Two Old Dicks – First Pages

 

“Aging detectives should only retire
when they’re clueless.”

               — Lt. Pete Winkowski

 

It was a guitar string.

     A guitar string that had lost its twang. It wasn’t on a classic Martin D-28 acoustical guitar where it would have been comfortably at home. It was wrapped tightly around a pretty young woman’s throat.

     An overcast autumn sky reduced the last of the day’s light as Detective Pete Winkowski scanned the dead woman’s supine body in a rain-soaked Southeastern Florida woods. Her chest was exposed and a pink tee shirt hung from a Spanish bayonet bush nearby. Tan shorts had been pulled down and covered her knees and a white cross-training shoe was tied only on her right foot. She lay dumped in the sandy mud like an abandoned deer kill.

     Pete heard rustling noises coming from the overgrowth in the nearby brambles. Seconds later Nico Clostinedes emerged and stopped dead in his tracks the moment he spied Pete.

     “What the hell are you doing here?” Pete said.

     “Captain O’Leary called me back to work. Cancelled my forced retirement. Said recruitment at the department had dropped to bupkis.”

     “Same crap he told me. But he didn’t say you were coming back.”

     “Because he’s smart enough to know we have not been the Batman and Robin team we used to be.

      “We were asked to retire at sixty. And sixty is not that old.”

      “Compared to what? The Pyramids?”

      “O’Leary is, however, smart enough to remember how many times we saved his ass.”

     “Well, I’m on the job. So, what do we have here?” Nico asked and stepped toward the body on the ground.

     “The dead body of a young woman.”

     “Homicide already told me that,” Nico said and leaned in close to the victim’s upper body.

     “Bring me up to speed.”

     “Right now she’s a Jane Doe of indeterminate age. Maybe late twenties. Likely raped. Bruises on her face and arms indicate she took a serious beating. She put up a fight. Blood and tissue under her fingernails should yield DNA.”

     Nico lowered his head and searched the surrounding area. He checked the ground between every clump of high grass.

     “The CSIs?” Nico asked.

     “On the way. Not sure about the M.E.” Pete said.

     “Doesn’t that old goat Dunphy still come with the forensics team.”

     “Damned if I know anymore. They keep changing procedures in the department. I don’t think he even knows.”

     “I heard Captain O’Leary just fired his secretary,” Nico said. “Word has it that she was getting too old. He keeps old Doc Dunphy, who managed to dodge the draft just before the battle at Gettysburg, and threatens to fire an efficient, middle-aged secretary. But look who’s talking. We aren’t exactly reserving tuxedos for our prom.”

     “Yeah, when I was a young man I didn’t have to get up every two hours to pee.”

     “You got up?”

     “Charlene Ballard had just turned forty,” Pete said. “He kept her. She wasn’t old enough to be forced to retire like us, but she had extra job security because she knows all of O’Leary’s tightly-capped secrets. Knows where all the bodies are buried.”

     “Like his late night trysts in the evidence room.”

     “Charlene came back to the station one night,” Pete said. “Forgot her cell phone. Caught the boss teaching the new traffic gal how to get advancement from the missionary position.”

    “We could file a complaint.”

     “And he’d bring in a Pentecostal Marine drill instructor and make him a lieutenant. We’d be required to go to church with the bastard. And the Bible probably has a gluttony clause that will eliminate donuts and Danish forever.”

     Nico continued his search of the grass for clues.

     “I need another look at this poor soul before old Doc Dunphy gets here,” Pete said and turned his attention to the young woman.

     Nico rose from his grass inspection and glared at Pete.

    “If you don’t need me, I can go back to the office?”

    “No, give me a hand when you finish what you’re doing. That way, if I screw up I can have someone to blame.”

    “I’m checking out the grounds around here for…for…what do they call it? Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. Oh, I know. Evidence. I’m checking for clues as to who might have killed the poor girl you’re hovering over like it’s your drunk drive-in movie date.”

   “So, let me get this straight. You didn’t call the coroner?” Pete asked.

