The Drunk Detective

by Mary Jean Curry

  “Yes.” He was laughing.

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Vending machines. All Pepsi products.”

  “Pepsi? I was thinking more like bourbon or vodka.”

  “I’m not a drinker. I could go get you hard liquor though.”

  “Hard liquor. You’re such a nerd. Don’t bother,” she said, eyeing every student suspiciously as they ebbed through the lobby to their dorm rooms.

  “OK, so what’s the plan? My head is full of Child Psychology after class.”

  “Mine, too. What time is it? My watch was ruined breaking my fall from grace.”

  “Nearly five.”

  They turned to the thirty-six-inch screen TV on the wall. The news fanned a BREAKING NEWS banner across the screen, interrupting Barb “Hurricane” Smith’s weather predictions. “This just in...” said the anchor.

  “Dotty?”

  “Quiet.”

  “The owner of an adult massage parlor...”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “...was discovered dead in his apartment an hour ago, the victim of what appears to be strangulation. Lee Chen, age seventy-four...”

  “What now, Dotty?”

  “Hush, Naim.”

  “...a tenant, who called the police. Police sought a suspect from the apartment building, who fled and escaped in a new model blue Mercedes...”

  “Dotty! I thought you were in a taxi?”

  “...suspect’s name hasn’t been released. We will have more, but now for our update with the sex party at the home of the Temple U lacrosse team.” The anchor’s face dissolved to a close-up of a beat reporter outside of the team’s home holding a box of Lifestyle condoms.

  ‘You didn’t do him, did you?” Naim asked.

  “No, I ain’t been to Temple U in years.”

  “You know I am talking about Chen. You need to grow up.”

  “Same murderer named, Lynch, I been telling you about did the old man. The old bag from my building saw me moving the body.”

  “Oh, wow. Today?”

  “A day ago. My bad, this just never came up in conversation.”

  “You’re funny. What about the gigolo? He talking?”

  Dotty scratched her left elbow. “You got Lysol around here. I need to get rid of these germs.”

  “No. Answer my question, Dotty.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “This is crazy. How’d the hell you go from being a drunk detective—well, PI—to being involved in all of this?”

  “I detect some shade in that comment, hun bun. Simple. A damn nun sewed her royal oats in a Mandingo warriors bed in my building. I got rid of her. Quietly, by the way. Now this Lynch clown wants to get rid of me, but Chen got in the damn way.”

  “Why not just tell the police all of this?”

  “Too problematic. Chen was strangled in my apartment. I found him, and kindly took him to his place.”

  “Doesn’t look good. But, hey, I’m just in law school.”

  “Who you telling?”

  “You moved two dead bodies and told the police about neither. I mean, I am no lawyer, but my TV lawyer instincts are telling me you’re in deep shit.”

  “Would you have told on yourself?”

  “I’m a black ex-con with a rap sheet worthy of praise. Imagine it.”

  “Look, Butler, the bishop is dead, too. I’m pretty sure, Loretta Scalia sicced Lynch on Chen, Frankie and the bishop, but I don’t know why. We will find out when you get into Scalia’s computer.”

  “Let’s do this,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s that time. Wait here while I grab my car from the garage. Don’t need anyone seeing you roaming the campus. They have that facial recognition crap included with the surveillance.”

  Just as Naim walked away, Dotty was approached by Hank Robinson.

  “What are you doing here, Hankie Pankie?” she asked, fixing her hair.

  “I should ask you that. I go to school here, remember?”

  “Right. I found out some things about who may be responsible for hurting your brother. Turns out,” she said, covering her mouth, “well, I can’t tell you right now, but I will say that there’s a chance that DC is involved.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The Government.”

  “Oh, Big Brother. That’s fair, my brother hasn’t filled out a W-2 in ages.”

  She giggled. “OK, but this isn’t about him not paying taxes in years. It could be a part of the problem, though.” She heard a car horn and looked out and saw Naim waving at her. “I have to go.”

  “OK, but please find out who hurt my brother.”

