by Deany Ray
7:03.
My mind drifted off to Alex. I imagined we were on the beach, and Alex was…well, let’s just say I’d finally found a pleasant way to make the time go by.
But what was that kind of roaring sound? Was it a motorcycle? If it was, the driver was getting way too close.
Then I saw Celeste startle in her seat. She turned and shook Marge by the shoulder. “Wake up, Marge. You’re snoring.”
“What?” Marge jumped up. “Did Stanley come out yet? Did I miss everything?”
“No, Sherlock. He’s still there.” Celeste leaned back in the seat. “First rule of surveillance: you have to stay awake.”
“Sorry. So sorry,” Marge squeaked, then she stifled a big yawn.
That’s when I looked past them and noticed the figure by the door at the Busy Bee. “Look guys, there he is.”
We all watched as he flipped the small square sign to Closed. Please Come Again. It was him for sure, bald head, green vest and all. He disappeared back inside the store, but we never once let our eyes wander from the door. He’d be out any minute.
Celeste, who’d taken a turn behind the wheel, started up the engine, ready to follow Stanley to his mystery destination.
***
7:40.
I leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse into the darkened store. “What on earth could he be doing?”
“Should we take a peek?” Marge asked. “Maybe the secret stuff he’s doing happens right here in the store. After business hours.”
I thought about it for a while. “I guess he’s in there by himself, right? Nobody went inside after he closed up.”
“Unless they were there already before he closed the store, and they never left.” Celeste said. “Or he might come out any minute. How long does it take to count the money? What else would he do in there? It shouldn’t take a long time to close the place up and leave.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to just stroll by,” I said. There were plenty of people on the street, walking to the bars and café’s. We’d blend in, no problem.
We all got out. Ouch. My knees creaked again, like I was Mrs. Horton. We made our way toward the Busy Bee and slipped into our roles.
“I’m gonna have the Taco Plate,” Marge said for the benefit of anyone who might be listening. “But we have to get the cheese dip, too.”
“You can pick the appetizer.” Celeste smoothed down her scarf, which was looking kind of skewed. “Just give me a margarita.”
We slowed down as we walked past the window of the store. Oh, so very casually, we turned our heads to glance inside. Then we turned around and glanced again. Was that…was that a pair of legs splayed out on the floor, just beside the counter? Marge gasped and Celeste beckoned us to come a little closer and get a better look.
The shape came into clearer focus. It was a human shape for sure. With a knife stuck in the neck. In a pool of blood.
I felt a little faint. There was too much blood.
Chapter Four
The panic shot through me like an icy knife. I grabbed hold of Marge.
Note to self: never turn to Marge as a way of calming down.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” she squeaked. She squeezed my arm until it hurt.
Celeste threw her hands up in air. “Well, will you take a look at that? I thought this one would be easy. And already on the first day, what do we have? A body!”
The terror surged inside my chest. I felt my glasses slip off my sweaty nose.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” I whispered.
“Well, there’s a knife stuck in his throat,” Celeste said. “And a massive pool of blood. Not that I’m a doctor, but things aren’t looking good.”
The scattered passersby seemed to take no notice of us. Excited voices weren’t uncommon in this part of town, lined with cafés, bars and trendy restaurants.
Celeste closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Okay, let’s head back to the car,” she said to us calmly. “We have a situation.”
“You think?” I asked, sarcastically.
Still, I felt some admiration. How could she keep her cool like that? If aliens landed at the Busy Bee or Elvis himself strolled by, not dead after all, Celeste would tell everyone to just sit down till we could sort things out; she’d buy everyone a sandwich.
“How did that…and when…” Marge couldn’t get a question out. “Do you think that’s Stanley? How did we not see this?”
With a gentle hand against her back, Celeste pushed her toward the car. “Let’s get inside and lock the door and talk about it there. We don’t know if whoever did this might still be around. Marge, put the keys in the ignition in case you need to floor it and get us out of here.”
That made Marge turn even whiter. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” she said, almost hyperventilating.
Across the street, a teenage boy walked ahead of his little group, then turned to yell back to his friends. “Can’t you guys move it any faster? Last one inside the bar buys everyone a beer.”
A convertible came to a stop beside us as the light turned red. The driver bobbed her head to the sounds of Maroon 5. It all seemed so surreal, people listening to music and joking around like it was any other day – when someone inside the Busy Bee had a knife stuck in his neck.
“We need to call the cops,” I said once Marge had clicked the locks. With the way my hands were shaking, I could barely hold the phone. What kind of detective was I? I had to get myself together.
“They’re on their way,” I said once I’d hung up the phone. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My heart was still pumping hard. “Okay, what just happened?”
“I don’t think that was Stanley. Too tall, too much hair, and no olive vest,” Celeste said.
At least my partner does a good job. I hadn’t even thought to look for the olive vest.
“Who do you think it was?” Marge’s eyes were huge.
“And where did Stanley go?” I asked. I nervously tore Styrofoam from the empty cup that once had held my latte.
“I can’t believe it. While that was going on,” Marge said, “we were sitting here – right here. Do they give out an award for the world’s most clueless private eyes? And how did Stanley leave without us even seeing?”
