A Solitary Evening Read online

  A solitary evening

  Private Detective Kaiser Wrench is on the prowl for international spies, on the lookout for military secrets, and on the make with a treacherous society mink too tempting for her own good..

  A Solitary

  Evening

  A Poached Parody

  P.C. HATTER

  Also known as Stacy Bender

  Byrnas Books

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Solitary Evening

  Copyright © 2020 by Stacy Bender

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Cover design by Elizabeth Mackey

  Art by Sara “Caribou” Miles

  CHAPTER 1

  On cold misty nights like this, no one ever walked the bridge. Not only did the damp soak into your fur and numbed you to the bone, but visibility was near zero. Manhattan’s bright lights were no more than dim yellow specks in the distance.

  I’d left my car in Manhattan, choosing to walk aimlessly and ended up on the bridge. All because of a judge. One old crow of a judge with a voice like an avenging angel. He looked at me with loathing. To him, I was nothing more than a killer. A rabid beast someone needed to put down.

  It didn’t matter that I put down someone who needed to be put down. This tiger was the private detective with a license to carry a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it. That didn’t matter to the judge. If he could have, the crow would have had me put down. Since he couldn’t, he gave me a good ripping from his seat on the bench that rivaled a hell and brimstone preacher from his pulpit.

  Was he right? Did I get a taste for killing during the war and like it? Was I no better than the slime that covered the streets? The crowd in the courtroom seemed to agree with the judge.

  Only a few people had sympathy for me. Duke Barrow gave me a quick wave and nodded to let me know things were okay, that we were still friends. But I figured there were things the judge said the German shepherd agreed with.

  One of the reporters, a cynic who’d been around long enough to wise up to the darkness of the world, gave me a smile and sneered at the judge.

  Then there was Velvet. Beautiful Velvet Black. She’d been right under my nose for years before I’d realized what I had. When the old crow finished his speech, Velvet wasn’t about to leave the courtroom without ruffling his feathers. The lynx glared at the judge, showing her teeth. “Come on Kaiser, let’s leave. People with tiny minds are an irritation to the backside of anyone with half a brain.”

  Velvet always had my back and could read me like a book. We left the courtroom, and I drove her back to her apartment. In the car, she tried kissing the memory of the trial away before saying, “Everything will be fine. Go get good and drunk. Call me anytime, and I’ll come pick you up.”

  Only I didn’t get drunk. After driving aimlessly, I got out of the car and walked without a destination in the darkness. The words of the judge still nagged at me. A big, ugly tiger with an even uglier reputation who had no place in a civilized society and no reason to exist.

  Through six cigarettes, I’d stood on the bridge. The cold mist turned to fine snow. Slowly it covered my coat and coated the girders. The tension of the day seeped away.

  The wind made the snow swirl around, and a foghorn sounded in the distance. Something else broke the silence of the night. Something that shouldn’t have been there.

  Muted by the snow, I could still hear the sound of footsteps, hurried, yet stumbling. A shadowy figure fell to the walkway. It pulled itself up using the support girder and rushed on. As it came closer, I could tell it was a female antelope in a dark woolen coat. Tears ran down her frightened face and froze to her fur. She fell again.

  I flicked my cigarette into the water and ran toward her. When I tried helping her up, she cried out, “No… please.”

  “Easy, lady. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Only then did she let me help her stand, and I propped her up next to one of the girders for support. A noise from down the ramp had her ears plastered to her head and terrified eyes staring back down the ramp. Whoever chased her wasn’t in a hurry, their gait slow and steady.

  Anger had the fur on my back raised. Someone had the doe scared witless. She was too weak to do anything other than tears. I put my arm around her shoulders and guided her toward her pursuer. “Come on. I’ll take care of this.”

  The sable came out from behind the curtain of snow with only a mild show of surprise to see two of us. Both of his hands were in his pockets, but I could still tell he carried a gun. It was pointed at me, and the sable wanted me to know it.

  The doe’s body stiffened under my grasp, and the sable smiled. “Not a good night for heroes. The hero will die, same as she.”

  He was too cocky and mistook me for some average joe. I didn’t give him a chance to correct his mistake. The .45 was out of my shoulder holster, in my hand, and the trigger pulled before I could think. The bullet made a nice wide hole in his head.

  The doe screamed and kept screaming as she lurched away from me toward the railing. Her eyes darted from the crumpled heap in the snow to my face, and she didn’t like what she saw. “You’re one of them.”

  An instant too late did I realize what she was going to do, and I made a grab for her. My claws sunk into her coat, but the fabric gave way as she bound over the railing and fell into the dark swirl below the bridge.

  “Damn it. You were safe.”

  I shouted down at the three hundred foot drop into the icy waters of the river. The doe didn’t have to die, but she couldn’t hear me. No one heard me.

  Shaking, I turned away from the railing and kicked the corpse. “Damn you.”

