Reed Ferguson Short Stories Page 14
“Did you tell the police all of this?”
“Yes. I believe that’s why they’re not doing that much. That, and the fact that there appears to be no foul play, has kept them from doing little more than paperwork.”
“You’re afraid they’re not treating his disappearance seriously.”
“Exactly.”
I scratched my chin with the pen. “I’d have to disagree with you about that.” I didn’t have much experience – okay I didn’t have any experience – but in the tons of detective books I’d read and all the movies I’d seen the police would take someone of Amanda’s obvious wealth with some concern. At least until she gave them a reason not to.
“They don’t have the resources to track him down,” she countered. “That’s left up to me, which is what I’m here to do.”
“And this way you also keep any nasty details private.”
“Exactly.”
“Why come to me?”
Amanda glanced around the sparsely furnished office and the stark white walls decorated with nothing more than movie posters, as if she were second-guessing her choice of detectives. “You came recommended. I know you’re not licensed but…”
“You don’t have to be in the state of Colorado,” I interrupted. Anyone who wanted to could be a detective here, just hang up a sign. Hell, you didn’t even need a gun. I could testify to that. Never had one, never shot one.
She waved a hand at me. “I don’t care if you’re licensed or not. I know your background. You come from a well-to-do family; you know when to be discreet.”
I came recommended. Now that caught my curiosity. The only thing I’d done was to help a wealthy friend of my father track down an old business partner. It was slightly dangerous but not noteworthy, and at the time I didn’t have an office or a business. I had been between jobs, so I decided to pursue an old dream. I hung up a shingle to try my hand at detecting. I loved old detective novels, had read everything from Rex Stout and Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. I’d watched Humphrey Bogart, William Powell, and all the classic film noir movies. I pictured myself just like those great detectives. Well, maybe not. But I was going to try.
“Who recommended me?” I asked. The list was surely small.
“A friend at my club.”
“Really? Who?”
“Paul Burrows. Do you know him?”
I shook my head. “Does he know my father?” I assumed he was someone who’d heard about me helping my father’s friend.
“I don’t know, but Paul said you were good, and that you could use the work.”
She was right about that. I lived comfortably off an inheritance from my obscenely rich grandparents, plus some smart investments I’d made over the years, so I’d never had a real career. I had always wanted to work in law enforcement, but my parents had talked me out of that. Instead, I got a law degree, flitted from job to job, and disappointed my father because I never stuck with anything. I hoped being a detective would change all that; it was something I’d always wanted to do, but my father still thought I was playing around. I needed to solve a real case to prove him wrong.
“Are you a fan of old movies?” Amanda asked, noticing the posters for the first time.
I nodded. “I like old movies, but especially detective film noir.”
“Film noir?”
I pointed to a different poster on another wall of The Maltese Falcon, one of Bogie’s most famous movies. “Movies with hard-boiled detectives, dark themes, and dark characters.”
“And dark women?” Amanda said.
I kept a straight face as I gazed at Lauren Bacall. “Yeah, that too.”
“I hope you’re as good as Sam Spade,” Amanda said.
I watched her cross one shapely leg over the other, her red wool skirt edging up her thigh. Trouble. Just like I’d thought before. I should have run out of my own office, but I didn’t. I know what you’re thinking, it’s her beauty. No, it was what she said next that complicated things immensely.
“I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes.” Saying that, she pulled a stack of bills from her purse. I crossed my arms and contemplated her. This sounded like I’d just be chasing after a philandering husband. Not exciting at all, even though I had little basis for making that assumption, other than what I’d read in books. But a voice inside my head said that making money meant it was a real job, right?
I named my daily wage, plus expenses. It was top dollar, but she didn’t blink. And I had my first real case. What would my father say to that?
“Let’s start with you clarifying a couple of things,” I said. Moments before Amanda had inked her name on a standard contract, officially making her my first client. “How do you know your husband’s dead and not just missing?”
Amanda sighed. “Because he would’ve called me, kept in touch, and I haven’t heard a word from him.”
“But if he was out with someone else?”
She shook her head. “No, he always calls. He pretends things are normal. We have our routine and he always follows it. Only this time he didn’t.”
“But he knew?”
“That I knew?”
I nodded. She nodded. “Yes, he knew.”
I resisted the urge to continue the Dr. Seuss rhyme. “So he hasn’t called you, but what makes you jump to the conclusion that his not calling means he’s dead?” I leaned back in my chair, tipping it up on two legs. “What if he wanted to disappear, or he’s fallen in love with someone else and has run off with her?”
