by Sean Little
Duff sidled up to the glass. “Hey, Leona. How’s my favorite Irish Mexican? Got any Guinness Tequila back there?”
“No, but I might be able to find you some corned beef tacos.” She winked at Duff.
Duff considered it. “I think I could probably go for some of those right about now.”
“Looks like you already have.” She pointed down at Duff’s belly. “I told you, you gotta stop eating those late-night tacos from El Muro.”
“I know, but I dare you to defy the siren-song of al pastor after midnight. It can’t be done. Might as well try to hold back the tides.”
Murphy cackled. “Truth to that. You boys here to see Betts or Simmer?”
“Betts,” said Abe. “I think he’s upset about that homicide yesterday.”
“Probably. You guys always make us look slow and stupid.”
“We’re cheaper than lab work, though.” Abe moved toward the door to the bullpen. Murphy hit the button to buzz them in.
Betts’s office was a small rectangle in a line of several small rectangles along the far side of the bullpen. The center of the large area where the uniformed cops spent their time was a series of military-surplus steel desks shoved into rows with tan cubicle half-wall separators between them. The detectives and the district commander had offices along the sides of the room. Down the hall from the bullpen area were the processing and holding cells, interview rooms, supply rooms, and garage.
Abe and Duff walked into Betts’s office without knocking. The detective did not look up from his computer, which was at a ninety-degree angle to the door. Abe dropped the invoice for their previous day’s services onto Betts’s desk. Betts’s office was sparse, as were most of the detective offices. Two almond-colored steel file cabinets. An L-shaped desk. Two chairs for guests. All decor in the office was painfully plain and dated. One ell of the desk held Betts’s computer. The other was stacked with papers and file folders.
Betts didn’t look up from the computer or look at the invoice. “You asshats were dead-on, yesterday. We went and arrested his daughter—well, technically, stepdaughter. She’s only twenty. She went ‘roid rage on the uniforms who picked her up. She ended up slugging one in the jaw so hard she cracked two of his teeth, gave him a concussion, and broke her own wrist. We matched her prints to the murder weapon. When we got her into holding she spilled everything.”
“She killed him with her workout equipment like we thought?”
“Apparently, she was staying with him because she had nowhere else to go. She was kicked out of her mother’s house. Her career as a fitness instructor was not doing well, and she was broke. She claims the vic had been molesting her for years and she finally snapped when he dropped the towel on her and tried to do it again. She claims she got into weightlifting as an attempt to defend herself from him. I don’t know if that excuse will hold water, but she’s likely going to do at least twenty or thirty for the murder, regardless. Maybe a few more for assaulting an officer.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear her life hasn’t been great,” said Abe. “She’s so young. Seems a shame to throw it all away in prison.”
Betts rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “I used to feel bad for people. I don’t anymore. This job has a way of bleeding it out of you.” He finally looked up from his computer. “I asked you guys down here so I could tell you about the case in person, and I wanted you to meet my new partner. She’s starting today.”
Betts picked up a foam-rubber basketball from his desk and hucked it out the door, thumping it off the nearest desk to his office. A young woman in a dark gray pantsuit and salmon-colored shirt turned and flipped him off. She stood and walked to the office. She looked very professional, dark auburn hair in a bun on the back of her head, very little in the way of make-up. No jewelry. She looked Latina, but not fully. There was a speckling of something else in her heritage. Maybe Scandinavian, maybe German.
She gave Betts a death glare. “I told you not to do that, Betts.”
“I’m not using the intercom to get you in here, and I don’t feel like raising my voice. Did you bring the ball back?”
“No. It’s gone forever now.”
Betts looked out the door and clapped his hands. “Fitzy! Hit me!” A split-second later, the rubber basketball came rocketing back through the doorway, barely missing the young woman. Betts caught it two-handed. “Hey, look! It’s back!”
Gates scowled. “What did you want, Betts?”
Betts pointed at the investigators. “I wanted you to meet Abe Allard and his loyal manservant, Duff. They’re P.I.s we use on occasion. You guys got one of your cards for her?”
Abe slipped a card from the plastic case he carried in his pants pocket. “Allard and Duffy, Private Investigations. I’m Abe. This is Duff.” He stuck out his hand politely.
The female detective took the card and shook his hand. “Diana Gates. Nice to meet you.” She squinted at the card. “C.S.? Like C.S. Lewis?”
Duff was already reclining in one of the guest chairs, his left foot on the corner of Betts’s desk. “The same. Unfortunately.”
“My grandmother loves C.S. Lewis. She’s a big holy-roller, though.”
Duff inclined his head. “As was my father. As Catholic as the day is long and then some.”
“I’m not, though. I still go to church with the family if they make me, but I don’t believe.”
“Nor do I,” said Duff. “We should be pals.” The dead tone to his voice clearly meant he was bored with the conversation.
“He didn’t mean it.” Abe tried to deflect the tension mounting when Gates looked toward Duff. “He’s just that way.”