  The thought of standing in front of that judge again had me holstering my gun and stuffing the tattered remains of the antelope’s coat in my pocket. I bent over the carcass and turned out his pockets, their contents going into my own. The clothes labels and laundry mark I ripped out before rubbing his hands on a patch of cleared cement to remove the fingerprints. When I was done, I heaved the body over the rail and heard the faint splash as it hit the icy waters.

  The torn labels I let fall into the water along with his gun. As for my own bullet. The slug had passed right through his head and was now lost somewhere in the night.

  My footsteps were the only sound in the darkness as I headed back down the ramp. Up ahead, a police car, its siren blaring, drove past the pay station and onto the bridge. I wasn’t worried. Not one car had driven across the bridge since the time I’d spotted the antelope. No one had seen us. No one had seen anything.

  CHAPTER 2

  I didn’t touch a drop of liquor that night, nor did I go home. I ended up back at my office and cleaned my gun, replacing the spent cartridge. How many it had sent to meet their maker I’d not counted, but it was more than just a few.

  With the gun re-holstered, I fell into a restless sleep in my chair to dream of crows demanding judgment from a faceless jury.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock had me awake. Velvet didn’t realize I was there until she walked into my office with the morning mail. Not used to seeing me in the place so early, she paused and smiled. “This is a surprise. Are you planning on changing your habits and coming to work early?”

  “I’ve been here all night.”

  Velvet sniffed the air. “I don’t smell any alcohol.”

  “Didn’t get drunk.”

  “Okay, now I’m worried.”

  “Maybe you should be. What kind of tiger am I?”

  “A good one.” Velvet put her h
ands on her hips, and her eyes blazed. “That judge is a simple minded fowl. You do a lot of good in this city.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Velvet’s eyes softened. She stepped close and ran her fingers through my fur. “Of course, I’m sure. I couldn’t love you as much as I do otherwise. Duke knows you’re a good cop and is always on your side. That German shepherd wouldn’t think of bending a rule for anyone else but you. Even the mugs on the street know your worth.”

  She followed her words up with a kiss that was soft and sweet. When she broke away, she said, “Forget the judge.”

  With a growl in response, I asked for the paper.

  “It’s on my desk.”

  A tabloid along with a full sized newspaper sat on her desk. The tabloid had my picture with a brief column about the trial, whereas the newspaper didn’t have a picture but a longer column. Not wanting to bother with either article, I searched both for any hint of the night before. Neither paper said a peep.

  “Are you looking for something?” asked Velvet.

  “Just clients.”

  “Have you looked in the letter file?”

  “How are we set? Maybe I’ll take a vacation.”

  That raised one of Velvet’s eyebrows, but she said, “We’re good. There’s money in the bank and no bills to pay.”

  “You could take a vacation too.”

  Velvet pushed me back from the desk, stared straight into my eyes, and grabbed the cigarette I was smoking out of my mouth. After a few puffs she said, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

  “You might not believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “I need to find out who I am.”

  Her ear twitched, sending the tuff on the end flapping. “Okay. I’ll be here for you if you need me.” She handed me back my cigarette and sat at her desk. Velvet knew she could talk herself breathless or let me figure it out on my own. The lynx picked her battles well.

  I walked back to my desk and emptied out my pockets. Keys, wallet, change, everything looked normal, but nothing pointed to who the sable was. The wallet was old and held no identification. The cloth I’d ripped from the antelope’s coat fared no better. While the shreds that I held had a pocket, the only thing inside was a pack of cigarettes.

  What had she seen in my face that scared her enough to make her jump? Frustration had me crushing the pack into a mass of paper, cellophane, tinfoil, and tobacco. My claws punctured the pack and when I opened my fist, the green of a card peeked out at me.

  Curious, I pulled it from the crumpled mess. The size of a business card the thing was blank with notched cuts in it at odd angles. The sable’s wallet also held a green card. I pulled it out and matched it to the antelopes. They were identical.

  Grabbing my coat, I stuffed the cards in my pocket. I needed answers, and there was one person I knew who could give me them.

  The drive to the police station where Homicide Detective Duke Barrow had his office wasn’t bad. I pulled up to the curb behind a car with a sticker on it, identifying the car as belonging to the D.A. and waited. After a second cigarette, I decided to go into the building even if that meant bumping into the peacock.

  I should have smoked a third. No sooner was my hand on the door than the cock barreled through. One look at me and every feather on his body went haywire. Being the public ass kisser he was, the peacock quickly smoothed out his feathers and said, “Good morning,” and strode to his car. I returned the greeting with a wide grin. The grin stayed put well after the peacock drove off.

  Satisfied that I could still ruffle the guys feathers, I walked into the building and took the elevator up to Duke’s floor.

  Duke took one look at me as I walked into his office and asked, “Did you…”

  “I just told him to have a nice day. He was coming out as I was going in.”

  “Would you stop aggravating him? The guy might only be an elected official, but he can still be a pain in my backside. You roasted his rear not too long ago, and he’s not going to forget it. You slip up, and he’ll be ordering me to use a horsewhip on you.”

  “That would be embarrassing.”

  “Just a bit.” Duke smiled and chuckled. “What are you up too?”

