by Mary Hughes
“I mean head size, sugar.” She winked. “C’mon over here.” She towed me to the main chair. Unwrapping the towel, she flicked it into a pink laundry hamper. “Now I see a lot of heads. A lot. And I know what I’m saying.”
“That, uh, size matters.”
“You betcha. They say it’s how much the brain wrinkles. But I know heads. Take yours for example.” She circled my skull with her hands. The scissors stuck up from her fingers like metal feathers. In the mirror I looked like some weird sort of primitive warrior.
Dolly cracked gum. “This is a good head. Healthy hair, nice rock-solid skull. And big.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.
“This is the head of a smart, honest person.”
“Um, thanks.”
“Napoleon Schrimpf? That was the skull of a money-grubbing cheapskate.”
I was beginning to get her drift. “He didn’t tip?”
“Not a red cent.” Dolly pulled up sections of my hair, clipped them out of the way. “He was a small man, sugar. Inside and out. That’s why he had so many hookers. To make up for the size of his pecker.”
“Dolly!” I knew the words, but it was embarrassing to discuss with a woman who’d cut and styled my mom, my step-mom and both my grandmas. “Let’s not gossip.”
“Not gossip. Fact. He came in here for a weekly shave. And it wasn’t his chin, if you know what I mean.”
I remembered Schrimpf’s naked genitals. Now that I thought about it, he had been hairless—“Dolly!”
“This is a full service salon, sugar.” She put a saucy emphasis on full.
Okay. I was a cop. I could handle this. “All right, then. If you shaved Schrimpf, ah, personally, maybe you can answer a question for me. Did he have any unusual…body piercing? You know, like maybe a ring…or something…through his…” Damn. I could swear like a college freshman but for some reason talking genitalia was dirty. I swallowed, forced myself not to be a pansy. “Scrotum?”
She popped gum. “Napoleon Schrimpf? Nope. Not that I didn’t suggest it. We’re a full—”
“—full service salon,” I finished for her, shuddering slightly. I wanted to know everything, but I didn’t want to know everything. “So last time you saw him, he didn’t have any…punctures? In his sac?”
“Punctures? Plural?” Dolly stopped cutting.
“Yeah, two. Why, you know something?” I caught her eyes in the mirror. Wide, pupils shut down to pinpricks. “What? What is it?”
“Nothing.” Dolly stepped behind me, my mass of curls hiding her face. “Absolutely nothing. Did you hear about Bonnie Titus? Drove her husband’s new Porsche into Lake Michigan. How he affords to keep that woman in cars and still get four-hundred-dollar haircuts in Chicago—”
Dolly had been chatting amiably. Gossiping, her life-blood. And she’d snapped it off like a tourniquet. “Dolly? Is something wrong? Schrimpf—”
Dolly snatched up the hair dryer. Turned it on to its loudest setting—which happened to be fry.
Talking over it was difficult. Hearing was impossible. I made one more attempt while I paid but she refused to say a word.
And she handed back my tip. When I got home, I saw why.
A frazzled halo floated around my face. My hair looked like Doc Brown, Einstein and Beakman all rolled into one.
I sighed. Then I fetched a bucket and filled it with ten bottles of conditioner. Before I stuck my head in I gathered a stack of magazines. This was going to take a while.
–—
That night I was up and out the door at seven, eager to solve the case. I headed straight for the cop shop, anticipating the medical examiner’s full report would be on my desk.
The report was on my desk, all right. Under Detective Gruen’s loafers. He was yakking on the phone.
Since it was Gruen’s phone and desk until nine, I couldn’t justify knocking his size tens off. So I wasted some time rearranging stuff around them. I moved three sets of framed pictures, Lieutenant Roet’s wife and eight children, me and my family, and Gruen’s mother and their six Great Danes. I stole some peanuts from the ever-present box of Cracker Jacks Gruen used as a paperweight. Munched as I dusted under the calming desk fountain Roet had installed after the birth of kid number five. I putzed around for a good fifteen minutes, but Gruen never noticed me.
So I chanced gently tugging the report out from under his heels. He must have had concrete in the soles. Those feet weren’t moving without a semi.
Gruen chuckled. “Wanna meet when I get off, Lana?
