An Honorary Detective

fake stories always intrigued me. here is a made-up story about a made-up person writing a made-up story about the author of a book that doesn't exist.

            The Honorary Detective’s Handbook inspired my imagination as a child, and my divorce as an adult. I insisted on keeping it from the library for 15 years longer than they suggested. The writing was horrible. Each sentence stalked the page like a bumbling amateur, like the Inspector Clouseau of grammatical incompetence. When my wife left me, I stayed up and read it from beginning to end. It was written by a former detective. I don’t know what happened to him. After reading his work, I imagine this is his story. If I am wrong, I apologize. The Honorary Detective’s Handbook began, not with an introduction, but with a list of 5 rules.

           

            Rule # 1 Train your eye. The slightest detail could be a possible clue.

           

            The door had been broken before I got there. I had been by her house only once before, the first time I did a drive by when I was sizing up the case. A single home against a row of half-a-doubles, all white with green and red trim, like a Christmas present. The door was closed then. Now, it was halfway opened, and the brass knob was broken as if it had been kicked. This was not how it was supposed to be.

            It was supposed to be another “I think my ex-wife is seeing another guy” kind of job. Almost the only kind I had ever gotten. A simple stake out, far enough not to be noticed, but close enough to be able to get the dirty details. I had my Nikon D7000, an empty v8 bottle, a notepad and two comfy-grip pens. I did not have a gun. Every synapse that fired in my mind screamed at me to just call the cops and get the hell out of there. My cell phone’s dead battery talked them out of it. Laura was going to kill me. She always insisted upon me giving her a ring when I’m on a case. I guess after having dated me for the past two years I hoped she’s used to disappointment.

            I got out of my Ford, a Taurus, silver, the most popular color for the model, as inconspicuous as can be on a budget, and walked quickly towards her house. I could get hurt, I guessed. My client’s wife might still be in danger in there, I knew. In all my years of working as a private eye, five of them to be exact, I had never once had to defend myself. This was my dream, or, it used to be. It would be just me and my fedora, sneaking in the shadows, solving mysteries and saving the day. When I used to read the pulps as a kid, I imagined it was all whiskey, women, and fisticuffs. When reality set in, it ended up being almost all camera work and good notes.

           

            Rule # 2 Keep good notes. A detective is only as good as his research.

           

            Her name was Karen. Formerly it was also Mrs. Jacobi. Now, it was Ms. Turner. Five foot three, pixie-cut blond, she was a high school teacher, the kind that kids could relate to, because she was “edgy”.  She lived alone, with the exception of two large cats, Mickey and Mini, and came home almost the same time every day, an hour after class let out. That was the best time to check on her, he told me. My client, the still Mr. Jacobi, had paid me to watch her because she had left him and his very quiet, normal, life, and he thought it was for someone else. He had been talking to her again, however, about getting back together, yet he confided in me that he still hadn’t trusted her. She would meet him for coffee or a drink, and then disappear for days at a time without a word or reply. He thought he had a chance at smoothing things over, but, he told me he needed to know where she went, who she was seeing. He was the jealous type, but, in the end, we all are. Not all of us hire a private dick to keep tabs on our exes, but, then again, if no one did I’d be out of a job.  He thought it might be one of her students. Judging by the size of the boot print against her previously pristine wooden door where it splintered, I guessed it would have been a football player if he was right.

            My right hand balled tight into a fist as I slowly pushed the door the rest of the way open with the other. I call her name, and against my highest hopes, I hear nothing. My next highest hope is that I’m not too late to do some good. This is not how it was supposed to be, but, if this is how it is, I’m going to do what I can. I always wanted this kind of case, secretly, even if just to, for once, be like the heroes I read about growing up. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

            Beyond the door, the house was completely trashed, like a team of experts trained with government funding in the science of room destruction had a field day. A large living room lay before me with a broken lamp, possibly knocked over in the struggle, a phone with what looked like a cut line, and second-hand furniture that looked like it had been moved, suddenly and violently.  I called her name again and again got nothing in return for my efforts. My second highest hope was slipping fast.

 

            Rule # 3 Hone your research skills. Proper preparation is your first and best tool.

           

            No blood was to be found on a quick inspection, but if the phone line was cut, this wasn’t a quick in-and-out affair. There was a dark hallway leading beyond the room and a stairway leading to a second floor, and I did what I always did when faced with these kinds of decisions. I fell back on the novels I grew up with. According to statistics, when confronted with a home invader, most victims retreat to the places they feel most secure, most comfortable. Now, depending on the person, this is usually either where they sleep or their bathroom. From the details Mr. Jacobi gave me of their sex life, I assumed she was the kind of person most at home in bed room.  I picked up a sharpened piece of former-lamp from the floor and took off as quietly as I could up the stairs.

            The first thing that caught my eye was a bad joke. A blackened banana peel laid on the floor at the top of the steps, and approximately three feet away was a single Nike running shoe that looked like it had been slipped off in an accidental hurry. I stopped and listened then, as silent as I could be, I closed my eyes, focused on shutting off four of my senses and tuning in on one; and still nothing.