Amanda emitted a very unladylike snort. “Peter’s not capable of love, so it’s impossible for him to leave me. Not for that reason, anyway.”
“Have you given him another reason to leave?”
She hesitated. “I was going to kill him.”
We moved out of the realm of boring. The chair legs hit the floor hard. “Excuse me?”
“I was going to kill him,” she repeated. She stared down at her hands and ticked items off on an index finger. “For the insurance money and the inheritance. Well over five million. Besides that, I would get my freedom from the farce of our marriage.” She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she were detailing a cooking recipe. “I was trying to figure out a way to do it. I couldn’t make it look like a suicide, because I’d lose out on the insurance money. I couldn’t murder him, because I couldn’t guarantee getting away with it, and I might not get any money that way either. A domestic dispute gone bad was out of the question because Peter wouldn’t hit a rabid dog, let alone his wife. I was left with creating an accident. Only I never could figure out what to do. Help him lose control and drive off a snowy mountain road? Too much risk for me. Electric shock of some sort? But how could I pull that off? Poison? But with what, and how to keep it from being discovered?” Her breasts lifted and sank in a deep sigh. “I finally gave up,” she said and looked me straight in the eye. “I didn’t do anything.”
Blurting out her plans like that intrigued me. Bogie never had it this easy. “But he’s disappeared,” I came back to the original point. “How do I know that you didn’t have him killed?”
“Why would I hire you?”
“To make it look like you weren’t involved.”
She smiled. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. First of all, I wouldn’t know where to start. And as I said, I gave up the idea of killing him.”
“Then how do you know he’s dead? If he knew you wanted him dead, that’s a lot of motivation not to come home.”
“He didn’t know anything about it.”
“But you just said that he might not come home because he knew you were trying to kill him.”
She emitted an exasperated sigh. “Peter never knew anything,” she said again.
“How do you know?”
She spoke to me like I was the class dunce. “All Peter knew was that our marriage, and his money, were in jeopardy. When I was considering what I might do to him, I was less,” she struggled to find the right words, “less than kind
to him. Cold. Indifferent. He sensed that. Then I decided I was being foolish, so I resumed the game. Things were back to normal, whatever that was. He didn’t have any reason not to come home.”
I sat back again, feeling like I’d missed the answer to a test question. “So I’m supposed to find your presumably dead husband, whom you wanted to kill, but deny that you did, and now that he’s gone, you want him back.”
“Yes,” she said, exasperated.
“Fine,” I said.
I should’ve run, right then. I should’ve, but I didn’t.
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Renée’s Bookshelf
Reed Ferguson Mysteries:
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
Reel Estate Rip-Off
The Maltese Felon
Farewell, My Deuce
Out Of The Past
Torch Scene
The Lady Who Sang High
Sweet Smell Of Sucrets
The Third Fan
Back Story
Night of the Hunted
The Postman Always Brings Dice
Road Blocked
Small Town Focus
Nightmare Sally
The Damned Don't Die
Double Iniquity
The Lady Rambles
Reed Ferguson Novellas:
Ace in the Hole
Walk Softly, Danger
(re-release coming soon)
Reed Ferguson Short Stories:
Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat
A Gun For Hire
Cool Alibi
The Big Steal
The Wrong Woman
Dewey Webb Historical Mystery Series:
Web of Deceit
Murder In Fashion
Secrets and Lies
Honor Among Thieves
Trouble Finds Her
Mob Rule
Dewey Webb Short Stories:
Second Chance
Double Cross
The Nephilim Trilogy:
Nephilim Genesis of Evil
Book 2
(To be announced)
Book 3
(To be announced)
The Noah Winter Adventure Series:
The Emerald Quest
Dive into Danger
Terror On Lake Huron
Middle-grade Historical Fiction:
This War We’re In
The Sarah Spillman Mystery Short Stories:
Seven for Suicide
Saturday Night Special
Dance of the Macabre
Short Stories:
Take Five Collection
Codename Richard
(Ghost Story)
The Taste of Blood: A Vampire Story
Standalones:
The Girl in the Window
(Standalone Suspense)
The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within
(Non-fiction account of a haunted house investigation in Kansas)
About the Author
Renée Pawlish is the author of The Reed Ferguson mystery series, Nephilim Genesis of Evil, The Noah Winter adventure series for young adults, Take Five, a short story collection that includes a Reed Ferguson mystery, and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, about a haunted house investigation in Kansas.
Renée loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, Colorado, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim.
Visit Renée at www.reneepawlish.com.