My office was ransacked. I had a feeling it was Trent’s cronies leaving a message for me. They broke in through the window in the door. The window that used to say Tartar Dodgely, Private Investigator now only said Gator.
My desk was turned over and all of the chairs were lying on their sides. The couch was pushed away from the wall and my flask was gone from the wall cabinet. What bothered me most was that whoever had done it had stolen my only bottle of aspirin, and with my splitting headache, that was all I really cared about. Who steals a bottle of aspirin? Animals.
[SFX: Picking up phone receiver and dialing, in phone ringing, click of someone answering.]
Clarice’s Mom: "Hello?"
Dodgely: "Hello, is this Clarice?"
Clarice’s Mom: "No, this is her mother, who is this?"
Dodgely: "My name is Officer Troy, ma’am. Can you put Clarice on the phone?"
Clarice’s Mom: "Are you a police officer?"
Dodgely: "Yes, ma’am. I really need to speak with Clarice."
Clarice’s Mom: "Hold your horses, young man. There’s no reason to get pushy. Clarice! There’s a man on the telephone… He says he’s with the police department… How should I know?… Is she in trouble?"
Dodgely: "No ma’am. This has to do with Kathina Trent."
Clarice’s Mom: "He wants to talk to you about Kathina… She says she already talked to the police."
Dodgely: "Ma’am, I need you to put your daughter on the phone."
Clarice’s Mom: "Don’t get your panties in a wad, mister, she’s on her way; and I’d thank you for not calling me on my own telephone, in my own house, and being rude to me. Do you understand that?… You hold on just a second, Clarice. Do you understand that?"
Dodgely: "Yes, ma’am."
Clarice Mom: "Okay."
Clarice: "Hello?"
Dodgely: "Clarice?"
Clarice: "Yes, sir."
Dodgely: "Hello, Clarice. My name is Officer Troy. Do remember the name of the officer you spoke with the other day?"
Clarice: "Yes, sir, Officer Sanders."
Dodgely: "That’s right, Officer Sanders. Well, you see, Clarice, Officer Sanders has been transferred, and I’m taking over his case. I’ve read your statement, and I just want to go back over it with you, if that’s okay."
Clarice: "Oh, sure."
Dodgely: "How did you know Mrs. Trent, Clarice?"
Clarice: "Well, we’ve been friends since grade school, Officer Troy."
Dodgely: "I see, and when was the last time you saw her?"
Clarice: "It was a week ago today, Officer. She dropped by my apartment for lunch."
Dodgely: "Did she say anything that sounded at all odd?"
Clarice: "No, sir. She seemed just fine."
Dodgely: "Did she ever mention her insurance policy to you?"
(Pause.)
Dodgely: "Clarice?"
Clarice: "I’m sorry. I just never heard anyone but her say anything about that."
Dodgely: "Did she tell you about it?"
Clarice: "Is it true?"
Dodgely: "What did she tell you?"
Clarice: "She told me that years ago she and her Marcus took out life insurance policies, because you never know what might happen. She said they were for a million apiece. And then, about three weeks ago she told me that she’d found something odd. She’d found the policies and that hers wasn’t for a million, it was for five million. She thought it was strange and wanted to know what I thought."
Dodgely: "What did you tell her?"
Clarice: "I thought maybe she misread the policy, but she was sure. She said she saw both policies, hers was for five million and his was for one hundred thousand."
Dodgely: "Where did she find them?"
Clarice: "Oh, in his desk drawer. She said he keeps everything that’s important in his desk drawer."
I got off the phone with Clarice and dialed Kathina’s mother. No answer. I didn’t have time to wait. I grabbed my overcoat and hat, rode the elevator down and hailed a cab. I told the cabbie to take me to Washington Street. Washington Street was two streets up from Denbury Avenue, the street Marcus Trent’s mansion was on. This time it only cost a dollar.
[SFX: Door opens and closes]
The rain started when the sun went down. It was that time of year, April showers.
I found an alleyway and an awning and hunkered down until midnight. This part of town gets pretty quiet at midnight. Anyone out that late in this type of neighborhood could count on getting shaken down by the police. That was the last thing I needed. I’d have to be extra careful.
I made it to Denbury untouched. At about the halfway mark, I spotted a squad car parked outside of a cafe with the lights off. It was probably empty but I moved quietly to the end of the block before crossing the street just to be on the safe side.
The gate was lit up like a chinese whore house. Five light posts stood, bracketing the entrance and flooding the entire area with light. This guy, Trent, was paranoid in a bad way. The guard, I couldn’t make out if it was Denny, was sitting in the guard shack, his silhouette visible in spite of the darkness inside the shack. Through the fence I could see the house and the guard house on top of it. It was there to give the guard a good look at the perimeter, and the guard up there probably had a nice set of binoculars.
Luckily for me it was dark and raining.
I walked up my side of the street, keeping myself pressed as close to the shop fronts as possible. At the corner, I pulled my belt loose from my trousers and used it to shimmy up the pole. At the top I buckled the belt, looped my arm through it and cut the telephone line leading into Trent’s house with my pocket knife. The cable fell quietly into the street below. Next, I slid down the pole, drew my pistol, aimed it up at the transformer feeding Trent’s house and put a hole in it.
[SFX: Gunshot and then explosion]
The transformer went up admirably in a shower of blue and orange sparks as I crossed up to the other end of the block. The power to the house went out completely. The entrance gate was utterly black.
I crossed the street and edged my way up the fence. The guard was standing just outside of his hut, pistol drawn and looking around. I squeezed silently up behind the shack walked around the back of it and clubbed him at the base of his skull.
[SFX: Thud and body falling.]
Somebody besides me was going to wake up with headache for once. I dragged his limp form into the shadow behind his shack and used the little building as a brace to get up over the steel fence. It’s nice when things work together like that.
I was over it in two shakes and racing up the now pitch black drive way to the house. The phone line was cut and the power was out. With the storm, that would buy me about 15 minutes.
I circled the house until I was under the study windows and used a gutter drain to pull myself up the wall. The rain nearly contributed to my early demise more than once.
I knocked out one of the center panes, unlocked the window, and poured through onto the plush green carpet. The study was empty.
Trent’s desk was a testament to American craftsmanship. It was enormous and immobile. Every drawer slid freely and with no catches. Every drawer except the bottom left one that is. It had a small keyhole set high up on the right side of its face. I snatched up a letter opener from Trent’s desk, jammed it into the keyhole and jerked up and down once. The catch on the lock clicked out of place and the drawer slide open.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and locks only keep honest men honest.
I found what I was looking for pretty quickly. It was in a folder at the bottom of the drawer. Photographs of Kathina. She was lying dead in a pool of her own blood with a bullet hole in her forehead. She was wearing the dress she had worn into my office that day. There she was and here I was. Why hadn’t I listened?
I slid the folder back into place and jammed the drawer back into the locked position. I knew the evidence was here, now I needed the police to know. And, I needed them to find out before Trent got wise about the break in.
As I slid down the drain I decided to give Phil Farley’s bodyguard a visit.
Continue Scene 6
