by Dan Taylor
Contents
Copyright Info
Acknowledgements
Personal Message from the Author
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Help Support This Author
Personal Message from the Author
About the Author
The Jake Hancock P.I. series
Jake Hancock Universe Thrillers
Copyright Info
No Good Guys Left
Dan Taylor
Copyright © 2019 by Daniel Taylor
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Tracy Lucy is especially a work of fiction. I mean, come on…
Acknowledgements
Thanks to beta readers Clement Long, Horseface, Ben F but not Ben T this time, and Salli with an I. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. And thanks to, Elaine. If you spot a comma out of place, it’s definitely her fault. And as always, thanks to Siri, the person who reads these books first and loves them.
Personal Message from the Author
I hope you enjoyed this book or any other of my books as much as I love to write them! If you have, click this link and tell me. I personally respond to each email I receive, and love reading what fans of my books have to say.
I also keep in touch with my readers on my Facebook page, informing them of my new releases and blog posts. Head on over and like it and say hi.
Alternatively, you can sign up for my newsletter to find out when new books are released. You’ll also receive a discount on the latest publication.
Lastly, it would be really appreciated if you could take a few minutes to write a review, helping me grow the community of Hancock fans.
Thanks for taking a chance on my writing.
Dan Taylor
1.
A man much wiser than I once said, “If you want to know what your better half really thinks of you, get married to them. If you want those thoughts to coincide with your deepest, darkest fears, have a kid.”
The man who said this to me stopped me on the street when I was on my way back from the liquor store with a couple bottles of wine. I was rushing back to my rental, as I didn’t know how long my baby kid Ellie would be asleep, and I was in much need of downtime. He must’ve known I was in a rush, even though I was only walking, albeit at a brisk pace, as he grabbed my wrist, holding me on my spot on the sidewalk, and looked at me as though he might’ve witnessed or fallen victim to an alien abduction or two in his lifetime. I’m pretty sure he was homeless, and I’m definitely sure he was drunk.
After he’d given me the advice, I smiled at him, thanked him, and when I’d poured myself and my wife, Grace, a glass of wine, I told her about my experience, likening the guy to a homeless, drunk-out-of-his-mind character in a sci-fi movie who knows the world’s going to end way before every other character, though no one believes him, because he’s the town joke.
Grace took a sip of wine, and then said, “Well it’s easy to see why his wife left him.”
The nights leading up to this evening, I’d barely strung together more than five hours of REM sleep, so I can be forgiven for replying, “You don’t think what he said is profound?”
“No, you knew what I thought about you before we married, and we both knew I’m naturally a better parent before we had Ellie.”
I thought about getting up and bringing over snacks, and letting that shit slide, but my ass was only an inch off the couch before I said, “You’re naturally a better parent?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged and then looked down at her chest. I followed her gaze, and said, “Because you have the mechanics in place to provide sustenance in early infancy and I don’t?”
“Among other things.”
“Which you won’t be able to do later on, by the way, on account of you drinking wine now.”
“I pumped. Admit it: you would’ve come to that realization a bottle of wine in.”
“That I needed to pump milk before I drank wine? Using the breasts I don’t have?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a moot point.”
She patted me on the head, called me silly dummy, her pet name for me, and asked, “How did you expect this conversation to go when you decided to tell me some drunk homeless guy had our marriage all worked out?”
“That isn’t what I said, and you know it.”
“Then whose marriage were you talking about? We don’t know any other married couples.”
I got up and said, “I’m going to get snacks.”
Fast forward a couple days, and as a prospective client has been telling me about a potential gig, it’s this conversation that has been occupying my mind. Not what she’s been sobbing about.
As she blows her nose into a lace handkerchief, I make an effort to focus on the next thing she says, so I can hopefully catch the gist of what she’s asking me to investigate. It’s a sound plan, until she stops blowing, looks up at me, and says, “So, what do you think, Mr. Hancock?”
I wrack my brain and come up with: “I think it’s understandable.”
“You do?”
“Totally.”
She frowns. Not a good sign. Then she says, “You think it’s understandable that my husband—soon-to-be ex—thinks he’s entitled to getting custody of Mrs. Pickles, even though he said, and I quote, ‘I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad if she went out the house one day and was being served up as a road kill supper that very evening.’”
The whole time I’ve been listening to her, I’ve been holding a notepad and pen. Hoping that I wrote something on it, I look down at it and find it blank. I scratch my eyebrow, adjust my sitting position, smile, and then bite the bullet: “Remind me who Mrs. Pickles is again.”
