Murder on the fly, p.1
Murder on the Fly, page 1
part #2 of Riley the Exterminator Mystery Series
Copyright © 2017 by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit written permission from the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review purposes are excepted.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-68313-124-3
First Electronic Edition
Cover design by Conor Mullen
Pen-L Publishing
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Pen-L.com
Books by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood
~ The Riley the Exterminator Mysteries ~
Poisoned Justice: Origins
Murder on the Fly
Non-fiction
Behind The Carbon Curtain
The Infested Mind
Six-Legged Soldiers
Locust
A Guest Of The World
Prairie Soul
Grasshopper Dreaming
A Native American elder once described his inner struggles in this manner:
Inside of me there are two dogs.
One of the dogs is mean and evil.
The other dog is good.
The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.
When asked which dog wins,
he reflected for a moment and replied,
“The one I feed the most.”
― recounted by George Bernard Shaw
(an Irishman by birth)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Bonus Pages
About the Author
Did You Enjoy This Book?
CHAPTER 1
I don’t have high expectations for Mondays. Had I known that by the end of the day, a platonic lover would say she hated me and a New Age griever would express her revulsion of me, I would’ve hit the snooze button. And if I could have foreseen that the lover and griever would draw me into investigating what appeared to be a cop’s suicide they suspected was murder—and that a mercenary coroner would fleece me to gain access to the corpse, I might’ve just stayed in bed.
In any case, I didn’t ask for much this morning. Just the Chronicle and my coffee in a quiet corner of Gustaw’s Bakery. But to get the day started on the right note, a guy in a loud sports coat that fit even worse than it looked was busy proving that the printed news underestimated the bleakness of humanity.
“Those goddamned Muslims are invading our city,” he said.
I’d seen him feeding the pigeons in McKinley square some afternoons. He dressed like a used car dealer but I think he sold insurance. An Iranian family had opened a store down the hill, just a few blocks from my extermination business, with a sign on the window saying “Rabii’s Bazaar” in fine, gold script. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the new arrivals, but I was confident that the neighborhood bakery wasn’t the place to debate the matter.
Gustaw, a former dockworker in Gdansk, kinked an eyebrow at the fellow and clenched the handle of the coffee pot. The grizzled old Pole had immigrated to America a year before the Germans invaded. Having arrived without knowing a word of English, he knew what it was like to be an outsider. For that matter, most of Potrero Hill was filled with immigrants who had made their way to the neighborhood—Scots, Russians, Slovenians, Serbians, Italians, and lots of Irish, my people. In the early 1900s, Irish Hill just west of Potrero was one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the city, thanks to the gangs. When the area was leveled for a landfill folks considered this an improvement.
“It’s not bad enough that the bastards held our countrymen until January. They put those poor folks through 444 days of depravity,” the insurance guy said, demonstrating his knowledge of Ted Koppel’s nightly broadcast. “And now the camel jockeys have set up shop in our neighborhood.”
Gustaw had heard enough and, as he refilled the guy’s cup, coffee splashed across the Formica-topped table and onto his lap. He yelped and cursed as Ludwika rushed from behind the counter to wipe up the mess and scold her husband for being careless.
“I am so sorry,” she said to the fellow as he used a handful of napkins to dab at the front of his pants. “What were you thinking, you old glupiec?” I’d come to figure that this term meant something like “idiot” although I’d never asked because it was best to avoid questions when Ludwika was on a tear—particularly when her husband was in her crosshairs.
As the guy headed out the door, mumbling about Polacks, Gustaw nodded his approval.
“Well?” Ludwika demanded, “How could you be so clumsy? We cannot afford to lose customers in this economy.” She was far more aware of the recession and business matters than Gustaw, but he could bake kremówka that would bring Pope John Paul to San Francisco, if only the pontiff knew that cream pie heaven could be found on Potrero Hill.
I washed down a bite of chocolate-filled paczki with Gustaw’s hellishly strong coffee and snuck a glance over the rim of my cup.
The codger lifted his chin in defiance. “I would rather go bankrupt than survive by feeding his kind. That man talks about Arabs like the Nazis talked about Jews. This is 1981, not 1938,” he said while furiously mopping the chair with his towel.
“Fine, but you could have blistered him,” Ludwika scolded and then added, “And he was just saying what many people are thinking.”
“I hope the coffee scalded his balls so that he will not have babies as stupid as he is,” Gustaw muttered.
I couldn’t help but smile at the big galoot.
Ludwika caught me and warned, “Riley, do not encourage him. Or maybe you agree with the old fool.” They both looked at me, as if my opinion would resolve the issue.
