If you're going to define cowardice as turning and running at the first sign of an impending catastrophe, failing to take any accountability, and attempting to cover or deny any involvement in the act or event, then yes, I suppose you could call me a coward. In my defence, I had just stabbed a man, and since that man wasn't Justin Bieber, it was unlikely I was going to be given a parade for my contribution to society.
Also, what is the go with Justin Bieber? It's like they shaved Miley's back hair and made a person out of it, then recorded her singing, pitched it up an octave, and made a teen idol out of it.
Anyway, there I was. A stunned look of pained surprise on the part of my would-be attacker, no doubt directly related to the fact that some of Arcosteel's finest work was protruding from the centre of his chest. I do recall that I had a moment to appreciate the crafting of the handle- it was surprisingly comfortable to grip, slightly ribbed to keep a hold of, weighted so that it didn't even come out of my hand as it plunged into his ribcage. I made a mental note to compliment the company, but then thought better of it. It'd be like Westinghouse begging Hitler not to endorse their ovens. Not a strong sales point, you know? Plus the tag line "have your neighbours for dinner" would take on an unfortunate meaning. In this particular case, "A Cut Above" had become "A Cut Above The Small Intestine".
He staggered back and tried to make some words noiselessly, then fell to the ground and bled for a bit.
I walked around to see him blinking furiously, his hand clutching his wound as if it would do the job of a bandage.
"When's the last time you washed your hand?" I asked.
"Wh-hhh-hh-why?" he managed to stammer.
"'Cos I guess you wouldn't want blood poisoning. Although when all your blood is running out of your chest, why would you care if it's poisoned."
"Oh... God..."
It was time to seize the moment. This was the only lead I was going to get, and it had been gift-dropped onto seven inches of unfortunately placed pointed steel.
"Well, the good news is there's an ambulance on the way. It'd be terrible if they were sent away and you were left to, y'know, bleed to death alone in the apartment you were breaking into for a nefarious purpose."
"P...please... no..."
"No ambulance?"
"Tell...you...what...you...want...to...know."
"Who do you work for?"
"Curdles...And...Whey," he managed to gasp. "Please...ambulance...first?"
"Wait, Curdles And Whey the cheesemongers?"
"Seriously...lifeblood...everywhere...dying...not...enjoying...it...at....all."
"Who is the woman in the black trenchcoat?"
"Veronica...Hamstead...please... I'm just... a research... assistant."
"Then what were you doing here?"
"Getting...computer...hard...drive...research...file."
"And where is Veronica Hamstead now?"
"At...office..."
He trailed off and started gurgling. I don't have time for gurglers. So I got ready to leave. You might consider that cold and heartless, given that this was some poor deluded kid sent on a mission by someone in a fat padded chair, likely with an income that would dwarf the GDP of a small island nation in the South Pacific. The thought even crossed my mind. But being tasered had really given me an appetite, and it was time for some doughnuts.
I walked across the room, and paused by the door.
"Stay here, the ambulance is on its way."
"Where...did...you..think...I...would...be...going?" he managed to gasp sarcastically. "Blind...date...with...my...shirt...ruined?"
Y'know, I was starting to like this kid. One last thing to wrap up. I knelt down beside his head.
"Anyone asks, Veronica Hamstead stabbed you."
"Or... what...?"
"Or, I guess, I could on all this blood and accidentally fall on you with this knife again. Maybe in the groin."
"That...bitch...stabbed...me... don't...let...her...get away... with it."
"Good man."
Marty had taken his car, which meant I would have been without transport. Fortunately for me, the research assistant's car was parked downstairs and the engine was still running. Normally, that's an invitation in this town for itinerant drifter sex, but the rain must have kept them inside their refrigerator boxes tonight. I slid across the seat, turned on the GPS, and selected "home", which showed the route to an industrial complex on the outside of town.
As I drove, I paused to reflect on the bizarre nature of this crime. Mark Stevens was stabbed in a back alley. His confidante- or fellow nerd- Edward Pennington was killed a day later. Some blonde woman appears at both crime scenes, once actually killing the victim, the other assumed. Cheese remains on Stevens' shirt, a number of cheeses on Pennington's video camera, and an industrial cheesemonger in between.
Could this be corporate espionage? No, who would spy on cheese? It was about as exciting as lettuce farming. How much thrill could be involved in curdling a dairy product? The only thing you could say about it was that eventually it might grate on you. But that was a cheesy joke.
