Anthony Carrick Hardboiled Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3) Read online

  I stepped over him again and outside. I reached down and rubbed the blood onto the green grass. Then I reached down and rubbed my fingers dry on his lower pant legs. He didn’t have any socks. I should’ve brought a handkerchief with me. I hate messing with a crime scene. And this wasn’t a suicide. I looked around for anyone else. I didn’t see anyone. I looked up at the house and scanned all the windows. The blinds were open in most of them. I couldn’t see anyone looking back at me. Then again, looking into the dark house I couldn’t see too deep into it.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed homicide. A bright, fresh voice answered. It was John. He hadn’t been out drinking the night before. I can tell with him.

  “John, its Anthony.”

  “Hey Anthony pal. How nice of you to call. Things are good?”

  He was a joker. I don’t usually call him at work to chew the fat.

  “Actually no. I’ve got blood on my hands and its not my own. Also, I didn’t do it.”

  “Something new or related to the Ernst case?”

  “Related. Seems Lorenzo here the groundskeeper had an accident while trying to trim his beard with hedge shears.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Funny thing John. He’s clean shaven anyway.”

  “I get yeah. Do we need EMS?”

  “No. I would’ve called nine one one. But bring the coroner with you.”

  “Will do. So you’re at the house then?”

  “Yup. Don’t know if anyone else is around. I don’t have my gun but I’m going in to check it out.”

  “Take care now buddy. Listen we’ve gotta get together soon for drinks.”

  “I’d like that, but you’re not in my weight class.”

  “I’ll train,” he said and then hung up.

  I walked on up to the large French doors at the back of the house. I wasn’t Jesus, so I had to walk around the pool. I tried the doors. They were open so I invited myself in. To my right was the bar slash lounge. A nice big wooden cabinet had a great selection of liquor on it. I started thinking that the hair of the dog might not hurt. To my left was the rest of the lounge and a big flat screen TV stuck on the wall like art. Only it isn’t. I heard some noise someplace not too far that sounded like running water.

  I walked through the lounge and turned right up some stairs and I was in the spacious kitchen. This time I found myself where Maria was. She had switched places with me. She was doing some dishes in the sink. She glanced up and looked at me with a start.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just me.”

  “You scared me.” She giggled then at her own folly.

  “You should be.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone’s taken to murdering people around here.”

  She laughed again. “That’s silly,” she said. “Lorenzo is here this morning. I just saw him out back not long ago. He’s pretty strong.”

  “Yes,” I said, “except when he’s dead.”

  She looked up at me then and stopped washing. She turned around and dried off her hands on the tea towel hanging off the steel oven door. She turned around again.

  “Don’t joke about that okay. Not after Mr. Ernst.”

  “I’m not joking. He’s out back with shears in his neck.”

  She brought her hand up to her mouth. No, she kept saying. That can’t be.

  “When did you see him last?”

  She shook her head a few times. Looked down at the sink.

  “Maybe a half hour ago… Maybe an hour. He was out by the shed getting some tools.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “Well I asked him if I could cook him up some breakfast. He said no, so I came back in to clean and cook myself something. I need to do something, especially after everything that’s happened. Ms. Ernst has asked me to keep working my regular shifts to keep an eye on things since she’s not here now.”

  She rubbed her hands through her hair. It looked good on her. Her eyes welled up but didn’t spill.

  “We must call the police,” she said. “What if he’s not really dead?”

  “I did and he is.”

  “Where is he? He should be strong enough to protect himself. There’s lots of stuff in the shed he could’ve used.”

  “I didn’t say he was by the shed.”

  “Well where is he then. I saw him at the shed. He must have had something with him.”

  “He was at the shed. I couldn’t tell if he was able to defend himself. Doesn’t look like it much.”

  “So why you playing games with me if you know he was at the shed? Am I supposed to know where he died? He was at the shed when I last saw him okay. Looked like he was going to be there a while.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “but I’ve got to ask questions. Maybe you killed him.”

  She looked at me steadily. Her eyes were flickering fire behind them.

  “You’re crazy. And I suppose you think maybe I killed Mr. Ernst?”

  “I’m just asking questions.”

  “You think I could kill someone like Lorenzo. I’m just a small woman. You’ve seen him, he’s strong. You’re crazy.”

  Maybe I was. Maybe I was still hung over. Maybe this whole thing was so twisted I didn’t know what to think anymore. Suddenly the day didn’t seem so swell anymore.

  The doorbell serenaded down the hall faintly. I went to answer it. Maria seemed shaken and stirred. In a way I was the hired help around here too. I opened the door to my ex-colleague and good friend Captain John Roberts of LAPD Homicide. He was older than me by a few years. In his late forties and taller than me too. He was thin but with a tight small paunch. Like he was carrying half a watermelon around. He had a big fibrous mustache and bushy eyebrows. His hair was a constant messy brushfire of brown.

  “So you didn’t do it Anthony? Is that you story?” he brushed by me slapping me hard on the shoulder.

