All Chickens Must Die: A Benjamin Wade Mystery

by Scott Dennis Parker

  Even though I was new to this private eye gig, I knew something wasn’t right when I walked up the sidewalk to the front door of 518 Oak Street. It was definitely the house I wanted. The case had taken me that far.

  What worried me was the silence.

  It was the day after San Jacinto Day here in Houston. It was funny celebrating the anniversary of the victory that won Texas its independence while the Nazis were invading Norway. Everyone thought France might be next. We weren’t at war yet, jobs had returned to the city and lots of guys were working. That included me after my stint with the police and my subsequent enforced vacation.

  No, what bothered me was the quiet. This was a neighborhood of bungalow houses. Families lived here, families with the husband off working and the mothers staying home with the children. The Depression might have subdued the job market, but it didn’t subdue the baby making market. I stood there, sun blazing through my hat, and looked up and down the street. Nothing. No one was out playing in the yard, walking the dog, or planting daffodils in the front flower beds. That’s what people did when they weren’t working. But that wasn’t happening on Oak Street.

  Strange. As I looked up at the house, a nice bungalow with tan bricks and a small porch, something in my gut turned over. That kind of feeling had served me well back when I wore a badge, so I listened to it. Still, the leads I had uncovered pointed in this direction. It’s what Lillian Saxton had hired me to do: find Wendell Rosenblatt. He was a journalist who had gone missing a few days after he arrived here in Houston following a stint in Europe covering the war.

  This was the kind of job I did: find people. I did the same thing when I wore the badge. I just found it easier with the power of the people behind me. Flying solo as a gumshoe brought with it an uncertainty, one that kept me on edge most of the time. It made me wary, more wary than when I wore the blue uniform.

  I stepped up on the porch and listened. Still that strange quiet. Nothing, not even from inside the house. It needed a paint job. Houston’s heat and humidity can do a number on exteriors. Mine needed more than just paint.

  I rapped my knuckles on the door. Instead of hearing footsteps, I heard something I didn’t really expect: gunfire. Bullets slammed the door with dull thuds that splintered the wood. The thick door saved me. Had it been a thin one, like the ones on my house, I would have been thrown back onto the lawn with new holes letting the sun shine into my guts. As it happened, I had time to duck and roll forward. I thought I had done alright, until the bullets smashed the windows right above me and shards of glass rained down. Keeping my head down, I scooted forward to the edge of the porch. Thankfully, the little white railing that fronted the porch didn’t extend to the side or else I’d have been trapped.

  I slid off the porch and down the short cement steps, landing on the broken driveway. I won’t kid you: I was scared to death. My heart was pounding in my chest and I had to use the house as support while I tried to catch my breath. There wasn’t a car under the carport and the side-sliding garage doors were closed.

  My ears still rang from the gunshots. It took me a moment to realize the shooting had stopped. Glancing down the street, I still expected to see people coming out of front doors or peering out from behind curtains. No one emerged from any house, but I saw some blinds open. Good. There were witnesses. Always good to have witnesses when the cops show up and start asking the gumshoe pointed questions.

  As a rule, I don’t pack my gun when I’m doing footwork. I find it best to talk first, let the fists fly second, and lastly, bring out the iron if all else fails. My revolver was in the glove compartment of my car, but I was damn sure not going to run across the open lawn to try to get it. Doing so would put me in the firing sights of the shooter. It might even let him get away.

  There was a part of me that just wanted to hunker down where I was, let the shooter retreat and leave me alone. I’d tell Miss Saxton “No, I couldn’t find Mr. Rosenblatt at the address given to me by the snitch, thank you very much.” I’d just been shot at, so I considered adding to the list of expenses I’d provide her at the end of the case.

  But the itch inside my head turned me around. I wasn’t yellow, that was for damn sure. I preferred my fights to be as even as possible. I’d lost my share to my cocky mouth, so I had learned to tone it down a bit. Best practices and all. Getting shot at, however, did something to a man, showed his true character. And, there I was, trembling like a little girl while the sounds of footsteps in the house moved to the back.