The woman in black seemed to be the big conundrum. Edward Pennington and Mark Stevens didn't work together, they were just nerds on a comic forum in similar lines of work. One might assume that they shared research notes, but it's hard to see how that would have made anything they did murder-worthy. A strongly-worded memo or a termination of employment, perhaps, but a termination of breathing seemed like someone really didn't want to sort out severance pay.
So possibly a disgruntled Human Resources manager. Wouldn't surprise me. Those people are always a few hammers short of a mongoose.
Curdles And Whey were a local success story. The unfortunate surnames of two local lads, Charles Curdles and Daniel Whey, they had built an industry around a unique ability to find new forms of cheese. Aerosol-distributed cheese, aimed at fattening up populations of third-world countries in a technique not unlike crop-dusting, but with a result closer to what a table looks like after you spill a packet of Twisties. Tinned cheese so rubbery it was used by fire departments to catch people jumping out of windows, with the added advantage that it could be melted to feed the newly-homeless. Cheese-water had had a go competing with coconut water, but after the fifteenth admission to hospital, they'd decided to pull the line.
But the fact that cheese lines could be new and improved hardly seemed a justification for murder. In fact, the title "Lead Fermentation Researcher" was pretty much a contraceptive in itself.
I reached the factory, and pressed the remote beside the rear-view mirror which opened its large, mechanical gates. The factory buildings loomed in the distance. Even at this hour of the night, large forklifts shifted mysterious boxes from warehouses to trucks. I felt that itch at the back of the neck, the adrenal spike that told me the game was afoot, or else I was hypertensive again.
Pulled up beside a darkened warehouse with a single light in the top room. Dead give-away. Also, the fact that the building was marked "Distribution and Administration" might have been contributory. Along with the directory on the wall that said "Veronica Hamstead- Floor 1, Room 14." But mostly the light in the top room.
I pulled my Colt .38 from my jacket. Or at least, I think I did. Did Colt make a .38? Probably. It was a gun and I had occasionally shot it. Beyond that, it was like asking me to name a great Chinese race driver. "Chan" was the best I could do.
Confrontations have to be done right in the PI game. You need to keep your suspect on their toes, uncertain. They need to know the jig is up, and that you have the power of life or death over them. If they think otherwise, they'll shoot you, or stab you, or go to court and take out an injunction against you on the grounds that you shouldn't have been stealing their underwear off the washing line and selling it on eBay.
I snuck up the stairs, and kicked the door in. There was a scream.
"Veronica Hamstead, freeze!" I yelled at the small clerk who had her hands raised high above her short, black hair. Oops.
"V-V-V-Veronica is two doors down. Th-thi-this is room tw-tw-welve."
Two doors later, I kicked the right door in, and ducked as a knife sailed over my head.
"You'll never take me alive!" screamed Veronica in a voice that sounded oddly deep.
"Freeze!" I yelled in response, but she shoulder-charged me and knocked me into the filing cabinet with the force of a small truck. I collapsed, but managed to grab her ankle as she tried to step over me. Pulled her leg hard and she fell to the ground. I staggered to my knees and scrambled after her. She had just gotten to her feet and was limping down the hallway back to the stairs that led to the warehouse floor. She grabbed the handrail just as I reached her, and by "reached her" I mean "hit her hard from behind with a broom handle I found." She flipped over and swung, one hand dangling, the other firmly grasping the handrail. I lay down on a stair and extended my hand.
"Quick! Take it, or you'll fall!" I yelled. She didn't answer, just looked into my eyes, and let go. I was hoping she hadn't noticed that she was only an inch off the ground.
She began limping across the warehouse floor when the doors rolled up, lights shone in, and I heard Marty's voice yelling "Freeze! We have you surrounded!"
Veronica, bewildered and panicked, looked left and right and seemed to decide to make a run for it. I tackled her to the ground, and grabbed her hair, which came away in my hand.
Mark Stevens' face stared back at me. And totally explained why Veronica Hamstead had an adam's apple.
It was some hours later. We were in the interrogation room, with Mark Stevens sitting opposite us.
"We have you on tape," I said to him, "you might as well confess."
"We do?" hissed Karen beside me. "When were you planning on telling us?"
"Shut up," I hissed back, "I'll show you later."
Stevens seemed to reach an answer. "Ok, so I killed him," he said. "I killed Pennington."
"But you worked at Finkelstein's Fine Foods!"
"By day, yes. I became Veronica Hamstead to keep an eye on Edward."
"Why?"
"Why? Because I thought Edward had cracked it! We had spent so much time discussing heroes and villains, that we stumbled across an idea that would make us billions: Exploding Cheese!"