“Well, that loudmouth didn’t speak for me,” I began and Gustaw nodded approvingly. “But I wasn’t thrilled about having people from the country that had brutalized Americans setting up shop on my home turf.” Now Ludwika looked momentarily pleased. I left it there, figuring that taking sides was a losing proposition. And I couldn’t easily untangle my own feelings from the echoes of my father’s antipathy toward the Japanese after he’d witnessed the atrocities of World War II.
Gustaw shrugged and Ludwika sighed in exasperation, her enormous bosom rising and falling. I’d bet thirty years ago those breasts had tempted Gustaw even more than the glass of vodka that signaled the closing of the bakery each afternoon these days. She went back to arranging pastries in the display case, and I had the good sense to keep quiet and go back to reading the paper.
The front page headline was Medfly Invasion Declared Emergency, and the story announced that Mediterranean fruit flies had been found in yet more traps around the Bay area. The US and California departments of agriculture had declared that unless action was taken to eradicate the pest, the state was looking at ten billion dollars in potential losses to the fruit industry. The “authorities”—meaning the guys in ties who ran the agencies but who wouldn’t know a fruit fly from a dragonfly—had proposed using insecticides on a wide scale. However, the environmentalists evidently preferred the death of the state’s most important industry to risking the life of a robin or bunny.
There wasn’t much else to catch my eye until page 3, where there was a story about a cop having been found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Seems the poor sap drove himself into the hills above Berkeley and declared “end of watch.” Having felt some pretty dark despair in my last days on the force almost twenty years ago, I could relate. Wiping up the powdered sugar with a fingertip and taking a last swig of coffee, I headed out the door and down to Goat Hill Extermination.
~||~
Blissfully unaware of what the day would bring, I was in a fine mood for a Monday. The weekend had continued an unseasonably warm and sunny stretch for June. On Sunday, I’d picked up Tommy after church so mom could have some time to herself. Caring for a grown man with the mind of a child took a toll, and an afternoon tending her garden was how she recharged. Tommy and I had gone insect collecting in the Presidio where we’d nearly been run over by joggers seeking health through heavy breathing. His lurching gait made for an unpredictable obstacle and hazardous passing by the health nuts on the footpaths, so we headed into one of his favorite glades where he searched for ground beetles and I dozed under the cypress trees.
I’d been awakened by the ranting of some pathetic guy weari
ng a filthy coat, unbuckled galoshes, and a knit hat undoubtedly crawling with lice. The bleeding hearts insisted that releasing people like this onto the streets would give them freedom. Freedom to be miserable, from what I could tell. At least Tommy was just retarded, not crazy.
Now coming to my place of business where we all earned a living by killing, I walked around to the back and pushed open the door to the warehouse.
“Sheeit boss, what’s with sneakin’ up on us through the back door?” demanded Dennis who’d unfolded his lanky frame from the couch where he’d been reading a copy of Ebony with Jesse Jackson on the cover.
“Just making sure that you two are hitting the ground running on a merry Monday,” I said. In fact, Dennis and Larry were absolutely dependable, but it was part of the game to act as if they were shirkers.
“Us black folk knows how to work,” Dennis declared, “but you be smart to check on that honky.” He nodded toward Larry who was perched on the end of a weight bench studiously curling a forty-pound dumbbell.
Larry gave a half-smile and shook his head. They’d worked together for more than a decade and walled off what they called their “living room” from the shop using some low, sagging bookcases. Over the years, they’d dragged in a ratty couch, a couple of mismatched chairs, a particle board coffee table, a threadbare rug, a dying fridge, and Sears’ finest set of weights.
“You guys have a touchy job on the thirty-fourth floor of the Bank of America Center,” I said, resting on the arm of the couch.
“How so, boss?” Larry grunted switching the dumbbell to his other hand.
“First of all, the building management doesn’t want to draw attention to the problem, if there is one.”
“And that problem would be?” asked Larry, setting down the weight and becoming more intrigued.
“There’s a big accounting firm with dozens of women doing data entry and they’re complaining something is biting them,” I said.
“Has the management checked on the accountants? Those nerds probably aren’t getting much action outside of work, so maybe nibbling the girls in the office is their best chance,” said Larry. Dennis snorted his approval of the theory.
“Fellas, this looks like maybe group hysteria. The trade magazines have had articles about cases where people working or living together feed off one another’s delusions and come to believe something is infesting them. But exterminators can’t find fleas or mites or anything else,” I said.
“Get real, boss,” said Dennis, “I thought you just got those magazines for the pictures. You telling us you actually read the articles? Like the opposite of Playboy.”
“Look guys, just be discrete. Park down the street and try to be low profile,” I said.