  From across the street, the blinds moved again and I caught a glimpse of white skin against a green dress. I couldn’t see the face, but the head was cocked in a way that told me the woman was on the phone. Damn. The police would be coming, sooner than I wanted them to. But I was sure not going to be the shrinking violet Mrs. Green Dress was most likely describing me as right now.

  Steeling myself, I got up on my haunches and scooted near the back door. Without my gun, I resorted to clutching the only thing I could find on short notice: the broom leaning against the side of the house. It was so light I knew it’d be nearly useless. You never bring a knife to a gun fight and you sure as hell don’t bring a broomstick. Unless you’re the Wicked Witch of the West and, well, we know how that one turned out.

  I peered around the back of the house. As with the front porch, there were three cement steps leading up to the back door. There were two large windows presumably from a breakfast room facing the back. I couldn’t risk moving under them for fear the shooter would spot me and have a clear shot. Above me was a small window, probably the one above the kitchen sink, judging by the sponge resting on the window sill. That left me in a quandary: where would the shooter exit the house? Out the front door risking the eyes of witnesses or out the back? A chain link fence enclosed the entire yard and the detached garage. In the driveway of the backdoor neighbor’s house I saw a black sedan. It faced the street, ready to drive away fast. My intuitive gut told me this was the shooter’s car.

  I needed to end the stand-off. Picking up a few pebbles from the ground, I threw them at the front porch. They rattled around, sounding like boulders in the tense quiet.

  The footsteps in the house moved quickly toward my position. The back door flew open and the shooter emerged. With the broomstick, I did the only thing possible: I stuck it out and tripped him.

  He flew through the air, arms flailing. Truth be told, he looked pretty funny. He landed face first on the gravel. The impact knocked his hat askew but, surprisingly, he kept a grip on the gun. I sobered up when sunlight glinted off the polished metal of his gun, the barrel aimed directly at my heart.

  Available at Amazon.

  THE PHANTOM AUTOMOBILES: A Gordon Gardner Investigation

  You met him as a co-star in Wading Into War and All Chickens Must Die. Now, Gordon Gardner stars in his first feature story.

  Gordon Gardner, Ace Reporter!

  There’s not a story he can’t crack. He’s got his finger on the pulse of his town. His dogged tenacity means no politician is safe. Even the U. S. Army keeps tabs on him to ensure he safely harbors national secrets. And he looks smashing in a tux.

  His latest assignment is a basic police blotter piece: a pedestrian struck dead by a car. As a reporter who is second to none, Gardner’s disappointed. How could a simple accident be worthy of his considerable talents when there are so many other more interesting stories to cover? Even his pairing with a beautiful photographer doesn’t lighten his mood.

  His editor wants the piece yesterday. The police already closed the case. But then Gardner asks a simple question: why would a seemingly normal person willingly dive in front of a speeding car? Witnesses said the man went crazy just moments before he leapt to his death. What he alleged made no sense: he said the cars on the street didn’t exist and there was only one way to prove it.

  He was wrong. Dead wrong.

  Now, Gordon Gardner, in defiance of his editor and the police, resolves to investigate the mysterious circumstance
s behind the dead man’s life and uncover the real truth behind the phantom automobiles.

  Excerpt:

  Chapter One

  “I’ve got two dead bodies," Elijah Levitz, the editor of the Houston Post-Dispatch, said, flipping two pieces of paper between the fingers of each hand, “and I’m gonna let one of my two junior ace reporters pick first.”

  Gordon Gardner inwardly bristled at the word junior but knew that he'd one day be the senior ace reporter. He stood in the main newsroom with the other reporters and hoped he got first pick. Having successfully flirted with the editor's secretary long enough to get the gists of both stories, Gordon knew which one of the stories would have the privilege of bearing his personal “Gordon Gardner” stamp.

  But which one would he get?