Celeste thought about it. “He must have gone out through a back door.”
A back door! Sheesh. Why hadn’t we thought about a back door? We were the most incompetent detectives of all times.
Celeste broke the silence that had descended in the car. “Marge, I assume we’re in the company of your friend, the persuader.”
“You got that right,” Marge said. With the mention of her gun, she went from frightened child to ninja. “You want to check things out in the back?” she asked eagerly.
I tore off more Styrofoam. “I don’t think that’s the best idea, given what just happened. The cops are on their way.”
Celeste opened the car door. “But it’s not their case. It’s ours.”
Although she was right, I liked it better in the car.
“Maybe one of us should just stay here,” I said in a small voice. “Someone still should watch the front door. I’ll keep an eye on things out front.”
That wasn’t flying with Celeste. “You come with Marge and me in case we need you for backup. Nothing’s gonna happen right out by the road where everyone can see.”
“Which we should have thought of sooner,” I said, putting down the cup
Celeste shook her head. “No need to beat ourselves up. From everything that Deborah told us, Stanley wouldn’t have had a clue that anyone was watching. We had every reason to expect that he’d walk right out the front door and drive off to meet his mistress. Or do whatever foolish thing the deadbeat does when he gets off from work.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Marge said. “A killer would have used the back door. But we weren’t expecting murder. And once the store was closed, the smart thing should have
been to be right here in the car so we could follow Stanley as soon as he drove off.”
I was still feeling stupid. “We could have had a look back there while we were waiting all that time.” Instead of singing a song about a frog and playing stupid games of I Spy while ignoring all kinds of likely mayhem behind the Busy Bee.
“It’s not too late,” Marge said. “Let’s go check out the back.”
“It’s not late?” I asked. “The guy inside would beg to differ.”
“True,” Marge said. “Still, maybe we’ll find some clues or something.”
“But the police are on their way,” I tried, not moving from my seat.
“Well, we had to call them,” Celeste said. “With somebody dead and all. But this is our case, sweeties. The dead guy, not so much. Deborah’s paying us to see what’s up with Stanley. The cops have their job to do, and so does CMC.”
That’s what we called our business. For Charlie, Marge and Celeste. Or Celeste, Marge and Charlie. Both of us liked to think that our names were on there first.
Slowly, I got out. It should be okay. The bad guys had almost certainly hightailed it out of there. I hope.
We made our way through the overgrown back lawn strewn with cans and cigarette butts. Who worked here? A bunch of pigs? And there it was: a back door. Mental forehead smack. Don’t most stores have a back door? With three detectives on the job, you’d think that one of us, at least, would think to check out a thing like that.
I knew one not-so-pleasant woman who’d be furious at us. She was paying us good money to keep an eye on Stanley. And look at what just happened while we played games and sang and snored. Somewhere in the course of things, her husband slipped away. Day one had been a bust.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of sirens. We walked around the building to the front again to find a flood of flashing lights with three police cars and one ambulance parked at angles in the lot.
The first one out was (who else could it be?) Alex. Oh, joy. We meet again.
His face was all business as he met my eye. “I thought you were staying out of trouble.”
I held both hands up in protest. I’d meant everything I’d said that day at the diner. I wasn’t expecting bloody murder, just a lowlife cheating husband.
“I was just minding my own business!” I explained to Alex. “Sitting in the car! Checking things out for a client!”
“While some guy gets stabbed inside?”
“Nothing to do with us!” Or maybe, I guess, it did now. Suddenly, the case felt real.
He got out a notebook. “Tell me what you saw before you found the victim.”
I looked down. “Nothing. I saw nothing.”
He looked confused. “Tell me again why you were here?”
“Surveillance. For a client. I was here to watch the scene.”
“What scene?” he asked.
“The convenience store.”
“But you saw nothing?” He still looked confused.
I saw where this was going. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“Then you might need to work a little harder on the watching part.”
I didn’t like his tone. “I didn’t say I wasn’t watching. Everything seemed normal. People came and went. Customers and passersby, heading off to eat, going in and out of the store.”
He took some notes on that. “Anyone come in or out the back door?”
I guess I had to say it. “We didn’t know there was one. Not till a little while ago.”
Alex, to his credit, had no comment. Although I saw the corners of his mouth twitch.
Perhaps I should find another line of work. At the moment, catching bad guys seemed as much beyond my reach as preforming some miracle fix on the broken laptop.
I filled Alex in on all the details about Stanley and his wife.
He sighed. “Why don’t you wait out by the car while we get the scene processed?”
I nodded and joined Celeste, who was talking to another cop while she smoked a cigarette. A third cop was sitting in the car, taking Marge’s statement. I could hear excited squeaks coming from the back seat as she told her story.
A young cop waited with us in the next hour while Alex worked the scene with the other officers. I shuddered when two men came out with a body bag. Whatever had gone down inside the Busy Bee, this guy wasn’t talking.
I looked at the young officer, who was standing at attention, determined to play his small part, as if we’d flee at any moment. “Um, do you know who that was?” I asked. “The…gentleman who died?”