  “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You have the Post-It already?” He smiled.

  She blushed. “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, winked and then backed up. “I gotta run.” She turned around and ran out of the building. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Green Bay Packers jacket walking up the street. Someone pushing a shopping cart was wearing it.

  16

  Naim Butler sped from the University City area to Downtown with hip hop music playing and forcing Dotty’s head to beat counter-clockwise by the time they finished the twenty-three-block drive. The PPD’s website had identified Dotty by name as the suspect wanted for questioning in the murder case of Lee Chen. They provided a depressing description of her.

  “I gotta get into the gym. Get some Botox. And a nip tuck in a few places,” she said after hearing the description.

  “What was that?” Naim asked, lowering the radio.

  “Nothing, I was thinking out loud.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  About three blocks from the bank, Naim crossed over to JFK Boulevard from Market Street and Dotty asked what he was doing. He informed her that they were headed to Goldberg Discreet Inquirers and that Swayze would meet them there. He had Googled the bank’s number and called Swayze with the new plan. He liked it. They hadn’t told Dotty because they feared she’d protest.

  Two blocks from Goldberg’s, Naim parked and they began to walk. It was a freezing cold evening, one of those bitterly cold nights between January and spring in Philadelphia before it officially became hot as hell in the city. Dotty crossed the street each time another pedestrian walked toward them on the same side. Once a cop car turned onto the street and she ducked behind the hedge outside of a parking lot, moments after a stray dog made a stop on the same spot. When she continued walking, her nose was runny, and she stank to high heavens. It wasn’t even after a night of drinking heavily.

  “Dotty!”

  The name echoed off the buildings and Dotty was halfway up the block, running like a track star when she realized that it was Patrick Swayze who had called her. She reversed direction and the three of them huddled at the front of the detective agency. Swayze wore a trench coat with a fur collar and a beret.

  “Who the hell are you supposed to be, Alfred-Damn-Hitchcock?” Dotty asked, knocking the hat off of his head. “No hats in the building.”

  “You got a lot of balls. Bloodhounds are looking for you and I’ll turn your ass in if you touch me again,” he said, fixing his hat on his head.

  “Sorry. It’ll never happen again,” she said coyly.

  “You bet your tits it won’t. But dogs are really looking for you Dotty.”

  “I just missed one,” Dotty said, wiping her heel on the carpet.

  “So did you do it?”

  “Hell no. Someone’s mutt did.”

  “What? I’m talking about your landlord. You couldn’t pay rent, soooooo, just maybe you—”

  “That was Lynch.”

  “The same Lynch that killed the bishop and tried to kill the he-bitch?”

  “Ain’t one of them enough?”

  “What the hell is his problem? He’s a serial killer?”

  “I don’t know. He killed Chen because Chen must’ve caught him in my apartment. I think he was looking for the photos. I think he did Bishop Sinclair because
he was going to pay me to keep quiet about the nun. I thought he was working alone, but now, I think he’s in cahoots with Loretta Scalia.”

  “The defense secretary?”

  “The Attorney General, Jesus. I’ve told you this.”

  “The news said you were last seen with Chen.”

  “Do you believe everything the damn news says. And that was Ms. Lombardo’s account. She’s blind as you, by the looks that you dressed without a mirror this evening.”

  “Two bodies in a week, she saw you with though. That could be compelling in a court of law,” Naim said, forcing Dotty to give him a compelling shut-the-fuck-up stare down.

  “If it gets that far,” Swayze said, digging the dagger deeper.

  Naim produced a key and unlocked the door to the agency. He cupped his hand over an alarm keypad. “I’ve got to disarm this thing.”

  Dotty watched him enter the code. “I didn’t know there was an alarm system.”

  “Mr. Goldberg had it installed the day that he fired you.”

  “First off, I quit.”

  “We can enter now.”

  When they opened the computer room’s door, Naim reached for the wall light switch and Dotty grabbed his arm to stop him. She thought all light switches were rigged. He assured her that they were safe.