“My pet.”
“Your dog, of course. My apologies. I have a young child at home and—”
“Not my dog. My cat.” She pauses, then says, “Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”
Before I decide to come clean, I ask, “Just to make sure, you don’t have a dog?”
“No.”
“My name, and I hope you remember it this time, is Ms. Hughes.”
Not even close.
“I guess I was a little hazy on that too. Would it help if I apologized again?”
She sighs heavily and gets up. Needing the money, but not desperate for it, I get up too, to stop her. I say, “Wait. I haven’t even asked my receptionist to make you a cup of coffee yet.”
When I’ve stopped speaking, she’s made it to my office door. She turns around and shoots me a look that says we can never be friends and says, “In your ad it said you’re attentive, personable, professional, and discreet.”
“It did?”
“Yeah. And as far as I can tell, you aren’t any of those things.”
“I haven’t been indiscreet yet. There’s at least that.”
It’s a small victory, but I relish it nonetheless.
She makes the type of noise a hot air balloon makes five minutes before it crashes down to earth, and then storms out.
So that didn’t go well.
Defeated, I sit down. Two seconds later, my landline phone makes a beep, indicating that my receptionist Daisy Hummer would like to speak to me.
I press the button to accept the call.
My fledgling business can’t really afford a receptionist, though I can personally. I’m not at the point where my family has to eat peanut butter and jelly Wonder Bread sandwiches for dinner, but as yet Hancock Investigations LLC is strictly a non-profit organization. But I employ her for two reasons: one) it looks good if someone else answers my calls, and two) this would be a really lonely profession if I only had myself to have water cooler moments with.
Before I address Daisy, I make a mental note to get a water cooler installed.
“Daisy,” I say. “What is it?”
I suspect two things about Daisy. The first is I’m pretty sure she’s got one of those hall passes that allows her to buy medical-grade marijuana from a dispensary for a back or leg problem, the second that she self-medicates during her lunch break. Which goes someway to explaining her saying things like: “Mr. Hancock, did it go well, with the consultation being so short?”
“Did she look angry on her way out?”
“I thought she might punch me.”
“Then there’s your answer.” I let out a slow groan. “Did she happen to tell you what the gig was?”
“What’s a gig?”
“It’s what I do. A job, for money.”
“Oh, she mentioned something about wanting to get evidence to prove her husband—soon-to-be ex—was a good for nothing bag of potato soil, and was the last person who should be gaining custody of Mrs. Pickles, who doesn’t even like the tripe he serves up for her.”
“Daisy, are you quoting Ms. Hughes verbatim?”
“That’s exactly what she said while she waited in the reception area.”
“If that happens again, can you record what she said and relay it to me via text message?”
“If Ms. Hughes comes in again?”
“No, whoever comes for a consultation.” I pause a second. “And while we’re talking shop, can you think of a more hip word for consultation, which we can use just between you and me?”
She thinks a couple seconds. “I like ‘chat’ real good.”
“We’ll put that one on the back burner. One more thing, Daisy—”
“Oh, the other reason I phoned—”
“Is the thing I haven’t even addressed yet? That would be weird. What I was going to say is, did you write the copy for my ad, or did I?”
“You wrote that yourself.”
“I did? I’ll email it over to you. Can you take out the word discreet? It makes me sound sordid, like I’m running some sort of scam. It really jarred me when it was said back to me.”
“Okay, Mr. Hancock, but I really must—”
“Good job she was a fruitcake, right? What kind of lunatic thinks some judge is going to give two hoots about who gets custody of some dog. That’s even too crazy for Hollywood.” I realize something. “There’s someone in the reception area, isn’t there? That’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“It is, Mr. Hancock.”
“Am I on speaker?”
She lowers her voice and says, “I’ve taken you off now.”
“Excellent… At what point?”
She hesitates and then says, “L-U-N-A—”
“Daisy, you can stop, unless the person waiting for me happens to be a child under five years old.”
“It’s a police officer.”
“Then you can definitely stop. Did they happen to mention why it is they’re visiting?”
“No.”
“Then I guess you better send him or her in.”
“It’s a man.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Daisy.”
I press the button to end the call, straighten my shirt, put my blank notepad into the top drawer of my office desk, and put a hopefully relaxed smile on my face. One that says, “Is this the kind of guy you’d suspect of committing the crime you haven’t told me you suspect me of yet?”
