Gumshoe on the Loose by Rob Leininger

Author:Rob Leininger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2018-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THERE ARE MOMENTS of dead silence in the world, when you can hear your heartbeat, worms tunneling underground, clouds floating by, a leaky faucet in a neighbor’s house. This was one of those.

Finally Danya said, “You called her Celine at that bank in Reno. Why would you do that? Where did you come up with a mega-bizarro thing like that?”

Mega-bizarro. I filed that away for future use. You never know when you might want to sound twelve years old.

“You look at Celine on TV then at Shanna and their figures and heights are the same.” I wanted to see how that absurdity would play before hitting them with something more concrete.

“Their figures?”

“Boobs, if you want to get technical.”

Danya gave me an incredulous look. “You’re a tit expert?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“That’s beyond ridiculous. Kind of nasty, too. And Celine is black, Shanna is white.”

“No argument with any of that, including my being nasty.”

“Shanna isn’t Celine. That’s totally ludicrous.”

“Would be, if it weren’t true. But luckily there’s more.” I pulled out my cell phone. I’d uploaded the two videos from the flash drive. I got a video going and held it out to the girls.

The video was silent. Danya and Shanna stared at it in shock as someone approached Shanna in a roadside diner and handed her a menu. Shanna was wearing shorts and a yellow halter top.

The video lasted less than ten seconds. When it ended, I said, “Want to see it again?”

“It was that bitch waitress,” Shanna said. Danya put an arm around Shanna’s shoulders.

I let that tender moment run for a moment, let them consider the implications of what they’d just seen. Then I said, “Okay, there’s no sound so how about you narrate this one for me.” I played the first video, the one with Shanna in that same yellow halter walking toward the helicopter with a guy in a flight suit.

“Well, shit,” Shanna said when the clip ended. She dropped her head and her shoulders sagged. Then she sort of shook herself and said, “Wait. How does any of that mean I’m Celine?”

“‘Celine’ was written on the flash drive.”

“Yeah? So?”

Yeah, Mort. So?

“What if the flash drive belonged to Celine?” Danya said. “She might’ve written her name on it.”

I looked at Shanna. “That doesn’t explain why you’re in the video, or the droopy, defeated look you had when you saw it just now.”

“I’m tired. I get all droopy when I’m tired.”

“That’s unfortunate. Now guess where I found that video.”

“In a box of Wheaties.”

“Close, but wrong. It was in Jo-X’s pocket when I found him in your garage.”

They both stared at me.

“Consider the myriad implications,” I said to Shanna. “Dead, disgusting rapper in your garage, video of you in his pocket, the name Celine on the flash drive, helicopter pilot who can probably be identified as Jo-X by experts. Guy had to get a pilot’s license somewhere. You are in this up to your eyeballs. Or would be if the police got hold of this. And you can thank me later for having removed it.

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