There are, occasionally, life events which are intrinsically tied to meteorological phenomena. The oldest, and most easily expected in my profession, is the grey sleet that falls when you investigate a corpse. It's almost gratifying; it's like the universe is winking at you. That certain point in the day when the light is fading, the street lights and the city's neons flicker into life, the rain starts to come in sideways, and detectives get to wear trench coats and hats and stand around as the impact of the rain mixed with the lights forms a sort of halo around them. Murder is, of course, terrible, but sometimes it makes you look legitimate.
Cops won't tell you this, but secretly, they love murder, especially if it's a gruesome one that's gotten some media attention. To be the detective who cracked the case, and have your photo in the paper taken at that same scene, in the rain, the halo of refraction around you, well, it's an announcement to the thrill-seeking ladies of the town that here is the epitome of derring-do. You become a beacon of light that stands against the encroaching dark, the last bastion of morality in a world gone mad, a fearless stalwart, immovable, incorruptible, and totally available for a meaningful overnight relationship. The only thing that trumps it is hanging off the roof of a car during a high-speed chase. I had a friend who did that once. "Armless Harry" was his nickname.
I was, therefore, somewhat annoyed at things as they presented themselves to. This corpse had been discovered, by me, during the hottest point of the day, on the sunniest day of the year. Cool, evening, mid-rain corpses aren't as gross and sticky and definitely don't inflate the way that baking-in-the-afternoon-sun corpses do. The skin was all blotchy and it was clear that any contact would leave you with an odour that would be repellant to just about every form of female attention other than flies. It smelled like someone had boiled socks in a microwave and then tipped in some sour milk and baked beans for good measure. Worse still, it looked relatively commonplace, uneventful, and there's nothing worse than a murder where the only possible benefit to the investigator is that it will at least contribute to his child support payments. I thought about just poking it with a stick, but decided it was probably best to call it in.
The vic (that's short for "victim"; you'd better learn the lingo if you want to sound legitimate enough inside your own head) was male, late 20's, highly overweight, with a t-shirt whose motto bore the legend "Nobody Knows I'm A Lesbian" was still visible through the miscellaneous stains that had accrued. It was clear this guy ate a lot of melted cheese or cheese-related products. Not exactly someone the world would miss.
With a practiced eye, I could see that he'd been hit over the back of the head with some kind of implement, probably for his wallet, with a little bit too much force, although no doubt the sudden meeting with the pavement as unconsciousness wrapped her tender arms around him and her sultry compatriot, Gravity, pulled him directly down for her part in the three-way, had not helped his odds of survival.
A pair of circular spectacles, cracked and folorn, lay on the pavement nearby.
I called Marty, a friend of mine from the local PD. When you go private, it's always best to maintain some good contacts, and the key to a good contact is that they must not, under any circumstances, be better than you at their job. Marty was a unique guy- overall, he was about as useful as a chocolate shovel, but he had a number of successful cases to his name because sometimes, somehow, he'd do something absolutely brilliant. His problem was that afterwards, he could never remember what it is he'd done, or how he'd done it, but it always seemed to happen about the time the department was asking themselves why they had continued to employ a detective whose overall ability, to the practiced eye, appeared about on par with a marmoset who'd been commissioned to write a novel. You were certain that all you'd get is a sheet filled with letters and banana stains, but that odd, coherent paragraph made you stop and think 'perhaps there is some point to this after all.'
"Marty?"
"Who's this?"
"Marty, look at your phone. It tells you who's calling."
There was silence while I presume he looked at his phone. Then I could hear him screaming from a distance "HEY, KNUT, HOW ARE YOU?!?"
"Marty, you can put the phone back to your ear to talk to me again."
"Oh, yeah. Sweet. So, what's up?"
"Got a corpse on the South-West Side behind Jimmy's Comics. Thought you might wanna get a look."
"Oh, sweet! Wait, why?"
"Because someone's dead, Marty, and you're a cop."
"Right. Right. But I'm a detective. What is there to detect?"
"Um, how he died?"
"But isn't that why you're there?"
"No, Marty, we've had this conversation. I'm a private detective. I don't look into these things until someone agrees to hire me, either the Department, or a relative of the victim."
"Oh, yeah. So wait, why were you there?"
And here we have a marmoset-paragraph moment, where he'd ask something pertinent. I hated those.
"I was supposed to be meeting someone."
"What, the vic?"
"No, someone else."
"Was that someone else the vic too?"
"No, they wer- actually, I don't know."
"Did they kill the vic?"
"OK, stop saying 'the vic' all the time."
"But you told me I needed to to sound legitimate!"
"Just get down here, you can ask the rest of your questions once you've hired me."
"I dunno, Knut, department budget's been tight and they don't like hiring outside when they've got a full staff. Sounds like it might be pretty straightforward- they probably don't need you on this."
Here, it was clear, it would take some complex negotiating to convince him of the pressing need to arrange for my hefty retainer. I had to think like Marty, or like Marty doesn't think, either way. Whatever I said would have to make him jump into action; it had to be cunning, believable, plausible, with just a hint of mystery.
"He looks like he might have been a scientist at a secret government lab, but was probably undercover. The terrorists might already have formula and time is of the essence, or the monkeys will gain sentience and then we'll be facing an all out human-primate war. Special Agent Jack Bauer probably will be wanting the report as soon as possible."
"Oh, really? Awesome! I'll be right there and I'll bring the paperwork!"
As I waited for Marty, I picked up the glasses, turned them over in my hand. There was a name engraved on the side- Edward Pennington. So that was the victim's name.
You shouldn't disturb a corpse before forensics has a look, but I had time to burn and since I wasn't going to be meeting my contact here any time soon. And by "contact" I mean "hooker".
I reached into his right pocket, expecting it to be empty if indeed this had been a simple mugging. Instead, his wallet was intact, and full of cash- $565, to be precise. Curious.
As I took the money out of his wallet to put in my pocket, since I was sure it wasn't going to be relevant to the case and I had my own expenses to cover thus far, I glanced at his driver's license.
Mark Stevens- name, photo, address, date of birth. So who was Edward Pennington?
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