by David Archer
Winslow smiled. “I thought you'd feel that way, to be honest, so I've got a couple of backup people in mind. The problem is that there will be times when you and I may seem to be on opposite sides, and I don't want to lose the friendship and respect we've acquired. I may need your help at times, doing what you do, and I want to be able to call on you. Likewise, I want you to know that if you need fodder to ease things for you with your friends on the force, I will be more than willing to let you skim off the dross of the organization. Frankly, I hate most of the people who hustle the drugs, and would be delighted to see them get cycled through the jails now and then!”
Sam paused before responding. “I know that what you do is for the greater good, like I said. I can handle that, I just can't handle being down in the mud and mire of it. If you need me, all you gotta do is say so. And you can bet your sweet ass I'll be calling for favors now and then, myself. And as for my friends on the force—I need to give them something within the next day or two. You might want to start hiring, cause I'm gonna dent your employee list.”
Winslow nodded and rose. “It's all good, then. I'll leave you be—oh, wait, I just remembered, I have something for you.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. “This is a token of appreciation from your country, Sam. It isn't as much as you deserve, but it's more than the man in the White House gives most people who do so much for their country. I thought you could probably use it.”
He handed it to Sam, who opened it and looked inside, then whistled. “I don't think I've ever seen so many hundred dollar bills,” he said. “What is that, about half a million dollars?”
Winslow laughed so hard it scared Indie. “Nowhere near,” he said. “I think there's about sixty thousand there, and frankly, the only reason I managed to give you that much is because Eugene had already stolen it and it was off the books. If it were up to Washington, you'd have gotten about a thousand bucks! Enjoy it in good health, and spend some of it on this pretty girl of yours!”
Indie smiled. “I like that idea,” she said. “I could use some new clothes, y'know!”
Winslow shook Sam's hand, but when he reached for Indie's, she shoved his hand away and hugged him. When he finally managed to get free, he smiled and left.
Sam looked at the money in his hand. “I'm thinking that we're going to take some of this and put it away for Miss Kenzie, so that she can go to college someday. Then we'll use some of it to get you an even better computer system, and some things I'll need for PI work, and then we might have to think about a new car for you, cause I'm not sure that Taurus has a lot of life left in it...”
Indie's eyes narrowed. “And just what, I'd like to know, is wrong with my car? I'll have you know that is the one thing I got from Jared, cause he gave it to me when he shipped out for basic, so I'd have it to drive for school. I mean, I know it's not new, but it's paid for!”
Sam smiled. “If it means that much to you, then let's just get it fixed up for you, okay? And I'm sure we'll think of other things around our house we need to spend this money on, don't you think?” Sam suddenly realized that Indie was staring at him. “What? Did I grow a third eye or something?”
Indie smiled. “Do you hear what you're doing? You're saying 'we' and 'us' and you said 'our house' a minute ago. You know, if you're not careful, I'm gonna start to think you like having me around!”
Sam grinned. “Well, of course I like having you around!” he said. “Where else am I gonna find a computer genius who can make me look like a super Private Eye?”
BOOK II
1
“Sam, look,” Kenzie said to him, as he came out of his bedroom. “Mommy made waffles!”
“Waffles?” Sam asked, with a face full of delight. “Oh, wow, I love waffles! Don't you love waffles?”
The little girl nodded as he took his usual chair beside her own. “Uh-huh, I love waffles, too, and I love the syrup that goes on 'em, and everything!”
“Yep! Me, too! Syrup and everything!” He watched as Indie, little Mackenzie's mother and his housekeeper and cook, popped two more waffles out of the waffle iron and onto plates. “And here they come!” he said, bouncing up and down on his chair.
Indie laughed at his antics as much as her daughter did, and slid a plate in front of him. She'd poured him a cup of coffee when she'd heard his bathroom toilet flush, so he reached for the butter and syrup that were on the table and began slathering butter into every single hole in Kenzie's waffle, before smothering it in his own favorite original maple syrup. As soon as hers was ready, he turned and started on his own.
“Kenzie, tell Sam thank you,” Indie said, and the little girl smiled up at him.
“Thank you, Sam,” she said sweetly, and he bowed his head to her.
“You are most welcome, Milady,” he said in a fake English accent, and she giggled at him. Indie smiled and patted his arm.
“You're spoiling my kid rotten,” she said. “I may have to ask for a raise, so I can afford to pay for her therapy. You gonna be okay with that?”
“Depends,” Sam answered. “I think a little spoiling is good for a kid, so the therapy shouldn't be too expensive. Maybe I'll just pay for it myself as a bonus.”
They bowed their heads as Kenzie said grace, and then dug in and ate their breakfast. They talked while they ate.
“I've been thinking,” Sam said, “and to be perfectly honest, being a PI beats the heck outta being a medically retired cop, so it seems to me that I should put the license to good use and open up shop. How would you feel about being my receptionist and resident computer whiz?”
Indie looked at him. “Let's see, you mean on top of being the housekeeper and chef here at home? Does this job pay better than I'm getting now?”
