The Drunk Detective Read online

  The Drunk Detective: A Dotty Davis Comedy Suspense

  Mary Jean Curry

  Published by Prodigy Gold Books, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE DRUNK DETECTIVE: A DOTTY DAVIS COMEDY SUSPENSE

  First edition. June 5, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Mary Jean Curry.

  ISBN: 978-1939665171

  Written by Mary Jean Curry.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

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  Further Reading: A Butler Summer

  About the Publisher

  For Ben Matlock, Sherlock Holmes, and every other dick out there.

  1

  Refer to her as Dotty.

  Better yet, don’t refer to her for any reason. Definitely if it’s not about money. Calling her before noon, despite her profession, was also out of the question. If one did she’s undoubtedly going to answer on the fourth ring and say something like: “I don’t know you and your call may be important, but at this time it’s not. Please, do the police a favor, hang up right now, or I will hunt you down and drain your car’s brake fluid.”

  The caller sighed. “Too bad I don’t own a car.”

  “Then, I’ll do something of remarkable relevance to you in the eyes of a coroner.”

  “Look, is this, Dotty?”

  The voice was low and seductive, one made for late night radio. Quite smooth. The last thing she wanted to hear was some catty woman at this hour. “Who the hell is calling?”

  “Frankie, ma’am.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Frankie Robinson. I live in the apartment right below you, for crying out loud. We speak every day.”

  “The male stripper? Sometimes gigolo?”

  “Um, Dotty, you live over a Chinese owned massage parlor known to give happy endings. What do you expect for a neighbor, a damn neurosurgeon?”

  Dotty sat up in her twin-sized bed and ran a hand through her elephant-colored hair. Her hair was coarse and dry. She fished around her nightstand and found a Mickey Mouse watch. She angled it to see its face using the light making its way into her bedroom from the massage parlor’s outside signage. She sat the watch down and whined into the receiver, “It’s three-thirty a-damn-m.”

  “Gee, all of my clocks stopped, so I called you for the time. Thanks. Look, you’re some kind of detective lady, correct?”

  “Not at this time of the morning.”

  “I’ll give you five-hundred bucks to come down to my apartment right now.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Shouldn’t I be offering you money?”

  “What the fuck, Dotty. Can you come down or not? You ain’t the only detective with breasts in town. I only called you because you could get here the quickest.”

  “What’s your problem? You have to have one.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do have a dead nun in my bed. And Dotty that is a huge fuckin’ problem.”

  WHEN THE HE-BITCH REPEATED himself, she said that she was heading right down, and hung up. She sat there and ran her tongue across her front teeth. They felt like they were covered in dust. When she threw back her blanket, a round brandy bottle popped into the air. She tried catching it, realized it was empty, and let it drop to the floor. She slipped on tattered slippers and ambled to a cluttered bathroom, which wasn’t going to change. She plopped on the toilet while engaged in her morning routine, asking herself:

  “What’s your name? Dorothy Davis.”

  “And where do you live? I don’t freakin’ know.”

  “Where did you drink last night? Oh, come on.”

  One out of three wasn’t bad. Hell, that was better than usual.

  Back in the bedroom she fell onto the bed and pulled her hair into a sloppy ponytail and after scanning the floor she found a pair of jeans. These she slipped over pink cotton pajamas, which peeked out at the bottom of her pant legs. She slid on Christmas themed argyle socks and pushed them into penny loafers with dimes in them. It was February so she tugged on a puffy jacket, grunting with the effort. She was fifty-six, overweight, strong as a bull. She looked for her semi-automatic simply because it was 3:30 a.m. in downtown Philadelphia, but she was wasting her time; she hadn’t seen it in weeks. She forgot about it and headed out. The hallway smelled of incense, condoms and collard greens.

  Frankie Robinson’s buzzer actually worked. None of the other tenants did and the landlord didn’t care one iota. The door creaked open. Frankie’s head was just below the top of the door frame. He was shirtless in red boxer briefs and neat dreadlocks rested on his shoulders.

  “You look ridiculous,” he said.

  “I’m running on three hours sleep. I see why the ladies love you, though. Where’s my five hundred?”

  “Don’t you want to see the body first?”

  “Hell no. Do I look like a lesbian?”

  “Don’t make me answer that.” They stepped away from the doorway and he removed a painting from the wall revealing a safe. He opened it, pulled out some cash and pushed five hundred into Dotty’s palm. He put the rest back, locked the safe and replaced the painting.

  “I thought you kept your money in the nightstand where the broads leave it for you after sordid sex.” She scanned the bills and then pocketed them.

  “Funny. Mine is hidden for creeps like you that think they know everything.”

  He locked the front door and led her through a cramped living room styled by an IKEA rep into a tiny bedroom containing a queen-sized waterbed that took up ninety-percent of the room. The other ten was occupied by Sister Anne Tudor, principal of Our Lady of Rosary, the Catholic school that prepared her daughter for college.

