Cheap as Beasts

by Jon Wilson

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Like most soldiers, Declan Colette lost his fair share in the war—in his case a sailor, drowned off Iwo Jima. Since then he’s been scratching out a living as a cut-rate PI, drinking too much, and flirting with danger. Then a girl arranges to consult him, only to be murdered en route, and the cops tag Colette as their prime suspect. To save his neck he’ll need to find the real killer, a quest that pits him against a rival detective firm, a dangerously rich family, and a desperate foe whose murdering ways started back during the war.

  Could this be the case he’s been waiting for? Catching the killer could make his reputation. Failing, could cost him his life.

  Either way: win-win.

  Cheap as Beasts

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  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

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  Cheap as Beasts

  © 2015 By Jon Wilson. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-320-2

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: February 2015

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Jerry L. Wheeler

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Gabrielle Pendergrast

  Dedication

  For Margaret

  Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

  —William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.346

  Chapter One

  I’ve always been partial to redheads, especially the fair-skinned, svelte, doe-eyed type with full, demure lips and naturally rosy cheeks. Nothing drives me more wild than smooth, creamy flesh, either naked or draped in just the right finery, sprayed with a light scattering of freckles. Naturally, none of that described Lana O’Malley, who sat cross-legged in one of the two chairs facing my desk. She was blond and tanned and about as soft as granite.

  “The police are useless.” She fiddled with a cigarette and a butane lighter, neither of which she appeared to remember how to operate. “And I’m beginning to believe coming here was another waste of time.”

  “Now, Lana.” Morgan O’Malley patted her hand and held it.

  Unlike his sister, he fit my wish list to a tee and was the only reason I hadn’t tossed the pair of them into the hall. He looked at me, plaintive. His eyes were a subtle mixture of green and brown and gold. “Can’t you help us, Mr. Colette?”

  I think I’m pretty good, but he had me, mostly because he didn’t know he was doing it. With him, it was all innocent, lethal instinct. I had to look back at his sister just to get my lips working. “I don’t know. I’m still not clear on what it is you want me to do.”

  Lana slid forward, perching on the edge of her chair. “That monster killed our father. We want you to prove it.”

  “Never mind the police, who says he died from natural causes?”

  “The police!” She spat the word like it tasted as bad to her as it usually did to me. “Show him the paper, Morg.”

  He slipped his hand into his breast pocket. “This is an affidavit signed by father’s doctor.” His voice was low, calm and steady, quite the contrast to his sister’s. “He had a physical last year. There was no sign of any heart disease.”

  I accepted the document, pretending to admire its face. “But he was, what? Sixty? Sixty-five?”

  “Sixty-two,” Lana snapped. “In great shape. He played tennis twice a week. He could’ve beaten you.”

  That was childish, of course, but arguing with such filial devotion seemed futile. With the old man’s ashes in a jar on a mantle somewhere, it could never be settled. “I’m sure he was an animal,” I told her. “Still, people that age die.”

  She threw down the cigarette, preparing to spring. “How dare you speak that way about my father?”

  Yeah, yeah. Like he was God.

  Not that he was far off. Even up in Pacific Heights, the O’Malley mansion stood out. The old man had made his money in real estate, none of it local, but had re-invested heavily in San Francisco. Then the war came, and he took his bundle and lent and leased it into lots of other, bigger bundles. I heard the mayor used to have to call O’Malley’s secretary just to make an appointment to call back later and ask him to lunch. Something like that. Anyway, when he was found sprawled on his bedroom floor, the newspapers went berserk. But there hadn’t been even an allusion to foul play.

  “Not that I should have expected better. Not from someone who works in a hole like this.” Lana O’Malley, continuing her tirade.

  “Which brings me to my next question,” I told them both. “Why exactly did you pick on me?”

  She settled back into her chair, twisting her bright red lips sourly. “You weren’t our first choice, I assure you.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better.”

  Morgan interceded again. “Really, Mr. Colette, no one even wants to listen to us.”

  Lana turned on him. “Oh, don’t indulge him, Morgan. He’s already convinced himself he’s a clever little man. He needs to be put in his place.”

  That seemed to deserve an appropriate response. For instance, I’m six feet tall and weigh a good two hundred pounds, and, while I was not exactly flush, I had just that morning delivered some photographs of a philanderer to his wife’s attorney in exchange for a sizeable stack of dough. So, I was financially predisposed to give them the boot. But there was Morgan to contend with, or, more precisely, that heroic jaw and those multicolored eyes. And, yeah, the ginger hair.

