The Golden Cockroach

 

By Chuck Semenuk

The harried secretary rolled her eyes and shook her head as the telephone began ringing again.  It had been ringing off the hook all morning.  She debated answering.

“It’s probably another bill collector.  What can I do?  I haven’t been paid for the last three weeks myself.”

She took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“Krasche and Burne Investigations.  How may I help you?”

The female voice on the other end was sobbing.

“I need help.  May I speak with one of the detectives please?”

“Neither Mr. Krasche nor Mr. Burne are here right now.  They’re both out working on a case,” she lied.  “I do expect them to be in the office within the next hour or so if you’d like to come in.”

The woman sniffled.  “Alright.  Is your address the same as listed in the phone book?”

The secretary answered, “Yes, it is.”   She was really thinking, “If the landlord doesn’t toss us out on the street.”

“I’ll be there in about an hour.”

########

Betsy Jordan had been with the agency since it started a couple of years ago.  The business was not doing badly in the beginning but the last few months had not been good.  With the stock market crash a bad memory, the economy was still not recovering as quickly as the politicians wanted everyone to believe.  The big war was over and large numbers of service men were coming home; there weren’t enough jobs to go around.  Manufacturers had to retool again, from military hardware to domestic goods but people didn’t yet have the money to buy them.  The crime rate had climbed since the crash but private investigators weren’t getting any of that work.  Why pay someone when the police did the work for free?

Jonathan “Jonnie” Krasche couldn’t find work when he returned from the service so he decided to try starting a business on his own.  He saw plenty of action overseas but managed to return home unscathed except for a bad case of athlete’s foot, which was an occupational hazard when in the infantry.  Jonnie was basically a decent Joe but could best be described as a player and a wise-ass.  He always had an eye out for a pretty face and a nice shape which got him in trouble more often than not.  By chance, he ran into his old high school buddy Will when he got home from the service.

Wilbur “Will” Burne hadn’t been as lucky as Jonnie.  Will had taken a couple of bullets in the leg during the landing at Normandy.  After a period of time in an Army hospital, he was sent home with a Purple Heart and a permanent limp.  Work was hard enough to find, let alone for a guy with a bum leg.

With an uncanny knack for problem solving, the two men readily jumped into the idea of an agency offering investigative services.

Betsy did her best to hold everything together.  Girl Friday, big sister, accountant, whatever it took to keep things on an even keel.  Jonnie and Will were like brothers.  Her own brother never came home from the war; he was on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

The Payback

By Chuck Semenuk

 Randy watched in awe as Fire-Rescue arrived and the well trained team began the task of attending to the occupants of a badly wrecked automobile.  The vehicle reminded him of a ball of wrinkled foil, crushed and thrown away.  Randy was startled as he recognized the woman being carefully removed from the carnage.  It was his wife Shirley.

“What was she doing in that car?” he wondered.

While paramedics moved her to a waiting ambulance, the noise from the cutting equipment brought his attention back to the driver.  After much cutting and bending, rescuers were finally able to remove the man from the wreck.  Randy’s jaw dropped as he watched the medics trying to stabilize the man.

“That looks like me!  That’s me!  How can that be?”

Suddenly, visions of the preceding events began the play in front of his eyes.  He was driving down the dark road.  It was raining.  In the darkness it was nearly impossible to see the lane markings and the edges of the road against the shiny black asphalt.  Randy hated driving at night, especially in the rain.

Shirley’s mouth was running non-stop as usual.  Nag, nag, nag.  “Why did I ever marry her?” he thought.

“Slow down.  You’re driving too fast.  I told you not to drink at the party.  You know you shouldn’t drink.  You sure liked it when that young redhead was rubbing her boobs all over you.”

On and on she went.  Finally summing up enough courage, he turned and told her to shut up.

“Lookout you fool!  You’re on the wrong side of the road!”

A Ghost of the Eriehonan

By Chuck Semenuk

John and his grandson Tommy had just finished a great day of fishing and were getting ready to go home.

“Let’s take a little breather before we start the long hike back to the house,” said John.

It was a long walk up the old logging trail and John’s knees weren’t as good as they used to be. Taking a seat on an old log, John took a plastic bag of cookies from his shirt pocket and shared them with Tommy.