  Naim sat at a computer and rapidly moved his fingers across the keyboard. He entered two different passwords, and put his thumbprint on a pad before Dotty said, “Who designed this crapola?”

  “It was Goldberg himself. He hates you.”

  “That dog. He chases his tail.”

  Swayze said, “Speaking of dogs, has one taken a shit in here?”

  Dotty looked down at her shoes. “I probably left a trail all through the place. I’d love to see Goldberg’s face when he walks into the stench tomorrow morning.”

  “OK, sir and madam, we’ve got miles of electronic spaghetti behind us. Now let’s break into the Justice Department’s files. With luck, the security code will have something to do with Loretta Scalia, the Justice Department, or the AG’s office. Hopefully, some junior clerk didn’t program the thing with the password being the first street that he got laid at age thirty, or we’ll be sitting here running possibilities until the next time the Sixers win the championship.”

  “Moreover,” said Swayze. “This bad boy may have a decoding system. Let me see and we can enter one of the headings you suggested and it’ll run combinations faster than we can read them on the screen.”

  “You two got this. I can barely work my touch screen cell phone.”

  “We’re good,” Swayze said. “This is better than my Hewlett Packard.”

  “HPs are good. You can get a three-year-old Apple Mac Book and eat for a month at JG Domestic on the difference though,” Naim said.

  “Gentlemen’s,” Dotty said. “Play nice.”

  “Apple’s are overrated. I had one and sold it for an HP touch screen number.”

  “You must’ve had a bad apple.”

  Dotty laughed.

  “Query stopped. Those were no good. Any other bright suggestions?”

  “Try ‘Federal government,’” Dotty said.

  “We’d be here a month. Too many agencies.”

  “Lynch,” said Naim.

  In twenty seconds, they had action.

  Swayze said, “Ten Lynch’s with the D.C. regional office. Six file clerks, but two are broads, two mail couriers, an field ops, and an assistant regional director.”

  “The director and woman are out. That leaves seven. Try the field operative,” Naim said.

  “Lynch, Jonathan R. He died in 1987.”

  “He’s out,” Dotty said. “The couriers.”

  One was in his seventies. The other was African-American.

  “File Clerks?” Dotty asked.

  Of the four, two were black. The third was a woman on military leave stationed in Iraq. Albert Lynch, the last one, matched the Lynch Dotty knew in race, sex, age, and height but not weight.

  The screen changed. “Looks like he’s on assignment in Alaska.”

  “Dead end. See if the bishop’s name matches anyone,” Dotty said.

  “Interface,” said Naim.

  “You ain’t putting anything in my face. That’s workplace sexual harassment.”

  “That’s a computer term, Dotty,” Naim said.

  “They use sex terms for computer terms. I didn’t know they were interchangeable.”

  “I can’t deal,” Swayze said. “But, no, there’s no Bishop Scott Sinclair.”

  “Boys, we have a serious cover-up on our hands,” Dotty said, cracking her knuckles. She needed a toothpick.

  “Who would hire a file clerk to commit murder after murder?”

  “The same idiot that sends one to Alaska. What’s he going to file Sarah Palin’s presidential endorsement of Donald Trump?”

  “Dotty, you’re a file clerk,” said Naim.

  “Not since Luscious Goldberg fired me.”

  Swayze said, “I thought you quit?”

  Dotty pointed at the screen. “How do we get this thing to tell us what we need?”

  “Enter ‘Dismas,’” Naim said.

  Swayze looked at him. “And what might that be?”

  “Not what, but who. Dismas was the thief who died on the cross with Christ. He’s the Patron Saint of Thieves and Clandestine Activities.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Learned that in History of Religion class at Tulane.”

  “Give it a whirl,” Dotty said. “We are implicating the Church here.”

  Naim spelled the name and Swayze entered it. The screen changed again.

  “Lookie here,” Swayze said.

  “Unreal,” Naim said.

  “What?” Dotty demanded.

  Swayze sat back. “Don’t tell me you can’t read that.”

