Mystery: The Frank & Ernest Box Set - Mystery and Suspense Novels (The Frank & Ernest Files, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense Book 6)

by David Archer

  Chapter 3

  “So tell me, Martha, what looks good today?” Ernie Campanella asked the canteen lady.

  “To you, anything and everything, I guess,” Martha Stewart replied from behind her counter. No, not that Martha Stewart who, in 1977, was only starting to make her fortune. This Martha, the black one behind the counter, never would strike it rich, but, before long, that would be the least of her regrets. “I suppose you want—now let me see can I guess—two cinnamon crullers and a large with two cream and three sugars.”

  “Martha the mind-reader does it again!” Ernie laughed. “With skills like that you oughta be in show biz.”

  “Clintona, fetch me two cinnamon crullers. Get those two fat ones in the second row. This my best customer.”

  “Oh, I see you got an assistant now,” Ernie said, as he spotted the little girl who had been sitting in a corner before her grandmother spoke.

  “Yeah, I gotta watch the grandkids today, on account of the day-care lady is sick. That boy over there sweeping up is Duane, and this here,” she added, putting two kindly hands on the little girl’s shoulders, “is Clintona. Thank you sweetie, you can go back to your book now.” The girl smiled shyly at Ernie, then retreated to her spot on the floor.

  Ernie slapped down his usual five-spot with the usual instruction to keep the change, then hustled over to join his buddies at what had become their usual table. This was six weeks before the big promotion that would take Frank Mueller out of their precinct forever.

  As Ernie sat down and pried the lid off his coffee, Frank looked up from the crossword puzzle he had been working on.

  “Hey, genius, think you can help me out?” he asked.

  “Depends,” Ernie replied. What’s the clue?”

  “Five across, it says ‘the castle on the corner.’ All I got is blank, blank, O, blank. Wait, now that I look at the down word, I think it may be a double O.”

  “I got it, ‘boob’!” Greg Martin shouted.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it, Einstein,” Frank said.

  “Glad to be of help.”

  “Any thoughts, Ernie, or are you still in the bag from last night?”

  “In the bag or out, I can still think rings around you, Francis. Here’s the deal. You gotta think of a different kind of castle. You know, not some big stone fortress.”

  “Um…okay…so what other kind…”

  “It’s ‘rook,’ ya numbskull, like on a chessboard. Capeesh?”

  “Leroy, Leroy, he’s our man! If he can’t do it, no one can!” Greg cheered.

  “You gentlemen looking for some company?” Sadie Gomez inquired as she stood behind Frank, rubbing his shoulders. Sadie was one of the Captain’s civilian secretaries.

  “This one particular gentleman certainly is,” Frank replied with a grin. Sadie was also Frank’s fiancée. “As for those other knuckleheads—”

  “Be nice, Frank,” she admonished him. “You shouldn’t call your friends knuckleheads.”

  “You’re right, Sweetie. Okay, then, as for these phrenologist’s delights, I’m sure they’d be pleased to have a few minutes of your company.”

  “See if I ever give you another crossword clue,” Ernie said.

  “Yeah, and that goes double for me,” Greg added.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, what ever will I do?” Frank fretted.

  “So tell me, boys, how are your love lives? You seeing anybody special?”

  “Yeah, sort of. I took Molly Gallagher to the movies last Saturday,” Greg informed her. “It was one of those discount places where you can see a second-run flick for a buck.”

  “Yeah, you always were the last of the big spenders. So whad’ja see?” Sadie asked.

  “The Godfather,” you know, the original. I’d seen it before, but Molly hadn’t.”

  “Funny thing about that movie,” Ernie said with a wink to Frank, “I happen to know, the guy who played Clemenza wasn’t their first choice. They had someone else in the role to start with.”

  “Really, who?” Greg asked.

  “John Denver,” Ernie deadpanned.

  “Yeah, I remember reading about that somewhere,” Frank chimed in.

  “Trouble was,” Ernie went on, “the guy couldn’t stop saying ‘leave the gun, take the Granola,’”

  Greg glared at them, then said, “You know for a couple of guys named Frank and Earnest, you are two lying sacks of fertilizer.”