   “The CSIs will come with the coroner, just like they always do. That’s been protocol for years.”

   Nico leaned in next to Pete and focused on the woman’s neck.

   “Looks like she was strangled,” Nico mumbled.

   “Did the dark red ligature marks on her neck from that garrote wire tip you off, Watson? Or was it the petechial hemorrhaging on the whites of her eyes?”

   Nico stood abruptly.

   “You already thoroughly examined the victim?”

   “I got here a half hour before you strolled onto the scene. And yes, I took a good look at the young lady.”

   “See anything besides the obvious?”

   “Well, the lady probably wasn’t well-to-do, or even financially solvent.”

   “What led you to that conclusion?”

   “She didn’t have her nails done. Women of even relative means go to nail salons regularly, as a rule. It’s apparent that this gal polished her own nails. Several were painted purple up to the first knuckle.”

   “Wow. You used that half-hour alone really well,” Nico said. “Think she was a hooker?”

   “No.”

   “Why not?”

   “Hookers carry condoms in their purses, plus a pharmacy of drugs, typically. Her purse had a wallet, a lipstick, a compact, and some keys, but none for a car. And no Day After or birth control pills.”

   “Money in the wallet?”

   “Twenty-three dollars and a bunch of change.”

   “Cross off robbery.”

   “So what did you discover in your intense study of her scantily-clad body?”

   “I didn’t want this job, you know, Pete. I was perfectly happy to enjoy my retirement on my boat. And I get a hell of a lot less lip from the fish I catch. Even ones with big mouths.”

   “The retirement was strongly suggested, but you could’ve said no. You weren’t pleased that department policy urges you retire at 60. Neither was I. And I sure as hell would never have signed on for this post-retirement gig if I thought for one second I’d be back working with your raggedy keister.”

   “First you spoil my girlfriend and later you pester our marriage,” Nico said and stared at the tee shirt on the bayonet bush.

   “You can’t get Jeanie out of your craw, can you? I let you have her and you still blame me for your failed relationship.”

   “We divorced because of you. She still had feelings, she said. I couldn’t stand her bringing up your name all the time. We were making love once and she says, ‘Pete always kissed me here.’ I almost threw up on the new living room carpet.”

   “You were making love on the floor? In the living room?”

   “Hey, look, Iago. The furniture hadn’t been delivered yet, okay? I still have rug burns that never heal.”

   Nico stepped to a fallen log and sat.

   “I heard she sent you out for Chinese and moved.” Pete said.

   “It wasn’t like that. She had already told me she was leaving.”

   “Not what I heard. How was the moo goo gai pan?”

   “My fortune cookie said, ‘What you just ate wasn’t chicken.’”

   “My thumbnail description of you goes like this: pretty damn good cop; lousy husband.”

   “My two words for you. One’s a verb, the other’s a pronoun,” Nico said and spat on the ground.

    “Back when we were partners, let’s remember something. We were the best detective team since Lieutenant Columbo and Sherlock Holmes.”

   “Sherlock Holmes lived in the nineteenth century and never could’ve been Columbo’s partner.”

   “You know what I mean,” Pete said. “We had the best collar and conviction record in Martin County. In any county.”

   “And your point would be…”

   “In spite of our differences, we are still those very same guys who busted cases wide open, and still can if we can learn to work together again.”

   “I don’t have to like you.” Nico said and checked his watch.

   “Even though I’m known to be irresistible by most, but no, you go ahead and feel free to continue to let our past history eat away at you. Just so it doesn’t affect the work.”

   “If it weren’t for the money, I wouldn’t be here,” Nico said.

   “Bullshit. You’re doing it for the same reason I’m doing it.”

   “Because the captain has videos of us at our last Christmas party?”

   “Yeah, and we wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t groped the Mayor’s daughter.”

   Nico shot up from the log.

   “She spilled a pink squirrel on her dress and I—.”

   “And you were helping her clean it off with your tongue,” Pete said.

   “That’s a lot of crap. How about you? You came to the party in culottes.”

   “They were on sale at Target. Look, I was drunk. Been drinking all afternoon,” Pete said

   “Yeah. With Jeanie.”

