by M. Z. Kelly
As my friends made light of a bad situation, I’d made out a couple of tweakers near the courtyard, not to mention a girl sitting on a railing who looked like she’d sell her body for a quarter gram of meth.
When my roommates came back over to me, I said, ““Are you guys sure you want to spend the night here? I’ve got work to do and you can’t interfere.”
“We can help you on the case,” Natalie said, clapping her hands in excitement. “I heard you saying something on the phone about Jezzie Rose, that runner. Is the dirty lumpfish that whacked her somewhere around here?”
“I can’t say. And you can’t help me on the case. This is police business.”
“Not a problem,” Mo said, giving Natalie a little head shake, maybe to appease me. “We just need a good night’s rest and then we’ll be on our way in the morning.”
It was against my better judgment but I felt sorry for my friends missing out on their vacation and ending up in Bakersfield. “You can all wait here while I get us a couple of rooms.”
Five minutes later, Bernie and I were standing in the lobby of the Snow White Motel. A diminutive clerk with a name tag that read, Bruce, sat behind the registration counter.
The clerk eyeballed Bernie. “Cash no credit cards and all I got is a Dopey, a Grumpy, and a Wheezy. It’ll be an extra ten for the dog.”
Bruce was about five feet tall, with a bushy uni-brow that came to a point above his bulbous nose. His grin exposed a large set of teeth that looked like they could have been borrowed from George Washington. The smile seemed permanently fixed on his face, like he’d been shot with a Botox stun-gun. There was a political poster on the wall behind the clerk with a headline that read, Badenov for Mayor. I realized I was talking to Bruce Badenov, the mayor of Oildale.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to understand what the mayor had meant about the rooms.
“They’re dwarf rooms, named after the seven dwarfs. Only got three left.”
“Oh, I don’t remember a dwarf named, Wheezy.”
“We’ve got more than seven rooms, so when Earl and Gladys ran out of names they had to improvise. We also have a Wimpy, a Limpy, and an Itchy, but they’re already taken.”
“Earl and…”
“My aunt and uncle. They built the place in the late seventies before I inherited. Aunt Gladys went a little Disney with the theme and Uncle Earl went along with it. He did all the construction himself.”
I complimented Earl and Gladys’ nephew on the establishment, realizing that I was looking at a man who was the king of the Snow White Empire and the mayor of Oildale, a rare combination. Maybe Bruce would someday be Governor. Stranger things have happened, considering the state had a history of being run by an actor.
I explained about my three roommates needing to share a room. The mayor said they could take the Dopey room, which had two beds, and he’d bring over a rollaway. I agreed to the arrangement, realizing that finding a Dopey room for my roommates and then a Grumpy room for Charlie must be some kind of once in a lifetime karmic convergence. I took the Wheezy room for me and Bernie, deciding it must have been named for the air we were forced to breathe.
I’d just paid for the rooms and gotten the keys when I heard a commotion in the parking lot. I ran back to where I’d left my friends, finding only Nana.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Where are Natalie and Mo?”
“It’s the killer,” Nana said, her dentures clicking away as she pointed down the street. “Mo and Natalie just ran after him. They recognized him from TV.”
I grabbed Bernie’s leash from her and took off running in the direction Nana said Natalie and Mo had gone. The dark air had turned colder since we’d arrived and the heavy fog now blanketed the area. It was impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. I called out to my friends but didn’t get a response.
“Stop, I’ve got a gun,” I heard Natalie scream a moment later from somewhere up ahead in the foggy darkness.
Seconds later I heard two shots ring out, followed by more screaming.
“Natalie, Mo where are you? I yelled, moving in the direction of the shots with my service weapon drawn, still unable to make out anything.
“Over here,” I heard Mo say. “We got a problem, Kate.”
Bernie and I moved forward until we made out the figures of Natalie and Mo in the fog shrouded landscape a block from the motel. Natalie was bent over the body of a man. She was holding a gun.