  “How about you, Ernesto? You got a girlfriend yet?” Sadie went on.

  “Nah, I prefer more of a pay-as-you-go arrangement.”

  “You mean hookers,” Sadie corrected him as she arched her brow.

  “Goodness gracious no!” Ernie was quick to reply. “Hooking is illegal. Didn’t you know that? No, I like to find a girl who needs a favor and who knows how to do a favor. Nothing in the world wrong with that.” By ‘favors,’ Ernie meant granting the poor girl another night out of the slammer, which he could otherwise arrange, in exchange for the return favor she usually did for cash.

  “You know you could catch something,” Frank pointed out.

  “Could and did; got the shots; good to go.”

  “Still, there’s other reasons for settling down besides not getting a dose,” Frank said. “Hey, Sadie’s got a pretty sister.” He turned toward his fiancée. “How about we fix him up with Arlene?” Sadie made a sour face and shook her head.

  “Um, we tried that,” Ernie told his friend, “and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.”

  “For whatever reason? Are you nuts?” Sadie laughed. She had learned to put up with Ernie, despite his obvious lack of tact. “Let me tell you what happened, Frank. This was before we started seeing each other. I fix this turkey up with my sister and he takes her to a production of West Side Story. About a minute before the curtain goes up, Mr. Diplomacy here tells her, ‘I suppose you’ll be rooting for the spics.’”

  “Yeah, and then she got up and walked away. I just wanted to see if she had a decent sense of humor,” Ernie added

  “My sister has a very good sense of humor, if somebody actually tells a joke.”

  “Play time’s over ladies and gents!” Corporal Korpal (who feared he may be a corporal forever) called out. “Everybody to the briefing room, on the double!”

  Chapter 4

  Ernie was only half-listening to the news as he drove to work that morning. If anything important happened, they’d hear about it in the morning briefing. As a result, he only caught the bare bones of the story that came on as he was approaching the parking garage. There had been a drive-by shooting on Lehigh Avenue. Two gang members had been shot, one fatally and the other taken to the hospital with a bullet in his ankle. A little girl named Clintona Johnson had been caught in the crossfire and died from multiple gunshot wounds.

  When Ernie approached the canteen, he was surprised to see Henry Jones from housekeeping behind the counter.

  “Hello, Henry, where’s Martha?” Ernie greeted him.

  “Ain’t you heard? Her granddaughter got cut down in that killing up in Strawberry Mansion.”

  “Damn!” Ernie shouted. “That stinks. That stinks like shit!” then he realized the name had sort of rung a bell when he caught the story on the radio. “I tell ya, Henry, some people got no sense of decency at all.”

  “They say it was them crazy Jamaicans,” Henry added. Ernie had not caught that part of the story. He knew the crime scene was nowhere near his beat, but then it came to him that it was right in Detective Frank Mueller’s back yard. Ernie wondered if his friend would draw the case.

  Lieutenant Clancy Grimes sat down opposite the greenhorn detective and slapped a folder down on the desk. “Okay, Mueller, you’ve been bitching that we give you nothing but piddly-ass shit since you got here. Well guess what, son? Graduation day is here. You here about that drive-by on Lehigh Avenue? It’s your baby. You OK with that?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be glad to take the case,” Frank was quick to reply. “Turns out I know the little girl�
��s grandmother. She’s the canteen lady in the last precinct I worked at.”

  “She was, huh? I hope that’s not gonna make you too close to the case, ‘cause, if it is…”

  “Come on, Lieutenant, it’s not like the lady’s my kid sister. She’s a concessions worker for Christ sake.”

  “Good. I like your attitude, Mueller. You’ll have Hilton to back you up, but you’re the primary, got that? Now here’s what we know about the case so far.

  “The two thugs that got shot were Ellis Washington, he’s the one got shot in the foot or whatever. We think he used to deal on that block, mostly PCP, but pretty much anything except weed. The guy who got killed was one major bad actor named Tyrone Smith. We been trying to tie him to a number of killings, with no success, so far. Looks like those Jamaicans did us a big favor. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, our prime suspects are an outfit calls themselves The Lehigh Avenue Rude Boys. I’d say they were more than a little rude yesterday evening.

