought I did it. Yet.

"Slow down, Wilkes. That's a lot of questions, and you don't even have your notebook out yet."

He started to say something, then jammed the cigar back in his mouth, took a notebook from his breast pocket, and jerked his head toward a couple of chairs a few feet away along the front wall. He dragged one chair out to face the other one and we sat down. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and turned to me. "Yeah?"

I told him who Bezier was, about Mrs. Bezier's suspicions and her hiring me to check him out. When I got to part about following him from home and the stakeout part, he interrupted. "You stuck around here all day? On a motorbike?" He didn't bother to take the cigar out and some tobacco juice trickled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, then took a dirty handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped it off his hand. I tried to keep my face neutral.

"No, just an hour or so after he gets here, then another hour or so around quitting time. Seems like that's when most of the interesting stuff happens." He snorted.

"So if he's here from 8 to 5—"

"That 's usually the case."

He threw the chewed-up cigar in a wastebasket. "Don't most of you boys charge so much a day? How does your client feel about you skipping 7 of the 9 hours?"

"Come on Wilkes, you've been at this a lot longer than I have. There's a lot more to an investigation than stakeouts. I'm a one-man show, you know that, I haven't got a department of backup investigators and clerks." I looked toward the street. "And chauffeurs. Why're you riding me about this?"

He waved a hand dismissively, licked his thumb, turned a page in his notebook. "Ahh, never mind, Spector. Go on with your story."

Just as I was finishing my tale, the other cops arrived and Wilkes stood up. "Don't go nowhere for a few days, Spector. We may need to talk some more."

"I'm not leaving town, if that's what you mean. Right now I'm going to go tell Mrs. Bezier that her husband's been killed, if that's all right with you."

"Sure, saves me or one of the boys doing it." He fished a business card from his wallet. "Give her my card and tell her she can call me if she has any questions. I'll probably have some questions for her, too." I took the card and nodded agreement.

"You might want to spare some of the bloody details, though. Lemme know how it goes tomorrow."

I felt like telling him I wasn't that dumb, but decided he probably knew that and was just being his natural crabby self. "Of course. See ya."

I RODE HOME and traded the bike for the Merc. Pretty soon I was knocking on Mrs. Bezier's door. She looked surprised to see me.

"Mr. Spector. What brings you here unannounced?" I wasn't aware that a private dick was supposed to make an appointment to see one of his clients.

"May I come in? We need to talk."

"Of course, Mr. Spector." She stepped back and led me down a short hall to the living room. An uncomfortable-looking sofa, flanked by two equally uncomfortable-looking wing chairs, was fronted by a bare coffee table. A small writing desk stood in front of a window on the wall opposite the sofa, its drawer yawning open. A floor lamp beside the desk cast a feeble light on the empty desktop. The walls were bare, the place looked like no one really lived there.

She walked over to the desk and turned to face me. I stopped about six feet behind her. "Perhaps you should sit down, Mrs. Bezier. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

She looked worried and sat in the desk chair.

"What is it, Mr. Spector? You're frightening me." She reached for a box of tissues on the desk with her left hand and put her right hand in the open drawer.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband is dead, Mrs. Bezier." She brought a tissue to her face and took a small pistol out of the drawer. It looked like a .35.

"So are you, Mr. Spector." She pulled the trigger twice. A truck hit my chest and drove out all the air. I thought I heard another, louder shot just as somebody cut my strings and turned out the lights.