“What happened?” I asked, realizing that Natalie had her ex-husband’s antique pistol in hand. “Did you shoot him?”
“Wish I had,” Natalie said. “The shooter was Barry Ralston, Jezzie’s killer. The dirty wanker let loose on this bloke and then ran off.”
I used the small flashlight on my keychain, illuminating the dead body. The victim looked to be in his twenties. He’d been shot in the chest.
“Ralston,” I said, looking back at my friends. “Which way did he go?”
Before I got an answer Bernie apparently decided to take things into his own hands and took off, yanking his leash out of my hands and sprinting away from me. An instant later, he’d disappeared into the fog.
“Bernie, BLEIB!” I screamed, using the German training command for him to stop. It was too late. My big dog, who has a problem with impulse control among other things, was long gone.
Mo brought one of her big arms up, motioning down the road where Bernie had run after the shooter. “Ralston just disappeared into the night, Kate. He was like some crazy-ass Bakersfield zombie.”
CHAPTER TWO
The gray light of a new day seeped through my window like a thick syrup of cyanide seeking out the lungs of a condemned prisoner. I coughed, causing Bernie to whine and break into the potty dance.
I took a moment to orient myself, letting the trauma of being in the Snow White Motel in a room called Wheezy, slowly leach back into my consciousness.
I swung my feet off the bed, emptied my lungs of Bakersfield’s liquid air, refilled them, found my slippers, and crunched over to a chair where I found Bernie’s leash. The crunch was the sound of a few dozen of Wheezy’s other inhabitants announcing my destruction of a cockroach suburb in their enormous city.
“If you hadn’t been up chasing ghosts half the night maybe I wouldn’t feel like hell,” I said, affixing the leash to Bernie’s collar. He whined, did a tail-wag.
Outside the room, I let my wayward companion do his business in a dead flowerbed as I gathered my robe around myself. The morning was freezing, fog and low clouds covering the area, limiting visibility to a few yards.
Charlie had arrived a half hour after last night’s shooting. We spent the better part of the night rounding up Bernie and processing the crime scene. My canine partner had ended up in an industrial area just north of the motel, where we assumed he’d chased Barry Ralston before probably losing his scent at a fence around the entrance to a manufacturing plant.
Ralston had likely hopped the fence, made his way through the plant and out the other side. The local Bakersfield detectives had taken over the investigation, speculating that the shooting might have been a drug deal gone south.
“Beautiful morning, huh,” Charlie said, cigarette smoke billowing above his head. My tubby partner was wearing a t-shirt. He rubbed his belly as he stood near the twisted doorway of his Grumpy cottage across the courtyard from my own room.
“Yeah, I love the smell of Bakersfield in the morning,” I said. “It smells like shit.”
Charlie puffed. “You look tired, Kate.”
“My roommates kept me awake most of the night.” He gave me a blank stare. “Cockroaches—a cast of thousands.”
“That’s why I wear these roach kickers.” He raised a foot, showing me his thick soled black shoes. “Something I learned from working with crooks for almost thirty years.”
“I’ll get myself a pair. They look like they’re just my style.”
Charlie blew smoke that disappeared into the fog. “Just got
a call from Detective Good. He wants to meet us for breakfast in the restaurant in an hour. He’ll update us on the case.”
Good was the Bakersfield detective who’d caught last night’s murder case. I tugged at my limp hair and extensions that were in full rebellion. “That should give me enough time to do something with my hair and say goodbye to my roommates.”
After a shower in Wheezy’s tiny bathroom, I mopped the steam off the mirror and inspiration struck. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest one of all?”
Silence.
I turned to a couple of cockroaches in the corner who seemed to be studying me. Maybe they were visiting professors from a local university, preparing a report on the human invasion of their city.
I said to my antennaed roommates, “I guess the lack of response would make me the Old Hag.”
After a half hour of moussing, primping, and surrendering to the hair gods, I tossed on a pair of Ann Klein gray slacks, a sweater, and black blazer. Bernie and I then went forth to do battle in our new territory.