“It sure is nice down here, Grandpa. I really like it,” said Tommy.

“Yes, it sure is. It’s one of my favorite places. This river valley and the surrounding woods probably look pretty much the same today as it did when the Indians lived here.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “Gosh, grandpa. Were there really Indians around here?”

“There sure were. Archeologists believe that the first Indians in recorded history living in this area belonged to the Erie tribe. They were called Eriehonan by the Iroquois which lived further east. Eriehonan meant “long tail” which referred to the bob cat or cougar which was very plentiful in this area. Often referred to as the “cat people”, the Eries were fierce warriors and were known to use poison tipped arrows on their enemies. Over time, they fought many battles with the Iroquois, the Huron, and a number of other tribes before they were pretty well scattered and pushed out of the area. There were inhabitants here before the Eriehonan but little is known about them other than that they were ‘mound builders’ and are considered to be ‘pre-historic’.”

“Wow,” said Tommy. “I bet you know a lot of stories about this place, Grandpa.”

“Yep. I can think of a few good ones,” laughed John.

Tommy could hardly control his excitement.

“Tell me one. Please?”

John made himself comfortable by sitting on the ground and resting his back on the log.

“Well, long before you were born, I used to fish this river every chance I got. I got so I knew it like the back of my hand. Every once in a while I thought that I saw an old man in the woods, or sometimes along the river. But then, he would disappear. I used to work with an old guy who knew a lot about this place and one day I told him about the man I thought I saw.

He started to laugh and then told me that I had probably seen the ghost of old Tocho. Tocho was thought to be a descendant of the original Erie tribe that lived in the area. Tocho hunted and fished this river valley back when the area was being settled by the white man. He generally got along quite well with the settlers and developed a love for the fresh apple pies made by one of the local women. His taste for the white man’s apple pie turned out to be his undoing.

One day, he happened to catch the fragrance of a fresh pie cooling on a window sill. Had he knocked on the door and asked for a slice, the woman would have likely given it to him but for some reason, he snatched the whole pie and ran off with it.

Seeing Tocho disappear into the woods with the whole pie, the woman thought she’d teach him a lesson. Pretending to be upset when her husband returned from town, she told him that Tocho had stopped for pie but had gotten fresh with her and she had to fight for her honor. Before she could explain further, her husband grabbed his rifle and ran from the house. By dark, the man and some of his neighbors had tracked down old Tocho and hanged him from a large tree in the woods at the top of this very logging trail. When he returned home, his wife told him that she just made up the story to have some fun with Tocho. She thought they would all have a good laugh. Unfortunately, poor Tocho wasn’t laughing. The next morning, the men cut Tocho down and buried him beneath the old tree.”

“That was terrible, grandpa.”

“Yes, it was. You know, when you tell a lie, even if it’s just a little fib, you never know how someone might be hurt by it.”

“Did you see Tocho’s ghost anymore?”

A Rule Against Love

By Chuck Semenuk

Agency Director Mike Graber looked up from his paperwork as agent Jeff Walker entered the office.

“Jeff, is there any word regarding agent Quatro?”

“Not so much as a whisper, Mike. He’s gone off the radar. Just when we think we have a lead on him, it goes dead. He’s a ghost.”

“That’s not like Andy Quatro. He’s always been a good agent, one of the best.”

“I’ve noticed changes in his behavior recently, Mike. Ever since we re-assigned his partner agent Diez, he’s been secretive about his activities.”

Mike sat back in his chair. “I don’t understand why. He can function fine without her. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into his training. He’s very good at his job, one of our best assassins. He normally shows no emotion and has nerves of steel.”

“Well, even though Doctor Rommel thought he’d purged all memory of her, I think he’s still looking for her.”

“I don’t know. We’ve got to get him to come in,” said Mike. “Keep me updated. If he’s going rogue on us, we can’t have an out-of-control agent running around loose. He can cause us a lot of problems.”

######

Andy Quatro sat looking out the window of his seedy hotel room. He could hear the garbled voices of the couple in the next room through the thin dirty walls. He anxiously searched the faces of passers-by, hoping for a glimpse of his partner’s beautiful face.

