Bill, the beat cop, came into my office the other day. “We
might have a live one for you. A call came into the precinct office yesterday.
Woman’s voice, not crazy or hysterical, but cold and flat, almost mechanical. ‘You’ll
find the body alright. You won’t stop finding it. There will be pieces all over
the city and for the first two months, he’ll still be alive’.
“Someone turned in an ear that they found in their doorway.
DNA didn’t turn up an owner and there was no extra DNA from the perp.”
I didn’t see any money in it for me, but it did interest me.
My macabre sense of humour, I guess. I asked for the details. “None. No divorce
proceedings gone bad, no bitterly contested wills, no overdue loan shark
accounts, no missing persons reported. All dead ends, so to speak. But someone
made a bitter enemy”.
All my cases either began or ended with a woman. Or both.
Remind me not to make enemies of psychopathic females. Or friends, for that
matter.
“OK, what can I do to help?”
“Go fishing in the dark places only people like you or her
know. Tell lies, say anything as an excuse to ask questions. Anybody sell a sharp
knife lately; butcher suppliers get an unusual request, fishing stores sell a
filleting knife, sharpening service get a new customer? If the cops go snooping
around, people clam up. And watch your back. I don’t want to find pieces of
Rick O’Shea turning up.”
No moon, heavy overcast, dark as a prosecutor’s heart and
colder than a penguin’s hooha. In the wee hours of the morning, a voice called
out from a dark alley, “From your questions, it appears you are looking for me?
Who did you think you could fool?”
I reached under my left shoulder and pulled out a mickey of Scotch,
then reached behind me and grabbed my snub-nosed .38. I had a feeling any
shooting would be close range. I flung the bottle in the direction of the voice
and heard it shatter on the pavement.
The shadow jumped towards me with a knife flashing. I fired
twice with no effect. “Fool, you can’t kill me. I am already dead”. That left a
puddle on the pavement, trust me. But I could run and I did, with the
apparition close behind.
My Cub Scout Manual never prepared me for this. Vampire:
garlic, cross, and stake. Werewolf: silver bullets. Guess I should have watched
Ghost Busters. Then it hit me. Witches: water. Worked for Dorothy. Rain had
left water in the streets, so I headed into a deep puddle.
That stopped her. Safe for the moment, I shouted, “If you
are already dead, who are you chopping up?” “The man who killed me. Slowly and
as a warning to other domestic abusers”.
“You won’t get any argument from me, but you better make
your warnings more specific as you are just scaring hell out of people. (The
ones who die go straight to heaven, but I digress). Put up a sign, buy a radio
ad or a billboard.”
“Sounds like a plan. I will do that. Now go home and quit
bothering me”. You have no idea how happy I was to obey.
Next day a huge billboard appeared in the middle of the
city. Wording was much the same as the phone call that started all this. ‘Domestic abusers, take warning. You’ll
find the body of my murderer alright. You won’t stop finding it. There will be
pieces all over the city and for the first two months, he’ll still be alive’
and your turn will be next.”