I found my travelling companions with Charlie, waiting for me in the Enchanted Apple. The fog had lifted. Thin sunlight filtered into the dingy little restaurant’s lobby that continued the motel’s Disney movie theme. A glass display case contained a ball gown that was said to have belonged to Snow White. I turned to Natalie and was about to comment on the dress but saw that she was yawning.
“I’m knackered,” Natalie complained. “Didn’t sleep a bloody wink all night.” Despite her lack of sleep, my British friend looked gorgeous in her leopard print crop top and skinny jeans.
Mo was standing next to Natalie. She pointed an accusatory purple nail at Nana who was dressed in a short skirt, a blue and white tank top, and a pair of red platform shoes that had probably been popular forty years ago. “The thunder down under kept us awake all night.”
“Can I help it if I have sleep apnea?” Nana said, in her high-pitched raspy voice.
Natalie, who I knew from past experience didn’t do well without her beauty sleep, said, “The thunder we’re talking ‘bout had nothing to do with snorin’.”
Nana did a denture click. “I have a medical condition. It’s called, dyspepsia.”
“It’s called farting,” Mo said as the waitress arrived, saving Nana from a physical confrontation. She led us over to a booth that had the words Hi Ho written on the wall. I wasn’t sure if the slogan was a reference to the song the dwarfs sang in the movie or the physical condition of the women walking the grounds of the motel.
“Detective Good called and said he’d be here in about ten minutes,” Charlie said after I settled Bernie at my feet and we glanced at menus. After a few moments another gum smacking waitress came over. My partner ordered coffee and something called the Oil Rig that consisted of eggs and hash browns, probably floating in something akin to the gulf oil slick. I worried about Charlie’s health but was too tired to lecture him.
“Give me the Bakersfield Blast,” Mo said to the waitress. “And don’t skimp on the sausage and grits.” Apparently Charlie wasn’t the only one working on a heart attack.
“I’ll have a scone and some tea,” Natalie said.
“Stones? The waitress said.
Natalie sighed. “Never mind. I’m too tired to explain. I’ll have toast and the tea.”
“Make it a double,” Nana said. “And a glass of water. I need to soak my dentures.”
I ordered scrambled eggs while Mo shook her head at Nana and warned us that the Snow White might have a second homicide in less than twenty-four hours.
“Any further leads on the shooter?” I asked Charlie after the waitress left.
“The vic’s name is Tyson Gray. Detective Good thinks he was Barry Ralston’s dealer. Rumor has it Ralston was into him for a crack habit. We found a half a gram on Gray’s body. Ralston might have been desperate for drugs, ripped off his own dealer.”
“Morning all,” Detective Good said, arriving and casting a shadow over our breakfast table.
The big Bakersfield cop squeezed into the booth next to Charlie, squeeze being the operative word as both men’s bellies pushed up against the table. Good looked to be forty-something. His hair was graying and he had a voice like a bullfrog. He surprised me by ordering orange juice and a bowl of cereal.
After making introductions I noticed Good’s eyes lingering on Natalie. The Good detective wasted no time making his intentions clear.
“My grandfather did some time in London during the second world war, Natalie,” the hefty detective said. “Went over on the Queen Mary. Maybe we could get together later and compare notes.”
Natalie whispered something to Mo about Good being a git, which I knew was British slang for something akin to idiot. Apparently she wasn’t impressed with the big detective.
Mo turned to Good and made apologies for Natalie. “My friend’s a bit off her game today. Not enough sleep. Maybe another time.”
I changed the subject, asking the detective about last night’s shooting.
“We’ve got reports that Barry Ralston was seen near the Winslow Apartments early this morning,” Good said. “Figure we can cruise over that way after breakfast and shake some cages.”
Nana plunked her dentures in her glass of water as the waitress brought over Good’s orange juice.
“Really?” Mo said to Nana. “You have to do that now? You trying to kill our appetites?”
