Chambers leaned forward and picked up the water glass. “You’re going to drink this? No?” He drained the glass and refilled it for Roback from the pitcher. “Too bad Shelley didn’t shoot him instead of Con, but there are a lot of people out there who are going to applaud what the dog did to him, maybe even prefer it that way since the dog left him with a lot more scars than our justice system ever will. Anyway, thanks to the dog, modem communications, and medical science, you and Shelley’ll be fine. But if the dog had picked up and run, neither of you would have lived long enough to benefit from the modem communications and medical science. Message of some kind there, I think.”
He patted Roback on the shoulder. “The bad memories’ll fade. I know. Had a few myself I thought wouldn’t, but they did.”
Mine faster than Shelley’s, thought Roback.
The house below him was deserted. A few more days before Shelley would be released. Reconstructing that cheekbone took longer than patching up his head.
She’d like what he did, he knew.
“I had no choice,” Chambers had said. “You were unconscious, and the dog, well, she couldn’t know we were the good guys, could she? Allowed us to drag you away, but wouldn’t let us get close to Shelley. I mean, Shelley was lying there. I had no idea how bad she was and how much time we had — no time to fool around — shame. Good dog, that. Guess you could call it line of duty.”
Shelley didn’t know yet.
Good neighbors, the Burnses. When they’d heard, they’d brought over the bitch’s pup they’d taken last spring. Twin to the mother.
“For Shelley,” Bums had said.
The young dog sat beside Roback, ears up, eyes fixed on the house as though she sensed her inheritance. Roback knew that when Shelley came home, the dog would attach herself to her, retaining perhaps some dim puppy memory of a motherly charge.
He patted the brown head and said, “Stay,” slung the harness over his shoulders, and tested the sprayer for pressure. Too bad no one had invented a selective fungicide for use on the human slime that infested the world.
Down through the orchard row, he could see the top of the old oak looming over the house. Below those ancient limbs, where Shelley could see it from the kitchen door, the mound was still fresh.
Roback drew an arm across suddenly watery eyes and cleared his throat. Really ought to read those damned mixing directions more carefully.
The Case of the Copped Cockatoo
by Albert Bashover
Detective Edgar Snavely was in his favorite position. His long, thin frame was leaning back in the wood-slatted office chair, legs propped up on the scarred wooden desk. Through half-closed eyes, he watched the smoke curling up from his meerschaum pipe. The morning Florida sun forced its way through the dusty windows, slanted through the old wooden blinds, and highlighted his hawkish profile. Except for his feet, a half-filled bottle labeled “bourbon,” an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, and a telephone, the worn desktop was bare. It was a picture of Sherlock Holmes semi-asleep in Sam Spade’s office.
Incongruous, but that was the effect Edgar wanted. Edgar’s specialty as a detective was deductive reasoning as practiced by his idol, Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately for Edgar, his clients preferred the crudity of the Sam Spade technique to the subtlety of the reasoned approach. Clients were hard to come by, and though Edgar didn’t drink or smoke cigarettes, he felt that presenting the client with the proper ambiance was very important. A needlepoint on the wall behind the desk proclaimed, “No Crime Goes Unsolved When Snavely’s Involved.” Below that, a battered frame (he had artfully battered it himself) displayed his investigator’s license. Next to that was a framed letter from the Jacksonville police, thanking him for his help in solving the case of the Jacksonville cereal killer and requesting that he apply his deductive reasoning techniques everywhere. Though Edgar had studied criminal psychology for years, he couldn’t understand how a person could develop homicidal tendencies towards a breakfast food. An inefficient secretary in Jacksonville had made several errors in typing, including misspelling cereal, and typing “elsewhere” instead of “everywhere.” It took a bit of whiteout and retyping, but Edgar had made the corrections.
There was contentment in Edgar’s small, thin smile as he listened to the clatter of the antique typewriter in the outer office. Thaddeus Dinsmore, Edgar’s young protege, was busy typing up the record of Snavely’s latest exploits. The boy was young and inexperienced, but he was a willing worker — willing to work at minimum wage and the promise that he would be taught the principles of deductive reasoning. Suddenly the sound of typing stopped. In a moment, a well-built lad of seventeen with a head of tousled brown hair atop an acne-covered face tentatively entered Snavely’s office.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “There’s a lady outside who would like to see you about a case. Her name is Edwina Lamore.”
Snavely sighed, put his feet on the floor, and said, “Come in, Thaddeus, and close the door behind you. I think it is time to give you another lesson in deductive reasoning.” He stood up, clamped his pipe firmly in his mouth, and clasped his hands behind his back. “You say it is a lady who wishes to see me. Am I correct in assuming that you have reached this conclusion by the usual superficial observation?”
“Well, she looked like a lady, and she was wearing a dress...”
“Aha! She was wearing a dress. And no doubt she was carrying a purse.”
“Why yes...”
“Ah, Thaddeus, Thaddeus,” sighed Edgar. “An experienced detective goes beyond simple appearances. Have I ever told you about the case of the Baldheaded Countess? Or the case of the Bogus Bosom? I thought not. You say she told you she is a possible client and wants to see me about a case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me, Thaddeus, have we had more clients or bill collectors in this office recently?”
“Well...”
“And would a bill collector come in here and say he is a bill collector? Of course not. He would say he is a client, and if he is a bill collector who has been unsuccessful in getting to see me in the past, he might try a disguise — he might perhaps dress up as a woman. Things are not always what they seem, young man. Now stop scratching that pimple, and show this so-called lady client in.”
Even Snavely had to be impressed with the disguise. Edwina appeared to be a petite blonde in her well-cared-for middle thirties. Her expensive red dress fitted her so well that any due bill she might have tried to hide, no matter how thin, would have to be hidden in her handbag. She flowed into the dingy office and seated herself in one of the upright chairs facing the desk. From the doorway, Thaddeus’s eager eyes followed her every move until she sat down and crossed her legs. Thaddeus blinked and looked at Edgar.
“You can come in also, Thaddeus,” Edgar said. “I would like you to take notes of this meeting. It might be educational for you.