            Beyond the slip up was a hall, one a little better lit up than the one on the first floor, and I looked in to see two doors, and again one of them broken into. A picture frame in the hallway, a snow-covered scene with Christmas trees lined like books on a shelf, hung tilted at an awkward angle. She came this way, I knew, and, it seemed so did he.

            I rounded the corner and moved with my back against the wall, and slowly proceeded towards what I believed to be her bedroom. When I got to the doorway and still heard no sound, I poked my head around and saw something finally deliberate. The bed was huge and made, but on top of it was a suitcase, one almost fully packed, and what looked to be some papers on top of her more personal effects. I took the shard in my hand and lead with it like it was a Beretta and I was Humphrey Bogart, entering the room.

            The suitcase was old fashioned, like the kind you’d see in the old movies, all tweed and brass. It was packed to overflowing with neatly folded clothing, a bundle of Q-tips, a travel sized toothpaste and tooth brush, a couple bottles of hair spray, and, just sticking out of the fold in the top half, were a number of specifically-shaped devices designed for very specific feminine pleasure. Next to the bed, also deliberate but obviously left in a hurry, were the remnants of an inexpensive lunch, a single butter packet, several Starbucks napkins and a biscuit with several bites taken out of it. More interestingly, however, were the items that apparently fell off the bed.

            The first of these things was the former Mrs. Jacobi, covered in blood from the neck up.

 

            Rule # 4 Be discreet. Leave no trace of your passage, and take care not to ever tamper with what could be potential evidence.

 

            I knew this was a crime scene, and I didn’t have gloves on which would only serve to interfere with fingerprints found, but, I’d be a damned liar if I said that curiosity wasn’t getting the better of me. She was beautiful, that’s one thing I’d give my client. She looked like an angel that had fallen from the heavens: a perfect, pale skinned cherub that had landed, headfirst. Her golden hair sat like a bloody halo above her still-open eyes. I saw her and immediately my mind drifted back to Laura. She would probably be working on dinner right about now, worried sick about me. If I had the ability to check it, my phone would have probably happily told me I’d had 45 new voicemails from our house phone. In all the time we’ve been seeing each other, I never forgot to call her. We never went more than a few hours without hearing from each other, and I knew she secretly feared she’d find me one day like this.

The bruises were what struck me next as being a surprise. There were three distinct injuries on her, making it hard to guess which one specifically led to her death. What caused them, however, was no mystery at all in a time and place where everything suddenly seemed to end with a question mark.

            The black and blue marks directly above her right eye where caused by the wooden door stop that laid about four, no, maybe three, inches from her head. The second injury that was apparent was a direct tear across her throat. It didn’t look deep enough to take out anything important, but, I’m certain it couldn’t have felt pleasant if she was still alive when it happened. That, it would seem, came from the bright red stapler remover that lay behind her and next to her home-made looking dresser, the bright silver of the tool’s fangs in stark contrast to the blood that coated them. The third injury, however, the deep gash in her chest that it seemed had pierced her all the way through, had no immediate cause. I quickly scanned her body, lifting it slightly, her gentle frame seemed to weigh nothing as it raised, and found no sign of an ancillary weapon. What I did notice next, however, were her hands.

            Each tiny, well-manicured hand had been full. In her left, a single pair of plane tickets, one with her name on it, the other  with the name Sam League and a set of red lipstick stains, both going to Miami, Florida. The right hand, held, strangely enough, a paperweight. The Tragedy mask, like the kind you’d see in a play advertisement. My client didn’t mention any Sam, and he’d given me both a list of her past 10 ex-boyfriends and, subsequently, a sense of remarkable paranoia. Maybe the small, bespectacled sliver of a man had been right. Perhaps it was a student of hers, some burly sports type who offered the strength and probable endurance her former husband could only dream of matching, or a James Dean type, the dangerous bad boy that women in books and movies all stereo-typically fell for as if held at gun point. And then I heard the first sound in the house that I knew I didn’t make.

            I whipped my head around as quickly as I could, more quickly than I could have moved my makeshift weapon, and saw the closet I hadn’t noticed burst suddenly open. It was a young girl with pixie cut black hair, Sam, short for Samantha, I could only assume. She was dressed in what I imagined was the fashion of the day, all torn and black, with big, black boots finishing the look. She had three things I recognized immediately. A cold, jealous, angry grimace on her face, complete with black eye make-up streaks that ran a race down her cheeks from where she had been crying, bright red lips, the same faux-ruby that was embedded on the plane ticket, and the third murder weapon: an impossibly long kitchen knife, covered in the remains of the angel now lifeless on the floor. She screamed as she plunged it into my head.

 

            Rule # 5 Never get directly involved. A detective’s work was to investigate. Leave the physical work to the police. They are usually better equipped for it.