Lana? Gruen was talking to one of Meiers Corners’ high-flying Ls? I lost it. I shoved at his dogs, hard.
He glared at me, barked, “Get out of here, woman! This isn’t your damned desk until nine.” His tone abruptly changed, became sweet and beguiling. “No, sweetheart, not you. I’m talking to O’Rourke.”
But his feet never moved.
I said, “Look, I just want the ME’s report.”
“Not ’til nine! And if you don’t stop hovering, I’ll put in for overtime.”
I left, frustrated. Tramping the sidewalk, I kicked random street posts, which hurt my toes. I’d have rather kicked weeds or garbage, but there weren’t any because this was Meiers Corners. Cleanliness wasn’t a pastime, it was a neurosis.
I trundled by Nieman’s Bar, questioned a few regulars, but didn’t catch anything new except a bra in the face. Come to think of it, that wasn’t even new—Granny Butt’s lingerie was manufactured in the forties, probably by Boeing alongside their B-17s. Then I tried walking Main but hooker row was strangely deserted. Or maybe not so strangely. Not only was it sweltering, it was early on a weekday. Most of Meiers Corners ho’s were part time.
All that activity only took me until eight. The widow Schrimpf wouldn’t be home until after ten and my desk wouldn’t be free for another hour. There was nothing for me to do except work up a sweat.
My tee was already damp despite a shower and antiperspirant slapped on with a trowel. I thought about going home to change, remembered what happened the last time I started home, and decided to go check on my sister. Just to see if she was all right. Really.
As I crossed Jefferson I heard a foosh of water that sounded like a gigantic toilet overflowing. Remembering Pookie, I broke into a run. Lincoln hove into view, and with it, a geyser.
Not a real geyser. An open yellow fire hydrant gushed water all over the street and over a passel of shrieking, giggling kids.
Smack dab in the middle of the kids was Bo Strongwell, wearing nothing but cut-off jeans and acres of sleek, wet skin.
Bo was tossing children into the spray, splashing them, picking them up and whirling them through the stream of water. His muscles gleamed under the street light, big honed steel cables, working easily. Massive pecs spread across his chest like eagle wings. His shoulders, broad enough to support a skyscraper, were plenty broad to support the couple of kids he tossed on top of them.
He turned, large hands anchoring the laughing children on his shoulders, face split in a huge grin, and saw me.
The grin leveled out to that sensuous curve. “Detective. What are you doing here?” His belly worked as he spoke, clenching and releasing in a way that made my own stomach clench in tandem.
“Hunting up witnesses. Suspects.”
“Am I a witness or suspect?”
“You’re suspicious,” I admitted. “But in this case, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d check on Gretchen and Stella.”
“They just went in.” He slid the children gently off his shoulders. They joined the other kids running around the open hydrant.
I tossed a hand at the gushing water. “What’s this?”
“Didn’t you hear? It’s because of the heat. A lot of the older housing isn’t properly air conditioned. The city’s opening hydrants all over the north side of town. Heat relief.”
“Your building’s got air.”
“True. But I thought someone should be out with the kids.”
He shrugged, his massive shoulders two delicious scoops of ice cream I wanted to lick.
I gritted my teeth. Sure, I needed to get laid, but I didn’t have to say buh-bye to my dignity because of it. “At night?”
“There are kids’ programs at the library and schools during the day.”
“Oh. Well, I just came by to check on Gretch. I guess if she’s okay, I should head back to the station.”
“You’re more than welcome to join us, Detective.” His lips curved invitingly.
I thought about it. It was hot. Might be kind of fun to splash a little. Play in the spray with big semi-naked Viking guy, getting wet…ooh, wet…my shirt sticking, my nipples rising… I felt the prickling fullness that signaled my nipply fantasy was becoming fact. Adios, dignity. Or at least until I got that padded bra. “Can’t. I’m on duty. And my gun isn’t quite waterproof.”
“Ah, Detective. Always so punctilious.”
I put fists to hips. “Have I been insulted?”
That got a laugh out of him. “I just meant I admire your sense of duty.”
“Oh. Okay then. And, um, it’s nice of you to watch the kids.”
“Why, thank you, Detective.”
