A little tougher this time, though probably because I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately, so I’ve been running on fumes all day. I got it done though, and I’m still ahead of the curve, so I’m happy about it overall. That’s good, because I won’t have much time for writting tomorrow.
Once again, this is raw and unedited, so please don’t judge it too harshly.
Idle Hands (working title) Part 3
“Alright,” Derrick said, for what seemed like the hundredth time, “let’s go through what we’ve got.”
“What we have, is nothing of use.”
“First, Officer Cheevers calls you at around twenty to midnight,” he continued, ignoring me, also for the hundredth time. “You’re awake, of course, because you never seem to sleep, so you arrive at the corner of Geraldine and route 237 just before midnight, but she’s not there. For whatever reason you head down Geraldine, a coyote jumps you, and you get out and find Officer Cheevers, dead, ten yards from the road. She’s been shot, and recently based on your being able to smell the gunpowder in the air.”
“Yeah, I know all of that, I was there after all.”
“So then, at right around midnight you call me and wake me out of a much needed sleep, since I’d been up half the night studying for a big test I have today in Political Science. Thanks for that by the way. So I head out and make the call to the Idle PD on the way. I get there about ten after, and the cops arrive about five minutes later.
“So what does all of that mean?”
“It means,” I said, patiently I hoped, “that we’ve got nothing.”
“Not quite.”
I looked at him sharply, my head throbbed and I didn’t have any patience for listening to him play amateur detective yet again. He was a good assistant, but he didn’t know the craft, and he sure as hell didn’t know any more than I did. As usual, he was too excited to notice.
“We know when the murder took place.”
“Yeah, between eleven forty and midnight, I already figured that one out.”
“Yeah, but I mean practically to the minute. If you’re right, and the coyote was running from a person, then whoever killed Cheevers was probably still there when you found her.”
“This is a waste of time,” I snorted. I got up to leave and grabbed my coat from the coat rack.
“Where are you going?”
“Call the Idle PD, ask for Officer Dever. Just tell him you’re with me and he’ll do anything you ask. Get copies of every report, every interview, every memo e-mail and idle doodle having anything at all to do with the investigation of Cheever’s murder. Everything.”
“Sure, Dever, I know him, he was a few years ahead of me in high school. He was a hell of a nerd back then, I didn’t believe it when I heard he was a cop. Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Just pray that he doesn’t hold whatever you and those hoodlums you hung out with did to him against you, because with Cheevers gone he’s our only friendly contact in the PD.”
“Why, Nick, what ever do you think I was like in high school?”
I didn’t answer as I opened the door to leave.
“You didn’t answer me before, where are you going?”
“To talk to be psychic friend.”
The Sign on the front door announced the establishment as “Madera Tejeda, Psychic Readings”. It also said the business was closed until nine, almost six hours from now. The house was off by itself, down a small dirt road, so there were no nosy neighbors to raise a fuss. Even at this time of the night, you couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t someone up who might be battling insomnia or walking the dog, and the last thing I needed was to be hauled in by Gunn for breaking and entering.
I crossed the yard and rounded the house in silence. Using my red pen light I picked my way through the dead, knee high yard to the back door and opened it onto a dark room.
The knife glinted red as it arched out of the darkness and came to rest against my neck.
“What do you think you’re doing, you sorry excuse for a diseased rat,” came a deep voice with a thick Jamaican accent. “Breaking into my house? Tell me why I shouldn’t cut you open right here.”
“Put the knife down, Emmett, before I make you eat it then go upstairs and kiss your mother goodnight.”
The knife withdrew and a light was switched on in the room. Emmett - a short, under weight black man with a head of dreadlocks that would make Bob Marley jealous - stood inside with his arms spread wide and a huge, shit eating grin on his face. He held the meat cleaver carelessly in his right hand, and a cordless phone in his left.
“Shamus!” he cried, the Jamaican accent replaced by a distinctly upscale British. “You old dog, I should have known that was you, Bertha’s sounding more and more like a sick cow every time I see you.”