Sam nodded. “I was thinking I could raise you to three hundred a week, and we'd leave the current room and board as part of it. How would that sound?”
Indie thought it over. “And where would the office be? If it's here at your house, I can handle that, cause it lets me be here for Kenzie.”
“Of course it's here,” he said, smiling. “You don't think I'm gonna blow money on a separate office, do you? That'd be silly, at least while I'm just starting out. I mean, I've got my pensions, and I checked it out; I don't lose them if I go into business for myself, so anything I make is just extra income. I mean, I know we don't really need it, but it couldn't hurt, right?”
Indie looked thoughtful again. “Where at? The dining room?”
“Nah. I've got a room I use for storage off the garage. It's got a window, so if we clean it up a bit, I was thinking that's where I'd put the office. It gives us a place to talk to clients privately, and it's big enough if we take all the junk out of it. It's even got a separate entrance, on the opposite side of the garage from the main house, so if we put a sign up, we can point right to it. We don't even need to go there except when we're meeting clients.”
Indie smiled. “Sounds good to me, Chief,” she said. “How would you start?”
“I'll put an ad in the local paper, I guess, and maybe take out a commercial on some of the radio stations. That shouldn't cost too awful much, and if it brings in some business, we're good. Wanna help me set all that up today?”
They finished breakfast and started working on wording for the newspaper ad. Indie showed Sam how to get a free phone number through Google that he could redirect to his home phone, and then came up with wording that Sam liked. They called it in before noon, but the ad sales person talked him into a display ad, rather than a simple classified, and emailed him a proof so he could see what it would look like. It showed a silhouette of a man who looked a lot like Sherlock Holmes, with the wording:
Sam thought it was hilarious, but Indie said it would catch attention, so he approved it. The ad was set to begin that evening, and so they called a few local radio stations to get a commercial arranged. Before the day was done, Sam had spent more than a thousand dollars on a month's worth of advertising, and was shaking his head.
Indie sent Sam to buy some office supplies, including some “print your own” business card blanks so she could make some for him with his new phone number on them, and then they spent the afternoon setting up the office, which wasn't hard. Mostly, they just hauled things into the garage and shoved them onto shelves, then cleaned up the mess they'd made. Sam had a desk and some chairs he'd bought from the PD once when they were putting in new office furniture, so he and Indie set them up, added some plants and lamps, and it was done.
Neither of them expected anything to happen for a few days, at least, so they were both surprised when the new number got a call less than an hour after the newspapers hit the stands that night. Indie raised her eyebrows, but it wasn't quite four thirty, so she answered the phone in the living room.
“Sam Prichard, Private Eye,” she said. “How can we help you today?”
A man's voice answered hesitantly. “Um—Barry's disappeared, and well, we all thought maybe it was time to get help. The cops don't wanna do anything, so we thought maybe we'd hire somebody.”
Indie nodded to Sam that it was a real call. “Okay, can you tell me a bit more about the missing person?”
“Yeah. He's Barry Wallace, the singer, and he hasn't been seen in over a week, now. We're all pretty worried, cause it isn't like him, y'know? I mean, we've had to cancel three gigs this week, and it's really starting to hurt us.”
“Okay, then what I need to do is make you an appointment with Mr. Prichard, to come in and talk to him about it. Would tomorrow morning work for you?”
There was a hushed debate on the other end of the line, and then the man came back on. “Um—we can't talk to him tonight? I mean, this is pretty important. If you don’t know, Barry's about the hottest thing to hit the Denver rock scene since Kip Winger!”
“Hold on a moment, please,” Indie said, muting the phone. She turned to Sam, who was sitting in his recliner. “This is a guy who's looking for a missing rock singer, and he wants to see you tonight, if possible. You up for it?”
Sam shrugged. “Heck, that's why we ran the ad. Tell him to come on over!”
She gave the man the address and said that Sam would see him as soon as he could get there. The guy thanked her profusely, and said he'd be over in fifteen minutes. They set Kenzie up with one of her favorite shows, left the door into the house open so they could hear her if she called them, and went to the office to wait.
A car pulled up less than fifteen minutes later, and Indie showed four people into the office. She hurried to find a couple of extra folding chairs (Sam had some in the garage for when he had friends over, working on their cars) and got them all seated while they made introductions.
The guy who had called was Chris Lancaster, and he was probably in his late forties. He was lead guitarist for the band called Step Back Once, and he introduced the others with him. “This is Stan Bennet, our drummer; Candy McAlester, she plays bass; and that's Janice Peet, she's on keyboards.”
Stan was maybe thirty or so, and looked like he'd been through some tough times. His hair was wild and long and seemed to have no idea what it was supposed to do, so it simply stood out in different directions and waved. He was thin and tall, and it seemed he wouldn't look anyone in the eye.
Candy was maybe in her early to mid twenties, chunky and blonde, but Sam could tell from the roots that the blonde came from a bottle. She seemed straight and level headed, and smiled as she was introduced.