Since I knew where Bo was, I felt safe enough to head back to my apartment. Punctiliously not thinking of naked, wet Vikings. There, I stared at my dresser drawers, wondering when a dozen panties and two dozen T-shirts had thinned to a couple of each. Pulling out a skimpy thong and a snow-white tee, I hoped this wasn’t an omen of things to come.
I should learn to smack myself when I think things like that.
When I returned to the cop shop, Detective Gruen wasn’t in the office. Captain Titus was.
Ernest Titus was shift captain and my direct boss. He was a chunky forty-something with a head round as a jack-o’-lantern. He was losing his hair and tried to cover the bald spot with orange hair-in-a-can, but that only made it worse.
The captain’s name was written Titus but we all pronounced it Tight-ass (though not to his face). Titus insisted the name was “Tit Us”, but I wasn’t sure that was any better.
Ernest Titus went to school with my father. As a fifth grader Tight-ass beat up my dad and stole his lunch money. In ninth grade, my father broke Titey’s arm in return. Dad got suspended for it but Tight-ass never beat him up again. Whenever Titus saw me, he always started rubbing his arm.
“It’s been two days,” he said, pacing and chafing his Armani. Oh, yeah. He also thought he was going to be Chief of Police some day, and tried to dress the part. Would have worked better if he hadn’t paired the Armani with a bright green shirt and neon pink tie. They clashed horribly with his hair. “Two days, and no arrests. That doesn’t look good on the department’s record.”
I put on my official face and manners. “I’ve got several leads, Captain.”
“Leads?” Titus’s voice got high when he was stressed, like a cat being gutted. “You call a hooker and a couple of drunks leads?”
Now probably wasn’t the time to mention the apartment manager who suspiciously was in the neighborhood at the time of the murder. And who suspiciously showed up wherever I was. (Although sometimes I showed up where Bo was. Which was also suspicious, though I wasn’t sure how.) “The ME’s full report just landed on my desk, sir. The widow gets back tonight. I’ll interview her. And—”
“And we need this case solved!” The chafing increased. If his sleeve were a foreskin, he’d have already climaxed twice. “Bah! You’re a rookie detective, in over your head.”
“I’m not a rookie cop,” I said, stung.
“Our department’s reputation is at stake. The mayor’s already phoned three times.”
“He phoned me too, Captain.”
“Did he threaten to turn you over to his stiletto-shod secretary?” Titus shuddered. “This can’t go on. I’m giving you a partner.”
“Blatzky’s not available.” As in “in the can”.
Titus bared teeth in a truly scary jagged-pumpkin smile. “Not Blatzky. I want someone young. Energetic. Enthusiastic.”
And I wasn’t? Twenty-six—the new sixty-five? “I don’t need a partner, sir.”
“Well, you’re getting one. Or you’re off the case.” He stalked out.
I stared after Tight-ass. Off the case? The ME’s full report lay before me, but it stayed closed. Lieutenant Roet’s serenity fountain burbled at the edge of my awareness. Blatzky came out of the bathroom, grabbed a couple issues of Midwest Police Monthly off my desk and went back in.
I reached for the phone. Stopped myself. Dad wasn’t around any more.
Mechanically, I started cleaning my gun. Wednesday wasn’t my usual night but I needed something to take my mind off…young. Energetic. Enthusiastic.
Finally I turned to the ME’s file. Schrimpf died at approximately two a.m. of blood loss. There was no sign of a struggle, no bruises, no debris under the fingernails. There were some cracked ribs, like someone’d tried CPR, but they were post-mortem.
Nothing to explain the loss of blood, except the puncture marks.
Saliva residue (dried spit to you and me) was found on the vic’s testicles. DNA testing indicated two separate people but no matches were found in the national database, meaning we couldn’t identify whose spit it was. One was probably from Drusilla the BJ Queen (there was a fast-food-chain name) but I’d have to establish probable cause to get a sample to prove it. Or trick her out of it somehow.
I flipped a page. And stared. I guess there were some surprises after all.
No foreign particles were in the puncture wounds. No fiber, no dirt and no metal or paint particles.
The murder weapon was something short, slim and sharp. I had imagined a wife with knitting needles, or an under-tipped paperboy and a couple of rusty nails. Gotta watch it with those paperboys.