  For the first time, she saw the sister’s curves sans her religious habits. Mother Superior’s face was rosy and her mouth was curved into a smile. She died happy thanks to Frankie.

  Dotty fished into her jacket pocket for a toothpick and stuck it into her mouth. She twirled it around and was beginning to feel better already.

  “She a constant client?”

  “Loose lips, sinks my future. I don’t kiss and report it. I thought that she was breathing heavy, you know. Then, she wasn’t at all.”

  “Welp, she’s deader’n Mother Theresa.”

  “Once again, thank you. I thought she was mimicking a fucking BMW.”

  “At least she’s no lesbo.” She tossed a hand on her lips. “Let me guess, you have no idea where I was at last night do you?”

  He furrowed his brow and slapped a hand on her shoulder. “You wouldn’t be up if you had been here, Dotty. I assure you that.”

  “I’ll recall soon enough. What do you actually want me to do?”

  “Get her the hell out of here, what else? Cops find a nun’s body here, I’ll lose my nicely set up tax-free enterprise.”

  “Five more hundred.”

  “Get the fuck outta here. I just gave you five bills.”

  “So. That was to show my pretty face. You’re lucky I don’t charge by the pound. Look at those hips and that gut. Geesh.�
�

  “You look the hell at it. She’s on her back because she liked it missionary. I had to climb on all that.”

  “And you call this a nice enterprise. You’re shitten me. What’s five more hundred? You don’t even flash your beef for that.”

  “You’re a real comedian.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  He walked out of the room and came back with five more hundred. She didn’t count the money this time. “You need to leave for a while,” she said. “Come back when the sun breaks with breakfast for two.”

  “Where the hell am I going this late?”

  “Pick a bed. Any bed. Give yours a break for a change. Go to a cocaine club. What am I a vacation planner? Use your brain for something besides giving brain.”

  “Son of a bitch.” He ran his thumbs in the waist of his boxer briefs about to remove them, stopped. “You just going to stare at me? I only wore these for the sister.”

  “Is there a problem? Oh, payment. I’m broke.”

  “Get the hell out, lady.”

  “You should have told the nun that, before she died under you.”

  She got the hell out, slamming the bedroom door shut. In the living room, still working the toothpick, she drifted to the painting and removed it from the wall. The safe was locked. Frankie in white boxers and a tank top, came out of the bedroom carrying a gun, put the painting back on the wall and said, “I will kill you ‘bout my money, Dotty.” She admired his backside as he walked back into the bedroom.

  Ten minutes later, he emerged wearing jeans and a sweater that clung to his muscles. He was a dark-skinned man, under thirty with boyish looks that convinced him to tell clients that he was nineteen. Cougars liked him young. He had a special trick that he did with his goatee that they liked also. Something about the way he handled himself made her wish she was a MILF.

  “So where to?”

  “A client’s house. Gotta make my thousand bucks back by sunrise to be able to afford to bring you breakfast.” He stopped at the front door. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “Don’t ask. You didn’t want to tell me your dealings with her. So I’m not telling mine.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  When he had gone, she helped herself to a bottled Corona beer from the fridge in the kitchen. She drank another while looking up a number on her cell phone, as she headed back to the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed while waiting for someone to answer her call. She tapped the bed. “So, Sister. He worth the money?”

  “You better believe it, honey.”

  Dotty spit out the toothpick, as the phone continued to ring. She cleared her throat. “Is this Our Lady of the Rosary parish?”

  “Yes, this is Bishop Sinclair. It’s four, you know?”

  “Thank you. The name’s Dorothy Davis. I’m a private dick, I mean, detective. I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “I’m also sorry to inform you that Sister Tudor is dead.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The irritation left his voice. “How? What happened?”

  “I’m not a doctor. But I think it’s heart-related.”

  “Virgin Mary Mother of God. In bed?”

  “How’d you guess?” She held back inappropriate laughter.

  “Was she...Could she have been in a state of grace?”

  Dotty pulled out another toothpick. “Now you see why I’m calling at four a.m., Bishop Sinclair,” she said and added, “we really need to talk.”

  2

  What a place to die? “It had better been worth it lady.” When she was through chastising the nun, she phoned the massage parlor downstairs. It rang and rang until a voice like gravel being ground picked up.

  “What the hell. Hello.”

  “Chen, this is Dotty.”

  “So. It’s four thirty a.m.”

  “Appreciate it. I’m up at Frankie’s Sex Room.”

  “Must be nice?” There was a chuckle in his voice.

  “I need to borrow your camera. It records too, right?”

  Pause. “Who you going to get to take the shots of you two? I sure as hell ain’t.”

  “Cut it out. Bring it up to me.”

  “Um. What about the back rent?”

  “I have two hundred for you right now. I just need to borrow the camera.”

  “You should also give me whatever you planned on paying the playboy horse. Besides, the last time you borrowed something, I saw it at a pawn shop.”

