Jocelyn Beauregard, Private Eye (part four)

Having completed NaNoWriMo ’10, I’m going to share one section of my story here every Friday until you’ve read the whole thing. Hooray for easy update days! Enjoy.

Danny didn’t want to be around when the police showed up. He hadn’t wanted to call it in at all, but Jocelyn insisted. “It’s one thing to work an exciting case,” she had said, “but two people are missing. Possibly in danger. I can’t risk putting them in further jeopardy by keeping their disappearance a secret from the proper authorities.”

Danny had just shrugged, and said something about how the flatfoots were likely to bungle the whole thing up anyway. Once he and Jocelyn had determined Ted Holdren’s office was as empty as the two connecting upstairs apartments, he lost interest in the whole affair. Danny wished Jocelyn the best of luck and left her to it.

As it happened, the cops were pointed in the wrong direction right from the start, as they assumed whomever had broken into the upstairs apartment had climbed the fire escape to do so. The detective assigned to the scene was rather dim, truth be told. His name was Nebediah Clark, and he had recently transferred in from two counties over. Jocelyn’s notes about Detective Clark involved a droopy horse-face, a frequently-patched overcoat and tousled brown hair that had never been in the same room as a comb.

If Detective Clark or any of his minions had noticed that the broken glass from the upstairs window was on the outside of the building, none of them said as much. Jocelyn saw no pressing need to correct them, nor did she explain how the ladder came to be let down.

Truth is, the city’s police force was a helpful tool in the arsenal of a cunning private eye. They have access to a lot of feet, for one; they’d be able to knock on as many doors in an afternoon as Jocelyn could herself in a week, and lightly poking just the right officer could get her just the same information as had she done all the hard work herself.

Of course that required being on amicable terms with the police in the first place, and Jocelyn knew she wasn’t. This was her chance to develop some useful contacts, standing in a ransacked office filled with beat cops, always adding to her endless list of notes. Perhaps a young, handsome officer, as new to the business as she still was… an up-and-comer in the force she could build a strong, mutually beneficial long-term relationship. Strictly professional, of course.

All those hopes were shattered the moment Officer Max Barrett and his wretched cigar walked through the door. “Alright, you pencil-necks,” he barked, “how badly have the lot of you managed to sully our good name on this one so far?”

“Not too badly,” Detective Clark replied as he approached, “we’ve only been on the scene about twenty minutes so far.”

“And why do we care that this bottom-feeding scumbag has skipped town?”

“We don’t, really, except it don’t look like he skipped willing-like, if you know what I mean.”

Officer Barrett began circling the cluttered office, taking long strides. It was hard to tell if he was looking for something in particular, or if his eyes were just naturally shifty. He examined the fallen desk lamp with the broken bulb, stepped over a pile of books slipped from a toppled shelf, and shuffled through some scattered newspapers with his boots. After a few moments of contemplation, he looked back and said, “I dunno boys, looks to me like ol’ Ted Holdren is off on vacation, and was in a big hurry to get packed. Open and shut case.”

“Not exactly, Max,” replied Detective Clark. He pointed to where Jocelyn was sitting in a wooden chair by the stairs. “She called it in.”

Jocelyn would have given up a pension to be able to sink through the cracks in the floorboards right then and there.

“I shoulda known you’d be wrapped up in this somehow,” Officer Barrett said derisively. Jocelyn swallowed the large, jagged lump in her throat and did her best to not look like a frightened rabbit. She extended her hand and said, “I wasn’t expecting to see you today, Officer Barrett. I was told it was your day off.” Instead of a handshake, Officer Barrett exhaled a cloud of black cigar smoke into her face. She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a cough.

“Yes, so it was. So now I have two reasons to be unhappy.”

“I brought Max in on this,” explained Detective Clark. “I thought his… insight might be helpful.”

Officer Barrett chuckled unkindly. “What this lackwit is trying to say is that I’m still the best detective on the force… even if I’ve been reduced to aiding in an unofficial capacity. Isn’t that right, Clark?”

“This promises to be something of a high-profile case, sir. I cleared it with the chief already, and your help is most appreciated.”

“Of course it is,” puffed Officer Barrett. “Shield or no, I’m still the best detective on the force.”

Detective Clark sighed. “Miss Beauregard here discovered Mr. Holdren was missing, and that his office had been broken into.

“That right?” asked Officer Barrett. “So… what? You just happened along? Out for a stroll?”

“ Well… no,” said Jocelyn. She had had the explanation in her head, but face-to-face with Officer Barrett the words all retreated from her. Suddenly aware that she was fidgeting, she stuck her hands in her coat pockets. Feeling the shape and material of the notepad there was surprisingly reassuring.

“No, I was speaking to Ted on the telephone, and I heard it.” Officer Barrett blinked expectantly, as though waiting for elaboration. “Oh! The crash, I mean. I heard the crash.”

“We believe the sound Miss Beauregard heard was this here,” explained Detective Clark, indicating an overturned steel safe laying near the middle of the office. “It hit with enough force to crack the floor. If you go down into the cellar you can see the dial sticking through the ceiling. Heavy son of a gun, too. My fellas haven’t been able to move or lift it.”

Officer Barrett ran his fingers along the top edge – which is to say the side edge – of the safe. “Move it?” he asked, casting an accusatory glance at Detective Clark. “What would you go and do that for? You make a habit of tampering with evidence, Detective?”

Jocelyn noticed the little hairs on the back of Detective Clark’s neck bristle a bit at the suggestion. “Of course not.”

“Good to hear, Detective. Good to hear. And good thing your boys weren’t able to budge it. Something tells me if this thing shifts the wrong way it’s liable to bring the whole floor down.” He looked back to Jocelyn. “Okay, so you heard this loud crash. Then what?”