But whatever caused the holes in the base of Schrimpf’s penis, no foreign particles meant they weren’t nails or metal knitting needles. Plastic needles maybe, but those were usually dull and bendy. Not what I’d use to pop skin.
I flipped another page. And was shocked.
The body was almost completely drained of blood. Less than a pint left.
Why was that shocking, you may ask. After all, death was from loss of blood. Like a car running out of gas, right?
Except a car engine can run on a nearly empty tank. You can’t do that with people.
The average person has five to six quarts of blood. Ten to twelve pints. Lose one pint, no problem. It’s your standard blood donation. Two pints, you start getting woozy.
If you lose more than two pints…shock. Shock, from only one quart out of five.
Lose two to three quarts—only half the body’s blood supply—it’s death.
I got up to pace, thinking furiously. Behind me, Lieutenant Roet’s fountain gurgled, underscoring my thoughts. Over nine pints of blood, gone. Schrimpf’s heart would have stopped long before his blood ran out.
Which meant one of two things, if that fifteen-minute window was right. Either the wounds were gaping holes that ran blood without the heart pumping or—
Or something sucked it out.
I double-checked the ME’s report. Schrimpf was not a hemophiliac. And the punctures were only half an inch deep. Small, about the size of a nail or brad. Too small and shallow for the vic to bleed out.
I don’t know what made me think fangs.
Okay, I do know. Count Jack-offula and Vamprucilla.
And Bo and his orgasmic biting.
I was definitely going insane. Even if such creatures existed, those three didn’t qualify. I had proof. Double-D-Drusilla had used a mirror, for heaven’s sake. When she was powdering her nose in the interview. And I’d seen Bo this morning. Bright sunny day, no coffin, the whole nine yards.
Though he’d been behind a heavy curtain. And sometimes he moved like a ghost.
Nuts. I slammed the ME’s report shut and stalked out. This was a case, not a horror story. I was a detective. Methodical, logic
al. By the book. A cop, grounded in reality. I believed it was real if I could bite it.
Well, maybe not the best way to put it.
Point was, I was a detective and I had a job to do. A widow to interview. I got resolutely to my feet and left the office.
As I tromped out of the cop shop, I half-expected Bo to show up. He didn’t. Someone else did, unfortunately.
“Detective Ma’am! Imagine meeting you here.” Officer Dirk Ruffles dashed up the stairs, carrying a donut and waving a paper cup of coffee. Dark liquid sloshed out of the cup, splashing several people. Clueless, Dirk raced toward me.
Sweet Bavarian cream-filled donuts. And me wearing white, the cosmic “kick me” color. I held up my hands. Dirk skidded to a halt.
His coffee didn’t. A Rorschach test landed on my clean shirt. Great. As I squeegeed off the worst of it, I said, “It’s not so surprising, Officer. After all, this is the police station. And we’re both police. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” I headed out.
If I thought that would end the conversation, I was wrong. He followed. “We’re both police…you’re so smart! I bet that’s why you’re a detective.”
My lie meter stayed flat. Dirk wasn’t being sarcastic. It made me sad for some reason.
“But guess what? It’s not Officer any more.” Like the bolt-necked monster, Dirkenstein lumbered on. “My uncle was absolutely right. My uncle is an important man, did I tell you that? He had drinks with the President of the United States once. And—you’re not going to believe this—he actually shook hands with Oprah Winfrey. There was supposed to be a picture, but somehow the rewind kicked in before it was supposed to, and all the film rewound in ten seconds flat and ripped off the spindle and exploded the camera. I tried to fix it, but plastic pieces shot everywhere, and of course the film was ruined—”
“You got a promotion?” I remembered the yellow crime scene mummy and felt sorry for whoever had to deal with the kid now.
He thumped his chest. Just like a gorilla, honest. “I did. I’m a detective, just like you. In fact, I’m your new partner!”
–—
Reeling from my heart attack, I barely made it to Widow Schrimpf’s. Unfortunately Ruffles made it easily, gabbing about his uncle, his goldfish and his third grade teacher’s affection for meatballs (and, oh yes, Oprah) without stopping once.