  “Say hello to Detective James “Sonny” Forrest.”

  I shook hands with a brown iron statue of a man. He was short and squat. Maybe five eight, five nine in shoes. A couple of inches shorter than me but probably twenty or so pounds more. Around a buck eighty or ninety. He was solid and when he grabbed my hand he held it tight. He was all muscle. Thick with it and solid like a tree trunk. He smiled wide for me and his eyes twinkled. I liked him already.

  “John tells me good things about you. Mostly good things.” Then he rattled an iron chain deep in his belly and it came up and out like laughter.

  “It’s all lies,” I said. “I’m Anthony Carrick.”

  “I know,” he said. “Not Tony ‘cos you’re not Italian. An Irish slugger with an Italian name.”

  “Yeah I’m cursed. An Irish temper with Italian passion.”

  He laughed again and followed John down the hall. They’d both been here before and knew where they were going. John looked behind him to me.

  “Where’s the sleeping beauty?” he asked.

  “Down by the shed. Is the coroner coming?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be here in a bit. We just want to check it out first.”

  I nodded to the back of his head and we all walked through the house and out into the backyard. Maria was following John and Sonny. She was walking by my side. As we rounded the shed door she let out a little gasp. I looked at her as she pulled her hands up to her mouth. John turned around to her.

  “Ma’am, you should go inside now. There’ll be Crime Scenes coming and the coroner too. I’ll need you to go and wait for them. And we’ll need to be talking to you in a little while too.”

  She nodded her head and headed back up towards the house looking back at us now and then.

  “This is how I found him. Though I put my fingers on his neck and wiped them off on his jeans,” I said to John.

  “Jesus Anthony. Why you gotta go mess with the body.” He was looking at Lorenzo as he talked to me. Sonny had planted himself in the ground and was writing stuff in his notebook.

  “Well Johnny, I was hoping to be a her
o. See if I could resuscitate him.”

  “Smart ass,” he said turning to me. I smiled at him.

  “How come whenever you get involved people start dying?”

  “Must be my winning charm,” I said.

  Sonny like that one. He rattled his laugh out from his belly. “You didn’t tell me he was so funny,” he said to John.

  “Yeah he’s a real joker.”

  “Listen Anthony,” he said getting all serious, “when did you find the guy?”

  I took my phone from my pant’s pocket and looked at the time. It was coming on ten.

  “About a half hour ago. I checked the time when I got here and it was nine thirty three.”

  John grunted in acknowledgement. He bent down to look at the body more closely. He went inside the shed and Sonny followed on after. I looked around the yard. Doesn’t look like anyone would’ve seen anything. Not the way all the flora protect your privacy around here. A good place to kill someone. Only the right side as you look away from the house and the front side of the yard would be visible. John came out again followed by Sonny. John looked around.

  “Nice house,” he said. “Yes sir, a very nice house. What do you think one of these is worth Anthony?”

  “With the shed and all those tools inside?” He smiled at me.

  “So you don’t know either.”

  “Well, the shed’s worth a couple of thousand and the house I figure is probably a few million or more.”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Nice looking Hispanic guy,” said Sonny. “I wonder if he was banging the maid?”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “You know that or you speculating?” John asked me.

  “I’m speculating,” I said.

  “Don’t hold out on me Anthony. If there’s anything you want to tell me. Just because you were one of us doesn’t mean we want tag you with obstruction.”

  “C’mon on Johnny. You’re hurting my feelings now.”

  “Smart ass,” he said again. I loved to hear him say that. See how many times an hour I could push his buttons. My record had been a dozen. I turned back towards the house to see Cardigan and a couple of his pals coming up. They had on little white hospital booties over their shoes and white shower caps on their heads and hospital masks across their mouths and noses. I thought this was overkill for an outside job. But who am I.

  “Hey Anthony,” Cardigan said. “You the grim reaper now?”

  Sonny laughed again. John said that’s what he was trying to figure out. I said nothing, just grinned at them.

  “If you guys focus on the job instead of the comedy sketch you might be able to figure that out,” I said.

  “Lets get to work guys,” Cardigan said to his crew. “The coroner will be right behind us.”

  “If you ladies will excuse me I’m going to head on back to the house.”

  John grunted sure. Cardigan asked me to stop creating so much work for him, and Sonny said nothing. I walked back up the yard. Around the pool again and back inside the house. I looked longingly at the liquor cabinet but I couldn’t seem to think of a place on God’s green earth where the sun was past the yardarm. To be safe I’d probably need to give myself another hour. In the meantime I used the washroom which was spotless. I came back and sat down in the lounge on a nice big, white, leather couch. I watched the gaggle of cops outside doing their thing. John was talking to Sonny. Cardigan and his boys were placing yellow cards around the shed. Taking measurements and taking photographs outside and inside the shed it seemed. Maria came and sat across from me in a love seat cut from the same cow.

  “I don’t like being around here so much with all these dead bodies,” she said.

  “Oh I don’t know,” I said, “keeps it nice and quiet.”