  I sat back in my chair too, stretching my legs out under my desk and crossing my ankles. “What is it exactly you’re saying that no one wants to hear?” I let sister know I was ignoring her statement about me being small by addressing my question to brother.

  He played along. “Just what we said. We think it wasn’t…natural. We think he was poisoned, or well, I don’t know about poisoned. I mean, the police have scientists, right? They would’ve found poison. But we think something…”

  “You think something.” That was rich. I wondered if they knew the only reason they were being politely ignored by the police, as opposed to being aggressively told to go soak their heads, was because of their last name.
Lana started up again, something about how Morg was telling it all wrong, but he placed his hand on her shoulder and looked me straight in the eye.

  “We suspect Miranda had something to do with it.”

  I reiterate that he was good. The way he was looking at me, like something about my eyes mesmerized him, tipped me that he suspected I was close to being hooked. And also that he knew why I was close to being hooked.

  I looked over at Lana. Her expression said there was absolutely nothing mesmerizing about me at all. As the feeling was exceedingly mutual, I told her to tell me more about this Miranda.

  Miranda O’Malley, born Miranda March, and, for a few years, called Miranda Reed, had wed Lawrence O’Malley during the war. She was apparently a succubus. That was Lana’s word and, I admit, I wanted to look it up to be certain it meant what I thought it did. She used a few other choice descriptors such as viper, temptress, witch, and a certain word which rhymes with witch, but I could tell that succubus was her favorite.

  Adam Reed, Miranda’s first husband, had died in France. As there’d been a war on, that didn’t strike me as an astounding coincidence, although from the way Lana told it, I half expected to be told the succubus had a hand in that event as well.

  As to how her father and Miranda had met, Miss O’Malley was a bit vague. She appealed to brother, but he seemed either to have forgotten or never known himself. The succubus had just suddenly appeared in their lives, on their father’s arm, an affront to their mother’s memory, a black mark against their father’s fine judgment, etcetera. Clearly a spell had been cast. Never mind that Miranda was beautiful, charming, and half Lawrence’s age.

  “How long had your father been a widower?”

  The question brought Lana’s head up sharply. “What does my mother have to do with any of this?”

  Exactly, I thought.

  Morgan, who still held his sister’s left hand in his right, offering an occasional squeeze to help her through some of the more trying details of her story, reached over to soothe her with his other hand. He lowered his heroic chin slightly, aiming his swirling eyes at me from under a manly brow. “Our mother died right after the crash, Mr. Colette. December of twenty-nine.”

  I made myself meet his gaze, thinking that if I did end up working this silly case, I’d best be able to withstand the client’s eyes. My chin floated up, tilting my head back slightly so that I was gazing down the side of my nose at him. “How’d that happen?”

  “How is this—” Lana started up, but Morgan squeezed again.

  “She had been sick for a while. She caught the flu and never fully recovered. But I don’t see how this can have any bearing on anything.”

  “No,” I said, “you’re probably right. And the fact that Miss O’Malley here had ostensibly been the woman of the house for fifteen years clearly has no bearing on her opinion of the succubus who displaced her.”

  Morgan let me see his disappointment. The sadness in his eyes made sure I knew how profoundly he felt it. “Please, Mr. Colette, there’s no need—”

  But that was as far as he got, because sister was through. “Come on, Morgan.” She was on her feet and fumbling with her wrap and purse. She probably could have done better, but all her attention was focused on me. “You’re all in this together. Joe warned me. He told me you’d be worse than useless!”

  To his credit, Morgan attempted a couple of intercessions, all of which earned him squat. Neither he nor I had risen when Lana jumped up, though she was, strictly speaking, a lady, and I understood that he harbored hopes of coaxing her back into her chair. Again, he came up with squat. Finishing with me, she screamed at him again to “Come on,” then propelled herself to the door and on out.

  On his feet finally, Morgan watched her go, then turned to me as I reclined in my chair with my fingers laced atop my middle. He didn’t say a word but let me see his disappointment had given way to frustration. For a man I estimated to be securely in the middle of his third decade, he struck me as rather adept at corralling his expressions. It made me want to try him out at cards, say pinochle or five-card draw. But I just smiled sympathetically, then he went after her, leaving the door standing open.

  Chapter Two

  I went for lunch to the counter at Jack’s, around the corner on Pine Street. Eating a Denver omelet and home fries, I caught up on The Chronicle and The Bay Clipper, a week’s worth of daily news. Neither sheet had anything at all to say about Lawrence O’Malley. I took that as confirmation that I’d done the right thing in making no move to stop his brats from storming out. His death was less than two months old, so if any whiff of a story lingered, it would have rated a mention at least. I considered calling a friend of mine, Gig Barton, a scribe for the Clipper’s crimebeat, just to do some casual fishing but decided no head of ginger hair was worth that much effort.