“No problem for a homeboy. Heck, white folks pretend they can’t see me when I walk down the street, so I’ll be invisible at an accounting office,” Dennis said.
“Except you might be the first black man to be on the thirty-fourth floor,” I chuckled. “Be thorough but don’t dawdle. And if you guys can’t find anything, then just put out traps and tell the office manager you’ve collected samples that you’re taking back here for analysis,” I said.
“I can relate,” said Dennis.
“Sure,” said Larry, “but then what?”
“Then if there’s nothing there, we do some figuring on how to treat an imaginary problem,” I said.
“Sort of like Larry having too many bimbettes chasing after his studly form,” Dennis offered.
“Bite me,” Larry said, putting down the weight and pulling on his work shirt. “Let’s go, bro’, and try to look professional. We’re saving the financial district from invisible insects so we’d better look like yuppie exterminators.”
“That’d be a buppie for this boy,” said Dennis, “Gimme a minute to find where I put my Oxfords.”
~||~
I headed down the hall toward the front office with the growing strains of a godawful musical group featuring a mindless drum beat, mastery of a half-dozen notes, and insipid lyrics insisting I should “celebrate good times, come on.” The music, which stretches the meaning of the word, was coming from Carol’s radio. She was my girl Friday who maintained the schedule, kept the books, handled the billing, managed orders, answered the phone and did pretty much everything other than spraying the insecticides.
I was going to tease her about her music as part of our morning ritual, but I sensed something was different. She usually exuded an alluring combination of competency and sensuality. Carol always dressed professionally, but between the perkiness of her pageboy haircut and the way her blouses seemed to always suggest something sheer beneath them, I was smitten—and she knew it. She was an accomplished flirt and could drive a man crazy. Except for one thing. Her taste in partners unfortunately matched my own. We both preferred women. Strongly.
Carol was at her desk, one of those gray steel numbers surrounded by a hodgepodge of filing cabinets because her frugality, which probably kept the business in the black, kept her from indulging in nicer furniture. She was on the phone using a tone of voice a mother might employ with a scared child.
“I know it’s not like they say. You knew him better than anyone and if you don’t believe them, then I’m with you. All the way, honey.” A pause, and then, “We can’t do anything ourselves, but I know who can. He’ll understand. He’ll figure out something.” Another pause, longer this time. She saw me hovering in the doorway and raised a finger to keep me quiet. “It’ll be okay, I promise. He’s just come into the office and I’ll tell him what’s happened. He’ll know what to do. Okay?” One last pause and she gently set the phone back in its cradle.
“Oh, Riley,” she sobbed, reaching for me. This was not the strong, confident woman I’d known for years, the woman who could bring Larry, Dennis and me to heel or make a deadbeat customer understand that paying a bill was far better than facing Goat Hill Extermination’s manager. But now, in her floral printed dress, she almost could have been a high school girl breaking down in tears.
“I hate you,” she mumbled, pressing her face into my chest.
“Me?”
“I hate feeling so vulnerable. I hate that I need a man.” I held her tightly. “Okay,” she sniffled, “I don’t really hate you. I just hate that I can’t help Anna on my own.”
“She really matters to you, eh?”
“I love her, you jerk,” she said, pushing away from me and wiping her eyes. Carol pulled a tissue from a box on her desk and dabbed at the wet spot she’d left on my denim shirt.
“I knew that. I’m just—”
“You’re just not sure how to make sense of me, even after all this time. Jesus, straight men can be so damned dense.”
She was right, of course. I never knew exactly how to talk about her personal life. She’d had other girlfriends, but this one seemed serious based on snippets of phone calls I’d overheard and there being a photo on Carol’s desk.
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
“I need your extracurricular snooping. You’re good at it. Really good, from what I’ve seen. You can find out things that I don’t know how anybody could find out. You have connections with the police and unsavory sorts.”
“Unsavory sorts? How polite of you.” She smacked me on the chest, hard. I was relieved, knowing the sting meant the old Carol was coming back.
“Don’t tease. You know what I mean. Criminals and ex-cons and people like that. I need you to investigate a death.”
Now we were getting somewhere. I sat on the edge of her desk and rubbed the back of my neck, which I do when I’m not sure I’m going to like what’s coming.
“Whose?”
“Anna’s cousin, Greg. They’re saying it was suicide. He was a cop and they found him in his car.”
“Above Berkeley?”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“This morning’s paper had the story. It sounded like a pretty straightforward case.”
“But it’s not. Anna was very close to him, almost like a brother. She says he couldn’t have done it, that he was working hard on a case, but he wasn’t depressed or anything. Anna and I had a cookout with him last weekend. He was joking and having a great time.”