  She didn’t know how to take that one so she let it roll by.

  “Still its kinda gross.”

  The doorbell chimed quietly again. It’d be hard to hear that with any amount of noise around. Maria got up to answer it, but I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I was trying to figure out what to do next when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see a beautiful woman in a tight blue dress long enough to just cover the knees. I got up. What a refreshing vision from what I’d seen lately. She had straight brown hair in a pageboy I think they call it. Didn’t matter, I could see my hands messing it up. She had on slim rectangular eyeglasses. Her eyebrows were lovely accents to her eyes. Her nose was slim and straight, slightly upturned at the end. Her lips were full but not pouty and she had a long oval face. Her breasts were firm and pulling her white blouse slightly taut. Her blue jacket caressing the sides of her breasts. I was in love. Her hips were firm and nicely curved. Her lower legs were slightly tanned and her calves were strong and shapely.

  She gave me a big, bright smile. Her teeth were toothpaste commercial perfect and I felt someone sucker punch me in the solar plexus. My knees might have buckled and butterflies erupted in my lower belly.

  I took her hand that she offered. I noticed a French manicure on long, slender fingers. She had a good grip and she looked me straight in the eye.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Emily Stratham,” she said. Her voice was a song in my ear. I looked at her left hand and didn’t see a wedding band. I thought maybe I’d propose. Then again maybe this wasn’t the right time.

  “Anthony Carrick. I see dead people,” I said as she withdrew her hand.

  “Me too,” and she laughed warmly at that. She turned to Maria, introduced herself and shook hands with her. She had with her a couple of young men in blue coveralls with “Dept. of Coroner” embroidered on them. She turned back to me. I was wagging my tail. I’m just an old dog looking for attention.

  “John told me you found the groundskeeper?” she asked.

  “Yes, I was hoping to talk to him. But he’s awful quite just lying down out there. This is the second time in two days you’ve come out here right?”

  “Well not me exactly. Our office yes, but yesterday I wasn’t the one on call. Dr. Wagner came by. Jack Wagner. Do you know him?”

  “No I don’t think so.” I could spend the rest of the day talking to her.

  “What killed Mr. Ernst? Officially,” I asked.

  “Appears to be the blows to the head from the statue. But we haven’t wrapped everything up yet.”

  “You’re a private investigator aren’t you?” she said.

  “You make it sound more glamorous than it is.”

  She laughed at that. I was a winner. I wanted to wake up to that sound in my ear.

  “Yes I am. But I’m not doing such a good job of this one at the moment.”

  She nodded. “Yes I know. I mean it’s early still and yet so odd to have two different people killed at the same home. Very strange.”

  “Ouch,” I said beating my chest. She laughed and touched me on the forearm.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I think you’ve got your work set out for you.”

  “But you’ll help me right?” I winked at her.

  “Maybe. It might cost you though.”

  Life had never been so good. I was loving this flirtatious sparing. But people were dying around me and I needed to get some answers. Be still my beating heart.

  “Who are you working for Mr. Carrick?” she asked.

  “Anthony,” I said. “Please call me Anthony.”

  “Only if you call me Emily,” she smiled at me. There were those butterflies again. Hadn’t felt like this since the eighth grade when Sara Lowell kissed me behind the bike shed.

  “Universal Studios I think. They’re very interested in keeping any PR difficulties under wraps. They think I’m their man. Max was one of their producers and from what I’m gathering these people lived complicated lives. Let me put it that way.”

  “Mmmm… that’s interesting. I guess when you’re not in that circle things look differently from the outside.”

  “You could say that,” I said. “Seems money doesn’t buy yo
u happiness. Though I’d give it a try.”

  I gave her my best Hollywood smile.

  “I suppose. Although there is something to be said for less complication. More simplicity.”

  I pinched my cheek. She looked at me strangely.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just trying to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

  She laughed and beamed her smile at me. “And I suppose that works well with the ladies does it Anthony?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s an original just for you.”

  She laughed again.

  “Do you have a card?” I asked her. “I’d like a nice candlelit dinner and a moonlit walk on the beach with you later. Or failing that maybe I could pick your brain as to these murders here.”

  She dug into her blue jacket pocket and pulled out a card. She handed it to me and I took a moment to look at it. Dr. Emily Stratham MD it said with a telephone number and something about the Coroner’s Department. I thought maybe I should have some business cards done up. Anthony Carrick BFA. But I’m not sure my Bachelor of Fine Arts would carry much weight as a gumshoe.

  “Wait,” she said and she took the card back from me. She took out a small pen for the inside of her jacket. I couldn’t help but take a peek at her firm breast. She was how God knew everyman wanted a woman. She wrote something else on the back of the card and gave it back to me. I looked at the back of it. She had written her cell number. Her hand was neat and steady. The spacing was even and the numbers crisp. She had the hand of an artist.

  “If you have any questions,” she said. “About the murders.”

  I looked at her steadily in the eye.

  “I think I’ll have many.”