Alexis Diez had been his partner since she started with the agency. They worked on many assignments together and he would trust her with his life. It was frowned upon by the agency but he was starting to fall in love with her. One day out of the blue, Director Graber told him that she had been re-assigned. He would not tell Andy why or where. Andy utilized every resource he had to find her but she had vanished.

Andy’s head began to throb again. He never had that problem before. Ever since that bastard Doctor Rommel at the agency messed with his mind, the headaches started and they seemed to be getting worse.

“Rommel knows where she is,” thought Andy. “I don’t trust him. I can’t trust anyone at the agency. Especially Director Graber.”

The throbbing in his head finally subsiding, Andy strapped on his shoulder holster and fastened his backup weapon to his ankle. He had to get to Doctor Rommel but trying to see him at the agency would be an unnecessary risk. Reaching the street, he hailed a taxi.

“I’ll get Doctor Rommel to talk,” thought Andy. He smiled grimly. “If there’s one thing the agency taught me, it’s how to make someone talk.”

He had the taxi driver drop him off a couple of blocks from Doctor Rommel’s apartment and proceeded on foot. His instincts were sharp as he sensed that something was wrong. He laughed to himself as he noticed movement in a car parked near the Doctor’s apartment. Apparently the agency was trying to second guess him. In the darkness, he recognized the features of a fellow agent. In a doorway across the street, he detected another agent.

“I guess my thoughts about Doctor Rommel were right. They don’t want me to get to him.”

He was sure that there was probably another agent or two in one of the darkened windows across the street. A delivery truck began making a turn into an alley next to the building. Using the truck as a shield, he quickly slipped into the alley alongside of it. Satisfied that there were no agency “eyes,” he found an unlocked maintenance door at the rear of the apartment building. Staying in the darkened stairwell, Andy made his way up to Doctor Rommel’s apartment. Reaching the back door which lead to the apartment’s kitchen, he quietly tried the door. It was not locked and it was apparent that the security chain had not been fastened.

“This is too easy,” thought Andy. “They’re setting me up.”

He thought for a moment, and then decided to go in anyway, locking the door behind him and fastening the security chain. Moving quietly through the kitchen to the living room door, he could see the back of Doctor Rommel’s head as he sat in his large easy chair watching TV. He drew his gun and walked around the chair. He was startled as Agent Jeff Walker looked up at him and smiled.

“Hi, Andy. It’s about time you got here. We thought you’d try to get to Rommel.”

“Where is he?”

“Nowhere that you can get to him. This place will be crawling with agents in a minute or two.”

Andy pointed the gun at Jeff’s head. “Looks as if I don’t have anything to lose; I should just blow you away and take my chances shooting it out with your friends.”

“It doesn’t have to end like this, Andy. Let me take you in. We can fix this. Director Graber doesn’t want to lose you. You’re too valuable to the agency.”

Andy laughed. “Sure. I let you take me in and I’ll just disappear like agent Diez did.”

“She’s fine, Andy. As a matter of fact, Director Graber is considering teaming the two of you up again.”

“Are you sure?”

Jeff pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Andy. “Here’s a phone number where you can contact her. She can confirm what I just told you.”

Andy stared at the piece of paper. “I’d like to believe this but I have trouble trusting the agency and its people.”

“Before you do something we’ll all regret, why don’t you get out of here and talk to her first?”

Suddenly, the kitchen door slammed against the security chain as agents in the hall tried to enter.

Jeff motioned toward a window. “Quick, take the fire escape to the roof.”

Andy bolted for the window and climbed to the roof. Once on the roof, he jumped a narrow gap to an adjacent building and went quickly down a fire escape. Andy took a number of round-about routes back to his hotel. Satisfied that he hadn’t been followed, he went up to his room and locked the door.

Andy looked at the piece of paper that Jeff had given him and thought about the recent events. Was the director really going to assign Alexis as his partner again? Why did Jeff let him escape through the window? With agents all around, he wondered why there was no one covering the fire escape and roof. How could he trust anyone?