“Hey Emmett,” I walked into the room, bypassing the open arms in favor of the refrigerator. I reached in a pulled out a bottle of ginger ale. Not that weak soda water imitation, Emmett always stocked the real thing. Reed’s “Jamaican Style Ginger Beer”, actually - Emmett took his whole Caribbean mystic act to some interesting extremes - and it had a hell of a kick. I popped the cap and tossed it onto the counter then downed half the bottle in one go. Good for frazzled nerves, and the burn gave me something real to focus on.
Emmett pulled open a drawer and tossed the knife inside. He looked at me for a moment, drooping against his counter nursing my ginger beer.
“This isn’t a social call, is it Shamus?”
I grimaced and shook my head slightly.
“What’s up, you get married again?”
“Yadira Cheevers is dead.”
He exhaled noisily and tossed the phone onto its charger cradle.
“Come into the den, we’ll sit a bit and you can fill me in.”
I went through the story, as much as I knew of it, yet again. Emmett listened in total silence, his face inscrutable in the candle light. This was where he did his business, the chairs were overstuffed and ornate, but the only light came from a number of large, skull shaped candles on the table in the middle of the room. It was almost Halloween, which means the stored were trying to get rid of their seasonal stock by slashing prices, so I’m sure he’d recently stocked up.
When I finished he exhaled noisily again and leaned back in his chair, nearly disappearing into its opulence in the process.
“I’m sorry Nick.” he said after a moment. “Yadira was a cop, but didn’t you two have some history?”
I didn’t want to think about that right now, I wanted to concentrate on figuring this out before I lost it altogether. So I didn’t answer. Emmett took the hint. His business was all about cold read people, guessing what they wanted to hear and giving it to them. And he knew me, better than either of us would like to admit.
“So, what do you want from me?”
“You’re smarter than that Emmett, you know what I want.”
“You can think me dense it you want, but as well as I know you Shamus, I don’t trust you. Maybe that’s because I know you, come to think of it, but the point stands. Ask what you want to ask, or you can leave with my sincere condolences.”
“Fair enough. I need to find out what Yadira was mixed up in.”
“So why do you need me for that, don’t you have your own contacts?”
“I do, and you’re the crown jewel in my collection. I know some of what you’re into, and the sham fortune teller act is the least of it. You know people who won’t talk to me, and I need to know if you’ve heard anything that could shed some light on what Yadira was up to.”
“You’re asking a lot Shamus, some of these are not very nice people.
“I’m not interested in the small fish, I don’t even care about specific names, I only need to know what she was into, and who might be responsible for killing her.”
There was a long silence, and we starred at each other through the flames of half a dozen candles. His expression didn’t change, but I knew it wouldn’t. He was good at what he did.
Then he nodded, once, just slightly.
“I don’t know anything you don’t, I didn’t know anything had gone down until you showed up at my back door in the middle of the night. But i’ll keep my ear to the ground - and ask a few… discrete questions - for you Shamus, because we have a mutually beneficial relationship, and if you go off half cocked and ignorant it won’t be good for either of us. But you’ll owe me, Shamus, and if I catch any shit for this, I’ll own your ass. Do we understand each other?”
“And if you cross me, or hold anything back, I’ll serve your head to detective Gunn on a silver platter.”
He smiled. “I think we understand each other perfectly.”
“I need this soon, Emmett. Time is the killer here, and I’ll pay well for swiftness.”
“Good, now get out of my house, and be quiet about it. If you wake my mother, I’ll never hear the end of it. I need my beauty sleep, Shamus, and so does my mother.”
“Yeah she does,” I said as I rose.
“Hold your tongue in my house, white man. You’re nothing to look at yourself.”
I walked to the back door, setting my empty bottle on the counter.
“Nick,” Emmett called as I walked out. He’d slipped back into his faux Jamaican accent. “Watch your back out there, man. There’s bad juju afoot.”
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