  “That brings me to your number-one suspect. Guy’s name is Delroy MacGregor. He’s what they call the runner.”

  “You mean like a messenger boy?”

  “I see you still got a few things to learn about gang life in North Philly,” Lieutenant Grimes smiled. “No, the runner is the guy who runs the show—you know, the leader. That’s our man MacGregor. I doubt very much that he personally pulled the trigger, but, if he didn’t order the hit, I’ll heat my hat.”

  “Gold braid and all?”

  “Gold braid and all. Okay, we’ll let that be your one joke for the day. Now let’s get back to the case. As you probably heard, there was a little girl that got taken out in the process. Her name is Clintonia I think. Here, let me check the file…Clintona, that’s it, Clintona Johnson. Thing is everybody, including City Hall is in a wild uproar about an eight-year-old girl getting killed. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is we get this case solved and this Delroy MacGragor character behind bars.”

  “You mean if he did it.”

  “What, you think he didn’t?”

  “I think I should keep an open mind. Of course, I’ll check him out. I’ll check him out good, and his band of Jamaican thugs, but, in the end, I want to know it was them before I make any arrests.”

  “Hey, even if you’re not one-hundred percent sure, bring ‘em in, the sooner the better. Who knows when they may get around to a trial? Meanwhile, we got a lot of angry people and at least one angry mayor yelling for blood.”

  “Bring them in right now? Is that an order, Sir?”

  “Okay, maybe not right this very minute, but soon. I’ll give you a little time to sniff around, but no time to fool around. I expect you to make haste, Detective—a whole lotta haste.”

  Detective Mueller wanted to make his first call on Martha Stewart, the girl’s grandmother. Clintona’s mother, Yvonne Johnson, he learned had “crossed over” via the overdose express four years earlier, and the father was nowhere to be found. When he thought again, Frank decided he’d wait to call on Mrs. Stewart. He wanted Ernie Campanella there with him, so that she’d know it was more that police business; so that she’d know how genuinely sorry they were to hear the news.

  Instead he located his new partner, Lawrence “Biggie” Hilton, a Jamaican himself, who would know better than anyone else in the shop where these characters hung out.

  “Tell you what,” Biggie advised his partner, “let’s take a trip to Aunt Polly’s Lawndale Ribs and Chicken for an early lunch or a late breakfast if you like.”

  “Why, are you hungry already?”

  “No, but I think that’s where I’ll find my boy Rasta Pete. This is about his time to rise and shine, and Polly’s is his favorite hangout. If he’s not there, I guess we’ll have to try his stinking apartment.”

  “Lead on McDuff,” Frank said.

  “Funny you should say that,” Biggie replied. “Used to be a rival ganja dealer named McDuff around here, or at least that’s what he called himself. Anyway, they found his torso in a dumpster. The coroner’s report said they didn’t cut the arms and legs offa his corpse—they cut ‘em offa him. Did I happen to mention, these are some mean motor scooters we’re looking to find?”

  True to Biggie’s hunch, they found his snitch, Rasta Pete, at Aunt Polly,s happily greasing his chin, that is, until he spotted the two cops.

  “Good mornin’ Officer Hilton, how can I help you and your whiteboy friend this fine and dandy day?”

  “You can cut the sarcasm, for starters,” Hilton told him. “You hear about the shooting the other day on Lehigh? You know, the one where they caught some innocent little girl in the spray? The really stupid thing about that whole ficaso is, your friends only wounded the guy they were after. He’s in the hospital, under heavy guard, while the little girl got killed. That sound right to you?”

  “Hey, no kinda killin’ sound right to me. I’m a lover, mon, not a fighter.”

  “Look, Pete, if I thought you were the one pulled the trigger, you’d be in custody right now. No, the guy I want is your friend MacGregor. Where do I find him?”