  “It was swiped from my car. How many times we have to go over this?”

  “Which one? You pawning something of mine, missing or being late with my rent due dates the last twelve years or more?”

  “Look it’s too early. I need the camera.”

  “Use your cell phone.”

  “Can’t. It’s a dated flip phone. You going to give it to me or not?”

  “Frankie’s giving it to you.”

  “Sad.”

  “You got five hundred bucks?”

  “Hell no. The camera isn’t even worth that much.”

  “Already thinking of how much you can sell it for, eh?”

  “No man.”

  “OK, you have two hundred cash?”

  “Yes, what you think I was going to use my Amex Black Card?”

  “Just checking. Last time you wrote me a check, it bounced from here to Shangai. My father caught it there.”

  “Chen.”

  “I’ll be up. Have the cash in your greasy palms.”

  Dotty hung up. Conversations with her landlord were like playing tennis in a fishbowl. Without thought, she pocketed an expensive watch she found on the nightstand.

  Chen sounded like an NFL commentator and looked like a neat house in a town called Pleasantville, Maine. He was anything but. He had an emaciated square frame, perfectly bald head, bold eyes, a square nose and when he walked his feet pointed outward like a penguin’s. Old age had claimed his hair; Dotty had a bet with a bookie that Chen had a bald crotch, but neither had had any real motivation to find out to win the bet. He stood in the hallway wearing a lint-covered pajama set and dangling the camera—a new Polaroid—from its strap at his side. “My money?”

  Dotty had the two hundred separated from her eight and laid two in the landlord’s skinny palm.

  “I don’t know where you got the loot. But before you spend it all tricking, remember you owe me six more hundred.”

  “Give me this.”

  He gave it to her. “Where’s the horse?”

  “Out. Working.”

  “I thought this was a home-based business? No?”

  “Not right now.” Dotty turned on the camera. “You didn’t see me head out last night, did you?”

  “Watched you go and return. It was after midnight. You look ridiculous, by the way.”

  “Did I return with anyone?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact you did. Whoopi Goldberg and Kevin Hart. How could you forget their company? The ghost psychic and chocolate drop the rapper.”

  She hung her head low. “Good night, Chen. I’ll return this later.”

  “You do that. I think I should come in and look around. It ain’t like Frankie to be out this time of the morning. He could get raped by some crazy broad.”

  Dotty stepped in front of the door. “That would be theft of services. Get lost Chen. And don’t forget to credit me the deuce.”

  Chen left and Dotty closed the door and locked it. She went through the photos on the camera and found salacious photos of the mayor and his mistress on several dates entering and exiting several hotels. She had planned on making a buck off, selling the photos to the mayor’s wife, but she died of cancer rendering the photos worthless. She hated the city’s corrupt politicians and sought to bring them all down when she had spare time.

  In the bedroom, she turned on the overhead light and a bedside lamp illuminating Sister Tudor’s bloated countenance. Her plumpness looked as if she was crying out loud in the conf
essional. Opening the closet, Dotty flipped through the clothes hanging there. Nothing suited what she looked for. She opened a drawer of the dresser and found several underwear types. She pulled out leopard print boxer briefs with Monday embroidered on the ass. She stepped back to survey the bed and then surmised the scene was too stuffy. She tossed the briefs on the bedpost with the day prominently displayed.

  “There you go.”

  She took a series of pictures from many angles, finishing the photo shoot from the top of the bed that made the Sister look like an oversized Mona Lisa, then put the camera in her back pocket. She went back to her apartment to stash it. Chen could take her to Judge Judy for it.

  Back at Frankie’s she put away her underwear prop, just then the door buzzer sounded.

  “Dorothy Davis?”

  The man ducked his head as he entered the apartment. He had a complexion like damp clay and hair as white as snow, cropped close to his scalp. His feet were as huge as his hands with chewed-off fingernails. His black trench coat was dull.

  “Yeah. You’ve been sent by the Bishop?”

  “I’m Lynch.”

  The bishop had given him that name, and it may not have been real. She stepped aside and the tall man went straight to the bedroom without looking at anything else. Once there he looked at every aspect of the room.

  “Awfully bright.”

  “I’m not used to being in the dark with a corpse,” Dotty said.

  “I have a time or two. Is there a fire escape?”

  “Yup, but I doubt it’s been used since the Regan era. That’s how long I’ve been living here. I wouldn’t try to access it carrying a dead nun.”

  Lynch continued to admire the body. “She’s bigger than I thought.”

  “You bring a dolly?”

  “No.” He lifted the nun’s naked leg from the bed and let it drop. “Let’s get her clothed while she’s still flexible.”

  “You sound like a professional dead body remover. Why should we waste time dressing her?”

  “It makes perfect sense to carry a naked body down two flights of stairs.”

  “Yeah, you must be a pro. What is it that you do for the bishop again?”