Without her dentures Nana’s pitchy voice warbled like she had a mouth full of Jell-O. “Canth have ‘em slippin rooound…I gotta quesshion suspects today. Wouldn’t be prothess…sss…ional.”
“You’re stayin’ at the motel,” Natalie said. She turned to me. “Mo and me wanna go with you to look for Ralston. We got a way of gettin’ the low down on the low life.”
“I’m known as the intimidator,” Mo chimed in, looking at Detective Good. “Baby sis here brings the sugar, I’m the spice.”
Nana toothlessly added, “I can wook the senooor populashion…maybe even find me a man in the prothesss.”
“None of you can be involved,” I said. “You all need to head back to Hollywood right after breakfast like you promised.”
“You coood…deputhize us,” Nana suggested. “You woodnt…need to give us guns…maybe just thum theear gasss.”
“I don’t wanna hear no more talk ‘bout gas after last night,” Mo said to Nana. She turned to me. “On second thought maybe you should take Nana with you, set her down on the sidewalk like a human tear gas canister, and let her clear out the neighborhood.”
Good said to my friends, “I’m afraid the little lady’s right, ma’am. You civilians can’t be involved. Our suspect is armed and dangerous.”
Little lady? Maybe Good hadn’t heard that women were now wearing shoes and had the right to vote.
After our breakfast arrived the Bakersfield cop asked Charlie about the Jezzie Rose murder case.
“It’s been all over the media,” Charlie said. “After Jezzie won the Olympic medal, she and Barry Ralston were engaged before she eventually broke it off. Jezzie ended up shot and dumped in an alley. The coroner found lots of bruising on her body that looked like domestic abuse.”
“We got a warrant for Ralston’s arrest but he ran,” I said to Good. “He’s been in the wind since Jezzie’s murder, up until last night.”
Good crunched his Cheerios and swallowed. “All things considered it looks like Mr. Ralston administered a dose of second amendment justice last night. Gray was one of our biggest drug dealers.”
Natalie was saying something about doing testicular surgery on the state’s criminal population when we heard a loud roar somewhere overhead.
“What the hell is that?” Mo asked.
“Sounds like an airship,” Charlie said.
After quickly finishing our breakfasts we all gathered in the courtyard and looked skyward. Two helicopters were circling directly over our heads.
“The media must have gotten wind of the murder,” Charlie
said. No sooner had he said the words than a couple of press vans pulled into the parking lot. I recognized a reporter from Hollywood named Haley Tristan getting out of one of the vans. The reporter had the distinction of working for one of the local TV stations in Los Angeles, as well as being a reporter for the Herald-Press.
“Let’s head over to the Winslow Apartments, try and avoid this pony show,” Good suggested. “This place looks like it’s going to turn into a circus.”
After saying my goodbyes to my roommates and seeing them safely down the road, Haley Tristan came over to me in the parking lot. I knew the reporter after being falsely accused of leaking information to the press on a previous case.
“What can you tell us about the death of Tyson Gray?” Tristan asked, running a hand through her wavy red hair.
I hated talking to the press but didn’t see any reason to deny the obvious. “He was shot and killed on the street last night not far from here.”
“Any suspects?”
“I’m not at liberty…”
“What about Barry Ralston? We understand he was the shooter. Was this a drug deal gone bad?”
“You know as much as I do at this point,” I said, pushing past her.
Tristan called out from behind me, “According to Latisha Hill, Tyson Gray’s former girlfriend, Ralston told her that he didn’t murder Jezzie,”
I turned back to her. “And you would know that because?”
“I spent the evening talking to Latisha after last night’s shooting. She said she had a chat with Ralston when he came around looking for Gray a few days ago. He was adamant that he didn’t kill Jezzie. He said the police got it all wrong.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that a wanted suspect denied his crime,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
“We’re running with the story, just so you know,” Tristan called out behind my back. “If Jezzie’s real killer is still out there the public has a right to know and see that he’s brought to justice.”