  Dotty leaned closer to the screen and squinted her eyes. Swayze had a hit thanks to Naim. Right on the screen was the single word: ABSOLUTION.

  17

  “What on earth made you resort to trying ‘Dismas’?” Swayze asked Naim.

  “It was a hunch. The Church has its hands all in this case, so I tried it. Be careful that may just be one of a few codes, depending on how many of them government clowns are involved.”

  Dotty asked, “Where’d you read about Dismas?”

  “Not the Bible. I just reheard it from a professor that mentioned it in that Religious Psychology class, but I also had a religious grandma.”

  “Oh, really? I can’t tell. Where’s the religious marks?”

  “Marks? Geesh, Dotty, it wasn’t like that. I had a tender grandma.”

  “Not so religious then. Define Absolution? Someone. Anyone.”

  “Catholics—.”

  Dotty wrapped her hand around Naim’s neck. “Look, I have had religion shoved down my throat since Monday and I have had enough. If I gotta hear one more thing about Catholics, ISIS will have me as a homegrown operative. Now, what does ‘Absolution’ have to do with two dead clergies, one dead landlord, and a partridge in a pear tree?”

  “OK,” said Naim in a computerized voice. She continued to choke him.

  Swayze said, “This violence does nothing for your claim of not strangling Chen.”

  “And this could be used as 404(b) prior bad acts evidence,” Naim choked out.

  Dotty let go. “Sorry, hun. No one had had a day like me since George Bush the day he had to deal with the Nine-Eleven conundrum.”

  “It’s all good. You’re lucky to be a woman, Dotty. But that masculine grip, I am not so sure though.” He was struggling to pull air down his throat.

  She circled a finger around his nipple. “You wanna find out, baby?”

  He jumped back. “Now who is sexually harassing who?”

  “You’re an ass,” she said and then added, “shove ‘Absolution’ into that machine and see what it shits out.”

  “Your word choice, Dotty, is stellar.” He typed the passw
ord. “Ah, damn.”

  “What?” Dotty couldn’t read the small letters on the screen.

  “This file is marked classified. Enter secondary passcode.”

  “Another damn code. Is there gold in there?”

  “I’m trying ‘Catholic Church.’”

  “Don’t.” Naim grabbed Swayze’s hands before he typed the word. “See if there’s a safeguard.”

  “And what might that be asshole?” Dotty asked. “You two are going to stop using twenty-dollar-words.”

  Swayze said, “We have them at the bank to protect our accounts just in case someone tries to hack into the files.” He entered the question. “Ah, damn.”

  “Safeguard?”

  “Yup.”

  “So, they’re safe from my evil plot to exploit their evil plot?” Dotty asked.

  “It’s not a good idea to try,” Naim said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because we don’t know the damn safeguards in place. They could shut us out or like an Apple iPhone erase all data. Even could record our IP address and send the cops straight here. Hell, the FBI is a walking distance away.”

  “Damn,” Dotty said. “At every turn they’re trying to stop me from getting my money. We might as well be in a third world country.”

  “Well, there is a sunny side,” Naim said.

  “And what the hell is that. It better not involve anything about God.”

  “Nope. You’re in deep shit. What now?”

  “Find out what Absolution is, that’s key.”

  Swayze cracked up in laughter. “I can see the headline now: ‘Private Drunk Detective Found Beheaded; Sought Absolution’.

  “Real cute.” Dotty looked at Naim. “So you learn anything about being a detective or investigating?”

  “Very frustrating, I know that.”

  “No, it’s a bitch. Say it: bitch, bitch, bitch.”

  Naim smirked. “Mr. Goldberg doesn’t like profanity in the office. It’s a sign of having a low IQ and being a high school dropout.”

  “Sad. How’re you going to be a lawyer or investigate criminal acts, if you don’t talk like that to people?”

  “Here’s the thing, his staff stands above clients.”

  “You know what, next time he says that, tell him to drop fuckin’ dead. And tell him that Dotty told you to say that.”