“When the line went dead I obviously wanted to make sure Ted was okay, so I rushed right over. And when I saw the front door was locked, I thought, ‘Why, that’s not like Ted at all,’ and so I called it in.”

“Telephone line was cut clean through,” confirmed Detective Clark, holding up the black handset in one hand, and a clipped electrical wire dangling from the other.

A sneer lit up Officer Barrett’s face, causing his cigar to shift from the left side of his mouth to the right. A copious amount of ash still clung to the tip of the cigar, as if he were daring it to just try and drop off. “Well, that tells us something important, now doesn’t it?” he teased.

“Does it?” Detective Clark asked quizzically.

“It sure does,” replied Officer Barrett, approaching Jocelyn again. A few steps, and he had her pinned back against her chair. “In fact, I’ll bet our little chickadee here has it already figured out.” He took a long, menacing drag from his cigar. “Two shiny nickels says she’s got it all written down in that little notebook of hers.”

Jocelyn clutched the notebook tightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

…is what she would have said, if her mouth had been quicker than Officer Barrett’s hand. Before she even knew it had happened, he’d snaked his grip around her wrist and tugged her hand from her coat pocket, dragging the little brown notebook out into the open for all to see. Jocelyn tried to stammer something in protest, but Officer Barrett plucked the notebook from her grip.

“Why, thank you, chickadee,” he said sarcastically. “I’m sure this will be a great help.”

Officer Barrett let Jocelyn’s arm fall back to her side, then he and his sneer turned around to hand the notebook off to Detective Clark. The redness on Jocelyn’s face shifted gears from embarrassment to anger, and suddenly she found her voice: “Wait just a minute. That book is private property! And besides, it’s rude to handle a lady in such a… harsh manner.”

“ A lady?” Officer Barrett chortled. “’A lady,’ she says.” A few of the flatfoots standing around began laughing nervously. “You’re no lady. You’re just a lost bird trying to play detective. And that notebook? That’s evidence.”

“Evidence?” asked Jocelyn, confused. “What can you possibly mean?”

“What I mean is, that book contains every observation you’ve made, every thought that popped into your pretty little head since the moment you stepped into this crime scene. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a suspect in this case, and this little book of yours is evidence.”

“A suspect!?” stammered Jocelyn.

“What do you think, boys?” asked Officer Barrett to the onlooking beat cops. “Makes for a tidy little package, don’t it? Up-and-coming new private eye in town, learns the hard way that there’s only so many insurance fraudsters and jilted dames to go around, cooks up a scheme to off the top dog in the detective game. Calls it in herself, even, to make everything look all squeaky-clean like.”

Jocelyn wasn’t used to being put so dramatically on the spot. “Now, that’s just silly,” was the only defense she could think of on such short notice.

“Well,” Officer Barrett shot back, “I guess we’ll know for sure once we read your little diary.” He tossed the notebook over to Detective Clark, who wasn’t expecting it and almost didn’t catch it. “We’ve got it from here, detective,” Officer Barrett continued. “You can take a hike. But I wouldn’t skip town if I were you. Something tells me we’ll be seeing each other again real, real soon.”

With that, Officer Barrett stepped out of Jocelyn’s way and motioned towards the front door, which had since been opened by one of his lapdogs. Jocelyn took a few timid steps towards the exit before suddenly blurting out, “I guess this is a bad time to bring up my sign…”

All the smugness melted away from Officer Barretts face. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s right. You just don’t forget, kid, that I’m watching you. That eyesore of yours was just the start. This Ted Holdren case? It’s the nail in your coffin. And in the meantime you’d best grow eyes in the back of your head. You pitch one candy wrapper that doesn’t land all the way in the bin, or put one of your petite little toosties outside of a crosswalk, and I’ll be right there to write it up.” He leaned in close enough for Jocelyn to feel the heat from his cigar on her ears, then whispered, “I’m going to see you finished in this town, for what you did to me. I’m going to teach you you can’t kick a sleeping dog and then avoid the teeth.”

Jocelyn was sure she didn’t presently want anything else to do with Max Barrett’s teeth, so she took her opportunity to duck out of the door. Stepping out onto the street was like stepping out of a pressure cooker. She was surprised at how quickly she was able to put four blocks’ distance between her and Ted Holdren’s office.

The cool air and the brisk walk did immediate wonders for Jocelyn’s disposition. By the time she reached the diner where Danny’s cab was parked she felt very much like herself again, more preoccupied with thoughts about whether or not petite tootsies were considered fashionable rather than the fact that a demoted police detective was harboring a particularly nasty grudge against her.

Danny was sitting at the counter having a heated debate with a slice of apple pie. The pie was losing. “How’d it go?” he asked, licking a few errant flecks of crust off his lips.

“You were right. Officer Barrett couldn’t resist.”

“Man like Barrett? Nah. He’s the type to never leave a scab unpicked.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Jocelyn’s notebook. “You’ll be wanting this back, I expect.”

Jocelyn eagerly plucked the notebook from Danny’s leathery hand and took a seat on the stool next to him. She began leafing through pages of details about Ted Holdren’s office. “I still can’t believe you knew they’d try to confiscate it,” she said. “A dummy notebook… I’d have never thought of it.”

“That’s the trouble with you, Joss. You’re always inventing good to see in people,” replied Danny. Jocelyn didn’t hear him, of course. She was already too lost in her own handwriting. Danny shook his head, then waved the waitress back over. “Another cup of joe, will ya? And a slice of this pie for the dame. I think we’ll be here a while.”