  When the editor called a meeting, the news hounds had gathered liked sheep to a shepherd around Levitz. The portly man constantly had his necktie loosened, his open collar dirty around the inside ring, and a cigarette hanging from dried lips. The unlit stick bobbed up and down as he spoke and handed out assignments. Each assignment was on a slip of paper torn from a stack held together by an iron rod and a cast iron nut. Levitz claimed it was a piece of the Hindenburg but few believed him although no reporter, copy boy, or secretary ever said so to his face.

  When Levitz called out a story and assigned a reporter, that man—they were all men—would plow through the throng and snatch a piece of paper Levitz handed out. Barbara Essary, the editor’s secretary, sat at a nearby desk and jotted notes. Sometimes the boys in the newsroom swapped stories. As a rule, Levitz didn’t mind the switching except in those times when he reminded his reporters that he was the editor and he assigned the stories as he saw fit.

  This was one of those times.

  “I think we all know which ones I'm talking about," Levitz continued. “There’s the crazy guy who jumped in front of a moving car and lost, and the mugging death of William Silber, local artist. The latter's more of a fancy obit, the former's just a basic crime blotter filler piece.”

  Gordon looked down a re-read the slip of paper listing the job he already had. A puff piece on the local nightclub owner, Bruno Clavell, who had recently built his first club in Houston after a successful string of similar nightclubs in Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. It didn’t amount to much, but he’d certainly get to dust off his tux.

  In the stuffy room, not every reporter wore a jacket. Gordon ditched his long ago to the back of his chair next to his brand-new desk near the window. Next to him, Jack Hanson, an older man with three kids and a wife, needed more deodorant. His body odor wafted around him like a fog. Gordon eased away under a false pretense, all the while wondering how Hanson had three kids.

  “I’m gonna get that top story,” Johnny Flynn said to Gordon. Shorter than Gordon by at least four inches, Johnny nonetheless had an effortless aplomb that surrounded him. His charm and good looks opened a lot of doors and he nearly always had his tie cinched tight. “And I’ll get the next promotion by, you know, actually writing something that’s true.”

  Johnny, a rival reporter, still hadn’t accepted the fact that Gordon received a promotion for fabricating a news story. To him, you wrote and then you accepted the accolades. What made matters even worse for Gordon was that he couldn't say anything about the nature of the story. For all Johnny knew, Gordon’s story was about a bank robbery foiled by the police. The real story involved Nazis in Houston. As a result, he had to suffer Johnny’s tirades and oneupmanship.

  Gordon hated it. But he loved his desk next to the window so when Johnny got a little too full of himself, Gordon would just saunter over to his desk and stretch out while Johnny had to content himself with a small hovel in the middle of the newsroom.

  “Don’t talk about stuff you don’t know a damn thing about,” Gordon whispered. He nodded to their boss.

  “Y’all done?” Levitz asked. His cocked eyebrow spoke volumes.

  Both junior reporters nodded.

  Levitz sniggered. “There’ll be no switching. You get what you get and you won't throw a fit.”

  What was this, kindergarten?

  “Harry,” Levitz said, “got a dime.”

  Harry Vinson plunged his hand into his pocket and produced the coin.

  “Now, since Johnny here wrote the last big piece for us, I’m gonna let him call it. What’s it gonna be, Johnny?”

  “Heads,” Johnny called out.

  Harry flipped the dime in the air, catching it between his open palms. He uncovered and called out, “Tails.”

  The grin on Gordon’s face could’ve lit up the marquee at the Metropolitan movie house. “I’ll take…”

  “Not so fast, Gordie,” Levitz said, using the nickname Gordon didn’t particularly like. “You only get the right to choose the slip of paper. Left hand or right hand.”

  Again, Gordon thought, is this kindergarten? He wanted the story of the dead artist. Marie Gardner, his mother, taught art in school and was part of the committee that helped found and open Houston’s Museum of Fine Art. Gordon knew he could make William Silber’s obit shine.

  Being right handed, Gordon’s natural tendency was to pick right. But he had been under Levitz’s black cloud for a few weeks. Sure, Gordon had successfully bartered his silence for the new desk and promotion, something Levitz had agreed to under pressure. But the editor didn’t like his hand being forced and had rewarded Gordon with lesser stories. The last high-profile story Gordon got still only landed on page two. To date, the only page-one story Gordon had was the fake story he had written.