  “I tell you that, you can add me to the list of the dead,” the snitch replied. And anyway, I don’t actually know where he be this minute. The man like to keep on the move.” Then he wrote an address on a piece of paper. “Dis lady—her name is Yvette---she the hostess with the mostest, far as Delroy’s concerned. You keep an eye on her place, he bound to show up.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Frank said, as the two detectives got up from the table.

  Chapter 5

  “Mrs. Stewart, let me say, right now, how sorry we are for your loss,” Frank Mueller told the still-distraught lady.

  “We’re more than sorry, we’re crushed. This did not have to happen,” Ernie Campanella added. Frank had recruited a reliable cop, Ed Struielli, to fill in for him on the stake-out he and Biggie Hilton had been maintaining in sight of a house where one Yvette Collins, supposed girlfriend to Delroy MacGregor, lived, so that he and Ernie could call on Martha Stewart.

  “Thank you gentlemen, that was very kind of you to say so,” Martha replied.

  “Please forgive me for seeming like I don’t care all that much,” Frank went on, “but part of the reason I’m here is to investigate the crime. I don’t know what you might be able to tell us that would help me find these rats, but anything you can add could be helpful. To start with, and I’m certainly not making any judgment here, but, how did Clintona happen to be on the street at 7:30 that night?”

  “She was going to the 7-11,” Martha explained. “I told her if she cleaned her plate, I’d let her go and get an ice cream. That girl was always such a picky eater, I thought I had to do something to, you know, motivate her to finish her spinach, which she almost never does. Lucky for me, I guess, Duane ate everything in a big hurry, like he always does, then went off to watch the television. Otherwise, I mighta lost my other grand. Anyway, you know, it’s still plenty light out, so I figured, what was the harm?”

  “You had no reason to expect any,” Ernie said. “Who would have guessed those prick—um, I mean, rotten fellows—woulda done such a thing.”

  “I think you was right the first time, Mr. Ernie. That’s exactly what those men were. I hope they get caught, and soon.”

  “Is there anything you can tell us about the shooting itself?” Frank continued. “I don’t suppose you saw it.”

  “I both wish I had and am glad I didn’t. I’d surely like to tell you who was in that car, but I think the sight of my granddaughter getting shot down like a dog would of done me in. Thing I don’t understand is how come the drug dealer—you know, I seen that guy hangin’ around a lotta times, but I don’t know his name—how come that drug dealer only gets shot once, while my precious takes five bullets? Five bullets, mind you. Can anyone tell me how that came to pass?”

  “I’d love to tell you exactly how it did,” Frank said, “but, so far there don’t seem to be any witnesses. I gotta believe somebody saw what went down, b
ut nobody seems to know anything. We already checked with your neighbors and they all claim they saw nothing. All we got so far is the guy who survived, and he’s not exactly a model citizen.”

  “Didn’t I hear on the news there was another of them gangsters got shot? He see anything?” Martha asked.

  “Oh, you can forget about the other guy. You know Clintona took five slugs, well this other guy took eight, two of them in the head. He was dead before he hit the pavement.”

  “Sounds like he was the one they were after,” Ernie said. Frank raised his eyebrows. He had always assumed Ellis Washington, the rival dealer, was the guy they wanted. Smith, the other victim, had spent almost no time in that neighborhood until very recently.

  “Getting back to your neighbors, Mrs. Stewart,” Frank continued.

  “Please, call me Martha. It was always Martha when you were a customer at my canteen.”

  “Well, that was a more informal time. This is, you know, like an official investigation.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it is, but I’d be more comfortable if it wasn’t quite so formal.”

  “Whatever makes it easier for you…Martha,” Frank agreed. “Now here’s what I am wondering. Do you know if any of your neighbors were definitely in a position to see the shooting and just aren’t talking?”

  “I feel torn,” Martha sighed. “I don’t want to be a tattle-tale, but I want those men caught. Yes, I surely do want them caught.”

  “Any names you give me, I promise I’ll be as gentle as I can with them. No one’s gonna get taken downtown and beaten with a rubber hose, if that’s what’s got you concerned.”

  “Yeah, these days we use polyvinyl hoses. Movin’ with the times, so to speak,” Ernie interjected.