I kept my face carefully deadpan. "Exploding. Cheese."
"Think about it! Every terrorist in the world has to fear sniffer dogs. Every undercover agent needs a backup that can appear totally legitimate! Edward had been a pioneer in his research for plastic cheese for the fire department, and it wasn't long before he realised that same plasticity could be possibly manipulated into a form of plastic explosives by re-ordering the polymer chains!"
"So why kill him?"
"I had no choice! He sent me some research which was partially encrypted. I didn't have time to break it completely, but the notes confirmed it was extremely explosive ingested. I immediately sold it to a group of jihadists I met on the online dating site Unveiled- this was the perfect thing for taking out an aircraft or an unassuming urban location. But when I called Pennington, he told me what the whole thing had said!"
"Which was?"
"'Causes Extremely Explosive Diarrhoea When Ingested'."
"So it was a failure? Guess you don't want a bunch of terrorists crapping their pants instead of going to paradise."
"These people don't take no for an answer! The only way was to make it seem like we'd been killed for betraying our countries and companies, and the research stolen! So I faked my death, and arranged to meed Edward as Veronica Hamstead."
Marty decided to chime in now. "But how," he asked, sliding the crime scene image across the desk, "did you manage to take a picture of yourself as a dead body and also get yourself in this photo?"
"I also moonlight as a photographer for the Police Department as Veronica," he replied. "I took a photo of my body on the camera timer, but then took another one as a background plate so I could remove any evidence in Photoshop and put the two images together. But when taking a shot of the background plate, I must've been caught in the reflection of the car's window."
"So whose body do we have in the morgue?" Karen asked.
"I told the ambulance boys that the body had already been picked up. I'm willing to bet nobody in the department has wanted to admit that the body was lost. They were probably going to bury and empty casket."
I leaned across the table, and stared right into his eyes.
"One last question, then," I intoned, endeavouring to look so stone-serious that Mount Rushmore looked like watercolours, "Why did you stab the research assistant you sent to the apartment?"
"What?"
"Yeah, what?" asked Marty. "What research assistant?"
"Why would I stab someone I sent to the apartment?" Veronica/Mark asked, looking completely lost.
"I don't have time for this bullshit!" I yelled back at him. "You're a liar and a murderer and can't be trusted! And you're going away for a long time!"
And with that, I stood up and attempted to storm out of the room. The door was locked.
Karen approached me.
"Who was stabbed?" she asked me.
"It doesn't matter!"
"It does to me!"
"I'm not on trial here! I wouldn't stab anyone randomly even if they did fall on me!"
"Knut, I'm not suggesting you did- wait, what did you just say?"
"I said what's she or he putting in his or her mouth?"
We turned to see VeroniMark casually slipping a piece of cheese from his pocket into his mouth. A peaceful smile spread across his face. I turned to Karen and Mark, and yelled "Down!!" as time turned slow-motion. I leapt through the air, my head turning as VeroniMark seemed to grow bigger. As my arms hit them and bore them to the ground, I heard him say "Ha, this is the right formula!" before there was a sound like a sack of cabbages hitting the pavement after being dropped off the top of the Empire State Building. When we raised our heads, all that was left was a pair of legs sitting in the chair, covered in fishnet stockings. I had to admit, he had pretty good legs for a lady.
As we wandered out from the station, ignoring the bustling of the fire crews who had come running in, I turned to Karen and Marty.
"How did you guys know where I was?" I asked. "I had a lead that you couldn't know about."
"Easy," Marty said. "Since you usually work outside our methods and interfere with our crime scenes, when Karen tasered unconscious, we put a tracker in your jacket pocket and followed you once you stopped."
Marty. You've gotta watch him, 'cos sometimes, he does something perfectly right. I reached into my jacket and tossed the tracker back to him.
"It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for," I said to him. "Exploding cheese? First sign of a fermented mind."
"That's a pretty cheesy joke," Marty countered.
"Hey, Fetta you than me."
"It was a Tasty case."
"Yeah, but you don't want to die provolone like that guy."
"Provolone?"
"Like, 'alone.' But a type of cheese."
"Ah."
I walked down the stairs and turned back to them, my friends, my partners in justice, one of them my occasional 3am heavy-breathing-phone-call destination, being lit by the blue and red emergency lights still flashing in the car park. The sun would be up soon.
"We solved a good case," I said. "I guess we'll be putting the team back together?"
Karen looked at Marty, then looked at me.
"We'll call you," she said.
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