  I got back to the office at two. For my professional services, I rent two rooms on the third floor of the Rooker Building. You’ve probably seen it. At six stories, it’s one of the three tallest buildings on that section of Pierce. You probably just don’t remember seeing it. Despite its height, it somehow manages to be eminently unremarkable.

  The first of my two rooms, entering from the hall, is the reception area, with a small but serviceable reception desk I hope to someday hire a quiet gal to sit at and, contingent upon her abilities, possibly screen my incoming calls and type occasional correspondence. Two chairs are in the opposite corner with a little table squeezed between them, which I also hope to someday find occupied—preferably with prospective clients eager to hire me. But that day, like most every other, reception showed no signs of life whatsoever.

  The second room, approximately twice the size of the first and, therefore, half the size of a Pullman dining car, was my private office. It was equally devoid of human habitation, but less distressingly so than its smaller sibling. I hung up my jacket and hat on the rack, opened the one window, stood looking out across the alley, and loosened my tie. To show you just what an optimist I am, I only smoked a single cigarette before going to the phone to check for messages.

  There was one, and the girl at the service seemed every bit as surprised as me. Not that I mean to complain, about my business, that is, not the attitude of certain telephone operators. I enjoy moderately steady work. For instance, that philanderer’s wife’s attorney I mentioned. Also, I do some subcontracting for both Walter Cobb and the Zenith Detective Agency. I could probably go full time for Cobb. He’s mentioned it once or twice, hinting that I’d almost certainly bring in more cash, but I haven’t yet grown weary of seeing my own name on the door when I get off the elevator. Although it had been misspelled for nearly three months after I moved in.

  The name and number the operator gave me were neither Cobb nor the Zenith. But just to show you also that I can be realistic, I got comfortable in my chair, loosening my tie a bit more, and lit up another Camel before dialing the phone.

  It rang nearly half a dozen times, and I was on the verge of throwing in the towel when it sounded like the receiver at the other end was grabbed, throttled and thrown against the wall before a breathless female voice came on and told me, “Not yet!”

  According to my grandmother, that is no way to answer a telephone. I glanced down at the note I’d scribbled. “Hawthorne-seven, two-six-five-eight?”

  The female voice sounded as if it moved some distance from the transmitter and said, “Yes, Florence, but with the other hat. The other hat!”

  I thought about tossing my towel again, but I’m nothing if not tenacious. “Hello?”

  Of course, allowing that the female ear was located in the usual vicinity of the female mouth, there was a fair to middling chance that the female brain didn’t get the message. Then, the voice came back to the mouthpiece and demanded, “Hello?”

  “Hawthorne-seven, two-six-five-eight?”

  “Of course it is. Isn’t that what you dialed?”

  I took a breath, a deep one, through my nose, hoping she heard
it. Having sampled more of her, I had deduced that she was young, possibly a girl, but almost certainly not a woman. Somewhere in that excitable in-between, when bobbysocks give way to garters and hose. It’s not an age I have much patience for. “I’m calling Ramona Wyman.”

  She took a breath too, I assume. I didn’t hear anything for a moment. “And who shall I say is calling?”

  “Whom. Declan Colette, returning her call.”

  “Whom, what?” That time there was no pause, but lots of curiosity. “Who is this?”

  I decided my best bet was to stay professional, at least until I ever had occasion to meet this dingbat in person, which would probably result in my giving her a swift kick on the sitter. “Declan Colette. I was given a message that Ramona Wyman had telephoned while I was away. I am now endeavoring to return her call. May I speak with Mrs. Wyman please?”

  “Mrs. Wyman lives in Ohio. There’s two of them, I think, if you count my brother’s wife, which I guess you have to, considering. I’m Ramona Wyman. Miss Ramona Wyman. But I didn’t call anyone, not anyone named Dec—wait a minute! Is this the detective guy?”

  “This is that guy.”

  “Dexter Coleman?”

  “Declan Colette.”

  “That’s right. I remember now because when George told me the name, I remember thinking it sounded French. Are you French? I have a letter from France. Troyes. Only they pronounce it trois, like the number three. It’s in the Champagne region, only I don’t know if they make champagne there. You don’t sound French.”

  I wondered how she knew, seeing as I’d managed to say so little. I tried to even the score. “I’m not French. I’ve been to France, but only passing through. I don’t know if I sent any letters. Does it say it’s from me?”

  “Huh?” She was clearly better at giving; my spiel seemed to leave her stumped. “What are you talking about?”