   “She wasn’t married to you then. She was fair game.”

   “You knew I was still serious about her.”

   “Nico, she only went out with you because she felt sorry for you.”

   “I was a mercy date?”

   “Because of that mopey face you wore all the time. You always looked like someone just licked all the honey off your baklava.”

   “Jeanie married me to stop you from stalking her. I should have just arrested you.”

   “You have your twisted version of the past, and I have the one that would hold up in court.”

Nico barged through the waist-high shrubs toward an open area.

   “I’m so sorry they put you up on that cross,” Nico said and looked up and down the macadam road running next to the woods.

   “Meantime, have you noticed that there’s a dead woman lying here?” Pete asked.

   Nico bent down and picked something up from a patch of trimmed grass.

   “I noticed. I also noticed this.” Nico said and held up a cigarette butt. “Once again, we call this evidence. May have our killer’s DNA on it.”

   Pete strode to Nico to get a good look at the stub of the filter tip cigarette.

   “Don’t get your hopes up on that,” Pete said.

   “Could be potentially damning evidence, I’d say.”

   “No, it’s not.”

   “Why not, genius. It’s fresh. It’s right here near the body. It doesn’t have lipstick on it, possibly eliminating a female. Why are you pooh-poohing a genuine clue?”

   “Because it’s my cigarette butt,” Pete said.

   “You quit smoking ten years ago.”

   “Being back on the job has brought back bad habits.”

   Nico studied the butt.

   “You sure this is yours?”

   “Marlboro filter-tip. It’s mine.”

   Nico dropped the butt in a plastic envelope he pulled from his pants pocket and tucked it in his jacket.

   “Why are you saving that cigarette butt?”

   “DNA. Could make you a person of interest. Maybe the murderer.”

   Nico bent down to get a close look at the girl’s face.

   “Why don’t we know who this girl is?” Nico asked. “No ID in her wallet?”

   “No ID in her purse or wallet. Jane Doe will have to do for now.”

   They both stared at the dead woman.

   “In her prime of life,” Pete said. “And you wonder why cops drink.”

   “We see dead people…that shouldn’t be dead.”

   Pete nodded and looked hard at Nico.

   “Let’s get this bastard,” Pete said and covered the girl’s breasts with the pink tee shirt. “And every bastard like him.”

  “I can’t believe you stalked Jeanie,” Nico said shaking his head. “I didn’t always like you, but I always trusted you.”

   “I never stalked anyone. Sex I had with women was always consensual. They all can attest to that, even if you asked them today. Well,…not all of them. One died.”

   “Of disappointment, no doubt.”

   Pete smiled and studied Nico as they waited.

   “You look good, Nico. What happened?”

   “I’ll tell you, but only if this is informational exchange is completely consensual.”

   “We’ve done all we can here until we get forensic and autopsy results,” Pete said.

   “Let’s go out on the road and wait for the rest of the crew to arrive. There’s a nice park bench there and my ass could use a sit-down.”

   Pete hiked up the steep slope to the road followed by Nico. Across the road was indeed a nice park bench, but its center was occupied by a morbidly obese man who covered most of it.

   “That your nice park bench?” Nico said and nodded toward the obese man reading a newspaper. The one with Jabba the Hutt reading his newspaper?”

   “I can fix this situation,” Pete said and ambled across to the bench. He paid no attention to the corpulent man scanning his newspaper and sat next to him on what small portion of the bench was available. Pete leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared at the road surface for a moment, then said,

   “Did you bring the money?”

   “What money?” the fat man said.

   “You don’t have the money?” Pete said in a deep gruff voice, never changing his position.

   Several seconds passed until Pete turned toward his right. The fat man had disappeared.

   “Your sumo bench buddy is gone,” Nico said and joined Pete and sat next to him on the bench. “May be in Volusia County by now.”

   Sirens wailed in the distance as they approached the crime scene.

   Pete stared at the road and resumed his forward lean with his elbows on his knees and said,

   “Did you bring the money?”