“Fine,” said Kyter. “Put on your tie.”
In the back room of o’connor’s, the black-awninged funeral home on Broadway, men sat on padded folding chairs sipping whiskey and paying their respects. In the main parlor, Mrs. Milk sat in a brocaded chair wearing a black crepe dress and white Reeboks. The closed casket was peacocked with a ragged assortment of flowers, the largest wearing a white sash reading “SON.”
The conductor had seen an obstruction on the tracks. He hit the brakes and the body was dragged two hundred feet, sparks igniting its clothes. Between those burns and the wheel cuts, the coroner was at a loss. Milky’s death was ruled a suicide, like his father.
Pendleton and Kyter walked in close to eight. They stood in the receiving line, staring down a couple of punks while waiting their turn. Mrs. Milk recognized the two detectives and rose to her feet. They took her aside and spoke with her quietly. Kyter even held her hand.
In the back room, Derrick grabbed Yarrow’s jacket lapel. “You see that shit? Right there.”
Yarrow watched Kyter patting Mrs. Milk’s shoulder as she convulsed into a black hankie.
Derrick said, “I knew I was right to top him.”
Yarrow froze, the Dixie cup of whiskey in his hand. “What’d you say?”
Derrick stared hard. He wore a grin on his face like a look of sick determination, his breath smelling flammable. “End of the month is officially back on.”
Later, after the mourners had thinned out, Yarrow went up to the bier, kneeling before the walnut veneer of the no-frills casket. Mrs. Milk sat alone in her chair, humming a church hymn to soothe herself. She had her hero now, a martyr to look down over her from the wall in that third-floor walk-up on O Street. She would be consoled. Those two bumblers had done something right for a change.
I knew I was right to top him.
Admission of murder. It didn’t matter now whether or not the end-of-the-month deal went down.
Yarrow made like he was crossing himself, feeling the sweat-dampened front pleat of his shirt, the thin wire that was sewn in there. Under his breath he muttered something — a prayer for Milky, and for all the wayward sons of the town — that only the passive electronic ear could hear. “Never lie to your mother.” Then he stood, touched his fingertips to the coffin’s cool finish, and walked away.
The Girl Next-Door
by Edward D. Hoch
Copyright © 2007 by Edward D. Hoch
Although Edward D. Hoch is a winner of the lifetime achievement award of the Private Eye Writers of America, few are the Hoch stories that fit the P.I. category. This new story is one of those few: an entry in his Al Darlan series. Darlan’s case this time involves the dark side of celebrity in the music business. Coming next month, and Alexander Swift historical.
In an era when small private detective agencies had all but disappeared from most medium-sized cities, our firm of Darlan & Trapper continued to show a profit, mainly because of Mike Trapper’s connections with some of the national tabloids. Mike had bought into a partnership with me some years back, rejecting his family’s plans that he attend law school. He was a good detective but young enough to be my son and I couldn’t help taking a fatherly interest in him.
He and Marla had been married several years, and had a couple of children. She was a lovely young woman but she was also the occasional source of friction between Mike and me. It was her prodding that persuaded him to start collecting dirt on visiting rock stars when they came to town, and sell it to the tabloids. To me it was no better than the grimy divorce work I’d abandoned early in my career.
“Why do you keep doing it, Mike?” I asked him one damp spring day when business was slow.
“It pays the rent, doesn’t it?”
I sighed and said, “Marla is pretty high-maintenance, isn’t she?” Almost at once I regretted I’d said it.
“Look, Al, you’ve got your life and I’ve got mine. You’re on your own. I have a family to support. I know you and Marla have never hit it off.”
“She’s a fine woman. I’m sorry I said that.”
Perhaps it was best that our conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of our neighbor, Stacy Cline. Stacy was just out of college, and attractive in a girl-next-door sort of way. Come to think of it, she was the girl next-door. She worked at Santillo’s, the small insurance office adjoining ours, which hadn’t done much business in the six months they’d been there. Stacy often came over to see us when things got too dull. “Hi, guys,” she greeted us. “How’s the private-eye business these days?”
“Slow as the insurance business these days,” Mike told her. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure.” I was never much of a coffee drinker but Mike was.
“I haven’t seen your boss around lately,” he said. “You running the place by yourself?”
She shrugged, accepting the coffee from him. “So long as he’s there on Fridays with my check, he can stay away as long as he wants.”
We’d seen Rich Santillo only two or three times, once when he came to the office after eight one night while I was working. He was a rough-looking man of around forty, with a brush cut that made him look like an ageing wrestler. I guessed that Stacy was just as happy she didn’t have to share the office with him every day.
“How does he do enough business to keep that place open?” I asked. “We never see any customers.”
“He has a few regulars. Sometimes he comes in nights to work.”
“I saw him one night.”
She sat in her favorite client’s chair. “You guys need a secretary.”
“We bring one in part time when we need to,” he told her. “You applying for a job?”
Stacy shook her head. “I’ve got one that pays a lot better than you guys could manage.” She glanced through the open door and put down her coffee. “Looks like I might have a customer. See you later.”
The teenage rock star Lily Lake was in town for three nights of concerts, trailed by rumors that Sly Morgan was on the scene too. It was the sort of rumor that set the tabloids hopping and brought in some extra cash for Mike Trapper. He left the office in midafternoon, planning to scout the hotels where Sly might be registered under an assumed name. Morgan was a B-list actor who’d hooked up with Lily to further his own career. He had that brooding look teenagers seemed to love, complete with blond hair and tattoos, and the tabloids couldn’t get enough of him and Lily, especially on those rare occasions when the paparazzi managed to catch them together.
I hadn’t planned on working late that night, but I’d just wound up a security job for a local college and I wanted to finish putting my report on the computer. It was just after eight o’clock when I heard the door to Santillo’s insurance office opening. He was back for another late-night visit. I paid little attention, tapping away at my keyboard. I might have heard voices but I couldn’t even be sure of that. Then suddenly there were two loud cracks, close together. I’d heard enough gunshots in my life to know what they were.
I kept my own rarely-used gun in the safe, and it took me a vital moment to retrieve it. By the time I reached the hallway there was only the echo of the stairwell door closing. The door to Santillo’s office was standing open and I saw him on the floor, bleeding. He may have seen me, and he lifted one arm in a futile gesture. Then the life went out of him. Both bullets had caught him in the chest. I stepped to the phone and dialed 911.
The uniformed cops arrived first, followed by Sergeant Ramous, a homicide detective I’d known for years. “What happened here?” he asked me.