He shook his head. “I have no information I’m at liberty to share.”
When Alex appeared beside us, I asked him the same thing. “Who was it they just carried out?”
“Did he work there, too?” Marge asked.
“And what the heck is going on?” Celeste blew out a ring of smoke. “What was behind this murder?”
Alex frowned at us. “You girls know the drill by now. I can’t divulge the details on police investigations.”
“You should know the drill.” Celeste gave him a hard look. “We’re working for Bert; same as you do. Or at least we will be – when he gets off his lazy ass and assigns us our next case. But no matter. We’re official. We’re working for the wife.”
Alex shook his head and sighed. “Well, for now, the honest truth is we don’t know a lot. There’s no ID on the victim.” He gave each of us a look. “I don’t have to tell you that we’re dealing with someone – or most likely more than one – who’s dangerous. So please. Please stay out of this one.”
“Very dangerous,” Marge said. “Which is why we should jump in. We need a motive. And a theory. And a modus operandi.” She seemed to be throwing out every word she’d ever heard on her beloved CSI.
Alex just looked tired. “The police are on the case now. You girls should just lie low.”
Celeste responded with a glare. “It’s not ethical for us girls to just lie low. When we’ve been hired to do a job.”
Speaking of being hired, it was then when I noticed Deborah stomping through the lot, heading straight for us.
“What exactly is the story here?” She looked from me to Marge to Celeste. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Somebody died, but it’s not Stanley,” I rushed to reassure her. “As far as we know, he’s fine.”
“Well, I know there’s a body and that it isn’t him.” She rolled her eyes as if I’d said something really stupid.
How exactly did she know? We’d only just found out, and we’d been here the whole time. News had odd ways of traveling in Springston if you were plugged into the network.
“My phone’s been ringing non-stop,” she said, reaching to shut it off. “Everybody’s screaming Get down to the Busy Bee. Cop cars everywhere!”
Everywhere? The grand total of three cop cars were hardly everywhere. I guess that and one ambulance might be big news in Springston. We prided ourselves on good schools, low crime rates and safety on the streets.
“And finally my boss said Deborah, you just go, find out what’s going on. So where did that scoundrel Stanley get to?” Deborah folded her arms across her chest. “I’m paying you to watch him. Where did my husband go?”
We all talked at once: C and M and C of the beleaguered (but still learning!) firm of CMC.
“We were watching the store!”
“The whole time!”
“We saw Stanley lock the door.”
“Then he just disappeared!”
“We didn’t see a thing after that!”
Deborah looked at us, askance. “So I pay you to watch out for things, and you don’t even see them when they happen right in front of you?”
“We kept our eye trained on the front door when we knew the store had closed,” I explained to our newest client.
“We had the engine started, all ready to follow Stanley and stay right on his tail.” Celeste spoke in her most professional, steady tone.
“He slipped out t
he back door,” Marge wailed defiantly, as if the game had rules and Stanley wasn’t playing fair.
Deborah scowled at us. “Oh, it was the back door, was it? With two doors and three detectives, seems like that should not have been so hard. What exactly is the deal here? Do you charge extra if the person doesn’t walk right out the front door and introduce themselves to you?”
“That’s not fair.” Marge pouted.
“We promise that we’ll find him.” It was all that I could say. Could we find him? Really?
Deborah looked skeptical.
Alex reached into his pocket and took out a notebook. “We do have some bits of evidence that can possibly be linked to the perpetrator.”
“Or perpetrators plural!” Marge said. “What did you find?”
He looked down at his notes. “We believe they may have stopped in at the Big Red Mug at approximately 4:16. And bought two sodas, extra-large. Along with a latte – caramel with extra whipped cream. Someone dropped the receipt not far from the store. It could have been a customer who visited the Big Red Mug first then ran into the Busy Bee.”
I looked down at the ground. “A customer…or us.”
Alex sighed. “Well, there goes that. You do know you’re just making it harder for me, don’t you?”
Deborah stared us down. “A latte with extra whipped cream? Watching every second?”
Celeste met her look with a cold stare of her own. “We can watch in shifts, you know.”
Marge folded her arms across her chest. “I was watching,” she said defiantly. “While Charlie took a break.”
“We’ll get answers for you soon,” I promised, trying to be the friendly one. She was, after all, our only client at the moment. Not counting Laptop Guy.
“What you’re going to do right now is head on to the station to give your formal statements,” Alex said to us. Then he turned to Deborah. “And ma’am, we’ll need to speak with you as well.”
She scowled. “The only thing I do know is that my no-good husband has made off with our savings.”
“What?” I asked in shock. Marge gasped and Celeste stared. I was ashamed that my first thought was Will we still get paid?
“When I heard the cops were swarming at the Bee, I wondered if that ne’er-do-well man I married was up to something new. So, I logged on to check our balance.” Her face was filled with fury. “Zero! It was zero. He took the bucks and ran.” She took some time to breathe in and collect herself a little. “Thank goodness I saved a little something and hid it from the jerk.” She nodded. Her voice grew soft. “A little something for myself.”