  “Left,” Gordon said.

  “Good choice,” Levitz said. “You get the crazy man.”

  Gordon’s pained sigh brought chuckles from the guys around him.

  “Johnny, you get Silber,” Levitz said. “Alright, boys, let’s make some ink.”

  As the throng started to disperse, Gordon moved against the stream toward Levitz. “Wait, boss,” Gordon said, “I’m better for the artist profile. I know more than Johnny does.”

  Johnny, who remained in place as the reporters and photographers moved past him, just watched.

  “Don’t care,” Levitz said, turning to Barbara and motioning her to follow him. He threw the two pieces of paper in the trash can and sequestered himself in his office.

  She gave Gordon a sympathetic look. “Sorry, sweetie.” She straightened her skirt and joined Levitz, closing his door.

  Gordon shook his head, catching a glimpse of Johnny’s grin. Now his was the marque bright one. He turned and sauntered away.

  Looking down, Gordon caught a glimpse of the pieces of paper Levitz had just thrown away. Frowning, he fished them both out of the trash. He looked at each of them.

  Both pieces of paper were blank.

  Now available at Amazon.

  Coming Soon: Lillian Saxton #1

  You met her in Wading Into War when she hired Benjamin Wade to find a missing reporter with knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts in war-torn Europe. Now, Sergeant Lillian Saxton, U.S. Army, stars in her own mission.

  Out of the blue, an old friend reaches out to her via secret channels. He says he has information vital to the war effort. He’ll only give the information to her. In person. Her assignment: meet her old friend and determine what he has that’s so important, and whether or not he’s a traitor to America.

  Here is a special preview.

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, 23 April 1940

  “Sergeant Saxton, what do you think of when you hear the word ‘treason’?”

  Lillian Saxton stood at attention and frowned. She wore her assigned brown uniform, belted at the waist, tie neatly knotted, with a skirt that hung just at the knees. Since she was inside Houston’s Rice Hotel, her garrison cap was folded over the belt. Her red hair was pulled up behind her ears.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t I understand what you mean.” Her voice was curious but deferential.

  “Treason, Sergeant. It’s a simple co
ncept. What does it mean to you?”

  The man who snapped at her she didn’t know, but his brown uniform displayed the rank of colonel. He stood to the side of a table in one of the upper suites of the famous Rice Hotel. The man who sat at the table, littered with stacks of paper and a typewriter, she knew. He was Captain Ernest Donnelly, her commanding officer. She looked at him for clarification.

  “I’m the one speaking to you, Sergeant,” the colonel spat. “If there’s ever a situation where you think you need to look elsewhere for help, then we’ve got a bigger problem than I imagined.”

  Donnelly, dressed in his brown uniform but with the tie loosened around his collar, leaned back in his chair. “Honeywell, why don’t you just…”

  “Don’t tell me what I should so, Captain,” Honeywell blurted. “I’ve asked the sergeant a question. I expect an answer directly from her and not from her superior officer or anyone else she thinks can help her.”

  A little fire burst into existence deep within Lillian’s gut. She hated what many of the men in the United States Army thought of her: weak, not as good as a man, only good for typing up reports. She was none of that, and she strove every day to prove wrong that kind of thinking.

  “Treason,” Lillian began, speaking evenly but with force, “is the active betrayal of one’s country. In most cases, especially in war time, it is punishable by death.”

  Honeywell regarded her for a moment. His short cropped hair was receding across the top of his head. The gray flecks caught the lamp light and seemed to glow.

  “That is pretty much the letter of the law, Sergeant. Now, even though we’re not at war, what do you think should be done about someone who may commit treason?”

  “May commit, colonel?”

  A small twitch along the corner of his mouth might have grown into a smile, but Honeywell didn’t give it the chance. “Yes, Sergeant. Would you trust anyone whom you suspect of committing treason?”