Escape from Janda

By Chuck Semenuk

Lieutenant Pharque struggled to the surface of the foul smelling swamp and tried to get his bearings. He didn’t remember much about the crash of the Light Ship; everything was a blur. Suddenly Ensign Bork clawed his way through the debris filled lake.

“Bork, have you seen any of our crew?”

“I’ve seen a few over in that direction. There seems to be an undercurrent moving that way,” said Bork.

Pharque cleared some debris away. “There must be an outlet. Let’s try to gather as many of our crew as we can and follow the current out of this hell hole.”

The swamp narrowed considerably at the outlet and the current increased. Lieutenant Pharque gathered the remnants of his crew and led them into the fast-moving current. After what seemed an eternity, the current began to slow as the rotten smelling debris began to bunch up and obstruct the flow.

Bork was beginning to panic. “I don’t think we’re going to make it out of here, Lieutenant! I don’t want to die here!”

Pharque slapped him. “Get it together man. You’re going to panic the whole crew. We’ll get out of here. Trust me.”

Pushing clogs of debris out of the way, the hapless crew soldiered onward.

Suddenly, Bork called out “Lieutenant, I think I see an outlet up ahead.”

“By God, you’re right. I told you we’d make it out of here. Come on, men. Follow me. This place is history!”

Bursting through the outlet into the fresh air, they screamed with joy at the top of their lungs.

“Dude! That was gross!”

“Janda, you are one rank SOB.”

“Sorry, guys but it felt so good.”

“Okay, half time. Who wants more beer and munchies?”

“Sounds good but dude, lay off the deviled eggs!”

“Okay. I think the wife has some nachos ready.”


To be published in the Oct./Nov./Dec., 2011 Fall issue of ThBracelet Charm magazine.

An Affair of the Heart

By Chuck Semenuk

Harper Rains was walking past the dispatcher’s desk when the call came in.

“Dispatch, this is Sloan County Sheriff’s K9 unit S3, over.”

“S3, this is dispatch, over.”

“Dispatch, I am located on county road 12, about two and a half miles off state highway 7. I need a CSI team at this location, over.”

The dispatcher looked up at Harper. “Harp, do you want to take this?”

Harper sat down at the desk and pulled the microphone toward him.

“Deputy, this is Lieutenant Rains of the CSI unit. What’s going on? Over.”

“Hi, Harp. This is Jerry Faber. I found an abandoned car off the side of the road on county 12. During my investigation, my K9 picked up a scent. He led me to a body, white male, about sixty years of age, approximately 100 yards into the brush. No identification, no obvious injuries, over.”

“Sit tight, Jerry. We’re on our way, over.”

######

Harper Rains and his team arrived at the site within a half hour and began processing the scene. Deputy Faber detailed his activity from the moment he arrived.

“While on patrol, I noticed this car; it had been pulled fairly far off the road. The doors were locked and I did not see any keys inside or on the ground in the immediate area.”

“I let my K9 have a go at it and he led me to the body, about 100 yards in.”

Medical Examiner Carl Tweed had begun his preliminary examination of the body as Harper made his way through the brush.

He squatted down and looked at the body. “What can you tell me so far, Carl?”

“I’d say that our deceased friend has been dead for about two days. I see no obvious wounds. Certainly, I see nothing to indicate the cause of his demise at this point. We’ll know more when we get him to the lab.”

Harper took particular notice of the way the man was dressed.

“Sweat pants and sneakers, with a dress shirt. That’s kind of a strange outfit for an older gent.”

Carl touched the collar of the man’s shirt. “Harp, the buttons on his shirt are skewed, one button off. Do you think someone else may have put his shirt on post mortem?”

Harper scratched his head. “That’s interesting. Let’s get him to the lab, Carl.”

Harper walked back to the abandoned car where two of his investigators were processing it.

“Tell me you have some good news, Will.”

Will Dagget turned toward him. “Harp, this car is as clean as a whistle. Someone took extra care in wiping it down. There isn’t a smudge anywhere. They locked it up when they left and took the keys with them. I did find a couple of grey hairs in the trunk. The car appears to be a rental. We’re still trying to find out who may have been driving. Hopefully, we’ll find out more at the lab.”

“I hope so. Okay, load it up.”