Janice, on the other hand, was brunette, thin and nervous, her eyes darting around as if she expected to see a ghost pop up any second. Sam marked her as a tweaker instantly.
Sam shook each hand and said, “Okay, it's good to meet all of you. So, tell me what's going on with this Barry.”
“He's dead,” Janice said without preamble, but Chris interrupted her before she could go any further.
“We don’t know that,” he said. “He could just be stoned out of his mind, somewhere, or off on a tear. He's done that before.”
“Not lately,” Janice went on, “and he hasn't missed coming by to see me every night for weeks, not ‘til now.” She lowered her eyes, as if nervous about what she was saying. “He—he knows how messed up I get, and he's been helping me cope with things.”
Sam squinted at her. “What kind of things?” he asked bluntly.
Janice looked at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes back to the floor. “Barry's like my big brother; it's not like it sounds. He knows I got problems with some stuff, and he's been coming over to make sure I stay clean. He wouldn't miss it if he was alive, so I think he's dead.”
Chris and Stan looked at each other, then Chris said, “Jan's been messed up on meth, before, but she's been clean for a few months. Barry got her off it, and she's afraid she won't make it without him. Me and Stan, we think he's fallen off the wagon himself; he used to be a big drinker, and when he'd get really wasted, sometimes he'd take off for weeks.”
Sam looked at Candy. “And what do you think?”
She shrugged like it didn't really matter. “No clue,” she said, “but I'm new. I've only been in the band a few weeks. I'd love to say he's just off on a bender, but I don't know, man. All I know is I was promised I'd be playing gigs, and without him, we don't play and we don't get paid.”
Sam nodded. “Okay, tell me about him.”
Chris, who was obviously the spokesman of the group, leaned forward in his chair. “Barry Wallace is probably one of the best singers to ever get close to a microphone. He's got a set of pipes that won't quit, and when he sings, people just stop whatever they're doing and listen, man. I've never seen anything like it, and I've been around the music scene for a long time. His voice isn't like anyone else's, but he's got the kind of draw that Elvis had. People just like to hear him sing, and he puts on a helluva show while he does it. That's what made us so popular, the last few months. We're all good at what we do, but without a singer, we're just another garage band. Barry made us special.”
“And when did you last see him?”
Chris rubbed a hand down his right cheek. “We played two weeks ago Friday night, and then he called me on Saturday and said he needed to talk, but he never showed up.”
Sam sat and looked at them all for a few moments without saying anything. He had always been a pretty good judge of people, and most of the band seemed okay, but something about Stan seemed odd. He looked at the drummer.
“Stan, what do you think has happened to him?” he asked suddenly, hoping to catch the man off guard and get a reaction that would tell him more about the guy.
Stan looked at him, then, and made eye contact calmly. “I can't even guess, Sir,” he said. “He's never done this since I've known him, but I've heard stories about him going off and falling into a bottle. I just don't know what to say; if he's done that, he's probably ruined us all.”
Sam grunted, surprised at the clear, articulate answer, but didn't let it distract him.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I get a thousand-dollar retainer, and I charge two fifty a day plus any expenses. I can't guarantee results, but I'm good, and I guarantee that you'll get every effort I can put into looking for him. If you hire me, I'm gonna want everything you can give me about him; his Facebook account, email address, cell phone number, friends and family, lovers, favorite party spots, everything you know about him. Still want me to look for him?”
They all looked at one another, and then Chris reached into a pocket and counted off ten one hundred dollar bills onto Sam's desk. “How soon can you get started?”
“How soon can you get me all the information you have on him? As far as I'm concerned, I'm on the case as of right now.”
All four began to speak, and Sam and Indie both took notes, even though Sam had a recorder going on the desk. They talked for four hours, and gave Sam copies of their two latest CDs so he could hear what they were saying about Barry's voice. By the time they were done, Indie nodded to Sam that she had enough to get started with, so they all shook han
ds again and the four musicians left.
Sam and Indie went into the living room and found Kenzie sound asleep, so she carried the little girl up and put her to bed. Sam plugged one of the CDs into his stereo and let it play. (Click to listen)
Six AM, it's time to rise and shine
I stretch and wipe my sleep away
Then a thought of you comes to me
Like a summer breeze
And I know that it's gonna be a very good day
And I wish that I could tell you
What a difference you have made
You've rescued me from darkness
And brought me to the light
But I guess I'll have to show you
I don't think I have the words
To make you understand
Just what you’re doing right
It's another good day
For thinkin' about you
Another good day
For holdin' you so tight
When I wake up every morning, now
The first thought on my mind
Is it's another good day
For lovin' you tonight
I spend the hours waiting
For evening time to come
So I can see you smile again
And sometimes I remember
How bad it used to be
Before I opened up and let you in
But lately I've forgotten
Just how I used to feel
When I dreaded waking up
To face the dawn
Life's gotten so much sweeter
And it's all been thanks to you
Baby, can't you see
What your sweet love brought along?
It's another good day
For thinkin' about you
Another good day
For holdin' you so tight