  “Not much. How’s things on your end? Anything new in the docket?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even a suicide?”

  Duke frowned and asked, “Are you looking for work? Business isn’t that bad is it?”

  “No, I’m on vacation.”

  He didn’t say a word, but the frown stayed on his face as his ears lowered.

  “Since everything’s quiet, do you want to join me? It could be fun.”

  The frown disappeared and his tail wagged. “Wish I could. Everything might be quiet, but there’s always loose ends and paperwork to catch up on.”

  “Too bad. Oh, by the way, do you have any idea what these are?” I pulled one of the green cards out of my pocket and dropped them on Duke’s desk.

  Every strand of fur on his body poofed out as his ears when back. With clenched teeth, Duke rose from his desk and locked the office door. When he was back in his seat, he asked, “Where did you get them?”

  “Found them.”

  Duke’s words came out slow and punctuated. “Where… did… you… get… them?”

  “Like I said, I found them.”

  “If it was anybody but you. Damn it Kaiser, just tell me where you found them.”

  “I shot a sable and took one off his carcass.”

  “Stop being a wise ass.”

  “Listen, Duke, what is so important about those cards, that you have to lock your office door and give me the third degree?”

  Duke rubbed his snout and took a deep breath. “I guess the things could get lost. There’s enough of them in circulation. They’re Communist Identification cards. Those notches are to keep spies out of their ranks. Every once in a while they change the pattern, and if yours doesn’t match up, you get ousted. Usually, not before you get roughed up. The Nazi groups in this country used to have similar cards. Red, I think.”

  “Kind of like a lodge, but without the funny handshakes. So, what’s with the locked door?”

  “Like I said, if it was anyone else but you, I wouldn’t think twice. But since it is you, and I know that trouble goes out of its way to find you, I locked the door. Now spill, before the bodies start piling up.”

  “Just like I said, I found them. Didn’t know what they were, so I came to see you.” I grabbed my hat, planted it on my head, and got up. “Guess I’ll go on that vacation now.”

  “Kaiser.”

  “Yes?”

  “A serval was killed three days ago with one of these in his hand.”

  “Oh really?” I unlocked the door but kept my hand on the knob.

  “We know who did it.”

  “Do I know them?”

  “Yes, along with everyone else in the state. Douglas Hopper is running for State Senator.”

  I gave a low whistle. Douglas Hopper was a white rabbit along with the people’s choice. He was supposed to be a shoe in to win. “So why haven’t I heard about him being arrested?”

  “Because we’ve been keeping quiet. Douglas Hopper didn’t do it.”

  “Now, you’re talking in riddles. That’s not like you, Duke. Which is it? Did Hopper kill the guy or not?”

  “Three witnesses identified the rabbit right down to his pink little nose. The problem is, Douglas Hopper was a mile away at a fund raiser, talking to a bunch of prominent citizens. One of them being yours truly.”

  That got my attention.

  “The D.A. is in a foul mood over the whole thing, and it’s put everyone on edge. There’s only four ways this situation can add up.”

  I counted them off on my fingers. “One: twins. Two: another rabbit disguised as Hopper. Three: a mistimed frame-up with paid witnesses. Four: Douglas Hopper really did bump the serval off. Which is it?”
<
br />   “Good question.” Duke’s ears drooped.

  “Well, good luck. I’m off to have fun in the sun. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “You can tell me where you got that card.”

  “Like I said. I killed a sable and took it off his carcass.” I was out the door, and in the elevator before I heard Duke start barking my name.

  I didn’t stop walking until I was down the street and using a payphone at the corner hash house. The switchboard operator at the newspaper couldn’t put me through to Ellis Calen on account of the squirrel was going to lunch. I told her to tell him that if he wanted a free meal to meet me in the lobby. That said, I hung up and made my way down the street. Figuring that Calen wouldn’t ditch a free meal, I didn’t rush.

  Ellis was in the newspaper lobby drooling over two queen cats, a vixen, and a sow. The sow held the majority of his attention, and I couldn’t blame him. The red squirrel was built. She was also waiting for someone who turned out to be the city editor.

  “Nuts.” Ellis’ tail flipped all around in aggravation. “A political reporter doesn’t stand a chance against that.”

  “You know you could just walk up to a female and ask them out.”

  “And have them say no? That would be embarrassing.”

  Ellis marched to the door, and as we passed the vixen, she gave me a wink.

  I winked back.

  Ellis was so put out his tail kept whipping around like a reed in a hurricane until we got to the bar. Once we were seated and our orders taken, Ellis pulled out a cigarette and pointed it at me. “So, what gives?”

  “Do you know a lot about politics?”

  “More than I want to. Why?”

  “Douglas Hopper?”

  “Who wants to know?” Ellis’ tail went rigid, and he reached for the pencil behind his ear.

  “Me, but it’s nothing good for a story. I don’t do politics, so I’m asking you. Tell me about him.”

  “The guy’s squeaky clean and everybody but his opponents like him. Since he’s never been mixed up in politics, that’s probably why. The rabbit’s independently wealthy, so they can’t bribe him.”