“He an asshole. But, he knows his stuff,” said Betts. “Keep their card handy. If you get to a crime scene that’s seven kinds of fucked-up, give these idiots a call. They can often figure stuff out in minutes. Saves us tons of time and money on lab work and crime scene processing. That’s the only reason the chief lets them stick around. Paying their consulting fee instead of investing in man-hours and laborious testing has often kept us under budget around here. The chief likes when we’re under budget. So does the Commissioner and the Mayor. Staying under budget means we get other things we need like overtime, faster lab work, and bigger guns.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Gates.
“Gates isn’t a Mexican name,” said Duff. “Germanic, right? Maybe Dutch?”
“My father is Dutch and German, yes.”
“Just checking,” said Duff.
To Betts, Gates asked, “Are they really that good?”
Betts raised his eyebrows and looked to Duff. “Go ahead. Give her a taste of what you do.”
“Can I charge you for it?”
Betts gave Duff a flash of middle finger. “Just impress her so we can get on with it already.”
Duff inhaled sharply through his nose. He gave her a careful once-over. “You look like you’re in your late twenties. You made detective very fast. That means you probably got a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology, maybe even an advanced degree. You went to S.I.U. Go Salukis. You did your years on the force in patrol and got bumped to detective quickly because of your degree and because of the fact Affirmative Action and Title IX say the cops need more women and minorities in positions of authority like being a detective. You know this, and it bothers you, so you feel you have to prove your worth fast. You might even legitimately be a good detective. You have a strong Chicago accent, but you’re definitely Latina. You probably don’t even speak Spanish, though. Too much Northside in your accent. Maybe a few phrases here and there when you want to communicate with your abuela to be nice, but you’re definitely third or fourth-generation American. Your parents are working class, but they’re not broke.”
Gates’s eyes went wide. Her jaw hung open. “How the fuck did you know all that?”
Duff held up his hands like he was finishing a magic trick. “Got lucky, I guess.”
“Okay, you’re pretty fucking clever. Some of it was part
y trick, but how’d you know I went to S.I.U.? I don’t have anything on my desk that says that. I don’t have a class ring on.”
Abe stepped into the fray. “A female detective who was pushing hard to become a detective like you were, given your age, would have gone to the school with the best Criminology program in the state. That’s S.I.U.” Abe would have pegged that on her, as well. “It was a highly educated guess, but still a guess. He might have guessed wrong, but it was about playing percentages. Percentages work. People are not as special as they think they are, they do a lot of the same stupid stuff for the same stupid reasons, and often your first guess about someone is more accurate than you’d think. Stereotypes exist for a reason, no matter how much we don’t want them to.”
Gates had her hands on her hips. She looked like she could chew steel. “How’d you know it bothers me that I know I’m in his job because of Title IX?”
“Because you’re a Type-A personality and it would bother anyone in your position,” Duff said. “I’ve seen it before. It’s an easy guess. You believe you busted your ass for everything, and don’t want to admit there are programs in place to help you, even give you an unfair advantage over some of your peers. You’d rather believe the myth you earned absolutely everything you’ve gotten, but you can’t. Not fully.”
Gates’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then quickly turned to disgust. She moved toward Duff in a barely contained rage. “That sounds racist. Are you saying I’m some sort of goldbrick? That I didn’t deserve this position?”
Duff dropped his foot off the desk and stood to face her. He towered over her by a good six inches. He smiled serenely. “Not at all. I said nothing of the sort. I’m saying you believe it. That’s why you’re so adamant on proving it’s not true. And it’s why you just went all Angry Latina on me.” Duff patted her on the shoulder. “Ease up, Detective. I don’t know if you deserved the position or not. You may very well be the most qualified person for this job.”
She shrugged off his hand. “Don’t touch me.”
Duff pulled his hand back like he’d nicked a hot stove. “You’re the boss.”
She moved into Duff’s personal space. “I just met you, but I don’t much care for you.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“We get better with time. We grow on people,” said Abe.
“Like fungus,” said Duff.
“They’re good at what they do,” said Betts. “Otherwise, I’d bounce them out of here like a superball on a trampoline.”
“We love you, too, Betts.” Duff sat back in his chair. “You got any contacts in the C.I.A. field office in this town?”
Betts was taken aback. He made a face. “Why in the name of all that’s holy would you want to deal with the spooks? The F’Bees are bad enough.” Like any territorial cop, Betts did not like the feds coming in and taking over his investigations.
“So, no spies in your Rolodex, then?”
Betts shook his head. “Not a one. Why? What do you have going?”
Abe checked his email app again. He frowned. “Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Too early to tell.”
Betts looked over the printed invoice, signed it, and handed it back to Abe. “You know the routine. Thanks for the help, guys. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Abe gave Betts a slight bow. “Our pleasure, as always.”
“Got a line on the Cubbies tonight, Duff?”
“As usual with those blue bozos, if I put money on them, they’ll lose.” Duff pulled himself out of the chair and exited the office. “If I was going to bet, Cubs will lose big.”
Abe and Duff went to the station’s accounting office, processed their voucher, and got a check. “Two payments in two days. I hope money continues to roll in like that.”