2.
After entering my office, the officer, whom I don’t recognize, closes the door behind him, and follows it up with an action I don’t like. He checks that the door isn’t ajar, even going as far as to check by pulling on the doorknob not just once, but three times, like he’s heading out on vacation for a month and wants to make triple sure he locked his apartment door.
When he turns around, I stand and introduce myself. He ignores my outstretched hand, though I’m pretty sure my smile gained me a frown, and presents me with his badge. He doesn’t flip it open, affording me a nice long look at the badge itself. I lean over my desk, squint my eyes. Not able to help myself, I say, “That’s a nice-looking badge. Have you recently polished it?”
I was able to deduce two things from having examined it. The first that he’s a detective, and the second, where the shine comes into play, that I look good in pink.
Skipping pleasantries, and definitely small talk, he says, “Take a seat, Hancock, and dig the wax out of your ears for what I’m about to tell you.”
I take my seat, but don’t take him up on his invitation for maintaining my personal hygiene, and then say, “Are you here in an official capacity, or do you just want to talk sports?”
My flippancy is throwing him off. How can I tell? He’s just grabbed me by my shirt collar and pulled me in close to his face. I say, “I’d let go if I were you.”
“Oh, why’s that, Hancock?”
I point at a spot behind him, where the ceiling meets the wall. He looks behind him and sees wires hanging out from a messy hole in the drywall. Elaborating, I say, “If you’d have come a couple days later, you’d be caught on camera.”
“And why does that mean I should let you go?”
“You might not be so lucky next time. Call this practice.”
He frowns at me, confused, and what I said has a delayed effect. He shakes his head and takes the seat opposite me. Oh, and he’s let me go.
“I’ll say this quickly,” he says slowly. “Leave my sister alone. She’s been through enough with her divorce and whatnot. She doesn’t need some snake P.I. putting crazy ideas into her head.”
It’s my turn to frown. “Who’s your sister?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Hancock. Tracy Lucy.”
“And what crazy ideas have I allegedly put into her head?”
“Is this the way you’re going to play it?”
“By discussing it with you? Sure.”
Detective Lucy is a tall man with pants a couple inches too short for him, and he’s the size of a Russian basketball player, with a flat-top haircut that hasn’t seen product or conditioner its entire life, and with a mustache that’s comprised of a week’s worth of stubble. If he were military, he would be the drill instructor’s teacher’s pet.
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He looks ridiculous sitting in the temporary folding chair I got for consultations, especially so seeing as though he’s trying to look like the tough guy.
He hasn’t responded to what I said, so I say, “Sincerely, I’ve never heard that name in my life, and subsequently never met the woman, and as a consequence have never put crazy ideas into her head.”
He nods slowly, and then like a volcano explodes, slams his fist down onto my Ikea office table. It vibrates, and not for the first time I question its structural integrity.
A second later, there’s a knock at the door, and the trooper that she is, Daisy opens the door slightly and pops her head through the opening. She looks at me, raising both eyebrows—some sort of code action, though I’m not sure what—and then asks, “Is everything okay, Mr. Hancock.”
“It’s fine, Daisy. The detective here just squatted a fly.”
“Oh, should I get him a tissue, to wipe it off his hand?”
I nod at the detective, letting him know he’s allowed to interact with Daisy, and he says, in a tone I imagine he’d use on the witness stand, “No, ma’am. But thanks. Sorry about the ruckus.”
Daisy leaves, and Detective Lucy goes back to staring at me. He says, “I don’t expect you to admit any of it, I’m just here to warn you that Tracy Lucy is off limits. Hell, if you want to fool around, why don’t you be a good little soldier and do it with Daisy, on company time.”
“I don’t fool around, and never have.”
“Are we done here?”
He gets up, but I stop him by presenting an open palm. He takes his seat again, and I say, “Look, I’ll level with you. I think we got off on the wrong foot. The moment you said Tracy Lucy it’s God’s honest truth that’s the first time I’ve heard that name—”
“Don’t give me any more of that bull—”
“But it could be I’ve interacted with this woman, most likely on a professional basis, and maybe on a personal basis, though I’m a married man, so we’re talking strictly light flirting with the mutual understanding neither one of us would take things further. If I have interacted with her, it could be that she’s provided me with a false name. She wouldn’t be the first. Your attempt at intimidating me has worked, and on the off-chance we know each other, I’d like to stay away from your sister. I can’t say fairer than that.”