“God forbid we actually have money.” Duff pushed out the lobby doors into the warm summer sun. It was shaping up to a hair-curler of a day in Chi-town. Steamy, humid, and bright. Duff sniffed the thick air. “Smell that? Smells like something shitty is on the wind.”
“There’s no wind.”
“Exactly. Day this hot, you need some wind. Without it—extra shitty.”
Abe checked his email again. Still nothing.
-5-
CONTRARY TO WHAT television would have the public believe, the majority of private investigative work is tedious and dull. Mind-numbingly so, at times. It is comprised of a lot of research, a lot of sitting and waiting, and more than a smidgen of luck. This aspect of the job was why Abe was good at it. The other component of the gig was relentlessness, and no one is more relentless than a misanthropic introvert with a genius-level I.Q., O.C.D., and not much else to do. This was why Duff was good at his job. Together, Abe and Duff made a well-above-average singular crime-fighting mind and an almost halfway functional human being.
Abe’s meticulous nature, combined with his attention to detail, steel-trap brain, and lack of hobbies gave him a laser-focused dedication to chasing down facts and details. He was the sort of demented head case who enjoyed research and poring over old files. When they got back to the office from their late breakfast, the boys retired to their desks and started slogging through the day’s work. Abe focused on the Mindy Jefferson case, even though Duff thought it was a waste of time at the moment.
“We’re on retainer, man. We got fifty grand to sit and wait. You can’t beat that, can you? We can put in the effort if and when we have to put in the effort.”
Abe was hunkered over the laptop computer on his desk. He was dragging up any and all details about Mindy he could find. Given she was a former C.I.A. intelligence operative there was very little out there to find. Like many people in that particular employment, she had taken great pains to minimize her footprint on the internet. Her unique name made it simple enough to find her current address, but other than that she was a blank page. No social media. No known email addresses. She was as close to being a modern-day Orwellian Unperson as one could get in the information age.
After jotting down Mindy’s address for future reference just in case, Abe eventually tried to concentrate on other work. The little investigative firm he and Duff opened so many years ago barely made enough money to continue to operate. Being a P.I. was not a lucrative gig. They did alright. They got by. Occasionally, they even made a halfway decent payday like the $50K Mindy had handed them, but it was rare. If Duff had wanted to have a house and family as Abe had, they probably would have ended up going out of business. They stayed afloat with a steady flow of legal work. Lawyers around town always needed lackeys to do some legwork for them. Private investigators were much cheaper than paying lawyers or paralegals to do the same work, and they did not need health benefits because they were independent contractors. It had taken a few years to build up a reputation amongst the legal community around the area, but once they had established themselves, the jobs they had gotten out of it had kept them going in between bigger jobs. The majority of the paperwork on their both of their desks was related to various, small-time legal cases.
At his desk, Duff stuffed a wad of papers into a nine-by-twelve envelope and scrawled a legal firm’s address on the front. He slapped on a bunch of stamps, as well. Then, he threw it into the to-be-mailed pile next to the door. “That job Kressley Danvers wanted doing is done. Scratch her off the list.”
“Will do.” Abe opened the Excel spreadsheet where he kept track of such things and made a note to bill her via email in two days when she would receive the envelope.
“Who names their kid Kressley? What the hell kind of name is that? What happened to normal names? Where are the Eddies and the Marys nowadays? Everyone’s got to have a fancy name.”
“Thanks for the story, Grandpa.” Abe liked to shut down Duff’s rants as efficiently as possible. “A name is a name, right? Shakespeare said, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ What does it matter what someone’s name is? I don’t think guys named Aberforth and Clive should be complaining about names.”
Abe stopped and constructed the name in his mind. “You met someone named J’ohnne?”
“Once, yeah.”
“Okay, I will support you on that one.” Abe had been checking his email at least every half-hour since he had woken up. At a little past two in the afternoon it happened just as Duff had prophesied earlier that day. An email from a sender Abe did not recognize landed in his in-box. Since he had his computer open at the time, he checked it there. The email, in its entirety, read:
To: ALLARD AND DUFFY
From: MDJ ALERT
Re: Go Time
————————
80094
FD01-KT9F
Abe called Duff over to look at it. Duff read it slowly. “Is that what I think it is?”
Abe nodded. “I believe so.”
“What do those numbers mean in the body of the message?”
Abe shrugged. “No idea.”
“What’s the play, then?”
Abe drew in a long, slow breath. When he exhaled through his nose, there was a faint whistle. “I guess we’re on the case. This is why she gave us the big stack of shekels, right?” Abe grabbed the keys to The Fucking Embarrassment and pocketed them. “Let’s head over to her place. That’s the first place to check out, right?”
“Should we call Betts?”
Abe shook his head. “Not yet. Right now, we have no evidence of a crime even being committed. We’ll head over to her place first and see what we can see.”
“Good. I don’t like Betts getting up in our junk, anyhow.” Duff opened his top left desk drawer and pulled out a leather case containing his lock pick kit. “Just in case.”